Twenty Five Years Ago Today .......

President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley jr while leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington.

Here's The Presidents account of that day:
http://www.ronaldreagan.com/march30.html

Here's a video clip:
http://tinyurl.com/kmkz4


An insanity plea was a given. I mean, would you shoot somebody for her?

Several years after the shooting, Queen Buffness and I attended a speech given by Secret Service Agent, Timothy McCarthy. Very interesting to hear from a guy who jumped into the line of fire and took one in the chest.

And to revive an old joke, What's The Presidents favorite vegetable? - James Brady.

C'mon, how often do you get a chance to dust that one off and use it?

Yer Unk Goes to the Movies .....

"The World's Fastest Indian"

Bad behaviour and poor choices by previous generations of my family, allow me to give this film 3 thumbs up!!!

I finally made it to see this movie!! It turned into a major undertaking, but it was definitely worth the effort.

Anthony Hopkins stars as Burt Munro, a New Zealander with a dream of taking his 1920 Indian to Bonneville.
This is a great movie. If you're a motorcycle fan, you'll love it. If you're NOT a motorcycle fan, you'll love it. My wife loved this movie. Guys, take the wife and or girlfriend and fear not.

Hopkins, as usual, is wonderful as Munro. I'm sure there are liberties taken with the details of the story, as there are in all "Based on a True Story" type film. Who gives a shit? It's a very entertaining film about a very cool subject.

The movie had a pretty small initial release and trying to find a place closer than 75 - 100 miles from the "GrumpyUnk Command and Control Bunker" had been a problem. Finally, last week, it opened at a little Art House Theatre very close to home. The only problem? Unk wasn't close to home. But, Unk WAS on vacation. So no problem right? Wrong. The Yahoo movie finder failed to mention that the theatre wasn't open on Mondays. Queen Buffness and I drove 2 hours to find that out. Arrgh!!! Oh well. We made the drive again 2 days later and did get to see it, so it all turned out ok. Like I said, I was on vacation anyway. It's going to be playing thru Thursday this week and I may well go see it again. You should do likewise if you get a chance.

here's a link to the IMDB site that has more info and lots of linkage for you.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412080/

Pig Poop Power !!!!!

See, Master Blaster had it all figured out in Mad Max, Thunderdome. Who says life doesn't imitate art?












Ace has a neat post about research at the University of Illinois turning Pig Shit into gasoline today. Link here:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/165389.php

As always, He has a unique perspective on it too. I don't want to spoil it so go check it out.

UPDATE: The link above is fixed now. Thanks, Surly for pointing that out. Looks like Blogger has the picture problem fixed too, so here's the Master Blaster for ya.

Latest BSA News .........

Roger, The Brit Guy who is helping me get the Beezer up to speed called me this morning. Bad news. The rear hub is dicked up and needs replaced.
Bummer. But all is not lost. Roger had a spare conical hub and wheel that he levered my new tire onto. He says I can use it till I find another. Not bad, 'eh?

I found one at a place I've ordered parts from in the past and just said, "screw it" and bought it. Pretty nice of him to let me use one of his though. It was pretty reasonably priced for the hub and a decent rim all laced up, so I can't really complain.





Seems that someone had dicked around in there and got shit ass backwards, which resulted in the wheel bearings being able to slop around and wallow out the hub. I hadn't noticed any sloppiness while riding it before, but it was only a matter of time, so it's a good thing he found it now. God Love Him. That could have been a very unpleasant surprise if shit had let go up at speed.

This is a good example of why it's been money well spent to have him help me out. I hadn't gotten to checking wheel bearing yet (I've only put about 1000 miles on it) and probably wouldn't have for awhile yet.

Yeah, my Garage Ninja is weak yet, but the learning curve is not quite as steep as it once was.
Blogger is being all weird about posting pictures right now so I can't put any cool pics up. Maybe later.

OK, Blogger seems to have fixed it's picture problem. That's me making sure it's only the contents of my wallet that's getting smaller.

OK. Now Get Back To Work!!!
Made it back from our little getaway Saturday morning. I took a nap and went to work Saturday night and Sunday. Only 1 more weekend of the night shift to go! I'll be starting in my new position in April. Supervising the ER during the 11am to 11pm shift. I'm seriously looking forward to getting off nights. I feel old enough as it is, just by virtue of being as old as I am without the night shift adding to it.

New Blogroll Addition: If you look to the links on the sidebar under Military, you'll see frequent commenter, Shannon, of The Shannon Chronicles there. An Army Wife with her priorities figured out. Gotta love a woman who knows which household item comes first. Check this post out.
http://tinyurl.com/g4adp

We Interupt This Program .........
For a GrumpyUnk special. Live from the Mobile, GrumpyUnk, Command and Control Bunker.

Here we are hidden safely away at the Southern Command Post. Good Queen Buffness and I are doing the R&R thing this week and YerUnk will be busy doing mental hygine cleansing. Much needed cleansing, BTW. We'll be back next week, so all 3 of you who read this crap be good and be safe.

Check out a few of the links. Hope the weather's better where you're at. Later.

Happy St. Patrick's Day......

Always one of my favorites. When I was a youngster, Chicago was the place to go to celebrate. Green beer, good fun, good food. Hell, they dyed the damn river green.

One year I went up there with a fella I worked with to visit his Daddy. Real Irish folks, unlike myself. His Daddy directed us to a genuine Irish Pub, filled with genuine Irish Folks. Most of them were speaking Gaelic. No green beer in that place.
I was fairly young and basically sat there with my mouth shut and enjoyed things. Every so often someone would break into song and the whole place would join in. Sometimes the songs were in English, sometimes not. I didn't recognize most of them anyway. All of a sudden a little Red Headed Guy stands up and walks to the center of the place. Everyone got real quiet. This Little Dude couldn't have been over 5' 5" and weighted maybe, 130 Lbs. He opened up and starting singing "Danny Boy" in the most beautiful, Tenor I've heard. Before or since. Unbelievable. By the time he was thru, there wasn't a dry eye in the place.

I never saw that guy buy a drink all night. He'd get up every hour or so and sing a song, then go sit down with his pals. They all got hammered on his talent.

My Father died on this day 14 years ago. St. Paddys Day was a favorite of his too. I still miss 'em. Have a drink and toast "The 'Ol Man" for me today. I'll be working for the next 3 nights and will have to wait till Monday to Toast 'em Myself.

Can't Kill 'em Quick Enough .....

Bane (see links) noted this bit of news yesterday:
"Child porn ring transmitted acts live on Web: US"
http://tinyurl.com/oqvx7

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. and Canadian authorities said on Wednesday they had cracked an international child pornography network that in some cases transmitted molestations live over the Internet.
"These are the worst imaginable forms of child pornography," said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, adding that one case involved the abuse of a toddler less than 18 month old.
Twenty-seven people from nine U.S. states and Canada, Australia and Britain, are charged with possession, receipt, distribution and manufacture of child pornography in connection with the case, authorities said.

What the hell is wrong with people? I hope they all die before they even get to trial.

Rope. Tree. Kiddie Porn Perv. Some assembly required.

Or maybe this would work:

Indiana is a Strange Place ........

South Bend is up North.
North Vernon is down South.

French Lick? Not. Even. Close.

Good Queen Buffness and I will be heading off to points unknown next week. Well, unknown to y'all anyway.

This is our annual getaway time and if I ever needed a Mental hygiene Enema, now is that time. I'm burnt to a crisp right now. Nothing special planned, just gonna lay around and kick back somewhere other than here. See a movie or 2 and maybe remind my Liver of how nice I've been to it for the last few years. I'm looking forward to it. The Queen and I can both use a little R&R. At this point, it doesn't look like the weather is gonna be all that great, so I'll probably leave the Big Blue, Plastic Kawasaki home. The Queen doesn't care to freeze her Royal Butt off and it would be rude of me to dump her alone and ride all day by myself. Could be worse.

Beezer Update ..........







OK, Things have been a bit quiet on the BritBike front as of late. The good news is that progress is being made. Hey, I heard it run this morning. Started up real nice and even idled by its' own self.
My fragile male ego was originally weeping and gnashing about having to admit I needed some help with getting this thing sorted out.

I've gotten over it.

Roger the Brit Guy, has been a huge help in schoolin' me about this bike. He knows these things inside and out and has taught me a BUNCH of stuff I wouldn't have found out about till it broke. I wish he lived a little closer so I could get over there a bit more frequently and hang around while he works. He's a natural teacher and seems to enjoy enlightening me. Not in a "Look how smart I am" way either. Nice guy. He pointed out many little things that were not right and explained how he's corrected them. He's a bit slow, as far as what he's gotten done for the time it's been there, but that's all right. Mine ain't the only bike he's been working on. He has been going over it from one end to the other and tweaking here and there. This bike, like most BritBikes, has been passed around and dicked with by a bunch of folks over the last 35 years. Subsequently, there's a lot of little flaws and things to be fixed. Shit I wouldn't have seen either.

So far - New electronic ignition, coils and Podtronics. Real spark, all the time! Steering dampener. Fork springs, seals and wipers. Carbs rebuilt. Several rounded off, broken off and stripped bolts/fasteners replaced or repaired. Kick start and shift lever fixed and/or setup properly. Chain adjusters fixed. Speedo housing and cable setup right. Brakes & bearings, front and rear, setup or replaced. Handlebar switches put in the proper place and wired correctly. Sump on the frame cleaned out. Footpegs mounted correctly, rear motormount bolt ... Oh shit, there's a bunch more too.
I ordered all new cables from Rabers the other day and I'll replace them all when it gets back here also.

I found a guy right here in town that had a set of gauges. Proper type and like new. So I'll get those put on later too.

I've got a new tank too. Expensive as hell, but it's what I wanted. My tank has a leak (2 actually) and getting it fixed is gonna require some time and repainting, so I figured I may as well get a tank that I like. Here's what I bought:










This style tank was only for non-export bikes. All the US Bikes had little bitty ass 2.2 gallon tanks like this:

That's what my bike looked like 1 paint job ago. You can see the bars have also been changed from when this was taken, along with the addition of an oil cooler.

Surly is gonna help me design and make a different set of sidecovers. I just don't like the ugly ass ones that are on it now. I've got a set of velocity stacks, so the airbox and filters can be replaced.

I'm still thinking of a paint scheme for it. I'm leaning towards British Racing Green or Dark Blue with a similar white panel and striping like what's on the new tank. Not sure about any design on the sidecovers. We'll see.

The pipes are pretty beat up and will have to be replaced eventually. I don't know whether to go with a 2 into 1 setup, stock or maybe some upswept or backswept pipes. Not a priority right now anyway.

Trying to decide if I should try to make a fiberglass, Boat tail seat myself or buy a Corbin like this one:

http://www.corbin.com/triumph/vintlist.shtml

Again, not a priority anytime soon. The Corbin is not all that much though .... Jebus! A guy can spend a fortune on these damn bikes. Even with the purchase price and all I put into it last year, shocks, tires and tubes, tail light, wiring, switches, headlight loom, etc. I'll still have less than I do in the Big Blue, Plastic Kawasaki. And I'm never gonna get rid of it anyway, so who gives a shit?

This Could Be a Huge Breakthrough ....

From the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4801728.stm

Really interesting article on research using nanotech for regrowth of nerve tissue. This could be a big deal if they get it worked out. From the sound of it, it works to some extent.

I hope this Nanotech idea works so I can quit listening to the Stem Cell debate.
Screw a bunch of all the BS about which stem cells are better. Nanotech would be nice, as all that Stem cell shit is just another abortion debate anyway. Personally, I'm sick of hearing about how important it is to kill babies and harvest cells for Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox.

You Can't Make This Shit Up ......

From Yahoo News...
http://tinyurl.com/n6u94

Chicago Requires Driver's Ed for the Blind
CHICAGO - Most high school students eagerly await the day they pass driver's education class. But 16-year-old Mayra Ramirez is indifferent about it.

Ramirez is blind, yet she and dozens of other visually impaired sophomores in Chicago schools are required to pass a written rules-of-the-road exam in order to graduate — a rule they say takes time away from subjects they might actually use......

This is why real life stuff is waaaaay better.

Since We're On The Subject of AFDB's ........

As I noted in the previous post below, an "Aluminum Foil Deflector Beenie" or AFDB, is crucial to some folks well being. Maybe Yours. But for sure, the guy who owns this car needs one.















I was helping the oldest Son, Therapy Boy, move last week and this was parked along the street near his new place. Wow! You can't believe the shit that's glued on that car.

And a little close up action .... Just to give you a better idea of the artistry on this thing.













I asked him if it had been parked there when he came to look at the apartment originally. Of course, I already knew what the answer was gonna be, he said yes.

It's to bad you can't see the "Millennium Falcon" on the hood in these pictures.
Yes, I do admire the creativity that went into this thing.

And yes, I told him to be real polite to the owner when he sees him.

And Now For Something Completely Different ....


Just because I care. Well that and I'm thinking Surly (www.surlycamera.com) may be affected by mind control beams. He's been talking all weird lately about secrets and Asshole Spamming" me here. Clearly, "Something is amiss at the CircleK, Bill".

Consider this a Publik Service Bulletin and go here:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
Do it now! For the Children. Before it's to late.
Remember, Shiny side out!

A Social Worker Finally ... Snaps

OK, This rant may or may not be real. There is no real way of knowing as it's an anonymous posting on craigslist.
http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/mt-tb.cgi/155958

As an ER worker, I don't have a hell of a lot of trouble believing that shit like this occurs - I know it does. I see fucked up people doing fucked up shit to their kids all the time.

And people wonder why I'm such a cynical SOB.
Hat tip to Ace. One of my favorites and over on the right there ->

More Comment Section Notes ........

Well, I went back and looked around at all the comments and it's like ........... Damn, I'm a Dumbass.

Also, who are these people?
Example - Woolybugger? http://wooleysrant.blogspot.com/ He's a North Carolina Guy it seems who's infected with the motorcycle virus too.

Here's another-
http://thedeploymentdiary.blogspot.com/ It seems that this Army Wife has quit blogging and maybe started another somewhere else. Sorry I didn't get to meet her.

My Dumbassishness has deprived me of meeting, what seem to be, interesting folks. Bummer.

It Seems That My Comments Section Was NFG ........
Surly (See - The Kid - on the links bar) emailed me this morning and asked if my comments for this thing were turned off or some shit. Of course, I was like WTF? So I went digging around in the settings Department and sure enough, I had the comments set for some kind of "Moderated" BS.

Now there are random comments scattered around in the archives back till last November or there 'bouts.

I was wondering why I never got any comments anymore and just assumed it's because I'm an Asshole and y'all were just to nice to say so.

I've got 'em fixed now - I think. So, if any of you feel the need to just be yourself and call me an Asshole, I think it'll post your comment now.

Oh, Hell. Somebody give me a shout out so I can see if this shit is working.

OK Ladies, You Made the Mistake of Marrying a Liberal ....
And now you want to have kids. There IS hope.

Patriot Guard Ride Monday .........
Got to ride and stand with the PGR yesterday morning in Kokomo for U.S. Army Sgt Rickey Jones' funeral.
You may or may not be aware of the local hatred exhibited towards the family in the form of vandalism (eggs on the house and stolen flag's) and harassing, obscene (Glad He's dead) phone calls last week. http://tinyurl.com/gen2h

Coupled with the announcement that the Phelps Family Circus, (with Fred Hissef') would be making an appearance at the funeral, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Glad I went. The PGR and several other groups were there in huge numbers. Well over 100 bikes. One media report I saw estimated 200. I lost track trying to count 'em, but I can believe 200 w/o any problem. Lots of folks showed up in cars and trucks too.

FLAGS!! It was beautiful. Hundreds of flags and riders all up the drive and around the entire lot.

As you can see from the photos, the weather was lousy. Just above freezing at 33 degrees. The roads were wet, but not to slippery overall. I worked till 3:30am Monday morning and went straight home and got the gear on for the ride. It was about 40+ and misty when I left home, but got progressively colder the further North I went.
I stopped on the North side of Indy to get some coffee and warm up a bit and several riders pulled up and we rode the last 25 miles together, picking up small groups along the way. About 20 of us ended up riding to the staging area at the local High School.

The Phelps Family was a noshow. They may be Bastard Rat, MoFo, Lawyers - Wait, that's redundant isn't it? But they're smart enough to know when to stay away. With the BS that had gone on last week, things were a bit tense around Kokomo. I don't think there would have been any problems even if they had showed.

The PGR folks were all cool and professional and the Law enforcement groups (State, County and Local) had everything under control and organized nicely.

The legislators passed a bill last week limiting what, and how close protestors can be, along w/ increasing the penalty to felony status for disruptions. Now the PGR would be liable under the same statute if they misbehaved, but everyone was focused on doing the right thing and not bashing the Phelps' so I don't think it would have mattered.
If you look at the pictures you'll see the fog got so thick during our time at the funeral site, no one would have been able to see a protestor anyway. The State Police had a nice, out of the way spot set up for them, where they could protest - or whatever the hell it is they do - safely. Very well set up, within the legal bounds of the law, but out of the main flow of traffic to effectively make them a nonfactor. The Fog would have made them virtually invisible.

It's pretty funny that the Fog began to lift as soon as the service ended.

I didn't make the last leg of the ride past the Burial site and on to the American Legion. I'd been up for 24 hours by then and was frozen already. I hauled ass South and homeward after the Service.

It was a long day, but immensely gratifying to support the Family of this Hero.
Here's a link to a very nicely done photo tribute by the local media:
http://tinyurl.com/fn6df

Some Pictures here: http://tinyurl.com/j48zn
And here: http://www.marineriders.org/kokomo_1

Birthday Presents For the Queen .....
No, Not the Queen of England. Queen Buffness the Spouse. OK, her birthday was Monday but I'm only late on posting it here. I did not forget her special day or any dumb shit like that.


Here's what I got her. Fun AND Educational!! Shit, once she gets this baby cranked up and running, she'll have more friends than she'll know what to do with.

Given the popularity of Meth around these parts, it was not easy to find this thing. Thank Goodness for WalMart!