D2Moto had a pretty dang good say going, so I ordered some more parts for the project bike.
Parts Ordered
While I was at it, I also picked up some blink for the Ducati. In fact, almost 1/2 the order is one set of blingware for the Duc. It deserves a little attention as well.
Parts page lists them fo the Monster. Checked the 1098 and they all LOOK similar. I know Ducati re-uses parts extensivly so, I’m hoping in this case I’m right, or it’s a $40 error. In the end, if they don’t fit I know plenty of people around the area that I could sell them to for at or near what I paid.
I was sent the link to this, from my good freind Steve. It’s fitting that the man mentioned in this article be celebrated, and his life remembered. Godspeed Shifty, Godspeed.
We’re hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.
I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell “Shifty” Powers.
Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.
I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the “Screaming Eagle”, the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.
Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.
Quietly and humbly, he said “Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . ” at which point my heart skipped.
At that point, again, very humbly, he said “I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?” At this point my heart stopped.
I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said “I also made a second jump into Holland , into Arnhem .” I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.
I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France , and he said “Yes. And it’s real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip.” My heart was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say.
I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I’d take his in coach.
He said “No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy.” His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.
Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.
There was no parade.
No big event in Staples Center .
No wall to wall back to back 24×7 news coverage.
No weeping fans on television.
And that’s not right.
Let’s give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.
A LOT of press over the last week has been produced regarding Googles announcement to go head-to-head with Microsoft with is Open Source (LINUX) based OS. They dominate the search market and are now going to go after the 9000 lb. gorilla on the desktop. It’s about time we had another player in the sector.
Google announced on Wednesday that it was developing its own computer operating system. It will be secure, fast, lightweight and – most of all – free. And it presents the biggest challenge yet to the long-standing dominance of Windows.
The idea behind Google ChromeOS is nothing new – it’s built on a Linux foundation and will no doubt share many of the features of other open-source operating systems. But Google is the only computing brand with more might than Microsoft: it’s trusted, and has a proven track record of building brilliant, free services, from search to instant messaging.
Trust is the key here. I don’t know many that trust Microsoft to either do it right, nor do it ethically. The funny thing is, I don’t know anyone that belives Google will either. They are the kings of data warehousing, and data reselling. The big concern in the technical community is, what will Google do with the data it can aquire, once it ‘owns’ your desktop too?
I know people who simply won’t use Google for searches (I use it exclusivly). They fear that Google is profiling them (and it is) and will resell their searching patterns (and it dose) to other parties. Valid concerns, to an extent, but really, anyone that think they are using the web annonymously, unless they are making heavy use of fully annonymizing proxies, is dillusional. Even those bent on covering their tracks have to be careful what cookies they except, how long they remain on the system, what they are caching, what proxies they are using (what are those proxies doing with their traffic, are they considering that?).
The internet is a dangerous place for you data. Either you have to be OK with people warehousing your activities, or you’re going to have to go to some extreme measures to thwart the data transfer.
Now, if you ever want to look at what YOU might be sending to 3rd parties from your own computer, I suggest running a tool like WireShark. Now here is a neat little site benefit od doing something like that. A lot of the most sophisticated malware out there, looks for such tools runing on systems and will modify it’s behavior from malicious, to begnin, to conceal itself. So, running network profiling tools, perhaps even if you don’t ever LOOK at them, can help prevent some of the worst expoits out there. It’s like taking a vaccine of sorts. It’s not going to prevent everything, but some of the worst of the web will simply move onto easier marks.
I for one will be getting ahold of Chrome OS as soon as I can to istall on a laptop for examination. I have some internet neophytes in the house, and they are a good test of how easy an OS is to use. Right now I’ve given them a new Acer laptop running Ubuntu. My house is a Windoze Free Zone. I look foward to hearing the feedback on Chrome OS when I give them the option to use either.
“After yearsofspeculation, Google has announced Google Chrome OS, which should be available mid-2010. Initially targeting netbooks, its main selling points are speed, simplicity and security — which kind of implies that the current No.1 OS doesn’t deliver in these areas”
Google has a long history of tracking user activity, and the introduction of its Chrome operating system later this year is sure to follow suit. While we know that it’s being built off of Linux, one big thing we don’t know is how its terms of service will differ from those found in other Google products, and what kinds of user data it will be collecting. Based on the company’s track record of watching and monetizing user data, it could be anything from which applications you’re using, to all the information that’s coming in and out of your computer.
Speachless. I know I wont’ hit this high-water mark with my first try. I’m OK with that, but getting this sort of result in the furture would be fantastic! This is VERY impressive work!!
Hunting to find info on the missing parts from my bike, I’ve collected a few of these as reference. What I notice in this one, is that my side panels are missing some sort of ‘intake grate (black on this blue bike).
After a lot of work, documented here on VW Vortex.. he’s got one hell of a cool result!
After a lot more work
Then it starts to look like this. Very clean.. classy. I’m still split on going retro-rat or going with super-clean (but I want to do silver, not perl white). Decisions.. decisions…
Ordering some parts
I want to get this thing going… and the first step will be to get me some of those clubman bars. Found these, hopefully I did not get douched on the price ($52.00 with shipping), from Oregon.
I’m thinking that I can mount them either up or down, depending on how radical I want to make this thing.
At least I’ve taken the first step, and decided that I am NOT going to ‘restore’ the bike, but instead build my first ever Cafe Racer Replica. God help me. At least this will be A LOT less expensive than playing with sports cars, and more mentally challenging than watching Television (gack).
Tonight, I think I’ll really dig into this thing by doing some sanding and bobbing the back fender off.
And a couple more interesting ‘inputs’ on final styling:
This looks so 50's retro cool.
Check out the tail light and turn signals.. very cool.
And one more idea for the road:
like the dual exit pipes on the right, red tank and that seat is sweet.
It was also a great 1 – 2 finish for the Red Bull team, the 3rd time this year. They are quickly devouring the lead Braun GP had established early in the season.
Starting on Memorial Day (2009) my cool, very functional and reliable iPhone, started to piss me off.
While on a motorcycle ride that day, I was unable to receive any signal at all. My phone kept showing ‘No Service‘. Traveling with a few other AT&T (non-iPhone users) I found that they had a full 5 bars of AT&T signal. Great. My phone is doing something very strange. Even when I arrived home that evening, the phone was still showing ‘No Service‘. It was not until the next morning that my phone was showing a signal again. I wrongfully thought I was out of the woods.
A few weeks later in Canada, the phone did the same thing; ‘Searching…..‘ and finally ‘No Service‘. Yet everyone else in the group had plenty of access to Rodgers Cellular in Canada. The most unfortunate part of the experience was that my ATM card had been turned off by Bank of America (another sore point) while in the middle of my trip! Cutting me off from money, and to top it all off, I could not call them with my non-functional phone!!!!
Next morning, phone was showing a full signal, and I was able to get a hold of those jackasses at Band of America and get my ATM card re-enabled.
But signal problems continued back in the US. Finally, mid June I got to the AT&T store and explain what’s happening. This is the same sort where I purchased the phone. They insisted that the first thing they needed to do was swap out the SIM card. How that could have any impact on the battery problems I was also having, I was suspicious, but thought maybe it would help with the signal issues. Didn’t do a damn thing.
Returning to AT&T store a couple of days later, I find out that they *cannot* perform any sort of hardware swap, exchange or, really anything beyond a SIM card swap on the iPhone. My options were to wait 2 weeks for a phone to be mailed (no go.. my work requires that they be able to contact me 24×7), -OR- drive 30 miles from work (Tacoma), to the outskirts of Seattle, to the uber-geek Apple Store, buried in the South Center Mall. I hate malls. After a VERY frustrating 3 hours there, I finally had the phone swapped out, got on my motorcycle and headed to the ferry. It’s then I really noticed that I had not ‘3G‘ network. :/ Not a big deal, I was certain I would have it when I arrived here, where I always have 5 bars of 3G. Turns out, it never did.
When I had some time to waste, I headed back to the AT&T store to get my network issue resolved. After 1 hour in the store, I found that they could do nothing, would not even swap the SIM this time.. and they were sending me.. (ta da..) BACK to South Center, or wait 2 weeks for yet another phone.
Yesterday I decided to make a day of it, and go out to South Center to swap out he iPhone yet again. I won’t go into what a cluster it was because nobody told me I needed an appointment the first time, but this time I was prepared, made an appointment at 2:40PM, drove the 70 miles from home to South Center Mall (I hate malls). I arrived at my 2:40 checking time, and within 5 minutes I was in front of a ‘MAC Genius’ (snicker) and they started the diagnosis process. This one quickly recognized that I’m not your garden variety tech moron, looked at me and asked in a hushed voice ‘Well, if you did all the reset tests already, and would just like a new phone, I’ll do that instead of spend 30 minutes doing all the tests’. Bingo! I’ll take the phone. Before it was 3:00PM I was out the door with at FULLY FUNCTIONAL 3G 8GB iPhone. All covered under the original 1 year warranty on the phone. Which is good becaue I was have seriously freaked out if the phone I bought last year was not under any sort of warranty!
This morning I finished ‘rebuilding’ my phone. Upgrading to iPhone version 3.0, restored all my contacts, bookmarks and photos. AND the 3G is still working. I’m now, a happier camper.
But it sure was an odyssey in frustration. And the AT&T corporate store is as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
Easter Egg Alert: Every AT&T hotlink goes to a different non-AT&T website. There are some interesting stories in there.
I’ve been looking at a number of vintage bikes, and some cafe racer bikers. Going to save these for reference, and what about each one I really like. It will be interesting to come back to these articles once I finally finish the bike and see what I was thinking.
Bike 1 – Honda twin
Bike idea 01
Elements I like about this Honda.
black painted forks
cool custom high routed exhaust. The wrapping adds a nice effect
chopped off tail
stripped off fenders, front and rear
it’s also a parallel twin
Bike 2 – Honda twin
bike idea 2
Elements I like about this Honda.
black paint with gold pinstripe
chrome megaphone exhaust in polished stainless looks cool
short bars
it still has the fenders but they are minimalist and painted.
nice steel braided oil cooler lines
painted branding (no cast emblems)
Bike 3 – Honda CR550F
Elements I like about this Honda.
red and yellow paint, with black side panels is a nice look.
black painted exhaust might be easier to achieve than fixing the pitted stock chrome system
again, the bobbed tail
Bike 4 – Honda (looks like an old Silverwing)
Elements I like about this Honda.
I was originally considering silver paint for the bike, not sure about the blue stripe.
like idea of the painted frame
one thing that I really liked is the flat metal cover below the seat, instead of the stock curved piece.
Bike 5 – Norton
Elements I like about this Norton.
gloss black paint, and stripe.
rubber boots on the forks
silver painted forks (I think)
color matched hub on the rear brake
Bike 6 – Norton
Elements I like about this Norton.
nice custom job
modern front inverted forks and brakes
cool high-mount megaphone exhaust
also looks like a mono-shock rear end, very trick.
Bike 7 – Honda (I think its an old XR400)
Not really relevant to my current project but.. cool idea!
looks like a dirtbike single converted to a street cafe racer
cool chopped rear end
Bike 09 – Kawasaki, maybe?
what’s cool
paint, love the flat olive retro-vintage WWII paint scheme
site exit mega-can exhaust, in black
top mounted bars (no clipons) but sort of inverted looking!
front still has fender, not so sure about that..
rubber boots on forks
Bike 9
real deal KZ400 cafe
what’s cool
flat black paint. I can do that right now.
know official name for those bars, ‘clubmans’ it would be the place to start!
Somewhere it was, but not here. It was rather warm, and the coolness of my subterranean shop was a blessing. It turned out that I would spend the better part of a weekend in there, wrestling the carburetors into the very tight, very new, KZ900 carb holder boots. Stock KZ400 boots are harder to find than Spanish treasure, so based on information on the KZ400 forums, with a little work, carb holders from it’s newer and larger brother would fit. And fit they did, but just barely.
The primary challenges, beyond having to modify the mounting holes on the carb holders (at $45 EACH that was not an easy decision in itself), was that the carb mouth I.D.’s were the same as the carb holder (boot) O.D. Obviously.. that is going to make for a tough install. If you have ever held one of these thick, hard, rubber boots, you’d understand the trepidation that kept this project on my ToDo list for 3 months!
Alas, I finally got motivated enough (gas prices and the fact the 3 week Washington Summer was upon us) to tackle the project last weekend. Here are some thoughts and photos. A quick thanks goes out to my 7 year old boy for taking the ‘action’ shots of dad working on the bike. You’re one in a million, kid!
Now, the size of the carbs is not the whole story. About 2 months prior, with a lot of soap, and pressing with most of my weight, I was able to force the carbs into the rubber boots. That’s where they remained for a long time. The concept being, to stretch them out into a static state that was larger than manufactured size, hopefully making the final install a little easier. And frankly, I think it helped out a lot!
Battlefield recon - before the fray. Look at how much larger the carb mouth is than the holder
What I tried to illustrate in photos, but clearly did not convey, is that even WHEN you get a single carb in the boot, the other carbs mouths is them 1/4″ off-center. The carbs are mounted to a thick aluminum flange. That flange forces the specific spacing of the carburetors. There is not play, no give, so the only thing that could possibly allow the successful installation of the carbs was REALLY forcing in one carb, then trying to pry it off center line while forcing in the other. All while holding up the carb set. If I’d had 4 hands it would likely have still been impossible.
Thinking about decades of home auto repair, I decided to use a not-often employed tactic of taking things further apart, to make it easier to put back together again. Often it’s an access issue, and although it looks like there is a lot of space, I was having one here.
I finally got the grand idea that if I dismounted the carbs from the mounting flange itself, it would be easier to manipulate than the entire carb set. So I set about unscrewing the carbs from the flange. In the end, it was what I needed to do, to get this project moving again.
Carb flange seperated and installed.
Now, that was still a huge struggle to get the flange shoved into the boots, but I was able to get it done! Victory was at hand!!! Now, what remained was to tighten down the holder flange bolts. In what I was say was a stroke of genius, I had purchased round head Allen set bolts to replace the Philips head screws that, normally used. the heads are actually wider, and flatter, but the big bonus was being able to use an Allen key wrench to tighten them down. The brilliance comes in that I knew I might have try just this to get the carbs mounted, and these bolts were part of my plan.
Tightening down the carb holder mounting bolts
I do not think I would have been able to do that with the Philips head, as the holes in the flange I used to access them were off-axis from the mounting bolts. Using a universal headed Allen tool, I was able to tighten down the bolts using the carb mounting holes in the flange.
Now of course, comes another challenge. The carb mounting bolts are THROUGH bolts from the BACK of the flange into the carbs. So, I would once again be working in the very confined space between the flange and the cylinder head.
One carb mounted, screws for last carb visible (near side).
Using a very neat tool I picked up at Harbor Freight for $3.00 (small right-angle multi-bit ratcheting wrench) combined with a #2 Phillips bit from another kit, I was able to get the screws that mount the carbs to the flange, tightened down. It took a little while for me to determine exactly what which of the bits were short enough to fit in there, but once that problem was solved, carb #1 was mounted!
As with most mechanical projects where some repetitive work is involved, the subsequent processes generally go much faster. And that was the case here. Viola.. CARB ARE INSTALLED!!!
Carbs Installed!
In the last photo here, I think you can see (I can see it, but I know what I think I see) the degree of stretch required to get the carbs into the boots, and also the off center line mounting of the carbs in the holders themselves.
Final dispossition of the carbs
What remains to be tested:
Carb holder to cylinder head seal
Carb flange to carb seal
Reliability of the carb to holder frictionToday, I plan to get the fuel tank remounted, and if I’m feeling really brave, try to start it up.
While talking about cool places to go, I was looking up links to St. Maarten (visited there in 2001). Which, inevitably brings me to look up YouTube videos of landings there. Here are a few that I really liked.. the last one gives you a REAL feel for how hairball that approach is!
Airbus A340 landing. Keep our head down:
No, really, you want to keep your head down! (KLM 747)
First of the takeoff videos. Does not show the human windsocks but.. you sort of get the idea:
What it looks like inside the jet. Yeah, that mountain really is pretty damn close!
This is the longest of them all, at more than 7 minutes, but there are some great shots of the takeoff there too (check time mark 2:00).
Shortly but goody. It looks like the jet is just at the fence while you are standing them having sand hit you at near super-sonic speeds. Good times!
Here is a short one shot from the Sunset Beach Bar.
Now.. this is the most hairball of the bunch. That fence on the end of the runway is only 5′ tall for a reason!
And, finish it all off with a pilot’s view of SXM
I’ve pirated the pilot’s comments from his video post since, you might never see them viewing the video in my page:
Landing St.Maarten from cockpit 747. After nosewheel landing camera touched windshield causing crackling noise.
For those viewers who made comments (or new viewers who are thinking about making the comment) that this approach is too high and/or too fast or whatever else you might think, here some free 😉 flying lessons from someone who’s flying B747’s for 20 years:
On an approach on instruments a B747 should cross the runway threshold (= the piano keys) with the main wheels at ± 35 ft above threshold. The 747 is so big that at that point the altitude of the cockpit is 35 ft higher, so the cockpit is at ± 70 ft when main wheels cross the threshold.
On a visual approach, as is the case here at St.Maarten, we have to have some more margin. Normally the pilot aims to see the runway threshold disappear under the nose at 80 ft (mind you, the main wheels are at that moment still NOT above the threshold) to have sufficient main wheel clearance.
If you look at the video and notice the altitude callouts, you’ll see the threshold disappear under the nose at the call 50, so actually I am a bit too low in stead of too high. (In fact I am only too low for a visual approach. If you look at my landing at JFK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4YoXy… you will see that I cross the threshold also at 50 ft, which is normal on an instrument approach. Note: the automatic altitude callouts you hear on this video are Radio Altimeter altitudes. The Radio Alt is zero when the main gear is on the ground with struts extended.)
Now, there are quite some viewers who think we landed too far on the runway. What follows from earlier explanation is this:
We approach a runway at a three degrees approach angle. If main wheels cross the threshold at the correct altitude, the main wheels will hit the runway at approx 900ft (300m) behind the threshold, that is, if you don’t flare the airplane. If you look again at the video and wait till you hear 50,40,30,20,10 and see the solid white markers, they are at 900ft behind the threshold and the plane touches down right behind them, because I did flare the airplane. (Passengers seem to hate hard landings!!)
THIS IS THE NORMAL TOUCHDOWN POINT FOR A B747.
The FCTM(=Flight Crew Training Manual) from Boeing says: flare distance is approx 300 to 600mtr (=900 to 1800ft) beyond the threshold.
So, please, stop nagging about this landing being too far on the runway.
And then something about too fast: On this approach the 747 weighs about 260.000 kgs. The required approach speed is then 150 kts which is about 175 mph or 280 km/hr. So what about TOO FAST? If we fly slower, we will fall out of the air!!
I want to get this thing going… and the first step will be to get me some of those clubman bars. Found these, hopefully I did not get douched on the price ($52.00 with shipping), from Oregon.
While on a motorcycle ride that day, I was unable to receive any signal at all. My phone kept showing ‘No Service‘. Traveling with a few other 
A few weeks later in Canada, the phone did the same thing; ‘Searching…..‘ and finally ‘No Service‘. Yet everyone else in the group had plenty of access to Rodgers Cellular in Canada. The most unfortunate part of the experience was that my ATM card had been turned off by Bank of America (another sore point) while in the middle of my trip! Cutting me off from money, and to top it all off, I could not call them with my non-functional phone!!!!
