Tim's personal blog

Through Illinois, through Iowa, and just across the border into Omaha, NE (Nope, no Marlin Perkins). Over 400 miles (442 miles), and I'm beat. I'll take it a little slower now, since I've reached the halfway point in three days. I tell you what... if I don't see another corn field for another 30 years, it won't be too soon. Miles and miles of corn fields!

I'm staying in a Best Western, in not the nicest part of town. I hope my truck and trailer make it through the night intact! I brought the lockbox and a few other things up to the room, just in case.

Well, today was a long drive. I put on over 50 miles to make it to Laurie and Wally's house, where we have a great 4th of July dinner, watched 'The Hangover' (funny movie!), all while having a fantastic fireworks show put on by the neighors! I got to sleep in a REAL bed too!

On Saturday, 7/3/10, I started my trek westward. Gee, that sounds so simple, but what a fight to even get out of the driveway!

Well, yesterday, I gave my notice at my day job. I've been there for about 18 years, so it was sort of a bitter-sweet moment. I'll be moving out to a sister facility in Washington State, but away from my east coast roots. I think the hardest part of this move is that it is right in the middle of Mom going through rehab for a hip replacement. She's in a nursing home because she needs 24/7 care due to her femur splitting when they hammered the new joint into place. Blech. I hate leaving her like that, but at least Vicky is staying behind to get the house on the market, and she can provide some moral support. Mom should be back on her feet in 5 weeks, back home in less, I'm hoping!

Also, Coastal Internet, Inc. is closing it's doors after 15 years, and opening up under new management and ownership as Coastal Internet Technologies. I'll be around in the background providing free support, but the operations are going to be handled by the new owners, who are in NY State, where most of the clients are. All you customers want to see a face every once in a while, right?

In a just a while, our President will be giving his State of the Union address. I'm wondering if he's looking at the same Union as the rest of us?

One of our greatest Presidents once said " ... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." In case that's not familiar to anyone, that was said on November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, buy President Lincoln. He's rolling over in his grave now, because we no longer have a government 'of the people, by the people, for the people'. It has perished. We now have a government 'of the lobbys, by the lobbys, for the lobbys'. We have a congress and President that doesn't listen to the public, the people that voted them into office. We didn't want to bail out the banks and get all the debt associated with it, but did they listen? We said we didn't want the healthcare crap, but guess what's being voted on? Hey Congress... you work for US, remember? First, before you try any of these hairbrained plans on us, you should try them yourself for a few years!

Another well known document said that we as citizens have "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". I don't think universal healthcare is in there!

I think I'll vote for no term limits... as long as they are not consecutive terms. The last half of every term is spent campaigning for the next term. On our dime! What happens to us? We have to take unpaid leave of absences when we do that. OK, so we vote them in for a term, they should work that full term. Then spend the next term trying to get back in. If they were as good as they think they were, we'll invite them back, right? Oh, and this fabulous pension they get? What? Since when does volunteering to take a public service job entitle you to this pay for life? We paid you to do a job, well paid, I might add, considering how little you actually work, and now when you 'retire' or get voted out, we have to support you the rest of your life? How come that doesn't work for the rest of us? It's our tax dollars... why don't the 'people' have a say in this. Oh, right... Congress will never vote that kind of thing into being. OK, how about, all the new Congressional members have new restrictions. We can vote on that! And how many 'aides' do you need to do your job? If you can't do your job with just a few staffers... uh... you're fired, due to incompetence!

This is the greatest nation in the world. We, the people, need to take it back from the self serving legislators and lobbys. I hope it's not too late for us.

Many of you that know me know my feelings about Google... "Google is Evil". As a virtual online monopoly, I do not trust their motives. Their goal as a publicly held company is to make money, and they make it by gathering data. From your email/gmail. From your web queries. From your Google Voice account; you get the picture. I use a lot of these services because they are convenient, but there's always this little niggling fear in the back of my head every time I use one of them because I know I'm feeding the beast. When Google opened up their .cn site and started censoring the returned queries, I felt they proved how 'evil' they really were, despite their "do no evil" schtick.

When Google announced their discovery of hacking from China (now there's a shock to anyone in the computer security arena), and publicly stated that they were thinking about pulling out of the country, that rocked me back on my heels a bit, as they were starting to literally putting their money where their mouth was! Now, a week or so after their public swing at the PRC (Hi guys in China! I know youse guys will find this post) Google still hasn't removed their filters from google.cn, but we'll see. It's a step in the right direction. And Hillary's speech was something too. There's no respect from me toward her, but I applaud the stance of the administration, and hope they start to take a harder line toward protecting our country from the PRC. It's evident from all my colleagues in computer security across the world that this problem isn't unique to the USA, but we have something they want... fine, buy it like everyone else. You hack our systems, you are overtly hostile. US ISPs should simply block whole ASNs associated with China. Not that the millions of Chinese here in the US already couldn't gather what they want...

Oh well. I've got the popcorn, someone else bring the beer. We'll have a year long live soap opera to watch online!

I've done a lot of traveling for work this summer, which took away some of the prime riding time for me. Even so, I'm enjoying the heck out of my bike. When I got it together, it started on the first push of the starter button. OK, the second one... the first time I forgot to turn the key on. Surprisingly, there were no real issues with anything I had done, no major problems. The only issue I have at this point is with the front forks spitting a little oil when I go over rough areas. My guess is that I overfilled them, but I don't care at this point. The paint came out 'okay', but hey, it's a home paint job done out in the backyard. Some light sanding and a good buffing will make a big difference. But that means time off the bike, instead of riding on it!

Sitting and watching the evening news tonight, it occured to me (most likely not an original thought) that the best way to fund health care at the national level is to stop providing free health care to people that are not in this country legally. If you can provide proof of citizenship, or a passport/visa, great... come on in, even if you can't afford it. If you are not in this country legally, and are not paying taxes to support it, well... we wish you luck. Please have cash for the full amount.

Yeah, this sounds harsh. But we are living in a harsh time now. I believe that the 500-700k people that are losing their job each month would like to have a job... any job, and they would actually pay back into the system via taxes. How many millions of jobs are taken by people that are not even here 'technically'.

Flame on...

Well... I've maintained for many years that 'Google is Evil' for various reasons. However, when they released Android as 'truely open, developer friendly platform', I was beginning to have second thoughts on that stance. Today, however, I'm even more firmly standing on that point, they are really and truely evil, only in any venture simply for the money, no matter what they say.

I'm a registered developer for Android. I bought the developer phone for the 'discounted' price of $400. There are certain things that that a developer would expect to have in an open linux-type platform. One would be able to access any device on the system in any way. However, bowing to the great Telecom companys pressure, Google removed the ability to get shell and root access on the system, rendering some programs useless, like the tethering application. According to Google, this was for security reasons. From developers??? Oh wait... T-Mobile and their ilk charge extra for tethering, if it's available at all! To top it off, the system no longer appears to support netfilters (firewalling). You mean we have to have a networked device where firewall ability was removed for security reasons? Uh... no.

I call on Google to restore the functionality it removed, or for the open source developers to abandon Android, since it isn't actually open anymore. Once again, the developers are duped by big business.

Never trust big business!

Over the past two weeks, I've finally gotten to the point where I can start putting things back together.

I replaced the rear main seal behind the flywheel, and, while the fllywheel was out, replaced the oil pump o-ring. I'm not sure which one was leaking, but since the hard part was getting the flywheel out, for the few dollars, I did both.

I pulled both heads and jugs, replaced the leaking push rod tube seals and the base gaskets at the bottom of the cylinder jugs. The right head had the exhaust nut threads completely messed up, so I swapped in the good head from the 73 wreck we had bought. Then everything was bolted back together, and retorqued the next day.

Vicky and I lifted the motor into the frame, and I put the mounts/spacers in place and slid the engine mount bolts home.

Sunday, before I left on a business trip, the front forks were put into the frame along with the nice new steering head bearings. It's going on a little hard, so when I get back, I'll have to see what's really up with that. I hope the threads are OK.

I need to remember to torque down the clutch plate bolts, and set the valve lash since the bike is nice and cold, and do the static timing. Plugs are out and the motor is easy to turn at this point.

I'm getting close! I can't wait to start this up again and get riding!!

We went up to Maine for the holiday weekend. When we got there, our neighbor meets us in the driveway, and announces, "There's been an incident." Huh? It seems like a young moose wandered through his backyard, and across to our back driveway, which is bordered by some young trees and a 20 foot drop to the rocks below. The moose got startled by something, and... you guessed it, took off through the trees and off into... SPLAT! He broke both front legs so badly, they were just hanging on by some skin. Our neighbor called the game warden, who came and went down to the river to try to put the poor animal out of his misery. The moose spooked once again, and somehow swam across the river and out onto the opposite bank. The game warden crossed over the bridge, the moose went back into the water, where the final shot was taken, ending the pain the animal was in.

Now we had a lump of dead moose in the water. If we throw anything into the water, it's breaking the law. However, I guess if you have a badge (and a gun!) the same rules don't apply? Who knows... Anyway, the moose fermented until Monday when it was discovered by a Bald Eagle. I took a few pictures from too far away of the Eagle. It's very cool seeing them around the area again, after being near extinct in the state for many years.

That was our excitement for the weekend. Unusual is normal for us up there...

I am signed up as an Android developer, and just got the G1 phone. Very nice! Of course, one of my ideas is done by someone else already.
The phone is very cool... nice and usable, lots of apps already available for it. I spent the weekend playing with it. Vicky just laughs at me... too many toys and not enough time.

If you take a look at this shot, you'll see that the bike frame is just about as far apart as I can get it. On Friday night, the forks came off and I discovered that the lower steering head bearing is toast. Time to replace that as long as everything is apart. Feel free to look around the album. One of the guys in the LI BMW Riders Club has a bead blaster in his shop, and he will bead blast the tank, swing arm, rear subframe and headlight ears, and I'll strip the frame by hand. Then everything gets the full POR-15 treatment, black for the frame and ears and swingarm, and the tank will wait in primer for the final coat when I have the fenders done too.

I used the POR-15 Marine Clean to clean up the transmission yesterday. That stuff is FANTASTIC! The only thing it didn't do was take the stains off the aluminum, but I'm sure I can find something to actually do that. Next, as I'm waiting, is to degrease the motor, take off the clutch and flywheel, and clean off the crud from the rear end of the motor, and replace the rear seal and o-ring for the oil pump. Then, pull the heads and jugs, and replace the pushrod rubbers, and try to get it all back together. Too much fun for words! No, really... I'm having a blast with this thing. I just hope it all goes back together!

See this shot.

Poor old bike. I've really killed it. Hopefully it goes back together as easy as it came apart!

This past weekend, I got the bike stripped down to the point that I'm ready to take out the engine. Hopefully, my neighbor John will help me lift it out tonight. I spent the better part of the day on Sunday taking out the headlight bucket. I took nearly 100 pictures to help remember where everything goes back together. There are a LOT of wires in that little bucket! I was astounded! Worst case, I'll have Vicky's /6 bucket to help with figuring out what to do. It's not exactly the same, but I hope it'll help. I think all the photos will be my saving grace. The next few weeks will tell. I'm waiting on the POR15 stuff to arrive, then I start stripping the painted parts down to metal, and painting them back up again. This should be 'fun'. Nah, I'm excited. Really. Spring is almost here (we're expecting snow today). I want to ride! The killer is waiting for my transmission to be rebuilt. I'm bring it to Tom Cutter at Rubber Chicken Racing Garage to have it rebuilt by the Master, but that's about 8 weeks out! Waaaah! Patience, young grasshopper...