Yesterday I told you about the car incident. While Rich was cutting steal and welding brackets and installing clamps to hold my exhuast system in place, he decided to change the oil and fix a slow leak in my front tire. While taking off the tire he noticed that I need new brake pads.....What did I tell ya about him paying attention to detail?

This car has served me well, so I am not complaining. I bought it....a 2002 Cavalier....knowing I wanted a new Harley. I figured if I chose a less expensive car, I would be able to afford a new Harley in 03. Due to my unemployment....I will be running the tires off this car. It is eight years old and is just shy of 145,000 miles on it. All it has ever needed was maintenance and normal wear repairs. Knock on wood....Where is Rich's head when I need it?....just kidding....When I say knock on wood he leans over for me to knock, while imitating Goofy and saying, "Here ya go." He actually has quit a bit between his ears.

He manages to find time to do repairs for the city, he donated his time and got a public at'a boy for that. Changed a trans for the Mayor, fixed equipment for two of the local farmers, and fixed equipment at a business of a friend, and rebuilt a trans for his son. I don't think there is anything mechanical, electrical or household that he can't fix.

One of his friends has a four unit building and he is always doing some kind of plumbing or repair for him. I feel bad for him because it seems, he is always working so hard and doing something for someone. Since the last storm, we have a couple shingles on the roof flapping in the wind and we are due for a real bad storm tonight. He has a friend who does roofing and Rich has done plenty favors for him, but he won't ask him for help. His friend is used to being on ladders and is 10 years younger. I'm sure he would be up there with him if he knew. Hell, I would even make him and his wife a nice dinner, which for the most part is more than Rich gets when he helps people. Usually it's....hey, I owe ya one. We did get dinner from a friend once when he repaired thier dishwasher and ran new pipes into thier kitchen. At least someone appreciated it.

It will be nice when I am able to go back to work. I will do something nice for him for all the nice things he does for me. After all, isn't that what it's all about?

OK, I've counted my blessings and ranted for today, I should get back to work on my studies and do something constructive.

Fender bender.....or should I say, bumper bender?

This morning on my way to school, I decided to stop for a red light. Seemed like the thing to do at the time. Especially since there was a cop at the light to the right of me. The person behind me was on the cell phone and hit me hard enough to send me into the intersection. Not much damage. Her bumper went under mine....looks like mine just needs a bumper skin. Point is, I left home early to have time to review for an exam and ended up late and only got a B on my exam....since I had to rush to finish it by the end of class. I was a little preoccupied by the accident and didn't have the time to check over my notes one last time. I was soooo wanting that A. I was holding onto an A in the class....accounting....by the skin of my teeth (90.5) and I'm pretty sure this will drop my over all grade to a B. I still have one more quiz, one more homework assignment, and the final exam, but it leaves no room for error.

I thought about riding today since the weather was suppose to be nice. Good thing I didn't. The weather turned out to be really crappy and windy. Not to mention, the only thing that stopped her was my car. Would not have been pretty on the bike. It's a 55 speed limit. I'm guessing she hit me at about 40-50 mph. That could have hurt.

When Rich got home from work, he looked under the car for damages and found that the clamp that holds my muffler up is rusted so bad, it was about to drop at any minute, so he is out there doing his magic. It is so nice to have some one around that is so handy. Pork chops tonight....his favorite!!!!

Rushed assembly

Here in Northern IL, we had another crappy rainy weekend for riding. Today the sun is shinning and it's a good day for riding...unfortunately my bike is out of service. Rich decided that since it was raining all weekend it would be a good time to do the maintenance on my bike and change the back tire. When he removed the back wheel, he heard a rattling sound and while checking it out he discovered 3 of the 5 bolts, (I think they hold the sprocket and belt pulley on) were loose and would not hold a torque. Apparently when the dealership installed the new rims...which came installed on the bike when I bought it...they used an impact wrench on them and they should have been torqued. He was pretty pissed when he found it, he said it could have been a very dangerous situation. Today he is in search of longer bolts. If the longer bolts won't hold a torque, he will have to drill the holes out to 1/2" and use 1/2" bolts. I'm glad he pays attention to detail.

Good news is...he found it before it became a problem. Bad news is...the forecast is another rainy weekend coming up.

1st decade of the century part 4

2004

January.....Rich is one of those people that is impossible to buy for so I arrange for a weekend away after the holidays as a Christmas present. His 03 present is Milwaukee WI. We took off on Friday and went up to Prairie du Chien, WI. During the winter when the rivers are frozen, the eagles all gather by the damns and dive for fish. It's interesting to watch them pull a fish from the water. We were told that it takes so much energy to make the dive that it takes about two hours for them to recover enough to dive again.

We stayed in Madison, WI on Friday night and drove to Milwaukee on Saturday. I had reservations at and a B&B in a mansion and at Crawdaddy's Cajun Restaurant for dinner. When we checked into the B&B, the aroma of chocolate chip cookies was all through the house and a large tray of cookies was waiting for us. The hostess invited us to explore the first floor once we got settled in. We looked around the house for a while, checking out all the antiques. Then we headed out for dinner. After dinner we found a nice place to have a couple drinks and headed back to the mansion. In the morning, we met the rest of the guests at breakfast. Turned out they where all bikers who book every year. After checking out, we went to the Milwaukee Museum, then a movie at the Humphrey IMAX Dome Theater.

April.....Rich was out helping to blow up damns for the farmers. Give the boys dynamite and they're happy. One of our friends has a dynamite license and blows up tree stumps, damns, silos and other stuff that needs to be cleared out.

May.....We mostly spent our time gutting the whole upstairs to remodel and riding when ever we had a good day.

June.....As usual we went to the family reunion in PA and turned it into a vacation. First we headed to DC and went to all the monuments, memorials and some of the museums. We stayed just outside of town and came back the next day to try to see what we missed on the first day. I love the detail in the buildings in DC, but hate the major intersections where 4 streets come together.
After DC, we got on a ferry at Cape Henlopen, DE and crossed to Cape May, NJ. From there we rode up the coast. Along the way we stopped a few times to walk in the ocean and we met someone who was just pulling in a small shark.

We found a nice place to stop for the night, just North of Atlantic City in Beach Haven, right on the beach.

At that time, I still had a job and one of my customers who lived in New York City, invited us to spend a few days at their Brownstone. They had bought a 6 story brownstone and was remodeling it. We had a whole floor to ourselves. I love NY, I may not be ready to give up country life for it, but I would definitely go back.

On to the family reunion. PA is very pretty country. Great for riding.

The rest of June and July was filled with hill climbs.....spending time with my grand kids and riding when ever we had the chance.

July....We went to an outdoor concert for Lynard Skynard.

August.....We crewed for our friend who has the hot air balloon business. He was doing tether rides for a party. A tether ride is when the balloon is secured so that it only goes as high as the tether length. I got my tether ride after the party.

We went to a Travis Tritt Concert.

My nephew "13" came out from AZ for a week during August. During his visit we did the midnight run out of Chicago. He loved it.

September.....We took a weekend and rode down to the Chain of Rocks Bridge. The bridge has a bend in the middle of it and it has a very interesting history. I am adding a link instead of our own pix since they have better pix and more info. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM19W0_Old_Chain_of_Rocks_Bridge

http://www.digitalroute66.com/chain_of_rocks/index.html It was used in the movie Escape From New York.

Also in September Rich turned 50! I rented the Eagles Club for a surprise party for him. It was real hard to keep that from him. We are the kind of couple that always knows where the other one is because if we are not working we are usually together. His daughter flew in from AZ and mixed into the crowd. When he spotted her, I thought he was going to cry but he managed to keep it together.

October.....I made reservations at some cabins in Bellvue, IA as a B-day present for Rich. I reserved them for October because I thought it would be nice to do in the fall when the leaves were turning.

And what would October be without our bon fire party and all the Halloween parties????

Rich got a chance to drive a NAS Car at Chicago Speedway.

December.....New Years Eve we spent in AZ visiting Rich's daughter....to be included in Part 5

We got our ride

Since we had to go easy on the new motor work, we headed west on an old country road, hoping to be out of traffic. When a car got behind us, we just moved over and flagged them on around us. This car starts to pass and when it gets beside me, she starts waving and yelling and acting a fool.....it happens to be the exact person I was just thinking about. How strange is that? I was just thinking about our two Daytona trips and our Sturgis trip together. We haven't seen them in a long while.

History...There used to be six of us together all the time. These would be the people in the Chicago, Joey's Pizza pix in my 1st century part 3 blog. The third couple in our group split up because he cheated on his other half. I decided I was not going to loose a friend because this guy couldn't keep it in his pants. We had to choose, we chose her. I was real happy Rich was with me on this one. We spent many nights talking her through it. He saw what it put her through. She was so head over heels and totally devastated when it happened. He blamed her by saying she knew he had addictions and that she should have put her foot down more when he was going out with out her. He said she was an enabler.....she trusted him, she didn't line em up for him. Come to find out, there were at least five other women that we found out about from people saying, they saw him with this one or that one. The other two guys had been friends since they were in grade school and to tell you the truth, the girl we ran into today was the other woman in his first marriage....which was hard for me since I knew his ex. We wasn't that close, but it was still hard knowing the circumstances and I was never able to get close to her. Any way.....the couple we saw today stood by him and the group split up. They were giving each other alibi's. After it all came out, I wondered if Rich knew what was going on. They would ask him if he wanted to go out with them for "guys night out" and he would just laugh and say, "hang out with a bunch of guys, or take a chance on getting lucky, I'll take my chances at home." If he knew, he never let on.

Any way, she jumped out of the car at the next stop sign and she talked us into stopping by their house to say hi.....it was a little awkward to say the least. They asked if we ever see the jilted one, I told them, yes, she told me that she misses her allot and they asked how she was doing. I believe they miss her, but they picked their side and it is what it is. The two guys had been too close for too long and they always justified what happened by saying, it wasn't their fault.....they couldn't help it......they were drunk....it just happened.....I have an addictive personality.....He got that one from a counselor they went to when she found out about the first one (or what she thought was the first one) a couple years before the one that finally split them up.

It's not easy, when you've been Friends for so long. I couldn't bring myself to be friends with the new woman. I cared too much for the old friend and that in my eyes would be betrayal to her. It's sad how one persons actions can effect so many people. It was good to see them, but we won't be going out of our way to be around them. Both of the jilted women have moved on and we have gotten closer to both of them. We both feel it is better to be around people in positive relationships....you are a product of your surroundings.

Our weekend

So far we have had a full weekend. Rich is out testing his motor after tweaking the lifters and boosting up the oil pressure a little.....if all is well we will be going for a ride today.

Friday we had dinner with friends and made it an early night. Last night we had dinner with another couple and then went to see a blues band. While we were waiting for the band to set up, we were talking about past times together and planned for more in the summer.

This is the couple who rode with us to Rich's family reunion and from there we rode up to New Hampshire for Laconia Bike Week. While we were in the area we decided to head up to Maine, we found a nice place on Peaks Island to have steamed fresh lobster. A whole lobster dinner only $20.00. This is the view of Portland, ME in the far distance from the deck of the restaurant. The land mass on the left is another Island.

This is the same couple who called one day and asked if we wanted to go see BB King. When she told me he was in Dallas, TX, I told her it's not likely but I'll ask Rich. I figured there was no way he was going to just hop on a plane and head to TX for a weekend to see a show. I started by telling him that she called and asked if we wanted to see BB King. He said sure, why not. Then I told him where. I told him we would be leaving on Saturday morning for the show on Saturday night and flying home on Sunday. I couldn't believe it when he said, sure, why not, again. We spent the night at their house on Friday and the limo picked us up at 5 am. When we got into town we dropped or luggage at the hotel, went to a rodeo then had a steak dinner and headed to the show. The next morning we walked around town, did some shopping and headed back to the airport to come home. Of course times where better then. I was employed and Rich had plenty of work. Hopefully the job market will come back soon.

I hear a Harley....hopefully we are riding.

Easter ride

Rich ended up taking the shovel. He wants to break the Dyna in gently.

We made it there, and we were able to ride. We came out of the lodge after brunch and the sky was dark, by the time we got layered back up it was raining with lightning. Not hard, just enough that we decided to head home. The rain stopped half way home and the wind kicked up. If it hit the 60's, it was a cold 60's. We wasn't home long and it caught up to us. I think we were at the start of it then we rode out of it and just beat it home.

It seems like we get March winds in April and April showers in May. For the next 2 months we will have to get our riding fix in when ever we can find it.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter.