Author Archives: Pat

Something To Think About

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I pulled this off of a religion flamewar over at Fark. It was posted by djpavon.

As the pastor would say – If God isn’t interesting to people, it is because the have never been introduced to him. Real christianity made people leave their lively hoods and follow a migrant preacher, it made them submit to torture and attack. If what you are presenting can’t even get people to leave the television, then it sure isn’t God. And if you are presenting God then that is all you need to do.

Weekend Sportster Work

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I didn’t get everything I wanted to do done, but I did get the tach installed, and it’s working fine. That’s the good news. The bad news is that all the work that I did on the carb was for naught. It’s still leaking gas. So on Monday I’m going to go pick up a few more parts and see if I can get it sealed up. Currently it’s looking like a problem with the floats or fuel inlet valve. So the current shopping list is:

1. Float bowl gasket
2. New fuel inlet valve w/ seal
3. New turn signal indicator lamp (it’s burned out)

And then re-set the float levels, replace the valve and gasket, and try again. If this doesn’t work I’m going to pay someone to fix it.

New Idle Mixture Screw

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Sick of burning your hands when you try to adjust the idle mixture on your Sportster? Head on over to Direct Parts and pick up their replacement screw. It’s got a knob that can be easily reached without burning yourself on the crossover pipe. Mine arrived today and will be installed this weekend.

The Last Of The Harley Parts

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I made my last trip to the dealer to pick up parts for next weekend’s work. I’ve now got a new fuel line, new breather hose, new carb drain tube, new carb to manifold gasket, and a new fuel inlet. Add that to the new petcock, new jets, and new tachometer and it’s going to be a busy day’s worth of work!

Rita Evacuation Pt. 2

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Well, Steve called me at 8:00 this morning. He left at 11:00 last night and has been on the road since then. He’s travelled a whopping 45 miles since then and is now just around The Woodlands on the north side of Houston. Traffic’s a mess, the southbound lanes of 45 haven’t been opened to northbound traffic yet, though he did say that that was supposed to happen at 9:00 Central time today.

The track keeps moving a little more to the east on each update so now it looks like Galveston’s going to miss the worst of it and we’re not going to get the rains that we need.

Rita Evacuation

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I got a call from a buddy of mine who lives south of Houston asking me if he could stay here for a while to avoid Rita. I told him to come on up as soon as he could to avoid the traffic. He’s supposed to be leaving some time this evening, so hopefully he’ll be in in the morning.

Ikea!

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I made a trip to the Frisco Ikea to nose around and get my Swedish meatball fix. This one’s a little bigger than the one in Houston. I did leave with something, a new colander, and ideas for redoing the bedclothes. They’ve got some good comforters with removable covers that I think will look good.

I’ve also got a really good idea for how I’m going to redo Reese’s room for when he comes down to visit.

The Rusty Chain Gang

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One of my friends talked me into going down to Joe Pool Lake to do a ride with the Rusty Chain Gang, a part of The Fort Worth Bicycling Association. This was my first long ride in probably 15 years.

The ride was good, I learned a lot about what to do and especially what not to do. Chief among them is to not try to keep up with the guys on the road bikes up the steepest hill on the ride when you’re a newbie on a mountain bike! I also learned that Cytomax is a lot better than water for keeping hydrated and electrolyte replacement.

It was a good ride, a little over 27 miles when all was said and done, and I’ll be back out there in two weeks to do it all over again!