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Air Ready Auto

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Posts posted by Air Ready Auto

  1. Hello everyone, I have just purchaced A New [Demo] 2018 Star Venture TC with under 1500 miles on it I have only put maybe 300 miles on it and am falling in love with it. i have only owned Kawasaki motorcycles since I was 11 years old with my old dirt bike, Been riding Vulcans since they first came out and just traded in my 2009 Voyager with 89,000 miles on it. Planning on retiring next year and thought I would try the new Venture. I hope this is going to be a good bike, I hope to get to meet new friends and learn more about this bike, I live in Oshkosh WI.

     

     

    Welcome to the club my fellow Cheese Head! I'm in Menasha. Let me know if you ever want to get out for a ride. You can find my number on my profile page.

     

    :sign16:

  2. Sad news. Unfortunately, we will be canceling our trip. It turns out that our insurance didn't cover as much as we were hoping when I had my heart attack earlier this year. I want to sincerely thank everyone who offered to have us stay with them. We will attempt this trip next year. I want to wish everyone a happy and safe weekend.

  3. How do you plan on reaching that high? Mine are only about a foot and a half. Those deer will have to get through a wood fence and a metal guard. I'm not worried this year. My peppers are growing like crazy and the onions have exploded up. I'm hoping for a good harvest.

  4. Looks like I will have to take the cage to Freebirds this year and I will be bringing the family so we decided to make a vacation of it. Our plan is to leave Appleton WI on the 10th and make our way out to Niagara Falls. We will spend some time out there exploring then head out to Freebirds. I would like to ask if there are any members along our potential route that would be willing to let us toss a tent up in their yard for a night. We are hoping stay in the Michigan, Indiana, Ohio area on the night of the 10th. For the nights of the 11th and 12th, we are hoping to stay around the Pennsylvania, New York, Canada side of the falls. My wife wants a hotel for the night of the 13th before heading to Freebirds on the 14th. Please let me know if anybody is able to help with a patch of grass for a tent. Thanks in advance.

  5. It turns out I am now a member of the heart attack survivors club. Long story short, happened about 8 or 9 weeks ago. Didn't know what it was at the time. (First experience with heart issues) 5 weeks ago my wife had her head on my chest and mentioned that my heart sounded funny. I said I had been feeling funny for a few days and she hauls me off to the doctor. A thousand tests later... Turns out I had a mild heart attack and my heart is out of rhythm. I'm still on the younger side but my family history combined with other injuries I have had apparently got me. The wife has me on an all healthy but no flavor diet. I'm still working and doing everything like it never happened. Ignore it till it goes away approach. We will see what happens in the next few weeks. The doctor says everything could go back to normal or my heart rate could be wonky for the rest of my life. I come from a long line of stubborn people so I plan to be around for a while yet.

     

    On a side note, got Lucy fired up and took her around the block for quick knock off the cob webs. Won't be long now and the riding season will be here! Provided that snow machine stays off...

  6. Much to the dismay of my brothers and I, my father and Ma are moving to the Pigeon Forge area. They have sold their house here in Wisconsin and are in Tennessee right now looking for houses. They close on their house in Wisconsin the last day of December and will be hoping to move in someplace in January. They know one person out there. The question I have is this. Once there is a firm move in place and date, is there anybody in the area who would be willing or able to help with any part of the move on the TN side? Also, if you can't help with the move, they are going to be new to the area and have only visited a few times so any help with local guidance, recommended churches, or anything would be welcome. They have visited Gatlinburg but have little experience with the rest of the area. Thank you to anybody who can help in any way.

  7. Hey @Flyinfool, just wanted to let you know yesterdays snow machine test went well. Your aim was dead on. We got two hours of fluffy white stuff. I think the mix is spot on. Well done my friend. Oh and kudos on the high temp variant. It was 41 degrees out. Soon enough Mr. Puck will have his snow in July wish come true.

  8. Just realized I haven't posted an update. Went to the back cracker guy on Tuesday last week. Found I had a messed up 5th vertebrate and a twisted pelvis. Lots of pain. Anyway, after a few sessions with him, I am walking good (for the most part) and about 90% of the pain is gone. 2 more appointments to go and he thinks I should be just about good.

  9. Warning... Embarrassing story...

     

    So it's quite the lovely evening out. The kids are playing, the temperature is cool enough to keep the bugs away, my wife and I are sitting on the porch... And I say to my wife, "honey let's get the fire pit out." She says, "we don't have any fire wood." I look at the old crabapple tree with it's dead branches and think, I can climb that and get those dead branches. I did it all the time as a kid... Lets just say that I don't remember the ground being so hard back then. I don't think anything is broken but i'm definitely not climbing any more trees ever again.

  10. Congratulations on your promotions. Being under a microscope (or at least having greater visibility) is always nerve-wracking, but it is the price of being higher in an organization.

     

    Heard an interesting phrase the other day - The higher up the pole a monkey climbs, the more visible his ass.

     

    Yes, you will occasionally fail. So does your boss and his boss. Just be truthful as to what happened, don't cover anything up, and don't ever blame an underling (nor take their credit when deserved).

     

    What type of work?

     

    RR

     

    Fleet maintenance. My department is geared towards trailer maintenance. We do just about anything a customer will pay us to do. Anything from complete wreck to gladhand seals. We have accounts with both nation wide companies and single unit owner operators.

     

    Today my boss hit me with a heavy one. Hit a certain number or face potential layoffs. It's not an impossible number but not an easy one. Freight is moving hard right now and everybody is ignoring any problems waiting for the unit to be completely dead before fixing it. Going to be an interesting month... I'm pulling everything I can get my hands on and pushing overtime with my guys. Fingers crossed...

  11. So I start this story by going back to the week before my family left for our Mexico vacation (July 16th to be exact).

     

    July 16th. My old boss is escorted off the property. Very sad day. He was one of the best people I have ever worked for. Not completely sure of all of the details but it had something to do with a... difference of opinion with the owner. He had another job lined up anyway.

     

    July 18th. He contacts me about following him to the new company and offers me more money than what I was making to go with him. I seriously consider going with him. I even go do an initial interview with him and that companies local VP. The interview goes well and I decide I will see what all they have to offer.

     

    July 19th. My new area supervisor calls me into her office and goes on a rant about me leaving. I'm confused because I said nothing about anything. Come to find out my old boss had accidentally given his old company phone number (the phone he had turned in when he left) to the place where I would have been going to do my drug screening and they had called that number to confirm that I had set up an appointment. She had me busted. So I came clean about some of the concerns I had about, well, everything. The biggest one being that it was a bit of a joke that any time there was an internal posting for a upper level job it would be quickly followed with an email welcoming someone from another company. She somewhat condescendingly asked me what exactly I had to offer the company that made me think I would qualify for anything above where I was. So I told her. I told her about my military experience and how I quickly had advanced in rank and had been placed in charge of multiple work centers and duty sections and even how I had been placed in charge of training for an entire division. I told her about previous jobs and how I have always moved quickly into management positions. She had no idea about anything from my past. (Never bothered to check my file and admitted it). She offered me more money than my old boss was to stay.

     

    July 23rd. Our area VP comes down to our location to "clear the air" about my old boss leaving and about another upper management termination. He also posts a sheet for filling my old bosses position. After the meeting he asked me if I had decided to stay. I gave a noncommittal answer. He told me I was going to apply for my old bosses position on the 27th. I let him know I couldn't because my family and I were leaving for Mexico late on the 26th. He told me he would be there early morning on the 26th and that I would be applying then. Ok then.

     

    July 26th. I meet the VP at 7:30am and talk to him for about an hour or so. He asks me several questions about everything. Apparently he had talked to my area supervisor who had filled him in on the conversation I had with her. I figured I had nothing to loose because I had another job if need be so I let him have it. I was more than blunt with my answers (not rude just completely honest). About a half hour later he tells me the job is mine if I want it and all the rest of the interview is formality. The package we settled on was quite nice.

     

    September 7th. I had been in my new role for a few weeks after returning from vacation. Everything was going smoothly for having just transitioned. The area VP and president come down for a meeting with our management team. After, they pull me aside and ask how things are going. I give them my take on things and we start talking about different projects and they are asking about this one and that one and such. Apparently I got on the presidents radar because over the course of my short time in this position I had managed to close out 7 very large jobs that had been sitting in our planner for over a month and he had, through the course of conversation, been informed by one of our clients that I'm an "unstoppable freight train hell bent on completing projects".

     

    Today 3:30pm. After closing out 3 more significant jobs I am told that I have no limitations and I can feel free to take this position as far as I want.

     

    All sounds good right... The problem. I find myself under a microscope. I'm not perfect and I'm bound to mess something up especially under that kind of scrutiny. Sure I'm doing good now but that's because those jobs had not been processed since my old boss left. I really didn't do anything special. I don't want to be put on a pedestal because my balance sucks. The higher you get the farther you have to fall. The higher you get the bigger a target you become. I'm hoping expectations don't exceed possibilities.

  12. As some of you know, I am a 2nd Amendment advocate, avid shooting sports enthusiast and Kydex Bender as well as an amateur motorcycle mechanic and Yamaha fanboise.

     

    I am also a very out of practice home brewer as well.

     

    Once upon a time, I brewed 5-10 gallons of beer every month.

     

    Then I started a business.

     

    I haven't brewed in 4 years.

     

    Today I broke out the mash tun, hot liquor tank and boil kettles, and cleaned and sanitized for hours in preparation of brewing my first 5 gallon batch in 4 years.

     

    I cheated. I bought an all grain "kit" from Grape and Granary rather than build my own recipe. I figured it was better to work back into brewing slowly rather than just dive in.

     

    I just pitched the Wyeast slant in a 1 liter starter in hopes of mashing in sometime Friday afternoon.

     

    This will be a Marzen Lager(Oktoberfest) recipe but fermented with Wyeast's California Ale yeast as I do not have a working lagering chamber at this time. I've had good results with similar recipes in the past.

     

    I'll post pics once I get things rolling.

     

    Congratulations on bringing out the brew kit! Oddly enough I just got my stuff out of storage and ready to clean up for brewing this weekend. It has been 2 years for me. Maybe we can compare notes later. Am thinking I'm going to do an English style ale and an oatmeal cream stout. Need to go get fresh grains. Good luck. Nothing like drinking your own brew!

  13. Enjoy!

    We'll talk about the lack of attention to Lucy when you get back..

     

    I'm buy no means an engine expert, but it seems any engine producing power for 3/4 of the time it should be would exhibit some performance symptoms? No?

    From a 4.5K RPM 2nd gear rap of the throttle if you are not careful it will hang the front wheel, and hang it in third if you shift near red line. Will a dead cylinder Venture do that?

    Thanks

    Will

     

    I'm back and Lucy will be getting some more attention now. So some backstory. I have had Lucy for 2.5 riding seasons now. She is my first Venture. When I got her I had to replace the starter clutch, clutch slave cylinder, do a clutch basket repair, repair the clutch master cylinder, and starter. Since then I have flushed the coolant, done 2 oil changes a season and changed the brake fluid. I have put on just under 20k miles. I am what most would call a lazy rider. I enjoy the long gently winding country roads at 45 to 55 mph. I am not a speed seeker nor am I prone to twisting the wrist very hard. When I first started riding her I thought all was normal as she had what I thought was a lot of power. After reading the posts and deciding I was going to just start checking everything over, I found that the exhaust pipe off #2 was heating slower than the rest from a cold engine. I have been assuming that the problem is not in the carbs because I know for a fact that the carbs were professionally rebuilt 2 months before I bought her. I know the guy that rebuilt them. I also am assuming that the plug cap on #2 was bad because it shocked me when doing the spark test. I will be replacing the plugs this week and going from there.

  14. On our last night there my brother-in-law decided we needed to have a real Mexican hamburger. My wife has a pic of me holding this thing. It was as big as my face. No I didn't finish it by myself. Obviously I'm talking about the one with the stick in it.

    20180808_220903.jpg

     

    The following pictures are of the 2 reasons I wound up with 2 more tattoos than I went there with.

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    20180808_002753.jpg

    That tequila is easily the best I have ever had and the beer was cheep but delicious. A few bottles of that tequila managed to find their way home with me.

  15. I have always ran my tires at 36 lbs.

     

    Up to you, 36 lbs is too soft on my 89 and it is noticeable when doing slow speed maneuvers. Despite the fact that I have on occasion failed to keep the pressure at 40, I have never had cupping on any of my Ventures tires. If you want to save your tire, pump it up.

     

    Just my experience, but on my '83 I have found that I get the best results from running 36lbs rear and 38lbs front. I have no idea if that is due to riding style or if it is the difference between an 83 to 89 or even the tires I use. Just my :2cents:

  16. No trip to Mexico would be complete without visiting the local soccer team for a game. Their home team is Santos. The stadium was nice and it's amazing how the entire community got into the game.

    20180805_183355.jpg

  17. I was searching for info on first gen side panel vents and didn't see any recent posts.

    My right side melted recently when it came partially detached from the panel and tilted inward when I parked it - got too close to the cylinder head and most of the louvers melted, along with the rail they plug in to, and the turn wheel. Very sad, because it was in great shape (except the tabs were all in various degrees of broken and repaired, which is why it came loose).

    Does anyone have a new or used one they would be willing to sell?

    Thanks,

    Mark Miller (Windrider1983)

     

    I am in the process of removing most of the plastics from Lucy. I will check what mine are like when I get back from vacation at the end of the week. You are welcome to have them. PM me and I will ship them out if they are in good enough condition.

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