Christmas lights!!

Almost a week after Chrismas I know. But at least we didn't have to deal with the holiday crowds.

Me, T, Jarod and T's family went into Salt Lake City to see the lights at the temple. I am not big on the whole Jeebus thing, but they certainly lit the place up with taste. We got there a bit early so went through a few of the visitor centers. It is interesting to be in such a place. We got to see where the Tabernacle Choir sings during ta majority of the year. There is this monstrous pipe organ in there. Really a cool looking place.

Now before anyone bawls me out about the Mormons and their Pro 8 stance. I have my own opinions about it, and my own issues about religions getting involved in the legislative process, but this hasn't got anything do with that aspect of the bible folk. This is pretty lights, and glowing space Jesus.



And glowing space Jesus says to leave him the fuck out of it. Because it's his fucking b-day and he just wants some cake and ice cream. Angel food preferably with some rocky road. And a bottle of wine. Jesus loves his wine.

So here are the lights.







And two people I adore.

Have yourself....

A merry little Christmas...



Let's get it going the right way.

I am such a fuckin' artist!

Someday, people will be lining up to buy my art. I am a Picasso, because when you look at my stuff, you have no idea what to make of it.

Merry Christmas, and a happy snow storm.

More snow. A lot more snow. So far I think we have gotten another 3-5 inches since this morning and it doesn't look like it is gonna let up for a while.

Jack is having fun, but he does have a fur coat. Me I have an old field jacket that keeps me warm enough, but I sure the hell won't be jumping in the snow. I am too old and delicate for that stuff anymore.



We are down to one boy right now. T's son went down to Cali to visit with his dad for the next two weeks. While noise drives me nuts, it is still way too quiet here. And Jarod's already going crazy without his partner in crime.

So we are celebrating another broke Christmas. Me and T are pretty well gonna do some stocking stuffers, but hold off our gifts for the kids. But tomorrow is my b-day and she got me something pretty special...



BEER!!

Utah has these strange draconian liquor laws where you really can't get anything stronger than piss water anywhere but the state liquor stores. Can't be that bad, can it? Well a 12 pack of Bass will set you back about 13 bucks, before taxes. And they tax the shit outta drunks here. So yesterday when we traded off Austin out in Cedar City, this came in a couple of holiday bags.

This is full strength beer. No Utah stickers on it. No reformulation to fit in their laws. And you can't get a fucking 6 pack of Fat Tire in this state. Well maybe you can, but I haven't found any yet.

Happy Holidays everyone, I am gonna get me a buzz going and hopefully the alcohol will keep me warm and pliable.

WTF is this white shit?!

It just ain't right. Too damn cold for this thin fucking blood.

I am gonna go hibernate. Seriously. Wrap up in the comforter with a case of Doritos and a case of beer. Don't bother me until it get back in the 50's. Thank you very fucking much!

I win!! The leaky radiator saga.

There are some times where life decides that you suck and it is gonna try and make things as difficult as it possibly can.

And so begins the saga of the leaky Elantra.

It started maybe two years ago. I have a little Elantra that really is my beat-to-death commuter car. I really have no love for it. It replaced the full size Dodge truck that I really dug. I bought it for the simple fact that it got nearly 30MPG next to the trucks 14MPG and would not eat me out of house and home in fuel costs. And that has been a true statement for a while now. I have driven the wheels off of the fucker.

A while back I noticed a seep in the upper radiator hose and ignored it. I never lost enough water to even concern myself with it. Hell, I have driven it for two years like that. You wouldn't think that I enjoyed to wrench on cars with an attitude like this, but I was broke, worked too much and just didn't care. So leak it did.

Last July we even drove it down to California with that same leaky upper radiator hose. 1600 miles round trip and still nothing bad happened. Since gas prices were through the roof T started to use the car for a while. Then it decided to spring a leak down around the lower radiator hose.

So I decided that since the leak spread, it was time for me to get a fixin' on it.

Well upper and lower hoses were replaced. Everything should be copacetic again, right? Wrong, oh so fucking wrong. The leak got worse. So the houses were pulled, things were cleaned, new clamps were put on. Still no fucking luck. But I hardly go anywhere so we decided that until I find the source of the drippings the car would stay here.

Anyway, I finally deduced that it was the radiator, considering it is nearly 6 years old, never really been serviced, and just run for about 130,000 miles, it was probably due.

I had hoped to get it last week before Thanksgiving, but no luck.

So a few days of feasting and games and driving all over hell's half acre. The Hyundai decided it was sick of my shit and let itself puke antifreeze all over the place. It became apparent that the upper jug had started to leak on the radiator and it was not gonna keep together much longer.

But we had a nice Thanksgiving nonetheless. Here is a Thanksgiving night shot. We were playing Clue with T's family that night. And you can probably figure out who the ugly mug on the left belongs to.



Well today I got the radiator in, from NAPA. They had a pretty nice price, but shipping time sucked ass!

But after some wrestling and wrangling, it looks like I am now leak free!

You can see the mess I started with.







Oooh pretty!



And let's compare the two. Can you guess which one is the good radiator and which one is the leaky shitbox?



And here she is, all put back together. Yay!!!



I did learn a few lessons along the way.

1. Pull the extra shit off, it really helps. And removing the fans and stupid crap like that was actually pretty damn easy. It gave me enough room that I didn't shave my knuckles trying to tighten the hoses.

2. Fixing cars sucks ass in the winter time. I am so getting me a heater for the garage and moving all that shit out of the other half of it. It wasn't very cold, but cold still sucks and if I didn't like it today I can guess how I am going to feel about it when there is 6 inches of snow on the ground.

Back again with an update. Sorta

So no updates since I haven't done any work. I still have the studs in the motor. And it is still hanging out in a corner of the desk/work table in the garage. Lately I have been getting things sorted out here at the house. Thanksgiving is coming soon and we are going to be shopping for food and getting the house cleaned up for T's folks to stay for a little while.

One recent project was refinishing a table. We had this little hand me down from my sister, it has worked well but really was not the best table for family use. Just a little round bistro type table. In our move, our old neighbors offered up an old table of theirs that was in storage. We figured that it could be a good craft table for the basement or maybe even get the "Shabby Chic" treatment and maybe be a useful table. It was definitely more solid than what we were using, and also had an extra leaf to allow for more than four people to sit and have a meal.

So this is what we started with.


And here is what we ended up with after a lot of sanding, black paint and some poly wood stain.


Quite a transformation it was. And definitely well worth the effort.

Now also that last few weeks I have been struggling in a couple of my classes. One was algebra, which when I picked out the class I figured wouldn't be so bad. Back in the time that I went to school I had made it and passed geometry, so I assumed that algebra would be a no-brainer. Well I was fucking wrong. Even after trying to cram the last couple of weeks I bombed the class. And bombed bad.

So the rules are for University of Phoenix is that when you are complete aid, if you fail a class, you have to pay out of pocket for it. It is a great motivator. But really sucks ass when you do fail. So now I have to figure out a way to scrape up a grand for that class before I can go any further. And to think I was at the last pair of classes for the halfway mark to my AA.

The holidays are coming close, so I am not gonna stress on it too much right now. Considering it is gonna be tight enough as it goes, and time will be non-existent anyhow. So I will probably get back to everything after the first of the year.

Public service announement.

Today is Election day.

So please, vote. I don't give a fuck for whom, just go and vote.

Don't let less than half of the country decide how the rest of it should be run. Be heard!

Getting settled in.

It's bigger, it's taller, it's SUBURBIA!!!


That's right, I am in the "heartland." Social conservatives surround me. I am surprised that I don't go into hives. Never did understand those people. I mean really, let's go over this thing.

Let's make God worship a national law.
Let's rewrite the Constitution to exclude the gays from marriage.
Let's tell women what to do with their bodies.
Let's let the CIA and NSA tape and spy on anyone they wish.

But we want less government....

Umm..

Forgive me if I am a little confused.

It's only a few weeks until election time and you can probably guess that I am not voting Republican. Now here is the sad part. I spent the last decade registered as a Libertarian. I recently re-registered for Utah and changed over to an Independent. Which means that I fucking hate them all. But I will pick whatever S.O.B. doesn't totally disgust me. And I also won't feel a lick of guilt voting against a rat-bastard that has gone from someone that I would have cheered all the way to the White House 8 years ago, to being some type of pandering elephant cock-sucker.

Too bad I am not exactly energized about the other one either. But at least I don't get a "I have been touched where my bathing suit goes" kind of nasty feeling from that one.

Here's the thing. I am a FISCAL conservative. I don't want them wasting my money. I don't want them letting our jobs go away. I don't want crap from China to replace American made crap. But I don't give a rat's ass what you do. Just don't do it to children, the unwilling, or me. Maybe I am wrong, but isn't that what freedom should really mean?

Ah well, fuck it.

Boredom

So T has been gone since Wednesday. And Her little one went to visit relatives in Cali. So it has been me and my boy hanging out for the last few days. Now I love my boy, but this really has been the first time in the last year that I haven't been around T. So needless to say, I am a touch on the stir-crazy side. But she will be home in a couple of days. And the boy is also gonna be back in a couple of days. So we will return to normal, abnormal.

On to the good stuff - The Garage!!

Can we get a fuck yeah?



Yeah I got me a spot in the garage. That used to be our office desk, but it won't fit down the stairs to the basement. So it stayed upstairs. And we didn't need it inside, so I figured that since I needed a work bench that it would stay in the garage.





There is still a lot of clean up to make the garage really usable. But I am making a dent. I pulled a couple of the studs out of the engine today, but still have a lot to do. But I will be back out there cleaning and getting things in order.

And what doesn't fit in the garage. Goes to the shed!!



Sweet to have the storage. I am just diggin on this place. Plus I really don't feel like packing again anytime soon.

Finally!

We are moved!

So we have honestly been moved for a couple of weeks, but I am just now getting back in the groove.

With getting the new digs ready, packing, unpacking, getting the Intarwebs going and then catching back up with class and work, I just didn't want to be arsed with the blog.

So let's talk about the house.

Here's where we started.



Sadly enough the previous tenants were evicted, so while the place wasn't destroyed, it looks like they did get to the point of I.D.G.A.F. So the place stank of animal, and we aren't talking about the smell of dog and cat bodies, but the stench of dog urine and such. And grubby kid marks and crap like that.

And some paint and a *lot* of carpet cleaning later, we had this...



Now, I can't take any credit for this stuff. It was honestly 90% T's work. I would come after work and do what painting and cleaning I could. But since she is home for right now, she was able to do all the major shit during the day while the boys were at school and I was in the basement. Honestly, if it wasn't for her we wouldn't have finished in time.

So where does that leave us? Well it's bigger for starters. About twice the size of the last place. The garage is a bit larger and I now have a shed to store the stuff that isn't being worked on right at the moment.

Unfortunately, the garage still has junk laying around from the move. Some goes to the basement, other stuff goes to the shed. And I will get on it soon. We still have a bunch of yard work left to do before the season totally changes, but it is getting nicer in that respect also.

This is from last week.


I swear I have cleaned up some since then. It still isn't clean enough to park a car. But soon. Mainly because winter will be here soon and my ass is not going out into the snow to warm up my car. Hell no.

So I am still trying to get stuff situated, but hopefully I will get it done here soon and get back on task.

And I will leave with the view from my smoking section.
The big picture.

And the blog picture.

Whaddya want? A rubber biscuit??

OK. Nothing of any significance to post ATM. But here is the news of late.

Site has been redesigned some. A color change, a header change, and I decided to add a couple of shirts through spreadshirt.com. Just look at the link to the right. ->

You know part of me is tempted to be the foul mouthed version of the Video Professor. "Buy my fuckin' shit, please."

T didn't get the job in Arizona. Can't say that I am distraught about it. It sucks she lost her work because she had to work for a pack of two-bit swindlers. Two weeks and she still hasn't gotten the vacation pay one of the owners ( Richard Paul Evans ) promised her. Yeah some religious do-gooder fuck. He has a ranch, a BMW, and can fly his happy, over-coiffed ass all over the place. But won't foot the bill for a few weeks of vacation pay. I guess you don't get to be a millionaire without fucking over someone along the way.

But anyway. Got a couple of hopeful interviews in the pipelines, just trying to get it all finished up. Fingers crossed I can do these people some justice.

I picked up a little side job for a few bucks. Looking pretty long term. So that is keeping my evenings full also. And last week I just finished my finals for two classes i was doing. This next round of classes put me at one year. One year! Who the hell would have thought I would get this far? I sure didn't.

Plus the four of us are moving. So on the first I will be in some new digs. I will post up some pictures when we get the place cleaned up. We worked a deal to paint and clean up and in exchange it will cover our pet deposit and first months rent! w00t!! So the next couple of weeks are gonna be pretty well insane.

Heeerrre's Jay!

As I mentioned in my last post. I had something minor up my sleeve. Well I guess it is major for this blog.

With all the goings on with me and my build, I have a bit of downtime and too broke to buy tools time. So I started thinking bout what to do here.

I have posted some YouTube shit. But really I figure that is mostly for people that haven't got a single thing to say. And me? I always got an opinion or something stupid to say.

So in a flash of brilliance, I figure that I would show someone else's stuff here. I know, not really anything new. There are tons of blogs that send out interview questions to other people.

Well, here is my twist.

See I know everyone wants to suck on the teat of some guy that has been building works of H-D art in their shop for the last 25 years. The poor unrecognized soul that has won awards but can't leap that fence to make them the next OCC or WCC. That is not my goal. I am not looking for the one we admire because of all their innate skills and the masterpieces they have created, while "Keeping it real, man."

These posts will be of regular folk. That have done good quality work. Maybe it was their first bike. Maybe it has been a long trend. But these are low-buck beauties that have something special. I am not talking about some piece of shit that a guy took a can of Krylon to, and tossed on a set of ape hangers and then called it a bobber. I am not talking about the schmuck that tossed a set of dirtbike bars on their Yamaha 250 and now is calling it a cafe racer.

These will (hopefully) people that have brought back to life a killer bike, or have made something unique all on their own. People that had limited experience on bikes, that tossed a bunch of work or luck into the mix and made something to make the rest of us broke fuckers want to be half as good.

Plus, these will not be Harley and Brit bikes. There are already people doing a much better job at that market than I ever could. So I will stick to our rice burning and bastard child brands.

So here is the first installment.



This here is JaySco from hondachopper.com and his resurrected Denver's CB750. I got to see this bike while it was still in pieces in his garage back in California. I had just picked up my project and was prowling for anyone that had any old crap to give away to a broke ass divorced fuck. And Jay, without ever actually meeting me, invited me to his house and gave me a few odds and ends to help me along. Plus I got a coffee can to put some shit into as well. Talk about one quality guy. And I am damn glad I got to meet him before I shipped out to the land of Moroni.

But enough of my shit. Time to let JaySco speak for himself.


How long have you been riding motorcycles for? Street and dirt.
Didn't ride really until about a year and a half ago. The Denvers Chop is my first bike. Had a quad for a couple years a while back.


What made you want to take on this project? Basically, what made you say to yourself, "I can do this or I can at least give it a shot"?
Money. I wanted a bike but didn't have the cash to shell out for a new fancy one with the kids, mortgage, blah blah. Buddy of mine had the roller and was low on funds so I got an almost complete bike for $1000. Figured I'm a fast learner and have a little mechanical and electrical knowledge, why not give it a shot.



How did you find the bike, and what is its history?
The bike belonged to a brother of a friend of a friend (yup, one of those stories), anywho, dude had it since it was new as far as I know and my buddy tried getting it for years cuz it was just sitting there getting raped by the local tweakers. So my buddy gets it and comes up on hard times about a year later, so I pick it up and thats that. I didn't realize exactly what it was till I started asking questiond and posting pics on the net.


Any horror stories on the build itself?
It went surprisingly smooth, like I said the bike was almost complete so I didn't need to do any major work. Just a basic tear down/rebuild because it had been sitting for 15+ years. All the major stuff was there (frame, motor, front end, tins), I just needed to sort out the little odds and ends (all the electrical, cables, etc.). Even the SPCN inspection at the CHP went good, from what I hear that is a rare situation.



What kind of tools and equipment did you have access to?
Just basic hand tools and power tools at home, had access to a drill press and welders at work. Luckily that's all I needed.


Do you have any tips for someone else thinking of taking on the same kind of project?
When you say "tips", are you asking for a donation? Pay close attention to everything, check welds on the frame (I didn't), inspect the motor closely (I didn't), take lots of pics and keep everything organized (I didn't). Do it right, not like I did it. This was my first bike and first build, luckily I'm a lucky SOB. I plan on stripping it and doing it up right in the future.



What are you working on now?
I have a stock 1978 cb750F that I am working on as time and cash allow (see 3 kids+wife+mortgage above), plans are to hardtail with a little rear stretch and drop.....hell thats about it. just want to ride it. Also have a Suzuki dirt bike that was the first bike I ever rode twenty-something years ago. Little 70's 2 stroke thing.

We got somethin' special (ed) for you.

That's right boy and girl. I have something in the works, hopefully here very soon. Just keep an eye on this space. Soon you should see a nice new piece in my hopelessly inane style.

Here (For Now)

For anyone that also knows me from other boards, I was asking about the lay of the land in Arizona.

T was interviewing with the people that just bought out her company, and it was looking pretty good. Well not sure what happened, but they decided not to hire her on. Probably not wanting to deal with paying her benefits and such. (They were a start-up)

Anyway, it had put the Honda on hold. But since it looks like we are sticking around for a bit longer, I will be getting out in the garage again to keep on dismantling things. So depending on the finances over the next few months, hopefully there will be a bit of progress.

Been listening to some Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love lately, so I will leave you with something from YouTube.

No updating for now.

Things are happening right now. So we are on another hiatus. I should know something soon.

http://toothpastefordinner.com

Hahahaha!!! I win!

Time to start scrubbing it off. It only took a drill, a lead mallet, a cold chisel, and a gian flathead screwdriver.

Simple.

Two down and two more to go. Fuck.

Cold chisels rock. I have been grinding and pounding away on those Headnuts. For a while nothing was happening. But I changed tactics. I went from my small light duty tack hammer to my little lead persuader. I love that thing. Thump! Thump! Thump! And the nuts began to spin off.

Excuse the blurry photos.





I am definitely going to need to replace the studs now. But it really is the least of my concerns. So off with their heads!

Well that was easy (the tale of two years worth of dumbass decisions)

So back about a year and a half ago, I pulled my girder apart. Well I buggered up all the threads on the studs for it.



So here I am thinking that I am as good as fucked. I have gone back and forth over this for nearly two years now. (two years!!!!!!!!!!) Do I fix it? Do I scrap it? How do I fix it?

So I have tried to cut the studs down and put new ones in. I have looked at drilling and tapping. Then started to think that maybe I should just say fuck it and get a DNA and put it on.

A while back I did try and weld the studs in. Of course that worked splendidly. Shit all fucked up and off center. So I just put it off to the side and figured that when it is time, I would do something.

Well I have been fucking around on it lately. Here is the thought...

Grind the step off and get it all flush. Weld the legs of the girder together and drill and tap it to accept bolts. Find some type of hardened steel bolt that would work with the girder. Jig it all up to be straight and weld.

A couple of weeks ago I started on this project. I cut the buggered studs off and got back down to the original steps. I had always assumed that this was just the head of another bolt. I hesitated to weld it, because I didn't want to fuck up the only mostly good chrome I had. I gave up on it. Burn motherfucker, burn.

Rather than grind it totally flush, I figured I would cut it at the weld and see if I can get it to fall off naturally, or chisel it off.

When I got to grinding off the weld, it all began to come to pieces pretty easy. That's when I found this.



Looks like they had a special stud build for it. Basically with a locater stud in the back. The trees are also drilled for this stud. Pretty damn neat. Guess it cut down on the possibility for a fuck up. That is until I got my greasy mitts on it.



After I cut the studs out, I took a stone on the dremel and smoothed off the welds and got it nice and flat. So it shouldn't be too bad to get it back together. When I am ready to replace the studs, I will build a jig to get everything in alignment.

I also started to grind the tops of those fucked up studs off.



It's going to take a little while to get all four down. Thankfully they make replacement studs, so I don't have to be delicate.

A story of tragedy and hope with Rosanna Rosannadanna for good measure.

What's there to say? I have been working piece by piece to get those damn fucking rounded off stuck ass nuts off my head on the motor. Stupid (proceeding to go into cussing up a blue streak) just won't budge. So I have resorted to going at it the old fashioned way. A cold chisel and hammer. I went over to Cycle Exchange's site and they offer replacement studs for relatively cheap. So if I bugger up the threads I will just get new replacements. This damn motor better not be a boat anchor.

Recently, one of the sites I have frequented has decided to go to a mostly H-D and British format, so while I might be welcome there still, I am not quite as interested in the threads currently being posted. But during the fallout that came from the adjustment of format, someone at the site decided to have a go at creating a forum that would be accepting to older metric bikes. The Metric Underground. is still pretty young and as of right now doesn't have quite the traffic of some of the more established sites. I do have my hopes up and keep an eye on what is going on. And I am trying to be somewhat useful, if I can be. So if you are riding or cutting up something older and metric, check them out.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of catching something from Joss Whedon called Dr Horrible's Sing Along blog. Personally I thought it was a hoot. My girl, not so much. But I decided to check out the company that hosts the video, hulu.com and found a damn nice site. It has a few current television series that you can watch on deman. Plus some movies free to watch. Damn sweet site. Now I really can't stand to watch new SNL stuff. I pretty well think they should go off the air now. And then get replaced by a show that is actually funny, I did find some gems from the true heyday of SNL. And I had to share them with you, my faithful readers. (Both of you. I really mean it. I love you guys.) So enjoy.

Still haven't learned to leave well enough alone.

So with the chop laying more or less stagnant in the garage, I look at it multiple times every day. See I keep my smoking seats there and also the bicycles. Plus it is easier to leave the house through the garage than the front door. (That fucker gets hot from the sun in the afternoons.)

A couple of days ago I figured that I may as well get to doing some work on the damn thing before it decided to rot into its base elements.

So I drug out my handy angle grinder. I am guessing this thing is not more than 15 years old. It is a hand-me-down and things are going further and further out of spec, it is still spinning along and has yet to fail me. So I took the grinder and began to clean up the stuff I had done to my Fury a while back. I won't lie, I am still not sure if I am keeping it, but I might as well take off my fuck ups in case I try to save it.



During this time I was also "cleaning up" the garage. Which is to say I was out there making a bigger mess and putzing around with all the stuff I was pulling out of boxes.



And while I was at it took a good shot of my old Davey Crockett (sp?) forward. Got a set and I need to clean them up. But since I do plan on going jockey shift, they will be getting some modifications done.



After I did the girder pieces (still not totally finished getting them flush to the trees) I put the wire wheel on the grinder to see if I could clean up the chrome on my valve covers. It didn't work. Looks like I will probably have to locate a media blaster and get them down past the old chrome and then polish them up from there.



The wheel is getting pretty tired and has begun to fling pieces of wire while it's running. So I was tagged a few times. And even had a couple pieces hit me in my angelic face (angelic HA!). But I had to get a pic of this one. I was smoking while I performed this bit of masochistic metalwork. And one wire decided to embed itself right in my Camel.



So I figure that I should purchase a new wire wheel before I do any more of that work.

Now a while back I actually had some money so I picked up a few things from Tommy over on the Honda Chopper board. ( http://lowridersbysummers.com ) So I have this snazzy set of new gaskets for my motor.



I had just assumed that the set was just the regular engine gaskets and nothing particular big. Well I was wrong. It came with new head and base gaskets and a host of other goodies that I probably would need sooner or later.

So I started thinking. Why not just tear the motor down and replace the gaskets? I can get inside and check out the motor and maybe get some other work done while I am at it.

So yesterday I started to pull the head.







Then ran into a big fucking snag. There are four head nuts that sit out in the weather. Well they are corroded, and I think that the PO thought that they needed to keep the fuckers nice and tight. Tight enough to strip the sides off a couple of the nuts. Sigh. So here I am with a half disassembled head and four nuts rusted and stripped and generally stuck. And of course they are stuffed down in the sparkplug hole. So I have to figure out how to get them off without hosing the heads. I will try to use my dremel kit to cut out the nuts, or may just drill them and cold chisel them the rest of the way off.

Why am I starting to worry about what I am gonna find inside?