Scary Story ............

We all know that motorcycling carries a certain element of risk for all of us who ride. Some things are just out of our ability to control and let's face it, sometimes shit just happens.

But some shit just isn't SUPPOSED to happen. Like some Batshit Crazy MoFo hitting you from behind and dragging your ass for FOUR FRIGGIN' MILES.

Clutch and Chrome (link on the sidebar) has the story here-
ttp://www.clutchandchrome.com/News/May/News0531061000.htm

This kinda shit scares the hell outta' me. If some fucktard decides to go homicidal on a Biker all the odds are in his favor. There's not much a Biker can do about shit like that. I don't know about any of you, but I'm not really hardwired to be on the lookout for somebody DELIBERATELY TRYING TO KILL ME.

At least they're charging him with intent to kill. All to often, shitheads like this get off all to easy. I hope he gets a cellmate who's an Hell's Angels member.
I'm very happy to see the Biker got away with only minor injuries. That's a damn miracle.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier .....

Bane, of BaneRants (see link on sidebar) put up a nice tribute of photos and facts regarding the soldiers that guard the Tomb. Some of the details are not entirely accurate, but never the less, it's very inspiring. Go check it out -
http://banedad.blogspot.com/2006/05/tomb-of-unknown-soldier.html

Now, for everything you ever wanted to know about the Tomb and the Guardians who watch over it, go here - http://www.tombguard.org/site.html

I have the greatest respect for the soldiers who are in this unit. I know I would never have been able to make the cut.
In all my travels over the years, I've never been to Washington or the surrounding area. My natural disdain and disgust of most of the elected officials in Washington have kept me away.
I guess I'm gonna have to break down and take a week or so and just go.

Oh My Aching Back ....

I look at this picture and marvel.

I can barely get up and down today. Yesterday morning I went out to feed the chickens before work. No big deal, just another day at the GrumpyUnk Command and Control Bunker, right?

Wrong. I started pouring feed into the feeder and WHAM!!! Instant pain. Dropped me to my knees. Pain from my knees all the way to my head. My low back felt like someone stabbed my with a very big, very hot, knife.

This did not, nor does it continue to please me at all. This isn't the first time shit like this has happened. But damn, it's so unexpected and sudden, there's no way you can prepare yourself for it when it does happen.

I hurt so bad, I had to have the wife drive me to work. I took some Motrin and shuffled around in pain and applied an icepack. The Boss asked me if I needed to go home, but I declined. By hanging around and providing, even limited help, I feel I gain the moral high ground and superiority over all the Zombie losers that come whining into the ER with their little chickenshit complaints.

I may be less than stellar physically and in severe pain, but at least I try to contribute. In the ER, my biggest contribution isn't my strong back anyway.

Thankfully, I'm off for the next couple of days. I got up early this morning and hit the medicine jar, so I'm semi-numb now. Not "Comfortably Numb", but tolerable. And addle-brained. So if this all sounds sorta rambling, there's a pharmacological reason for that. I'm sure a nap is in the offing sometime later today.

Fine Art in the Midwest ......

This guy really knows how to express himself thru his artwork. About the only thing wrong is ........ It should have been addressed to the U.S. Senate.

The illegals are here because we let them. I can't blame them. I've been into central Mexico, Panama and Honduras. I'd want to come here too.

If the Crazy Bastards in the Senate plan to reward illegal behavior with benefits the existing citizens don't get, what's to lose? Saddle up and cross that border.

George Bush and the Senate Republicans who are pushing this crazy shit are gonna be in for a big surprise in the upcoming elections. Lots of us who are conservatives are gonna say - UP YOURS! Oh well. We'll just see how it goes.

The fella who made this nice little display has a wife who immigrated from Russia. It took her years to jump thru all the hoops required to obtain US Citizenship. He's pissed that these dickheads in Washington are gonna magically make millions of criminals citizens overnight. And make it easy and profitable for them at the same time.

Anyway, the pic came from here - http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=4963421

If you really want to know how bad the Senate legislation passed last week is .. Go check this out by John Hawkins - http://www.rightwingnews.com/john/specialimm.php

OK. Enough of that shit. Basically, I liked the artwork. The Republicans in the Senate who voted for this crap can all go piss up a rope. Same thing for Dubya. Stupid Bastards.

Klose Karma. Or How They (Almost) Got Me Anyway ....

I'm working my new shift now and get off at 11pm. (That's 2300 hours for you non-Military/Nurse types.)

Riding the back roads at that hour can be a great way to unexpectedly meet many of God's wonderful creatures, so I make it a point to be extra careful and never go more than 40 - 45 mph.

Tuesday night while riding home I was thinking about how important the whole awareness and observation thing is in regards to safety in general and night time specifically.

I scan the sides of the roads looking for reflections constantly. Sometimes, all the warning you're gonna get is a little flash of reflection from an eyeball before Bambi and her friends (There's always more than one) decide to commit "Suicide by Motor Vehicle".

Skunks, Possum, Coons, Dogs ........ And out here in the country where I live, Livestock that has gotten loose. Think about how fun it would be to crest a hill and find 3 Black Angus Steers in the road at night. I know it happens, 'cause I took care of a young couple who did just that at speed. In a Chevy Vega. Left a mark on both of them and totaled the Vega.

Anyway, I was being hyper-cautious driving and thinking about a list of tips for riders for night driving.

SLOW DOWN.
SCAN the roadside CONSTANTLY for reflections from eyeballs.
Watch even closer, and slow down more, going over hills or around curves. Deer like to cross the road in areas where they will be exposed for the least amount of time.
Don't assume drivers are going to stop at stop signs on crossroads or at 4 ways. (Good advice all the time).
SLOW DOWN.
MSF course Instructors be damned - cover the front brake with at least one finger. I keep 2 on the front brake most of the time, but almost always at night.
Keep Scanning.

It had been raining earlier and the roads were still a little wet, so I was going about 35-40 mph. I thought the sky was clearing tho' and looked up to check the stars ............ DAMN!!!!

In the time it took me to look up, see the stars and look back down, a big fat Raccoon, came out of the ditch and ran right in front of me. Only by luck did I miss him. It was so close, I may well have run over his tail.

I screamed like a little schoolgirl. Scared the shit right out of me. You can be really loud, when you let out a yelp like that inside a helmet.

Then of course, I laughed my ass off thinking about how ironic it would be to have your ass busted by a damn raccoon, while thinking about night safety issues.

My Karma is seriously twisted or God just likes to make fun of me.

So, it just goes to show you, you just can't be aware enough. And luck is under rated.

Computer Down ........

I, in my infinite wisdom, undertook to upgrade my computer. I oughta know better.

It works now. But my backups of some things .... didn't backup. Lost my friggin' email address book.

The damn Windoze, Settings and file transfer wizard? Yeah, the thing laughed at me when I tried to transfer back into the upgraded system. I had most of that shit backed up separately .... but not my web addresses.

Shit. I slave to repair the fixit I began. Oh well.

The rain continues for what seems like months. The grass is as high as my armpits out back. Summer's not even here and I'm way behind the power curve already.

And I have to sort, figure out, organize and repair all of Mom's shit. It's gonna be a long Summer.
I'll try to fix this thing a little at a time and post some more upbeat things later.

Took the Two Lane Roads ....

Home from the Funeral Sunday. I rode the Big Blue Bike up North for Mom's Funeral last week, knowing that the ride home would be therapeutic.

Sometimes I get it right.

I had made a high speed, superslab run on the way up and knew that was not gonna happen on the return trip. I took a bunch of small State and County roads and turned a 3 hour, 200 mile drive, into a 10 hour ride of 300 miles.

As it should be on a Motorcycle.

I dicked around and stopped when ever I felt like it & checked out a small Train Museum in some little ass town. I'm a real sucker for following an interesting sign. Show me a "See the Worlds Largest Ball of Twine" sign? I'm there, Baby!

Oh BTW, it's in Cawker City, Kansas. Yeah, I drove 200 miles out of my way to see that one time on a trip out West. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/towns/Cawker/twine.html


Same thing with "The Cadillac Ranch" in Texas. There's no sign for that, but I knew about where it was ... And hey, I was in Texas already! It turned out to be only 400 miles off the planned route. Texas is sorta big, so 400 miles doesn't seem like that much of a diversion in a place that size.

Well, Things here are hopefully, gonna settle back into a new routine after We get Mom's stuff in order. That's gonna take awhile as her important shit is scattered all over the place. Her thought processes were too, so I guess that makes an odd sorta sense.

Lots of work to do on getting her shit in order. Therapeutic Motorcycle rides will ensue with regularity I think.

"THE CALL" .....

Thelma, The GrumpyUnk Mom, passed away yesterday.

Yesterday evening, just as the sun was setting, I got "THE CALL". Everyone either already knows about what "THE CALL" means or they will. Sooner or later.

The boy who cuts my Mothers lawn told his Mom that "Something didn't look right" at my Moms' place.

Mom ALWAYS keeps her place locked up like Ft. Knox and is very regimented on her routines.

The lawn kid noticed that she hadn't closed her front door up yet and didn't answer when he knocked. The storm door was locked and the big door was still open at around 7pm. Not normal. His Mom tried calling and got no answer.

She then made "THE CALL" here and told me.

All I could say was ........ Shit.

I already knew what I was gonna find.

Dogboy and I got in the car and drove over there. I told him on the way over that we weren't likely to find anything good when we got there. He already knew that, of course, but I had to say it anyway.

We didn't find anything good.

I had Dogboy, who is very close to his Grandma, wait outside, while I went in and looked around. I was hoping to find her in her chair or in bed, or something like that. Not quite, but that's the way life is. We don't generally get to pick when or how it ends.

Dogboy goes over there from work and has lunch with her most everyday. Yesterday he got off work early and didn't make it as usual. That was probably a good thing. Better that I was the first one to find her instead of him.

Mom was 80 years old and did pretty well for her age. But she was 80 years old. I'm not sure why I was surprised she'd died.

I'm an RN and have seen many folks die. But never my Mom, so I was kinda shook up and for a few minutes I didn't know just what I was supposed to do. After a few minutes, I got on the phone to 911 and the nice dispatcher got things rolling in an orderly manner. Jack, One of my friends on the Police force showed up and took charge of the situation and things went ok from there. More of my friends from the local EMS came and took over. God bless 'em all for helping me out.

Strangely enough, Mom had called my Sister in Law last Friday and went over everything she wanted regarding her funeral arrangements.

So maybe she was less surprised than I was about the whole thing.

It's funny how earlier yesterday I was putting up "Birth Announcements" for baby chickens and then the lawn kids' Mom makes "THE CALL". And everything you've ever known in your life changes.

While making "CALLS" of my own today, several folks mentioned, how she had recently said she was "Getting tired and ready to go".

Funny, She had been bragging to me, just last week, about how much better she'd been doing lately. I'm not sure if that means anything significant or if her Alzhiemers was just more or less active, depending on who she was talking to and when. Guess I'll never know now.

We had had a pretty tempestuous relationship through the years, but had pretty much settled into a good thing as we both matured. Except of course, when I'd push her buttons and twist her tail, just to see her get all pissy for fun.

She seldom failed to disappoint. People who know me are able to do the same shit to me and get the same kinda reactions. They're seldom disappointed either. Yeah, you know who you are ....... You Shitheads.

I guess I got that from her. Well, I can use that as a good excuse anyway.

We're gonna miss her. She was a good ol' Girl.

Thelma GrumpyMom. 8-29-25 -- 5-1-06

Important Birth Announcement!!!!!!!

We have baby chicks! 9 little fluffy chicks hatched over the weekend from the incubator.

Yes, Unk loves his chickens. Surlys Ol' Man, Chief, got me started on raising Black Java chickens several years ago. Java's are an old fashioned breed that were almost extinct a decade or so ago. They have been brought back and now there's a pretty good collection of them out there.

We had a massacre of the Black breeding stock a month ago by either the neighbors dogs or coyotes.

I gathered up the eggs left from the recently departed and added some from the not so good, mixed Black and White Javas and set a bunch of 17 eggs in the incubator.

Nine, cute little chicks. Let's hope there not all Roosters.
Photo courtesy of www.feathersite.com - THE place for chicken info!
Here's a link for more pics and info -
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGD/Java/BRKJava.html