Last Rides

[Fatfatboy]

They sure made it interesting crossing the Mackinac bridge on the steel grate surface.
That’s one I won’t forget.

[m143]

This!

oldironnow wrote

We agreed it feels so freakin' good to ride in any moment. And with life always being at least a day too short, the Capital-R risk that comes with the Capital-J joy is not enough to let others' rational decisions to live the car-life mean much at all.

[hacksaw]

Ride around my street and if yiu love your family you may very well change your mind

[hacksaw]

Boy I know it. They finally got rid of the steel deck grid over the river by Sikorsky . Long and high . And the last time they refurbished it they put the grid back sideways making it worse. It’s new now. Regular surface But still gets you blown around.
Portland bridge is bad too

[Fatfatboy]

**EDIT**

Move along. Nothing to see here.
(See Racing thread)

[hacksaw]

Testing for what?

Not that I particularly care.
But I did read all this despite being flooded with ads
And don’t understand if Aprilia wants testing or doesn’t want testing . I didn’t see anything that mentioned unscheduled. But as I said I was hammered by ads trying to read whst u linked.

This seems a bit off topic for last rides.
Dont we have moderators here?

[Fatfatboy]

Sorry Hack, I was Trazadone posting in the wrong thread.

[hacksaw]

Didn’t bother me as I likely would haven’t read it otherwise.
Whst is trazadone?

[Fatfatboy]

Trazadone is one of the meds used to help me sleep while hooked up to the dialysis machine.
Makes me a bit loopy but better than listening to the whirl-woosh-whirl-click-click whirl of the machine next to my bed all night long.

[hacksaw]

Damn ! Ok. Best of luck on all of that.

[Fatfatboy]

Thanks Kieth.
Doing it at home still has its drawbacks but it’s better than having to go to a clinic three times a week during the day.
At a clinic they only run 4 hours. At home I run 7 hours so I get a better cleaning of the blood and it’s on my schedule not someone else’s.

[hacksaw]

Woman next door did it at home for years one of my girls is now a dialysis nurse .
Keeping it to your own schedule though
Is a fantastic thing.

[Fatfatboy]

Your daughter is a blessing to many.
I spent about 5 years in dialysis clinics. The nurses can really catch a lot of crap from some very ungrateful patients.
I always gave them much respect.
It was a dialysis nurse that taught me how to stick the needles in my arm so I could be moved to a home hemodialysis training clinic to learn how to do the dialysis at home.

[hacksaw]

Well I hope she is a blessing to many. Thanks .
Her first nursing employment . She started in the OR
But moved to dialysis.
OR I think was hard since she never knew when she would actually get out and she has a 3yo.

I just wish you well. You are too good a guy to be dealing with this.
Finding a kidney is a bitch . The lady next door didn’t find one.
A good friend of mine , his best friend had a compatible kidney . So one never knows.
I just wish you the best possible .
God bless your mom for giving you hers for so many years.
Hang tough !

[Fatfatboy]

Thanks Keith.
It’s funny, some people spend years waiting on a kidney and some get one pretty quick.
The luck of the draw.
I’m not available for one because of calcification of the arteries. They can’t sew through bone.

They are working on using modified pig kidney’s. There is a guy in Boston that has been living with one for over a year. If they can get this going it sure would help a lot of people and Medicare. Dialysis is very costly.

[oldironnow]

TL;DR, or maybe even TL;NGTR - Took the Buell out.

Into the low 200 mile range today.
North out of Santa Cruz by 07:30 to seek out a rare Tacoma part in The City, and then further north into Marin to meet an ancient relative for Mother’s Day.
The auto parts store had their uplink to their chain’s mothership fail. So they locked the doors and stared at all the customers who were staring at them while Tech Support did its thing.
I got a guy to come to the door so we could find out when they might open. He had no idea. “We can’t do transactions, and they told us to get everyone out of the store.” So I hand him the piece of the internet I had printed (because I am old) to see if he actually had the part, unlike the store in my town that has a phantom part on its inventory.
The counterman came back to the door and cracked it open to hand me back my paper. He said he found his part, but I’d still have to come back, so I decide to eat at the Filipino restaurant next door, and burned 45 minutes.
After chowing on a pork/shrimp/noodle/cabbage(?) plate, I checked in at the auto parts redoubt - still no go.
Crossed the Golden Gate on a clear day, and noticed a container ship doing a fricken U-turn after it had come in off the Pacific. It was WAY out of position by Angel Island.
So I pulled over in a motorcycle safe nook of Hwy1 and dnaped some picks and made a short video of the ship getting its shit together and heading back out of the Bay without knocking over the bridge.
Made it to San Rafael to meet an 83-year-old gal and a brace of other relatives, turned and burned back to the auto parts store, got the part, hammered south on a sunny-cool 280, did a couple favors for friends in San Jose, and then ran Hwy17 to Santa Cruz and south on Hwy1

[Fatfatboy]

Aauughh, the downfall of us all is when the computers all die. "Sorry, we have the formula you need to feed your baby but we can't sell it because the 'puters are down and we have no idea when or if they will come back on. I here there is a farmer out on Route 33 that is allowing folks to let their babies suck on the cows teats."

I have to commend our local Tractor Supply. In March a tornado whipped through the area and knock down some major power equipment that was between town and the electric plant leaving half the town without power for around 24 hours, including them.
I needed a power strip to run my dialysis machine off a generator so I went to the Tractor Supply.
They opened their doors for one or two people at a time and using flashlights would take you back to what you needed so you could pick your item/s and use a phone calculator to come up with your total and have you fill out an old fashioned credit card slip with your card number and total. Saved the day for me.
The two Dollar Generals in town just locked the doors.

I've not been getting much riding lately. Just a few short putts after work or a ride out for dinner.
It's been a wet spring. Saturday would have been a perfect day but I promised a neighbor I'd help him pull some bushes out.
Rain again today.

[oldironnow]

Fatfatboy wrote

Aauughh, the downfall of us all is when the computers all die. "Sorry, we have the formula you need to feed your baby but we can't sell it because the 'puters are down and we have no idea when or if they will come back on. I here there is a farmer out on Route 33 that is allowing folks to let their babies suck on the cows teats."

  L
 O
L

I love it when people go the extra mile and don’t pack it in because conditions are non-normal. The majority of people were out and about then because they had serious needs !

[Fatfatboy]

Saturday I was able to take a nice 250 mile ride  through Ozark hills and Mark Twain National Forest to get to know the the Triumph.
Besides it’s beautiful paint, awesome stance and wonderful sound one thing I really enjoy is the great engine breaking that the T100 has.
For most of my riding I could leave it in 4th gear where i could drop as low as 40 MPH in most turns and run up to 80 MPH in a straight and let the engine break for the next curve.  
Made for a great day of spirited riding with a stop at the Bixby Store, thats been around since 1906, for a salami sandwich and an ice cold root beer.
I’m really digging this bike.

[oldironnow]

Damn fine pic and motorcycle.

Looks like the lightspeed mothership just dropped it off from its abduction in the ‘60s.