Jcarlson

Awesome flick - highly recommend if you haven't seen it already. May God bless and rest their souls in eternal peace!! Oh, and I didn't actually watch it with Mel Gibson, he starred in it, but that'd be pretty cool though if I did - LOL.

Pokey - Yeah, I know where you be, sorta. I should say i know the area. Oh and about the Razzin - no worries mate!! I didn't take any offense - thick skinned like an aligator. I kept my old Honda out one year. I rode on Christmas eve once and mid January. It was fun and all but if you can't fast or far then it's not a whole lot of fun, but it's still neat to get weird looks from people when you're riding and it's 18 degrees and snowing - LOL!! I wanted to go riding today but I had to paint the shed I just built before it got too cold and wet out.

I have the last two episodes to catch up on. What's up with pounding your pud in the freakin window (episode 1)? I get that the young maid is smokin hot, but geez!!

Hey, it was worth a try, right?

Oh yeah - I forgot about Sta bil. I let my Suz 850 sit one winter without it. Cost me an arm. leg, and my left nut to clean the carbs. I just never had a liquid cooled bike before so I wasn't sure what to do about that system. I bought it this spring and the PO 'says' it was serviced; but who really knows for sure? I guess it's the same as a car. I never thought about the critters either. I stored my other bikes in the garage in the past so I never had to think about that, but in the shed I guess I should. I actually have three bikes to store this year - that's why the shed. I aint parking my truck outside in the winter when I have a garage. I HATE scraping in the morning!! I'm originally from upstate NY so when it comes to snow and ice removal at 6:00am at 15 degrees I've been there, done that, aint doin it no mo!! I'll have the bikes on their center stands so flat tires and such won't be an issue til spring. Pokey - I'm across from WNHS - Spring & County Line area. Where you is?

It's all robo spam. That's why you'll see phone numbers spelled out like 6 one four 55 five 12 one two. Computers can't read that and insert it into an auto dialer and then text you spam.

"The victim was later hospitalized with a serious medical condition as a result of the injections." NO SHIT!! Do ya think?? I'm with you Casper. WTF happened here??

This is my first winter with a liquid cooled bike - 2006 Kaw Concours Zg1000. I'm getting ready to store it forthe winter. It'll be in my shed so there will be no heat. What do I need to do to winterize it besides pull the battery? Should I hit the Pony and have the rad flushed and filled? Any tips are greatly appreciated. Jim

They both have boys jeans half off!!

Another way to look at Debt Ceiling. Let's say you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your home, and you have shit up to your ceilings. Do you? A) Raise the ceilings, or B) Pump out the shit? Your choice.......In 2012.

I saw this and thought you've got to be freakin kidding me?

The folks who are getting free shit, Don't like the folks who are paying for the free shit. Because the folks who are paying for the free shit, Can no longer afford to pay for both the free shit and their own shit. And, the folks who are paying for the free shit, Want the free shit to stop. And the folks who are getting the free shit, Want even MORE free shit on top of the free shit they're getting already. Now, the people who are forcing people to PAY for the free shit, Have told the people who are RECEIVING the free shit, that the people who are PAYING for the free shit, are being mean, prejudiced and racist. So, the people who are GETTING the free shit, have been convinced they need to HATE the people who are PAYING for the free shit because they are selfish. And they are promised more free shit if they will vote for the people who force the people who pay for the free shit to give them even more free shit. And -- when the free shit stops we will riot, burn, steal and commit mayhem. For the "rich" owes us! It is happening in England and coming here soon. And that's the Straight Shit!

Hey guys, I have an area approx 2'x5' that contains 72 pavers that need reset before winter. My back is shot so I can't do it any more. I'll buy the materials, I just need someone to pull them up and reset them. This is a somewhat tricky job in that none of the four corners are the same height and the bricks need to slope towards the driveway and away from the house. See attached pic P.M. or email me with your labor estimate. If no takers I'll try Craigslist, but I'd rather hire an out of work rider first. Thanks guys Jim

Ok, I'm with ya. That's where I was going the other day when I pulled the wire from the connector. I was following the Clymer's manual and it follows a different procedure, sort of. I'll get back on this later in the week. I'll let you know what I find. I thought being oncall for my job would keep me grounded at home with plenty of time to spare but the damn pager keeps going off. Not getting any free time. ARRGGHH!! Jim

I did test the stator - 12.77v at 5k rpm. Clymer says that's too low, s/b 14-15.5, but it's not necessarily a bad stator. I screwed up the wires from the RR so I have to buy a new one now no matter what. I pulled the red wire right out the male end of the connector. The male end is still in the female end and the wire is just hanging. I'm not selling the bike because of this issue. I was going to sell it anyway but couldn't until I got the electrical problem figured out. I have two bikes - this one and an 06 Kaw Concours. I haven't ridden this one all year because of this. I had my fun with it, it was a labor of love, and I can't ride two at once so I figured it's time to let it go. I won two trophies with it (not that it was judged very hard) but people liked it so I won. Cool, huh? The paint job is killer, especially in the sun, and if you're any kind of Buckeye fan you'll appreciate it. No, I don't have the OEM parts. I pitched them.

Well guys if the pooch wasn't screwed before it certainly is now. None of this matters at this point but I'll say it anyway. I put the gel battery in. 12.57v engine off. It fired right up. 12.17v @ 1k rpm, 13.12v @2500 rpm, 12.77 @ 5k rpm (that's a little low, huh?). Rode it for 15 min shut it down. 12.66v engine off. Started it again, idle for a few minutes, shut it down. Won't restart. 12.37v. Went to do RR no load test as per Clymers and I pulled the red wire right out of the connector pin where it attaches to the harness. Now the pooch is screwed. A new RR is in my future at this point. Gotta have this before I can do anything else. This was probably my problem all along anyway. Thanks guys for all your help. Anyone interested in buying it? It comes fully dressed like in the photo album in the link. 19K miles. When it runs it runs good. Fast, lot's of torque. I've even got the tool tray, tool kit, and owners manual. Anyone that's into older bikes like this knows how elusive those items are. Asking $1,800 neg. Thanks again. Jim

I do have a voltmeter. I don't have all the hands needed to do these tests by myself (one for throttle, one for red lead, one for black lead). I didn't check the volts while bike was running, but I will next time. I don't remember the brand names. It's whatever Iron Pony sells. I like the flow chart Tpoppa provided. I think I'll print that out and follow it and see where it leads me. One of my big impediments with this is I don't have any background in electrical circuits. Something could say 0.2 ohms and it means nothing to me. My as well be written in Chinese - LOL. I'll keep you all posted and will keep checking back for more updates. I go oncall for my job next week (I'm a programmer) which means I'm pretty much grounded to my house. I'll have plenty of time to hunt this down.

UPDATE - I charged the battery again. 13.06 volts this time with engine off. It had been sitting most of this year so I flooded the carbs for a sec and it fired right up this time. Once it warmed up I rode it around for about 15 minutes. Never got past 4th gear or above 35 mph. Came home, shut it off, would not start. 11.86 volts this time. Let it sit about 15 minutes and checked the volts - 12.03v. Turned the key and it fired right up. Ran it about 1 minute and shut it down. Would not restart. 11.83v this time. I know batteries can recharge themselves after a little while and I'm guessing this is what happened here. But why am I not recharging while riding? I'm charging my gel battery now and will swap it out tomorrow and see what happens.

I have an 81 Suzuki GS850G (see pic below) that is having electrical problems. I fully charge the battery, fires right up, ride for 20-30 min or so and shut it down. Won't restart. Not enough juice in the battery to crank it hard enough and I eventually drain the battery to where it won't even crank - and it doesn't take long to drain it. Headlight dims too when this happens. That tells me the battery is not recharging while driving. History - I bought the bike three years ago. Only put about 2500 miles on it since I bought it. First season spent trying to get it running (carbs, boots, new YUASA battery, etc). I replaced the stator and R/R with aftermarket brands. Turns out it only needed the carbs synch'd. Bike ran perfect remainder of that season and all last summer until October. That's when I started having this issue. I bought a new gel battery thinking maybe the YUASA was on it's way out. Didn't solve a thing. I don't know dick about electricity except that it really sucks when it runs down my arm. No one has really looked into it but me but I've had guys tell me it's a bad ground. The only ground I've messed with is the black w/white wire on the rear turn signals. I replaced the OEM rear turns with some aftermarket turns. The male end of the connector was not the same diameter as the OEM, but with a little crimping they worked just fine. I finally got around to putting the OEM turns back on today thinking that might have been the bad ground. NOPE!! Couldn't even get it started with a fully charged battery. Drained that battery faster than peeing after a six pack. Stupid me didn't check the voltage when fully charged, but afterwards it was 11.86 - not enough. I can't do the load check on the stator R/R as stated in Clymers cuz it won't start and I don't have the six hands required for it. LOL But, they're new(er) so I don't think that's my problem. I don't know what else to do. Where do I go from here? Does anyone want to come over next week and have a look for me? You gotta come to Westerville cuz obviously I can't ride it anywhere.

Do they still make Buell? I thought Harley dropped them?

I can't speak for the midland but I've heard they're not the best, but I can't speak from experience. I have the Cardo Scala Rider Teamset for the same reason you want one - wife has own bike. They're wireless bluetooth VOX (voice operated transmitter), 1500 ft range, can send/recieve phone calls and receive GPS commands via bluetooth, bike to bike, bike to passenger, bike to bike and passenger, built in FM stereo and MP3 jack. You can also detach the transmitter and take it in the store with you so it doesn't get stolen. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE!!! Love them so much I bought two sets - one set for the cruiser helmets and one for the modulars. No switching back and forth!! It helped out so much when I was teaching her to ride. I could follow her and walk her through everything, or stand in the parking lot and guide her through whatever. She can be 10 car lengths behind me with no loss of signal. Usually I ride out front so I can tell her "There's gravel on this turn" or "Road kill ahead" or "WATCH THE DEER!!!!" LOL. I bought them on eBay for $179 for the pair new in box. We don't ride without them. We once got caught in the rain and my mic got trashed from the water, but Iron Pony sells pieces parts and I replaced it (they're close to me soI got them there). I highly reccommend this product. Sorry I can't help with the Midland brand.

I think the biggest part of the problem now is we're in too deep to get out. I think the only way to get out would be to go back to the 40's when it took 100 or so guys to build a car and that sort of thing. That sounds great and all but look what that would do to the country. We'd all lose everything we have and would have to start all over from scratch. There is no magic bullet. There is no one right answer. No President can create jobs. You can create work which then creates jobs, but what jobs will they create? They need to be sustaining jobs, not part time census taker jobs. How do you do that? I have no idea. President Bush opened the flood gates when he gave tax breaks to corporations that sent jobs overseas. The idea was to use that saved money to reinvest in the company and create new things. Great idea but that's not what happened. Oh they saved a ton of money - trust me, but it went into the coffers, not into R&D. The fat cats pocketed the money and laughed all the way to the bank. And what did it do to us? It put too many of us on the streets. President Clinto mandated banks to give loans to people that don't deserve loans. Everyone should have a piece of the American Dream and own their own home. Look where that got us. The Porkulous bill was supposed to go to the banks so they could lend it back out so we could buy more things, stimulate the economy, blah blah blah. Guess what? It didn't happen. The banks kept all the money and didn't lend a dime! Pokey - you mentioned GE is sending jobs over seas. Guess who was inline for many of the Green Jobs and grants for Green technologies? GE, that's who. Guess who is one of President Obama's advisors? The president and CEO of GE. So who exactly is to blame? Big union? Big banking? Big Corporation? Big polititian? Big Wallstreet? Everyone one is guilty of getting us where we are today. It isn't just one industry. I'm an analyst by profession. I look at things and figure out where the problems are and how to fix it, where the weaknesses are and how to strengthen them, and to find where the flaws are and make them better. I can't fix this one though. I just can't do it. Jim

Thanks DRC, and back at ya. Once again don't get me wrong. My statements are not about all unions like the independant guys (plumbers, electricians, carpenters, truckers, etc). It's about the factory workers, the educators, the autoworkers - the bigger unions like that. What I mean by outsourcing is, back in the 70's and 80's we lost tons of auto jobs to Mexico. Why? Because they'll do for $4.00/hr what the union guys in Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Canton, Youngstown will do for $15.00 and with no union contracts, reps, demands, etc. If the union's demands cost too much the company has to do what it needs to do to stay in business and maintain a profit. Simple economics says that if your labor/production costs are too high you'll price yourself out of the market. So what do you do? You cut labor costs by going where it's cheap. You buy robots instead of using humans. Sure, lots of guys are good welders, but a robot does it perfect evey time, 24x7, without a break, without a contrct, it won't strike and it doesn't bitch. But at the same time, how many guys lost their homes to robots? Once again my example of the Chevy Spark - it costs too much to make here so they make it overseas. It can't be imported here because it doesn't meet EPA and safety standards. GM is looking into upgrading it to meet those standards so they can import it here, but the cost will rise to $10,000. Silly to think an American car company has to import it's own product back to the US. I belonged to the IEBW86 and I used to build control panels for railway systems. The company I worked for in Roch. NY was owned by a bigger company across town. I delivered a board there once. I had a 5 lb box about 12"x3"24". I parked the truck, carried the box in to the receiving desk and put it on the counter. They told me to put it back on the truck and wait for the guy in the yard to come get it. I asked why since I was already there. He said they had guys to do that and I was taking work away from someone else. Ok, fine. I put it back and jumped in the cab. A guy with a forklift and a skid came over, put that little box in the skid, strapped it down, and took it to the loading dock where another forklift picked it up and took it somewhere. Only then could I go inside to have the invocie stamped. I was at the desk about 2 minutes and I left. What a crock of shit!! How much money did that cost the company when I already had it in there? All because the union contract said that's how it's done. I got tired of that $6.48/hr so in 1990 I went back to college (DeVry here in Cols), put myself in massive debt, and got my degree in programming. I'm not union but I got outsourced to India by National City back in 2002. I had to train my replacement and I was out the door with 10 weeks severance. I have a new job and love it, but I can still be out the door in a minute. I am where I am because I did it for myself. No government help, no entitlements, but by my own sweat and tears. I retooled myself and became successful in my own right (I aint rich but I do ok). This time though I have money in the bank, I have a healthy 401k & IRA, and I live within my means. Nothing is financed but my house. I learned the hard way!! The teacher up in Centerburg Oh that burned the cross on the kids arm. He was fired for that and rightfully so. The teacher's union took it to court. After a year long court battle (couldn't go to court over summer break - union rules) the guy was still out of a job, but he got his pension, the kids is still burned, and it cost that tiny little school system $900,000 to defend it's actions. WHY? Centerburg is not a big town at all and doesn't have a ton of money to begin with, but they had to shell out all that money they really don't because of this doof wad and his union rep. That money could have been used for books, computers, buses, maintanence, a new teacher to replace him. SB5/Issue 2 - whatever. What, they can't pay for their own helath insurance like everyone else does? Waa Waa Waa. Tell it to someone else. Pay them what they're worth - absolutely, but they need to pay for the perks just like the rest of us. One last thing - in my earlier post my reference to the "Messiah :bow:" was meant as sarcasm, but I have no way of showing that here. Sorry for the confusion.

When it comes to unions I'm a mixed bag of nuts, and I know I'm going to catch shit for this, but here goes. First off, I come from union roots - deep union roots, from coal mines to factories to education. At one time I was of the union branch myself - IEBW 86 in Rochester NY. I am 100% in favor and supportive of the protections they provide from the employer, the quality of workmanship they provide, the pride they take in the things they poduce. However, when it comes to the "You can't fire me because I'm entitled to this job even though I'm a dick-bag through and through" (my words, not an actual quote), or the entitlements they feel they're owed just because they pay a due or have been there for 20 years, or the jobs bank the autoworkers union had where guys sit and drink coffee all day (or stay home, or work another job) and still get full compensation and never lift a finger for 12 years, or the prevailing wage (wish I could tell my boss he HAS to pay me a certain amount) and a bunch of other things too numerous to mention here - that's baloney!! Since when did health insurance become an entitlement? The last I looked in my employee manual it's listed under BENEFITS - something offered by the company to entice me to come work for them. No employer HAS to offer benefits other than Worker's Comp and overtime pay. I'm worth what the job pays and nobody owes me anything for something I didn't earn. If I lose my job for whatever reason (and yes, I've been outsourced to India) I'm SOL and if the only job I can find pays minimum wage with no benefts then so be it. If that's not enough for my situation then that's my problem. I go find a better one. And if I'm an employer, don't you dare tell me I owe you something you haven't earned. Try that once and you'll be looking for a better job real quick. I'm also an Army Veteran and damn proud of it. I signed up willingly. I did my time. I was paid for my time and service. I was honorably discharged. That's it! Done! Fini! The Government doesn't owe me shit. Now, if I was injured in anyway shape or form while on duty - different story, but otherwise I'm done, sit down, shutup and have a sandwhich. It's called doing it for yourself people. That's how this country was founded but sadly that's been exploited by those who feel they're entitled. The ONLY things you're entitled to are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (or Happy Hour, whichever you prefer ). Back to my initial point - unions ARE a good thing, don't get me wrong, but they have taken some things waaaay to far. This is why our products are built overseas. They cost too much to make here. The Chevy Spark can't be made here affordably. That's why it's made in India and costs $2,000. When Milton Hershey was building his candy factory in what is now Hershey Pa near Harrisburg, he looked out his window and saw them using a machine to dig a hole. "What's that?", he asked. He was told that machine could do the work of forty men. He said "good, get rid of it and hire 40 men". Perhaps the Messiah should take business lessons from Milton Hershey? I know those were some scattered thoughts, but I had to vent. I'm off my soapbox now. Time for someone else to let me have it.

One thing I've always wondered - what do these guys practice on? I mean, they couldn't have always been good at this, and like everything else you have to practice on something, right? I can draw pretty good myself, but do you know how many pieces of notebook paper I wasted in highschool getting there? (Or was I just wasted in highschool - LOL)