New Tires for Bruiser

It took me about 30 minutes to change both tires. 

(I've done this before)

The handy dandy tire tool for prying the tire on and off the rim

Once you get the old tire off the bike, the next step is to remove the tube. I opted to keep the tubes I had, rather than replace them. They aren't real old, never been patched, and I keep new tubes on the bike at all times. If it fails, then I just replace the tube. 

(Again, may take just a few minutes, you know, done it before)

Insertion of the tube in the new tire

You see, the tires on this old mountain bike were the original tires that came with the bike. And I can't even tell you how old the bike is, for sure. But, I'm thinking it's about 20 years old, early 90's era. It was time to replace the tires. 

New tires are a Specialized Crossroads (puncture resistant, too)

These new tires have a less aggressive tread pattern. A little better for road and light trail riding because there is less "rolling resistance". 

(Love that term)

The other advantage for road riding is that these tires are capable of higher psi's, up to 80 psi. I had been running 40-45 psi, even a little less if I was on a trail. I can still dial down the psi for a trail, but the higher psi will be an advantage for the road. Again, less "rolling resistance".

Side by side, old and new

It was almost dark when I finished up, so I just did a quick spin down the street and back to check out the ride. Felt good!  Will do a longer ride this next weekend, and hopefully some longer rides next week. Tax season is almost over and I'm hoping to do some riding (motorized and non-motorized) next week after the 15th of April.
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Ride On and carpe diem, my good friends!
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Something a Little Different

Don't think I'd want one,

but sure is unique and interesting.


http://www.motorcycledaily.com/2013/03/my-next-motorcycle-is-a-toyota-with-video/

Ride On and Carpe Diem, my friends

Something I Have Been Eyeing, (Just For Fun)

I think this is a pretty cool looking bike.

750cc is a nice size, Don'tcha Think?

The 2013 V7 Stone

Courtesy of the Moto Guzzi Website

Drool, Drool?

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Ride On and Carpe Diem, my friends

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Man and Machine

I wasn't kidding about being a Cyborg. Here's the definition:

A human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.

In my case the device is an Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD). Big words for a tiny device that is amazingly sophisticated. It consists of a pulse generator, a battery, a programmable computer chip, a wi-fi transmitter and connections for electrical leads (wires) that go into two of the chambers of my heart.

It's not a new idea. They've been doing this for over 20 years. In fact, medical science has become very adept at putting artificial devices in a human body.

My device constantly monitors the activity of my heart. It will attempt to pace my heart (cardioversion) if the heart rate either gets too fast or too slow. But the primary purpose is to protect me in case my heart tries to beat too fast (fibrillation). If that happens, the pulse generator will create a jolt of electricity to my heart similar to using defibrillator paddles. That jolt essentially interrupts the fibrillation of the heart muscle and allows the electrical system of the heart to essentially "reboot" and try to start beating again in a normal fashion. They work and they save lives. 

Now the word "cyborg" can conjure up many images of altered beings whose only apparent limitations are limited to the imagination of science fiction authors. But in reality, it is much simpler than that. 

I consider myself to be a primitive sort of cyborg. I say primitive because it is only a matter of time before major advances are made and people may be eventually walking around with all sorts of mechanical and/or electrical "enhancements".

I'm not complaining because the device may save my life someday. For me, the device's purpose is to protect me. It is meant to "restore" the functions of my body. 

Other devices might be  considered "enhancements" and are meant to improve the functions of a human being. There will be controversy here. For instance, there is a sprinter going to the Olympic Games this year with artificial legs. Does he have advantages? Could there be other athletes someday with enhancements that we don't even know about? Unseen? Did Lance Armstrong have cybernetic enhancements to help him win the Tour de France?

Seem far fetched? It's not! The day is coming. And it may not be that far off!

What about this? We've mentioned humans with mechanical or electrical enhancements. What about a mechanical device with human implants or enhancements?

Can they make a scooter to be more human? Do we want them to?

I am "Wi-Fi", Therefore I am.

Ride On and Carpe Diem my friends!

Storm Troopers and Tuesday Thoughts While Riding

I was listening to the television before I left for work today and they said that gas prices dropped overnight to roughly $3.45 per gallon. I thought, "Good for me", Max needs gas. Well, wouldn't you know, the price dropped everywhere in town, except where I got gas this morning. But the good news is that I only took 1.6 gallons, so I don't think I was overcharged too much. I was thinking that Max (the scooter) gets about 3 times the gas mileage that Monty (the Subaru) gets, and the Subaru is pretty good at 25mpg. Both beat the hell out of a lot of the soccer-mom Suburbans and other monster SUV's that everyone seems to own around here. Our family must be crazy to not want to spend more $ on just plain old gasoline. We have a neighbor with a big F-250 pickup that starts it up each morning and lets it warm up for 5 minutes before he even gets into it and drives off.

It is getting to be that time of year when the outside temperature is nice and cool in the morning, but warm (in the 80's) in the afternoon. It can be a bit of a dilemma as far as gear. My jean jacket can get hot, but I like wearing it more than my mesh jacket. The day will come this summer when the jean jacket will be put away until fall arrives, but not yet. I love riding when the temperature is in the 50's. It can be brisk when the wind chill effect hits you as you ride, but not so cold to be a bother.

I took a different route downtown today, East Douglas Avenue. I wrote about that street last summer while I was relegated to riding a bicycle. Its an interesting route, not too heavily traveled, and with a few interesting things to look at on the way. There are 2 school zones at 20 mph on the way. In a couple of weeks school will be out and the speed zone lights will not be flashing. I always reduce speed in these school zones, many other drivers only half-heartedly observe the rules. A Ford Mustang sort of blasted by me this morning in one of the zones. Alas, maybe he had a pill to take.

Sometimes its surprising what kinds of thoughts enter your head when you are riding. There is a particular topic that I have always wanted to write a blog post about, but have never gotten around to. It would take a little tech expertise to accomplish because it might involve a video taken while riding, or at least the assistance of another person. I thought about how to do this post while I rode this morning. Maybe someday I'll pull it off.

Sometimes I think about work while I ride, but am always a little afraid that my mind will not be attentive enough to the hazards of the road, i.e. other damn drivers on cell phones. On a morning like today, I am traveling west and I know that east travelers have to battle the low sun in the sky. I'll see someone approach the street from a side street and have to look into the sun as they decide on a spot to enter traffic. I hope to hell they aren't talking or texting on a phone at the same time.

As I rode I thought about the absolutely fantastic Mother's Day we had last Sunday. The kids fixed us lunch and afterwards we went to a local public garden know as the Botanica. The flowers were amazing and I got a few good pictures. Our son in law wasn't able to be with us (he was doing something for his mother), so it was just the 4 of us, sort of back together again, like old times. And we did really miss the son in law, but it had been a long time since it was just the 4 of us, and we had a great time.

Also,  as I rode this morning, for a few moments, I watched my shadow on the road in front of me.  The sun was behind me and my shadow was long enough to get a really good outline of Max and me on the pavement. I even practiced a few "waves" to see what they might look like to an approaching motorcyclist, and chuckled to myself as I was doing this. What a silly thing to do.

Watching my shadow, with the gear and helmet on, its easy to imagine that I look a little like a Storm Trooper from the old Star Wars movies or a football player riding a motorcycle. Kind of beefy in the shoulders, you know. So I though I would end up this post with this picture stolen from George Takei's (Sulu, on Star Trek) Facebook page. I don't think he will mind because I imagine he stole it from someplace else, from someone who stole it from someplace else, who stole............................... etc.

East Douglas on a Sunday Morning

My next older sister had called me on Saturday to check up on me and chewed my butt pretty good for not posting anything on the blog for a whole month.  I apologized to her and said there were two reasons:

1) I can't drive a car or ride my scooter right now and it's a bit tough to come up with motorcycle content for the blog. Yeah, a bicycle ride is fine, but I bet some readers are bored with that.

2) It has been hotter than Hades here. Yesterday was our 48th day this summer where our high temp reached 100 degrees. The record number of days is 50 from 1936 (Dust Bowl Days). August isn't over yet and it is predicted that we will break the record. Our normal for a summer is more like 11 days, so there you have it.

But my sister did get me thinking, so on Sunday morning I took off at 7:30 am on Bruiser, my mountain bike for a ride downtown to check out the car and motorcycle show that had been going on all weekend.

I arrived downtown at about 8:00. The show was scheduled for 8:00 to 4:00 for Sunday, but it was obvious that a lot of people and cars hadn't made it back downtown when I first arrived. Not a lot of cars or motorcycles yet to look at. I did find a display trailer for a Kawaski dealer from Hesston, KS, about 40 miles from here. This red Kawasaki is way too big for me.

But they also had a Kymco Agility Scooter.  (Too small for me)

Then there was this screaming green Kawasaki sport bike. Pretty nice , but not much in my taste either.

The next trailer over was for another dealer here in Wichita. They sell lots of bikes, everything from Honda, Suzuki, even BMW's on occasion. I talked with the sleepy looking guy manning the trailer a bit. As I took a couple of pictures, he asked me if I rode. I said yes and said that I had a scooter, but sometimes wondered about stepping up to something a little bigger, I mentioned a V-Strom, a Bonneville, even a Honda Silverwing scooter.

He said they had a Silverwing in stock, a 2010 model and he liked the V-Strom. Here's a Honda Shadow they had on display.

The local Harley dealer had a big display last year, but didn't see them this year. They still might have been around and I just didn't see them. Harleys are very popular here.

But just in case you run out of cash while you are at the show, here's a portable ATM for your convenience.

I rode back around the convention center and checked out a few cars. Here's a nice roadster.

And I really liked this pickup truck. A '34 Ford if I remember correctly.

 Then this Mini Cooper caught my eye.

And then this Mini Mini Cooper caught me eye as well, (check out the valve cover).

I eventually decided to ride back home in a leisurely fashion down East Douglas Street

I arrived at the train station onthe east end of the downtown area. Wichita has not had passenger train service since I have lived here. But we do have a marvelous old train station that over the years has been owned by a couple of corporate entities, most recently I believe by the local cable television provider.

I notice as I ride by that it is for sale again. Kind of a shame, if you ask me.

Then about another mile to the east of there, is the former world headquarters of  Big Dog Motorcycles. They produced very expensive motorcycles from the 90's to the early 00's at the rate of maybe 2,500 per year. That was until the economic downturn of 2008, where the company essentially tanked itself as people gave up their luxuries. Apparently not many people needed $30,000 motorcycles no matter how beautiful they were.

The building housed  a former Chevy dealership. They declared bankruptcy last year and formed a new company (BDM) to take care of parts and supplies for the Big Dog motorcycles still out on the road.

There is not much in the building right now except for a few bikes. I became somewhat interested in the reflections that resulted in some of these pictures. I was standing in the middle of the street when I took this shot. I am eerily visible if you enlarge the photo.

Most of the people that worked here have of course lost their jobs. Ironically, supposedly they sold lots of bikes to construction workers in the Las Vegas area during the real estate boom in Vegas. Well, Vegas now has one of the most depressed housing markets in the nation and it apparently spilled out into the motorcycle world as well.

Of course, this place is now for sale as well. Kind of a shame. They made beautiful bikes. Not really my taste, but beautiful bikes nonetheless.

Here's Bruiser up next to a chopper frame inside the building.

Down the road about a half mile further east is East High School. Built, I believe, in the 1920's and it only became known as East High after other high schools were eventually built. There is construction going on here at the school for a new auditorium. At the same time there is discussion about building 2 new high schools. But a potential problem with the new schools is that even though there is money available to build the buildings, there may not be enough money for the teachers. The state is bleeding money these days and education seems to be an area that is taking a hit.

It's a beautiful old school. Both my kids graduated from here. My son now teaches and coaches here.

About another mile east is a rather unique building with interesting tile work. There used to be an old guy that ran a hardware store here. It was one of those places that you could find something when nobody else seemed to have it. It was dirty, messy and grimy, but I loved the store. Even though it was sort of a mess, the old guy that ran it knew exactly where everything was.

Then another half mile east or so is the Hillcrest Apartments. It is mostly condominiums by now I believe. Condos are not real common here. There are lots of apartment complexes, but then there are also lots of single family homes. These condos are quite nice and somewhat expensive. As soon as one goes up for sale here, it gets snatched up pretty quickly.

A little further east again and there is a rather stately home. I don't know the history to this, but it's quite a place. This home sits just a little north of College Hill Park, possibly the nicest park in town.

And here's a view of another older home in the College Hill area. This home is on the National Register of Historic Places. As old goes, some would not consider it very old. Wichita wasn't even founded until 1871, but this home is just about that date, perhaps just a bit younger. This home sits atop a little hill in the park area. Bruiser is good at standing without a side or center stand. (No tachometer either)

Another view of the park. The park is surrounded by nice homes. There is a pool and it is a great place for kids to play and grow up. Following in the footsteps of Jim Ryun, who grew up in Wichita and went to Wichita East High School, the cross country team for Wichita East frequently runs and practices here in this park.

And finally at Douglas and Oliver sits what is essentially the first shopping center ever built in this city. It has been a fairly vibrant shopping center since its inception in the 1950's. Not huge by today's standards, but in its day......



There are residential neighbrohoods for the next mile east or so, but then you encounter the city of Eastborough, which was once a sort of suburb, and is now compleyely surrounded by Wichita, having steadfastly resisted the urge to be annexed into the city. But that is a whole other post by ityself. I'll get back to that someday.

____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____

Just a final word about my health. I'm doing fine. I am walking about 2 miles a day and bicycling on the weekends. I'd probably do more exercising except for the unbelievable heat we have seen lately. I will not be able to drive or ride until at least February 2012, but I am in a way sort of enjoying the change in lifestyle.

The little gadget in my chest, designed to keep me alive should my heart screw up again, is amazingly sophisticated. I keep finding more and more about it as we go. For instance, not only is it a defibrillator, designed to be capable of completely restarting my heart should there be a need, but it is also a pacemaker too. It constantly analyzes the behavior of my heart. If my heart rate drops below 60 beats per minute, it will act as a pacemaker and get me back to a 60 bpm rate. If my heart rate goes to 170 beats per minute, it first studies my heart rate to see if my beats are steady and even. If so, then it assumes I may be exercising, and not give me the big shock, yet keep an eye on me. If my faster heart rate is uneven, then it may first try and pace me out of it using the pacemaker function of the device. If that doesn't work, then I may get a big shock from the device to hopefully restart my heart.

The device has a wireless transmitter and sends, once a week, some diagnostics to the manufacturer through a phone line connection in my bedroom. My cardiologist then can obtain this information for my chart. It is designed to report any unusual rhythms my heart has had and any attempts made by the device to correct those aberrant rhythms. Pretty fu*$in' amazing if you ask me.

To date the device has detected no unusual rhythms since the time it was implanted back in February. That's a very good thing.

The device is commonly called an ICD (Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator)

To me it might mean I Can't Die!

Blogger Stats

After about a year and a half of blogging, I admit that I had hardly ever looked at the Google Stats in the blogger program. I was amazed. First surprise: One of my posts last year around Thanksgiving, regarding Native American Spirituality, is the most viewed, by far, of the more than 100 posts I have done. And that post is not even about scootering, the primary theme of my blog. Second surprise: Where the viewers are coming from. The USA and Canada does not surprise me. The United Kingdom is a distant third, but many of the other countries surprised me. Oh, it's just a few from other countries, but was interesting. Russia? ..... Really? South Korea? VietNam? A few european countries were represented. Spain, The Netherlands, Germany. I found the statistics on page hits to be very interesting. I guess that I always assumed that the number of comments received was a good indicator of how much my blog was read. And I guess I always knew that some people read it, but didn't leave comments. I faithfully read a lot of blogs, but do not always leave comments. But now I realize, even more so, that number of comments is not really very indicative of readership. I love comments on my blog. Sometimes they are just as much fun as the post itself. And I like to pester people by commenting on their blogs. But sometimes it just becomes a matter of available time, not enough of it. Then another question is raised. How many if those page hits are my own? I frequently look at my own blog to check for comments. Some days I will do this many times, other days not at all. I guess I could click on my blog more often and artificially increase my own hits, but what's the point of that. Back to that Native American Spirituality post, though. I suspect that a reference or link in Google Images might have something to do with the number of hits to my blog. I had 'borrowed' a few images from there to use in the post. I am guessing that somewhere in Google Images that there may be a link to my blog. I really have no idea how this might work, and don't really care, but to me it is the only possible reason why that post has had so many hits. It certainly can't be from motorcycle or scooter enthusiasts. The number of hits is more than 4 times the number on the next highest post. Go figure. What this all means? I haven't a clue! I had a very excellent Statistics professor in college that said on the first day of class, "You can make statistics say anything you want them to if you just play around with the numbers long enough." I have never forgotten what he said and I think about that statement a lot, particularly when looking at television or other advertisements. Sometimes numbers can be very misleading. So maybe the Blogger Stats aren't that important. There may be certain interesting results, but in the long run I don't think it will change whatever modus operandi I have for the blog. I just enjoy blogging.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

I seem to get called up to report for jury duty every few years or so, but have never had to actually serve on a jury. Until this year. Now I am not at all opposed to performing a civic duty, but I suppose, like a lot of people, I'd rather not do it just because of the hassle and the time spent. Then again, I sort of wanted to serve on a jury just so I could say I had done it. On a Monday morning I reported to the jury assembly area along with about 200 other good citizens. Must be a busy week at the Sedgwick County courthouse. In past years I would report and maybe go through the process of jury selection, but not be selected. One time, I was excused because I was personally acquainted with the defendant. And no, he wasn't the kind of person I normally hang out with.

The first group of jurors was called and I was in a group of 45 people or so. We went to one of the courtrooms and began the process of jury selection. At this point I was feeling good about it because the numbers game of picking 12 jurors out of 45 people made the odds of yours truly not getting selected look pretty good. I wondered why this was such a large group, though. I remembered that the group of potential jurors was only about 25 the last time I did this. I would soon find out why.

We were quickly informed that the case involved the sexual assault of a 12 year old girl. The alleged incident was not a rape, but also not a pleasant subject. The attorneys asked many questions of the potential jurors such as "have you personally, or do you know anybody that has ever been involved in any kind of sexual assault?" I was a bit surprised that a significant number of people answered yes.

After spending almost all day on Monday enduring the jury selection process, I found out just before 5:00 pm that I was to be juror #4. Wow! Lucky Me!

The trial started the next morning. I'll not describe all of the circumstances but there was some very unusual details and confusing testimony for us jurors to consider. For one thing, the purported offense had occurred 4 years ago. Huh? Why that length of time? Secondly, the testimony of the various witnesses for the prosecution was somewhat inconsistent. Both the prosecution and the defense had DNA experts testifying on their behalf. We had to listen as each expert witness tried to substantiate their own separate test results. Of course, the purpose of the defendant's expert DNA witness was to raise some doubt as to the guilt of the defendant.

We, as jurors, had been cautioned numerous times that we were to assume the innocence of the defendant until the attorneys had rested their cases. We were not to speak about the case with each other, nor with anyone else for that matter. If we were to convict the defendant, we had to be sure that there was "no reasonable doubt" as to the guilt of the defendant.

The prosecutors called a number of witnesses. The defendant did not take the stand in his own defense and the defendant's only witness was their DNA expert. Again, we all were wondering why. ???

The jury finally went for deliberation at mid Thursday morning. We talked for a bit with each other, but quickly decided to take a quick vote, just to see where we stood. The initial vote was 11 to 1 in favor of conviction. After that, I suppose that a lot of us, like me, had thoughts about the old movie starring Henry Fonda, "12 Angry Men". I wondered if the deliberation would take a long time. I actually was a bit surprised at the results of the initial vote given the inconsistencies in the testimony and somewhat confusing nature of the DNA evidence. I thought the initial vote would be different.

The initial vote was by ballot and we didn't initially know which one if us had voted for acquittal, but that person (not me), quickly identified himself to the rest of us. And many of his concerns were valid in my opinion. I think we all had questions. None of us were absolutely sure what had exactly happened that night.

But in the minds of most of us, one fact was irrefutable. A fluid substance belonging to the defendant was found in a place where it shouldn't have been. The DNA evidence provided by the prosecution indicated that. In addition, the defendants own DNA expert confirmed the same result, but offered up some additional test result possibilities and a somewhat critical review of the prosecution's DNA testing procedures. That was the primary source of the defendant's argument for potential reasonable doubt.

We went around the table, each of us with an opportunity to express our thoughts and opinions. We discussed our many questions and misgivings about the case, but eventually we started to focus on the evidence that we felt was particularly important. In about an hour, the person that had originally voted for acquittal changed his mind and we became unanimous in our decision. It was just before noon. The bailiff said they were going to order in pizza for us for lunch. We decided not to tell the bailiff that we had reached a decision until after we had a chance for pizza. We were all sort of anxious to "get out of there" but we also knew that the court would not resume until after lunch anyway. Judges and attorneys always seem to be very conscious about proper lunch and break times.

The court reconvened not long after we told the bailiff that we had reached a decision. The final process went quickly and we were released from duty shortly thereafter.

After we had retired back to the jury room, the judge and both attorneys joined us and we had an opportunity to exchange questions back and forth with them. This was extremely valuable for us because we had a chance to get some of our little questions answered. For instance, we found out that the case was actually a re-trial. The defendant had already been convicted once and was granted a new trial based upon the newer DNA evidence. He had other possible counts against him, but this case was the one where the prosecution thought they had the best chance for conviction. A lot of this information was withheld from us for the reason that it might be prejudicial.

He was a bad dude! We went away very sure we had done the right thing. Because of a relatively recent new sentencing law, he will be in prison for a very long time, a minimum of 25 years. I guess I feel a bit sorry about that, but just a bit.

I learned a lot about the legal processes involved. Would I want to do it again? Well, probably not. Mainly just because it interrupted my life for 4 days and was a somewhat mentally draining and emotional process.

Ten men and two women came together to weigh the evidence. We went away knowing we had fulfilled our civic duty in a responsible manner. You could argue that the procedures are not very efficient, but we all should feel lucky that we live in a country where this kind of process is followed. In other countries, the process might not be as careful.

The First Air Force One

The monthly ride for the local scooter club, "The Wichita Twisters" happened on August 1. It was hotter than Hades. We had 13 or 14 people show up on various types of scooters from 50cc to 650cc. A few new people showed up as well. Pretty good turn out for such a hot day.

The ride this month was aircraft related. Wichita is famous for the manufacture of aircraft. Boeing, Cessna, Beech and LearJet all have plants here. McConnell Air Force Base sits near the southeast part of town where the old airport used to be. A newer airport now sits near the southwest part of town. Boeing has a large facility on the opposite side of the runway at the air force base. They do a lot of defense related work as well as commercial aircraft work. The Beech plant is on the east side of town with its own runways. Cessna and LearJet are near the newer airport.

I wasn't even aware of the history of "Air Force One". Near the downtown area, there is a display of the first plane designated as "Air Force One". The plane was manufactured in 1937 by Beech Aircraft Corporation and is now on display. I didn't even know this plane was on display here and was glad to learn where it was as we rode.

The sign is hard to read, by picture or otherwise, but describes the history of this plane.

They erected a monstrous fence in front of the display that made a good picture somewhat difficult. I guess they don't want any vandalism. For the day, these were pretty advanced planes and the Beech twin engine planes are famous for speed.

The Beechcraft "Air Force One" , the first one.

Nowadays, Air Force One is a Boeing 747, of course highly modified. We see the plane occasionally in the skies above Wichita because the plane comes here for maintenance and updates. Before that, Air Force One was a Boeing 707.

A shot through the fence of the radial engine

From there on, we rode to the east side of town toward the Boeing facility and the air force base. The old airport building has now been converted into an aircraft museum. Our next stop was to visit this museum and see some of the planes on display there. On the tarmac there is a Boeing B-52, and old Boeing 727 (Fed Ex plane), a LearJet, a Beech Starship, an older Boeing 707 converted to a refueling tanker, and various other planes. Many are very impressive.

Inside the building are many displays of even older aircraft and engines. It is quite interesting. Many early airplane pioneers set up shop in Wichita, and Wichita's growth as a city was largely dependent on this industry.

A Boeing 707 tanker with a bunch of scooters in front

The airplane industry took a major hit when the economy collapsed in 2008. There were thousands of people laid off. It seems to be recovering a bit, but slowly and the unions argue that much work has bent sent overseas to benefit from cheaper labor. After WW II, through the early 70's though, the industry was booming. Cessna, Beech and Learjet now produce luxury jet aircraft while still maintaining a business for propellor driven planes.

More scooters in front of an old Boeing 727 once used by Fed Ex.

The Boeing plant here is huge and does a lot of defense related work. It is convenient for them to have the air force base on the opposite side of the runway. We occasionally see all types of aircraft in the skies here. It is not unusual to see AWACS planes and other significantly modified aircraft.

Boeing also produces the front portion of the new "Dreamliner" which is then shipped by rail to Everett Washington for assembly.

Another "lineup" of scooters.

At the end of our ride we rode out to the new airport and ended up at this steakhouse for iced tea and soft drinks. It was a hot ride, but a fun one.

The destination for cooling off and getting liquid sustenance.

Office Technology

"You have attempted to perform an illegal function. "

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"This program must now be terminated. "

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"Sorry as hell if you didn't save your work. "

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(And then, just to pour acid on the wound)

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"Press any key to continue." .

I have a couple of ancient laptops on display at the office.

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One is a Compaq, more accurately a portable than a laptop. Mid to late 80's vintage. Not originally mine. Was probably about $4,000 new? 5 1/4" floppy drive (remember those?).

The other is an Epson. Early 90's vintage. Was originally mine. About $2,500 new. 20mb hard drive, 3 1/2" disc drive (low density). Weighs a ton, but we used the crap out of it. It still runs.

I just bought a new Lenovo laptop recently, it runs circles around those now ancient laptops. Was only about $800.

Our first network, if you could call it a network, consisted of connecting 2 computers by serial port cables and using a program called LapLink to copy files. We thought we were in Hog Heaven at the time.

Then there are cell phones. I resisted getting one for a long time. I was the last one in the family to get one. First one was a pretty basic Samsung, then a Blackberry Pearl, now a Blackberry Tour. The computer chip in my phone is way more advanced than the ancient laptops pictured here.

I started my own accounting practice in 1988. At that time we did about 125 tax returns each year. We now do about 400 per year. There is no way we could do near that many without the use of computers. We have electronically filed returns since the early 90's. Kills less trees that way.

Well, maybe.

Back in those days a 20 page tax return was rare. Nowadays a return like that is almost pure joy. I have done some that had over 400 pages to them because it seems that every deduction, credit or item of income now has to have some sort of a peculiar form or worksheet of its own.

I have always been interested in computers. So much so that I even considered majoring in that field when I was in college (1970's). Took a couple of Fortran courses in college and really enjoyed them.

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Then I took a course in Boolean Algebra (the algebra of switching circuits).

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That course singlehandedly ended my interest in making Computer Science my life passion. The guy that taught the course looked and smelled like he hadn't had a shower in a week or so. But he wasn't the real problem, the subject matter was so dry as to make Arizona look like a rain forest. There weren't any cute women in the class either.

. After that I decided to leave most of the bits and bytes to other people. I just want it to work and not give me messages like the one appearing at the top of this post.

. How about those operating systems over the years? .

DOS 5.0 DOS 6.2 Windows 3.0 Windows 3.3 Windows 95 Windows 2000 Windows XP Windows 7 (We skipped Windows 98 and Vista)

I used to think I had a pretty good knowledge of computer systems. Used to help out some of our clients a lot.

Then one day a college student intern that was working for us showed me what you could do by right clicking on the start button and other places. I was so pissed! Why hadn't I known that years before.....

Remember 1,200 baud modems? Compuserve?

Early AOL?

I am showing my age.

Used to think that my knowledge of computer systems was pretty near the forefront. We used to use an old database program called Paradox. Designed some pretty neat applications for ourselves and for some of our clients. Nowadays, you just buy specific software for some of the same functions.

I generally use WordPerfect for word processing and QuattroPro for spreadsheets. I'll use Microsoft Word and Excel only if I have to. I almost despise the Microsoft products. Granted, they all do the same stuff, my preference is mostly just because I am more familiar with using the others. We gravitated from using Wordperfect and Lotus123 in the old DOS days and at the time it seemed to be an easier progression.

Maybe I am just mad because I didn't buy Microsoft stock in the early 90's.

My blog is pretty simple (formatwise). Yeah, I know I can get in there and mess with the html settings, but for right now I don't have the patience or time for it. I do plan to dress it up a bit in the next few months. I am a little tired of the way it looks. I really need to take better pictures too, and that is a blogging goal as well. It's another after "tax season" project.

I am also planning on some riding and picture taking that weekend after the 15th of April. Stay tuned!

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