Venturous Randy

I retired at 59 1/2 and have enjoyed it very much. Since retiring, I have had absolutely no desire to pick up any type work. The day I left my job, I took my watch off and have not had another one on since. I don't think about it much, but I did this passed Monday when everything was covered with snow. I just looked out the window and then snuggled up on the couch and took a nap. Randy

I found that a radar detector fit perfectly into that space and with using a remote on off power switch, it was not noticeable when coming up to a license checkpoint in VA with a Trooper standing right beside the bike. It also worked as good thru the bike plastic as I does thru a windshield. Randy

With putting 150,000 miles on my 83 and going thru many tires, I found the best handling was to put an Avon on the front and a Dunlop on the rear. I tried the Avons front and back and had a problem with a rearend wobble at 70mph and up riding solo, as several others did at the same time. I was very impressed with how much changing to the Avons made the bike feel lighter, but did not like the wobble. When I needed to replace the rear tire, I went back to the Dunlop E3 and still had a good feel for handling with the Avon still on the front, so I stayed with that combination. Randy

I know that home is home to a lot of folks and they can not imagine living anywhere else, but I feel blessed to be from east Tennessee. In the four years that I was in the USAF, every place was flat, as in Texas, Illinois, Eastern North Carolina and SE Thailand. When I got out, I knew that the only place to go was back to East TN. In my work over the years being in Quality Management, I have had the opportunity to work with customers and suppliers and it seemed most all of those visits were in states where the terrain was flat, at least the part of the state that I visited. One company that I was with was located in Bristol, VA, but based out of Springfield, Mass and every time I went up there I saw nice homes that were priced at least twice what the same house down here would cost and the taxes were a nightmare. We also don't have a state income tax here in TN. I have been very fortunate to be in the mountainous area of TN and to have put so many miles on bikes, as I put about 150,000 on my 83 Venture alone. I am also lucky that I am still enjoying these mountains, but now in a Miata with someone that enjoys them as much as I do. If it is a hot day, within an hour we can be at 6,000 feet elevation and can have a nice picnic where it is cool. I remember when I left basic in Texas to go to Rantoul, Il in March in 1969 and it was miserable cold. I remember thinking that if it was that cold in the early spring, at least it should not be too hot come summer, but boy was I wrong. Generally, our weather seasons here in east TN are more moderate on both ends than in a lot of other places and I can see why someone would want to relocate to this area. Randy

I live about 90 miles away and plan on having lunch at Bennett's BBQ in PF today, but I would not be any help in the move. Just curious as to how they picked Pigeon Forge? As the saying goes, "nice place to visit, but would not want to live there". It is kinda known as Kid Vegas. Randy

It was just a little bump. Randy https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7786223/forklift-driver-warehouse-collpase-hit-shelf/

I have been typeII diabetic for around 35 years. There have been times I did pretty good on my A1C with it being in the 7's and there have been times that I was dealing with an A1C above 11, not good. I have been on Metformin for many years and had to go off it because it got to the point that I was having a problem with my creatinine levels that were too high and I was having a problem with a lot of diarrhea, not good. I am also taking Nova log before I eat and Lantus. I would try to work with my endocrinologist checking my sugar four times a day, to getting to the point that I was checking it once in four days, not good. As many have probably seen the advertisements on TV showing the Freestyle Libre unit, if you want to check your sugar level, you have to put the monitor next to the sending unit and it will read it. My outside endocrinologist that the VA sent me to prescribed this and the VA would not approve it. But, I did find out that the VA does approve the Dexcom G6 and it is a lot better. On this one, you attach a sensor that has a transmitter in it to the area around your lower stomach and as long as you are within 20 feet, it will read and plot your level every five minutes. It also has the ability to chime if you have one of the following conditions. If your level goes above a set level, which you set, or goes below a certain level, which you also set, or if your sugar level is dropping too fast or if it is going up too fast it will chime after it takes a reading. You can also acknowledge the reading and it will quit chiming. So far, I have had all the conditions except it going up too fast. I have had it chime and wake me up that my level was too low and I have had it chime and wake me up that even though it was in a good range, it was dropping too fast. The reason I am posting this is I know there are a lot of diabetics here that struggle with knowing what is going on with their sugar levels. I know that the VA pays for this unit and I also believe Medicare pays for it too. I don't know about other insurance companies. I have to say that with me having so much more immediate knowledge of my sugar level and finding out what my activity and what I eat impacts it, it is a lot more incentive to do better, that is good. Randy

July 7, 1972, I was in Ubon Thailand, 30 miles from Laos and 45 miles from Cambodia. While I was there, we had saboteurs come on base to try to blow up the AC130 gunships and right after I left, the base was hit by rockets. My tour to that part of the world was very easy compared to what some of you guys went through. I was there as part of the Easter Offensive of 72. By law, I am considered a Vietnam vet, but if anyone asks me, I tell them that I am only a Vietnam area vet due to the location I served. Randy

For us old guys. Randy https://biggeekdad.com/2015/10/the-8th-of-november/

I don't want to get political either way, but as I was getting ready to go into the voting booth, I told the girl there that I was not here to vote FOR anyone, but to vote AGAINST. She said she understood. Yep, now we are getting back to the constant car lot commercials. Randy

I agree with Condor. The RPM's in relating to gas mileage is not as important as the position of the throttle. An easy example of this is if you are running on a slight upgrade at 60mph in 5th gear and without changing the throttle position, shift down to 4th and the bike speeds up and you have to decrease the throttle some to maintain 60mph, you will be running a higher RPM, but using less gas. There were times that I would intently avoid even the slightest hint of lugging and I have had MPG's close to 50 with the stock 1st gen gearing. I also agree that if you go to a VMax final drive, your biggest drop in fuel mileage will be due to the adrenaline rush of the acceleration, more than some RPM increase. I will again say that the best combination for a 1st gen is to replace the trans with a 2nd gen trans and install a VMax final drive. You get the VMax rush in 1st and 2nd gear and the lower RPM's in 5th gear on the highway. I do have a complete 2nd gen trans with forks and everything if anyone is interested. Another advantage, is on the MKI, this does away with the need for greasing of the drive shaft where it goes into the final drive as it is internally lubed. You will also eliminate the problems with loosing pins in the shift tumbler as it is a solid unit. It is just better all the way around. Randy

This one? Randy

We have a thing where we always end each fortune comment with "in bed". Randy

The last couple times I have been thru the Wears Valley area going to Townsend, I noticed they appeared to be working on that area. They were paving the areas around the on ramps. Randy

Of all the lines that have been drawn of the direction it is predicted to go, most now show it taking a more southerly route, but now they appear to intersect right across east Tennessee. I suspect we will have some bad flooding. I live a couple hundred feet above town elevation, but also have a lot of tall trees. I hope everyone comes thru this as okay as possible, but there will be a lot of damage. Randy

I have mounted and balanced a lot of tires that I have put on my 83 in 150K miles. The only thing I can say is almost always the weight stayed in about the same spot on the wheel, no matter what markings may be on the tire. To me, it appeared more weight issues were with the wheel, rather than the tire. Randy

I just watched on the news where the SC governor has lifted the mandatory evacuation order for south of Edisto Island, which is across the bay from Hunting Island, Fripp Island and Beaufort, SC. When Hurricane Matthew came thru the bathrooms were so full of sand that it was halfway up the tank on the commodes. It also tore up bridges and did a lot of flooding. They also have both lanes of I-26 going away from the beach area. This is going to be bad for a whole lot of people. If there ever was a "calm before the storm". this is it. Randy

I have the week of the 24th reserved at Hunting Island Campground just north of Hilton Head, SC. We were there two years ago a week before Hurricane Matthew came thru and tore it all to pieces. We may still be looking at close to a Cat 1 hurricane that may make it all the way to the NC mountains, if what the Weather Channel is showing happens. The last hurricane that made it up here tore the Blue Ridge Parkway all to pieces with downed trees and rock slides. We will have to just wait and see what happens and hope everyone stays safe. Randy

Good morning and a beautiful bike. I have heard that blue is fastest. Randy

Linda and I rode together for five years before going to the Miatas and every year I dropped the bike once with her on it. One was life changing as we were in the middle of nowhere on a narrow paved road that is part of the Tweetsie Railroad bed. When the pavement ran out, I was moving very slow and in some fine gravel on the pavement. When I touched my front brake, the tire barely slid, but was enough for us to slowly tip over. We did not get hurt and the bike was fine, but even with Linda's help, it was heavy, and doing it from my back. Got back on the bike and rode home. The next morning I woke up with only partial vision in my right eye. Evidently, 35 years of diabetes and doing the strain thing caused a massive Vitreous hemorrhage in my right eye. I had surgery and then a detached retina with more surgery then more hemorrhage and more surgery and now have no useable vision in that eye. One year we had a tip over at a gas station and this time I fell on my chest on my right arm. I had x-rays and did not find crack ribs but suffered for months with rib cage pain on my right side. So, tip overs can hurt more than just your bike. Randy

In 95 I worked for Superior Wheels and the plant I worked at was mostly all GM wheels. I heard the wheels from Superior were billed to GM for about $30 each. To go to a dealer and get a replacement it was about $250. When I worked for an electric motor company for over 15 years, whose main product was the fan motor for refrigerators, water coolers, vending machines, etc., I know for a fact that the motor sold to Whirlpool was less than $7. Yep, cost a lot more than that to buy a replacement for anywhere near that. One thing that gets me about Venture parts is something like diaphragms. We are not talking about sophisticated tooling or material and cost probably less than ten cents each to produce. But price them at Yamaha. Randy

As far as the pit bull type dog that came after me, I had already confronted the owner a couple times and they ignored me. This dog also caught a neighborhood cat out in the road and tore it all to pieces. Dog owner did not care about that either. The dog needed to be put down or put up somewhere, but the owner let it run loose. At the time we did not animal control as we do now. This was in the mid 70's. Randy

With putting 200,000+ miles on a motorcycle, I have had a few dog encounters. When I was about 14 on my 125 Ducati, I was going into a right hand curve and a dog ran right into me from behind a hedge row. I was doubling a buddy and we both got bad road rash. I don't know what happened to the dog, but I never saw it again. Later on I had a Yamaha 250 DT1 trail bike and had a neighbor with a nasty pit bull type dog. One day I had enough and used a dish detergent plastic bottle with half water and half ammonia and when he came at me I filled his face. After that, if he heard my bike, he ran the other way. Another was on a rural road that had a slow 90 degree turn. There was a house there and with it almost dark, as I was turning, a big dog ran right up to my leg growling and barking. I went about a 1/4 mile down the road and did a U-turn and as I was coming back, here he comes again. This time I cut toward him and hit my air horns. He immediately turn and ran.... right into a corner post at a dead run. That was the last time I saw him also. If you have injuries from hitting a dog, you need to take care of it with the owner, even if is just to keep them from having other dogs run loose to hurt someone else. Also, any damages or injuries may go against his property insurance. Randy

I did have one startling event while in Asheville. Linda and I took off to Marion NC in my Miata to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway and also eat in Little Switzerland. There is the BRP and a road slightly below that comes around the back of the Inn. As we were getting close to the Inn on the low road in a bad thunder storm with real heavy rain, just to my left there was a lighting strike on the side of the road. There was not lighting and then thunder, but a very loud explosion with big sparks flying very close. We realized that being in a convertible with a canvas top was not much different than being on a motorcycle. We were lucky on this one. Randy

Are you sure that circle has anything to do with setting the float level? I ask this because to me that is just the indication from an ejector pin the pushes the casting out of the die after casting. I would be really surprised that the casting die maker considered the location of the pin for anything other than ejecting the casting without it binding in the die. But, that doesn't mean that it could not be a good reference point if it has historically worked. Randy