Medical appointments, 'And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself', F650GS first-service, wall-mount for TV, 'Firefly'
(posted from home)
(This post covers 7 – 14 June)
---------------------------------------
Monday, 14 June -
This morning we drove to Hershey's Mohler Senior Center to take our AARP driver course renewal. We took the last one three years ago and we needed to renew before Winter to keep our car insurance discount (and catch up on changes in driving laws!). We looked into taking the online course but when we saw the estimated time as six hours and this renewal course a live course for four hours, the choice was easy. Besides, how many times have you started an online course only to have something go wrong and lose your work?
We thought the course was very well done and we wrapped up at 1300. We had lunch at the nearby Fuddrucker's and then I had to take care of a problem. While looking for my driver's license to fill out my paperwork for the course, I realized I must have left it at the motorcycle shop when I picked up the loaner. I remember the tech using it for the loaner agreement. I called the shop and spoke with the service manager and he said he remembered having it but wasn't sure what he had done with it.
We drove the 40 miles to the shop only to learn that the manager had in the meantime remembered what he had done with my license-- he had put it in my motorcycle saddlebag! (Why hadn't I seen it??)
Back home the first thing I did was check the saddlebag and there it was-- under my bike's manual.
We spent the evening working on the web and watching National Geographic specials on cougar attacks on Vancouver Island and an Expedition Wild episode about Yellowstone grizzlies.
-------------------------------------
Sunday, 13 June-
This morning Labashi and I installed the Sanus wall-mount for the tv. We had a few minor problems but all in all it went well. Oddly, the provided selection of machine screws were each either too long or too short for our TV. And somehow our kit didn't have the right selection of fender-washers ; we had twice as many small washers (which we didn't need) and no medium washers (which we did need). Fortunately I had a selection of other washers we could use both as spacers to shorten the too-long machine screws and as washers to fit the mount assembly properly.
I bought the wider heavy-duty model and am very happy with it. This one has much more flexibility than the smaller model and is a lot stronger. The wall bracket is 30 inches long so I was a bit concerned we'd be able to see it behind the tv (from a side angle) but that's not the case. It provides good clearance from the wall to allow the cables to be connected without crushing them. The wall bracket is attached very firmly across two studs and it's capable of holding 130 pounds while our tv is only a little over 40 pounds.
Around lunch time Labashi drove to her parent's apartment and picked up Mom for a garden tour sponsored by the local garden club (while I re-connected the tv cables and tested everything).
Later that afternoon I took Mocha Joe to the apartment and we all went out to dinner. We had wanted to try Theo's but it was closed so we again went to Texas Roadhouse.
That evening Labashi and I watched 'Gia' with Angelina Jolie. It's the story of Gia Carangi, a late-Seventies, early-Eighties model who rose quickly and spectacularly but then burned out tragically at age 26. Angelina's performance is fantastic.
------------------------------------
Saturday, 12 June-
This weekend promises to be another extra-hot one. The temperatures are only in the high Eighties but the humidity is very high. My main goal today was to pick up the wall mount for the tv but I first hit the local Autozone for some high-temperature paint. I had painted the KLR's rusty exhaust header a week or so ago but the barbeque-grill paint I had used had burned off the header. It stayed on the heat-shield but not the header pipe. That paint was good for about 500 degrees. But the new paint is designed for exhaust headers and it withstands 2000 degrees.
Late in the afternoon, when the shade had covered our back patio, I wire-brushed and sanded the header pipe and hear-cover and gave them two coats of high-temp primer and two coats of high-temp color (flat black). They look great but I still have to go through the bake-it-on process, running the engine 10 minutes, letting it cool 20, then running it 20 and cool 20, then run it 30 and cool 20.
-----------------------------------
Friday, 11 June-
This morning I caught up the blog notes a bit, then unloaded 15 more bags of mulch for Labashi from Mocha Joe. So far she has used 48 three cu.ft bags and estimates she'll need at least 15 more. She is also busy planting additional trees in the flower beds, two Mugo pines and she's going to get another plant (I've not heard the name yet) this weekend. She has been spending hours on the web researching these and picking out just exactly what she wants. Good for her!
I rode the GS in to Best Buy to check out the wall-mounts for the TV. I liked the unit I had picked out from their web site but a sales guy pointed out another to consider. The first is smaller and bolts to the wall on one stud. That would be strong enough but it's limited to about three inches side-to-side movement (of the TV). The other bolts to two studs and allows for about eight inches of movement side-to-side (before the mount shows). The first would work for where we have the TV now but if we ever decided to re-arrange things or bought a larger TV, the second mount would be better.
I was planning to buy today but the larger mount is too big for my saddlebag and I don't have a cargo net in my bag. I rode over to nearby Action Motorsports and bought one but then thought better of the purchase. I'd better research the larger mount a bit more.
Labashi and I watched two more episodes of 'Firefly' that evening.
------------------------------------
Thursday, 10 June-
Today I had my eye appointment in Harrisburg. My vision has seemed stable for many years so I wasn't expecting a change. It turns out my vision has improved significantly! I also learned I have a small cataract in my right eye. I ordered my new glasses and will pick them up in two weeks.
I had ridden the loaner motorcycle to the eye appointment so I could ride on from there to pick up my F650GS at the BMW shop in Lititz. Everything checked out on the first-service appointment but it was expensive-- $180 for a two-hour service (including oil and filter charges). I'll have to decide whether I want to start alternating self-service with dealer-service appointments. I guess that will depend on how I feel the bike is doing as a service interval approaches.
We watched two episodes of 'Firefly' tonight. We like this odd little sci-fi/western series (!?!), particularly the production details. In the episode tonight ('Ariel'), the crew pretends to be an ambulance crew. They wheel two coffin-like body containers into the hospital and we almost-simultaneously shouted 'THULE!'. They were using the swoopy Thule skiing-equipment cargo boxes (model Atlantis 2100) as the body-bags in this series set in the year 2517! Cool!
-----------------------------------
Wednesday, 9 June-
It's rainy today so I'm spending the day on the web and working in the office. Labashi wants to place our TV higher so we placed some wooden blocks and a shelf to raise it to decide whether to do something permanent or not. With that decided I started looking online for wall mounts. We had thought we'd try making a shelf to sit atop the entertainment center but concluded the TV will look a lot better mounted on the wall. I used the stud-finder to determine where the studs sit behind the TV and therefore which mount to get. Now I need to talk to go play with the sample mounts at Best Buy.
I added minutes to Labashi's Tracfone today and once again got a good deal using a promo code. I've been picking the promo codes up from momsview.com. The process is a bit hit-and-miss in that it's tough to tell whether the suggested codes will work for your individual phone but I've always gotten some kind of bonus though sometimes I've had to try multiple codes. Today there were four codes to try and the first two had expired. But the third gave me 90 minutes free. I bought 60 at the regular price, took advantage of 60 more at half price and the code added a bonus 90 minutes. The base price is .33 a minute but the half-price deal and the bonus took the per-minute price to .15. That's not bad given it includes 90 days of service and the minutes don't expire. So when I'm adding minutes the phone costs $10 a month and when I'm just extending service time it's $6 a month. That's for each of our two phones and of course only works out for us because we use so few minutes per month. If I remember correctly, the break point for deciding whether to go with Tracfone or Net10 is 120 minutes a month. I'd guess we average under 10 minutes a month.
-----------------------------------
Tuesday, 8 June-
This morning I rode the GS up to Weber Vision to work on my eyeglasses problem. I had been buying my glasses from there since the mid-Seventies but they can no longer get the frames and my current frames are too far gone to use again. I had made calls to four other shops in the area and none could get the vintage frames. In fact I talked with someone at Weber who said it wasn't possible to get them. But when I found the frames online, I then talked to a Weber tech who said they could use frames I bought and mount the lenses using the demo lenses as a pattern. He gave me measurements for ordering from the factory. One of the measurements fell between two sizes, however, so the factory offered to send me both sizes if I'd return the one I didn't need. Good deal!
Today's mission, then, was to get the size right and also to confirm that they would indeed be able to handle the job. The tech did a very thorough job of reviewing everything and set me up for an appointment for the eye exam later this week to kick things off.
That afternoon I noticed the weather report calls for rain tomorrow and I have an appointment for the first oil-change on the F650GS in Lititz. I called to see if I could bring the bike over today for tomorrow's appointment and use the loaner bike until I could pick mine up Thursday. The loaner is apparently not used much so that was okayed.
I dropped off the bike and picked up the loaner. It's a 1990 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 with a stepped seat and mini-apehanger bars. Charlie said they used to have BMW's for use as loaners but after two of them were crashed and they were stuck with a very expensive repair bill on one, they switched to the Vulcan. What a smart choice for a loaner!! This bike is ugly and uncomfortable so nobody's going to go joy-riding on it-- at least not for long. And the insurance bill can't be much on such an old bike. Also, the insurance policy is a $1000-deductible one and the agreement I have to sign to use the bike lays the cost of any repairs on me. So from my perspective, it's also better to use this old bike. In any case, I'm glad to have the loaner so I don't have to run Labashi back and forth to Lititz to pick me up or drop me off.
That evening we watched about half of “And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself”. We had a late start on this one so didn't finish it tonight. We had decided to get this one during our visit to Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, New Mexico earlier this year.
-----------------------------------
Monday, 7 June-
This morning I had an extra-long dental appointment to prepare for two crowns. I've been putting them off for a long time but now need to go ahead. One is a crown on a dental implant I had done several years ago and the other is a crown on a tooth I broke on our Oregon Trail trip last summer.
I had made arrangements to have the work done early this Spring but moved it when I realized in March that I could either go out to see the desert flowers or sit around waiting for my dental appointment. But at some point ya gotta pay the piper!
I spent the afternoon working in my office. I'm trying to get back in the habit of using the office rather than my living-room chair as my workplace. But I have quite a stack of paperwork to work down through to find my desktop.
***************** END OF POST ***********
(posted from home)
(This post covers 7 – 14 June)
---------------------------------------
Monday, 14 June -
This morning we drove to Hershey's Mohler Senior Center to take our AARP driver course renewal. We took the last one three years ago and we needed to renew before Winter to keep our car insurance discount (and catch up on changes in driving laws!). We looked into taking the online course but when we saw the estimated time as six hours and this renewal course a live course for four hours, the choice was easy. Besides, how many times have you started an online course only to have something go wrong and lose your work?
We thought the course was very well done and we wrapped up at 1300. We had lunch at the nearby Fuddrucker's and then I had to take care of a problem. While looking for my driver's license to fill out my paperwork for the course, I realized I must have left it at the motorcycle shop when I picked up the loaner. I remember the tech using it for the loaner agreement. I called the shop and spoke with the service manager and he said he remembered having it but wasn't sure what he had done with it.
We drove the 40 miles to the shop only to learn that the manager had in the meantime remembered what he had done with my license-- he had put it in my motorcycle saddlebag! (Why hadn't I seen it??)
Back home the first thing I did was check the saddlebag and there it was-- under my bike's manual.
We spent the evening working on the web and watching National Geographic specials on cougar attacks on Vancouver Island and an Expedition Wild episode about Yellowstone grizzlies.
-------------------------------------
Sunday, 13 June-
This morning Labashi and I installed the Sanus wall-mount for the tv. We had a few minor problems but all in all it went well. Oddly, the provided selection of machine screws were each either too long or too short for our TV. And somehow our kit didn't have the right selection of fender-washers ; we had twice as many small washers (which we didn't need) and no medium washers (which we did need). Fortunately I had a selection of other washers we could use both as spacers to shorten the too-long machine screws and as washers to fit the mount assembly properly.
I bought the wider heavy-duty model and am very happy with it. This one has much more flexibility than the smaller model and is a lot stronger. The wall bracket is 30 inches long so I was a bit concerned we'd be able to see it behind the tv (from a side angle) but that's not the case. It provides good clearance from the wall to allow the cables to be connected without crushing them. The wall bracket is attached very firmly across two studs and it's capable of holding 130 pounds while our tv is only a little over 40 pounds.
Around lunch time Labashi drove to her parent's apartment and picked up Mom for a garden tour sponsored by the local garden club (while I re-connected the tv cables and tested everything).
Later that afternoon I took Mocha Joe to the apartment and we all went out to dinner. We had wanted to try Theo's but it was closed so we again went to Texas Roadhouse.
That evening Labashi and I watched 'Gia' with Angelina Jolie. It's the story of Gia Carangi, a late-Seventies, early-Eighties model who rose quickly and spectacularly but then burned out tragically at age 26. Angelina's performance is fantastic.
------------------------------------
Saturday, 12 June-
This weekend promises to be another extra-hot one. The temperatures are only in the high Eighties but the humidity is very high. My main goal today was to pick up the wall mount for the tv but I first hit the local Autozone for some high-temperature paint. I had painted the KLR's rusty exhaust header a week or so ago but the barbeque-grill paint I had used had burned off the header. It stayed on the heat-shield but not the header pipe. That paint was good for about 500 degrees. But the new paint is designed for exhaust headers and it withstands 2000 degrees.
Late in the afternoon, when the shade had covered our back patio, I wire-brushed and sanded the header pipe and hear-cover and gave them two coats of high-temp primer and two coats of high-temp color (flat black). They look great but I still have to go through the bake-it-on process, running the engine 10 minutes, letting it cool 20, then running it 20 and cool 20, then run it 30 and cool 20.
-----------------------------------
Friday, 11 June-
This morning I caught up the blog notes a bit, then unloaded 15 more bags of mulch for Labashi from Mocha Joe. So far she has used 48 three cu.ft bags and estimates she'll need at least 15 more. She is also busy planting additional trees in the flower beds, two Mugo pines and she's going to get another plant (I've not heard the name yet) this weekend. She has been spending hours on the web researching these and picking out just exactly what she wants. Good for her!
I rode the GS in to Best Buy to check out the wall-mounts for the TV. I liked the unit I had picked out from their web site but a sales guy pointed out another to consider. The first is smaller and bolts to the wall on one stud. That would be strong enough but it's limited to about three inches side-to-side movement (of the TV). The other bolts to two studs and allows for about eight inches of movement side-to-side (before the mount shows). The first would work for where we have the TV now but if we ever decided to re-arrange things or bought a larger TV, the second mount would be better.
I was planning to buy today but the larger mount is too big for my saddlebag and I don't have a cargo net in my bag. I rode over to nearby Action Motorsports and bought one but then thought better of the purchase. I'd better research the larger mount a bit more.
Labashi and I watched two more episodes of 'Firefly' that evening.
------------------------------------
Thursday, 10 June-
Today I had my eye appointment in Harrisburg. My vision has seemed stable for many years so I wasn't expecting a change. It turns out my vision has improved significantly! I also learned I have a small cataract in my right eye. I ordered my new glasses and will pick them up in two weeks.
I had ridden the loaner motorcycle to the eye appointment so I could ride on from there to pick up my F650GS at the BMW shop in Lititz. Everything checked out on the first-service appointment but it was expensive-- $180 for a two-hour service (including oil and filter charges). I'll have to decide whether I want to start alternating self-service with dealer-service appointments. I guess that will depend on how I feel the bike is doing as a service interval approaches.
We watched two episodes of 'Firefly' tonight. We like this odd little sci-fi/western series (!?!), particularly the production details. In the episode tonight ('Ariel'), the crew pretends to be an ambulance crew. They wheel two coffin-like body containers into the hospital and we almost-simultaneously shouted 'THULE!'. They were using the swoopy Thule skiing-equipment cargo boxes (model Atlantis 2100) as the body-bags in this series set in the year 2517! Cool!
-----------------------------------
Wednesday, 9 June-
It's rainy today so I'm spending the day on the web and working in the office. Labashi wants to place our TV higher so we placed some wooden blocks and a shelf to raise it to decide whether to do something permanent or not. With that decided I started looking online for wall mounts. We had thought we'd try making a shelf to sit atop the entertainment center but concluded the TV will look a lot better mounted on the wall. I used the stud-finder to determine where the studs sit behind the TV and therefore which mount to get. Now I need to talk to go play with the sample mounts at Best Buy.
I added minutes to Labashi's Tracfone today and once again got a good deal using a promo code. I've been picking the promo codes up from momsview.com. The process is a bit hit-and-miss in that it's tough to tell whether the suggested codes will work for your individual phone but I've always gotten some kind of bonus though sometimes I've had to try multiple codes. Today there were four codes to try and the first two had expired. But the third gave me 90 minutes free. I bought 60 at the regular price, took advantage of 60 more at half price and the code added a bonus 90 minutes. The base price is .33 a minute but the half-price deal and the bonus took the per-minute price to .15. That's not bad given it includes 90 days of service and the minutes don't expire. So when I'm adding minutes the phone costs $10 a month and when I'm just extending service time it's $6 a month. That's for each of our two phones and of course only works out for us because we use so few minutes per month. If I remember correctly, the break point for deciding whether to go with Tracfone or Net10 is 120 minutes a month. I'd guess we average under 10 minutes a month.
-----------------------------------
Tuesday, 8 June-
This morning I rode the GS up to Weber Vision to work on my eyeglasses problem. I had been buying my glasses from there since the mid-Seventies but they can no longer get the frames and my current frames are too far gone to use again. I had made calls to four other shops in the area and none could get the vintage frames. In fact I talked with someone at Weber who said it wasn't possible to get them. But when I found the frames online, I then talked to a Weber tech who said they could use frames I bought and mount the lenses using the demo lenses as a pattern. He gave me measurements for ordering from the factory. One of the measurements fell between two sizes, however, so the factory offered to send me both sizes if I'd return the one I didn't need. Good deal!
Today's mission, then, was to get the size right and also to confirm that they would indeed be able to handle the job. The tech did a very thorough job of reviewing everything and set me up for an appointment for the eye exam later this week to kick things off.
That afternoon I noticed the weather report calls for rain tomorrow and I have an appointment for the first oil-change on the F650GS in Lititz. I called to see if I could bring the bike over today for tomorrow's appointment and use the loaner bike until I could pick mine up Thursday. The loaner is apparently not used much so that was okayed.
I dropped off the bike and picked up the loaner. It's a 1990 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 with a stepped seat and mini-apehanger bars. Charlie said they used to have BMW's for use as loaners but after two of them were crashed and they were stuck with a very expensive repair bill on one, they switched to the Vulcan. What a smart choice for a loaner!! This bike is ugly and uncomfortable so nobody's going to go joy-riding on it-- at least not for long. And the insurance bill can't be much on such an old bike. Also, the insurance policy is a $1000-deductible one and the agreement I have to sign to use the bike lays the cost of any repairs on me. So from my perspective, it's also better to use this old bike. In any case, I'm glad to have the loaner so I don't have to run Labashi back and forth to Lititz to pick me up or drop me off.
That evening we watched about half of “And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself”. We had a late start on this one so didn't finish it tonight. We had decided to get this one during our visit to Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, New Mexico earlier this year.
-----------------------------------
Monday, 7 June-
This morning I had an extra-long dental appointment to prepare for two crowns. I've been putting them off for a long time but now need to go ahead. One is a crown on a dental implant I had done several years ago and the other is a crown on a tooth I broke on our Oregon Trail trip last summer.
I had made arrangements to have the work done early this Spring but moved it when I realized in March that I could either go out to see the desert flowers or sit around waiting for my dental appointment. But at some point ya gotta pay the piper!
I spent the afternoon working in my office. I'm trying to get back in the habit of using the office rather than my living-room chair as my workplace. But I have quite a stack of paperwork to work down through to find my desktop.
***************** END OF POST ***********
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 21:43
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