Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Scenic

I had a nice scenic ride home today. It was a bit warm but you didn't notice if you kept moving. I stopped long enough to grab a couple of pics.

Click to Embiggen

This is pretty typical of my view on the way home. I could take interstates all the way, but I think I'd crash from the boredom.

I took this one because it reminds me of a joke:

Click to Embiggen
"Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you're a cunt."

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Wrong Move

I decided to try a totally different way home yesterday. A little out of the way, but I was on the scoot so more riding is sometimes better. When I hit this I realized this may not be the best route.

DSCN0652.aJPG

That's not even construction traffic or anything. It's about three miles of everyday rush hour backup at one intersection.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Back

DSCN0649

The Scooter is back, and it's better than ever.

New belt, new tires, new pulleys and new CVT cover mean it's like having a whole new transmission. The old one had some flaps and vibration in it, but now it's very smooth and much more comfortable. The ride home from the shop last night was very pleasant and the ride into work this morning was even better.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Protection

In my job we work around a lot of electricity. It can be dangerous, so there's a policy that every employee must carry "personal protection equipment" with them at all times. We carry them around in these big Pelican camera cases. Here's mine:

DSCN0647

I don't carry the full set since I'm just a software engineer. They originally wanted me to carry the full set and it was a fight to get the policy changed, but with airline baggage fees and the cost of most of the equipment, it just made more sense to give us software guys a smaller, far cheaper set of PPE.

Anyway, all the cases start to look alike so to make mine stand out from the crowd, I applied stickers. Here's my favorite:

DSCN0648

Monday, May 16, 2011

Ugly One

Today's pic is one I took of a missing bolt from my cheap chinese scooter. I've been using it since my big scoot is in the shop and it's becoming apparent that there are some important parts missing. Amazingly it still goes down the street pretty good, but I'm not sure if these things were missing all along or they've been falling out as I go.

DSCN0644

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Happy Clean Car

DSCN0637

Those "do-it-yourself" car washes only do an adequate job getting your car clean, but they're fast and convenient.

DSCN0638

Friday, May 13, 2011

New Froot!

DSCN0640
This sign tells me one of three things:
1. People who shop at this store are too nice to tell the people that work there that the word "cantaloupe" has been misspelled on their sign for an entire week.
2. People who shop at this store are too stupid to know that the word "cantaloupe" is misspelled on the sign.
3. There's a new fruit I've never heard of called a "cantouple."

Thursday, May 12, 2011

In Tennessee...

DSCN0631

In Tennessee, this doesn't necessarily mean the store owner's name is "White."

But I did make a purchase:

DSCN0634

Monday, May 09, 2011

Repairs

Friday started out as a beautiful day.

My first day of work at the new job was one year ago. The company sponsors a big picnic in the spring with softball and other games, free lunch and the entire day outdoors. My first day last year was picnic day. Friday was picnic day number two for me. A personal milestone. I survived some rough times and have started to flourish, mostly because I am working alone on projects instead of relying on others.

The idea was to meet some fellow cyclists at work at 7:30 am and head out for breakfast. After breakfast we'd ride to the park and arrive as a big group of two-wheeled fury. Only five showed up, so much for the fury.

I watched a softball game, played some bocce ball, ate my free lunch (very sub-par and they ran out of food so some went hungry) and hopped back on the scooter to head for the office. There were some important emails I was expecting.

On the bridge spanning Percy Priest Lake I heard a high pitched noise coming from behind me. At first I thought a police car had pulled very close and turned on his siren, it was so loud and so close. But there was nothing in my mirrors. The sound was almost deafeningly loud, and it was coming from my rear wheel. As soon as I was across the bridge I pulled over and checked things out. The bike would still move, but just barely, and the noise was horrifying.

I called AAA for a tow but it turns out I had forgotten to add the $35 Motorcycle coverage to my account, so I had to pay $125 for the tow. The tow was for 22 miles because two closer motorcycle repair shops had gone out of business. The truck that showed up after three hours was big enough to haul a tractor trailer. It looked pretty silly with my little scooter perched up there. I was tempted to flag down one of the fifty lawn mower trailers that cruised by and offer them $50 to take me to the shop.

Today I am lobster red from sitting in the sun waiting for the tow-truck to show up. I tend to break out in hives when I get sun burned. Today is no exception. I did get the pleasure of watching the rehearsals for Saturday's Air Show at the Smyrna Airport. I got to see some pretty cool stunts as I sat there and wondered if I would die from exposure before the truck showed up. My skin looks pretty gross, unless you are WAY into connect-the-dots.

Now I am waiting for the repair shop to call me with the damage. If it is indeed the variator belt like I am hoping it will probably cost around $200. If it is something else we'll see. Since they appear to be the only local shop that can help me, I suppose I am at their mercy.

Monday, May 02, 2011

The Oatmeal

ink

Click pic to check out The Oatmeal. Very funny stuff.