Art of an Elephants life

I don't want to get too carried away with the meaning of it all.... but this little display of amazing intelligence might be trying to tell us something.

We all know Elephants mourn their dead, and basically live in communities that seem to have the same social and ethical norms common to what most humans would want to be a part of. But this may say that elephants actually might be aware of something more than we give them credit for.

It's lengthy but watch it unfold...

Randy pausch: A Dying Professor's Last Lecture

Dying of pancreatic cancer, being told he has months to live, Randy put this little number together for his students at Carnegie Mellon University and has since been asked to tour this lecture around until he leaves us.

It was poignant for an optimist like myself who struggles with large brick walls which seem to stand in front of so much of what I want to achieve.

DaBaja Americas

This was posted at the official Dakar website:
"Based on the current international political tension and the murder
of four French tourists last 28th of December linked to a branch of
Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, but also and mainly the direct threats
launched directly against the race by terrorist organisations, no
other decision but the cancellation of the sporting event could be
taken by A.S.O."

So why can't we organize an American Race from Canada to Mexico? Just north of Spokane into BC is where it should start. It would head alongside towns in the US that could use some economic stimulus. Continuing down through Eastern Washington and Oregon into the Nevada desert and alongside Las Vegas and then end in a place like Puerto Penasco just the other side of the border. This keeps the race mostly in the US court which might deter some foreign involvement... but it will likely help cut down on the terrorist activity.

Shoot it is a bummer that the extreme muslims don't race cars, bikes, or anything. What do Extremist Muslims do for fun? I don't know but I hear they are kinda into internal combustion... in a way I guess.

Price increases in metals overseas, is China putting the fix on us?

It's as plain as day. If we piss off China just a little they can adjust a small little number in a completely unknown way and turn our country into a downward spiral of financial oblivion. Not only do we allow them to import the cute plastic dinosaurs and stuff that they design and make, but we somewhat rely on them to make most everything for half the businesses that are in the U.S. If you notice how the price of metals went up a years or so ago and shortly thereafter the economics, the debt ratios in all areas seem to really become a factor.

Did we sign some trade agreement about that time? Did we vocally align ourselves with Korea about that time? I am not sure as I write this, but let's say we did do something, maybe they are upset about our global police initiaves of late. A real easy, "untraceable", covert and effective retaliation would be to somehow put a duty on all metals imported into China when used for American export. There are a number of ways for a government to jump into the mix on these things. I am not making a conspiracy theory of any magnitude, I am just trying to decipher things by dreaming up a possible scenario. Man, if we piss them off royally I bet they could really put us in a pinch. I wonder if a good supply of CNC machines and textile mills could be considered a natural resource like, say... . . oil for instance... and the global economy should have an equal right to them because they are so plentiful. Sounds like grounds for police action.

I manage some video cards being purchased by our company and the price just went up about 6%... which is no big deal unless you sit in our position as a distributor and the margin is slim to begin with. We buy them from what was a Canadian company but got taken over about a year ago by a larger US corporation. About that time when I was still in the process of getting the first batch of emblems made I was told by my manufacturer in China that the price of metals was going up but that he would stick to the agreed upon price for my finished product out of aluminum. Trickling through the system a few months after I learned this from China, I was told by the video card vendor that in a few months from us speaking the price of the video cards would be going up due to higher manufacturing costs. A few other vendors mentioned the same things. In the last two months of that year most of those increases had caught up to my vendors and a handful of product lines have increased all the way to the end user.

Building a drift boat trailer from scratch here in the states requires a butt-pot of metal. We'll see how it plays out in the next month with the new "FDR" (Flatbed for Drifter and Raft?). Maybe I'll just call it a Franklin.

My buddy visits our Nation's Capitol

My ol' pal Yetep catalogues the freedom of the Upper-lip Eagle in our nation's capitol during Moustache March on his blog.

Sprague's Before and After Homage

A Boy and His Dog
My mom ran across some old scrap books and photo albums and I scanned in a few pics that would make a cool dichotomy of before and after... well cool to me at least.

Here is a picture of me and Dusty, my first dog, as I head off to parochial school for kindergarten. My teachers wore the Habit and I learned about the resurrected Jesus blessing the fisherman at breakfast time.

And here is a picture of Cora and I at Trout Creek Campground when I worked for the BLM in 1996 on the Deschutes. In contrast, this was a time in my life that I was fishing for my breakfast and picking up habits.

I rescued Cora that summer when I lived in a trailer on the river. She was old and crippled when I got her. The vet in Madras took very good care of both of us but said that she probably wouldn't be able to walk the river with me for very long. July 5th, 2007, she finally passed. Being well loved can definitely add years to a life.



Big Water and Bigger Dreams

Here we have My first Drift Boat. I bought it from the husband of the receptionist at the vet clinic in Madras that took care of spaying Cora, "the Neutered Male", that I got from the Bend Humane Society. I bought the boat for like 500 bucks with trailer. It is 18.5' wood with fiberglass overlay and it was a tank. It was gelcoated gray. I brought it back and sanded it all the way down and gave it a green and black gelcoat as well as all brass fasteners throughout. I sold it for 1300 with no trailer since it had bearings that were shot. I took it through boxcar on the D among others like Whitehorse and Buckskin Mary, of course. Brig and Jimmy and I rolled down the McKenzie once and Brig threw a fly into my eyeball. Good times. Hardly anyone takes their drifter through boxcar, by the way. This boat ruled.

Here we have the second boat built from a mold off of a 16.5 Slide-Rite mold I acquired during my first year of marriage. It weighs a bit over 225 pounds and is more impervious to puncture/fracture than anything on the market due to some very high-tech composite structuring. It uses two different stitch-mat glass material about as thick as a lightweight flannel shirt and resin that shows its first stress at 219 psi. Sandwiched between the stitch-mat is a honeycomb foam core on the sides otherwise the boat would flex under the stress of the oars in motion against the water. The hull does not have the foam so that it will flex as it rolls over rocks. I also added the most agressive reverse keels in the industry for better tracking and maneuverability (you can see part of it ending in the grey gel coat on the transition from the side to the bottom). In contrast The industry leader uses about 8 layers of woven roving and chopper gun material to make a boat that is strong but the material needs to be filled with so much (cheap) resin that the weight of the boat pushes 800 lbs or more. The reason they use so many layers is so that the 36 psi resin that is used doesn't show stress cracks so badly... but as a result the bottom won't flex as well either and you may as well have a dentable aluminum boat. No wonder most guys prefer aluminum, they fall in the 500 lb bracket. But dang if aluminum isn't either freezing cold or burning hot to the touch and loud as heck any time of the year. But back to the "before and after"...

The trailer is sporting a one-ton axle and the decking is synthetic lumber that allows the boat to slide effotlessly. Of course there is a roller bar on the back and winch located behind the rock-guard. The trailer is polished aluminum and the bead weld looks like jewelry. It is state of the art, now I just need to get it into the market. Red LEDs light up the rock-guard at night and early morning for extra cool factor (as if anything extra is needed in the cool department). Things have come along way since the mighty Green Ghetto Sled from my college days.

Bring That Funky Beat Back
These photos speak for themselves. Or maybe I am just afraid to comment. But feel free to add your own. Regan is listening to BRMC that much I do know.















1982 CB650 from leaky stocker to Screaming Rocker
When I picked this bike up it was having charging issues and some lighting difficulties, needed the carbs cleaned and front suspension redone. Not to mention just a thorough removal of 30 years of rusty parts, road-grime and a tank that wasn't leaking all over your left leg.

After two years of finding just the right parts (like a Stage 3 Jet kit, pod filters, dunstall reverse megaphone mufflers, new rear shocks, replacement fork seals, clubman drop bars, a GS550 Suzuki tank, a new tombstone tail light assembly, a new wiring harness, and a new battery) I removed the luggage rack and front fender, powder coated most parts, cleaned the electrical brushings, and finally gave it the winning paint job it needed.

The Evolution of Suzuki GSX-R

Here is a cool video morphing the last 20 years of evolution of the GSX-R 750
from Suzuki. Video is actually ok... Should move a bit slower and definitely needs better music.

My votes:
1988 SlingShot J Model
1989 Slingshot K Model
1998 - great rear cowl

Surprisingly though the 1992 model has the best actual lines on the fairing and plastics, but is shown in the absolute worst graphical throw back to the late 80's with neon pink accents... Shoot.

River of Industry

The eagle represents a great and powerful nation. It seems to be grounded from flight though. The freedom to create, invent, invest, produce and secure our families is the reason behind our wars. And our restful peaceful times when freedom really flourished seem too distant now. Take the 80's, for example, when Reaganomics ruled. We were so free that the only bad decisions made were somewhere in the dichotomy of fashion trends between Don Johnson and Depeche Mode.

Ahh, if those were our only troubles now.

The Presidency is not a job I would request- making a few of the coolest driftboats on earth at a premium dollar, and fishing with interesting people is a fine way to make a living I must say. But if I were the Commander in Chief I would assume that my State of the Union address would take place live from the campfire along a riverbank and the gist of it would be "Americans, thank you for working so hard. I will continue to make sure you have a nice place to do so." And then I would have to discuss a few of the potent topics like healthcare, crime, etc. and talk about some accomplishments and some things in the pipe. But for the most part it would be a speech commending the Americans making our nation great... the people like me who have spent time in their garage or office fixing, rebuilding and dreaming a better future for themselves.

Exploiting natural resources for monetary gain is always a difficult task to manage. I think it was for that reason that I have always had a problem being a fishing guide. The Natural Resource is my passion for the flyfishing, but as soon as I took money, I realized I was putting a price on that passion. So I figured out other means to make money and still get plenty of river-time in...