guzziguy

Looks like Santa Barbara to me. Fortunately, we rarely see those monstrosities here.

Happy Birthday John! It must be great to be 19 yet again.

CRG also makes motorcycle accessories. Note the brake and clutch levers in the pictures. I have mirrors from CRG on my Guzzi and have seen the levers close up. CRG products are all well built. That doesn't mean that his thing isn't retarded, but it's probably a nice, well built retarded thing.

It finally cooled off enough here to have Ph

I think that it totally depends on what you mean by it.

You're welcome and welcome back. It was the least we could do.

This is good advice. Furthermore, before buying I recommend that you talk to someone there and describe what you are trying to do. He/she can probably make good recommendations. It's really nice to find a wine seller that you like and can trust so that should be part of your task. Good luck!

I agree. Your custom turntable is absolutely gorgeous. So when is S2 going to start offering custom tts? After all, the woodwork is easy.

It's like blather, only less interesting.

I suggest looking around for a wine class that you can take. Many adult ed programs, community colleges and wine stores offer such classes. This will allow you to taste and learn about various kinds of wines. Soon, you'll also learn what does and doesn't do it for you. The other thing is to taste, taste, taste. Most wine stores offer tastings.

Happy Birthday Billy! :prettyprincess:

FIFY

For Xmas, Stacy and I are buying ourselves a Samsung LN-40A650 LCD TV. I wouldn't consider buying before "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving. Prices are predicted to start dropping quite a bit then. I'm one of those people that prefer LCDs to Plasmas. We have an older Sharp in our living room. After looking around, I think that Samsung has passed Sharp by in LCD TVs. I suggest checking out the appropriate Samsung model before buying. When it comes to price, you can save a bundle ($400-500 or more) by buying online. The local Circuit City is one of those that are closing. I checked out their close out prices. They are still considerably more than the online cost. It's no wonder that many of the TV retail outlets are closing their doors. They just can't compete pricewise. If you are nervous about it needing service, you can buy an extended warranty that includes shipping and still save money.

Hi Luis. Glad to hear that you were lucky too. Stacy, myself, our roomer and all 7 "children" are back at home and very happy about it. The fire never came close to us. Thank goodness the winds died down after the first night here.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" - Samuel Johnson Actually, I never could figure out if it was religion or patriotism. It's a neck and neck race.

Glad you were able to rescue your dog and HP2s Luis. When we left, I didn't try to save things, just our 7 pets. I hope that things go well for you and that your stuff is all OK. Please don't hesitate to let me know if I can do anything to help. I should have looked at a map online instead of reading descriptions of the evacuation zones here in SB. It turns out that we could have returned yesterday afternoon. Oh well, we've actually been having a good time, even if the animals haven't. We'll be moving back in after having breakfast here at our friends. I wonder how long it will take for the water heater to reheat everything? Thanks again to everyone for all your support. We and all of SB were very lucky that the wind calmed down and stayed down. I really hope that the winds south of us calm down quickly.

Hi everybody. Thanks for your good wishes. Stacy and I (and the animals) are on night 3 of our evacuation. I think that we will be allowed to return home tomorrow. Fortunately, our house has never been threatened by the fire. This is from a friend's computer. I'll report back in once we are home.

Had a quiet day until 6:30 pm. Then a friend called and told me about a big fire he could see from where he lived. Then we had to evacuate. Fortunately, we found a place for the 4 parrots and a different place for the 3 cats. Now we're at a hotel. Hopefully tomorrow the danger will be gone and our house will still be there.

I bought a 1/2 pint bottle of Jim Beam bourbon for the dual sport trip. It tasted excellent at the end of a cold day of riding and then camping.

Happy Birthday!

No problem Al. Just remind me as my memory has disappeared. BTW, wouldn't MOA be before CanJam?

There's one Scolari's in SB. Fortunately, it's the closest grocery store to my house. Guess what I'll be getting the next time I'm there.

My dad always told me "Don't have kids. And if you do have kids, don't have girls or boys, have elephants". My wife and I decided elephants would be a little unreasonable, so we have cats and birds instead. Back on subject, I went on my first dual sport motorcyle ride Sunday through Tuesday (yesterday). It was from Santa Barbara to the Lake Isabella area and back. Weather was supposed to be good, but we got into rain and freezing rain early in the ride at the 7K foot level. God was it cold. Fortunately it never rained/snowed hard at all so nobody got wet. After a couple of hours, we got to the dirt. I did well before throwing it down in some clay mud. No damage was done to me or the bike and we continued. The rest of the ride was on fairly easy dirt roads. In the high desert, we had to deal with extremely high, gusty crosswinds. I'd guess it would gust to at least 70 mph. For the first time in my life, I leaned a motorcycle left to turn right! We got to Kernville around 4 pm. It was getting dark and, because of the wind and cold, decided to motel it there rather than camp. That decision made me very happy. Monday dawned bright and clear. We could see that the snow level was fairly low the night before and I was even happier that we stayed in the motel. We ate a quick breakfast, packed up the bikes and headed out for the day's riding. They took me up higher and taught me how to crash in the snow. I did well at first, but the snow got deeper and after the first crash, things went downhill. I crashed/fell four times in the snow before we got back down to dry roads. Then, on the way to the campsite in Keyesville, I managed to crash again at about 25 mph. That really took it out on me. We set up camp and the other four guys did some more riding. I'd had enough for the day. Normally, I'm not big on camping but had a good time Monday night. It got pretty cold and I had to keep my head in the sleeping bag to keep warm. This was in addition to wearing long underwear, socks and a watch cap. There was lots of frost on the ground in the morning. That explains why I was cold. I was sore as hell and made it clear that I needed an easy day. We packed up, stopped for breakfast and went home. We mostly stuck to paved roads and the little dirt we did was very easy. Fortunately, there were no more incidents. Got home at 3 pm and just left everything on the bike. I was too tired to do anything. The tent didn't dry out before we left so I have to unpack it and dry it out today. I'm a very experience street rider, but a beginning dirt rider so I expected a good challenge for this ride. Boy did I underestimate it. I did have a good time and will continue to dual sport, but not until my muscles and jammed thumbs heal. The Suzuki DRZ-400 is a really good dual sport bike and it took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. Through all my crashes/falls nothing got broken. Here are some clickable pictures taken by one of the other riders.

I'll bet you do. You're just too polite to say them.

These will be TWAs. Texas Winter Amps.