Mocha Joe headliner fix, another groundhog trapped, problem with circuit #25, router problem, Inner Harbor day-trip, ‘Radio Lab’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 22 – 31 July, 2009)

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Friday, 31 July-

I blogged a bit this morning to try to catch up. I then talked Labashi into going to Fuddruckers for lunch, then we returned a pole-light to Lowe’s (we had found another we liked better at Waltersdorf Lighting). On the way home, we were talking about our upcoming trip out West and Labashi mentioned she’d like to have a small laptop so we don’t have to share while we’re on the road. Historically, she has kept a hand-written log but she began writing emails to family on our Alaska trip.
We were near our local Best Buy at the time so we stopped in to look at netbook computers. It appears one would do the job but I don’t know if it makes sense given the lack of a CD drive. I could buy an external CD drive but for the cost I may as well get a lower-end regular laptop. I’ll have to look into this some more and need to get moving on it.
Labashi saw another groundhog under our barn this afternoon so I’d better get the trap re-baited.
After supper I walked my six-mile loop while listening to Morning Report from Saskatchewan podcasts (I love listening to Sheila Coles) then we watched a ‘Closer’ and two ‘Weeds’ episodes.

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Thursday, 30 July-

Oops. I’ve lost track of what I did this morning. Late in the day I walked six miles at Pinchot State Park (from the dam to the water-tank on Ridge Trail) and back while listening to a new podcast. We had heard Ira Glass (on ‘This American Life’) mention ‘Radio Lab’ podcasts so I downloaded six of them today to try out.
I listed to ‘Stress’ and ‘Who Am I’ as I walked. I find the podcasts do a wonderful thing for me. They take up that part of my brain which would otherwise be thinking about the minor discomforts of walking. I don’t think about the little aches and pains – I’m just on cruise-control. I love it!
‘Radio Lab’ turns out to be an excellent walking companion. It has enough of a science component to make me feel like I’m learning something yet it’s really about the story-telling. And I love the fact that they have dozens of episodes on iTunes going back to early 2007. The ‘This American Life’ podcast only has the current podcast up so it’s easy to miss one if I don’t think to fire up iTunes for awhile.
That evening we watched ‘Wild Russia’ and ‘Deadly Catch’ on TV.

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Wednesday, 29 July-

This morning I continued re-doing some of the receptacles and switches on the #25 circuit. Then Labashi and I went shopping for a new pole-light. The old one isn’t causing our problem but the light socket is corroded and it’s time for a new one. That one was probably the original. It has been there the 28 years we’ve lived here and probably was put there when the house was built 32 years ago.
That evening I walked my four-mile out-and-back route, then we watched Closer 3.2.1 and Weeds 4.2.1 episodes.

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Tuesday, 28 July-

Today I drove the Miata to Chambersburg to meet with a property management firm. What a great day for an open-car drive, even though it was quite hot by the time I came home.
That afternoon I wrote an email to my brothers describing what I learned and then went for my six-mile loop walk.

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Monday, 27 July-

Today I spent the day working on circuit #25, trying to isolate the problem which keeps tripping the breaker. I shut down the entrance panel and tightened all the connections, then re-did the outlets and switches. ‘Re-did’ in this case amounted to taking all the wires out of the push-in connections and putting them under the side screws to assure a good connection. I found two somewhat-loose grounds, one very-loose ground, and two fell-out-when-I-touched-it neutrals. But I still can’t figure out why I don’t have power to my front-yard light. It has worked fine for years and is suddenly dead. I can’t get to all the wiring and can’t find the branching-off point to the front yard pole light. More work to come on this.
That evening I walked my six-mile loop, then we watched the last two episodes of ‘This American Life’, Season Two.

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Sunday, 26 July-

Labashi and I went to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor today for an art-break. We visited the American Visionary Art Museum. I had hoped to have a late lunch at their Joy America café but it closed recently when the chef let to open another restaurant. We had been to the café two or three times and always found something new and interesting to try.
After the museum we walked along Key Highway to Harborview, marveling at the new apartments. We were last in the area about five years ago and at the time there was just a big white plywood wall enclosing the construction site. Where we could see through, all we could see were old concrete docks extending into the bay.
Today there are hundreds of brand-new upscale apartments, each with a nice balcony. Unfortunately for the builders, they took too long to finish and now these minimum-$600K apartments don’t have a market and are unlikely to find much of one for years to come (unless you can sell them to bankers).
We used to visit Harborview because our sailing buddy kept his boat at the marina there in winter. We’d visit him on his boat and on one occasion used the boat as our hotel room for a New Year’s weekend visit to the city.
We were amazed to find the marina building had been completely enclosed by new condos and these are occupied.
We were so struck by the change in appearance that I briefly wished I had brought my video camera so I could show our sailing buddy how things have changed since he sold his boat. And that’s when I realized I couldn’t. Our buddy was the guy whose funeral we attended last September in Maine. Rest in peace, Cap.
After Harborview we walked to the nearby Little Havana restaurant for our late lunch. I had a good Cuban sandwich but service was slow and the place was too noisy to just sit back and enjoy.
Afterwards we walked back to the Inner Harbor and sat a bit by the Rusty Scupper then headed home.
That evening we watched ‘Weeds’ 4.1.5, ‘This American Life’ 2.1.3 and 2.1.4, and ‘Closer’ 3.1.5 and 3.1.6.

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Saturday, 25 July-

Today I did my two-and-a-half-hour lawn mowing job in the heat of the day. Though it was quite hot, a light breeze made it tolerable.
I then took the KLR into town for an iced tea at Starbucks and to look around for motorcycle stickers at the Honda shop. I need just the right sticker to cover up a boo-boo on the headlight fairing.
Back home I spent an enjoyable hour or so researching ‘Alaskan’-model truck campers. I’ve been fascinated by these since the early Seventies when my Dad and I saw the original model on a beat-up old Jeep pickup driven by an old man who had made the long, long drive to Alaska. He was one of those crotchety, grumpy old farts who didn’t have much to say but just the look of him and his rig conjured up dreams of making the trip and made it seem possible. If that guy could do it, so could I.
The new-model Alaskan has a unique hard-sided pop-up design which would be great for minimizing wind resistance and eliminating clearance problems but they’re terribly expensive--- $24K for just the truck camper.
That evening we watched a ‘Closer-3’ ep, three ‘This American Life -2’ eps, and two ‘Weeds’ eps.

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Friday, 24 July-

Today I started looking into an odd electrical problem we’ve been having. Twice now we’ve returned home from a weekend-long trip to find a circuit breaker tripped. That circuit has a UPS for Labashi’s PC so when this happens it kills the battery (the battery runs out even if her PC wasn’t on at the time (?!?!)). And today while working in the office I heard the UPS alarm go off. The breaker had just tripped again.
In thinking about what might be overloading the circuit while we’re away, I thought it might be our dehumidifier. But today I found the dehumidifier isn’t on that circuit so it’s a mystery.
This morning I restored my router security. For some reason the router went back to its defaults. I noticed the problem I lost connectivity twice in about ten minutes. When this happens I pull the plug on the router to reboot it and so had done that twice. I then noticed the network name had reverted to the default. This morning I went through the procedures to set up WPA encryption, rename the network SSID, and establish new userID and password for router administration.
In the afternoon I took the Miata into town, first stopping at the town park in Mt. Wolf to shoot basketball for a ½ hour or so on this hot day, then going to the Honda shop in East York to see what they want for a new Gold Wing ($21K).
That evening I walked my six-mile loop then we watched ‘The Closer’ 3.1.1 and ‘Weeds’ 4.1.1 and 4.1.2.

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Thursday, 23 July-

After my morning routine with FitDay and Brainiversity I drove to the Bass Pro in Harrisburg to shop. With the weight loss I needed some more size-L zip-off pants; the XLs are just too baggy now. I love these ultralight ‘World Wide Sportsman’ pants. They’re only $20 a pair (Columbia’s are now $40 and North Face’s $60), last forever, and dry very quickly. They’re particularly useful while traveling. If the day gets warm I can just zip off the lowers and zip them back on when evening cools things off. The one issue with them is a stupidly-designed rear pocket. Your wallet falls way too low, causing you to sit on the wallet while driving. But that’s an easy fix. I just put my wallet in the pocket of one pair and had Labashi run a seam just below it with her sewing machine, then duplicate that line on my other two new pairs. Ahhh—that’s better!
While in the area today, I also had lunch at Fuddruckers, then hit Koups motorcycle shop to look around and buy some o-rings for the KLR and Concours oil filters. I then drove over to Ducky’s Boats in Middletown to see if they have any good deals on a center-console boat for next winter’s Florida trip. But I think I’m going to end up keeping my existing boat.
With the rain today I didn’t walk (and I’m recovering a bit from yesterday’s six miler). That evening we watched the second part of CNN’s ‘Black in America 2’.

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Wednesday, 22 July-

I spent the morning updating the blog, then took on a long-delayed repair. Mocha Joe’s headliner fabric had worked loose right at the windshield. I believe this comes from my use of a sun-shade while he’s parked in our driveway. The sun-shade keeps the sun off the dash and seats but the heat is funneled up to the headliner. Also, as I take the sunshades in and out of the van, I bump up against the headliner, perhaps even snagging it a bit. Over time, the headliner had become detached about two inches back from the glass of the windshield.
I had found a 3-M spray headliner adhesive at Wal-mart months ago and just today got around to trying it. After masking off the area with newspaper and blue-tape, I sprayed on the adhesive in two crossing patterns with a ten-minute set time after each. Then it was simply a matter of carefully rolling the very light material back into place with a bit of stretching to avoid any wrinkles. All in all, it was probably an hour’s job.
That afternoon I went for a six-mile walk at Pinchot State Park. This time I walked from the far end of the Beaver Creek Trail around to the campground entrance station, a remote-feeling section. Shortly after making the turn to retrace my steps back to the car, I was caught in a downpour and was quickly soaked to the skin. And this wasn’t a great section of trail to be caught in the rain since it quickly turned to mud. On the other hand, I soon was like a little kid playing in a mud-puddle. I was already soaked so I might as well enjoy it!
Shortly after I returned home Labashi said our Havahart trap had caught another groundhog. I could see the trap shaking from the poor little guy’s frantic efforts to escape.
I threw a blanket over the trap to calm him down and then took him to a nearby wooded area and released him. That’s two of the four we had seen in the yard in June. I had caught one within a few days back then but the others disappeared until we saw one emerge from under the barn two days ago.
That evening we watched CNN’s ‘Black in America 2’.


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‘Phoebe In Wonderland’, BleachWhite, New York trip, ‘Day for Night’, ‘MI-5’, ‘Rashomon’, walk-walk-walk, ‘Man on Wire’

(posted from home)

(This post covers 3 – 21 July, 2009)


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Tuesday, 21 July-

This morning I caught up on email and the web news. In the afternoon I took Mocha Joe to the West York Wal-mart for an oil change. I see I’ve put 10,000 miles on since my oil change just before my Florida trip in February. The Wal-mart oil change seems like a pretty good deal. I had always done my own oil changes up until last summer, just before our Alaska trip. But I found I could basically have them do all the work for about $10 and that included lubing the nine grease fittings, checking the air filter, belts, lights, and fluid levels, and vacuuming the front carpet. The deluxe oil change for my van is $61 but that includes the six quarts of the Mobil One oil I like and an oil filter. With that oil now at $6.27 a quart and a filter around $10, I’d have to pay over $50 just for the oil and filter. So $61 for the job seems very fair, even cheap. Mocha Joe mileage is now 137K.
That evening I walked-four and then we finished watching ‘Man on Wire’, a documentary about Philippe Pettit, the high-wire walker who wire-walked between the New York World Trade Center towers in 1974. This was an amazing story and well worth my highest recommendation.

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Monday, 20 July-

Today Labashi and I both wanted a burger from Fuddrucker’s so drove in for lunch, then did some shopping at Home Depot and Wal-mart.
That afternoon I took on a long-dreaded task. Mocha Joe’s front-passenger window doesn’t go down reliably. The problem has been sporadic but arose again over the weekend as Maypo and I drove around the Tuscarora State Forest.
The window problem is very odd. For several years, Labashi’s window control would not work but the one on my side always would. And mine worked, hers would start working again and would continue working for days at a time.
Eventually, we found the switch (for her window) on my side wouldn’t work as reliably. And for brief periods, neither would work. But then the problem would entirely disappear.
So today I dug out the manual and a can of electrical contact spray. The job of cleaning up the contacts turned out to be remarkably easy. I only had to remove one screw for access, pull the switch mount forward and turn it over. There I could see the wire connections. They are odd but the good news is I could easily get the contact spray in there. I cleaned them up repeatedly, then did the same on my side.
I then removed the battery cables and the chassis ground and cleaned up all the connections and put them back.
The window works but I won’t know for some time whether I’ve resolved the problem. Before starting today, I tried both switches and they worked fine. Only with time will I be able to tell whether I’ve solved this problem.
That evening I walked the six mile loop, then we watched ‘Rashomon’, a Japanese classic film made in 1950. We enjoyed learning about the film and its place in film history though, again, like in watching ‘Day for Night’ we feel we’re missing much of the context that made this a multiple award-winner.

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Sunday, 19 July-

Today I couldn’t stand it any more. I had to get out into the Tuscarora State Forest, just to cruise the roads and look around. I called Maypo and he happened to be free so joined me.
We spent the afternoon driving the dirt roads, stopping occasionally to check something out. By the end of the day we had seen three young bucks (two of them with two-to-three-inch antlerettes, one with just the buttons where antlers are starting to grow), four does, a turkey, and four hawks.
I had told Labashi I may not be home that evening, thinking I might stay at Fowler’s Hollow State Park. But I had to get Maypo back to his truck and at that point it seemed a long way back to the State Forest, so I just continued on home.
It had been a good day in the forest, though. There was an enduro going on around Fowler’s Hollow area and we saw lots of motorcycles. We also toured the Kansas Valley area and walked out to the overlook. We also stopped along Second Narrows Road at the Tuscarora Trail crossing and I realized this is a section of trail I’d like to do, perhaps this Fall.
That evening we watched the second episode of ‘MI-5’, Season One.

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Saturday, 18 July-

Labashi isn’t feeling well today. We were a little concerned when we learned our grandnephew and grandniece had had swine flu a few weeks before our visit. We seemed to be fine after the visit but today’s ‘bug’ makes us wonder.
I had a long Skype video call with Orat today. We played around with Skype’s new screen-share feature. I was surprised to learn I could play a video clip on my computer and Orat could see it on his in real-time and we could even discuss it in real-time while watching.
That afternoon I took a long walk at Pinchot State Park, this one a nine-miler from the dam parking lot to the bridge beyond the campground entrance station and back. To make it last, I also did the spur from the Ridge Trail to the hard road and back and then branched off to walk some of the Lakeside Trail in order to give me more distance and time. The nine miles was plenty as far as my feet were concerned so I was glad to see the car at that point.
That evening we watched the first episode of ‘MI-5’, a Brit television series somewhat like ‘Alias’. We like seeing the details of place, office buildings, homes, cars, etc. and the plot was pretty good.

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Friday, 17 July-

Today I spent much of the day catching up my medical and estate logs. I find them very useful as reminders and as repositories of details but tend to let them go too long between updates (sort of like my blog, no?).
I was planning to walk this afternoon but just as I was preparing to leave, rain started so I put it off.
That evening we had a nice, long Skype conversation with Shilla and Moth, our friends from Boulder. We had great fun catching up since our visit to Boulder last September.

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Thursday, 16 July-

Today I rode the Concours to Chambersburg for meetings with the financial advisor and lawyer for Mom’s estate. Afterward, Maypo and I spent the evening with wings-and-beer on the deck at a local pub, chatting about his new job and about the meetings.

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Wednesday, 15 July-

I was up for another walk today. This time I parked below the Pinchot State Park dam and again walked to the campground entrance station and back— about eight miles total.
That evening we watched ‘Day for Night’, Francois Truffaut’s 1973 homage to film-making. We enjoyed learning about it but don’t quite get why it was historic or worthy of so many awards. The Seventies were a time of great experimentation and looking for answers so perhaps we just don’t have the right context for this film but it doesn’t seem all that special to us. Nevertheless in our effort to ‘fill in the blanks’ in our film education, we’re glad we saw it.

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Tuesday 14 July-

Today I needed to get out in the woods so took a walk at Pinchot State Park. I walked six miles, leaving from the East Mooring area and walking the Lakeside Trail to the Nature Center parking lot, then up to the Ridge Trail and across to the campground entrance station before backtracking that route to the bike.


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Monday, 13 July-

Today Labashi and I headed home in Mocha Joe. We detoured to Corning to visit the Rockwell Museum of Western Art (good, but not outstanding). Afterward we walked Market Street and had lunch at Thali of India, a very nice (and inexpensive) Indian restaurant. We took the bus over to the museum but walked back so I’d guess we walked something on the order of two miles today.
We took our time with our day and ended up on the north side of Harrisburg around supper time. There we realized we were close to Tavern on the Hill, a restaurant we’ve wanted to try. We celebrated splurged with two meals of their filet mignon covered with Roquefort cheese. We learned this restaurant is popular with state government officials and their lobbyists and they were in evidence all around us. I don’t think we’ll be returning.

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Sunday, 12 July –

Today we helped out with prep for the afternoon birthday party and then partied down with the kids. The four-year-old made out like a bandit and we adults had fun ‘helping’ him play with his toys.

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Saturday, 11 July –

Today we two carloads of family went to the Corning Glass Works for a tour. We then stopped at the Village Tavern in Hammondsport for supper—a great choice. I just had appetizers for my main meal but also had an excellent mojito beforehand and than after supper a chocolate martini. I loved seeing all the choices available there and will definitely be back.

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Friday, 10 July-

Today we loaded up Mocha Joe and headed up US15 toward Orat’s home in the Rochester area. We’re invited to a four-year-old’s birthday party so we shopped along the way. After some frustrations, we came up with the perfect gift—a bed-tent. Our little grand-nephew loves to make a ‘fort’ under a blanket-draped table so this ought to appeal to his imagination.
That evening we joined the pre-party party at my niece’s house. I very much enjoyed pulling my little one-year-old grand-niece around the yard in her wagon. The faster you pull, the bigger the smile around her binky! And when it’s roughest, she even flaps her arms, apparently to help us cross the speed-bumps. What a riot! (Here she is on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgz1KNVMaUU .

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Thursday, 9 July-

Today Labashi and I met with our local tax-prep guy for the last phase of our financial-checkup review. With the financial world in upheaval, the results almost completely depend on what you think is going to happen in the future. Like any such endeavor, the devil is in the details of the assumptions. Nevertheless this exercise was good for us in that it encouraged us to do a detailed review of our expenses and our budgeting and pointed out a few areas for us to consider changes.
That afternoon I mowed the lawn and considered it equivalent to a three-mile walk.

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Wednesday, 8 July-

Today I took the Miata for a sunny-day ride up to Mechanicsburg. I wanted to see how the motorcycle marketplace is doing. I first stopped at the Harley dealership on the Carlisle Pike. I don’t see much evidence of prices falling, at least not in the price tags. Perhaps you can get a better deal than indicated. But I’m just not that enthusiastic about Harleys. I did take a demo ride on a StreetGlide but found it odd. The sales guy touted it as a performance bike but I don’t see that. It has a batwing fairing with a cut-down windshield and that means I had a lot of wind-blast on my chest and helmet. And the fact that it doesn’t have lowers means my pant-legs were flapping madly. And I was only on some back roads. At interstate speeds, I’d think that would be very disappointing.
I then stopped at the nearby Honda and BMW (Velocity Cycles) shop and saw ridiculous prices on the Gold Wing and the entire BMW line. I wouldn’t even consider paying $24K for a Gold Wing or paying their ‘Prepaid Maintenance Plan’ prices. They’ve got to be kidding.
I repaired to the local Starbucks for an iced tea, then went home and walked my six-mile loop.
That evening we finished up the ‘Corner Gas’ disk.

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Tuesday, 7 July-

Today I rode the Concours over to Lancaster. I first went to the BleachWhite franchise, hoping to get a walk-in appointment to whiten my teeth. I had blundered upon the BleachWhite franchise in York’s Galleria Mall a few months ago. Last week I finally decided to give it a try only to find it had closed. I had to go to the web to find another location.
BleachWhite is a twenty-minute treatment using a special blue-white light and a dental tray with a whitening agent. The blue-white light supposedly opens the ‘pores’ of the tooth enamel to allow the whitening agent to work. The process was very easy and did indeed whiten my teeth about two shades. The cost is normally $100 but I had found an online coupon which reduced it to $75 and considered that a good deal.
I also rode to Trans-Am Cycles in Lititz to pick up oil filters for the Concours and KLR.
That evening I walked my four-mile route, then we watched three episodes of ‘Corner Gas’-Season 3. Labashi is losing interest in it since it’s really just a sit-com but I still enjoy the setting and characters.

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Monday, 6 July-

I spent much of the afternoon cleaning out Mocha Joe in preparation for a trip at the end of the week. This was one of the remove-everything, vacuum-everywhere, and wipe-down the contents of storage boxes. I really need to work on cutting down the amount of dust that comes in past the rear door seals on the forest roads.
That evening I walked-four.

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Sunday, 5 July-

Sunday means a motorcycle ride to the Tollgate Starbucks to read the Sunday Times (and often there’s a Wall Street Journal).

That evening I walked my six-mile loop course and felt great fast-walking it.

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Saturday, 4 July-

Today I took the KLR in to Best Buy and Staples looking for a replacement telephone headset for Labashi. Hers is quite noisy at times and I think she’d like to have a two-muff version. I was surprised to see how limited the selection is so ended up giving up on this little project. On the way home I took a tour of basketball courts to shoot around (I keep the basketball in the KLR’s saddlebag). I’d shoot for a half-hour or so, then move on to the next.
Back home I installed yellow Acerbis hand-guards on the KLR handlebars. I had bought these on a whim several years ago and never installed them once I realized it was going to be a hassle. It took me about two hours to install something that should have taken about twenty minutes if the mounts had been designed properly. As it was it took cutting and fitting to get the mounts to fit. But once on, they look great and will provide yet a bit more of conspicuity, particularly for oncoming drivers. Hopefully these and the bright jersey I wear when I ride the KLR will help oncoming drivers notice me and therefore not turn right in front of me.
That evening we watched ‘Phoebe in Wonderland’, a quirky film about a young girl who longs to be part of her school play and can’t understand why she doesn’t appear to be ‘normal’. If you can handle a movie which blurs the line between reality and fantasy in its storytelling, I can heartily recommend it.
As to Fourth of July fireworks, neighbors around us had an impressive array of the high-powered stuff so we didn’t need to go anywhere!

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Friday, 3 July-

This morning I updated the blog, then rode the KLR into town for a shopping trip. That afternoon I shot around at the basketball court at Shelley Park but when rain started I bolted for home. The rain didn’t last long, so I then walked my regular four-mile route along the creek. I’m happy to report that this summer we have five or six goldfinches flitting around the powerline crossing. I’ve only seen the bluebirds I had been seeing all winter a few times this summer so the goldfinches are a welcome sight. I see the great blue herons and a white heron quite often but seldom see the kingfisher I was seeing nearly every day in winter.

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‘My Flesh and Blood’, walking, motorcycle riding
(posted from home)
(This post covers 26 June- 1 July, 2009)-----------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, 1 July-

For some reason I feel compelled to go to town lately. One reason is I normally find a way to run to Starbucks for a venti unsweetened passion tea. But I also feel like I need stuff.
This morning Labashi had a problem with the headset she uses for phone calls so I after mowing the yard in the mid-Eighties heat today, I used that as an excuse to ride into the Staples to try to find a better headset, possibly even a new phone system. But I didn’t see anything that looks like better quality than we already have.
At Tar-ZHAY I bought an el-cheapo basketball and a nice twin-window fan. I’ve not touched a basketball in years. But I’ve recently decided I’d like to shoot some hoops to give me some variety in my workouts.

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Tuesday, 30 June-


After a morning getting my normal routine with Fitday and Brainiversity done, I rode into town on this nice day to hit the Walmart. I picked up the moleskin I need to pad my new work shoes and picked up some more Atkins protein shakes. We really, really like these and one of these sometimes makes up the entire meal.
That evening I did a four-mile fast-walk and jog along the creek. After doing a six-miler Sunday and a four-miler yesterday I was feeling a little slow. I took a caffeine pill and it didn’t seem to do anything at first but after about a half-mile of walking, I felt like jogging (though I didn’t last long!)

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Monday, 29 June-

Labashi took the day to travel with her tea-lady buddies. The three of them get together a couple of times a year and travel somewhere to have tea and chat. Today’s trip is to Chadd’s Ford and they also want to visit a small Utopian community in the Wilmington area.

I mostly worked on the computers today, upgrading to Internet Explorer 8 and bringing the hardware and software drivers up to date and testing everything out afterwards.

That evening I walked the four-mile course along the creek. The creek road has been resurfaced and makes for nice walking but the road is now much thicker and when traffic comes I have to carefully watch my step when I get off the road.

Later on we finished up ‘The $100 Taxi Ride’, season 1, disk 1. I think we’re done with this series.

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Sunday, 28 June-

After a morning on the web, I took my Sunday ride to the Tollgate Starbucks to read the Times.

Back home I walked my six-mile loop. I’ve not done it for a few weeks and it felt very good.

That evening we watched ‘My Flesh and Blood’, an excellent documentary about a single mom who has 13 adopted kids, all disabled. She’s amazing and a saint. I highly recommend this one.

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Saturday, 27 June-

Today I changed the oil on the Concours. I don’t have that many miles (5K) on the last oil change but because I don’t have a garage, I do the change outside so wait for good weather. I’m up to 32K on the bike now and it has some rust on the undercarriage and exhaust pipes. My riding the bike in the winter exposes it to salted roads and that has taken its toll.
With the belly-pan off I got a good look at the exhaust repair I did a few weeks ago and the news isn’t good. The repair cement cracked in several places. I made a run in to Advance Auto for another type of exhaust repair cement but expect it will soon do the same. Between the heat and vibration, I guess I’m not surprised. If this latest repair does the same, I think I’ll try some JB Weld. To replace the exhaust pipe would be expensive given the part is around $200 and requires five or six hours of labor to remove the fairing and replace the entire right-side header. I can mess around with my home-made repairs a few more times and if they all fail I can then opt for the expensive fix.

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Friday, 26 June-

Today I caught up the blog and then made a motorcycle run in to our local Sears store to buy a pair of workboots. I just need simple boots without frills and found a pair of high-top Dickies on sale for $60, normally 75.
Back home I decided to start breaking them in right away and started off on my 4-mile walk along the creek. I finished about 3.5 miles of it before Labashi showed up to rescue me from the thunderstorm just starting. But I was also thankful she picked me up because one of the boots took some skin off the back of my foot. Now I need some moleskin.
We watched several episodes of ‘The $100 Taxi Ride’ that evening and then our regular Moyers and Now shows on PBS.

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