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Writing exams today

After work, I visited with a brother and then came home and made turkey soup.

I spent the day cleaning the yard and burning all my yard waste (KCK allows burning yard waste), and making some handles for a knife I'm working on. Most people would call it Micarta® but that isn't correct so I'll just say I laminated plain brown wrapping paper with fiberglass resin to create faux bone handles.

Got a picture, Johnj?

Damn near got creamed twice today, in the space of 45 second, but dicheads in trucks. Was in the inside lane heading south on Highway 99 approaching the tunnel into Delta. Traffic was really light for rush hour and moving well and I had just cleared the banked corner of death an was on the short straight run to the tunnel entrance when some nobgobbler in a large step van decided to switch lanes without signaling to checking his mirrors. Luckily I was able to dive into the unused counter flow feeder lane and avoid getting splattered....I had just got back into my lane tucking in behind the nobgobbler (after judicious use of my horn and saluting finger) when yet another shiteeating noob in a 5 ton does the same thing, and again I had to dive into the quickly diminishing counter-flow feeder lane....this time the noob at least stopped halfway into my lane and went back into his own.....f'ing noobs.

I made a 3rd lane tonight on the way home. A person on a phone pulled off a ramp onto the main road right along side me.

Lighting was poor. I was tired and not alert enough to see the person and slow down. It had been a 14.5 hour day and I was close to home.....

All those things I know to be careful of.
I hope that person heard what I had to say at that moment!

Blues, I didn't know you were into repairing knives. It's an old Camco utility knife that has the mark side scale missing and the pile side scale is all shrunk up. I'm going to make new scales out of this sheet of HPL (High Pressure Laminate) I made. I need a good respirator before start in on the HPL.

johnj...I like crafty things.

I rode, as usual.
And then planned my route to ride to the city I'm moving to which involved google-mapping zooooooooooooom and some concentration ....I think I have it nailed but who knows . 2 more weeks to pack boxes and then I'll give it a try. It's the cheapest and most fun way to get your bike to its long distance destination right? Rain, snow, whatever weather shows up

Finished disassembling the upper back part of my Triumph Trophy in preparation for frame welding.

Long story short: rear fairing got a crack in it. Since the bike has neither been dropped nor hit, it seemed to be a stress crack. But why? Preliminary disassembly revealed the last four inches of the upper right frame tube had broken clean through. This allowed the rear luggage system to put its weight on the fairing, which of course cracked. Further disassembly revealed the real culprint (and some questionable design/engineering by Triumph).

Two bolts had come out of the left side of a cross piece that ties together the two upper frame tubes at the rear of the bike. This cross piece also contains two of the four mounts that receive the weight of the luggage system (both topbox mounting plate & sidecase mounting rails). Without being tied to the left side frame tube, the whole system thus put excessive torque on the right side frame tube - which probably cracked over time, then eventually broke clean through.

So the bike is stripped for the welder. May the Lord be merciful and help me remember how it all goes back together when the welding is done!!

(I did take lots of pics with Mrs. Stark's digital camera & close up lens as I took it apart.)