Half-demolished Kitchen of the Soul

Happy Song of the Week

One O'Clock Jump / Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Music Video Monday: Imogen Heap

A year later

A year ago I brought home a rotting pile of junk.

The goal was to strip a Suzuki cruiser down to the bones and use a kit from Ryca Motors to turn it into a replica of a British cafe bike. It was my first time with project this extensive.

I had never disassembled an engine before, but a good manual helped.

I did a lot of cutting, grinding and polishing—even a bit of welding. 

I ordered parts, sent other parts out to specialists and modified some parts myself. In between parts coming and going and coming back, I did a lot of thinking and rethinking, a lot of manual reading and advice seeking. I finally started rebuilding.

Then there was the wiring to struggle with. Did someone add some extra connectors while I wasn't looking?

But here I am now, a year later. Almost done, with a couple of dozen small things to finish. Just in time to put the bike into winter storage.

Oh, and the nine? It's because this is the ninth motorcycle I've owned.

Run for cover

Thanks to Spotify, I learned that John Mellencamp did a version of Van Morrison's "Wild Night." I really enjoy both artists, but John, amigo, if you're going to cover a great song like "Wild Night, you need to do something very different with it, not just leave out several layers of instruments. Okay, so you made it a duet with Me'Shell Ndegeocello and, you know, it's kind of nice—if we'd never heard Van's original. What you created just sort of sits there, politely tapping its foot, while Morrison's version gets up and dances.

Wild Night / John Mellencamp ft. Me'Shell Ndegeocello

Wild Night / Van Morrison

Happy Song of the Week

Only the Good Die Young / Billy Joel

Oddball temporary fashion accessory of the day

So, you have some fuel line and a filter just sitting there, begging to be put to use, but the gas tank isn't here yet. What would you do?

What lessons of history?

I guess some of the current leaders are too young to remember the protests over civil rights and the Vietnam War. Sending in the cops never worked in the long term.

Music Video Monday: Kiki Dee

Arts and Sciences

Motorcycle parts and iPhone camera apps: one way to spend a Saturday.

Friday Photo

At the speed of lazy

This is from the microwave instructions for Lean Cuisine lasagna. Covered for 2:30, uncovered for 3:30. But knowing five seconds less wouldn't make a bit of difference, I nuked it for 2:22 and 3:33. Because pushing one button three times is easier.

The folks at Lean Cuisine have an opportunity here. They could change the times to 2:22 and 3:33 and then advertise that their yummy lasagna is NOW FASTER AND EASIER TO PREPARE!

Cutting back on my drinking

The fingernail on my left middle finger split down the middle. That's my soda can opening finger, so until it grows out I have to use something like a spoon or key to get under the tab. Though I'm semi-ambidexterous, I'm a total spazz when I try to open a can with my right hand.

Happy Song of the Week

Our Lips Are Sealed / The Go-Go's

Damn peer pressure

Last Thursday, the neighbor on one side blew the leaves from his lawn. Sunday, the neighbor on the other side blew the leaves from his lawn. I had sensibly been waiting for the leaves to stop falling. I wanted to clear the yard only once. But there I was, the only leafy yard on the street. Brown. Shriveled. Messy.

Oh, okay.

I'm not a fan of blowers, and if I had to do this twice, I didn't want to be raking and bagging. So I got out the mower. It shredded and sucked up enough of the leaves to make it look like I'd at least tried.

Today, everyone's yards are covered with leaves again. The point of this exercise was...?

UPDATE: Yesterday evening the first neighbor was out after dark blowing leaves again. I went over to chat with him.

After he turned off the blower and removed his ear plugs I said, "You know, this is kind of futile until the leaves stop falling."

"Yeah, but it's what Sue wants."

Ah, marital harmony—greater than peer pressure.

Living in the past

I bought this checkbook cover in a shop in San Francisco sometime in the early '80s. You can tell, right? I've used it ever since. Partly just because it's different. Mostly because it's really easy to pick out in the clutter of my desk drawer.

The spine has been splitting for years. I repaired it with clear packing tape and it should be good to go until the day checks become obsolete.

Fighting the urge

I watch a little football. I'm not a huge fan, but I watch Inside the NFL so I'll be able to talk semi-intelligently about it if the need arises.

So, there I was, eating dinner, while a couple of guys at the next table talked football. Among other things, they were perplexed by the complete collapse of the Manning-less Colts. I wanted to butt into their conversation and say, "As Warren Sapp said, the Colts offense was built to fit Manning's unique abilities. It's a spaceship only he can fly." But I kept quiet.

One of them said he could understand the offense struggling without Manning, but the defence has fallen apart, too. I wanted to explain to him that the Manning-era Colts defense has always been sub par, but they got away with it because the offense  could outscore most opponents. But I kept that bit of analysis to myself, too, feeling smug that I had some intelligent sounding answers—whether they were correct or not.

Music Video Monday: Cream

I went totally bonkers for Cream when I was a teenager.

 

I'm not wasting time, I'm having ideas

A Hungarian creative services agency presents something every client should understand: the best work never comes in the shortest time, only the least expensive one.

Huh?

I raked everything out of one of my planting beds this spring. Sometime between than and now, a large pinecone found its way there. 

It's not from my yard. I have no conifers. Neither do the neighbors. And the pines in the park don't produce cones this large. I suspect a squirrel brought it, but from where? Someone's decorations?

No one is catching fire

"Frontrunner" is sort of a meaningless term when more people dislike a candidate than support her/him.

Gingrich is trending upward at the moment. But I'm guessing that like the others, the closer Republicans look at him, the less they'll like him. Get over it, folks. Ronald Reagan ain't coming back.

Friday Photo

Happy Song of the Week

Oye Mamacita / Los Lonely Boys

Reality check

Back when I was more active in local politics I knew a few Republicans who truly believed the vast majority of city and county voters were also Republicans. Yet election after election, most of the at-large seats went to Democrats. The County Commission had a long history of Democratic control. More often than not, the City Council was also controlled by Democrats.

These delusional Republicans started murmuring about voter fraud. (Yeah, that had to be it, they're cheating.) The GOP sent out poll observers, particularly to precincts in minority neighborhoods. (Ah, those non-white people, they're the fraudsters, right?) One commissioner commented that Democrats would be a small minority if it weren't for the Blacks, as if their votes shouldn't really count, or shouldn't count as much as a real American's vote. What, like three-fifths of a vote?

So I had to grin when I saw Tuesday's election tally.

Straight party vote: 67.46% Democratic

Mayor: 67.51% Democratic

City Council At-Large: four seats going to the highest vote getters, all Democrats

Maybe those old GOP polls will finally get it. Even though a higher percentage of Republicans actually vote, and even though their operatives try to suppress the turnout in heavily Democratic districts, they can't muster enough votes to win the city- and county-wide races. They are the minority. How does it feel guys?

Music Video (oops) Tuesday: Wang Chung

Though I usually try to post videos of live performances, I think this classic Wang Chung video warrants breaking the format. There were claims it sent some people into epileptic seizures. Maybe, but I'm certain it drove the editor insane.

That's where the money goes

I needed to change banks when I moved to Charlotte from California. Centura Bank was a client, so I picked them. They were a small regional bank and they served me well. Besides, there was a branch just down the street.

In 2001, Centura was bought by the Royal Bank of Canada. I found that interesting, because I'd had dealings with them when I lived in Canada. Centura was renamed RBC Centura, and then just RBC Bank. It was still run out of its North Carolina headquarters.

While others were complaining about being neglected, abused and overcharged by the big banks (including Bank of America, headquarted here), I was still being well treated by RBC. Whether it was true or not, I credited it to it being a smaller bank and to it's Canadian owners not being total greedheads.

Well, now the Canadians are selling RBC to PNC Financial Services, the sixth largest bank and once the holder of my mortgage. So I wouldn't be surprised if things turned bad. I guess it depends on whether RBC (or whatever it ends up being called) will still be semiautonomous.

Maybe I should start researching even smaller banks, or a credit union.

For The Love Of Money / The O'Jays