I had a great ride today with my son Rick and grandaughter Kelly.
Kelly rode with me on the wing. Her helmet is wired so I could talk to her the whole ride. At one point I had the radio on and she was singing "Piano Man" along with the music. I nearly cracked up because I guess she never thought about me hearing it.
We left from home about 1:00 headed toward Fairfield where we picked up East River Rd to Buffalo Ridge Rd. Then we dropped down Bridgetown Rd to SR-50 west to Lawrenceburg Rd and on to Dearborn Rd to SR-52 into Brookville, Indiana where we made a fuel stop.
Somewhere on 52 I felt a little bump on my back and realized it was Kelly who had fallen to sleep for about 5 minutes.
We left Brookville headed toward home after a nice ride. We did a total of 105 miles today with a good 3 hours in the saddle.
It was fun to get out for a ride with Kelly and Rick today. Sorry I have no pictures to post but we only stopped for fuel.
I can't wait to ride again soon.

Here it is a new year and a new decade. This morning it was 14 degrees when I woke up and definatly NOT riding weather. I did see six guys out on bikes yesterday and no doubt doing their New Years Day ride. They pulled into a bar and probably just came from another bar so that pretty much says what they were riding. I thought about going out yesterday for a spin just to say I did but with a high of 21 and rain the day before I did the smart thing and decided not to be stupid and play with the icey spots on the road.
I have a double bacth of my mom's spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove and the house smells wonderful. Tomorrow half of it will go into a big pan of lasagna since all the kids are coming over and the rest will be frozen in quart size bags for another time.
I'm anxiously awaiting SPRING for some enjoyable riding weather but if I see a good 40 + degree day with no salt on the roads I think a ride will be in order.
For now the wing sits and waits begging to be ridden.
This winter I want to add an auxillary socket in the trunk to charge cell phones while on the road.
Please warm up soon!

WOW! I have been slacking on this. There have been so many rides and events and I haven't posted a single one.
It took awhile for me to get my right arm up to strength to ride a long distance but I think it's there now.
We spent a nice week in Florida with my Dad and Marlene. We took the bike with us and rode close to 900 miles in the Sunshine State.
The Tanked 09 ride was a fun weekend too. We had a nice time and went on north toward Cleveland to Hudson, Ohio where we discovered Main Street Cupcakes. We're now fans and have found out that they will be selling them here in Cincinnati at the Nordstroms. YAY!
Anyway so many rodes, miles, and smiles so far this summer that I can't remember them all.

I decided to get the bike ready for the spring riding season. I had a slight wobble in the front end at low speeds which appears to be the steering head bearings.
Honda puts flat bearings in the GL-1800 and they wear causing a wobble to start between 12,000 and 20, 000 miles. Mine has 17,000 + on it.
I dropped it off for a bearing change at Fairfield Honda last week and they are going to put tapered bearings in and we should never have a problem again.
They're changing out the air filter and prepping the bike for spring so i'm looking forward to getting it back and warmer weather.
We have some good rides planned for this summer such as a possible trip to Florida to see my dad, Kansas, the Outer banks of North Carolina, Deals Gap, and a lot of day rides to parts unknown.
Come on SPRING!

January 3, 2009

After missing all of the fall color rides due to my becep repair surgery and really wanting to ride that bike sitting undercover in the garage I decided that the time had come.

The arm has gained a lot of strength and seems to be doing fine. It is 45 degrees out and the sun is shining.

I put on my leather chaps, inserted the liner into my Goldwing jacket and off I went.

It was a short boring ride just around town but the Yee Ha's and Whoo Hoo's were definatly coming from my mouth. It felt great to be back on two wheel after four long months of not going for a ride.
I was only out for an hour and a half but I found this worthy of a post.

As for the arm it felt great with no pains or problems handeling the bike.

December 13th, 2008

I hope everyone had a Merry CHRISTmas!

The folks on my favorite motorcycle forum, http://www.rideohio.org/ decided to do a round up for toys for tots. This whole idea came from my friend Tim aka "TDog" and what a wonderful idea it was. Thanks Tim for thinking of this and the children.
Over the period of a month toys were sent to Tim, Bill aka Warlock, and myself, Redtrk.
On December 13th Bill came over from Columbus and I met him in Vandalia where we merged our toys into my truck and drove them to Wauson, Ohio to meet up with Tim and also Jeff aka CUZ.
Were were also joined by Tim and Jeff's better halves.
From Tim's shop we left in three vehicles and went over to the Marine recruiting station to meet up with the Sargent and delivered our toys.
Many pictures were taken that day and i'm sure we put smiles on a lot of children's faces as well.
We then delivered ourselves to a local Mexican restaurant for lunch and some conversation. after lunch we said our goodbyes and headed for home. This may seem like a short and maybe boring entry to this log but it had a meaningful delivery to some children with smiles attached so I found it worthy. The only thing that might have made this better is if it had been a bike trip to deliver toys.

Merry CHISTmas to everyone and may you New Year be a safe, healthy, and enjoyable one.

Well it looks as if the September 1st ride was my last one for awhile. The following weekend we took the grandkids up to visit with us the inlaws. Then I had some work training with two of my men in Richmond, Virginia. The following week brought the end of my riding for the year.
On September 19th I was sitting in me office working on the typical Friday and took a phone call from a customer. The call was to remove some storm damaged metal roofing from a building near the Monroe High School football stadium. Until the hanging metal was removed the schol could not have it's football game due to the possibility of it falling on someone.
I called some of my guys but they were all really busy so I decided to take the call myself and just go do it. I did!
I cut the metal from top to bottom and went to push it off the side to the ground. As I pushed I noticed that the metal was hung up on an abandoned phone wire. The school maintenence guy said to go ahead and let it break because it didn't work and needed to come down anyway.
I pushed aforward on the metal and as I did I felt a snap n my right arm. It was extremely painful and also had a lot of constant burning. I knew I had hurt or tore something in my arm but had no idea how bad it was.
The school maintenence guy asked if I needed help getting down and I told him not until I was finished with the job.
I got the metal off the roof and screwed down the edges. After that I removed my safety equipment and he helped me take down my ladder and put it on my truck.
I then drove myself to the hospitol while calling Vicki and my ofice on the way.
The ER Doctor said it was a torn bicep and told me to go to and Orthopedic Doctor.
I called Dr. Kremcheck on Monday and he got me in on Wednesday. He set up an MRI for Thursday with an appointment with him right after. He confirmed what was a torn becep muscle. The bicep muscle forks out into two branches. The long head and the short head. I tore the long one that attaches to the back of the forearm.

He scheduled surgery for Tuesday.

Tuesday morning Vicki and I got up and headed for the surgery center. When we got there Doc Kremcheck asked if she wanted to observe the surgery and she said yes. COOL! I would have if it weren't me.
A 45 minute procedure, he opened up my upper arm just above the right albow. Reached in and pulled out the bicep muscle. He sewed down both sides in very tight stitches and left two long strings hang off of the end.
He then made an incision on the back of my forearm and pulled the muscle strings through it. He made a grove in the bone and two small holes. The strings were put through the wholes and the muscle was tucked into the grove. He then closed it up and put me in an arm brace which would soon become my new best friend.
I woke up in recovery and the pain was at a 8-9 on a 1-10 scale. Let's just say it hurt like hell.
After a while were could go home and we did. Vicki has done a great job of helping me out wih everything since i'm kind of temporarily handicaped.
Physical therepy started the day after and oh I wasn't ready for that. They told me to take a pain pill before I went. Know I know why. Actually that was the last time I took a pain pill and my pain was at zero within three days after surgery. The only things I really felt for a while were muscle spasms which they gave me meds for. Those have even stopped now.

It's been a week and a half and things are going well and I am learning to do things left handed some of which are very challenging I might add.

I have to wear this brace on my arm 24/7 for about a month or two. I even sleep in it. I'm not really allowed to drive or go to work for awhile the Doc says. He said I could start to drive in about 2 weeks to a month and go back to work on light duty in about 4-6 months.
Well after being off of work for one day after surgery I went stir crazy and drove myself to work the next day.
I have to be extremely careful in everything I do since this surgery could be messed up with a single fall or incedent and we get no second chance to fix it.
It's a long recovery pricess that wil take about 9 months to ayear to get back to strength and forthe muscle to attach to the bone enough to do anything.

Yesterday Vicki and I went on a bike trip with the rideohio.org gang. It was her first motorcycle trip to drive....... HER CAR that is. So I guess you could say I rode in the bitch seat for the first time.
The group met at the Big Muskee in Reinersville, Ohio for a group picture then to the River Queen Tavern for lunch and some social time.
She drove the routes we would have ridden had we been on the bike and while it was beautiful out and the curves would have been awsome it was kind of depressing for me. I wanted to be on the bike so bad. This really sucks!
We did have an awsome time with everyone and met a few new faces as well. What an awsome group of people we have found.

Doctor Kremcheck said it would probably be about the first of May before i could get back on the bike and ride however i would probably have to wear the brace for a while when I do.
What a wierd tan that's going to be next summer!

That's all I have for now but I will post up a group picture from the Big Muskie trip.