Claudia will be in our prayers up north here!! I may have to come up with another cake recipe in her honor Hmmmm. Cluadia cake, it has a nice ring to it!!! Then we can all make it and have a slice in her honor.

 

Prayers for Claudia here also. Cancer has touched my family as well so I know the pain.

We must not have partied to hard last night, cause no hangover this morning. Well maybe a sugar crash any way from the cake.

Hope all my evo buddies have a great weekend.

Mike

 

I love the "Claudia Cake" idea, John! We'll have to figure out what it should be... it will have to have some chocolate in it, and it should probably just be a single layer, because Claudia is all of 4'10"... I call her "Short Fat"!

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, guys. I read my note from last evening in the hard light of day just now, and saw that maybe it was just a wee bit on the sappy side... I had gotten into the Glenfiddich single malt after I got the bad news and had talked with Claudia about it. So I had a tiny little hangover this morning... but two extra-strength Tylenols and several cups of coffee have gotten rid of it!

Claudia survived breast cancer about 6-7 years ago, and she's a tough old bird (she just turned 65 on May 22) - but I'm not very hopeful that she'll pull through this time. She's a life long smoker, and she has emphysema and COPD as well... and she's now on oxygen, too... so draw your own conclusions about lifestyle and consequences. But once it gets into your lymph nodes, you're pretty much screwed.

The very first thing she asked me last evening when I called her was "have YOU stopped smoking yet?" Talk about being hit unexpectedly with a 2x4 upside the head by the pot calling the kettle black!

OK, enough of that depressing stuff... or maybe not. My wife Mary and I are flying to St. Louis tomorrow - so no riding for me for the next week or so (Boo Hiss! It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend here too, dammit!) Her loopy youngest daughter is getting married with all of two weeks' notice. We'll be there through Wednesday - the wedding is Tuesday morning. We're bringing her daughter's 8-year-old daughter back with us to spend a couple of weeks with us, and Mary will be in seventh heaven having her granddaughter with us for two weeks. They used to live with us until Dec 2008, so Mary really misses her granddaughter - not so much her daughter though...

Funny how young people today seem to get it backwards so often - having kids in their teens while not married, breaking up, struggling for years, meeting someone else later, and finally getting married...

Hope y'all get some riding time in this weekend... think about poor old NGH helping with wedding prep all weekend while you're out there enjoying the road, gents!

 

They typically sell for around 100 bucks on ebay. I saw one with a starting price of 10 bucks and it didn't get a bid! I hadn't decided to buy at that time. You should watch them for a while! No need to pay the sort of money you mention, unless you can get one that will suit Bertha without repainting it. Mine would suit Bertha, being a 2009 RG tank in solid black with blue stripes. I'll post pics in time and do a write up. I haven't decided on paint. The new tank looks so good I hesitate risking spoiling it by trying to fit it!

Raining here. Hope the sun shines on you while you are away. I went to the top of the Jefferson Memorial a few years ago - quite a novelty to look down that far under where you are standing!

 

thoughts and prayers with Claudia.
Lost 3 good friends to C in the 90s. All healthy lifestyle guys, athletes, in their 30s. Made me wonder about the whole lifestyle effect thing. But it is best to be moderate in things, food, drink etc (maybe not the smoking, but I'm not your judge)
Very sad.

Have some fun up there, Ken. Keep things upbeat. That's probably the best medicine you can give.
Oh, and a shot or 2 of Glenfiddich never hurts. (that's 1-2, buddy!)
Substitute Maclallen if necessary.

 

So the fact that all newer tanks are for EFI doesn't matter? How do you use an EFI tank on a carb bike? Don't they have fuel return fitting or other stuff on them? And will my standard petcock fit? Just curious, and under-informed...

Do you mean the Gateway Arch in St. Louis? I've been up in that, and it is indeed a stomach-turner. I didn't know it was called the Jefferson Memorial though.

It's warm and sunny, but depressing here... since I can't ride!

 

Thanks, Dale. It really does make you wonder about lifestyle... sorry to hear about your friends battles with "c". I know people in their 70s and 80s who've smoked for 50+ years and are fine, and others in their 40s (like the guy I used to work for at my company) who've never smoked but get lung cancer anyway. Of course, those are probably aberrations in the stats... and yeah I know smoking is really stupid and I'll probably quit someday. I only started 10 years ago at 43 (long, stupid story... believe it or not, I used to be an avid marathon runner 20 years and 30 pounds ago) - so something else will probably get me before the smoking does anyway!

Thanks for the support, Dale. I am just going to relax to enjoy the family stuff (as well as family stuff CAN be enjoyed!) for the next 5 days. I had 3 drinks last night... but that's very unusual for me, and I really needed to go to a "happy place". I usually never drink at all during the week - I'm more of a black coffee, no sugar, kind of guy...

Balvenie Doublewood (a 12 year old single malt aged in both whiskey and sherry casks) is my personal favorite Scotch. It's as good as any - definitely not cheap, but neither outrageously expensive - about $55 a fifth. But dammit, I'm out of that, too! Probably a good thing... maybe I should eat more !

 

I am in the process of looking into that! I am not confident that it will definitely work. I don't believe the stock tap will fit, but a Pingel tap and adapter will, to replace the EFI output pipe. More news as I tackle it.

Its title is rather longer than that, but yes, the arch.

Chin up, old chap! Have a great time away.

 

Thanks, Graham! I'll look forward to your fuel tank findings.

From googling, I found that the actual arch is indeed part of the Gateway Arch-Jefferson National Expansion Memorial national park there. I had no idea! I'm planning to visit it at some point next week, while my wife is busy with the wedding stuff and preparing the reception feast for Tuesday after the wedding. I'd just be in her way anyway...

 

Ken,

I'll probably start a fresh thread to cover my experiences. Hope the weather is better for you than when I went to the top of the arch, as it was very misty, so couldn't see very far, except the ground!