my own personal laboratory
my own personal laboratory
Since about 2001 I've followed a strict practice of selling off any HP stock I come into as soon as I can. It's worked well with the stock purchase plan as you get to buy at a 15% discount and only have to hold it for about 2 weeks so the risk is low. Two years ago I got some options and exercised half of them last year on the day they vested with plans to exercise the rest this year. Problem is I didn't set myself a reminder and I was too busy with cannonball to remember that they were there.
I remembered them last week when the market tanked. Oops! So much for replacing my 5 year old computer any time soon.
On the 8th day of the cannonball heading into Cincinnati the "route" stayed north and went directly from Indiana into Ohio. However if you were following the GPS and taking the fastest path, As I was, then you hop on 275 and cut through the northern tip of Kentucky. Shortly after crossing the river I'm in the fast lane, full tuck, and then I see it. A yellow road sign (those indicate warning or caution right?) that reads,
"CREATION MUSEUM 11"
As I fumble for my camera at 70mph I realize there's no way I'll get a shot of the sign so I'm just going to have to go there. 11? As in miles? Then I notice I'm passing exit 11 and it's too late to get over to the right to make the exit. Well, At least I got to see the sign.
I went to see Religulous this weekend and I found out what I missed. Dinosaurs and people living together and a triceratops with a saddle! OMG I can't believe I was that close and missed it. I missed the chance to "travel back 6,000 years to the dawn of creation."
After day 3 I didn't have much interest in posting anything public about the cannonball. The big challenge on day 3 was 40 miles of dirt that passed through the Capital Reef and down to Lake Powel. The morning had been one of sensory overload. Every time you thought it had reached a crescendo you came around a corner and found it was even more stunning. The pictures are representative but only just. I decided that I could either experience it or record it and I chose to experience it.
When the dirt started I took it relatively slow at first. I left the passenger pegs on the SYM specifically for this section. I moved my feet back and stood up to be able to absorb the bumps better. I've ridden scooters in dirt before but wanted to get a feel for things before opening it up. That and I wanted to leave some attention free for taking in the views. By the time I hit the switch-backs I was feeling pretty good about the way the bike handled so I opened it up a bit when I hit the flats. The first turn convinced me to slow it back down a bit but I could still maintain a good pace. I reached the lake with 20 min to spare till the next ferry left.
As others reached the ferry I found out that several had crashed in the dirt and one was hurt pretty bad. From that point on I was worried about everyone finishing each day. The rides were still gorgeous and enjoyable but it was a huge relief each day when everyone was accounted for. Not that any of the riders needed me worrying over them, everyone was great, but I worried anyway.
The SYM handled the whole trip with almost no maintenance. I checked the oil each day, added a bit a few times to keep it at the full line. I pulled the belt cover off twice to inspect things but there was no need to change the belt or rollers. The duct-tape covered cardboard I used to make the seat more aerodynamic was showing some wear by the end of the trip but that's to be expected. The rear tier is squared off and down to the wear bars but still has tread left. Below is the mileage on the first 9 days. I didn't fill it up after day 10 so I don't have values for the last day. When it get's back to San Francisco I'll give it a complete service and note any wear items.
| day 1 | day 2 | day 3 | day 4 | day 5 | day 6 | day 7 | day 8 | day 9 |
| 62 mpg | 64 mpg | 64 mpg | 68 mpg | 69 mpg | 67 mpg | 63 mpg | 69 mpg | 53 mpg* |
* I think I left the fuel pump on at one point and over filled the main tank causing some of it to spill :(
the on line tracking thing is not working, oh well. The SYM is running great (knock on wood) and other than a broken kickstand yesterday I've had no issues. Finished the day about 10min behind Jess, but I think I got more pictures. Nevada was really beautiful but also fast. Spent most the day tucked in but the bike is not really ergonomic for that style riding.
got most of the points up for the day and the system is working out ok.
Not really ready to go yet but I'm ready to get away from work.
I'll have a SPOT with me to track my location, SPOT OopsClunkThud. I'll be testing it out over the next few days to be sure it's working ok. I'm also trying something different with the GPS. I found a way to put the official route in as a fixed line on the map in addition to routing from checkpoint to checkpoint. This will let me choose to stick to the route or not and have the GPS not get confused with too many points in the route.
The SYM is mostly ready, still need to put tools together and load the bike. Also need to measure one last time how much fuel I can hold. I've been getting 68mpg so if I can hold the full 5 gal I'll have a range of 340 miles.
I'm moving my blog off to a subdomain to free up space on the main OopsClunkThud page for a business I'm launching at the first of the year. I'm rather excited about this as it's the first time I've actually brought a product to market. After getting a great idea you then have to develop it, make sure it works, sort out manufacturing, packaging, sales and distribution... It's a lot of work but I'm keeping the investment and prospects modest. I expect to have the first product for sale by the end of January.
So anyhow, from now on the blog will be located at blog.oopsclunkthud.com. I'll also provide a link from the new oops page when it's all done but for a few weeks it will be a bit of a mess.
well, here's the remains of my cool shoes
3 weeks ago I decided that my hair had reached the magic length of 10 in required to donate to locks of love so off it came. I'm still using too much shampoo but not really missing it all that much. I will grow it back out and donate again I think, provided work doesn't turn it all gray.
So Darwin has been really sick this week and we have had 3 earthquakes over 3.5 in the last four days. coincidence or is he trying to tell us something? Good news is he is no longer puking and he's started eating a bit so if he was telling us something maybe it's passed.
Last Saturday I was on a very leisurely ride through the hills of the east bay and I messed up. I was following too close to the person in from of me and, when their rear tire lost grip in a corner sending them to the ground and onto the shoulder of the road, I must have grabbed a hand full of front brake because the next thing I knew I was also on the ground.
We were only going about 15mph if that so damage was minimal. skinned knee, scrape on the forearm no big deal. On the way home my ribs started hurting but not that bad. Seems I landed on my arm and it pressed into my ribs but not a big deal.
Yesterday I went to see a doctor about the rib as each day it has hurt more and hiccups and sneezing approaches the "sharp pain" symptom listed for a broken rib. The doctor did a simple test of pressing to flex the ribcage, he said if it's fractured I would be jumping off the table. I didn't.
So it's just a bruised rib, may even turn black and blue in a few days. I think I'll get some winter tires for the unstealth.
Nothing like being a henchman for halloween only to have your super villain leader never show up. this is how it was supposed to go down but did the Monarch bother to show? No! Whatever, I'm done being a henchman.
After
Picked up the UnStealth from First Kick today and drove around a bit. Tomorrow I'm having pictures done and then I can wash it. In the meantime here's a before and after picture.
Before
Well, sort of. Yesterday I saw Bagel on his cannonball bike down in Cupertino and went "hey!" as I've heard nothing about mine. So I called ScootersO to ask if it'd been shipped. it had, went out on the 28th. got the tracking number and punched it in and it said it had already been picked up by pat owens. So I started to panic a bit. I called forward air and they saw that there was a note that it had been accidentally flagged as picked up but was sitting at the warehouse in south SF. This seems to have messed up there process for notifying me that it had arrived. nice!
Anyhow, picked it up and dropped it off at first kick to display in all it's bug splattered glory. I'm hoping they don't want it for too long as it's really fun to ride. Need to get some photos of it before a good bath.
All the rest of our scooters were in sad shape so I've been trying to get them all sorted. got the new clutch cable into Blue, and today I mixed up an oil/ATF mix for the torque converter on the rabbit. So now there are three scooters in good working order. Tomorrow I'll take the flywheel from Sparky down to be remagnetized, then we should be up to four with only the lambretta being in parts.
OK, so I know the updates have been missing but it's now over and the results are in so I thought I'd post them and then go back and fill in the days events as I have time.
I came in 11th over all with all 10 bikes ahead of me being in the 250cc Automatic class. I came first in the modified manual class :)
When I get the scooter home I plan to put it on the floor or window at First Kick for a bit before cleaning it and doing a bunch of inspections on the engine. My tach has 69 hours logged on it and a quick calculation says that while the engine was running I averaged 50mph. the crank saw about 30,000,000 revolutions in that time as well.
OK, time for sleep and then shoe shopping
The day started by hopping on US-30 and my engine was already warm as I made a fuel run in the morning instead of last night. As a result I was right at the front coming down the on ramp and tucked in to pull into the lead. OK, enough of that, I let the 250s lead the pack. I kept with them for a while and found that I was running a little hot, like right at the yellow. So I slowed down a bit to see if things would improve as the day warmed up and the air got thinner. By the second fuel stop in Clinton IA the engine was still on the hot side.
The gas station Heather and I had planned to meet at did not exist so I pulled into a large parking lot and called her. She told me that she got a call and Ashrat had crashed. The other support vehicle was closer so she was not going back but she was still a long way from Clinton so we would skip the lunch. I refueled and changed to a larger main jet to get the temperature down and tried to find my way back to US-30. This took a while as US-30 goes over the Mississippi right here and the bridge is closed so I had to find the right detour signs.
Driving over the Mississippi it suddenly hit me that I was doing something on a scooter that they just were not meant to do. it was like I just realized I was really far from home. I was now in Illinois, I'd been to Illinois before but I had to fly to get there.
The jet change had brought the temp down quite a bit but at the expense of low end power. This was OK through most of Illinois but when I got into Indiana and hit traffic it was unbearable. But given I'd lose 15min changing jets I just finished the day with what I had. Heather was very excited because she had finally made it to the hotel before me. only by like 5 min. but still.
As we were all waiting for news about Ashrat's condition she pulled up. She convinced (by threatening legal action) the paramedics that she was fine, patched her bike back together with duct tape and finished the day. On top of that she still finished 2nd in her class.