Just Rambling

Yesterday, the directors let us leave work early, which was nice.  I checked out the parking structure where I'll be stationing my car during the daily stay; once at the top I'll need to find a choice spot for my bike when better weather comes 'round.  The company helps pay for the parking so it's only $65/month for me.  Two years ago when I was working for Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield I was paying $100/month and that was the cheapest I could find (I then had to walk 1.5 miles to get to work from the parking structure).  So that's not too bad.  I do, truly, miss my parking spot at Yahoo!, heck, I miss my office and most of the people there.  I could look out my window and just a few feet away was my Italian Girl.  Now I'm in the top of a plain building, in the center of the floor, in a non-privacy cube (man I HATE them...if you're going to corral me in a work space then give me some privacy!) -- thank goodness I'm getting well-paid!

People.  Self-centered, self-absorbed, sheep and tools all about me, driving and reproducing.  Nothing specific about that day, just that we've all met them, only concerned about themselves, and my tolerance for putting up with their BS is dropping.  I noticed that the ones in Mercedes and BMWs were particularly on my "Take out with a RPG" list.  But the Sylvan area north of Hwy.26 is flooded with those people, keeping up with the Joneses.

At 4:09am the outside temperature was a brisk 14.1 degrees F!  But today the temps are slowly rising and the rains will be coming.  I wonder what December will bring...

Oh yeah, the thermostat went out on A's Passat so that get's fixed next week, along with the rear brakes since they're dragging and there's some creaking going on under the front of her car.  My Jetta got a stay in Dean Futrelle's shop so they could clean & grease the driver's side door latch/locking module.  The door wouldn't latch.  Kinda hard to drive to work holding the door, so I took the Passat.  That's when I discovered the thermostat was bad.  Oh, that reminds me, I need to get the sliding door on the Bus regreased; the grease is old and freezes up.  Not good.

Oh, forgot to mention that last night I measured the tank spread and it was a solid 33cm!  I also went into the garage and pulled on the mounting rails.  Not a lot, just a little, no more than .5 to 1mm on each side.  If my tank has spread then I'm hoping that it will shrink back to what I can only hope to be original size and once again fit snugly in its mounts.

Ducati tank expansion

My beloved Italian Mistress has a fault:  Fuel tank expansion.  There's debate as to what the cause is in the www.Ducati.ms Sport Classic forum.  Some people don't have it but most every one else does.  I'm guessing I have it as there is 2-3mm of side-to-side wiggle at the front of the tank.
Other owners are experiencing paint bubbling, too!  And these issues are not solely the bane of the Sport Classic line, it also affects other Ducatis with plastic tanks made by Acerbis, an Italian plastics and OEM company.

In order to combat this tank expansion (and possible paint bubbling issues), which at the worse will have the tank come off it's rails and flop around, is to coat the tank with a protective coating.  This seems to be the best way to stop tank expansion.  So the friendly staff at JC/PAKBIKES perform this service.

Yesterday I removed my tank, took off the fuel cap and fuel pump, and cleaned out the tank.  It's sitting in my closet for the next two weeks to dry out and, hopefully, unexpand (shrink back to stock width).  I took a measurement from the outside edges of the mounting pucks, where they meet the tank, and came up with 33.5cm...maybe a tad bit more but definitely under 34cm.

 

Map of the tank belly.

 Example showing how I find the edge to make the measurement.

Autumn colors

After a coffee break with my sweetie at her work.

I hate daylight savings time!

And in other news, I got an aluminum side-step for our Bus today and installed it this evening.  Looks nice, I like it.  This will make it easier for the kids and parents to get in & out of the Bus.  Now I need to get mud flaps on all four corners.

Here's my Sweetie at Multhomah Falls before we met up with a good friend of mine...

Saturday I met up with my Navy buddy after 16 years, Mike Holliday.  It was a blast!  Got to meet his girlfriend, Danielle, and she is a real catch.  Great girl.  Man, I laughed so much and we yammered for so long, fantastic time.

Here we are at Edgefield McMinemens:

Sunday was A's birthday and it was a nice, mellow day.  I can't believe I got's me an older woman!  (Just by a month) LOL  :-D

Slacker

Uhg, this blog stuff...too much work...I use my brain enough at work so when I get home I'm mentally tired.  I'll try to get pictures of the new look of our house.

Mimi flies in tonight from Georgia.  It will be nice to have her here for the next few months.  I think it will really help my sweetie the most, take some of the "mommy!  mommy look at me!  mommy, she/he hit me!  mommy, daddy said 'no'!  mommy!  mommy!  mommy!" load off her, LOL.

I found my reason to not wear a helmet when I ride...

...and it's to hear the full, unfiltered orchestration of the engine while riding!

Let me back up a few minutes. Today is a beautifully sunny, cool day. I rode around to nowhere interesting for about 20 minutes to warm up the chain. Got home, put her up on her stand, cleaned the chain (I definitely need practice on that messy procedure!), and then lubed it. I then semi-detailed the rear bottom half of the bike due to my messiness and decided to toodle her around the block. In a classic white T-shirt (with the word FAST on the back) and Levi jeans, I grabbed my sunglasses and I fired her up. I backed her out of the driveway, and onto the street. Then it was a leisurely (as best one can on a Ducati) roll around the block (3/10ths of a mile).

Holy cow! I couldn't believe what I was missing! Clattering, clicking, huffing, whining, purring -- an entire cacophony of wonderful, mechanical sounds. I cursed the lucky people who got to hear my bike in its purity. I cursed my helmet for muffling all those wonderful sounds my bike sang out. I started wondering how I could drill holes in my helmet without destroying its structural integrity. CURSES!!

My driveway quickly approached and then I purred her into the garage. I sat there for a second before turning her off. The garage suddenly sounded deathly quiet with my girl no longer chattering to me. Sigh. Damn helmets...damn them all...harrumph!

Don't worry, I will still wear a full-face helmet, no plans on riding with a naked head. I worry too much about some idiot doing something idiotic that will put me into a non-exitable situation and that helmet is what will keep me alive to ride another day.

But if someone ever makes a full-face helmet with aural openings I'll likely get one...

Finally some end user creativity!

End users are now able to change their background image in this blog...about freakin' time!  So I'm playing with it and am currently using a picture of my Duc and the kid's custom painted pedal car with an orange backdrop (in honor of my VW Squareback).

Two weeks ago our group lost Linda Kresl to another company.  Major bummer as she was my hope and savior for getting a BI environment for customer care reporting.  Plus she is very intelligent and very driven and I was hoping she would be my mentor.  Rats!  Well guess what?  Yesterday we found out that my manager, a senior director in the company, is moving to another company!  Yes, the same one that said I should blog my VW vacation is LEAVING US!  But hey, when a good opportunity comes along ya gotta take it so, like Linda, she will be really missed.  She has been really good in getting me to communicate and work with my internal customers on prioritizing my workload -- and it's a full one!  However, it's not all roses as there have been some folks let go and we don't know why.  Pretty scary during these low economic times for sure.  I learned from Intel that no one is irreplaceable, especially as long as India has cheap (in every sense of the word) labor so I do worry about my position.

Our silly two-year phone contract with ATT has finally expired...well, back in June.  Two-year contracts are stupid, hate them!!  So I've been looking for a replacement to my Moto Q 9H phone (don't like it) and have decided upon an Android OS phone.  I've been reading and studying and comparing and with the plan I can get through my work I've decided to get an HTC EVO 4G through Sprint.  Not crazy about Sprint since they screwed me over back when I was in the Navy but that was a LONG time ago so here's to hoping things are better.  ATT and Verizon are the only other real choices out of the bazillion phones available at this minute.  In a couple minutes I'm sure half of them will be replaced with another billion "different" units.  Whatever.  Verizon sucks monkey butt around here so Sprint is the lesser evil.  I was considering the iPhone 4G but...meh...I dunno, I'm just not that enamored by it to pay such a ridiculous amount when I can get the same and more with another brand.  I have to see about the family plan and what my baby can use since she doesn't want her BlackBerry -- she hardly even used 1/5 of its capabilities, she just needs a phone that can take a picture, text & do multi-media messages.

Huh, I remember when phones were all land-lines with rotary dials...we even had a party-line back when we lived out in the sticks...

Sept. 11th...I have not forgotten!

This day was a horrible one; one that I witnessed on live television.

In other news...
Installed gauge lowering mounts on my Ducati.  They are simple mounts that position the gauges so they face my face and not my chest.  Click me for pictures!

Before

After

Why are my neighbors happy with me now?

Here's the view out the kitchen window during the construction of our covered porch.  This shows how much of the sky I'll be losing.  Luckily, it's not too bad and having a cover over the front door is definitely a welcome addition!

So what's going on?  We've finally decided to do some fixin' up of the ol' homestead.  HardiPlank siding to replace the original cedar, windows on the north side of the house that are energy effecient (now the whole house matches), an awning over the rear garage door, a new front door, front porch with cover, and a window in the living room!

The process is moving slower than expected but it's kind of okay since our neighbor, George, is the one doing the work :-)  He's a master carpenter and has been doing very nice work.

I've wired up security lighting around the house and trenched in the drainage pipe for the porch rain gutter once we get it mounted.  I also opted to have the spouts dump onto gratings instead of directly into the pipe with the idea that all the crap from the tree, moss, nuts, etc. will hit/scatter on that instead of plugging up the gutters.  I've used the plug-in screens but it still requires me to walk the roof and clean the gutters.  This way the crap will flow down and onto the ground, making clean up much easier and obvious.  If it doesn't work it's very simple to plug the downspouts into the existing drain pipes.

The main bathroom shower/tub area has been ripped out and replaced.  It's been ready for tile work for about a month so the tile guy will be coming soon to start work on that.  George and I fixed the 1960's plumbing and installed new hardware to make the room look pretty.  Gotta get it ready for Mimi's visit!

We've FINALLY got rain...the area needs it...heck, our water bill needs it, LOL.  My Ducati has been simply awesome to ride.  I love it love it love it.  Met a couple of neighbors because of her.  One guy is into restoring Vespa's and used to buy/repair/sell VW Buses.  The other guy finally finished his 1976 Norton 850.  Sweet looking ride for sure.  He also has a 750.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday my Sweetie said it was one year ago that I gave her her ring.  I consider it a wedding ring but she says it's an engagement ring.  Nonetheless, being a guy, it never crossed my mind, however, she got a baby-sitter for Ronin since Bella was doing a sleep-over at Grammy Sue's and she took me to Salty's on the Columbia River.  We had a great meal next to the water, watching the sunset, and she got me a nice watch as an anniversary present.  It was a good evening.

Today I bought a 3-speed metal cutting bandsaw that can cut horizontally and vertically from our next door neighbor.  His grandfather had passed away and had various metal working tools in his shop.  So I finally have something to cut metal with!!!  Using a cut-off wheel or hacksaw or reciprocating saw is just too much work!