How To Turn Building A Workbench Into A Really Long Project.

     There is a lot to talk about tonight, so let's just get into it. I mentioned on Sunday night, a couple of things, but more have come up since then. The first thing is going to be about that guy who tried to run me into the back of a semi truck. This happened Friday morning on the way to work. I left my neighborhood, behind a car, and quickly got around it and just kept riding. He was a casual 3 car lengths behind me almost the entire way down the road. About 300 yards in front of me was the semi truck stopped at a light. No need to really worry about it, by the time I would get to it, the light would be green and the truck would be moving. All of a sudden, the car that was traveling behind me, sped up and slowed down ride beside me. Still not worried about anything. I had no plans of darting out or anything like that, I would just simply bide my time.  As we got closer to the truck, the guy in the car started pulling closer to my lane and me. The light was taking a little longer to change than I had anticipated so I began to slow down. The car veered further into my lane at this point and slowed even more, when he clearly had an open lane, and should not be slowing at the pace that he was. I hit the brakes a little harder so that he would be forced to pass me, as I veered further over in my lane. The light changed green and he still didn't speed up. The truck began to move, and he finally gave up what very he was trying to do to me, and took off. I let him get some distance on the truck before I signaled and got over into his lane. I overtook the truck and got back over into the originally lane I was in. There was another light ahead of me, and the car was already stopped at it. As I got closer, I slowed down to avoid being next to him. Before I came to a stop, the light changed green and I took off. I was across the intersection before the guy even had a chance to move. There was no chance for hi to try anything funny again.

      I have no idea why this guy was trying to do this, but it isn't the first time someone has tried something like this. Some people just seem to have a deep seeded hatred of motorcycles and riders, and they will go to extremes to show it off. I wasn't speeding, or doing anything erratic, I was just minding my own business. I saw a quite from a motorcycle cop not too long ago, and he said that we wished everyone was forced to ride a motorcycle for 1 year. At the end of that year, half of those people would be dead, and the other half would understand what the safety concerns are for a motorcyclist.

     Now for more fun stuff. Real quick, there was something I forgot to mention about the ride on Saturday. When I was riding south on A1A to Sebastian, I came across a house that was being built or redone or something, but it was amazingly beautiful form what was already done to it. The yard was fenced off by a large fence, but just over the top of the fence, I could see the tops of vehicles. A very large box truck, a bus, and a van with a name in white letters on the side of it. The name read non other than Vanilla Ice. Vanilla Ice has gotten into house design and this was apparently the latest one he was working on. They weren't working when I went by, more than likely because of the Memorial Day Weekend, but the vehicles were there. It was pretty neat to see that, and I'm looking forward to seeing the house when it is done, Only the outside of it of course.

     I made Sunday a project day, and that project was finally putting together the workbench I got from Harbor Freight. I needed to clear out a bunch of boxes first, so I spent about a half hour cutting them all down. Then it was on to building the table. This is what it looked like in the box.

     Doesn't look like much right? I set all the metal parts out, and found the nuts and bolts to go with them. I found the instructions for assembly and began to read. No, I'm not one of those people that finds the instructions just to throw them away. The first thing I discovered, was that the instructions were a little vague. I meandered my way through them though, and about an hour into the project, I was able to get to this.

     Progress was being made. It was being made slowly, but it was being made. The frame for the bottom was complete. I had Prince and Bowie playing over the speaker, and life was good. It was hot, but it was good. My garage has a western exposure, so the I had to keep the door down, and only partially cracked to let some air in, but it wan't enough, and it was hot, like 100 degrees hot. I took a few water brakes in there, and a few dance breaks when the mood struck me. After a little while longer, I got to this point.

     At that point, all I had left to do, was get the bottom shelf and table top put on. That turned out to be more difficult than I thought. The bottom shelf was a breeze, but the table top had a very small space to squeeze into, and it just wasn't going. After a while of fighting with it, and it was a long while. I finally decided to throw the instructions out the window, and do it my own way. I was following the instructions to a T at this point, but they weren't working anymore. I took the top half off, and I was able to get the table top in with ease. I put the top back on, and didn't really like the very top, so I tried to make a few adjustments to improve on the design. That didn't work out so well, and had to revert it back to the way it was supposed to be. I got a few more pictures of it in various stages of getting things on it and put to my satisfaction. I think it came out pretty good.

     This is where it is agent to sit for now. I still have a bunch of things to move around in the garage and some things to get rid of all together, but it fits in where it is nicely. In the last picture you can see that I have the light on in  the workbench. That is a nice little feature as well as the three outlets that run along the right hand side of it. Rather convenient if I do say so. I got all the important things in their place. My Helmets on top, my boots on the bottom, as well as all my cleaning supplies and lubricants. The drawers have some tools in them, I have more tools to buy, and there is plenty of room in those drawers for them. I do need to get some kind of cloth material for the drawer bottoms. I have old shop towels in one of them for now, to keep the tools from moving all around when I open the drawer, but I want to get something I can cut to the right size. I was thinking about just buying some black bath towels and cutting them up, but if I put my head to it, I'm pretty sure I can come up with something better than that. I'll figure it out. One more thing garage related, and this is where it officially goes from garage to lounge, as in Ultimate Motorcycle Lounge. I ordered something over the weekend, and it arrived today. This is what really brings the class to it.

     Yep, its the "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere" sign. I found it, and got it for a good price. The picture on the right is where it is located as of now, but that is going to change. That is just a temporary spot until I can move things around. When everything is moved into place, it will be directly above the workbench. Now you may be saying to yourself, " Is that at all necessary?" Yes, yes it is, and I'll tell you why. Even though I stopped drinking, this sign is there to remind me, that I have to cut loose every once in a while, and not take life so seriously. It's about the philosophy, and I"m a huge Parrothead. Oh yeah, and those blinds suck. They will be replaced before all of this is done. I might even make some kind of custom wooden slats that slide open and closed. I just have to figure it all out, but I have ideas. Before you even ask, yes, Saki loves the sign, because Saki is a party animal.

     I have a few videos for you tonight. tonight was the premier of America's Got Talent. I find that I am truly only watching it for the acts now. The judges don't interest me much, and now that Nick Cannon isn't there, it really is all about the talent. Tyra Banks is the new host, replacing Nick Cannon, and she did a fine job, but she just isn't the entertainer that Nick is. The edits even left her out of most of the show, where as, when Nick was the host, he was all over the place. Make she just needs time. On to the acts. They had the obligatory, really bad acts, but there were three that stood out for me, and although the stood out for their talent, they also stood out because of how surprising they were. The whole time I have been writing this entire post, I've been thinking about how I was going to present these videos to you. Tell you a little bit about my thoughts, or just put them out there, so you can experience them similarly to the way I did. I think I'll throw them out there for you, and then say a little bit about them after.









     If I remember right, this was the exact order that I saw these acts in. The first one which is 12 year old Merrick Hanna blew me away. That kid directly interpreted that song into dance. He told a story with his movement. I said to myself that if that isn't a golden buzzer act, then I don't know what is. Puddles Pity Party, was everything I didn't think it was going to be. I assumed that it was going to be a prop act similar to Tape Face from last season, but when He all of a sudden began to sing, I was thrown completely off balance, and he was spectacular. Finally we have Darci Lynne. This was one of those acts that I just knew was going to be a train wreck. I hoped that it wouldn't be, but I just knew what was coming. AGT has a way of doing that to you. They build up an act and then it is bad and you feel terrible for the person. This was not that. She was a better ventriloquist than most of the adults doing it around the world, and the little bit where she began to sing out loud and the puppet placed it's hand over her mouth so that she wouldn't take the puppets spotlight was fantastic. She did get the golden buzzer, which means that she goes directly through to the live shows and skip all the other rounds. I personally think that Merrick should have gotten it, but He will find his way there in the end. I just have that feeling about him. Puddles may have lost the element of surprise already, so I'll just have to see how he pans out through the rounds.

     This brings us to Favorite Song of the Week. This one goes back a couple of decades and was brought back to my attention because I'm learning how to play the guitar now. I've always loved this song, and I think it's time that I learn how to play it, so Thursday when I go to class, I"m going to bring it up to my teacher. This German heavy metal band put out their first album in 1988. I had that album. I never really heard much from them after that, but apparently they still tour all over and even put out albums as late as 2013. I'll have to look those up. This was one of those bands that was heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin. You can hear it in their songs, from the vocals to the melodic guitars riffs. They could play hard, but they were the softer side of metal, Headbangers with serious musical chops. They were in that big wave of metal ballads that came out, and took the world by storm before grunge could kill it all. Here is Kingdom Come with "What Love Can Be".


     Thank you for taking the time to peruse all my meanderings tonight. I"m currently listening to this song as I finish this up. When it's done, my head will hit the pillow. Peace in and goodnight.

Adventure Time Series: McLarty Treasure Museum.

     Welcome to the first official post in the Adventure Time Series. I know that I did the Navy SEAL Museum last month, but that was kind of a precursor to what this is now. I'm writing this a little later than usual for a couple of reasons. The first being that it was project day, and it took me quite a bit longer than I thought it would, but I'll talk about that on Tuesday, and two, because it is Memorial Day weekend, so I have tomorrow off. I'm taking advantage of it, and staying up a little later than I would on a normal Sunday night.

     Let's get into the ATS. I prepped Saki on Friday night. I did a run through of all the bolts to make sure they were tightened, and lubed up the chain. I used that new Motul Chain Lube that I finally got. It seems to work really well. It had some strange reviews about it being sticky and flying off the chain, but I didn't have any problem with it. Maybe they over lubed their chain, it's easy to do. Anyway, Saki was ready for a ride. I woke up early, and had a good breakfast. I was going to start a little earlier than I had planned because I found out that the museum opened at 10, so I wanted to be there before 11 to avoid any potential crowd. The day was beautiful and I headed out to the garage to get Saki out, and begin my first post on my Instagram Story. I still didn't announce where I was headed. I saved that for when I arrived.

     The ride was fantastic. When I rode over the Sebastian Inlet bridge, I couldn't believe my eyes. the water was pretty calm, so that made it the most dazzling clear blue. You could see the natural sandbars and reefs in the ocean. I really wish I had the GoPro so that I could share that with you. One day. I'm getting closer to getting everything in order for that. I will take you there with me when I get it going. I think that will be my test video, which I will post here, I'll save the first official Vlog for the Youtube channel.

     After crossing the bridge, I didn't have that far to go, but I got caught up in looking at the view of the Intracoastal, that I missed my turn. I overshot it by 3 miles. I pulled in and once again had to rely on the honor system. I threw my jacket over the front of Saki, and locked my helmet to the seat. I then ran over to the sign asking the entrance and posted the announcement of the location. by the way, this is the view I got caught up in looking at. This was right across from the Museum.

     Gorgeous right? Now you can see how I got distracted. The McLarty Museum is in a small house type of building that is on the actual landmark of where the survivors and Salvage Camp was set up after the Spanish Plate Fleet of 1715 sank. I have a couple of photos showing the building and a sign telling about the site.

     You can see that it isn't all that big, but it does pack some pretty interesting artifacts inside. They don't have all the gold and jewelry that was found from the wreck, that is housed, what is left of it, in the Mel Fisher Museum, which is also in Sebastian. That will be a future ride. I didn't even know about it until I went to the McLarty. The McLarty is ran by the state of Florida, they of course have to get their 25% of anything salvaged from the wrecks. It was only $2 to get in. When you first walk in, it is a bit unlike most museums that I've been to. It is rather dimly lit. It does have spot lights on all the displays, so even though the lighting is minimal it gets the job done nicely. I'm just going to share the pictures with you from inside the museum, and then I will catch up with you when I go outside to the observation deck.

     I left a few things out, because well, you need a reason to go see it for yourself, so that you can see what I left out. The little teal display was probably my favorite. I got that shot simply for the manatee carved from a silver coin. It was just the coolest thing to me.

    After roaming the floor of the main room for a while, I made my way out to the observation deck. It was this beautiful wooden walkway that wove it's way through beachside plant life. Along the way there were these small wooden boxes that you could open up to see little facts about the plants and insects, and even turtles that inhabit the area. It was stunning. I shot a short video walking back through it from the observation deck, but the audio came out pretty bad. I'll post that here, so you can get a look at it atleast.

    I tried uploading the video a new way, and it didn't look like it was going to work out, so I went back to the old tired and true way. Like I said, the audio isn't that good, but you can see that amazing walkway. Back to the observation deck though. The designed it to look like a pirate ship front end. It is pointed directly at where the Spanish Fleet sank, and the as I said before, the water was crystal clear on this particular day. You could see the reefs and sandbars that they ships ran aground on. I have a few pictures from there to show you as well, including a panorama from the bow of the pirate ship.

     See what I mean about how clear the water looks. I stayed out there for about a half hour, just watching the waves, as small as they were, roll in, and the boats go by looking for the perfect fishing spot. I went back in to watch the remainder of the film that they have explaining the salvage efforts and highlighting some of the treasure hunters that have found treasure from the wrecks. That is where I found out about then Mel Fisher Museum. It looks like that will be pretty fun to see as well. In the future though. 

     I had a great time while I was there. I learned a few things, and saw some 3 hundred year old artifacts. It was a good day. It got even better on the ride home. When I hit the causeway, I opened Saki up. I hadn't done that in a while, and Saki needed some speed. I had to let off the throttle when I went over the bridge because I wasn't sure of what was on the other side, and believe me, If there was a police officer waiting over there, he would have had something to say to me. It would have been worth it though. Going fast on Saki is probably my favorite thing to do. It's exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It's one of those moments when you really know that you are alive. It's funny how you are at your most alive when it could be the thing that causes your death. Something to talk about for another time though.

     I have the next two ATS locations figured out. The next one will be on June 10th, but I think I'm going to keep it a secret until I get there. The one after that will be on July 15th and it looks like I will have a special guest along with me for that one. I'm definitely not telling you where I'm going for that one yet. 

     Saturday was great, and I look forward to doing more of these for you. The Space Center is still on my list. I chose the McLarty Museum over KSC for a very simple reason. KSC costs too much. I still need to get that GoPro and all the equipment to go along with it, so pricey places are put to the back of the list for now. That's all that I have for tonight, I will have a lot to talk about on Tuesday, including a guy trying to run me into the back of a very large truck. How's that for a little teaser? Peace in and goodnight.

I Need To Come Up With A Logo.

Georgina Callander

Saffie Rose Roussos

John Atkinson

Megan Hurley

Olivia Campbell

Alison Howe

Lisa Lees

Angelika Kils

Marcin Kils

Martyn Hett

Kelly Brewster

Jane Tweedle-Taylor

Nell Jones

Michelle Kiss

Sorrell Leczkowski

Liam Curry

Chloe Rutherford

Elaine McIver

Wendy Fawell

Eilidh MacLeod

Courtney Boyle

Philip Tron

     
     Those are the names of the remembered. They all have stories worth hearing. This is the source that I got all these names from Manchester Evening News. They have information on each person. I hope that you take a short bit of your time to click on that link and read what there is there about them.

     Due to the attack on Monday I failed to mention that passing of a great in the Moto GP world. The Kentucky Kid is roaring through the ether on a superbike. Nicky Hayden was born in Owensboro Kentucky and had a dream of one day bing the Moto GP 500 Champion. He saw that dream come true in 2006 when he became Moto GP Champion. He was known as the friendliest guy in the paddocks, and there are several stories of how he would go out of his way to say hi to each and every person at the track, from the trackside assistants to the sponsors. He was the youngest AMA Superbike Champion at the ripe old age of 20. He began racing those superbikes when he was only 17 and still in high school. He was a fierce competitor but not to the point that he would take someone out for a win. In fact, he did exactly the opposite in a  race. He was trying to cut underneath another rider braking very late into the turn, when he saw that he wasn't going to make it, and plow into another rider, he wrecked his bike to avoid taking out that other rider. He could reach speeds of 200 MPH on those race bikes, but he was on a racing bicycle when he was sent into the ether. He was riding with friends in Italy when he was struck by a car. Nicky lived his life to the fullest and achieved his ultimate dream, and he did it with a giant smile on his face.

     I know that this looks like it is only going to be about death tonight, but I promise you it isn't. I needed to get those things up there right away for obvious reasons. I have good news. Despite the fact that it has been raining here the last few days, the rain is clearing out, and Saturday should be clear for the Adventure Time Series. I should be heading out on Saki at around 10 o'clock in the morning, and that is also when I will begin the Instagram Story to go along with that. As you know, that will be the first time you get a peek into where it is I'm going for this little adventure. Keep an eye out for that, so you can see the location and a few images that will go up there. I will have more for the Sunday night post of this though, and I will of course write about it. This will be the first post under the Adventure Time Series banner. Let's see how this goes.

     I havne't stopped by the tattoo shop in months. There is a really good reason for that. Remember when I told you about Stellar Kicks and how I ordered a couple pair of shoes from them, and still hadn't received them? Well, I still haven't received them, but here is the more important part, the second pair of shoes is for my tattoo artist. A little gift for all the great work he has done on me. I was waiting for them to come in, so that I could take them to him the next time I went there. I had waited long enough, and putting off stopping by was unacceptable to me. It was a good thing I stopped in too, turns out that my artist had a little gift for me. He was with a client but stopped for a brief moment to get something out of his bag. It was a patch that he had made out of one of his art pieces. I was honored to get it. It's a cool little skull. Now I just have to find the right place to put it. He had it made locally which got me to thinking. I'm going to eventually create a logo for this and the Youtube channel. If I ever get enough interest for something like this, I know where to go to have them made. I was brain storming with him a little bit about a logo. I threw out an idea of a squirrel in a motorcycle helmet. He liked that idea but have it look like he is storming down the road at breakneck speeds. I kind of like that idea. I'll try to draw something up myself, but I may just commission my artist to draw something up. I clearly like his artistic ability with all the ink I've gotten from him, so it's not the craziest of ideas to get him to create a logo for me. I figure that I have until the first video goes up on the Youtube channel to come up with something. You will see the logo design here first of course. I will post it here and then a day or so later I will post it on Instagram. It's going to be interesting to see what the final image is and who comes up with it, not to mention how you like it. Hmm, maybe if I come up with a couple of ideas, you can vote on it. The one with the most votes would be the winner. I like that, let's have some real fun with it. I will do my best to come up with three images, and put it up for a vote. That way you can take part in what best represents this. I'm pretty excited about this now.

     I'm going to call it a night. Be prepared for a big write up Sunday night about my adventure. There is a good chance that it will involve a cheeseburger. It would be the first one i've had in a couple of months, and my mouth is already watering. Oh real quick, I have hit the plateau in my weight loss that I was expecting, and I will soon ramp up my workouts to compensate. I'll keep you up to date on how that works out in the coming weeks. Until then, peace in and goodnight.

You Can Change Things If You Really Try.

Georgina Bethany Callander

Saffie Rose Roussos

John Atkinson

Megan Hurley

Kelly Brewster

     Those are the names of the victims of the Manchester attack that have been released as of the writing of this. There are 17 more that will be released in the coming days, with a possibility of more in the future. There was one other name released, but that name will get no recognition here. I believe that that name should never be released, and I condemn all media outlets that continue to give acknowledgement to that name. That would be the, I don't even have a word for what they are other than perpetrator of this act. That perpetrator should go down as the forgotten. It is not worth knowing that name nor should you give it any of your time. Those names above, those are the names that should be acknowledged. Those are the names to remember. Those are the remembered. There journey on this planet ended because of a disgusting act. When I get more names, I will post them as I get them in my normal posts. I will post all the names of the victims and only the victims when I find them all. Read their names, find their stories, acknowledge that they existed. I will do the same as I learn who each one was.

     I could get into the horror of such events, I have in the past, but I don't want to give that any time tonight. Instead I want to mention an alarming trend I witnessed since last night, and that is the growing divide in people. I'm not talking about doom and gloom in everything here. There is a bright spot that I will get to, but first I need to get into this, because I think it is something that can be changed with kindness, love and compassion. I saw several people making jokes about this before the bodies were even counted. I also saw several people trying to place blame, not on the perpetrator, but on people such as Ariana Grande, political parties, or heads of state. This is all ridiculous. Have we become so divided that we can't even see what is right in front of us? Do we place blame on someone we don't agree with just because it is convenient? This is a growing trend, but the good news is, that it is still very small, and can be overcome. I saw it in comment sections of things were these were written. Instead of calling names, commenters simply tired to reason with the people, or told them how sorry they were for them, or even tried to tell them why they were so wrong and misguided for saying what it was they were saying.

     Here is the brightest spot, and that is what else happened in Manchester last night. People opened their doors to strangers, they gathered supplies to help those in need, they ran to meet the danger to help those who couldn't help themselves. There are countless stories out there that you can find of the great and remarkable things that happened in Manchester surrounding this dark act. Children without parents were ushered to safe locations where their loved ones could find them. ambulances lined up and drove into a danger zone by the dozens. People in the arena put their own lives in harms way to protect younger lives, while others helped get people out of danger. Manchester stood proud and is still standing. They didn't close their doors and hide from the world. They flung those doors open and proclaimed that this act won't stop them. That is what we all must do in the face of these horrible attempts to undermine our liberties and freedom. 

     Times like this are when we all come together, but it doesn't have to be like that. We shouldn't need a violent act for us to all come together. We should make an attempt to be more together all the time. We are stronger than those that would do us harm. We outnumber those that would do us harm, and if we all stood together, they wouldn't be able to do us harm. We must stand together, all of us. We are one people, we are human, we all live on this planet. Why should we not get along with one another? Because someone looks different, talks different, loves different? Those aren't good reasons, come to think of it, I can't think of one good reason, with the exception of those that would do us harm, but I already said that we are more than them.  Love is and always will be stronger than hate, and I truly believe that love will overcome in the end. 

     At the end of every one of my posts, with a very few exceptions, I end it with "peace in and goodnight". The goodnight part is pretty self explanatory, but I'll just give a little insight anyway. I of course write this at the end of my night, so that is my  farewell to you. the peace in, is a little different. I've mentioned why I write that, and it is how I end all of my Instagram Stories as well, but I'll bring it up again. I first heard "peace in" from the band Walk Off The Earth. When I heard it, it all made sense to me. I don't know why they say it, but I do know why it clicked with me. the normal phrase is "peace out", but I've never liked that. It always seems to convey that you want peace to be out. I know that isn't the implication, but that is just how it feels. I prefer to have peace in. When I say it, I am sending peace to you. I want you to have peace in your soul, and that is why I say "peace in". Yes I may be an idealist and a dreamer, but if it wasn't for dreamers and idealist, we wouldn't really accomplish much would we. There is a better world around the corner, and with kindness, love, and compassion, we will get to it. I would like you to sit back and reflect on what you do in your everyday life that gives you peace. Once you have what it is, think about it for a good 10 minutes. As soon as you are done, I want you to take a quick inventory of how you are feeling. That feeling, the is "peace in". Be in that moment as often as you can, and then find a way to make more moments like that. I promise you, that you will not regret it.

     Favorite Song of the Week, is going to be a little different. I usually write a long introduction to the song with some information about the performer or performers, but I'm going to let the song pretty much speak for itself. This song was written by the legendary David Bowie, with the help of the artist who sang it. None other than the raucous Iggy Pop. "Lust For Life".

    I told you it would speak for itself. Peace in and goodnight.

Photographs, Sunrises, And A Blowing Rock?

     I have a few pictures for you tonight, and a lot to talk about, but I want to mention a couple of things first while they are at the top of my mind. The first thing is, that if you follow me on Instagram, slip me a message either on there or in the comments below, and let me know what your Instagram handle is, so that I can follow you back. I tend to not follow back if I don't know who it is, because I used to get followed by a bunch of fake pages.

     The second thing I wanted to mention, and really it should have been the first is, how much I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and read this. I never really expected that anyone would want to read any of what I wrote here, and I know that I can get a bit long winded at times, so thank you very much for your time.

     Now on to the shenanigans. Well, on to the, what happened this weekend that really wasn't shenanigans. As you know, I worked Friday, and it was good to do that for the first time in a very long time. When I got home, I cleaned up, and got on Saki for my ride to the bank. The weather report lied again, so I drove into work thinking that it was going to rain most of the day. Guess what it didn't do at all?  I took Melvin along for the ride, because I think the bank tellers will freak out a little if they don't see Melvin. It's more about Melvin than it is me with them. When I was walking out of the bank, and older woman stopped to hold the door open for me. She saw Melvin, and mentioned that they followed me up the road and that her sister wanted my helmet. When we walked out she yelled over to her car full of people, and they went crazy. They called me over so they could get a good look at Melvin. They all had big smiles on their faces, and that is what it is all about. As I walked away from that car, another woman was getting out of her car, and said, "Look it's the guy with they frog head.". They had also followed me. I got in a conversation with a woman that was in the car with her, she was having a blast telling me how Melvin was going to, "really mess with people". We chatted briefly and then she wished me to be safe. After that, I went for a quick ride, and had a large number of people honking and waving at me. It was the most people that took notice of Melvin before. They all had smiles and were laughing and just enjoying it, and that made me happy.

     I went to be early after watching the first 4 episodes of the newest season of Unbreakable Jimmy Schmidt. I love that show, and was not disappointed in the new episodes. They are hilarious, and I need to find the time to watch the rest of them. The inside jokes on that show are off the chart, and I love humor like that. It turns out that SyFy was releasing all the new episodes of 12 Monkeys this weekend, so I needed to watch those so that my DVR wouldn't get overloaded with stuff. I think the final 2 episodes of that are airing tonight, so I will be recording those. I really enjoy that show, but I can't explain why. I think it is just the time travel aspect of it. It just leads to so many open story lines.

    My plan for Saturday was, that I was going to wake up early, and head out to the beach to watch the sunrise and get a few shots of Saki, but when the alarm went off, it was more pleasurable to turn it off and go back to sleep. I still managed to wake up around 6:30, and since I was going to be running around all day, I decided that would be a good day for my weekend "fast" day. I went out into the garage and set Saki up on the stands to start detailing it for the photoshoot that was going to happen. Saki looks enormous in that picture. I was sitting on the floor looking up. I got in every nook and cranny of the bike so that no place was untouched. After hitting everything with a cleaning cloth, I went back over it with rubbing alcohol, and then after that I went over everything with a soft cloth. Then, yeah I really went over it again, with a polish, which meant I had to go over it again with that soft cloth to get the polish off. Saki looked great, and the shine was spectacular. I wheeled Saki outside to see what it looked like in the sun, and took a few shots. I posted them on Instagram in one of those multiple post shots. I'm liking that feature on there, more on that later. Those are available to see, so if you follow me there, you can go take a look at all the ones I posted.

     I washed up after that and waited for my friend to call me saying that he was up. We still needed to go get supplies and build a backdrop for the shoot if it ended up in his backyard. He didn't call until just before noon. I was expecting his call around 11, so we were already off to a late start. I wasn't going to ride over to build the backdrop, because it was just too hot. I figured we could get the stuff, build it, and be done with a few hours to spare. I would go back and get Saki and then meet up at the primary location for the shoot. The plans did not go off anything like that. It took us a couple of hours to formulate a plan for the build, and then when we finally had all the stuff, and I cut the PVC pipe down to the sizes that we needed, I ended up building the entire thing by myself. I did have help when we put the tarp on it. We didn't think about one very important thing, and that was the wind. Even though the weather report was once again wrong, and it was sunny all day, the wind was pretty strong, and it kept blowing the backdrop over. We decided we would deal with that when we got to it though. The first model had showed up. Turns out we were having two models for the day. I still needed to get cleaned up and ride Saki over. I hurried home and cleaned up as fast as I could, got on Saki and headed back to his house. Then I waited, and waited, and waited. The first model had to run and get something that she forgot, and the second model kept saying she was 10 minutes out every 20  minutes. I was in full on business mode, and I wanted to get things done.

     The first model made it back, and the second model finally showed up. After another 15 minutes of dealing with costumes, we headed out. I road up to the spot and parked Saki on what I thought would be a great spot for the shoot. The photographer wasn't having it. I positioned Saki where he wanted and we go started. The asphalt was uncured and soft, so the kickstand began sinking in with the model sitting on the bike. I found a random board that was laying around, and broke it into pieces to make a kickstand plate. It kept the kickstand from sinking in, but, if we would have left Saki where I wanted to, we wouldn't have had that problem. If you are starting to sense a little aggravation in my typing, you would be right. Here is how I was looking at myself that day. I was an assistant there to facilitate the photographer for what he wanted. I had to put away my concerns for Saki and what was happening to it, and worry about getting things in order for a good picture.

     I rarely touch Saki on anywhere other than the handlebars and the seat. I don't touch the painted areas of I don't have to, and part of the photoshoot, meant that hands and body parts where all over the painted parts. I had to turn a blind eye to that, and having OCD doesn't fully allow me to do that. I managed to get through the shoot out at the first location without going crazy. I didn't take any pictures with the models on the bike because I was more worried about making sure things were in place for the shoot. The photographer moved over to doing some shots with a car, and I moved Saki back on the first spot. I did grab a picture there.

I think the shot looks great, but he didn't like the lighting. That seemed to be a theme for the day.

Also he didn't like the manhole cover or the drain. In my opinion, he was thinking to one dimensionally, but that is just me.

     We finally left that area and headed back to his house, where there was a loose plan to put Saki in his living room and forget about the backdrop. I didn't think this was going to work, for several different reasons. I won't get into all of them, but the one that killed that entire idea, was that there was no room to get any distance on the shots that would get the girl and the bike in them. Something I tried to point out, but was ignored. That meant the backyard with the backdrop was the only option. I wrangled through branches and other things and got Saki in the backyard. Then he decided to move where the backdrop was to a place that was difficult to get Saki to. I can't maneuver Saki in the grass well, and I also have to think about stability in soft ground. He was beginning to get frustrated and decided to move the entire thing to the side of his house which was nothing but soft sand. We put a paver down to set the kickstand on, and I maneuvered Saki into a place that was good for him. I had to end up holding the backdrop up, which began to get tiring after a while. That lead to a bit of an outburst. He was asking for ideas, and I kept my mouth shot for most of the time, but from where I was I happened to notice a really great artsy type of shot. I could see both girls faces in the mirror, and thought that if he got just a shot of the mirror, it would be fantastic. I mentioned it, he went behind them to try and get the shot, but he didn't understand what I was saying, and he didn't see what I saw, so he gave up, I just said that you are missing the shot, that's when the outburst came. He told me I didn't know anything about photography, and that he was doing his thing. Then he began asking me questions about my own experience with photography. The thing is, I have quite a bit of experience with photography and have been doing it for a very long time. I studied to know exactly what to do in what situation. Although I haven't broke my camera out in a little while, I still know how to get a really great shot. It is just more convenient and a bit lazy to just use my phone. I am going to get the camera out again soon though, but that will be a story for a later time.

     I was done at that point. He had his idea of what I knew, so I was just fine with letting him think that. He kept asking for ideas, and I just shut up. My ideas didn't matter anyway, so why spit them out. I haven't seen any pictures from the shoot. I'm sure they will be fine. Listen, he is good at what he does, but sometimes you get so focused on what you are doing, that you miss things that are around you, and that was the case with the shot in the mirror, and he wasn't going to listen to me on how to get it. I got Saki home, and did another thorough cleaning to get all the fingerprints and body prints off of it. I apologized deeply to Saki, and promised to ride the next day, which was this morning.

     I set the alarm, and woke up an hour or so earlier than the alarm went off. This of course made me tired, and when the alarm finally did go off, I planned on just sleeping in again. I couldn't get back to sleep, and I think it was the promise I made to Saki that kept me up.  I got out of bed just in time to quickly get dressed and head to the beach. I would get there just a little after sunrise. Oh, quickly. I got a couple of balaclavas so that I could where my AirPods while I was riding. In case you don't know what a balaclava is, it is kind of a ninja mask. It only has an area cut out for the eyes. I got this for two reasons: one the headphones, and two, I've been getting a strange tan line on my neck. It is a thin area above the collar line and below the chin. It is the area that is not covered by my helmet and my jacket. It's just weird looking. This covers my neck and keeps the headphones from popping out when I take the helmet off. Back to today. I headed to my favorite spot to see the sunrise. It also is the best spot to get a picture of Saki that is actually close to the beach. There is no dune blocking the view to the water. I got a few pictures there.

That last one there, is a result of looking at things from a different perspective. Kind of my point about Saturday. I was up on the small wall, so that I could get a picture of the water and a couple of surfers, those shots didn't turn out well because the surfers seemed to be learning and never really got up. When I turned around to get down, I saw Saki sitting there, and it was a view I had never considered. It's just such an interesting perspective, that I had to get a shot of it. After those shots, I had one more shot in mind. I've had this idea since the last time I was there, and hadn't taken the shot when I was there but this time I was getting it. That shot is of the sign for the name of the beach. Here is the thing though, when I was growing up, and going to that spot to surf, we didn't call it Blockhouse Beach. We called it by the name of the landmark closest to it, which was the Officer's Club. It was damaged in a fire several years ago, and rather than rebuild it, they just tore it down and left it for parking. There is a small Blockhouse there now, hence the new name of the beach. If you blow that picture up though, you will see that it is the home of the 45th Space Wing of the United States Air Force. How cool is that. It's little things like that that remind me how much I love where I live. Not far from that very spot is the building that was featured in the old TV show "I Dream of Jeanie". Whenever they would show the Major going to work, the would show a large boxy building with rockets outside. The rockets are gone now, and it's behind a wall, but ash building is still there. In the other direction from there, the actual house is in a neighborhood in Cocoa Beach. When I get the GoPro and start the motovlogging, I'll ride by there and show it to you. Which reminds me of something I do have to get to tonight, while it is on my mind, but first I have a couple more pictures for you.

     As I was riding home, I saw one more spot with a good opportunity. It was right on the river, and there was a small opening between the plants at the edge. Here are those shots.

That last shot was my favorite of the day.

     I was watching a local motovlogger today, and he went to a place called Blowing Rock. It turns out that it is a preserve in Hobe Sound, Florida. This is a place that I didn't know anything about, and it looks amazing. I found a link to a good site that shows off all it's glory. Take a look here Blowing Rock Preserve Needless to say, this is going to be a future location for the Adventure Time Series. I mapped out the ride already. If I take I-95 the entire way down, it will only take an hour and 49 minutes, but that is no fun. I would rather take A1A all the way down. That of course extended the time to 3 hours and 17 minutes. I don't mind that, but it might be hard to find anyone that wants to ride along with me. I need to go to this place. He went there with a videographer that has a drone, so I'm thinking, this would be an incredible reason to get a drone. I've looked into drones before, but I really don't know much about them, so I don't know what is a good one or a bad one, so research is needed. Well, that and money. I don't think I can wait for the drone, but I could always make a return trip after I get one eventually.

     Speaking of the Adventure Time Series, next Saturday is the next ride. I'll be doing and Instagram story along the ride, so if you follow me there, you will get the first look at it, and find out where I chose to go. Yeah, I'm still keeping it a secret. It does look like I'm alone again, so it will just be me and Saki. We will have a blast. With that, I will stop taking up your precious time, and say, peace in and goodnight.

Eye Blister

    A quick update to get things started. As I expected, my eye was back to normal in the morning. All the swelling went down, and there was only a slight pressure of pain. I got out a new set of contacts and got them in with out any problems. I won't lie, I was a bit worried until I woke up yesterday morning. It's not a normal thing to see what amounts to a blister on the white of your eye.

     The photoshoot appears to be a go. We don't have access to the garage like we were hoping, so we are going to build a backdrop and use my friends backyard for the secondary location. I'm not quite sure how this is going to work out, but we will see. I'm going to pick him up Saturday morning and we are going to go get supplies to build this backdrop. That part should be pretty simple. We are going to build it out of PVC piping and sheets.

     Saki is ready for the shoot. I will give Saki a nice bath so that it looks it's best. Here is the way I see it. the model is only there as dressing, Saki is the real draw. This reasoning could be the reason that I'm single. That being said, as long as I can ride, I don't care about that. I think the outdoor stuff will come out looking really good, but I'm not sure about this whole backdrop idea. I have to get Saki into my friends backyard, and that begs the question of how solid his backyard is. I don't want Saki's kickstand sinking down into the ground and toppling Saki over. I will figure it out, I may have to put my foot down on what type of shots Saki will be allowed to do in that environment. I'm sure that m friend will want shots of the girls on Saki, but I don't think that is going to work there. I'll tell you all about it on Sunday.

     Oh, I almost forgot. I'm actually working tomorrow. I don't know how this happened, because our orders are low again this week. I can only assume that my boss was feeling generous, and is giving us this week and next week as full weeks, since we will be off for Memorial Day. Either way, I'm looking at it as extra money. I'd already planned for 4 day weeks the rest of this month, so these extra days will go towards the GoPro situation. Maybe I can get this all done in a little less than 3 months.

     I woke up this morning to see that we had lost one of the great voices in rock and roll. Swirling in the ether tonight with all those who passed before him, is Chris Cornell. He was born Christopher John Boyle in 1964 in Seattle Washington. Years later he would become one of the founding fathers of the Grunge movement. In 1991 Soundgarden released the album BADMOTORFINGER. This was the first time I had heard of Chris Cornell. It was the song Rusty Cage. The guitars were fast and insane sounding, with vocals that screamed out asking for attention. Chris Cornell had a a4 octave voice, which is rare in rock. He was a rock singer that could really sing. Most people caught on to Soundgarden and Chris Cornell with the release of Superunkown in 1994. That had the mega hits Blackhole Sun, and Spoonman. They crossed over every genre and people noticed them for the first time. The seemingly exploded on the scene with their polished sounds and slick abstract lyrics. They were as big as you could get. Chris would go on to front Ausioslave with much fanfare, and even do a few solo projects from time to time. He got back together with Soundgarden and were currently working on a new album at the time of his death. They were enjoying success touring the country in the meantime.

     I wanted to share with you tonight, my favorite song that Chris Cornell did. He was a talented song writer, but this is a cover of a Led Zeppelin song. He always did it with just him and an acoustic guitar. For me, that is when he was at his best. There was nothing to get in the way of his voice. This is Chris Cornell with Led Zeppelin's "Thank You".



     Thank you Chris Cornell, for all the music you gave to us. I know there is one hell of a concert going on in the ether tonight. Peace in and goodnight.

Memories. They Aren't All Bad.

     So, here's something interesting. I got home from work today, and while I was eating, my contact started bothering me. I moved it around a bit, and it felt like it was either torn or folded, so I took it out. There were no tears in it, so I tried to put it back in, but it just wouldn't go, so I took them both out, and threw them away. I still have quite a few more of them. My eye was still irritating me. It felt like a piece of my contact was still in my eye. I tried rubbing it out a bit, but that didn't work. I finally went in to look in the mirror, and it was the strangest thing I've ever seen. The outer portion of my eye was swollen. Not the lid or anything around, but my actual eyeball. I took a hot shower, and have left it alone since, and most of the swelling has gone down. Don't ever do a search for swollen eye lens. You get the wrong thing to be looking at. If I would have stuck with that, I would have believed that I had diabetes. With a little more information thrown in, I found that it is normal to have some swelling from contact lens irritation. I have had these contacts in for some time now, and was due to change them out, so it is very likely that that is all it is. I'm sure the swelling will be completely gone by the morning.

     Saki and I have that photoshoot on Saturday, and we may have a new location for it. My photographer friend texted me this afternoon of a new somewhat vacant road. I rode by on my way home to check it out. It is a little more exposed than the one we were going to use, but it does have potential. It is a road about a quarter of a mile long, with a slight twist in it, and has an access road to some business of some sort, but after that it goes for a few hundred yards and dead ends. It runs off with some dirt paths into the wooded area, but there is a pull off for what, I can't imagine. I pulled in there and got a couple of shots to see how the background would look. The road is developed with wild plants like the other one, and looks a bit more maintained, but here is the best shot that I took.

This was taken at about the same time we have planned for the actual shoot, so the lightning will be very similar, depending on the weather of course. My friend also mentioned to me that it was going to be a two location shoot. The other location is possibly a garage, for a little more privacy. My only hope is that this doesn't turn into an all day ordeal. I'm eager to help out my friend, but I need some ride time too, and the weekend is the best time for that. I'm sure I will get out in the morning though.

      Speaking about ride time, the following weekend will be the Adventure Time Series ride, and no, I'm still not telling you which location I chose. If you follow my Instagram, you will find out there around 11 0'clock in the morning on the 27th. That is when I should be at the location, and I will Instagram Story it. The brings me to Instagram, and what my plans are for my account there. As you know, I post a picture there everyday, with the intent to make someone smile. I enjoy doing it, but that will be ending soon. I have pictures lined up, and it should last another month, but after that, the picture of the day will go away. I've already chosen the final picture of the day, and it's a good one. Now, for the future of the Counterfeit Squirrel on Instagram. That is pretty simple, it is going to be more centered around what I am doing here. It will involve the things I talk about in this, as well as what I post on Youtube, when I finally get that up and running. Instead of finding pictures to post, I will be taking all of the pictures myself. The main goal will still be the same, and I'm going to be looking for those particular shots that will hopefully make someone smile, the biggest difference will be that I won't be posting daily any more. There may be a couple days between posts, but I will try to get quite a few pictures from my rides and adventures to get some on there on a semi regular basis. The end goal, is to have that, the Youtube channel, and this to integrate together. They will all feed off of each other, with this being the focal point for it all. Everything will lead to what is going on here, even the motovlog. You will find out where I will be going, and what I will be doing on here, before you see it there. Not to mention, that I will be posting the video here after I get it uploaded on Youtube. It may be a day or so after I post, but it will eventually be here. You may notice that I haven't posted a link to my channel on Youtube yet. There is a very good reason for that. There is absolutely no content on there right now, so there is no reason to go and look at it, or even subscribe to it. I will let you know when things will start happening there, but it will still be quite some time before that happens. I'm thinking it will be most likely to happen in a few months, once I get everything together and after I've tested the camera a few times, for sound and picture. Once all that is together, I will make a channel trailer, and that is when I will post a link. Keep an eye out, but you don't have to look hard until a few months from now.

     This weeks Favorite Song of the Week is going to be a little different. It's not necessarily my favorite song this week, but it is one that I need to take back. I'm going to explain. This particular song is by a band that I have a slight connection to. When I say slight, I mean very slight, and it is more after the fact than during. The band that did this song, is no longer the same band. The lead singer is off doing his own thing now, and that is my connection. About 10 years ago or so, that lead singer was one of my students. I won't get into what he was a student of, but I knew him pretty well back then, and I would say that we were friendly acquaintances. He had just left the band, to do a solo album and wasn't sure at that point, if they were going to get back together. Jump to the future, and the band now has a new singer, and that is what brought this song to my attention today. When I was looking fro something to listen to, I came across their new album. It isn't bad, but the new singer is just "meh". I also am not sure who is writing the songs now, because the old lead singer used to do that as well. Let's just get down to it. The band is Dishwalla and the lead singer is non other than J.R. Richards. Not too long after he moved from this area back to Santa Barbara  I believe, My girlfriend at the time broke up with me. it was devastating to me, so much so, that it took me a very long time to get over her. As a matter of fact, last year when I was still doing the 365 of Facebook, I did a post specifically about finally letting her go. Now, this song today, was one of the songs from the album Opaline, and I would listen to that album quite a lot during that time. The song I'm going to feature tonight was one that resonated deeply with how I felt. It is called "Today, Tonight", and it is about waiting for a big event to happen. To me, it was about me waiting for her to tell me that she wanted me back, and that I would wait for that moment till it happened or I died. After listening to that new album I started listening to Opaline, and it reminded me of that time. A lot of memories came flooding back to me, about how I felt then. It didn't bring me down, Instead, it made me realize how much I liked that album, and how I wanted that song back. Not to be a sad memory of a love lost, but a beautiful song that I could enjoy, and that is why it is the Favorite Song of the Week.

     It's funny how music can take you back to a certain time. I will never be able to her Justify My love by Madonna, and not think of Stephen King's It. I've always had a long standing habit of needing to be distracted while I'm focusing, and I would always listen to music while I was reading. I need that chaos in order to keep the actual distraction of nothing from grabbing my attention. That is what hearing Opaline did to me today. It took me back, and although I want to remember that time, because it is definitely a part of what made me who I am,  I don't want it to spoil some great music for me. I think that I'll listen to it again tomorrow, if I get the chance. Peace in and goodnight.

Project Day.

     I decided to get this started a little earlier than normal. I normally write this around 10 at night, but  I felt frisky so let's get this going at 7:30. I never got around to going to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I had too much to do. I did get some riding done on Friday, and it was a blast as always. I'm not sure how long I was out, but my right arm was a good indicator of time. It was cherry red from the sun. Yeah, I was squidding it without a jacket. The sun was a contributing factor for what I ended up doing on Saturday, but we will get to that later.

     Saturday morning, I was planning on going for a long ride because I was going over to Orlando in the evening for the Parrotheadfest. Instead, I decided to clean Saki's chain and lube it up. I had a new chain cleaner by Motul, and I've been waiting to use it. Chain maintenance is pretty important to performance as well as the well being of your bike. If you don't do it, you will be sorry. The picture to the right was after I had the chain good and clean. I wanted to let all the cleaner evaporate before putting the lube on. I had ordered a new chain lube by Motul, but the sender accidentally sent me another can of the chain cleaner. Good thing the cleaner worked out really well. You can see that the chain is a nice silver color as opposed to its usual black. Eventually I will get a new chain. I'm going to go with red of course. I don't see any reason to do it right now. New chains run a little over $100 dollars, so I can wait it out. I have a few more things that are a little higher on the priority list. Oh, this actually gets us to the reason for the title. See that white monstrosity holding Saki up. That's the old tire stand that my ukulele teacher gave me. Don't get me wrong by calling it monstrosity. I am truly grateful for it. It has been one of the most useful tools in my arsenal. I have used it countless times already, and will use it countless times more. That being said, it needed a bit of a facelift, so Saturday became Project Day.

     After I was done with Saki's chain maintenance. I started to disassemble the tire stand. That's it to the left in all it's barren glory. Since it was going to have a place in the Ultimate Motorcycle Lounge, it needed to look the part. Oh, did I mention that I changed the name of the ultimate motorcycle garage to UML? Well, I did. Since it's going to be more than just a garage, I needed a proper name for it. It will still be a working garage, but it's also going to be an area to watch TV, do things on the computer, and play ukulele and guitar. Seating will be limited, but it will be comfortable. Anyway, back to the project. I made a run to my local Lowe's to pick up some rattle can paint. I didn't need anything professional grade, I simply needed something to freshen up the old stand while it did it's work until retirement. That will be the day that I finally break down and get a Pitbull rear tire stand.

     I chose red and black paint for obvious reasons. I knew I wouldn't get it exact unless I wanted to order exact paint match from Color Rite, but that would be far too expensive. One can of that stuff is around $40. If I needed that for Saki, it would be one thing, but for an old tire stand, no way. I went cheap as I could. Three cans of paint 1 red and 2 black cost me a little over $10. That is much better.


    After I got home, I made my old shed in the backyard a makeshift paint booth. I hung the stand from the rafters and got ready to paint. I'll post all the pictures of the process below, but I'll explain what I did right here. I started with the red, and used it as a kind of base coat, and accent color. I managed to get just about a full two coats out of the one can. I didn't need it perfect, because I was going to paint black over top of most of it. I let that red sit over night to dry. It didn't' really need that long, but I had to get ready to head over to Orlando.

     I got up this morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. I made a good breakfast because I made yesterday my "fast day". Worked out well. I headed out to the shed after and started taping off areas that I wanted to leave red. Once I had that done, and failed miserably at trying a little design element on it, I broke out the black paint. I got the first coat of black on, and got full coverage on it. I let that set for a few hours, and then hit it once again, and checked over everything to make sure I had no red peaking through. Once again, I let that sit for a couple of hours and ran my errands. After my errands and lunch I headed out to see how it looked. I don't think I could have improved on it any with my limited skills as a painter, and started stripping off the tape. I think it ended up looking pretty good.

     You can see from the last picture, that I put the swingarm lifts back on as well as the wheels. Now for the piece de resistance. I got a shot of it next to Saki, and was pretty pleased with how well it matched up color wise with Saki. See for yourself.

     Looks pretty good right? It's not exact but close enough that it now belongs in the Ultimate Motorcycle Lounge. Saki was pretty pleased with it, and so was I. It felt good to take something at do a little artistic magic to it, and put some new life into it.

     Now for Parrotheadfest. I was meeting my friend at her house at 7, but since I had a little extra time to kill, I headed over to Cycle Gear. The closest one to me is in Orlando, and it is only a few miles from her house. I wanted to look for a couple of things. First on my list was a dark smoked visor for my Arai Helmet. I've noticed lately that when I ride in the middle of the day, that I was starting to get a little bit of an odd sun tan on my face because of the clear visor. I really wasn't expecting them to have one, but I'd take a shot. I walked in and a worker came up to me asking if I needed any help. Of course I do. I asked about the visor, and he took me straight to one. I was a little shocked. The next thing had a better chance of being there, and since my luck was pretty freaking good with the visor, I shot for the moon. I wanted a pair of gloves that had touch tech so that I could use the gloves on my phone. Sure enough, they had some. They are in black, which I don't really prefer, but I can't be too picky with something like this. I can use all my other gear to stand out and be seen by motorists. The guy was very helpful and definitely made me want to go back if I ever need anything else. I do have my eyes on an Alpinestars perforated jacket. Oh, I forgot to tell you what the gloves are. They are Alpinestars SMX-2 Air Carbon Gloves. I've always only worn Icon, and I do love my Icon gloves, but these Alpinestars are a different level. They are unbelievably comfortable, and even helped alleviate hand fatigue. I put them and the new visor through their paces today.

     It was a fun ride today. I hit my favorite twisty spot to keep working on my ride position. The first time through was great. I hit the corners just right, and everything felt good. On the way back through though, I got in my head, and really messed up a couple of corners. I tired to hit the apex way too soon, and then got a case of target fixation. I was too busy looking at the danger area and not where I wanted to be. I blew it, but that is everything in learning.

     On my way home, I made one last detour and hit a small twisty area near my work. The last corner is very tight and has a recommended speed limit of 15 MPH. I even think that speed may be a little too fast for cars.. That is how tight a corner it is. I made my final approach to the corner, and started my line. I didn't get into a good ride position because I was thrown off by a bike rider that was near the mouth of the corner. I had to hit my line a little tighter and didn't leave myself enough time to move over on the seat. I just threw the bike over and went for it. It was the deepest lean that I've ever gotten. If I had been in a good riding position. I would have been dragging my knee on the ground. It felt incredible. Despite my ride position, everything felt right. The only way I could describe the feeling is what a surfer says being in the tube feels like. Everything just slowed down. There was no sound, just a white noise that surrounded me. I cam out of the corner and the bike shot up ready for the next turn.  I can't wait for that feeling again.

     One last picture before I talk about Parrotheadfest. I know I've gotten out of order on this, but it's just the way it fell across the keys. I christened the new visor coming around one of the really fast corners in the twisties. I don't think you can really see it in the picture though. Whatever it was, it was big. I think by the contents that it might have been a water buffalo. Eveything that came out of it was clear, and it was right in my line of sight. Now that I'm looking at it there, you really can't see it. If you blow it up, you can see it to the bottom right. It came off pretty easy with my patented warm wet paper towel on the visor for about 5 minutes. That helps rehydrate all the crispy parts, so that it comes of nice and easy.  I do like the looks of the helmet with the dark visor, I will find out tomorrow if it affects me when I ride into work in the morning. My HJC with the amber visor actually helps my vision at night, so maybe this will do the same. I'll let you know.

     On to Parrotheadfest. As I mentioned before on here. Jimmy Buffett was going to be in Orlando. We were going to get tickets, but they were just too expensive. That didn't matter though. We were going to have our own party and listen to the show On Radio Margaritaville. That is one of the reasons why I got the JBL Charge 3 speaker. On Thursday I got an email from Youtube saying that JImmy's concert in North Carolina was being broadcast on Youtube. This was looking better and better. After my trek to Cycle Gear I headed over to her house. We got everything ready to go, and then checked the margaritaville website to see if it was going to be on Youtube. Sure enough it was. We set everything up. We had the TV warmed up, and the speaker paired up, and were ready to go.

     My friend wanted to learn a little bit about Instagram stories, so she talked me into doing one last night. If you follow me, you had a chance to see it. This did some double duty, because I wanted her to learn about it, and I was also attempting her to start vlogging. The Instagram stories is a good springboard for it. It gives you the feel of being in front of the camera, and I think this will benefit her work with wildlife photography. I think it will be very interesting to see her tell the story about her hikes to where she takes all her pictures, and her followers will get a behind the scened view of the whole thing. I've promoted her here before, but if you hadn't seen her work, you can go here. She is very talented, and if she does start vlogging on her Youtube channel, I'm sure she will announce it there. Give her a follow, you won't regret it.

     We weren't at the show, but we had a lot of fun. She has these two wonderful dogs, that I love to pieces, and we all sat around watching the show. I was a bit of a party pooper though, because I was only drinking my oversized bottle of water. I did decide one thing though, and it's going to sound odd with the whole no drinking thing. I am on the search for a neon sign that says "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere". Now why would I do that. For one thing, I think it will look perfect in the Ultimate Motorcycle Lounge. For the other. that phrase doesn't have to be about drinking. It can be a philosophy. It's all about that attitude of just cutting loose and getting away from it all. Have a little fun every once and a while. That's what it means to me, so that is why the search is on. The UML will not be complete until I find that sign.

     I have one more thing for you tonight. I mentioned on Thursday about enneagrams, and that I would announce my type tonight. Here is the link to the descriptions of the types. When I first read through all the different types and the short descriptions, I figured I would come out as either a 2 or a 6. I wasn't wrong, well not completely. I came out as 9. 9 takes on traits from all the other types. If you click on each small description of each type, you will get a more in-depth description, that will tell you little hints on how to deal with the bad side of each type. It turns out, that I have been doing those things. They have made a big difference on how I deal with depression and anxiety. I still have small panic attacks from time to time, but as for the depression, I hanse't gone down the rabbit hole in some time. In the past, I would think that that meant I was in for a big fall. In the past that was right, but I feel different about that now. I don't feel like that big fall is coming, and that is a fantastic feeling. Give it a chance and find a test to take. As I said on Thursday, in order to take the test on that site, you have to pay for it. There are several free tests out there, just find one that you like. It may change the way you see yourself.

    I just remembered one more thing I wanted to take about, but I will save that for Tuesday. It's about the future of my Instagram, and where I'm planning on going with it, but I've given you enough for thought tonight. Peace in and goodnight.