Motorcycle trailer, hitch

2003 Yamaha RoadStar, 1602cc, 57000 miles. I bought it in August 2009 with 23300 miles.

I bought some saddlebags from Tsukayu and installed them a couple years ago.   What a pain in the ass.  The saddle bags are great....very large, sturdy, durable, but installation sucked.  On some other models they have model specific brackets which makes installation easy and simple, only takes about 5 minutes.  It took a couple days to do these.  

Today, it didn't take too long to remove them, which is necessary for hitch installation.  HitchDoc provided the hitch, made in Jackson, MN.  BTW I bought my first motorcycle from a guy in Jackson.  I bought the hitch from a guy in MI, but I'm sure it shipped from Jackson, since it arrived the next day via UPS.  The MI guy offered free shipping.....

All along this process I've been wondering if the hitch goes against the fender under the backrest bracket or over it.  Some measuring tells me it goes over it.  

Oddly enough, a couple of my mounting bolts are stripped, I knew this and had put nuts on the inside of the fender to hold them tight.  That was fun.  Fun to remove, as well.  I do believe that the threads in the fender are ok, just the bolts are buggered.  I need slightly longer bolts anyway, so I don't mind replacing them.  I hope that the replacements are better...I may put nuts on the inside anyway, just in case.....and thread locker too.  

When I put the bags on, I also put lights on the bags.  Now I get to redo all that.  :(  I had put plugs on the end of the cords powering the bag lights, but the plugs were a little too large to be easily removable from the underseat area.  That's not so bad, it's workable.  Somehow, some way I spliced a wire into the wrong side of the plug, so I had to cut them, which means I'll have to resplice them.  Dumb.  

I think I'll find smaller plugs and remedy that splice situation.  I think I'll also change the lights somewhat, change them to LEDs.

Do you want pics?  Too bad, I don't have any right now.

Carnival Breeze shore

Carnival Breeze shore excursions

But first, a word about engine room fires.  You may have heard that another Carnival ship has suffered an engine room fire.  I don't know what causes these things to happen, a short, sabotage, etc.  5 days of substandard restrooms, no ventilation, not much food.....it'd be difficult to remain positive, sleeping on deck to stay cool, taking the stairs everywhere etc.  I'm glad our ship did not catch fire, and I hope to never experience that.

We went on a few side trips:  The cruise went to St Thomas, so we took the ferry to St John to see Paige and John.  Paige drove us around the island, showed us the sights, went to a nice spot for lunch.

The next day we went to Antigua, we boarded a catamaran and circled the island, we didn't really see the middle of the island at all.  After the snorkeling the rum punch was poured freely.  :)

Tortola and Nassau will be in the next post, I guess.  I don't want to bore my audience or overwhelm Uncle Google with all these pics.

Motorcycle Trailer build

Since we desire to haul a lot of crap when we go on a vacation, we decided to get a trailer to pull behind my motorcycle.  

A nicer way of phrasing it might be:  since I'm a fat bastard, my clothes take up a lot of space, more than my saddle bags can handle.  Therefore, I need a wagon.

There are lots of them, ready made, ready to go.  They are also very expensive and that's just too easy for me.  Sometimes it sucks being a diy sort of guy, enjoying building stuff is nice, but also exhausting.  

Here's what I'm doing.  I bought a trailer frame from Harbor Freight, got it on sale with a 20% coupon, $177.  It's red except for the rims, which are white.  Our bikes are blue and black, so I've decided to paint the exposed parts of the frame black.  Why not paint all of the frame black?  Lazy.  No, actually I figger if a passing motorist sees a flash of red in the all the black, it maybe the saving aspect.  I've got a can of black paint that was new in the 90's, I used some of it on our repurposed pipe hand rail last summer.

Isn't it cute?  40" wide, 48" long.  You can see that the fenders are black already, too.  I wonder if I'll want a longer tongue, sort of like that guy from Kiss.  No, no not that kind of tongue.

I sanded the red paint with 150 grit aluminum oxide sandpaper.  2/3 of a sheet folded into thirds, only took one side to sand 2 sides of the front and back pieces, 2 sides of the side pieces and 3 sides of the tongue piece.  The axle comes black, but that paint is already scuffed, so I'll sand it and paint it too.  I clean the sanding dust off with a rag soaked with alcohol and will brush  the paint on with a cheap disposable bristley brush.  The paint has been in the garage since 1995, so it'll take a few minutes to warm up, I don't know if I'll get the paint applied tonight or not.  

I plan to tape some paper on top of the table saw and will use some small bits of wood to hold the steel above the paper.  I'll probably apply 2 coats and between coats will put the brush in a plastic sack, wrap it up good, and put it in the freezer.  This keeps the brush usable for both coats without cleaning. 

Sanded and tags taped.  It might have been easier and faster to unrivet them, but we'll never know now, will we?

Why not use a spray can?  Several reasons.  

1. It's winter, and I don't want to do that much spraying in the house...it goes all over and the furnace would suck some in.
2. I'd have to buy a couple cans while I already possess this 3/4th gallon of gloss black.  I'll lose more paint to the skin on top of the paint than I'll use on the steel.
3. I think brushing puts a better coat on the item.  If it were round or intricate, I'd be spraying it

Why wipe the steel with alcohol?  It cleans off the dust, it cleans off any other dirt, oil, grease, wax, other goobers or snot.  Alcohol is cheaper than xylol or lacquer thinner, doesn't leave a film like paint thinner would, and is safer to use in the house than those first couple.  MEK and acetone would also work, but they also stink and are dangerous to use.  Also more expensive.

yep, another coat is in order.  This pic was taken when the paint was very fresh, it'll level out some, but not that much, of course.  It'll be a couple days before I assemble the pieces, but stay tuned for bearings.

space management

Winter space management....maybe you wonder what the hell I'm referring to when I post it on FB.  

Plain and simple:  always doing a proper job of snow removal so that you have your entire driveway and sidewalk all season.  

I've seen people shoveling and shoveling and shoveling at the end of their driveway until they have a 5 foot high bank on either side of the driveway.  How are they going to see when they're backing out?  

They can't see you, and they can't see the kid walking his squirrel, either.  

And they don't have anywhere to put the next round of snow when it comes.

There's a fine art to snow blowing, much like there's an art to filling a wagon with silage.  Some of the same rules apply, although I'm sure the blower on the chopper had more velocity.  

Fresh wind driven snow and freshly cut chopper driven silage are both uncomfortable to get down your shirt and pants, but the snow just makes you wet and cold, not itchy.

I saw a kid today running a large snowblower, he had taken a pass down the middle, swerving over to the left side, as you stand at the garage looking down the driveway.  Then he took off again from the garage down the middle, straight, this time.  His 3 passes didn't meet anywhere, so I don't know if he was going for artistic, or if he was new to the art, or if he was just goofing off.

I learned pretty quickly here at home the best way to blow my driveway...and for the record, I've never purchased a snow blower, this one was given to us by Val's sister.  It's a Montgomery Wards Snow King, 7hp, 22" cut.  Maybe I can find some pics.

I know I have a pic of the snowblower in use, cutting thru snow as high as the spout.  *sigh* Between 2 computer crashes, a ext hard drive failure, and having 2 ext hard drives in use in 2 different rooms, pic management is difficult.

So anyway, the point to this whole post is to be vigilant with your space, don't be lazy and let the snow pile up and cramp your parking or cut down your visibility.  you have a whole yard, blow that shit out of the end of the driveway into the main yard.  Spread it out, is what I'm saying here.  

I also want to mention that the with the ownership of a snowblower comes great responsibility.  You are now responsible for any and all elderly or crippled neighbors' snow.  If you don't take care of them, this makes you a bad person.  

For several years I took care of the old lady to the north's driveway and occasionally did the sidewalk.  In the spring she always paid me, and I always protested the payment, because it wasn't enough.  j/k...I did it w/o the expectation of being paid.  If there was only a little, I let her take care of it.  But if there was a lot...I did it for her.  

Our neighbor to the East nearly always runs his unit all the way down the sidewalk to the street, clearing our sidewalk.  If I get there before him, I clear his sidewalk.  AND one year when he broke his foot in May, I mowed his front yard all summer.  Be neighborly...Do it, you'll feel better.

Carnival Breeze story follow up

I know what you're thinking.  

I can see you sitting there, one hand clamping your nose shut, the other hand pointing some fingers at me.  

You're sitting there and you're positive that I'm the one that so horribly fouled the air on the Promenade deck.  

I assure you that I did not.

If I had, I would have been proud of that blast of ozone killing global warming iceberg melting ass poison.

I'd have hung around watching, camera at the ready.  That way when someone blundered into that airless cloud of doom, I'd have been able to capture their horrified expressions, recorded then as they realize that they're about to suffocate, asphyxiated on the promenade deck by someone sharing some of what's left of yesterday's breakfast or last nights curry.  

Some people are nonchalant about farts, some get really offended by them.  I tend to be in the first category, it's how I grew up.  I didn't have an uncle encouraging me to pull a finger, which is good because I always thought that was stupid.  

But I do understand why people are offended by farts...to deliver a blast of colon breath to the dinner table or party, to breathe in what was just up someone's ass is a rather effective appetite suppressor. 

Here's a linky to a video that is kind of funny, has no puking but plenty of humour.

And here's a cartoon I found that I think is funny.

Bottom line.  hahahaha.  I didn't do it...and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Carnival Breeze Storytime

This is a story about something that happened, and my telling of it is going to be mostly true with some embellishment to make it even more funny.  I hope that is how it will turn out, anyway.

One evening before dinner Val and I were strolling through the Promenade area of the ship, it's deck 5 between the forward and middle elevators.  It's also where they've got all the shopping on the ship.  Deck 5 also has the top level of the main theater, called Ovation, the top level of the atrium, the library, which has a self serve wine bar in it, the Casino, the kids corral, the club thingy, the piano bar and the comedy club. Busy place, huh?  

So we were heading to the candy shop, called "Cherry on Top" and I probably should have taken a picture of that.

Well, AlGore blessed UncleGoogle, I can find a pic of nearly everything and if you think I'm lying, just go to google and ask them to find you a picture of 1000 fleas on a camel's scrotum.  Don't do this at lunch time, please.

I'm pretty sure that this all took place on the same day as the drunkfest that we took part in, a welcome aboard party for the bloggers....open bar for an hour or so....there was no charge for this and I really made good use of it.  Debi and Val did too...Val had about 3 drinks and was pretty loopy.  As always I remained ambulatory, meaning I could navigate my self around the ship without assistance.  It's a good thing, too...because who could carry me???  Anyway, we went back to the room and took a nap and a shower and then went to get candy because clearly we had not yet had enough sugar coursing thru our veins.  

Like I said the other day, we were right off the middle elevators, so it's a quick easy trip to get there...about 12 steps.  Down to 5 and then forward to the shops.  There are lots of stores, a liquor and tobacco store, kind of a drug store with all sorts of things that you might need...kind of a wallymart on the high seas.  There are several clothing stores, jewelry stores, etc.  Often they will have tables of tshirts or watches or chain you can buy by the inch.  We make our way past all of that crap and Val goes right for the jelly belly sour pear beans.  I don't know why.

The joint has nice zipper top bags, and I put some giant sized malted milk balls in one for my enjoyment.

I leave them for Val to buy and head to the door of the store to loiter and see what is going on.  I see a couple (people), mid 20's, average sized, average shaped, average looks, although I wonder if she was a packer's fan...she kinda had that look about her, plus I heard this:

"OMG, someone farted and it really really stinks!"  They went on to discuss how whoever it was just have dropped a load and is currently scraping last nights curry out of their drawers with a stick.  Immediately I look around for John Heald, but didn't see him.  

When I stopped looking around, I realized they were still discussing the state of this person's ass and clothing, and that they were looking at me.  I was acting like I had not heard them, which was hard to do because I wanted to laugh my ass off even though it was not me that had dropped the bomb.  

I walk toward them to prove that it was not me with a quart of processed burrito dripping down my legs, and when I got with a few feet they said, "hey, man, don't go that way....someone died and shit their pants all at the same time."

I replied that I agreed that sounded serious and reversed direction, but it was too late.  Their forward motion and the shifting air currents  of the ship, the atrium thermal currents, the air handlers and suction and pump of the glass elevators caused the cloud of putrid foulness to envelope me.  

I've been around a lot of bad smells.  I've not been to Paris, but I grew up on a farm, we had pigs, I had to clean the farrowing house a few dozen times.  We had cows, we even had chickens for a while.  That was a big mistake.  I worked at the egg place in Lenox, too.  I cleaned the grease trap at McDonalds, and I cleaned a fridge on my birthday that had been full at the time the electricity was turned off in early June. AND I had to repair a toilet 2 times that the retard had shit in for 2 weeks prior to us learning that it was not flushing.  It was full of shit.  That dumbass did this twice!  So now you know that my nose hair has been burned out by malodorous conditions many times.  I'm not new to bad smells is what I'm trying to tell you.  Plus I've been in the bathroom when I've been sitting on the pot....obviously.  And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Ok, so this cloud of stench encapsulates me and I start flapping, trying to swim out of it.  Somehow the Packers must have only caught the edge of it or they'd be in it still with me...trying to get out.  I'd like to see the security footage of me doing the funky chicken gasping for air trying to get out of the vaporized butt expulsion dance.

You know how usually you don't really notice the air that you breathe?  It's just the old in and out, in and out, maybe you notice if it's hot or smoky or dusty or really humid.  This air, on the other hand?  You notice it.  Right away.  The cloud was somehow firmer than normal air, almost like a gel, kind of a napalm like substance, but somehow still colourless, unlike the inside of that person's pants.  Holy moly, what if it was a girl and she was wearing a short skirt? I bet that skirt flapped up like Marilyn Monroe's did on that street shot thingy.  The rest of the evening I kept trying to scrape off the cloud residue, my skin felt kind of sticky, felt like there was a residue left after the pollution dissipated.

This air was hot, this air was humid.  A lot like the air in a jungle: hot, wet, thick, sticky, and so damn stinky you want to puke.  

I saw an episode of Jackass once, the prank where some dude loaded up his guts with something awful; the intent was to go to a place that sells toilets and use one.  Karma got them before they got there...they drove around before going in, to make sure he was ready to go, if you know what I mean.  Buy they drove too much, and he dropped his load in his pants in the van...and it must have been putrid, because people came piling out of that van puking.  Serves the bastards right, in my opinion.

Finally Val gets done paying for the candy...turns out the shopgirl was filling in for the normal girl's break and didn't know how to sell 2 sacks at the same time, even all the stuff was all the same price....

She steps out and sees me in the throes of what looks to be a grand mal seizure, starts to ask what's going on when I see her and holler to her:  "keep your mouth shut!"

Here's a linky to a video of a couple that prank each other; this sort of applies.

Of course Val doesn't appreciate being told to keep her mouth shut in public no less, and draws in a big breath thru her mouth.  

Whoops.

Should have listened to me, Princess.

She turns green and then blue, because she's coughing and hacking like that time a june bug flew in and did the chicken dance on her tonsils that one time at band camp.  That's another story, friends.  

Finally the air clears and we return to our normal condition....and every time I think of this episode or someone says "fart"  I burst out laughing. 

Carnival Breeze general pics

This post will contain some pics of the ship and of islands, maybe some people.  If you have questions about the pics, ask and maybe I'll answer!  

NO Standing.  WTH???

A fork in the road.  Next edition:  wildlife

Carnival Breeze food pics.

Some call it food porn, I don't know why.  Maybe they do something with their food that I don't know about, I'm not going to ask and I'm not going to judge what you do with your carrots before or after you peel them.

The ship has a lot of food.  I could find some stats, and maybe I will...it's a huge amount of food.  We did a galley tour once and we did a behind the scenes tour once, getting to see the coolers, the freezers, the refrigerators. We also saw some dry storage, too....huge amounts of food is prepared and a huge amount is wasted.  There are starving people in all of these countries that we're visiting....but no way to get that food to them.  So we feed the fishes late at night.

The first thing we do when we board a ship is have lunch.  That's about all there is to do, other than walk around, and since you've got some carry on luggage with you, who wants to carry that crap around any longer than you have to?  Note:  some people say "schlep" and I don't know why.  Personally, I think it's a foreign word and I don't speak foreign languages...maybe some day Rosetta Stone will give me a free copy of something and I'll learn it, but don't hold your breath.

We got to the ship pretty early after checking in at the airport cruise desk.  It was cheaper for us to shuttle back to the airport and cab to the cruise port than to shuttle to the cruise port.  Plus we were able to check in at the airport and that enabled us to go right thru when they were ready.  So we were on pretty early, but our room wasn't ready until later, they always estimate 1/130.  So off we go up for lunch.  It's hard to remember which side is which, which way is which, so I generally get turned around, which is no big deal if I'm alone, because I never leave anything on the table that I want to keep...unless I know exactly where I'm going and have enough bread crumbs so I can get back.

Food at the buffet is average...nothing very good, but nothing terrible either.  On our MSC cruise, they had the best sausage linkys that I've ever had.  It was probably made from goat scrotum and llama lips, utilizing goose rectum for the casing...but if so, they washed the goose poop clear out of it, because that was good sausage.  On the days that I ate upstairs for breakfast, I went to the burrito station, partly because I was able to find it, and all I could find elsewhere was cereal and grapefruit.  F'ing grapefruit don't taste anything like grape fruits, either, you know?  They taste like my ex-stepmonster and her older sister and brother stared at them while they were growing on that poor tree....and you can bet that tree got no hugs during that glare-fest.  I like grapes.  Sometimes I peel them with my teeth and imagine that OH never mind about that.

I probably should have taken a pic of the Blue Iguana burrito place and it's salsa station.  Back in the good old days I had a light duty pocket camera for those pics and 2 years ago I took a lot more food and general pics, too.  Sadly my favorite pocket camera, a Pentax 7 mp Option L30 died after being dropped in the minivan on the Hawaii trip.  It was turned on at the time, so Val could see the pic of what we were looking at.  Poor dead camera....I've tried to find another one, but have not been able to find one at a reasonable price.  :(

Ok, now for some pics.

 Desert plate first day

 Tea

 Sushi appetizer

 I don't remember what this was

 Best smoothies on St John, with free rum if you wanted it.

 Pumpkin squash yam vegetabletarian entree.  under the crust it was pretty good

 Val's seafood pasta

 First tea day, the girls didn't go and asked me to show them what was served.  :)

 Starfish and conch, fresh...

 Debi enjoying a "Guy's Burger"

 Val's sister sent a cake for her birthday

 I too had a smoothie in St John

 Maaaaaa

Robin also sent strawberries.  Must have cost a fortune.  Thanks....she loved it.

 Debi enjoying her smoothie

 Weird seafood trio, salmon, some tartare thingy and seared ahi?

 Froggy Legs! not too tasty, though, which was sad.

 Mango cream soup enjoyed the easy way, thru a straw.

 More dry fish, mahi mahi this time.  The redfish and the snapper was also dry.

synchronized mermaids swimming in a sea of spinach slop

So if you ever saw all the pics we had posted from the first cruises, you know we didn't take very many this year.  

Every night we ate dinner in the main dining room, dumbly named Blush.  The anytime dining room is called Sapphire, and that's where we ate breakfast most days.  We enjoy having the same waitstaff each night for dinner, even though they are "supposed" to remember what we like and want and have it ready each night...for example, each night I had iced tea, Val had a diet coke.  The other 2 would change up their drinks, but I had to ask many times each night for the tea.  I also had coffee every night, and that was kinda hard to get too.  We each had the same bread every night but had to point it out.  Not really a big deal, certainly nothing to complain about to anyone that can do something about it.  

There's an Italian joint on top of the boat that charges $12 pp for dinner.  Lunch is free, and I can see why.  We sit around about an hour waiting for a table, they give us the order sheet but they don't tell us to turn the thing in.  They don't tell us the drink station is self serve.  Finally they bring the grub, and it's crap, absolute rubbish.

There's a sushi joint which we walked past a lot, but didn't partake--I don't know what the cost was.  It looked good, smelled good.

There's a steakhouse that charges $30 each, but we didn't go there either.  Why pay for dinner when dinner is included with the purchase of our trip?

There's a place near the sushi place that was free, apparently.  I didn't figure that out until the last day...that could have save some steps, oh well.

Room service is also included, but I didn't have any of that, either.  Pizza is available all day, skipped that too. I only had ice cream from Lido once, got plenty of that as dessert after dinner.  

All pop comes from cans, most people pay $60 for an all you can drink pop sticker.  That's for 8 days, and includes tax and tip.  Coffee, iced tea, lemonade, milk, hot chocolate are all free from Lido and a few other places.  Bottled water is outrageous, but lots of people buy it.  Tap water is good and free.  A glass of beer was over 6, fancy drinks were nearly 10.

And that is all I have to say about food today.