A place to rest my boot

Finally got the left side footrest/peg done. And by done I mean not completely done. Still need to smooth things out a little (the welding video I got for Christmas helped a lot) and finesse it some more. And I'm going to add some holes. Because it looks pretty beefy now.

Work bench?

A shot of my workbench (or storage bench as it looks now) before starting the day in the garage.

Merry Christmas

Is there a better Christmas movie? Depends who you ask. But really the answer should be no. Enjoy the short clip and then get back to Christmas.

Oh look there is still a present under the tree. A classic Christmas song.

Nothing says Christmas like. . .

Opening the flood gates

How about that, a post that doesn't have a picture or video. This is new territory. But anyways, I decided to open the comments up to anyone with a Google account. I'm trying to make the 'ol blog a little more interactive. In meat space (the real world), people have comments about the blog but rarely is everyone who looks at the blog all at the same place at the same time. And I think most people that are checking out the blog have a Google account (except my mom) so that should keep some of the weirdo's (and let other weirdo's comment) at bay. So if you have any comments, feel free to add it to the comments by clicking on the comments in the small text below each post.

Making stuff

I spent most of the day working on the left side foot peg mount (the dark metal piece in the pic). I'm not done with it yet but this is the biggest part. I need to trim a little off the top because it's a little too close to the shifter. And I also need to make a couple of other pieces that will get welded to this piece. The thing that slowed me down the most was cutting the 1/4" steel. So if anyone is looking for a last minute Christmas gift for me, a bandsaw would be nice. Or a corded jig saw. Or a plasma cutter. Or a million dollars.

Lex Ham Band at MOA

Kelli (Susie's sister) plays in this band. So we had to check it out. She's rocking the tuba in the back.

Deflated

Everybody going to see the deflated dome

Blowin'

Snowy day in Renville

Letters on a bar

Taping it

Drill baby drill

Put 'er in the vise (or clamps)

To be continued.  . .

Valspar

A day that will live in infamy. . .

December 7th, 1941. If you've been to the memorial in Hawaii, I don't think you can forget the day. And really you shouldn't anyway. If you haven't been to the memorial in Hawaii, just go. It's totally worth it. And not only the memorial but the movie before you go out to the actual memorial is really good. The whole area around Pearl Harbor is pretty cool too. You can go on the USS Missouri and the Bowfin submarine. Both of those are sweet. The "Mighty MO" is the boat that the Japanese surrendered on. So you kind of have the start (at least for the US) and the end of World War II in one area. But I saw this cool picture on Chopper Dave's (not our beloved Dave E. Boy, different dude) blog today and I figured I'd share it. And here are some of our pics from the Missouri and the Bowfin. Who wants to go back (We have to go back . . . we all have to go back (that's from Lost, in case you didn't know))?

Tapped out

Broken tap from a cheap tap and die set. Today's lesson is "if you want to make life easier, use quality tools".

Snowblowin' hair

Thanksgiving

Got the Christmas lights up yesterday. . .

She's a real beaut Clark.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing (and you really should, it's a Slayer classic) at least skip to about the 2:50 mark. You may have a seizure or three.

Stripped

After last weekend and a couple of days this week, I (with Timmy's help last Saturday) got the Sporty pretty much tore down. Yeah, there is still more to come off. But I did take care of that problem where it actually ran. It probably won't be doing that for a while.

What??

This is the graphic on some banners we're printing at work. Something looks a little funny.

Stuck

We were out in Renville (after getting the motorcycle) this weekend. So I had to go ride a little bit in the combine with Buck. Well it turns out that there were a few wet spots. The combine didn't get stuck but the tractor with the grain cart did. Twice. So they had to use the combine to pull it out. And they used this sweet rope that is rated for 100,000 lbs. Damn. That's alot.

New (used) bike, bro!!!

Susie and I made a little trip to Wisconsin to pick this up yesterday. It's a '91 sportster with the 1200 engine. For some reason the dude thought the Fat Bob gas tank looked good. Freakin' drunken sconies. Many cha cha cha changes coming over the winter. I might even have to get rid of the "Live to Ride, Ride to Live" crap. But let's look at the positives. Most importantly, it runs (I'll see what I can do to fix that). It already has Progressive lowering shocks in the back. Those are easily $200-$300. And the tires are already worn out (cracks and everything) so I don't feel bad about replacing them. But the bestest part of it is that I can finally wear this cool shirt.

Nom Nom Nom

After driving by this place about a month ago, Susie and I finally got to try it. The name alone pretty much sold me on it. And just look at how happy that pig is. We probably ate part of his family and there he is just smiling about it. He seems like a nice guy (or girl, I can't tell from the picture. Maybe our resident pig expert Timma can identify). So we rolled up about noon on Saturday. There was only one car in the parking lot (and the place is small, think Dari-King in Redwood) and they were leaving with a bag full of food. We check the menu and try to order a pulled pork sandwich and a rack of ribs. Dude working there tears down our dreams and tells us that someone bought all the ribs they had and it would be 1.5 hours until the next batch was ready. Damn. So pulled pork samich for both of us then. It only took about 5 minutes for them (I think there was only two people working there) to get the order ready and we were on our way back home. Yeah, it's only a few minutes away from us. So how was the food? I tell you what (that's real genuine BBQ talk there), the sandwich was pretty damn good. And you get two sides with each sandwich. So we got 4 different items so we could try them. We went with fries, mac & cheese, beans, and cornbread. All of them were pretty decent. Not overly impressive but definitely good. But that pulled pork sandwich, Mmmm mmm. And we didn't even smother it with BBQ sauce (we forget to get some after we were handed our food). I think we have a new BBQ place to go to (as long as it is Mon - Sat 11-8, closed Sunday).

Speedtest.net Android Result (4g in Twin Cities)

Muffed

I changed up the exhaust on 500 this weekend. I added the reverse cone muffler that I bought a few years ago. Initial tests show that it does muffle the sound a bit. More testing to come.

Shooting videos updated

So in my never ending attempt to let Google take over my life, I signed up for Youtube (welcome to 2005). So I might be a little late to the whole Youtube thing. But you know what they say, "better late than never" and "Christmas only comes once a year (or so James Bond thought)". And really after seeing how crappy the videos look when I just upload them through Blogger, I realized the blog deserves something better than that. And why can't Google (who owns Youtube) just make this easier to do between all there different sites? Basically I think Google should hire me to work on this. Oh sure I can't do coding and stuff but I have ideas to make this better. Let me know Google. Anyway, here are the shooting videos but ran through Youtube. So they are better quality and you can actually play them in HD, except for the ones from Timmy's phone. He can't do HD video. :-{ In the future I should be able to just upload videos from my phone through Youtube and to the blog. How sweet is that? And that is through an app that isn't from Google.

Test video

Test.

Sewing Susie . . .

Susie and I are working on a top secret project.

Braaap, brap, brap, braaaaap

That is the sound of the sweet Ford Fiesta in the video (like you didn't know). I don't care if you watch the whole video or not (I care man, I care) but at least watch from the 5:50 mark. I don't want to ruin it if you're reading this first, but it's pretty sweet. Ford should make an all-wheel drive, turbo powered Fiesta for the streets. They cheaped out with the SVT Focus and by not bringing the RS over here. They could compete with the WRX and the Evo. Oh wait, I think I see the problem. The have too many letters in the name. Maybe they could call it the FRS. Maybe not. But still turbo and all-wheel drive in a tiny hatch would rule. And we could do sweet stuff like in the video. Maybe after a few upgrades.

I know there was a nut there this morning

MN Mile Flat Track Racing

If you read the post below, I mentioned Susie and I needed to high tail it back to Shakopee. Here is the reason why. Flat track racing at Canterbury. Sweeeet. A full mile around the track. There are two different classes, singles and twins. The singles is the "entry"level bikes, single cylinder. The other class is the twins. This is the "pro" class. Both were awesome to watch and most of the races were pretty close. But hearing the twins rip around the track was really cool. This class was mostly Harley's and Ducati's. But there were a few Suzuki's and I think one Triumph. I'm not going to try to recap all the racing for you (the ama website has a full rundown) because I can't remember all the names and who passed who. All I know is that when there are 18 riders doing 100+ mph through the corners sideways it is pretty rad. They were doing 140 or so down the straights. On dirt. Usually within touching distance of each other. It's hard to describe how cool it was. Oh maybe these videos will help. The videos are from the D90. So you're only going to get mono sound but it doesn't matter. Just turn the volume up to 11 and check the 720p.

Osceola Car Show

Susie and I went made a little trip to Osceola yesterday. The plan was to meet Susie dad and check out the show and then high tail it back to Shakopee by 4. Mac, Susie's dad, took a little longer than expected to get to Wisconsin. Not a big deal, it gave us time to check out some of the cars and also the book sale. Yes, a book sale. But not just any book sale. They had some that were 50% off. We (and by we, I mean I) could have spent $150 easily. And that is with the 50% off. They had stuff that I've only heard about or seen on the interweb. But I was able to narrow it down to only 3. Partly because I couldn't remember all the books I found that I wanted. Anyway, the car show was pretty good. A wide variety of cars and some motorcycles too. There were the typical 50's Chevy's, MG's, and '32 Fords. But there were also 5 Deloreans, a Ford GT (is it just a GT or GT-40?), a few Lotus' (older and newer), and a couple of jacked up trucks. Pretty neat show overall and it didn't cost anything to get in.

Rode in the rain

Probably shouldn't have rode the motorcycle today. It really wasn't raining too hard but I think the lack of front and rear fender was at fault. Oh well, it's just water. And I just have to let my clothes dry. Yep, soaked to the underwear. You would think the aluminum seat would absorb some water, but no.

Pickin'

These guy's are doin' some serious pickin'. They're called Trampled By Turtles. Cute. And in typical fashion, they were playing at the State Fair today. For free. Damn it.

Shooters Roundup

Our good friend Timmy called Friday night. He was all excited about some gun thing in Morristown on Sunday. Well we rounded up Dave and took a drive to see this gun event. And what an event it was. They had all sorts of guns available to shoot. M16's, AK's, belt-fed behemoths, shotguns, .50-cals, anti-tank, most of the guns from Rambo, and on and on. So we checked things out a little bit and then Timmy stepped up to the plate. I believe he went with an M16 and an AK-47. Nice. While we were standing around watching people shoot shit up, we got to see a pregnant lady shoot two AK's at once. And then she shot one of the belt-fed automatics. I kind of feel bad for the baby. Then Tim and I shot the FAL, a sweet semi-auto rifle. It wasn't too crazy but it was only a $1 a shot. And Dave E. pulled the trigger (literally) on a anti-tank gun from WW2. Sweet stuff. After that, we headed back to the "Police and Military" section. Dave and I got in line for all the cool stuff. We we're a few people back so we had time to decide which of the 15 or 20 guns we wanted to shoot. The simple answer was "all of them," but we weren't rollin' with that much cash. I was torn between a MP5, M16, or one of the belt-fed automatics. Dave was pretty much set on the Browning 1919 belt-fed beast. And after seeing that get shot a few time before it was my turn, I decided on that also. We each only shot 25 rounds, but damn, that was sweet. Then we went for a stroll through the wooded trail to see what was happening because we kept hearing a big gun shooting from that area. And keep in mind this is a 60 acre site we were at. So it was pretty big but small enough where you could hear all kinds of guns shooting off. The wooded trail was mostly shotguns (like guns that fire shots) and different raffle ticket things. But then we saw the .50 cal. Dude. Dave instantly got in line for that. Tim and I stood back about 12 feet and we could still feel it when someone shot it. That was pretty rad. And Dave got to keep the casing. The next stop was the 1800 something gatling gun. Yeah, the one with the crank. We watched one guy shoot it and then no one else stepped up, so I did. The guy gave me the full run down and a welders glove (you know it's good when you get a glove to wear). As you see in the video of me shooting that, you can go through 18 rounds pretty quick for just cranking the thing. Except for the dud that was in there. That slowed me up for a second. I think that's about it. It was a pretty neat deal that we weren't sure if it was going to be cool or not. And actually we weren't too sure about it until we got back in to it. I mean there were people dressed up like Civil War and the Ol' West. And an Indian. Basically it was an America, Fuck Yeah, kind of a day.

See, it runs

Here is the "official" it runs post. Yep, the SR500 is finally running and road ready. I actually rode it to work after lunch today. And I rode around last week with Dave E. Boy too. You might be thinking to yourself "hmm . . . I wonder if it's fast." Well, it's fast enough for me. And you're probably wondering "hmm . . . I bet it's loud." Uh yeah, it's kind of loud but I don't think it's any louder than most of the Harley Davidson® brand motorcycles. Most of the cops I've drove by or past didn't seem to care. Also, the video is from a few days ago. The exhaust pipe (aka right leg warmer) is painted black. Because I saw a red door and I want to paint it black. No colors anymore, I want them to turn black. Or something like that.

Holey Day

I spent holy day putting holes in things that didn't have holes before.

Domefield