Happy Birthday, Ed

Guess who arrived in Vancouver ?

It was Ed on his cross country tour from Toronto on  his trusty BMW R1200RT

He had been in Duncan visiting friends for the past week or so

and now he was here for a day or two before he heads home

I moved my bike forward to make a bit more room .   Because we are in the middle of a heat wave we

decided to park our bikes and his is now safely tucked away and on a battery tender

After spending some time freshening up we hopped into the car for a quick spin

and ended up at Aberdeen Centre, one of our largest Asian malls in Richmond .  Shortly we arrived at our

dinner destination for AYCE:  All You Can Eat BBQ Dinner buffet at the River Rock Casino  which is on the banks of the Fraser River.   I assembled a group of close friends to help him celebrate his birthday

which is today,  July 13th  (a few years ago)  .   We all sang him a "Happy Birthday to you .  .  . "  I snagged a cup cake from the dessert table and I asked a waiter for ONE Candle and a match

Happy Birthday to you ED, and many more . . .

I was stressed with a burnt out signal light

With an impending trip being planned on 4 wheels, I was getting my car prepared.  I am thankful for a good friend stepping up to help me.  He actually did all the work with me getting in the way.  Some substantial maintenance work was done over the past 6 weeks where my car was mostly being driven here and there to have the work performed.  I thought my car was ready so I decided to drive it to work on Friday when I must have burnt out my right turn signal bulb

When I made my first right turn the signals clicked at double speed so I knew something was wrong so I stopped at a local auto parts store to buy some bulbs

I nearly fainted when the girl told me how much they cost.  I put away my $5. bill and charged the $16. to my credit card.

There's the burnt out bulb on the bottom.  I had to make sure they gave me the correct ones.   I got home and surveyed the situation.   I mean, how hard would it be to change a burnt out bulb.   Well, it seems it is a BIG deal.  I opened my hood and there is no access.   I tried to get my hand behind the grill and I also crawled under the bumper hoping that I could reach up but NO,   there was no way  I could determine how to get to the bulb socket

Every so often our Corvette Club goes to a drive in to have hamburgers,  White Spot Fridays , and tonight was the night.   So off I went to enjoy a hamburger and ask if anyone knew how to change the bulb.   The first 6 people had no idea.

Those are the Corvette girls enjoying each other's company.  We were lucky to get the shady side as it was HOT out.   We are not accustomed to blistering 25°c temperatures here on the Coast.  It was too hot to put our top down.

I guess that's the way it is, the Corvette girls congregate in the parking lot and the guys sit in their chairs in the shade

There is quite the mix of Corvettes in our club, from old to new(er)

Anyway back to my burnt out bulb.  I was lucky that Jim was there with some tools and a phillips screwdriver.   He said he could fix it in the parking lot.  So while I was enjoying my hamburger, he was busy taking my car apart

He seemed to know what he was doing so I tried to keep out of his way

While others just stepped back and watched the whole operation.   It seemed that you had to manually raise the retracting headlight and remove a bezel, and that gave access for your arm to feel around behind the lens and find the bulb socket.   Then you had to be a one handed contortionist to remove the bulb and put in the new one, using only one hand.   There was no way that I could have figured this out by myself

One thing about being in a Club is that you have people to ask when you need help and generally someone will know what to do.  It seems that Jim has done this before so he knew it could be done.  I was so grateful for his help and knowledge

While this seemed like an insignificant problem as compared to what had been done to my car over the past month or so, I am relieved that it seemed so simple, yet no one knew how to do it.  I have only been able to drive my car for the past week or so because of a stupid error code which we were trying to eliminate.  By we I mean my good friend Nigel who came upon the solution, which worked . . . thank goodness for the Corvette Forum

Thwarted by a single $8. amber light bulb.   I can now make right turns again

Also tonight was my family birthday dinner.   We dined in style and when we came home from the restaurant I was served home-made cake to the sounds of music

Notice I only had ONE  candle.   I can do that . . .

Sign spotted

on the web

We are having a heat wave here.  Going to be HoT,  well . . .  hot for us

have a good weekend

Good Friends

You don't have to see a friend for them to be a good friend.  As we go about our lives doing what we need to do to survive it is nice to know that you have people you can count on.  If I need help to move a heavy piece of furniture I only have to pick up a phone and they will drop what they are doing and come over in a flash.  They are there when you need them, and I am there when they need me.  Then there are good friends whom I may only see once a year, and so it was that Robert (the Reverend) sent me a text message the other day inviting me to lunch

He is prompt and he arrived at my office at 11:45 am precisely .   He wanted to take me out for lunch on my special day .   He gave me a card . . .

Notice the "lunch with friends"

so we ended up at a sushi place up the street

I ordered the two rolls on the left, and he ordered the three rolls on the right.   They came on separate boards, but the idea was that the food was to be shared

I must say that it was very tasty

We talked longer than we should have and I had to get back to work

I am so lucky to be surrounded with good friends who remembered me on my Special Day

I am humbled again . . .     July 9th   one day many years ago and I am happy to be still here

Cashews und Kerosene

I am not sure what is happening but I have tried to leave comments on several blogs and they disappear.  I log in to Google, write my comment and click submit . . .  and nothing.  It's frustrating

Anyway last Friday night we were visiting friends and we brought a box of goodies.   Little did we know that the box would be a house for a little cutie.   She saw the empty box and moved right in

She was a bit playful and I got a few resultant scratches

Saturday I rode my bike to breakfast again.   It was threatening rain but I was without my commuter car as I left it in Surrey about an hour south.   My friend has all the tools and a 4 post lift to work on my Corvette to get it ready for a long trip coming up later in the Summer.   My car has been there for weeks it seems as we hit a snag . . .  and he also discovered a problem with the harmonic balancer and it had to be taken to a specialist.

I like to try new things so we bought a 2.27 kg bag of uncooked (raw) cashews

I spread the cashews out on a baking sheet

and I was preheating the oven to 350°F so I could roast them.   After they were roasted,  approx 20 minutes as I like them browned, I put them in a large wok so I could add a bit of vegetable oil so the salt could adhere to the cashews.    I know we shouldn't eat too much salt but I don't find unsalted nuts to be very

tasty.    I also wanted to try and candy some of them so I took a couple of scoops and put them in a stainless steel pot in a mixture of water and sugar.   Not too much water and put the pot over high heat so that the water could be evaporated.    Soon after the mixture turned brown (sugar carmelized) and I kept mixing them with my wood ladle to make sure the cashews were coated with the sugar solution

Then I spread them out on top of waxed paper to cool.   Mmmm good if I don't say so myself

There we are.   The salted cashews on the left and the "candied" cashews on the right.   I like cashews the best

The skies look threatening with dark clouds and soon we started to get torrential rains but luckily I finished cleaning my bike just in time.   Having a dirty bike was bothering me, especially the wheels (rims)

I still had a container of kerosene so I wet my rag and started to clean the underside of my Vstrom

Not a real thorough job but good enough.  Notice how shiney the rim is ?

and here is the right side.   I also cleaned the front rims and fork housing .   When I get time I will have to get out the soap and hose and clean the topside of the bike which is covered in 2 years of dirt

Mini Review: Techniche Evaporative Cooling Vest from MotorcycleHouse dot Com

Thank you to the friendly people from MotorcycleHouse.com I am in possession of a garment which I really needed last year when I was riding across the Country in sweltering 100°F heat.  It is not an item usually found around Vancouver as we are on the Coast where we seldom get extreme temperatures.  I recently wrote about these products  HERE  on a previous blog post.

Until the past few days we had been experiencing our usual share of rain but last week we had a slight break in the weather.  It was a bit cool on the morning commute as you noticed on my Formotion Temperature gauge which also came from MotorcyceHouse.com       I finally had a chance to mount it on my handlebar and get a feel for it's accuracy

I find that the cooler morning air is refreshing and keeps you alert whilst riding but it was forecast to be a bit warmer on the way home so I brought my Techniche Evaporative Cooling Vest to work with me

I took it out of the package and removed the tags

It didn't seem too bulky.  For a garment designed for hot weather use it was light and well made with lots of cross stitching, presumably to hold the absorbent material in its place

I generally like to wear dry clothes so this was counter intuitive to have to soak it in water and get it dripping wet.   The directions are on one of the tags.   you thoroughly soak the Techniche Evaporative Cooling Vest  TECV until it is saturated, then you wring it out so it doesn't drip, and finally you get to wear it

Now, at home I would soak it in our sink but at work I was not so sure.   Also when you are "on the road" you cannot be sure how clean the sink would be so I decided that I would just "hose it down" just like I would do at a gas station when I was touring.   Or perhaps you could find a garden hose somewhere

I turned it around and tried to get it wet from all directions

Then I decided to unzip the TECV and soak it inside out

After a while it seemed to be holding a lot of water so I decided to wring it out so that it was "wet" but not dripping wet.   Since it was not really a hot day, I used "warm" water rather than "cold" water.   Did I mention that I have never used a cooling vest before so this was a test for me too

I realize that as the water evaporates it gives a cooling effect so you don't want it to dry out too fast.   I have read that you should wear it Under a riding jacket and over technical garmets which you don't mind getting a bit wet/moist .   This is what Sash recommended on a previous comment when she said not to wear my vest on top of bare skin

It's hard to take a photo with wet hands and then handle my camera so I used the reflection from our washroom mirror.   I have on a tank top, with a polyester V neck and then on top I am wearing a waterlogged  Techniche Evaporative Cooling Vest.

On top of that I am now wearing my riding jacket.   I decided to open the vents to get some air flow so the vest could start the evaporative process and keep me cool

It is now after work and I am getting ready for my commute home   Notice that it is around 80°F as indicated by my Formotion Temperature gauge  (from Motorcyclehouse.com)  .   Not really that warm to have to use a vest but enough heat for me to give it a first test.   Remember that I only used warm water this time

My commute isn't that far as far as distance is concerned.   Only 25 kms but in heavy urban traffic with lots of signal lights and it can take over an hour with the sun beating down at every signal light.    This day it took over 45 minutes and here I am at home

I decided many years ago to always wear riding gear.  This means riding boots, long socks, riding jacket, gloves and riding pants.   Of course they are all black and absorbs heat.  On a day like this I would be sweating by the time I got home.   Wearing this Evaporative Vest helped a lot.  I was still feeling the cooling effect, all the way home and the vest was still wet, so there was more cooling left

I changed out of my dress shirt before I left work as I wanted to keep it dry

and here you can see the wetness of my tank top.  I can tell you it was refreshing to have this coolness while riding home.   I am certain that on a hotter day and using cold water it would certainly be more comfortable with this vest,  over not having one at all

I am glad to have this Vest and I believe it will make your ride more comfortable in Hot weather.   Sweat or be cool,  your choice and you too can have your own   (you can buy one here)      MotorcycleHouse.com   great people and fast shipping.    Check them out when you have time.    They may have what you are looking for.