Harbor Freight trailer build, Alum Line box

The aluminum box arrived today, I ordered it from Alum Line, located in Cresco, IA.  It took about a month, maybe just 3 weeks, and they delivered it today....for $50.  Delivery meant that I didn't have to pay $43 to IA for sales tax, so that turned out ok.  Saved 3 hours and 3-4 gallons of gas, assuming I would have taken the bike and trailer to pick it up.

First thing to do is to remove the bolts on the top of the frame so the box can sit tight to the frame and also have bolts and holes to secure it.  Measure, mark, remeasure, check, test, measure and check it some more before using my center punch to start the holes.  I used my electric drill to drill a pilot hole while the cordless drill's battery charged...it has a 1/2" chuck so I can use the 23/64" bit.  The bolts are 10 mm, which is of course larger than 3/8", blah blah blah.

I don't yet know if the bolts are long enough, they were sized to bolt the frame together and not to add the box as well as a washer.  So I'll probably use slightly longer 3/8" bolts, and enjoy the extra large holes to line things up.

As expected, nothing worked as planned.  Only about 2 holes line up, we forced some bolts in, but the box is a little twisted, so I'll pull out the bolts and ream the holes so that it'll be straight.  

When that is done, I'll get down the grey outdoor carpet and measure, measure, measure and then cut.  Then I'll test fit, cut, test fit, cut, test fit, cut, start over.  Eventually I'll glue it on the sides, but will likely leave the piece on the floor loose so it can be removed, replaced, cleaned, etc.

Sounds like fun, huh.

Yeah, I can't wait.

It needs to be done, though, because it's been my experience that whatever rubs on aluminum turns black.

Black is where it's at.  Once you go black, you never go back.  Black is the new red.  Back in Black.  
Screw that.

I want the crap we put in the wagon to remain as purty as when we put it in there.  How purty is that?  Honestly, not very, but the AL staining is worse.  I also want the crap to stay in one or 2 places, I don't want it sliding or rolling around.  The carpet will help with this.

Remember when we stopped at Harbor Freight on Easter?  Yeah, we bought a spare tire with a coupon and some cash, so I need to mount that thing somewhere.  Easiest thing to do is to use a stub of threaded rod bolted to the frame to hang it.  We'll see how that holds up; it's cheap, at least.

Ready for some pics?

 Drilled from the outside in, we're left with a sharp burr that has to be removed.

 Yep, did a crappy job painting.

Should hold all of our crap, I think.  need to make a tongue stand to hold it up level when parked, I think maybe a bumper of some sort, so I can stand it on end when not in use.

Hutzler 571B banana slicer review

It's no joke, friends, you too can get a tool for your banana slicing needs, it even comes in a 2 pack....and with that knowledge, with your permission, I'd like to offer my good friend and adviser AlGore a heartfelt and sincere thank you for inventing the Hutzler 571B Banana Slicer!  This magical invention has improved and enhanced my life so much, read on, if you dare.


They look slightly less phallic in pairs, don't you think?

You see, all my life I believed the TV commercials that stated the egg is the perfect food.  The incredible edible egg.  blah blah blah.  Or if you're asian, you might say bra bra bra.

What a load of crap.  Eggs are a pain in the ass.  Only hungover people and body builders eat them raw; for those that don't know, this means that eggs must be cooked.  Eggs must also be refrigerated or they'll rot...have you ever broken a rotten egg up close?  It's not very nice.  

For those keeping score...for these "incredible" things, you must have a heat source and a cooling source.  You have to have a pot or a pan, and probably a plate and a fork, as well as toast and a toaster.  Oh, sure, if you already have toast, you don't need a toaster.  I know that, but what came first....a chicken or the egg?

You have to have the luck of the irish and the blessing of a nun to get a box of these things home unscathed...usually the 57 year old bag boy that still lives at home with mommy drops the jar of cheeze whiz on the eggs when he gets distracted by the cleavage on the HyVee cashier.  But that only happens when you ask for a paper sack and are not watching the bag boy's every move.  Often they throw canned items on peaches or pears or bananas.  

In reality, this doesn't happen too often because HyVee cashiers are usually wearing shirts that are buttoned to the neck and also wearing a tie thingy.  And if you buy yer eggs at Kwik Trip, the cashiers usually don't wear cleavage and I don't buy cheeze whiz at either location.  

To enjoy the egg, it must be cooked, which seems simple enough.  But!  imagine!  Too much heat, not enough heat, too much lube, not enough lube, trying to turn too early, waiting too long to turn, OH, the problems.  

BUT before you can cook the damn thing, you must crack it.  Some like to crack them on the edge of the bowl or skillet.  Some like to crack them on a flat surface.  Both can present problems and opportunities.  Hit it too hard and you make a mess.  Not hard enough and you risk perforating your thumbs when you poke them thru the shell into the wet sticky stuff.  If you don't crack them correctly, when you open the shell into the pan you may break the yolk into the white.  No big deal if you were going to scramble the little bastards, but when Princess orders them over easy, you better make sure you deliver them over easy.  

Then a dilemma!  What to do with the shell?  Compost or trash?  It's best, of course, to compost them, return to nature and all that tofu crap.  But I'll tell you, I rarely have a bucket sitting around waiting to go to the compost heap, and never in the winter because it's clear around the other side of the garage thru waist deep snow....I trash them.  

And then, you have to wash all that sticky stuff off your hands, or else people will look at you funny and we're not going to talk about what the egg stuff looks like when it dries on the front of your pants.  Girls, it should work great for hair gel....

Salt, pepper, ketchup, Tabasco, salsa, toast, plate, omelet, sour cream, bowl, fork, the options are endless.

A banana is indeed the perfect food.  When you're lucky enough to find a ripe one, all you have to do is peel that sucker and chomp it down. No heat source, no chill chest, no kitchen full of pots, pans, turners, sinks, just 2 hands and some teeth, although a tongue does help a bit.  Slice it, dice it, eat it whole, it really doesn't matter, it's all delicious, and assuming your colon is working correctly, that banana will return to it's original shape and size by tomorrow afternoon.  If you're lucky, it will knock politely before making it's escape.

Peel and eat, no washing, no cooking, just toss the peel out the window onto the lap of the driver of the passing convertible.

Eat a banana as a snack, as meal, as dessert.  Puree it with avocados, cabbage, kiwi, grapes, a raw egg, and zucchini to make a smoothie so nasty the dog will ignore and lick the cat's ass instead.  Slice it on pancakes, cereal, ice cream, PB&J or oatmeal.  

Sometimes you want a bunch of banana slices that are uniform and identical.  There are several methods in which to do this, you can hire a guy that stands on the corner by WallyMart holding a sign that states "anything will help" (unless you offer a job), you can use a fork, a spoon, a butter knife, a chef's knife, a ginsu knife, a chainsaw, or a brush chipper.  And this is where the model 571B comes in.

What the hell, AlGore?  You got WD40 right after only 40 tries. 571???

Peel the banana and arrange on the cutting board white side up, in such a manner so that the curve lines up with the curve on the B.S.  Yeah, good luck with that, and don't try to force the curves to match, we want it sliced, not broken, damn it!

I know, I know, some reviewers have not been able to buy bananas that match the curvature of the 571B, they say that they can only get left bent fruits and the B.S. is curved to the right.  This is what I want to say to those people:  Don't vote.  And don't reproduce.  

The world has enough stupid people, just turn the thing over and proceed with caution.  

Some reviewers state that they chopped off a finger or 2 with the B.S. and what I want to say to them is:  come give me a massage, because with hands that soft, you must soak them in Palmolive all night long.

AND I want to ask those that attempted to slice w/o peeling:  what the hell were you going to do with those little slices of peel?  Perhaps you were planning to prank an ant colony by scattering them around and watching the little bastards fall down?

In other news, I killed the first fly of the season at 12:22 on 4/30/13.

One example of a time when you want identical uniform slices would be if you're feeding siblings. In this case, they have to be absolutely uniform, totally identical, same number, same size, same shape or WWIII will ensue.

Another might be if you're making a bananas foster sort of dessert.  Here's how you make it.  Coat banana slices with brown sugar, and brown in butter.  Turn to brown the other side, remove and add bourbon, set on fire for a minute, cook to reduce the sauce, serve hot.

Simple and delicious, no?

Not that easy, not easy at all.  The skillet is rocket hot, and the buttery is slippery as, well, it's really slippery.  Banana slices are difficult to turn over.  If you use a spatula, you'll splatter butter all over and you'll never get them all before they burn and you'll miss some and you'll turn some more than once.  You have to use a 2 handed approach, a tool in each hand.  If you are using a nonstick skillet, you can't use that wonderful sharp meat fork, either of them, or you'll scratch all the teflon off the skillet and that is not good eats.

Don't use a plastic fork, that f'er will melt, and white plastic is also not good eats.

Here's what actually happens.  I scoop some brown sugar into a bowl, and peel a couple of bananas.  Usually 2...one for each of us.  I take my favorite paring knife and slice one of them, it generally takes about a second per inch of banana.  I coat the slices with the brown sugar and begin melting butter in the skillet.  When it's hot, I put about half the slices in the skillet and while the first side is becoming golden brown and delicious, I slice the other banana into the bowl of sugar.  The first side takes a couple of minutes and then I turn them.  Usually as soon as soon as I get them all turned, the first that were turned are ready to come out, the 2nd side takes very little time to brown.  I cook the rest of the slices in the same manner, putting them all on a plate so the sauce can occur.

Point is, since turning the slices is such a PIA, it doesn't matter if the slices are uniform and perfect.  I just leave the thicker ones a little longer and the thinner ones cook a little less.  What I need to do is make a turner fork out of wood so that I don't scratch up the non stickyness.  Got wood?  I do.

So it takes about a second per inch to slice by hand, and by hand I mean by knife, of course.  To slice by hand would result in your hand being covered with a white sticky substance, and we've already discussed something like that, you dirty minded person.  I like that quality, btw.  So:  6-8 seconds to slice the banana with a knife vs 1 second to slice with the B.S.  so far, not a huge time saver, is it?  

Let's talk about clean up.

It'll take me about 1.5 seconds to wash my knife, as it has only 1 cutting blade.  I will be washing that B.S. for about much longer, since it has 17 cutting edges, and if your banana was longer than the B.S., then you have to spend extra time on the ends.  

Dishwasher safe!  Yippee.  Unless you run yours more often than we run ours, which is about every other day, the damn thing will be dirty when you need it the next time.  Plus, consider that once the white sticky stuff dries on there, it'll never come off in the damn dishwasher, which means you have to wash it before putting it in there, which defeats the purpose of making it dishwasher safe.

One other compelling reason to avoid this dumb damn thing, is that it is a unitasker.  That means it can only do one thing...you can't even cut hot dogs with it because of that stupid bend and the cheap flimsy construction.  With a kitchen the size of mine, there's only room for one unitasker, the fire extinguisher. 

Don't buy this dumb thing, just use your fork, your knife, or your spoon.

motorcycle trailer build

Picture time

 Lots of stuff in this pic:  New Glarus beer, a Proto 5# dead blow hammer that was my reward for perfect attendance in diesel mechanic school in '87-'88, the augmented sawhorse platform, the black and red of the trailer frame, a hint of the stepladder I picked up off of the highway in the mid '90s, the tail of my RoadStar and of course, some wrenches.

 A danger/warning label in the trash, where it belongs.

 I was very happy that the tires are King brand.

 Taking apart the leaf springs, the bent steel is the bracket that I had to bend with the pliers to separate the 3 leafs.   I had to take the bolt from the center and put it back into the single leaf, the round head acts as a centering pin for the axle. 

DIY wiring harness plugs and home made tools to remover the various spade/bullet/pin connectors from the varied plug bodies.  Just take a piece of wood, hammer in a finish nail, hammer down the end about as thin as you need and then grind/sand/file it to the shape that will work.  Carve/sand the handles for comfort.  You can see that some of them are double ended.

I crimp and then solder the wires, because I occasionally like to be redundant and do the same work twice.

You can get those plugs in 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 connector configurations, but if you only have 5 or 7 wires, you can of course, leave one empty.  I think I got them at Vintage Connections.com.  Oddly, the locking shells are less expensive than the non locking shells.  

As soon as we're strong enough, we're going out to take it off the supports, turn it over onto the wheels so we can measure for the height of the box.  You know I'll let you know how that goes....Wish us luck.

Making yogurt

If you'd have asked me a year ago if I'd ever make yogurt you might not have gotten a favorable response.  Not that I didn't like it then, it's just one of the weird things that I had never considered making.

Quart of yogurt at Aldi's is $2.  Tiny cup of it at Kwik Trip is $.79, half gallon of milk is about $1.50.

Of course, you either need some starter or some yogurt to make more yogurt...so I bought the $2 bucket to see if I'd use it all before it rotted.  Turns out that I did.  I used the last of it today to make a quart, I wonder how it'll turn out.

I did make some a week or so ago, it turned out pretty thin.  It had a decent flavor, for plain, but very thin.  After reading some pages on the interwebsnet thingy, I may have found out why...and if this batch turns out thin too, that will support my new found knowledge.

All pages concerning making yogurt are consistent with one thing:  being widely varied regarding the end temp to heat the milk...and I figgered:  the crap is already pasteurized, why do it again?

Here's the answer I got: (from here)

If you are using pasteurized milk, you must first sterilize it. Some people ask why this is necessary if the milk has already been pasteurized. The answer is that pasteurization kills the natural bacteria that are in milk, so as it ages, the milk can collect and nurture bad bacteria. If you simply warm the milk up to 110°, the bad bacteria can flourish and make the milk taste unpleasant or even make it harmful. (This is why pasteurized milk has an expiration date, and is not good to use after a certain time.)

Sterilizing the milk just before culturing it makes sure that the milk is completely clean and will present a welcoming environment where the yogurt culture can thrive and do its work. Additionally, heating the milk denatures (changes the characteristics of) the milk proteins, weakening the cell membranes and allowing the protein molecules to adhere to each other, causing better coagulation in the yogurt.

The first batch I made was from old, expired milk.  It didn't smell sour, but was nearly a week past the date on the bag.  Yes, people not familiar with Kwik Trip/Kwik Star, we buy milk in a half gallon sack.  It is quite a bit cheaper than those plastic jugs....and comes with a free pitcher.   They used to have a little bag corner slicer too, and we have one, but we just use a scissors now.  We fold the corner over and clamp it, even though the pitcher has a clamping slot machined/moulded in it already.  

You can see that I bought "Fit and Active" yogurt.  This is nonfat stuff and may be another reason mine turns out thin, even though I used whole milk.  More about the picture.  You can see the thermometer next to the crockpot (which we got as a wedding gift, 1994, for those keeping score).  Apparently yogurt yeastie beasties are pretty fussy about temps, they die about 118 and doze off under 90.  They don't completely go to sleep in the cold, which is why older yogurt tastes more tangy or sour than new/fresh yogurt.  

Why does yogurt taste tangy or sour?  I can answer that.  Oh, you want to know why yogurt doesn't make your lactose intolerance reaction react?  Same answer.

The beasties that the yogurt introduces into the milk eat the lactose (sugar) that is in the milk.  Or something like that.  Less sugars means more sour.

I may buy an "heirloom" starter which I can use over and over.  Most websites say that if you continue to just save back some yogurt as a starter after "several" cycles the beasties get tired/nonproductive.  Ungrateful little bastards, is what I say they are.

I poured some milk in a sauce pan, turned on the heat and put the thermometer probe in the pan.  I heated it to 120 or so, since it was before I read that linked page.  I filled the crockpot with hot water, and when the milk was down around 110 I tempered the left over yogurt in the bucket, then poured the milk into the bucket and all over the counter including my wallet, which was lying innocently on the countertop.  A quick rinse, a not so quick swab, and then poke a hole in the lid for the bucket.  Drop it into the hot water and monitor the temp for a while...when it got up to 115, pull it out of the water, when it dropped near 100, turn on the pot.  I let the beasties feast for about 6 hours, during that time I made a batch of bread and lunch.  

I like thicker yogurt, so I put a coffee filter in the colander, propped that on a bucket and dumped in the yogurt.  It's interesting how much whey comes out. Last time, it was white, and I fed it to the dog.  This time it is nearly colourless and I'll save it for making bread.  The dog loved it, btw.  

It's been draining about an hour, there's about an inch of whey in that bottom bucket.  I did stir/scrape the stuff around on the filter, had a taste, it is quite tangy and I think it will thicken nicely once in the fridge.  If it doesn't, I have some xanthan gum that will thicken it.  

One reason the first batch might not have gotten thick is the too much culture for the amount of milk, or not keeping it warm enough during the incubation stage.  I think I'll experiment by putting it in the cabinet above the fridge overnight...it's pretty warm up there.

I am going to call this a success.  Stop by if you want to taste it.

motorcycle trailer build

Assemble the frame day.  (Before Easter) I carried the frame rails, the tongue, axle and cross members out of the basement, stacked them on the recycle bin while I dug out the saw horses and enhanced their stability and size.  They're the fold up bracket type that have lived outside much of their life, and they must be 10-12 years old.  I used scrap wood/plywood to make stringers to keep them from wobbling, and some of those have rotted away, it's clearly time to remake them.

But not today.  I got down a couple of barn boards that I had used to build 2 different entertainment centers, one in 1989 and one in 1993.  I used some screws to fasten the boards to the 2x4 that is the top of the saw horse so they would be long enough and wide enough to put all the parts on for assembly.

I laid out the frame rails and cross members and began bolting them together.  One thing I hate about metric bolts is that the bolt head and nut are often different sizes.  In this case, the bolt heads are 16mm and the nuts are 17mm.  This is good if you only have one set of wrenches, I guess.

I then bolted on the spring brackets and then addressed the springs.  The trailer is rated for 1070#, but I don't expect to ever load it past 400#, so I removed 2 of the 3 leaf springs, hoping to minimize bounce and it should also lower the trailer a little bit.  It's not too hard to remove those leafs, simply clamp the the springs in the vice, bend the clip that holds the 2 small leaves to the large leaf so they will separate and then unbolt the middle bolt that holds all 3 together.  They don't paint the leaves separately, so the long one is already a little rusty, it's now in the basement with a coat of primer on it.  I'll squirt some black on them before bed.  The spring brackets come silver and not painted at all.  I don't know why.  The spring mounting bolts come with a regular nut and are drilled for a cotter key.  Why not just send nyloc nuts?  

Another way to make the trailer lower is to mount the axle on top of the spring instead of under the spring. It took a while for me to visualize that, and I'll post a pic when I've got that done.  Yeah, never mind all that...because when the axle is on top of the spring there isn't room for the fender.

Had some fun when I was ready to put the wheel on the axle...it wouldn't.  The bearing wouldn't slide on the spindle.  And then when I gave up putting it on, it wouldn't come off.  Wound up ruining the seal, returning/exchanging the axle, and starting over.  4/6  Sadly I did not realize that I had ruined the seal until today, when no replacements were available, so the frame has one wheel on, and one wheel off.

I started on the electrical tonight, first mounting the front marker lights, which ground via the mounting screw.  I may take them back off and add a ground wire for each light.  The wiring harness has just a short wire to ground to the tongue, and I think I want to ground each light.  So I spliced on a wire as long as the other wires before sliding on the wire loom stuff, woven nylon sheath, it's magical stuff.

I will post some pics, I promise.

Woody

If you follow me on the facebook thing, you know we got a dog just after Valentine's day.  This is our 3rd dog in 12.5 years.  Not too impressive, really.  

Skyler came from Paws and Claws, we had him for 7 years.  He was the best dog ever.  Duke came from the Faribault shelter and he was pretty good, compared to most dogs he was great, but he was not as good of a dog as Skyler was.  He had some hound in him, so when his nose turned on, his ears turned off.  Skyler was mostly GSD, maybe a little collie, he really listened and wanted to please.

Woody...is a good dog. He hardly ever barks, never makes a mess, knows a few commands, doesn't do much crotch sniffing or licking.  He may be part border collie, part fox hound, or spaniel, no one knows.

We spent $90 for 6 beginner obedience classes.  Tonight was the 2nd night and the first night with the dogs present.  The boxer was scared of the 4# white rat looking thing, the tan terrier clearly had not been exercised at all before class.  The other tan dog looked kind of like a fox  and was kinda barky.

We started with a touch the hand with the nose thing, then sit, then down, then loose leash walking, and come/here.  Class is an hour, and most of it is spent working.  They use a clicker for training, and loads of treats.  Treats include cheese, cubed rolled dog food, cubed doggy cake.

That cake is some stinky stuff...it's a can of mackerel, some flour, some garlic powder, 2 eggs...and he loves the stuff.  BTW, the hamburger masher from Simply Tasteless works great for mashing up the fishes, eggs and blending in the flour.  I'm glad it's good for something, since it sucks for chopping up raw hamburger.  

One of our neighbors takes her dog to the hospital, makes the rounds of people that have requested to see a dog.  She thinks that Woody would be good at that, and we agree.  He's got an ideal temperament for it, he's the right size and good bladder control.  So maybe we'll do that once we've had him most of a year and go thru some more training.

BTW, Skyler woke up very sick on Labor Day 2007, we put him to sleep later that day, after an ultrasound, his abdomen was full of blood.  We had taken Duke to stay with Val's folks for a weekend in July 2010, he woke up dead that day.  Hopefully Woody will last a little longer.

This is Duke, I'll have to scan some pics of Skyler.

motorcycle trailer build, hitch edition

Did I remember to tell you that it would be a fair amount of time between these postings?  The garage is simply too cold to spend much time in when the outside temps are below 30.  I know, I'm getting wimpy in my old age...I changed the differential gears in my car back in 1989 when the temp was below 0, and I was outside, too.  No, that wasn't fun, but I didn't have any money, either.

The other day, like maybe 2 weeks ago, I took the saddle bags off the bike, found that I needed new mounting bolts.  They were fully threaded bolts and the threads were mangled all the way up.  That is probably because they had worked loose....

So I bought new bolts and some lock nuts to go on the inside of the fender.  About $11 at Ace.  I will be putting blue loctite on them.  I will also put loctite on the saddlebag mounting bolts, as some of them were loose.  AND I put loctite on the belt guard, since one bolt was gone and the other a little loose.  Luckily I found a bolt in my box that worked and put a washer in there too, so that's fixed.  AND a nut had fallen off the mounting stud that holds the saddlebag lid hinge to the saddlebag.  Found that in the saddlebag and put it back on...the bolts are 8mm 1.25 pitch.  2.25" long, or so.  The other thingy in the pic is the bracket for the chains, it bolts under the ball.

I bought the hitch from a guy in MI that is a dealer oh never mind, I'm pretty sure that I told you all that.  I ordered it on Monday and it arrived on Tuesday, that is pretty prompt.  It fits perfectly and looks very nice. The chrome is very good, and the ball was included, Acme brand.  Wile E Coyote would not be ashamed to operate this bike.

It went together a little easier than I expected...The bolts hold the saddle bag brackets, the backrest/sissy bar bracket, and the fender on.  I was pretty sure it'd take a lot of messing around to get it on.  But putting a bolt on each side to hold the backrest on the fender in the right place allowed me to get the hitch in the right place with the other holes and bolts and then removing the first bolts move it into position.  The only problem I had was when I was putting the saddle bag on; I realized that I put both front brackets on the left side and the rear brackets on the right side.  So I had to take the saddle bag back off, remove the rear bracket on the left side and swap it with the front bracket on the right side.  It went pretty good when I had all the brackets in the right place.  I'll have to double check to make sure the bolts are tight; getting a wrench under the fender when the saddle bags are installed is a treat, let me assure you.

 The above pic shows the sissybar bracket in the center top, the saddle bag bracket, fender, etc.

 The above pic shows the belt guard, the saddle bag bracket, the side of the saddle bag and the side of the fender.

And this pic shows the side of the hitch, the end of the fender that I scuffed, the ball.  I don't know if I'll get one of those ball covers or not.  Maybe if there's a brake light incorporated into it....maybe I can make one.  You will be the first to know if I do.  :)  The hitch looks black, but it is shiny chrome.

Next up is to work on electricity...I need to redo the plugs powering the saddlebag lights and install the wires to power the trailer lights.  I need warm weather for that too, since that's bare hands and sitting still sort of work.  I also hope that my jack starts working again, because it's nice to have the thing a little higher.

Yes, the bike is dirty.  I could say it's because of the dust it has collected over the winter, I didn't cover them this year.  But in reality, the bike is just dirty.  I don't mind.

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.