Another States Visited Map

While browsing today, I came accross another map I have seen periodically. I thought I'd check it out and see how it looks. This one is kind of cool as I can resize it and make it fit, unlike the other one I have used previously.


Free, personalized travel maps at mytriplogs.com

Ghosts and Teddy Bears?

Not only is this weekend Halloween, its also marks the start of the toy run season, at least for me, with the CCCAC Teddy Bear Run. This is a local run that starts at the Mckinney High school and ends at the Collin County Childrens Advocacy Center in Plano. Its different than a toy run in that the gifts are in the form of donations or preferably soft teddy bears, as opposed to a toy, which may include Tonka Trucks, dolls, etc. I have participated in this run the last two years and its consistently a very well organized event. The weather for this weekend is looking great so there should be an excellent turnout.

On the Halloween front, our house is looking very spooktacular.... I still haven't finalized my playlist, although not all the songs are necesarily approriate for general consumption. Nothing bad as such, just a mix of songs, some scary, some fun, although some perhaps a bit more adult oriented than little kid oriented.

Some folks get very creative with pumpkins and there's always a wealth of ideas than can be discovered on the internet. Here's a couple of images to get in the "spirit"!




Oh yes, don't forget, DST ends this weekend, remember to set your clocks back...

Goon

Two games into the season and I am on the leaderboard, but not a stat I am particularly proud of, or usually a leader. Number 2 in penalty minutes with 10 minutes, or 5 penalties. The leader has 20 minutes, but 10 of that is for a misconduct...

I got three penalties last night, I don't ever remember a game where I have gotten three penalties. I think last season, for the 30 games I only had 12 or 14 minutes. Worst thing last night I received all three against the same guy, who is actually a friend of mine. Ususally I'll take my penalties without question, but I question all three from last night...

Violation

I rode my bike to work yesterday, as I have been doing a lot lately. When I left for home I found a nice neon orange colored "sticker" on my mirror. It was an EDS parking violation.

Like most of the motorcycles I have seen parked at EDS, I used a non-parking spot, essentially a space not large enough to park a car so it had stripes through it. And no, not at or near a handicapped parking spot.

Well, the only thing I can figure is that with more and more folks riding motorcycles to work, the parking police have either been getting complaints, or just decided to start clamping down. No problem, I guess I'll just park in a regular spot, not my preference but it works.

I just hope we don't have the same issue that Darlene had at DPS with motorcycles parking in a "car" spot.....

Cover Songs

I love cover songs. On my ipod I have several, no, a lot of covers. Some are awesome, some are not. I have a few blogs I frequent that feature cover versions. Today while searching for songs for my Halloween playlist, I found a Cover Songs Database that will no doubt come in handy.

Scary Monsters, Super Creeps

Keep me running, running scared..... (David Bowie)

Tick tock, Halloween is getting closer... Houses are being decorated in the neighborhood, we've got most of our stuff ready, costumes selected, boxes out of attic.

Since Halloween falls on a Friday, the boys are going to have a little party. Wheels are turning, plans in progress. It should be easy to spook out a bunch of teenagers.

Last weekend we did a trial run on one of our costumes and got some pretty favorable reactions in the neighborhood about 10PM at night. The boys were coming back from the skatepark and the mom who drove got a bit freaked out, so much so she rushed off!

Green Frogs

Well most of them certainly are. This past Saturday, we went on a club lunch ride to The Green Frog restaurant in Jacksboro. There was a relatively small group as several of the Road Captains were on the pre-ride in Arkansas. This was Bert's ride so we wanted to be there and I wanted to assist in RC duties. I did, but as it turned out, there were several other RCs in attendance. It was a good route, some of the same roads we took on a ride this past winter.

It must have been FM 730. It was a very nice road as there were some hills that allowed nice overlooks of the country site. We also passed a couple of deer ranches, one in particular has several deer visible from the road.

After we got home we did a bit of shopping for our continuously ongoing renovations and then I had a late hockey game on Saturday. It was the first D game of the season. We won the game and handily outplayed the other team but it took some time to get some numbers up. I finished with at least 3 assists, a lot of shots, and a lot of skating, after being off for so long. It felt good though.

Sunday Darlene got the main living room painted and I finished the rough work in Ryan's bathroom, replacing the necessary drywall, mounting the new lights and replaced the spigots on the plumbing in preparation of installing the vanity.

This weekend we'll be doing some more upstairs work, painting the game/theater room and hopefully installing the french doors.

I have started taking some pictures to document some of the renovations we are doing.

Halloween

Halloween is just around the corner. And its on a Friday night. This year we're going to decorate, more like in the past, possibly with some mechanical tricks to scare the little tiny kids out of their costumes!

We're also planning on having a bit of a party for the boys and their friends and of course my mind turns to music... Special night deserves special music. Have a ton of songs in my mind for a Halloween playlist and have been surfing for additional ideas. At a bit of a quandry however whether to stick to a specific theme so will likely mix it up with some traditional Halloween stuff and some stuff a bit more obscure.

Here is one of the best complitations I have seen.
Halloween Playlist Spectacular

For mine I would like some specific songs.

John Cale - Heartbreak Hotel (yes the Elvis song but a very spooky almost violent rendition.)
The Cramps - Goo Goo Muck
New York Dolls - Frankenstien
AC/DC - Hells Bells
Suicidal Tendencies - I Saw your Mommy
Mudhoney - Touch Me I'm Sick
Tom Waits - What's He Building in There
Alice Cooper - Welcome to my Nightmare
Drowning Pool - Bodies
Misfits - lots to choose from
The Damned - Absinthe (yes its a drinking song, but its the Green Faerie)
The Who - Boris the Spider
Bobby Pickett - Monster Mash


I'm sure there are a ton more songs, and eventually this playlist will change. I'm also looking for a copy of Chicken Heart by Bill Cosby off his Wonderfulness album. Its a comedy bit, not a song, but is fantastic.

Lunch Ride

Yesterday we went on the lunch ride. I wanted to go on this one for a couple of reasons. One it was planned by Mike Taylor, one of my RC "Classmates" and two, the destination was only 15 minutes from home. So this one I pre-rode so I could lead a pod. It was a great ride on several different FM roads.

The destination was Bel Airs and Burgers in Princeton, next to Lost Highway Classic Cars and Antiques. The food was inexpensive and there were great American Muscle cars in the showroom. It was fun and good to see the crew.

I led Pod three, but somehow we ended up being the first pod to the restaurant!

Here's a map to the route, courtesy of Gary. I assume its a route track from a GPS, I have to figure out how to do that. The route was approx 115 miles, so for us we put on about 160 miles.

Ice Time - Finally!

Went out and played in off-season scrimmage last night. Bill had coordinated a few but this was the first one I could commit to. I checked the calendar, it had been seven and a half weeks since I last skated and truthfully hadn't done any real physical exercise in the time. Thankfully I haven't gained any weight, one of the guys gained 13 pounds in that time!

A bit rusty, my feet were pretty much in pain from too tight skates, but overall not too bad. Bill says the new season is supposed to start next week so I guess its a good thing I got in on this scrimmage.

It was good to see the guys, even saw a couple of folks from other teams that I haven't seen in even longer.

Officially Autumn

Its Sept 22 today, so I guess its officially Autumn in TX. The weather has been spectacular of late. Sunny, cool (relatively) at night and warm in the day times. I've been riding to work a lot lately, and this past weekend had an opportunity to put a few miles. I have to do some Road Captain duties as I have a dinner ride coming up and there's a couple of other rides I like to assist in.

I had to go back a second time on my route, as the first route has far too much construction. What a pain. Anyway this new route is a bit quicker, but not very exciting.

I also rode an upcoming lunch ride which covered several of the FM roads in some of our northern counties. It should be a good ride. Actually there is a very accessible windmill, although there are power lines very close that probably cannot be avoided in a picture.

Rode about 170 miles yesterday, could have very easily went for more but have too much stuff to do.

Ike Pics

A friend sent out a link for some pictures of Ike that were pretty incredible.

Hurricane Ike Damage

Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike passed through Texas this weekend. While we remained relatively unscathed, with a bit off rain and some increased wind, some parts of Texas, around Galveston and Houston are virtually destroyed. Apparently it didn't hit as hard as it was expected to, which was a very good thing as the devestation is very significant.

Houston is the 4th largest city in the US and I'm not sure of very many major metropoliton areas getting hit like this. New Orleans suffered greatly with Katrina, but a lot of that was brought on buy the flooding in the lake with the system failures.

We were very fortunate here as the storm had been projected to pass through DFW at one point, but ended up veering east, pretty much sparing us. Winds of 50 to 70 were experienced about 60-90 miles east with damage.

Ryan sent me this link with some of the wind and rainfall stats for the storm. IKE

Bike Wash

After our trip our bikes were quite filthy. 3200 miles and 3 days of rain can put a lot of road grime on a bike. We had to keep the windshields clean during our trip but other than that let the bikes show their adventures.

Of course I can only let that sit for so long after the trip is over so as soon as I got the time I did a good wash and wax of both bikes.

Here some before pics of Darlene's bike.




And after pics, oooo, ahhhh, see how shiny it is.....




So this past Saturday was the chapter meeting and the dealership had an open house and bike demos. I also wanted to do a couple of pre-rides I needed to do. I took a Nightster out for a demo, its a fun little bike that is quite peppy. It also didn't have a windshield and its been a long time since I rode a bike without a windshield. Definitely wouldn't want to ride long distance without one.

Also at the dealership were the Sun Bru girls who were doing a bike wash. One of the guys (who shall remain nameless) was getting his bike washed. I decided I should take a couple of pictures to see if I could learn anything as far as tricks and tips to washing a bike. I think I may have wasted my efforts as for the life of me I don't even recall seeing a sponge hit a bike....

Milwaukee trip - Days 8 and 9 - return home

We hit the road Saturday morning about 8:30 am. We stopped at the 2 plant facilities in Milwaukee. Ahead of us is roughly 1100 miles. We rode to Jefferson City, MO, roughly halfway, on Saturday, arriving roughly 12 hours after we started and about an hour in the dark.

Sunday was another long day, another 560 miles but this only took about 11 hours!

Home and back in our bed. I think the boys were actually happy to see us!

Milwaukee trip - Day 7

This morning we have our Museum visit scheduled for 9:30. We make it down there (courtesy of the wonderful American Legion breakfast) with time to spare. Wow, lots and lots of bikes and folks. The team is quite well organized and handling the traffic very well. We even get some cool free plastic kickstand pads!

Definitely worth visiting. Beautiful collections of motorcycles, and other Harley related artifacts. The museum was packed with visitors, would like to go back when there are fewer people and take more time as there is some really intersting stuff here. Plan on a couple of hours at least to do it right.










After the Museum, we made our way down to Summerfest Grounds for the first day of the 105th celebrations. The Summerfest Grounds are a very impressive venue. The food and other concessions were very good as well. On the grounds there were 5 seperate stages for a variety of bands as well as other venues throughout Milwaukee. There was pretty much always some entertainment going on. We watched a couple of bands, went to HOG Island, watched the Motorcops competition, and at the end of the night, listened (as we couldn't get close enough) to ZZ Top. Driving home was a bit crazier than the previous night but once we got out of town we were fine. This was it for us as Saturday would be a departure day for us.

Milwaukee Trip - Day 6 - Miller Park

I took quite a few shots while at Miller Park, especially in the stunt zone so will post some pics.

Bruce Rossmeyer's Ft Lauderdale Harley Davidson Drill Team

I didn't get a lot of good shots of these guys as they were the first stunt we watched. They were quite impressive however.




ILL Conduct

Have seen these guys before at American Eagle. They are pretty good and today blew up a lot of tires!







Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Motorcycle Drill Team

Another drill team, also very impressive.







Seattle Cossacks Stunt Team

This was the first time I have seen these guys. They were a lot of fun and very impressive, they didn't seem to follow their script at least not to the letter, and did not use communication devices other than a whistle and voice, no mics or headsets.











Bubba Blackwell

We've also seen Bubba Blackwell before, but here in front of a large Harley lovin' audience, it was clear he was having a lot of fun. He blew up a couple of tires too!