is happily being the wheel rather than a rusty old spoke
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Hi Bob, Don't forget to bring my phone #s along.
Still have them in my cellphone.
R.A.'s not too hard on tires if you don't "flat spot" them!!!
I'm really bad about flat-spotting tires on the Mustang. No ABS, all the weight on the front, and effectively no rear brakes.
But I don't expect that to be a problem this time out. I'm sure the tires on the car have been heat-cycled enough that they've become effectively bald street tires, and I know the spares have reached that point. Not a lot of stick until just before they get so heat-soaked they get greasy.
Among the spares I'm bringing is a tire I knew for sure I'd flat-spotted going into the mini-carousel at HPT. Was ready to stick my arm out the window to come in, didn't hear anything, stayed on the track, went down the front straight, and everything was fine. When I came back around to the mini-carousel, sure enough, there was a long, dark Hoosier-shaped stripe on the track. Even upon close inspection, I couldn't find any damage on the tire.
It's harder on brakes and it demands a lot of time under full throttle.
I should be well-covered on both engines and brakes. I went ahead and replaced the Mustang's rotors because the old ones had small surface cracks all over them. Fine for spares. I do hate putting Hawk Blues on brand new rotors, though. And the Scoob will have the same problem. My first sessions in each car will likely be very short and I'll be doing nothing but bedding in the brakes. If I remember to grab the instructions for doing so that surely came with at least one set. I never can remember how the cycle goes.
I'm going to pick up the remaining parts for the bike when I get back from Wisconsin the week after next and will immediately put the bike up on eBay.
I'm optimistic. Not seeing any in the rare and pricier color mine is, all have far more miles than mine, none make mention of the frame recall (I think it'll work in my favor that the *factory* replaced the frame with a new one) and most are molested (nicely) while mine is completely original.
And they're all going for substantially more than I owe on mine and some are going for not much less than I paid.
So I might come out alright.
I ride it occasionally, as it's not without its charms, but I can't have it and the BMW. And the BMW is definitely the better machine.
Got the Edge Juice w/Attitude mounted in the truck the other day. The truck's an 05 Chevy Duramax Crew Cab dually.
It's got 6 settings you can set inside the cab, 0 through 5 with 0 being stock and 5 being "Extreme". The control unit is really cool, allowing you to monitor 4 out of 12 selectable items. I've got mine set to show EGT, gear, boost, and % engine load.
On the 3 setting, my fuel economy has gone up very substantially. About 18 mpg in normal driving. Suspect 20 might be possible on the highway.
Unfortunately, they don't want you to tow on the 3 setting. 1 and 2 are for towing and 2 is only for towing a trailer less than 6k lbs. Mine's 15k, so I'll be using 1, although I might try 3 on level ground to see what happens to fuel economy.
The control unit will also display your 0-60 times and 1/4 mile. I haven't found anywhere level and long enough to see what it'll do in the 1/4, but I was VERY surprised when I set it to the 5 level and romped it. A huge cloud of black smoke and the truck literally got squirrely on me and got wheel spin in 2nd and 3rd before showing I'd reached 60 mph in 7.7 seconds. Kinda slow, eh? Not for a 7000 lbs truck. And not for having to suddenly romp on it from idle. Turns out if you hold the brakes and spool it up, the timer starts as soon as you hit the throttle and before you let go of the brake. Bummer. I suspect that done properly the truck could do a 7-second 0-60.
To say the truck wakes up on the 5 setting would be an understatment. I don't remember the horsepower figures, but supposedly it's making 855 ftlbs of torque on that setting, and it certainly feels like it. Well, I don't know what 850+ feels like, but can tell you this thing turns into an absolute *beast* on the 5 setting. I was driving around on that setting and found it to be pretty stupid in town. Especially when the roads were wet. But it was fun shrouding cars behind me in a cloud of smoke.
Edit: Of course now that I've got this 05, I hear the new 06 is going to use the Allison 6-speed rather than the 5-speed (that'd be SO nice to have) and will make something like 700 ftlbs of torque. Figures.
That's kind of the impression I was getting. I knew that something like the first 60% of the long straight is uphill, so I've been looking at the map and already pitying my poor brakes for what they're going to go through at the end of two decent downhills.
I've got the Scoob ready and the Mustang on the lift. The Scoob got new brakes, including rotors and pads. A Porterfield pad that's supposed to have nearly the same torque as the Hawk Blues but not be as abusive to its relatively expensive and fragile rotors. The Scoob also has new tires/wheels on the back and the old backs got moved to the front and the old fronts are coming along as spares. They're asymetrical and directional, so I've got one spare for each side of the car.
I went ahead and put the fuel tank in the back of the truck and filled it and found my extra marine battery, so as far as the truck goes, all I need to do is semi-securely mount the battery and wire it to the fuel pump.
I'll need to buy a jack. Haven't had a good one in ages because I usually haven't worn anything out at the track, and whenever I have, I just switched fulltime to the other car. I expect I'm going to go through plenty of brakes and tires in 5 days of track time; especially the Friday instructors/advanced students day. You gonna be running Friday?
I also need to gather up all the tools needed to service brakes and tires and make sure they're all in the trailer. Have more than enough Gatorade. I'll pick up ice in EL Sunday evening.
Won't be bringing a motorcycle at all except the parts bike I'm picking up in Illinois on the way. I'll use the Scoob for commuting.
The Mustang's going to take a lot of work. I have no idea what condition the drums and rotors are in, but they acted fine last time out, so they'll come along as spares. I'll buy new ones today. And since it's got shoes on back, the brake work will take substantially longer than the Scoob did. And I need to flush/replace the brake fluid in the Stang.
Both cars will be showing up on new brakes and rotors and have a complete set of new brake pads/shoes in boxes along with one usable front and two usable rear rotors for the Scoob, and 2 of each for the Stang. I'm literally going to be bedding in my brakes at the track.
The tires are a bit hardened, especially the spares, but they'll have to do. Not really enough time to set up the rig (sawhorses and a long pipe) to HotLap them all and let them set as long as they need to. Which reminds me. I think I've got a fair amount of tire dismounting/mounting to do for the Stang. All of my spares will be on pony wheels (turns out they're just as light as the fancy aluminum ones I got), so I need to just pick out the best ones and make sure they're on the right rims.
And still need to locate my small inverter to run the laptop in the truck since I've temporarily replaced my stolen GPS unit with a much less expensive laptop one.
Heading out here soon to pick up the Stang's drums and rotors then home to get that car ready and get everything into the trailer.
I won't have enough time to do the thing I wanted to do of putting a battery isolater in the bed of the truck and tap one of the alternators to feed the trailer batteries directly rather than through the 30-amp fuse. Was really hoping to do this, as 30 amps thrown at 8 deep-cycle batteries really doesn't do much in the way of charging them. And we've found that if the batteries are drained, starting the truck doesn't provide enough power to even run the lights in the trailer. Not until the truck has charged the batteries a bit, which takes forever at less than 4 amps per battery.
Not a big deal. I doubt we'll need much juice from the trailer. It's awfully handy when needed, though.
Darn. That reminds me. The tire inflator for my little 2-gallon air compressor is screwed up, so I need to get a replacement while I'm getting my brake rotors and drums.
Got a lot of tools and clothes to pack and also need to make sure I've got pillows and blankets since I'll probably make this trip in at least 2 or maybe 3 legs, and plan to just sleep in the trailer on the air mattress. It's really pretty cool to sleep in that thing and wake up to the smell of the coffeemaker brewing up a batch.
test
Haven't been able to get hold of the local guy with all the used Beemer parts, but I did find an online dealership that has the exhaust valve ($110), pushrod ($30), and the correct centerstand ($143) in stock, but doesn't have the tach cable.
If I can get hold of the local guy and he has the parts, I can have the bike running again this weekend. If not, I'll order the new parts and hopefully still have her ready to throw in the trailer for my upcoming trip to Road America.
Simply amazing that there would still be parts available at dealerships for a 32 year old motorcycle! Gotta love it!
On the centerstand, I don't know if I mentioned previously that it's got a chrome one on it right now. I don't know BMW's well enough to have known that it wasn't correct, but the sticker on it from the (not BMW) manufacturer was a pretty neat clue.
As pristine and complete and original as this bike is, a chromed centerstand just ain't gonna cut it, even if it's superior to the OEM unit. I'm sure the BMW one is more than good enough.
Confirmed my suspicions on the BMW. Did a compression test. Recht Zylinder: 30 psi. Links Zylinder: 145 psi, and probably would be higher but I couldn't keep the tester held against the plug hole better than that.
Took off the right valve cover and removed the rockers and pushrods. Exhaust one visibly bent. That accounts for some of the extra noise.
Took off the head and could see that the exhaust valve wasn't completely seated. Pretty subtle. Trained eye, but still tested it in the safety-klean tank. Leaked out the exhaust port.
I found a local guy with a ton of old BMW stuff in his garage, so he probably has a complete head and pushrod for me. If not, I really hope the dealership can get me an exhaust valve and pushrod.
And a tach cable and the bulbs for the instrument cluster so I don't over-rev this sucker again. Definitely an interference engine, and in 1973, valve float was the only rev limiter we had.
I really need to try to remember to get a pic of the 1973 BMW R75/5. It's got the "toaster" tank, but I've also got the big non-toaster tank for it. I just happen to really like the little tank.
I did an uh-oh on it the other night. Tach doesn't work (am sure it's just a broken cable) and the turn signals usually don't work (acts like not quite enough juice) so I revved the snot out of it in first gear to see if they'd start working, and suddenly I was making quite a bit less power. It got home and was rattling something fierce.
Thought I'd hurt the bottom-end, then remembered it's a BMW, so that's very unlikely.
Took off the right side valve cover last night and found a LOT of lash on the exhaust valve. Adjusted it down to .008 and it sounded a lot better but power's still down. Pretty safe bet Mr. Exhaust Valve met Mr. Piston and got dinged. Will take the top end off that side this weekend (looks like the easiest 4-stroke head removal in history) and verify that it's the valve and see how tough it is to find one.
It's also being pretty persistent about overflowing the left carb. Just when I think it's quit, it does it again, to such an extent the left side loads up and it's running on one (weakened) cylinder until I turn off the fuel and let it clear. Rode it to work today to see if it felt like the valve adjustment did the trick, and was constantly turning the fuel on and off so it'd run right. There's visible rust in the tank. Not much, but enough. Gonna have to do the nuts and bolts clean-out bit. Hate the thought of coating it, though, since it won't look original. And fuel filters would be so darned *visible* on this thing. Yuck! Although, if it's a dirty tank, it'd be a bit odd that it's only the left carb having trouble with it. Casual check of float level seems to indicate it's fine.
When I was adjusting the valve clearances last night (did all 4 for good measure and they were all somewhat loose and it's a lot quieter now), I noticed what's likely the culprit on the turn-signals not working. The battery in it doesn't look like any motorcycle battery I've seen. It looks like a riding-mower battery.
Will replace it and see if that doesn't help my turn signals. If it doesn't, then I'll have to see if the flasher is adjustable (could be, on something this old) or if I can locate a replacement. Talked to a guy yesterday with a friend whose garage is full of old Beemer stuff.
Had noticed the Maguar levers on the 75/5 tonight and assumed they were incorrect, as I've often bought these myself. Have always preferred them.
Turns out they come with those. Making restoration that much easier.
The 305 Dream I got is nearly identical to this one except that it's black, has rusted mufflers and isn't quite as clean, but looks like it'll clean up to this condition. It's a 64, which I think is the first year. Can't wait to check the VIN to see how early it was in the production run.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Honda-HONDA-CA77-305-CA77-305-Honda-CA77-305-DREAM-vintage-collectors...
I like low VIN's. I've got a 72 XL250 (first year and model of the entire XL series) whose VIN puts in within the first 700 off the line, likely making it the oldest or one of the oldest survivors of the line.
Just bought a couple of cool old bikes this afternoon locally. What a find! My mom's boyfriend is getting rid of his bikes and I couldn't stand the thought of these two units getting out of the "family", so I picked them up. Will post pictures later.
One is a 72 BMW R 75/5. Light green. He said something about it being longer than most of them, which he said was true of only some of them made in a 6-month period. I'm not sure that's correct. What I'm reading is that they were lengthened 1 1/2" in mid-73, which I think would be the last 6 months this bike was made. Hmmm... Maybe this is actually a 73. Need to double-check.
The ride home was miserable for the most part. It was obviously starving for fuel anytime I went past 1/4 throttle, so it was all it could do to hit 60 going downhill and hold 40 going uphill. Seemed like a main jet was clogged. Was tempted to pull off the road and use the tools to see what I could do. Did about 30 miles on the highway that way, with my wife and son behind me in the Suburban.
Got off at my exit and decided to keep it wide open in first gear and let it slowly build up some real revs and see what happened.
Should've done that earlier in the trip. It stumbled into the upper revs on one cylinder then suddenly took off like a rocket and has run perfectly since. My family said they saw a big puff of black smoke come out one of the pipes and I was *gone*.
Just got back from a long ride to grandma's and back, where my daughter's staying the night. She absolutely loves this bike. Took her for a ride on it and she said it looks and feels like a *real* motorcycle.
I agree. Love the realness of it.
It had a crappy fairing and bags on it when I got it, but as soon as we got it home, we took them off. When my wife saw it afterwards she agreed the fairing and bags were hiding a beautiful bike.
This bike is in excellent condition. No dents. Few minor scratches. It's got a chrome centerstand which I'm sure isn't correct, but everything else is original. 42k miles. Came with two tanks. A 4-gallon and a 6-gallon, both the same pale green. The 4 is on it now and looks great. Haven't put the 6 on it, but I don't think it'll look as good on it.
The other bike is a 64 Honda 305 Dream. Also in very good cosmetic condition, but the exhaust is rusted out and there's no battery in it. Restoration project, but shouldn't be too difficult provided I can find pipes for it. Picking that one up tomorrow (on a trailer) then picking up the CB160 tomorrow in Omaha where I'm meeting track friends for dinner.
http://jeff.dean.home.att.net/r75roadtest.htm
A review of the Beemer, apparently when it was new. Much of what they're saying, I've already noticed. The gear-spacing on this thing is PERFECT. Much better than on the 1200LT. The one they're showing in the pictures is a different color, but the one I got looks nearly this good.
Bought this on eBay for $155. Rough, but it runs and it just happens to have nearly every single piece my other one is missing, including the correct exhaust. Only thing it lacks that I need is the correct side covers.
Also just received a 175cc conversion kit. Would like to find one more inexpensive CB160 and use the conversion kit on it and modify it extensively as a cafe bike. If this one had a title, it'd be a candidate, but it doesn't.
Fortunately, it's just a little out of my way to pick this bike up when I go to Wisconsin in a few weeks.
Edit: Chart tag doesn't seem to work for this one. Here's the link: http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/viewimage.x/00000000/butchyboy1/MVC275S.JPG
Well, she's definitely got what I consider a healthy attitude about it. She definitely wants to major in trumpet performance at a good school. And at least make a comfortable, even if Bohemian, living at it. Doesn't care if she gets famous. Just loves music.
And is keeping in mind that specializing in something else and just keeping "accomplished musician" in her back pocket is always an option.
The only recent challenge I've had with her is getting her to focus on the piano. I've told her that if she wants the likes of Berklee, Eastman, and Julliard to take notice, she needs to perform a piano solo at contest her Senior year, in addition to trumpet.
Fortunately, she's very into Regina Spector (sp?) now, and it seems each day she's showing me that she can play another of her songs she learned by ear. And it's also helping that she's taking Music Theory this year, and when she has questions about things, I show her the answer on the piano. She had no problem learning to think about music numerically, but it's taken this Music Theory class to help her gradually start seeing the light regarding the helpfulness of being able to think of music in terms of keys on the piano.
She's only about 5 songs into a book of piano pieces I want her to complete by the end of her Junior year because she still sees piano primarily as a necessary evil, but she's starting to come around. And the fact that I make her write down the chords in a song after she's learned to play it is fitting in nicely with her Music Theory class.
The poker run was about 105 miles total, with 4 stops between start and finish. But his passenger was extremely skinny. She said the seat wasn't as uncomfortable as it looked. Yeah, right.
A touchy-feely, hug-the-trees, learn-the-bass thing hosted by Victor Wooten once or twice a year.
I'd personally love to go, but really am not motivated to become a better musician. I play well enough for the kind of playing I do (jamming along with my daughter, the iPod, or myself) and though I'm not great, I'm also not trying to be a professional musician.
My daughter plans to be.
She might be. I've printed both of your messages so she'll see them on the printer in her room and check into it. She's been going to the library a lot lately and getting CD's of different kinds of music. Really into Swing/Big-Band these days.
Though I like lots of different music, I don't have a lot of listening time these days, so Geddy Lee's the bassist I hear the most. Many's the evening I'm down in the workshop with the iPod plugged into the PA system, the bass equalized out, and I'm providing the bass lines through a pretty stout Crate system.
A system that came in handy the other day. There's land across the street from me for sale. The neighbor on the other side of the piece of property wants to avoid having a neighbor just as much as I do, so (Dave can back me up on this), I called my daughter and told her to be a bad, noisy neighbor and I rushed home to do the same.
When I got home, she was outside playing her trumpet. Loudly and badly.
I plugged the iPod into the PA system of the workshop, then hooked the PA up to my bass rig and queued up the shrillest Rush songs I could find. The neighbor who'd called me pulled into the workshop just as the music was starting and immediately pulled back out. While laughing out loud.
We're talking LOUD. My ears can take a lot, but I was in a hurry to get out of the building myself.
Then, I had fun being the guy you don't want to buy land across the street from to build a house to enjoy the quiet of the country. My daughter traded her trumpet for her 22 and I brought out my 22 and my 20-gauge and we shot at various targets around the pond closest to the road.
If the racecar were running (no battery and no brakes), I'd have fired it up. Straight exhaust. Wonderfully loud.
I had to settle for driving the Mustang up and down the gravel road sideways.
There isn't a "Sold" sign on the property yet.
And the guy could've sold it to me a few years ago when I offered him twice what it was worth so I could not only put my workshop on it, having it closer to the house, but also ensure I wouldn't get neighbors. He turned down my offer, then asked me later if I was still interested, but it was too late as the concrete was done for the workshop.
http://adserv.stocksite.com/images/concert_etude.mp3
This is the song we did for her Sophomore solo. This guy's playing it just a touch faster and his double-tonguing's not as clear as hers, but otherwise I'd say a comparable performance.
Since I don't have an MP3 recording (yet) of my daughter's Sophomore solo performance, I've been Googling looking for it. Interesting that the piece I'm looking for is on the audition lists of a lot of colleges and listed as performance pieces by professionals. It really is *that* aggressive a song.
If I can find an MP3 of the song, I'll post it here.
I've been called a Renaissance Man a time or two. :)Programmer, motorcyclist, mechanic, and musician.
Basically, I know how to play anything that doesn't have a double-reed. I'm an accomplished bassist, pianist, and am very strong on all valved brasses. I also play clarinet and sax but don't consider myself very good at those.
http://adserv.stocksite.com/images/darth_solo1.mp3
This is a recording of my daughter's trumpet solo from 8th grade. She's in 11th now.
Here's the post where I bragged on her back then and introduced this song. The link in the post no longer works, but the link above is a copy.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=836708
I've got her solos of the past two years on video-tape and need to get them converted to DVD. The one this past year was phenomenal, and exceedingly difficult (for both me and her -- I'm always her accompianist) but I watch it a lot. I couldn't see her during the concert performance, which was the only standing ovation of the evening. We communicate via her inhales and my shoulder movements. Was amazing to watch her playing this exceptionally difficult piece and looking like she was just jamming with her dad, nice and relaxed.
We jam all the time. The living room is an exercise in musical self- and daughter-indulgence. Drum set. Guitars filling up one of the walls (mostly basses), trombone, a few trumpets (we both play professional horns, her a Bach Strad, me a Yamaha), a tenor sax, a clarinet, and a recently-added Yamaha electric piano that she's learning to play.
In our basement is a 32-track digital recorder with all the trappings. Basically a recording studio except it's not formally set up as one. Music is extremely important to us.
My daughter and I always play a trumpet duet for Memorial Day in town, too. Taps with her doing the lead and me doing the echo, and the national anthem with her doing the lead and me doing a variation of the tuba line on the trumpet.
We're REAL into music here. Most nights, we play. Just whatever we both feel like at the time. She's good on trumpet, bass, and drums, and learning piano. I cover the rest. If she's home (which she isn't tonight, so I'll probably play the piano with the headphones on), we're jamming for an hour or two. Period. And if the weather's nice, we usually go outside at night and play trumpet duets. We've got tons of them, so it's almost always sight-reading.
Anyway, check out this recording from the 8th grade and think how strong a trumpeter she likely is now, considering that she practices one to two hours a night in addition to our jam sessions, and you won't be far off. She's now better than I ever was (and I was a trumpet player in the Army band as my job description, though piano was what I played -- and taught piano, bass, and brasses when I got out of the army), except that I can still play higher than she can. She tops out at the E three ledger lines above the staff. I top out at the G or A above that, depending on how my chops feel when I try. Higher than her, but not much. She smokes me on technique.
I'll try to get these other ones converted so I can post them.
Edit: Forgot to add that she's always first chair in district and regional band and band camps now, and getting higher chairs each year in state. Her solos have all been one-ratings, except for her performance at State this past year, which we thought was very deserving of a 1, but she got dinged for "interpretation". Ticked us off. She actually played the song (Goedecke's Concert Etude) as a song rather than mechanically, and we played it as fast as we've ever heard it played, but we figure the judges have always heard it performed mechanically and didn't like hearing it otherwise.
We always kid the students when they go for rides with us in the instructor sessions that if we start hearing the beginnings of a technicolor yawn, we'll just reach over and flip their helmet visor down.
My daughter's been wanting to go to Woot Camp for years. She's finally old enough and will likely audition for the next one.
Hadn't heard this particular recording before. Thanks for the link, Missy. Don't know if I'll ever get to hear it at home, though. Boogerville dialup. Blowing up about 2 minutes into it.
Is Vic amazing or what?
In case you're wondering how he can play so many notes in so short a time, he's got a really unique way he uses his right hand. Uses his fingers in both directions, though mostly his thumb in both directions and doing conventional plucking with his fingers (but all four of them), so one quick flick of the wrist for him is typically 6 notes. And that's before hammers and pulls.
On the Outbound CD, when he's riffing during a bass solo, you can barely hear "I get paid by the note". <g>
My daughter and I both have added his two-direction thumb thing to our bag of tricks and I also made sure when I first started teaching her bass that she plucks with all of her fingers, rather than just her thumb and/or index finger like most players (even professionals) do.
She plays trumpet and bass in her school's stage-band "Soundwave" and has a picture on her wall she put together called "Alternative Soundwave" and has Vic on Bass, Neil Peart on drums, and Maynard Ferguson on trumpet.
She's also got Vic's playlist from the concert in Columbia, signed by Vic, Bela, and Jeff (Jeff Coffin, their sax player -- I don't much like sax but could listen to him all day). Framed along with her ticket to the show.
I'll have to check my Treo to see if I took a picture of it. I took a few pictures on that trip.
I think the one I saw an an 03. It was blue, the seat was quite a bit different (he had a passenger on the nearly non-existent, ummmmm, "passenger" seat) and the wheels were solid billet machined pieces.
Probably one of my 5 favorite episodes. It was on the other night.
There are some episodes I really hate. Especially Mr. Garrison's sex change. Where they showed real footage of such an operation. Funny, I like. Gross, I like if it's also funny. Gross when it's just to shock or just for the sake of grossness, I despise. That would've been a particularly funny episode (and subtle-preachy, like most episodes are, though I don't mind since I agree with their sermons for the most part) if not for that specific footage.
That's really good for an American long-stroke v-twin to break through the 1 horse per 10cc's limit that the Japanese were the first to smash.
Didn't see any info on the valvetrain, but there was a very subtle yet audible whine from it that was directly related to engine speed. Couldn't find a supercharger on it, so I'm assuming it's a gear-driven camshaft.
The Alabama Man bit is in the Chinpoko episode of South Park. Like most South Park (IMO), hilarious!
As far as the Flecktones goes, my musical tastes are extemely eclectic, so it would've been predictable I'd like them enough to make a 3-hour trip so my daughter and I could see them in concert, literally leaning against the stage in front of the bass player. Only a week after her first rock concert (Rush). She got her new Stradivarious trumpet and saw her biggest music idols all in the span of a week.
Surprisingly, people I know who have more specific musical tastes have universally liked the Live at the Quick DVD, regardless of what their specific musical taste might be.
They really defy categorization, but if you had to try to classify them, I think it'd be "Jazz meets Funk, and gives Bluegrass a nod as it walks by."
The leader may play a banjo and used to be best-known for Bluegrass, but that's definitely not what the band does.
I ran across them accidentally one weekend when DirecTV featured them as one of their "Freeview" concerts, meaning their concert was every other one on channel 103 every weekend that month.
Tuned to it when their bass player (Victor Wooten, who I'd surprisingly never heard of prior to that -- bass is my main instrument) was doing a long solo based on "Amazing Grace". My jaw dropped and I was hooked. Ended up watching that show about a dozen times that month and recorded it. Loaned the tape to a friend and he never gave it back (he was hooked), so got the DVD when it came out.
To give a sample of how eclectic this band is, right now they're performing a song where one guy's playing a recorder and another is soloing on a bassoon that's running through a device that makes chords out of what he's playing. And now they're in a part of the song where Bela (banjo) and Sandip Burman (tabla) are riffing back and forth.
So, for the past half hour or so, I've been picturing the "Alabama Man" bit from South Park.
Despite the fact that I'm watching "Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Live at the Quick" on DVD right now.
Wait a sec. Alabama. Bela (though not from Alabama) plays banjo. Maybe there IS a tie-in.
If we go the route of having a 3-judge panel, or simply using the Survey system to gather community votes, the bottom line is whatever route we take has to have as little of my involvement as possible. I just want to eventually end up with a list of what I'm buying.
But there won't be any rules-changing or anything like that. If we set out to do it as a Survey-based community vote thing, that's what we'll stick with. Same if we select 3 judges from the community.
And by "we", I really mean Dave and Matt. <g>
What's the story on the V-Rod? I saw one on the first poker run I've ever participated in (in 30 years of motorcycling) and it was awesome!
But the guy said it was 1100 cc's and also said it was 110 cubic inches, which are two very different displacements (by about 50%).
How big is that engine, what's the whine I'm hearing from it (gear-driven cams?) and what do they cost?
BTW, motorcycling has come a long way. I've always gotten along well with "bikers" because though I prefer Japanese iron, I'm very hard-core about it.
There were probably something like 80 bikes, almost exclusively Harleys, but my BMW was getting a lot of attention. Lots of dropped jaws when I'd use the electric centerstand. And I was told by a participant that I was particularly welcome because they viewed Beemer riders as more of a polo-shirt wearing snooty group, and I was one that was just enjoying two-wheeling.
I plan on doing a lot of poker runs. Ride, drink a beer, repeat 5 times. Love it!
Has your friend checked their PM's? That's how we ask people for the particulars.
In any event, PM me the info and I'll see to it that it's taken care of. Keeping in mind that the XL's are gone and all we've got left in any quantity is Large.
No, I just need to stay on top of inventory so we either have new ones around when we run out of these, to give to annual subscribers, or remove the blurb about free ones being included with annuals.
Handling t-shirts eats up a couple of hours a week when someone knows all the steps. Since as far as we know right now, the new bookkeeper is just a temp to ensure that all of the bookkeeping and filing are correct, I'll probably be dealing with t-shirts myself later. And won't be the least bit happy about it.
Too many hands on my time and I'm at my crankiest when other things interfere with the jobs I *should* be doing.
<smack>
Oops. Wrong wife.
Paulie, you following this?
If so, these I've gotta see!
I'm sure you know the 15 minutes bit was facetious. Took a pretty long time (might've been weeks) but was actually a lot of fun to write. I'd never done point-of-sale stuff before, but I'd written some really hairy inventory management systems (including some really sophisticated forecasting of inventory needs as much as a year away), so that part of it was a walk in the park.
Since we'll always give perks to annual subscribers, and the quantity of those kinds of subscriptions has gone up enough that there's a lot of manual effort involved, (secretary has to PM the person for their address and shirt size, then send one if/when they reply), it's really about time I tied the subscription process to the online store, so they could select what they want, enter their address, and inventory would be relieved automatically.
That we haven't been doing that is why it came as a surprise to me that inventory was getting really low. Actually, even that was accidental. We've got a new bookkeeper (we go through them like Spinal Tap went through drummers) and when I was in the safe looking for old files she'd need, I noticed only one t-shirt box remaining and it wasn't completely full.
Hopefully this bookkeeper will be a keeper since she definitely knows accounting and bookkeeping very well (turns out to be a scarce skillset within commuting distance of Boogerville) and lives just 10 minutes away.
And she seems to get my tenet of "The day we get the bill is the day we pay the bill". Haven't had one of those around here in a long time!
I'm guessing both. Polo shirts are real simple. Although I suppose there are color choices.
Most of the driving schools I instruct at give polo shirts to all participants, so my closet is real full of them. My favorite is a BMW one that's white with black collar and black on the edges of the sleeves.
Edit: re-read the above paragraph leaving the "r" out of "polo shirts" like I initially (accidentally) did and you'll see why I'm finding out right now how well the Vaio handles coffee on the keyboard. So far, so good... <bzzzzt>
I like that a lot for a coffee mug.
Might want to start a separate thread for this. Not only for polo shirt design, but to figure out what other things people would like us to sell that they'd actually buy and I wouldn't have to work my way through them every time I need an old file.
Of course, polo shirts are real simple. No reason to have much if anything more than our logo and URL.
Yes, I'd rather go with polo's, too.
Will want to order whatever qty gets us the best price per unit since we'll eventually use 'em all, and much more quickly this time.
Might be time to come up with some other items to sell, too. I went to all that trouble to write an online store...
I'm all for the next t-shirt being a community effort. Ideally, I'd like us to have a t-shirt that's so desirable that people will buy them outright from the company store, and us not have to send them only with annual subscriptions.
And since our membership base is so much larger now than it was when we first got these t-shirts, I wouldn't expect them to sit around here for nearly as long if we keep sending them with annual subscriptions.
Matt? Got time to coordinate t-shirt design?