The Wacky Adventures of Patrick

[Patrick]

Euless Texas Parade of Lights - 12-01-07

Things started out a bit rough but as with all things come a bit of surprise but with quick thinking you can overcome them. We got started a bit late waiting on Paul and TC but then decided to get going. As it turns out when we got to our meeting place Paul had encountered a major engine problem. So TC and Paul were out. Philip who was supposed to meet us at the Post had already gone to the Parade starting point as someone told him we already left. Dennis went back home as he was told it was cancelled due to the drizzel and wind. We called Dennis and told him it was not off and to come back. Then Anna showed up with all kinds of lights and glow rods. We all went to work putting them on our bikes and then Dennis did come back. Robert one of the riders pictured below is a good rider and I enjoyed riding next to him. Of course I gave Bob another friend (pictured in past posts) some grief over not being there since he went out of his way to tell me that I should not be a wimp over the weather. Well I was there and he was not. But Tina his wife did give me a gremlin bell so I guess I had to go easy on him. The parade was nice in that the people watching seemed to really enjoy the motor cycles as they really cheered us on. It was hot, I think I put my feet on the pegs three times and not more then a few seconds each. The bike kept running but the engine was hot. Over all it was fun, but I think that was my last parade on a bike. I could have walked faster. It was interesting with Aireona (I know I killed the spelling and Boo Boo will correct me) on the back of the bike. You will see her pictured below. It was a bit scary at first for me riding someone elses child on the back of my bike but she did good and I got more confident over time.

Here she is with Robert.



Here she is on the back of my bike shot 1.



Here she is again - amazing she kept asking when is it going to start.



Here is some of the other riders. Front to back right to left.

Aireona, Robert, Me, Philip, Aron (Philips Nephew)



Boo Boo, Ryon, and Aireona. (man do I need to get the spelling of these names right). Airiona is Ryon's daughter. The day before the parade I offered to take Airona for a ride around the block to see how she would like it. She was not up for it, but believe it or not she did go with me from the Legion to the parade site and back at times running over 40 MPH due to the local speed limit. I was stil 5MPH under the speed limit which can be just as bad as running over the speed limit. It was a real toss up, but again she was not my kid and it made me nervous at first but she did very well. So well infact that I told Boo Boo today 12-02-07 that if he needed me to ride with her again I would. In the prior post me and Boo Boo went for a ride.


Not sure when this one was taken as I did not have my camera.

[Patrick]

Ride 120607 and 120707

Thursday night the 6th was a not a good night for biking. First heading up 121 in one of the busier areas Philip runs out of gas and nearly got himself and Paul ran over. He signaled for me to go past him, I not sure of why but I do and then I see behind me a traffic jam and no Philip and Paul. I pull over to the side of the hwy and start figuring out what I should do, again not knowing what happened. Sure enough they both go past me and as it turns out Philip switched over to reserve and got’er running again. So we head to the next gas station and fill up. Then pulling out of the gas station Philip in the lead we stop at a red light. I start to move over to Philip’s right when I hear a strange noise behind me and sure enough Paul is on the ground. I put my kick stand down and head towards him but he already has his bike back up. He was of course ok and no damage to the bike which was remarkable. We decide we will not go for the ride and head to dukes.

Friday late morning (the next day) I finally get up and man it is great outside, warm and sunny. I cuss at myself for getting up so late and look at my rear tire and notice something strange. Sure enough there is a screw in my tire. Dang, now I am late getting up and have a tire problem to fix on top of it all. Last night was not a good night for riding. I did thank God for letting me see the screw otherwise who knows how that would have turned out.

I call the Kawasaki dealership and he said he can fix it in an hour so I decide to brave it and ride up that way. Got there ok, he looks at the tire and said he could not fix it because it will not pass inspection being that there is very little tread left. So now I get two new tires. I walk over to Flips Patio Grill and have lunch and a beer. I go back to the dealership and they had both tires on in an hour and a half. I thank the heck out of them and hit the road back home. I call my buddy Jim who lent me his coat on the last ride I took to lake Grapevine to see where he is and if I can get his coat back to him. As it turns out he said he was heading towards his boat so I told him I would meet him there. Here is a picture of his boat. It is a nice one.


On the way to his boat however I decide to stop on top of the dam and take a few shots.
Here is one just of the lake and shore line.


Here is one of the backside of the dam.


Here is one of the back side of the dam with the bike in it.



Here is one from the backside looking at the dam tower.



Jimmy and I sit and shoot the bull for a while then go into the bar to have a couple of beers. I sign up for daily drawing they have since I now have been up there about 4 times in the last couple of months. It cost me an extra dollar since I am the new guy. Time to go so I leave to head back home to see what everyone else is up to. Well of course the sun is going down so I decide to stop to put my coat on and take some pictures of the sunset with the bike. The pictures really did not do the sight justice but here they are.

Here is shot 1


Shot 2


The final shot




I finally get home and Val reminds me of a little dedication the Post was going to for the person who painted a mural on our wall. He, the artist is no longer with us, but his family was there and it was a quaint celebration which was cool. Me and Howard play some pool and he basically kicked my butt and then Philip called wanting to ride to Dallas to Strokers, a motorcycle bar. I leave the club and we, Philip and Paul decide to not take the ride and light a fire and sit around and shoot the bull over a couple of cold beers. That ends the riding.

We plan a big ride, for Saturday (today) and when I wake up at 7AM, (I was not going to get up late again) I notice the road is wet from humidity and the weather gal is saying the cold front is nearly here. So here I sit writing in my blogg instead of taking the ride I wanted to. Oh well I got a fairly nice ride in yesterday I guess and it was nice seeing Jimmy and riding around the lake. I am going to go get some gas for the bike here shortly as it looks like the bike will be sitting for a few days in the garage as the forecast is grim for the next several days.

Paul just called and we are going to try to get a fast and short ride in right now. See you all later.

[Patrick]

Ride 120807

As an FYI, I might need to finish this tomorrow as we (mostly Val) are getting ready to go to a party right now.

Man am I glad Paul called. He called Philip and before you know it we were on the road. Philip was grumbling about how he has a lot to do today and that we cannot be long which later turned into hey this was a great day. We started off headed towards Grapevine just to keep the ride short. Paul was in the lead and he took us up 121 and we exited at the 144 junction. We stayed straight on what ever the name of the road was looking for Dove Loop. We had a bunch of fun riding, just messing with each other and etc., when you ride with buddies you know what I mean. Paul nearly cut me off and such and of course I had to rib him after he said “I cut him off Thursday”. I was laughing so hard at times I nearly fell off my bike. We get to a dead end and we all pull up to discuss the plan. Either left or right, Philip asks Paul if we want to head to the lake. Paul says yes and Paul turns left and Philip turns right. I just sit there at the stop sign watching the show. Paul turns around, (I was waiting for Philip to do the same and it would have been a movie classic). So we head right and twist around for a while and come upon a small park among a bunch of great big houses. Man I mean like huge. Too much money amongst so few folks, (like HD owners). Just a little jab folks. I like you all. Here are some pictures from the first park.

The bikes and Philip and Paul in the back ground.



A shot of Philip and Paul



A shot of the bikes and notice the twisted up dock in the back ground.



A bike and road shot.



Philip grabs the camera and takes one of me and Paul



Another shot with Philip, Paul and the lake



So we take off for more riding and then we end up at a park that Paul had intended for us to go to when he made his left. Now I see why he headed left. Here is a shot of us at the new park.



Paul and Philip then notice a model airplane flying around down the road a bit so we pack back up and head that way. Am I glad we did and man was it organized. They had time slots for airplanes and then again for helicopters. Here are some shots from that.

A model plane landing.



Here is a picture of the garage area for the flyers.


I thought this one was cool.



Paul suggests that we head back via the back roads so Philip leads us down Carol road to central were we eventually end up at our favorate watering hole Dukes. Here is a couple of pictures.



A little different angle.



Well while sitting at Duke's we start talking about all of the things we need to accomplish today (honey do's) Anna calls and says she is up for a ride. One of the things that Phillip and Paul say we must do is take out my baffels from my pipes since the bike is so quiet. I decide to let them do it so we tootel over to Northern Tools to get the bits and I tell Anna to meet us at my house. She shows up and they take my bike to start the work. So Anna and I kill a beer and then head over to Pauls to see how it is going. Not so good, so they just put holes in my baffeles and the bike sounds better but not as loud as I would like. Anyway we head down to the River Bottom pub.

We get there and find a few other bikers had the same idea.



The weather still being warm we decided to head out back to have our beers and we smell this great fragrence and it turns out they are smoking some brisket.


Here is the owner smoking it up.



So we have some of the great brisket finish our beers and head home for the day. Anna takes off directly for her house after we hit Murphey drive and Philip, Paul, and I head over to Pauls' The next thing you know we are getting a fire going.




We took full advantage of the last good day of weather we are going to have for awhile. Tomorrow it is supposed to be raining and cold and since the Cowboys Play I guess that is a good thing. Go Cowboys.

[High_Side]

Man, it must be nice to still be riding....and looks like you guys are making good use of the weather. Keep the stories coming.

Cheers,

High_Side

[Patrick]

Yes it was nice riding yesterday and here I sit listening to the rain today. Oh well I guess we have to have a little winter.

Have a good one.

[Patrick]

22nd Annual Texas Toy Run 12/16/07

This is the first ride that we have posted here that I did not actually participate in but since this blogg is as much for me, it is also for my friends who have ridden with me before or will ride with me in the future. So the following story though written by me is comprised of comments and such from Phillip. I will be writing this as in first person.

We (TC, Paul & Phillip) took off from Paul’s house at 9AM and the weather was cold to say the least at a cool 29-32 degrees. We took 183 to 121 all hwy;s which at 70 MPH it was kind of brisk (that was Phillip’s description – mine would have been friggen freezing). When we first got down in the meeting area off of Belknap we thought maybe we were at the wrong place and then bang there was hundreds of bikes. They were everywhere. Here is a couple pictures.

Here is one at one of the intersections completely shut down.


Here are a couple of shots at another intersection in down town Fort Worth.




We finally got our bikes parked and decided to start checking things out.



Then ole Paul starts eye balling (well singular in his case – inside joke) the Fort Worth Police Cycles.


And sure enough talks them into letting him sit on one. Paul is a good negotiator.


Here is some other misc. photo’s of us.

TC


Paul and TC (looking all bad and stuff – he really is a nice guy)


Paul and Phillip (I guess it was so cold they just could not smile)


One just of Paul and bystanders

Phillip and his ride

TC and his ride.

I hope to get pictures from Tina and Bob today from their perspective of the ride as they too went (or at least I think they did).

Here is a link Bob R. put up at the District 12 web site from his perspective of the Toy Run.

http://www.txlegiondist12.org/TOY%20RUN.htm

[C.L.G]

hey Patric wheres the pic of me and Santas helpers

[Patrick]

hey Patric wheres the pic of me and Santas helpers

Flipper told me about the CLG and man I am like crazy. He made it a movie so I do not know how to save it as a pic. You know let me see if I can try to attach it as a movie. I think Flipper took the chip and I did not copy that one but I will double check.

If not does anyone know how to take a movie from a digital camera and make it a pic.

CLG,

Are we going to have a fire tonight.

Patrick

[C.L.G]

sorry there P had way too many hop pops last night Im gonna snuggle with the Mrs's and go sleepy early. Brandon came by if that gives you an idea.

[Patrick]

Today was a great day for riding in the afternoon so Paul and Gail and I met up at the River Bottoms Pub. That place is beginning to become a great meeting place. It is located in the Texas Trinitiy River Bottoms near Fort Worth and it is mostly all side streets to get there. We are becoming known by the owner, staff, and some of the regulars even though I think we have only been there a few times (well under 10 times).

We had a beer and talked about how to start broadcasting rides to the group as we are growing and the number of people we need to call is getting larger and of course that means it takes some time to put together a last minute ride as it can take 30 to 60 minutes to get everything straight by calling each individual. So I am looking on the web to find the cheapest but best broadcast call service. If anyone has any ideas let me know as I will not purchase it until after the Holiday's.

Here is a picture of Paul & Gail



A little wider shot with my bike in the shot.



We then took a ride to Fox n' Hound to have lunch. I was a bit disappointed in their Fish n Chips. Prior to this trip I would have rated them number 1, but now I think Red Robin is number 1. But it was a nice lunch and afterwards they decided to head home so I took a nice ride back to my house as well. It was great just chatting with them. It was a short ride day but enjoyable for the end of December. Have a Merry Christmas one and all.