I put Saki up on the new stand so that I could give it a good cleaning. It was fantastic. I could reach every area that I couldn't before. I got everything underneath, the tires were easier when I lifted it to it's highest point. I just sat in my roller chair and wheeled myself around to get all of the lower sections. Since I had it up in the air, I decided to see how it would fit if I wanted to store it like that for any length of time, such as, if a hurricane comes through and I need to keep it from any potential flooding. Turns out, it takes up just a little less room than if I have it parked. Here are the pictures for proof.
I also took a quick picture of what the strap setup looks like. The strap is how it stays horizontal on the stand instead of lifting only the rear tire. Abba doesn't really do a good job of explaining how to strap it down, they only provide a picture and say copy this. It's a little complicated at first, but once you do it right, it's easy from there on out.
To explain it, there is a loop that the brass fitting is attached to. You need to put that loop, over the swingerarm spindle, then run the remaining portion of the strap around the spindle that is attached to the lift. The end of the strap then slides into the brass fitting, once it is tightened you let that fitting lock in place. The silver fitting then slides down the end of the strap and you tuck it up next to the brass fitting to give it an extra point of contact for locking the strap in place. Then you simply wrap the excess strap around the entire thing and tuck the end inside of itself. Simple right?
If I want only the front tire to lift. I have to remove the spindle on the lift and take that red arm off, and put the spindle directly to the base of the lift. When I do that, it will hold the back tire down, and only lift the front of the bike. It's simple but genius.
One last picture, because why not. This was after I had it completely cleaned and detailed and Saki looked good. I even found some old tire wet, to shine up the sides of the tires. I really need to get rid off all that stuff behind Saki. That will give me about 16 inches of space. Even more room in the lounge. I will eventually get around to it, but until then, I can gain some room just by lifting Saki in the air.
After all that was done, I gave Morty a bath, well I did it before then. He was in the house sulking and drying off. He was upset because of the bath and also because I wouldn't let him outside until he dried, otherwise he would have rolled around and turned to a mudpup in seconds flat. Once he completely dried off and could go outside again, he was back to his happy self. Even more happy if you ask me. He hates getting those baths, but he always feels better when he is clean. You can tell just by the way he carries himself. I also washed all of his bedding and toys. He manages to get his toys filthy, and still loves them. He got a new toy last week. It's a slice of pizza that has crinkly paper in it with two squeakers. The funny thing about it, is that he is so gentle with his toys, that he can't make it squeak. It's funny. He loves the sound and he goes crazy when I do it, but he won't chomp down hard enough to make it happen.
After all that was done, I sat down with all my distractions, so that I could write the next chapter of The Patchwork Knight. I say distractions, because that is what they are, but not in the way you are thinking. I need noise whenever I'm writing or reading. It's something that I've always done and I don't know why. Even now I have the RAYS game on while I'm writing this. In some weird way, it helps me focus. My brain when unstimulated, likes to go off in different tangents. If I had complete silence while writing, I would distract myself, and never get anything done. The outside noise keeps my subconscious mind preoccupied, so that my conscious mind can focus on the task at hand. I tend to freak out when their is complete silence. It always feels like something bad is going to happen, so I opt for noise and controlled chaos. It's what works for me.
Once I was done writing, I looked at the clock and it was almost 6. I had finally beat the deadline imposed on me by myself, by an hour. That gave me a great idea. I asked Siri what time sundown was, and she said 8. I had two hours to get ready. Oh, did I mention that the meteorologists all predicted Saturday's weather completely wrong. It was supposed to storm all weekend, with a slight respite in the morning, but no storms were in sight. I got all the batteries charged that I would need, in an hour, and set out to finally make the video that I've had an idea for for a few weeks now. Did it come out perfect? No. Did I expect it to? Not really. I had a hope, but I knew it would take a lot of things going exactly right. I missed just slightly, but I think it is good enough, to at least be funny. I did a little acting in this one, so I hope you enjoy it. It times it at exactly 2:58 so it's super short, but it got everything in that I wanted. Please take a look at it, and see what you think. If you do think it is entertaining, please share it, so that others can see it. You'll have to do that from the YouTube page I think though. but here is my masterpiece. Yeah I even laughed when I wrote that.
I'm glad that there was actually no one around when I filmed all of that. It felt real weird doing all that running and jumping around, to get the shots that I needed, but it was fun. I'm pretty sure I looked like a complete idiot, while doing it.
I got all that a uploaded when I got home, and worked on it for an hour or so. There wasn't a whole lot of footage to go through, it was more trying to line up the scenes to get them to gel. The only slip in my mind, is the take off, but I couldn't get it any closer than that. I could have just used the drone footage and used the audio underneath it, but then you don't get that sense of me running to take off. I think it works, let me know what you think. I could have published it last night, but I made the decision for it to go live at 6 this morning. I think I'm going to make Sunday's my release days for my videos. I want to try and get one done every week, but sometimes that is hard. Dealing with the PR, and then coming up with ideas for videos, that seem fun and entertaining isn't easy either, but Sundays will be release days for the CS from now on. I want to do more drone stuff, but I have to find areas that are off the beaten path for most of that. I have a few, but I have to see if one of them isn't in a dead zone for flying. It's close to an airport, so I may not be able to fly there, but if I can, I should get some great footage over a heavily wooded area and a lake. It should look real good. Here's to hoping.
Now I have to come up with an idea for a video for next week. If you have any ideas of things you'd like to see, let me know, I might use it.
I talked to my partner on the PR trying to get his schedule figured out so that we can do the next review, but it's up in the air as per usual. I want to get it done this week, so I have the full two weeks before the released date, not that that matters, because once again, he hasn't shared anything, so our numbers are way down for what I think is one of our better videos. He essentially has done nothing for this review, other than showing up for the filming and eating pizza. I don't know that I will do this much longer. I'm really considering quitting the project if I don't get the help from him that I need. I didn't get into this to do work, I got into this, to have fun. If it's fun than it isn't work, and if it's work that it isn't fun, and lately it has been all work. All I ask of him is to take pictures for the building/sign, pizzas, and write a small piece on the rating of the place that we are reviewing. He did non of that for the last post. I had to make a decision to save the piece from being incomplete, by putting the video first, which is the location that the picture of the building/sign would have been, and not use the pictures of the pizza that I had other than the one shot I used. I had that shot, and my pizza, but I thought it would be odd to post those pictures and not have the pictures of the other pizzas that we had there. We are going to have to sit down and have a pretty big talk about what his commitment is to this project and what he is willing to do for it. If he can't do those things and get them to me before the deadline, which we figured out weeks ago, then I'm going to have to call it a day on this project, and it will go back to him wanting to do a blog about pizza and not getting anything done. I will not continue to do all the work. I'm committed to the next location, and I'm going to do all the work; all the filming, all the picture taking, all the writing, because this is my personal favorite place to go for pizza. I'm going to do everything I can to make this piece one of our best ones. After that, we will see where it goes.
Now that that little rant is over, I guess I should give you some updated news. Since I ordered those sunglasses from Rainbow OPTX, I get emails from them. I found out that it isn't just the translucent frames, like mine that they do the giveaway with. The latest email is announcing that they are giving away a pair of green round lenses with each order, so you do have options. You don't have to just get the Wayfarer type glasses. Just looked at the website, and you have to be the first 300 in order to get that style and color, but be sure, if you wait, you can get the next pair. Just go to the website and sign up for their newsletter. That will let you know what they have free and when.
I think I've taken enough of your time, so I'm going to call this post to an end. Peace in and goodnight.
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