The FJR is back!
In early November of last year, I talked to my friend Hal about doing some maintenance work on my FJR. He's a great motorcycle mechanic, and has been working on Doug's FJR for a while, prepping it for last year's Iron Butt Rally. I've been doing my own basic maintenance for while now - oil and filter changes, removing the wheels to have new tires mounted - but don't have the time, experience, or tooling to do more advanced maintenance work. The FJR was ready for it's 75,000 valve check, and needed a lot of other things looked at. I knew if I was going to keep the bike going as a reliable long-distance machine, it needed a good going over. Hal agreed to take on the job.
We arranged for me to ride it down on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but I was really feeling poorly that day, and did not think it would be best to ride. We came up with an alternate plan - Justin rode it down to Hal, followed by Carole in her car, and they drove back together.
In mid-December I came down with pneumonia, so I told Hal there was no big hurry on my end - he could take more time if he wanted. Which turned out to be good - he found a few problems that took time to resolve, including a leaking rear shock that needed to be sent home to GP Suspensions in Portland, OR for a rebuild.
I finally got well enough to ride, and Hal finished his work, and it happily matched up with a separate need for me to drive down his way. Carole was rear-ended in her 'Vette at a stop sign by the house. There didn't appear to be any damage, but with a classic vehicle you don't take it to just anybody, so she arranged for a visit with West Coast Corvette's in Orange County - which is literally 2 miles from Hal's house. We drove down in separate cars this morning, dropped of the 'Vette for an inspection and a few days of maintenance work. We then drove together in my car down to Hal's, and then I followed Carole back home on my bike. (Carole wanted to make sure I was really healthy enough to ride.)
It was great to be back on the bike, which is running quite nicely. The right front brake caliper had been leaking, but the fade was so gradual that I didn't really notice it - but when Justin rode it down to Hal he mentioned how mushy the front brakes felt to him. Hal did his thing, and now everything is in good shape.
I hope to start riding to work very soon - we're packing the miles onto the Edge at an alarming rate, and it needs some driveway time to get back on pace to meet the lease's mileage limits. Plus, the weather is nice, and I have a BBG scheduled for mid-May that I need to train for.
Thanks, Hal!
Royal Blood
I finished Royal Blood
This may be my favorite of the bunch so far. The Romanian vampire/werewolf angle was done tongue-in-cheek for the most part, and we all hope that Darcy will do right by Georgie one of these days - and I don't mean marrying her...
My rating: 
Alexis and Jamie
Carole and I drove up the hill with Ann and Yvette for the wedding reception of my niece Alexis and her new husband Jamie.
Satisfaction…
There is something very satisfying when you're snaking a drain and the standing water rushes down because you cleared the clog.
Over the last couple of days, I've been fighting some back-ups in the plumbing system at my house. It's almost certain that I caused the problem myself - I put some leftover mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, and cooked green beans down the garbage disposal. Right afterward while I was hand-washing some dishes (with the water running), Carole came in to report that the bathtub drain was backing up - which is never a good sign.
I grabbed my trusty 25 foot 1/4" hand snake, and started working it down the main clean-out. I spooled out all 25 feet, but the water was still sitting there, so I got in the car to drive to Home Depot to buy a 40' snake. (In my mind, if 40' doesn't do it, you need to call a plumber...)
On the way, Carole called to tell me that the drain was flowing, so I turned around and came home. When I got there, the kitchen and bathtub drains were flowing well, but the front bathroom sink was totally stopped up.
My regular snake doesn't fit into the bathroom sink drain, so the next day Carole looked for one of those 3 foot Turbo Snakes at Target, with no luck. Yesterday, I stopped at OSH and got a Turbo Snake and an 8' 1/4" auger snake, which has an end piece that fits into the bathroom sink drain.
The Turbo Snake did nothing - it's good for minor hair clogs, but not for anything serious. I fed the 8' auger snake all the way in, and the water began draining, but very, very slowly. I headed back to OSH and got a new 25' 1/4" snake - the kind with the orange plastic case that holds the snake. When I got home, I cut down the head so it was small enough to fit into the bathroom sink drain.
All 25' went in, and the drain went from very, very slowly to just very slowly. I talked it over with Carole, and we decided to let it drain until there was no standing water in the sink, and then use Liquid Plumr. When I poured it in, the sink had stopped draining completely, so the chemicals just sat there in the sink.
Just before she went to bed for the night, Carole filled up the sink with hot water to the level of the vent, to dilute the chemicals. This morning, we found that the sink had drained a little - it was about 2" below the level of the vent.
With nothing to lose but a little bit of time and effort, we decided to re-snake the drain. If it didn't work - and I didn't really expect it to - we would call a plumber out on Monday to fix it, expecting to pay upwards of $300 for the service.
I got about 10' in when I got that very satisfying sound of standing water rushing down the drain. I kept going for another 3'-4' just to be sure, and then left the snake in place while I ran the hot water on full for about 10 minutes - both to make sure the drain was really open, and to help wash down any left-over debris. I pulled the snake out, and kept the water running for another 5 minutes or so, with no backup. Yay!
Snaking a drain is a messy business, so I had to clean the sink, the counter top, and the faucet really well. I reinstalled the drain stopper, and it's now all back to normal.
All this before noon - it has already been a productive day - and now there's no need to further complicate an already difficult Monday by calling a plumber, waiting for him to arrive, hovering around while he works, and writing a big check.
Now that's satisfaction.
Apheresis – January 20th
I watched The Town during my donation this morning, which had been delayed while I finished the antibiotics prescribed for my pneumonia.
A Soldier Like My Mother
The military has traditionally been a male preserve, and military SF, coming from the traditions of military fiction, has tended the same way. There’s no reason an army of the future need be a male army, and there’s no reason honour and duty and loyalty are exclusively male virtues, but that’s the way things have tended to be.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga is more than military science fiction, but it started off firmly within MilSF. It’s also solidly feminist and written from a female perspective, while being about all the things military SF is about. Bujold constantly holds these things in tension — masculine, military mad Barrayar against feminine social controlled Beta; the glory of war against the reality of messy death; duty and honor against expedience and compromise. It’s partly these tensions that make the series so compelling. You can have the fun and excitement of galactic mercenary adventures, with a matchless depth of thought and character development.
“You have the competence one would look for in a mother of warriors,” Aral says to Cordelia in Shards of Honor, the first book of the series. She’s military herself, she’s an astrocartographer and the commander of a Betan exploration ship, she is his prisoner and and he means it as a compliment. She replies: “Save me from that! To pour yourself into sons for eighteen or twenty years and then have the government take them away and waste them cleaning up after some failure of politics — no thanks.” This is central to what Bujold’s doing with showing the human cost of war. She’s just as good at the rest of it — the honour and the glory — but she never forgets or lets you forget that the lights blinking on the screens represent ships full of human lives, and every one of them with a mother.
via A Soldier Like My Mother. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga | Tor.com.
Gavin goes travelling…
I drove Gavin out to Culver City for his every-4-month eye exam with Dr. Faher. Unbeknownst to me, Jeremy had borrowed the purple cat carrier, and Smidge's old grey carrier had been loaned out long ago, so I had to improvise. I wound up using his blanket box - a cardboard shipping box just his size. Carole had put a folded up blanket in the bottom of the box a few weeks ago, and he's been sleeping inside it off and on ever since. He got in easily enough, but wasn't too happy when he found out what was going on. Justin said he was "rollin' redneck..."
In the car I left one of the long flaps untucked, and on the way to the doctor he kept trying to climb out, but he settled down after a while. He was very comfortable at the doctor's office, and got a clean bill of health after his exam. We're staying with the same eye meds, and he doesn't need to come back for 5- or 6-months unless we spot a problem sooner.
After the exam I chatted with the doctor, mostly about my pneumonia, and Gavin just laid on the towel they use to cover the metal exam table, with his tail wagging. He sat quietly in the redneck box all the way home, and just poked out a little as I was driving up the street to the house.
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth
I finished The Forgotten Affairs of Youth
More good fun in Edinburgh, with a minor mystery and lots of snippets of Isabel's life.
My rating:
Bertie Plays the Blues
I finished Bertie Plays the Blues
A few too many loose ends for my liking, and Irene's turnaround was too abrupt, but otherwise a very nice addition to the series.
My rating: 
No more GoDaddy
I manage about 30 domain names — about 10 for my own use, 10 more for friends and family, and the rest for various businesses — and started back when GoDaddy was the cool alternative to Network Solutions.
As of today, I have moved all my active domains off of GoDaddy in response to their continued support of SOPA. (The rest of the domains expire shortly and won't be renewed.)
Like many blog owners, I stand firmly against the letter and spirit of SOPA. Everyone should read up on the proposed legislation and make up your own mind.
Books I read last year
In 2011, I read 65 books to completion. I started but did not finish 3 books - one I abandoned for good, but the other two I will finish in the future - they just didn't fit my mood at the time I picked them up.
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