A Rant And Some Info.

     I guess I'm going to start off with a little bit of a rant. A friend of mine showed up at my house yesterday unannounced. That is something that I would never do. I don't think it is proper or polite, and I don't like it. I didn't go of on them for it, but maybe I should have. I'm not comfortable with people just dropping by. It's probably more of a control thing than anything. I would rather know when someone is stopping by, so that I can plan things accordingly. You know, be a proper host.

     There, that is out of the way. I was watching the MLB Allstar Game before coming in to write this. They are in the seventh inning in a tied game. Normally that would mean that you stay and watch the game to see the outcome, but they started the game too late, and it is 10:37 at night right now, which means that I have to go to sleep. That's the way it is with sports, they always put the big games on at a later time. The east coast usually goes to bed before it's over and reads about it the next morning. I'll find out when I look at my phone in the morning who won.

     I was planning a big surprise for Saturday. If you follow me on Instagram, you were going to see it first, but things went awry and the surprise is no longer going  to happen. I'm not going to tell you what it was, because, I might be able to find another way of doing it, and I can reveal the surprise at a later date. It's too bad to, because I thought it was pretty cool. Regardless of that though, I will be doing the normal Instagram story for the next Adventure Time Series ride. It will start at just before 9AM Saturday morning New York time. If you don't follow me, you can click here, and you can follow me so that you will be up to date on what it going on with the ATS ride. I will also be doing the next video at that time, but I more than likely won't get that up until Sunday. I'm not sure about the timing on this one though. It's going to be a long day Saturday, and I'm sure that I'm going to have lots of footage to go through, all the while trying to get it to be around the 10 minute mark. We'll see how it all works out. There is a pretty good chance of rain as well, but I'm hoping that it's going to be later in the day, so that we can get this in just before the rain starts. Either way it's going to be fun.

      Before I get to the Favorite Song of the Week, I have to bring something up. I've noticed that the emails subscriptions have not been even showing an area for the videos that I post on here. I really have no control over that, and don't have any idea of how to correct that. That is why I"m going to reiterate here, that the best possible experience you can have with this blog, is to actually come to this blog. I had thought when I put that subscription link, that it would just give you a notification that the blog was posted, and a link to click on to get to it. In a way it does do that. You can simply click on the title on the email and it will take you here, but I can understand how it is just much simpler to read it in the email and forget about seeing any of the videos that accompany it. I don't blame you for doing that, I just know that you will have a much more enjoyable time with this, if you actually come her to check everything out.

     Now on to FSOTW. I'm sticking with the Baby Driver theme that I mentioned last week. This song is the song that kicks off the entire movie. They have a cold open with just a crew of people in a car going to do a heist on a bank. Then Baby puts in his earbuds, and starts this song. It's the entire opening sequence, and it appears to me, that Edgar Wright filmed this scene entirely around this song. It is one of the best opening scenes that I've ever seen. it has everything; humor, action, drama, what more do you need in an opening scene. It could have been the whole movie, and I would have been ok with it. The band is The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the song is "Bellbottoms". I really hope that you enjoy it, cause I know I did.



     I even learned this song last week in my ukulele class. That reminds me, I'll have something for you about that on Thursday. Until then, peace in and goodnight.

Total Chill Weekend.

     You read it in the title. It was a total chill weekend. I did something on Friday that I haven't done in a while. I took Melvin out for a ride, and as usual, he got all the love. I've neglected Melvin, since I've got the GoPro set up on my Arai helmet, and I have to use the HJC (the normal Melvin helmet) as my daily rider. I put ol' Melvin on when I went to the bank, and then a went and got some gas. Like I said, Melvin got tons of love and attention from people. Maybe when I get the new helmet, which is a long way away, I'll figure out some way to mount the GoPro on Melvin's helmet. My only worry though, is that I may have to cut holes into Melvin in order to get it to work. It would be a blast for you to see some of the reactions Melvin gets though. I'll have decide if it is worth it or not.

     I did absolutely nothing on Saturday. I was going to get up and ride really early, but when the alarm went off, I decided to just sleep in instead. Well, that is if you can call sleeping until 6:30, sleeping in. In the end, I just sat at home and caught up on a bunch of recorded shows. I'm nearly caught up on all the series that I had recorded.

      Today was different though. I did wake up early, and got some riding in. It was a short ride, but very productive. I had to get it in early, so that I could see a real early showing of Spider Man Homecoming. I'll give you my review of that in just a bit. I had a goal for my ride, and that was to get some pictures in a couple of areas that I've been looking at for some time. The first one is an old abandoned Sears & Roebuck's building. They have an all brick wall on the outside that has nothing marring it. It looked like a really great place to get an early morning picture. I have a thing for that nice soft light of early morning. This is the one I told you about before, that eventually I want to get an late evening shot there as well, so that you can see the difference in the lighting. When I do get that other shot, I'll post a side by side of them. In the meantime, here are the shots I got there.

     I put the flash on for that second shot, just to get a little pop out of the reflective rim tape. After that, I hit my second location. It's a Mexican Restaurant not far from that location that has a really neat mural on the side of the building. I've always wanted to get Saki in front of it, but it is always packed with cars and people. that wasn't a problem at around 7 in the morning. The parking lot was vacant, and I got to pull up right in front of it. Here is what I got there.

     That mural is just fun, and Saki looks pretty good in front of it. When I was loading these pictures in, I realized that I missed the portrait shot I took at the other location. I think it came out pretty good.

     Just in case you were wondering, I did shoot some video of the whole thing. I got home and did the editing before I headed out for Spider Man. I kept it simple today. Didn't try anything new, and worked more on keeping the time down. I want to try to keep these videos around 10 minutes. This one comes in a couple of minutes under, so that is a good thing. Give it a view, and let me know what you like and don't like about it. Then more I learn from you, the more I can make the videos more appealing. You can leave a comment on here, or go to the YouTube page and leave one. Anyway, here is the video for you viewing pleasure.

     If you follow me on Instagram, you got to see the little promo I made for this, and as I said, I used Building Houses by Danielle Ate The Sandwich. I like it. I think I can get that song to work with almost anything I put together with it.

     While I waited for the video to upload on YouTube, I went to see Spider Man Homecoming, and run my errands. I really enjoyed the movie. It did have some very small glitches in the CGI, but I was able to get past it in a hurry. It was like a Spider Man Comic. It had that really fun and witty style to it. It isn't the typical origin story. This takes place after Peter has his powers, and it still getting used to them. he knows what he can do, he just hasn't had the time to do any real training with it. It's fun and worth watching on the big screen. I didn't see it in 3D, so I can't tell you if that aspect of the movie is any good, but it has a good story, great action, and a whole lot of humor. Oh, and don't forget to stay until after the credits. There is something real fun there.

     I nearly forgot, that I ran into some old friends when I was getting ready to walk away from the counter into the theater. It was really good seeing them again. They were from my old days of hanging out at the beer bar. I had some good times there, but after a while, I realized that the beer was just far too expensive, when I could go to one of the many breweries in the area, and get beer that was more than likely better, and at a cheaper cost. We caught up a bit, and then went our separate ways after the movie.

     That is all that I have for you until Tuesday, so peace in and goodnight.

Shuffling In Monkey Feet.

    With the holiday, and packing as much as I could into a very long weekend, while filming, editing, and positing two videos to YouTube, I forgot to do something on Tuesday night. Yep, I forgot to post the Favorite Song of the Week. I do have one, well, I have several, but we will get to that later, just don't forget to remind me.

     I also forgot one other thing that I was going to post on Tuesday night. I finally broke down, and bought a pair of monkey feet.

     Yeah, I know they are really called Vibram 5 Fingers, but I prefer monkey feet. I needed a good pair of water shoes, and checked around. Everything was either way over priced, or Crocs, and I'm not wearing Crocs. These were rather inexpensive for Vibrams. Vibrams usually run in the low $100 dollar range, and these were just are $50. From all the reviews, they appear to last, and from what I can see, they are constructed rather well. I'll have to see how they fare once they've been in water and what not. My only problem with them, is my foot fall in them. I'm a heavy heeled walker, and it's a bit uncomfortable because of that. They don't have any cushion in the heel, so I'm going to have to alter the way I walk when I'm wearing them. That shouldn't be too hard, I've only been walking this way my whole life.

     The next ATS ride is fast approaching. No, I'm still not going to tell you where I'm going, but I think it should be pretty good. For one thing, this place is very new. I'm not positive, but I think it opened this year, or maybe late last year, so it's not a place that a whole lot of people in general have been to yet. Also, I'm adding another little special surprise location to the ride. This is a little more for me, than for you though. Yeah, I'm going to be a little selfish on this one. I'm really looking forward to showing you these places. I'm hoping the videos will continue to improve as well. I still need to find out how to face out the music. I haven't found out how to do that yet on my own. I'm sure that I could look it up online, but that takes all the fun out of it.

      I'm still a little upset by the troubles I had posting the promo to Instagram for the last video. I really liked that one with Kashmere attached to it. I understand that it could have been copyright infringement, but it was so good. I played that video for my ukulele teacher today, and he really liked it as well. Oh well, I'm sticking with the plan I have, so look forward to the next video promo on Instagram, to have a little laugh with me on the inside joke of always using the same song for it.

     I may do another video this weekend, but I have no idea what it would be about or where to go, Other than that, the only plan I have is to go see Spider Man. I did see a clip today, that has me a little concerned for the movie. It could be just a bad edit that they showed, but there seemed to be a small glitch in the effects that bothered me. Marvel has a pretty good track record, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. It's not like I'm not going to see it. 

     I'm getting closer to the purchase of my guitar. I have one picked out, it's just a matter of saving a little more money before I buy it. The one place I was going to buy it, doesn't have it anymore, but I found another place, so as long as it's still there when I'm ready to buy, I will be getting a Gibson Les Paul. It's not the most expensive one by any means, but it is still an electric guitar. I'm not going for any professional grade guitar here. Those things can get real expensive. I'm talking the price of a car expensive. I'm never going to play professionally so no reason for that, but my ukulele teacher did tell me that he has the equipment to do recording. That could work out to my benefit. If I can learn how to play the guitar to the level that I want. I could do my own music for the motovlog, and not have to rely on other music that I may not be able to use anyway. This could get even more fun that it already is.

      Ok, I hear you. I didn't forget, it's time for Favorite Song of the week. As you know, I've been listening to the soundtrack to Baby Driver all week. I'm probably at about 10 listens now. Needless to say, FSOTW is coming from that soundtrack. Here is my dilemma though. There are so many good songs on it, that I don't have just one FSOTW, so we are going to break this up over the next few weeks, and have this little tribute to Baby Driver end with the song that has truly captivated me since hearing it. Now normally I would give you a little background on the song of the band, or a story of my own past relating to the song. Not today though. I'm going to do it a little different. I'm just going to post the video and let you get a good earful.

     Admit it, when you heard that opening riff, you thought it was Jump Around by House of Pain. Ha, this is where they got it. This is Bob & Earl with "Harlem Shuffle". The original. You are probably more familiar with The Rolling Stones version of it, but this is where it all came from. I really don't have much background for this one. The Bob & Earl that sang this song, weren't the original Bob & Earl. Originally it was Bobby Byrd & Earl Nelson of a doo top group known as The Hollywood Flames. They didn't have much success, so Bobby Byrd went off and had his own solo career. Earl found another Bob by the name of Bobby Relf. That is when this song came about. It was written by the two of them, and get this, the music was arranged by Barry White. Yes, that Barry White. the smoothest most mellow voice of R&B. With that kind of pedigree behind it, it had to succeed. It did succeed, but only after Bob & Earl had already gone their separate ways and had their own solo careers going. Life's funny that way sometimes. This is part one of the Baby Driver tribute. You will see why I'm saying that this is the best soundtrack to a movie ever. I'm still standing by that statement.

     With that, I'm going to call it a night. Peace in and goodnight.

Let's Go To The Inlet.

     I wanted to just get that out of the way. Since I had so much trouble on Sunday night getting the video embedded, I wanted to see if I could get it right off the top, and it worked. I don't know why, but I'm going with it.

     So as you can see, I took a little ride on Monday, and went to the Inlet to get that view that I've been dying to show you, and a few more cool little things. One of which was that house I mentioned when I went to the McLarty Treasure Museum. I was the one that I saw the Vanilla Ice trucks outside of. The pictures didn't come out as great as I'd hoped, but they give you a pretty good idea of the place.

      I like the morning light for pictures, always have, but these didn't not benefit from that light. It created a shadow on this side of the house with the sun behind it. Regardless, if you blow it up, you can see all the way through the house, which I think is absolutely incredible. I think that this house will be on the upcoming season of The Vanilla Ice Project. It starts later this month on the DIY channel. They were still doing some work on the landscaping, but other than that, the house is completed, and looks really good. I would love to live there, but I'm guessing that it's a couple of million. I saw a sign for one house, that was a great deal smaller than that one, and it was at $625,000. It's a pricey area to live.

     The ride was great that morning, and I mention in the video how I ran into a guy along the road that was riding around with his autistic son. Really nice gentleman that just wanted a look at my bike. He was a big fan of Saki. I got distracted and forgot to get the camera recording again when I took off, so I missed the view of the Indian River Lagoon on the way back. I did notice that I have to work on a view things when I'm filing. That is a good thing though, it means that I'm learning. I have to be cognizant of the fact that the camera is at a different angle from what I actually see. I managed to get luck with the house, and still managed to get a decent view of it, but I could have made it better if I was more aware. Lesson learned and I will improve in the future.

     I'm already feeling much more comfortable with the whole editing process, which reminds me, I posted a picture on Instagram of what the screen looks like while I'm editing, and I just wanted to share that with you here.

     It doesn't look like much, but that can be very intimidating the first time you start doing some editing on a video especially when you have no idea what you are doing. It is super fun though. Lastly about the ride, I did stop at a place I've been meaning to get a picture of Saki at, and grabbed a few while I switched out the battery on the GoPro. I had already finished recording for the video, but I wanted to have a fresh battery, just in case something happened on the rest of the way home. Plus I wanted to see what certain things looked like on camera. For instance, when I go into a full tuck with my head below the windscreen. The camera doesn't see much more than the speedometer, so that is good to know. Anyway, here are two of the pictures I took at that location.

     I'm a little proud of that last one there. It has that slight glow of sunlight coming through the top and the lighting in general is just, right. I do have a location that I'm looking at for another shot. I want to get a shot in both the morning and the evening. I think the lighting will be drastically different and I want to highlight those differences. I'll post the pictures, when I finally get those shots.

     With getting that video in, and starting the editing process, I didn't get all the things done, that I had planned on for Monday. That is ok though. My end goal was to get as many things done as I could, so that today would be free. I knew all along, that I had scheduled too many things, and that I would have overflow into today. The good news is, that I only had one overflow thing to do. That was to get Saki that oil change.

     I found something out. The new headers that are on there with the new exhaust system, sit in a slightly different way than the stock headers sat. That made it a little more difficult to get to the oil filter. It took a little maneuvering, but I got the old oil filter off, and the new one on. With all that done, it was time to give Saki a bath. I cleaned the chain until it was the original silver luster that it had when it first went on. It looked great. Saki is now clean and ready for this week of riding, and it looks like a good week for it weather wise. 

     Back to Monday though. I made it to Northern Tool and checked out that stool. It was on sake for 60% off, so I had to buy it. It sits a little higher than I had hoped it would, but it's going to work out just fine, and it looks pretty sharp in the Lounge.

     That's it next to the roller stool. I'll use that mostly for  work on Saki now, and the NT Stool will be used for doing stuff at the workbench. I can work on the laptop, or do things with the helmet mounts and GoPro. It's rather comfy and has a backrest, so I can get my lean back on. Saki's Lounge continues to come together. Next step, is getting some of the old unnecessary stuff out of the lounge to increase much needed space. After that, I will start working on sealing it so that I can get that portable AC unit. With that out of the way, I can finally start working towards the motorcycle lift, and a larger tool cart. Then it will all be about the creature comforts, to make it more lounge-ish.

     Also Monday, I went and saw Baby Driver. I need to take a moment here, and think of how I really want to put this. Writing will not show this, but I actually did pause to get my mind in order, and I found that I just can't get my mind in order. The movie is freaking great. I loved it, and the soundtrack was the best soundtrack to a movie that I've ever heard. Listen, I know that this is all subjective, but you have to go with me on this. This soundtrack fits this movie better than any soundtrack has fit any movie ever. I'm standing by that. It's bold I know, but that's how I roll. The movie has everything: action, drama, comedy, car chases, a love story, great music, and fast cars. Yes, I know that car chases and fast cars could easily fall under the category of "action", but this is my blog and I'll write it how I want to. Go out and see Baby Driver. My only problem with the movie is, that I wanted just a little more of John Bernthal. He only has a couple of scenes, and he is just really great at being a horrible person. From interviews that I've seen with him, he is quite the opposite in real life, but that is what being a good actor is all about. Making people believe that you are really that person, and he pulls it off in everything I've seen him in.

     Back to the soundtrack for a minute. As soon as I got home, I went on iTunes and bought it. I've listened to it three times already, and it just keeps getting better. This is going to be one of those movies that I buy and watch over and over and over again. I think it will go up along side my copy of Perks of Being a Wallflower. Two widely different movies, but both have fantastic soundtracks. I can see some rather mixed emotion weekends in my future when I do  Perks and Baby film fest. It's going to be wild.

     Before I go, I have to tell you about a few things that went on today. With the last two videos, I have made separate little promos for Instagram. Today was a bit of a challenge. I made the video clip, and made sure that it was under 1 minute. I added music underneath it and cut all the other audio from it. I posted it the first time, and it was immediately pulled for being in copyright violation due to my use of Malibu by Miley Cyrus. I was bummed. I thought I could get away with it since it was under a minute, but no dice. It went perfect with the clip I made. When she talks about sitting under the sun, it was the exact moment when I turn my head to show the morning sun. It was perfect. Oh well, I went back and pulled that audio and put a new song called Kashmere, by the Kashmere Stage Band. That one was pulled for the same reason. This one was even more perfect. The tempo of the music fit the clip perfectly, even more perfect than Malibu did. I ended up going with the same song as the last one, which still worked, but not as well. This has made me come to a decision though. I want to keep doing these little promos, because I don't see anyone doing anything like that. Everyone else usually just posts a clip from their video, and that is it, but I want to do something to set myself a part. The decision, is that each clip each time will always have that same song, which happens to be Building Houses by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. She is one of my favorite artists, so why not highlight her talents. It will be our little inside behind the scenes, so if you follow me on Instagram, each time I post a promo for a video, you can count on that song always being playing with it.

     The last thing I wanted to mention, was something I leaned today. I was watching a video from a guy that goes by MattyCyclez. His video was about how people make money on YouTube. He mentioned how the earnings work on YouTube. When you are eligible for AdSense, which is sometime I could do here, but still refuse to do it on here, for reasons I've already discussed, you will get about $1.50-$2.50 per 1000 views. He didn't go into it, but I believe that is overall channel views. So you don't have to get all the view on 1 video, but of course that would help out greatly. I have a long way to go, but I'm going to enjoy the journey. I'm telling you all of this because I mentioned previously that I wanted to be completely transparent when it came to this. That way, you know exactly how much I will make, and then how much I can donate to charity. I may have to adjust my time frame for the donation, but that won't effect the planned %50 percent of earnings. It will always be that, but I want to be able to make a worthy donation to each cause, so once I monetize the YouTube channel, I will let you know the plans of when and how much I will donate each time. I might just put it at a level, say, when I earn $1000 dollars. Once I hit that level, I will donate half of that money to a charity that will be voted on by you. Good deeds all around.

     This is another early post, because I just wanted to start writing this, and couldn't wait until night time. It's 7:20 in the evening right now where I am, and I already here the fireworks going off around the neighborhood in celebration of Independence Day. I'm just going to sit back now, and relax for the rest of the evening. Peace in and goodnight.

     

I Found Something Pretty Cool.

      I'm writing this early again tonight. For no other reason other than, I want to get to sleep early tonight. I got a good reason, which I will get to a little bit later. In the meantime, I got a new video for you that I posted on Friday. I decided to take you for a little ride to the beach to see the sunrise. I think this is a little better than the first one, and I'm learning more and more with each video I make. This is far more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Give it a watch and let me know what you think.

     I had to post this a different way tonight. I'm not sure what is going on. I would normally copy and paste the embedded link into the blog, and it would show up, but for some reason, it wouldn't let me paste it on here, so this is what you get. Oh well, this will work just as well. Anyway, I have a couple of shots from that little shoot, that I wanted to share with you as well. 

 

     The first one is just a behind the scenes shot of making some good ol' movie magic. The rest are just trying to be artsy. The one looking down the dock, leads you straight to Saki. Did I mention how much I'm liking the whole process of making these videos?

     I managed to get my YouTube channel verified, so I'm good there. I looked into the monetizing of the videos, and that is going to take some time. My plan is still in place, to donate half of the money I get from the videos to a different charity each time. What it takes to be eligible for Partnership with YouTube, is 10,000 channel views. Once I hit that mark, I can put my channel up for evaluation and see if YouTube wants to partner with me to monetize with short ads. Here is the funny thing about all of this. I already had over 10,000 channel views with the videos I previously had up. It took some time to get there, but I had the numbers. When I deleted all those videos because they didn't fit what the channel is becoming, I erased that and took all the views away. I was even offered a partnership about a year ago, and did nothing about it. All in all though, I'm glad I didn't then, so that I can build this the right way now.

     As you know, my plans for Friday were cancelled, but that was all for the good. It gave me the time I needed to edit that video and get it posted later that day. The rest of the evening, I just relaxed and watched some recorded shows. I had to wake up early on Saturday so that I could head to St. Pete for a surprise party. I didn't mention anything about that before, because there was the possibility of ruining the surprise. Well, those plans changed when I woke up with a migraine. I hadn't had one in quite some time, and I think this one might have come on from simple dehydration. I didn't make it to St. Pete. My plan, was to get over there early, hit the Dali to see the new exhibit that is going on, and then meet up with my friends for brunch. Instead. I rested in a cool dark room and drank lots of water. It worked, and my migraine broke around 1 in the afternoon. 

     Since I was feeling better, I decided that it was time to take Saki out for a ride. I grabbed the GoPro and took off. I didn't have any plans for making a video, but I wanted to have it for just practice. I took about an hours worth of footage, from different points in my ride. I didn't save any of it, because it was just far too random. Plus, all the footage could be had at some other time. There was some good that came out of it though. I found something, that I didn't know existed. I ended up riding out to KSC on a road in Titusville. The view is pretty spectacular, and I will get that footage for you at some point. When I hit the junction of State Rd. 3 and 405, I took the turn on to State Rd. 3. That is when I came across a little something hidden off the road in a fenced off area.

                                                                                    

     I did a little research when I got home, and found out, that that is the Space Shuttle Resolution. It isn't a real Space Shuttle, but it was a member of the Shuttle fleet for a very short time. It is actually a mock cock pit that was planned as a training module. It was made by hand by a Cal-Poly Student back in the early days of the Shuttle program.  The student even came to Florida to reassemble it at one point, and even rode out a hurricane and a tornado in it. It's not what it used to be, but it s a very cool discovery. If you blow that first picture up, you can still read Resolution partially on it. This is just one of those gems that you find when you turn down a road you don't normally find. The moral of the story, don't just always follow that same old beaten path.

     It was real fun riding around on Saki yesterday. I started working on my wheelies. I've done them before, and I have had minimal control over when I do them. It happens or it doesn't, but now, I'm working on control, and that takes practice. I would rather have control over them then to just let it happen how it has been. I've been fortunate in the fact that I know what to do when it happens, so that I can minimize the event of looping it. Looping means that you get it going past the balance point, and flipping the bike over. I don't want to do that, and by working on bringing it up when I want to, I can hopefully keep that from happening. Better to be safe than sorry. Before you even say it, yes I know that by doing this I increase my risk of actually looping it when I practice. That is where knowing what to do in the situation takes over. I have my precautions ready. I cover the rear brake, which is the easiest way to bring the front tire down. Also, since I'm expecting it to happen, I have complete control over the throttle. I won't panic and "whiskey throttle" it. That is when you freak out and just pull back on the throttle and make the bike go even faster. Lastly, I'm wearing all of my gear when I do this. Safety first, and  besides, if I can get the wheelies somewhat decent, I'll have some really cool footage for you in the videos. I see that as a win win.

     Now to why I want to go to bed early. I have a plan for tomorrow. Day 4 of my 5 day weekend. I want to wake up early, and head to Sebastian to make a little video going over the bridge. That is a shot I've been thinking about for quite some time, and I want to show you what I see when I go over that bridge. There are a couple of other areas that I want you to see along the way, and a little after. Remember when I did the McLarty Treasure Museum ride? I mentioned that I got distracted by the view and missed my turn, well I'm going to take you past that view. I'll try to make MTM my turn around point, so you can get a brief look at the building. If things go right, I might have it up tomorrow evening. I say evening, because there are a few other things planned for tomorrow as well.

      After the ride, I want to head to Melbourne to go to a place called Northern Tool. They have a stool that might be just what I need for Saki's Lounge. I want to get a look at it, and see if it is the right height for the workbench. If it is, I might buy it. After that, I'm hitting up the movies. I'm pretty excited about Baby Driver, and want to see it, so what better time than tomorrow. Also, I should hit 5000 miles on Saki, and that means it's time for an oil change. I may put that off until Tuesday, but if I can fit it in, I will, and then give Saki a much needed bath. Saki is pretty road dusty right now. You can't really tell form the picture above, but trusty, Saki has been playing in the mud.

     I'm going to finish up watching Fear the Walking Dead, and then call it a night. I want to be on the road by about 6:30 tomorrow, so that I can get a good early morning shot going over the Inlet. Peace in and goodnight.

Boring Time? Not Really, Just Relaxing.

     There really isn't a whole lot to talk about tonight. It's been rather relaxing the last two days, and that isn't a bad thing. I was going to try and make video tonight. For a couple of reasons. The first being, that I wanted to see how the low light feature worked in low light, and to ride around. Alas, my phone was running low on charge, and I don't like going out without the phone. I want it with me, just in case something goes wrong and I need to call someone. So, I'm going to wake up early tomorrow and do it. This gives me a chance to try something else out. I'm going to take you to my favorite sunrise beach, and there, I will attempt to use the time lapse video feature to catch the sunrise for you. If this all works out, I think it could be a pretty cool video. We will see.

    Ukulele class was a blast tonight. I went with the FSOTW for my choice to learn, and it wasn't an easy song to figure out. My teacher looked like he wanted to strangle me at one point. i just laughed. I seem to give him challenges that other people don't. I think that is a good thing, because it gives both of us an opportunity to expand our knowledge. I had to tune down the ukulele a half step in order to get the right sound out of it. It all worked out in the end, and I now have a pretty cool song to play.

     One thing I got to do tonight, was watch The Gong Show. If you've never seen The Gong Show, it is a variety show of really obscure acts. They perform and then based on the judges score, the winner receives a check for $2000.17. Yeah, it's not a real big prize, but then again, the acts aren't really all that good, and that is the charm of the show. Oh, I almost forgot the most important part. If the act is really bad, the judges have the choice to gong the contestant. that end their performance and they can't win the prize. This is a show that was on in the 70's and possibly the early 80's. Then it was only a half hour show I believe. It was just a really fun show, and this new inception is no different. They managed to capture the same campy funny quality that the original one had. There are lots of bad puns and jokes from the host. The judges are all in on the joke, so they crack wise as often as they can, and the humor tilts to the titillating variety. They always use celebrity judges, and the judges change each week. This weeks judges were, Fred Armisen, Elizabeth Banks, and Will Forte. The wining act this week was called Zombie Ballet. It was 5 women dressed up as zombies doing a dance routine, that could have had ballet moves in it. At one point, they went up to the judges and removed pieces of their skin and handed it to them. It was hilarious, and actually really good.

     They tend to sweep the audience with the cameras from time to time, and everyone has a smile on their face. It's really just good old fashioned fun. If you have the chance, give it a try, or look up old shows on YouTube. They are there, and they are fantastic. I highly recommend the one where 80's band Oingo Boingo makes their first national television appearance. Yep, that is where they got their start, and they were a quirky weird band doing quirky weird things. You know what, you don't have to go look for it. I'll put it right here for you.



     See that guy in the rocket ship flying around. That is Danny Elfman. If you don't know him, you have surely heard his music. He did the theme for The Simpson's, almost all of Tim Burton's films (actually I think he has done all of them, but I'm too lazy to confirm this), and he of course wrote all the music for the band Oingo Boingo. If you watched the whole thing, you saw that they in fact won. See, just good old fashioned fun. It makes you happy.

    I was going to possibly go to Universal tomorrow, but they weather is calling for an 80% chance of rain, and that would more than likely fall in Orlando, so it looks like Universal is on hold, but I do have a 5 day weekend, so I could still go sometime this weekend.

     Well the clock is ticking ever deeper into the night, and I need to wake up early if I want to get that video for you. If things go right it will be up on the YouTube channel sometime late tomorrow, so you can see it early if you don't want to wait. If you don't mind the wait, I will of course post it on here with the Sunday post. I'm off to bed. Peace in and goodnight.
   

She Found The Blog.

     I'm writing this early in the evening tonight because there are severe storms going through right now, and I'm not completely sure that I will have power for the night. So let's get to it.

     The title says it all. Yeah, I wrote this one first and didn't wait until the end. My plans for Friday evening have been cancelled. She found the blog. It appears that she didn't like what she read. It seems we have different focuses in life, and that none of them overlap.  I don't know what any of that means, nor do I need to.

     I stand by everything that I write in this blog. It is all about my experience going through this life. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and if someone can't deal with that, than maybe it is for the best, that we never go forward with anything. As always though, I write this, and I will let it go. This is the end for OK Cupid. I should have shut it down when I was originally going to. I will leave it up until Thursday evening and then delete the profile. I'm only leaving it up now, so that she has the opportunity to see my response. It isn't anything angry or bad, it just simply said that this was unexpected and that I wish her the best of luck.

     Now that that is behind us, let's get to the fun stuff. I got something in the mail yesterday, and it came from China. No, it's not the shoes I've been waiting for from Stellar Kicks. I've given up on them, and I will take this brief time to reiterate, don't buy anything from that company. What I did get, was the motorcycle lock that I ordered a week or so ago. I have a picture for you, but first I need to explain the picture. It is one of those mixed images, that show 4 shots. I didn't have 4 shots of the lock, so I added in one of the helmet with the mix adaptor velcro'd into place. I got that shot, and just blended it with the others to save a little space, and also because the app I have to make those mixed pictures no longer has the three spaces that their entire app logo is based on. That frame would have been perfect, but you have to work with what you have, so here it is.

     The lock looks great on Saki, and the paint matches pretty close. I won't take it with me everywhere, but I will take it out when I think I will be going to a place that people would most likely mess with Saki a bit. It pulls the front brake lever into the grip and holds it there, keeping the front tire from moving. It will take a lot of effort to steal it. However, I don't think the lock is theft proof. The key is not an every day run of the mill key, but it also isn't a one of a kind key. It is generic, and could easily be overcome. It's not likely that anyone would put that kind of effort in to getting past it though, so I think Saki will be safe.

     You can see that the mic adaptor looks a lot better from the original way with all the gaffer tape all over it. Cleaned up nicely. Now, I will more than likely be putting a single strip of gaffer tape over the adaptor just to be safe, but that will still be cleaner than the way it was. I'm happy with it. I think I will try to get a video together on Friday of just a fun riding around vlog for you to see. Maybe take you to some really nice visuals to see. I still owe you that ride over the bridge at Sebastian Inlet. Friday might be a good day for that. Which reminds me, Friday starts a five day weekend for me. I won't know what to do with myself.

      Favorite Song of the Week? Oh yeah, it's here and ready for you. I'm still in that hair metal state of mind, and one of the bands that was a favorite of mine, came to me this week. This band, with it's piercing vocals, driving rhythm section, and searing guitars, had the potential to be one of the biggest bands of the era. There was only one problem. The lead singer and lead guitarist seemed to hate each other. Every story about them in the magazines were talking about how much they would fight with one another. George Lynch wanted to go with a heavier sound, and Don Dokken wanted more of the melodic ballads that they were known for. I think there was room for both, and their albums showed that, but they just couldn't see eye to eye. The broke up in '89 and then got back together briefly in the 90's but it wasn't meant to last. They still tour under the Dokken name, but only Don Dokken and drummer Mick Brown remain from the original 4 man lineup. Regardless of all that strife, their music lives on, and here is their first hit single "Alone Again".

     That takes me back. I had three of their albums on cassette, and listened to them all until they wouldn't play anymore. It had been some time since I listened to them until this week, and I'm glad I did. Yeah the lyrics are cliche, and the music is dated, but sometimes you need some of that to make you happy.

     As I'm finishing this up, the storms are starting to subside, so I will probably keep my power after all. Still, it feels good to wrap this up a little earlier than usual.  I'm sure it will still go out in the email tomorrow morning. Peace in and goodnight.