Blanket Ride

This past Saturday we had a charity ride for the Denton State School. The Denton State School is a residential facility for people with mental and developmental disabilities. It is very close to the dealership and has over 600 residents. For this ride we collected blankets and the like for residents, many of whom are in wheelchairs.

We had 28 bikes for this January ride which was an excellent turnout as well as a couple of support vehicles. After our stop and donation, which we had a couple of exuberant and excited residents show up, we took a ride to the Prairie House restaurant. Darlene and I had configured the route, roughly 45 miles which was a nice ride north of the restaurant, along the lake. Got some positive feedback on the route, which submitting was part of our Road Captain training.

After lunch we popped over to Larry and Holly's to check out the "chapel". Then we went down to the new North Texas HD facility. Its a very large showroom with tons of parking. The upstairs lounge area was a bit small however.
We missed some of the festivities, but were in time to see Bubba Blackwell doing some stunts, which included doing wheelies on Buells and HDs, including a V-Rod and an Ultra Classic, yes, and Ultra Classic, with a passenger. After all that he jumped several bikes set up in the parking lot. Quite impressive overall.

Sad Day

Even with all the fun of the Chili cookoff, there were more serious matters to take care of. Yesterday evening was Karen Riley's funeral. Several of us rode from the dealership to the funeral home as one large pod, with our lights flashing. It was quite the sight. I would estimate there was at least 35 bikes.

We arrived in Lewisville and lined one side of the street. There was a tremendous turnout and the funeral was packed beyond capacity. It was a very nice service. When the floor was opened up, Bobby Mims probably best captured how everyone was feeling. Don looked like he was holding up well, I am sure that he had had several difficult times before this, and will continue to do so for some time.

Chili Cookoff

Cooking starts at 8 am. We have to pick up Buffy. Wake up at 5:30 am, out the door at 6:15 ish. I'm taking the bike, Darlene is taking the truck.... IT'S 25F!!!

A rather brisk ride if I do say so myself. about 45 minutes. Its also Karen's Funeral later today. Between the weather and the funeral, there are only three teams entered in the Chili cookoff.

It looks like we are taking the presentation most seriously as we have certainly decorated our booth more than the others. Chili's are cooking. The smells are in the are and the few spectators are in the building, buying baked goods and otherwise staying warm. About 11:15 its time to start getting into costume.... I come out first then the girls go get changed.

I do believe we have captured everyone's attention.

Lots of folks for chili, 2 teams including ours, run out. I used about 10 pounds of meat, that's less fat as I trimmed it all the night before. Our team did not even get to sample our own chili, we only got to sample Too Hot To Handle (12 lbs meat).

The results are in. Presentation award goes to PIMP Yo' CHILI! Woo Hoo! That is our team. Surprisingly we appear to have come in third in the official judges scoring, and did not win people's choice which only was awarded to first. Too How To Handle wins judges and people's choice. Oh well we will cheer the winners at the regionals.

I think all the chili's must have been good as we got some very positive feedback on ours. It was a very Texas Chili, meat and spices, while the winners was full of vegatables, onions, peppers and tomatoes. A bit more northern. Team 3, Fire in the Hole, made chili similiar to ours and was apparently quite similiar in taste.

Karen Riley

We lost a dear friend yesterday. Karen Riley passed away Jan 15 in the afternoon. She never recovered from her heart failure. She will be missed. Karen Riley

Don and Karen were planning on moving to Arizona this winter. That in itself would have been a loss, however for Harley riders and this group in general, that's just a good weekend ride. This however is a lot further. I know that she will continue to be with us however on our rides.

Pre-Ride

Today we pre-rode the Polar Bear ride that we submitted. It was a bit chilly, I think it was 40 or below for a good part of the ride. Fairly nice roads, I had been on part of 455 before but never that far west, or the other roads. One interesting turn we will have to make and we made a slight change on the last 5 miles or so that will make it a lot better to get into the restuarant.

On the way back we stopped in to see Karen Riley at the hospital. Karen is a friend of ours from AEHOG who is in Intensive Care after a heart stoppage on Thursday night. Don has put up a web site to keep everyone updated on status. Karen Riley

Also our wedding plans are starting to fall into place. We found a place for the party, but later tonight we found out that the band will not be available, so it may be back to the drawing board again!

OMG!

I won! I really shouldn't be that excited, afterall it was just a Harley Beanie at the dinner ride 50/50 draw. But it is a very rare occurance for me so what the heck!

We are getting ready for the Chapter Chili Challenge next weekend. I have my recipe, my spices and my meat. Last weekend we went to Pendary's in Ft Worth to get the spices. They didn't have them packaged for the original recipe I wanted to do so I decided to change recipes, no big deal although this one may be a bit hotter. The girls have been working on the theme. Shhhh, will have to wait to fine out what it is.

Everywhere, TX

Props to Mark Cooke who posted this on our AEHOG web site. How true this is and by the end of this year will have visited even more of the places referenced here.



This is awesome!

Is it Spring?

It was very mild this weekend! Well into the 70's both Saturday and Sunday, in fact on Saturday I wouldn't have been surprised if it didn't get close to 80 (just checked confirmed 80F at the airport)!

Saturday was the first chapter meeting of the year and the first one for the new officers. There was a very big turnout. Darlene held the LOH meeting in the main area, and it was packed, 30 women. Several of the guys were heading to San Diego following the chapter meeting, should be an interesting week for them. I don't know what kind of weather they were going to get, major storms in California which would pass by the time they get there but who knows what they will run into on the way.

Huge sales at AE on Saturday. As much as I sometimes struggle with buying some things, the prices were up to 70% off. I needed new boots, so $50 for a $140 list pair is pretty hard to pass up. We also got three jackets and some other things. Net was that all we bought was still only list for one of the jackets I bought. I'll have to keep my eye out for this next year, incredible bargains, that you don't (practically never) get at a Harley Davidson dealership.

For our ride on Saturday we had lunch with Mike and Carol then headed to Ft Worth to pick up our spices for the chili cookoff. On the way home we stopped to browse Rose's Costumes, wow, I've never seen so many costumes! We put on over 150 miles and got home for supper.

Lots of folks out riding all weekend, a lot of folks. Several from the chapter got started on their Lone Star points as well.

Sunday was a house work day, cleaning up all the Christmas stuff. Long day but its all done and we re-org'd as well. Good Stuff.

We are both planning on getting our Road Captains this year so are planning a couple of rides as required. So a bit of riding in the near future if the weather holds.

Little project

I've been wanting to do a little graphics project for some time and have started taking pictures for it. Yesterday at the Brass Monkey ride I took a lot of pictures to use and created my first draft at the animated gif. I want a lot more pictures and will probably have to reduce the sizes even further as when it was compiled it was over 1 mb in size. I'll try to post it here to see if it works. Also I think I will have to rethink my focal point. I had the whole back, but I may try to keep the chapter rocker as an anchor point.



Hmmmm, that didn;t work, there are 20 images in this animation, so will have to research more.... stay tuned.

Help file says Blogger does not support Animated gifs. However if you click on the image to open in a new window you can see the animation. Other option is to link to a different site, like Photobucket.

Ok, have created photobucket account, uploaded file, lets try this now.



Woo hoo it worked!!!

Happy New Year - 2008!

Today was a great day, the weather was beautiful. Chilly but not too cold, and sunny all day.

This morning we started with our annual Brass Monkey ride, leaving the dealership at 11:00 am. We had 76 bikes at the start and picked up another 3 or 4 on the way apparently. About 110 miles round trip for us. I think it was about 34 when we left this morning, and I don't know if it ever got over 50F today.



We had planned on having a polar bear swim today after we got back with the boys and their friends. We got home just before 3:00 pm but there wasn't many kids here. So about 4:30 it was time. The water wasn't too bad, then after we had our first jump, more kids show, 2nd jump, then some more!