Martini Blog

  "Whatcha gonna blog about"? says my wife. "Oh crap, that's tomorrow. I gots nothing."  That's the conversation we just had moments before I started writing this.

 The martini in the pic isn't the first drink of the evening so writing this now is a crap shoot. The martini is just washing down a few brandy old fashions. BTW, pineapple doesn't belong in an old fashioned. This is Wisconsin, not Kalifornia. After requesting an orange slice and a cherry rather than the pineapple the knucklehead bartender snuck in there,  the second one tasted much better. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was on the second drink.

 Saturday started with a banana/strawberry smoothie and a cool ride to work. By lunch the day had warmed up nicely and I left work early to get a new tire mounted on the Ultra. It was a nice hour ride and the bike ran well. See, I've been experimenting with different fuel maps in my Fuelpak3 and have been experiencing minor running issues. I finally got fed up and called Vance and Hines to ask which base map to run with a gutted head pipe, street cannons and the extreme ventilator air filter.
*side note, wife just brought me another martini*
They suggested a base map and I loaded that map two nights ago. It's all done on a phone app with bluetooth and is pretty cool and easy to navigate. I had one short ride and thought it was much better. Todays ride has left me with the opinion that I may not mess with mapping for a while. I runs pretty sweet.
 I arrived at the Harley dealer to exchange blood and sweat for a rear tire. I explained the situation with my air ride suspension and my concerns about belt tension. The response I got from the tech left me confident he had been down this road before. He then asked if I wanted the bike washed. "How much is that gonna cost me"? I asked.  "Just time" he explained. "Your terms are acceptable" and I wandered off into the showroom. I immediately spotted a familiar face and we had a nice talk about bikes, vacations, first rides and ailments. (it seems the older you get, the more you talk about medical shit) As we spoke, a group of people were being escorted into the showroom and stopped in front of us. These were the students in the newbe riding class. Out of curiosity I followed  them for a while just to get a sense of what this was about. First they must get their temps by passing the DMV written test. Then for $320 they do a Friday night, Saturday and Sunday which includes classroom and riding training. At the end of it they are licensed and legal to operated any moo sucker they want. Of course this dealer hopes it will be one of their hogs. At their last stop of the showroom tour, the rep asked "That's all I've got, who's ready to ride?!" A bunch of hands went up, including mine. I couldn't help myself. Later as they started their riding course I watched them from the lounge window like a puppy crying to get outside.
 Somehow I got all crossed up on the ride home. I was trying to skirt around some rain clouds and may have done some unintended backtracking. Anyway, that free bike wash was a waste of time cuz I got hammered. It was a short rain but the bike got dirty just the same as if I were riding in crap all day. Rats. Some days ya just can't win. On that ride home I spotted three squids and one bike parked along a lonely back road. I gave them the thumbs up/thumbs down signal and they waved me on. They had the situation under control but I had to wonder about what I saw. Three guys wearing helmets and one bike. The nearest help of any kind was miles away. I saw no other bikes as I approached or for miles after I passed. I guess I just thought it was weird they all kept their helmets on while someone on another bike would be gone for so long. Maybe the other biker was wadded up in the ditch somewhere. It would have been easy to miss him in the tall swamp grass of the marsh. Whatever.
*she told me whats in these martinis but I forgot. Whatever it is it's kicking my ass. I spend more time hitting the backspace button than any other*
 Tomorrow (as I write this, today as I post this) will start with me editing this mess. Spell check underlines in red any questionable spelling. Right now the red lines look like the bunting on an Independence Day float. After that I plan to pack for vacation. I don't leave for two weeks but because we now have uniforms at work, I think I can get this out of the way. I only need casual wear for one weekend here and I have enough threads to cover that. I also want to mess with my GoPro mounts. Later on I may ride down to Madison to support my daughter with some kind of community art project reveal that she worked on. I'm sure a visit to the vegetarian restaurant is also in order.
 I'll leave you with this. From our ride to LaCrosse last weekend. I parked the bike and looked around to see a building across the street that made me laugh.

 A funky looking building from decades ago. The sign reads:

 The reader board above the door says:

 It doesn't seem like the two go together. I thought it was funny but what do I know.

Later.