I’ve been riding the scooter to school everyday that the weather cooperates. I’ve been noticing that it starts weaker and weaker each time. It was noticeable enough that I started carrying jumper cables. Well, yesterday, on a gorgeous morning never more perfect for scooter riding, the inevitable happened. Slow crank,…

That is all.

I’ll start: Hammer is the only cat to have ever won the Iditarod.

The front brakes on my truck started hitting the squealers a few weeks ago. Frankly I’m shocked they lasted this long. They were last done in October of 2011, at 69k miles. Eight years and 75k miles on truck brakes, is not too shabby!

This is Kit Kat. She belongs to my buddy Bill. He’s the one who rode shotgun when I gambled the RallyMetro, and rode a clapped out Helix with me while I gambled my Zuma 125 last year. I’m at his house to do the front brakes on my truck, but that’s not important. What’s important is kitty cat. She is very fluffy.

Meow!

Don’t stick Legos up your nose.

I bet you all forgot about the kitchen remodel I undertook last summer, got mostly finished, but then school started and the project stalled. Or, you never gave a shit anyways. Or, it’s been so long since I updated my progress that you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.

I decided to get an early start on my annual training power-points this year. I have 17 to do this year. ADA/Service Animals, Asthma, Bloodborne Pathogens, Bullying, Child Abuse, Cultural Competency and Racial Bias, Diabetes Awareness, Diabetes Awareness Level II, Discrimination, Domestic and Sexual Violence, Ethics &…

I’ve been dealing with some pretty heavy stuff lately. Those of you in Chicagoland may have heard about the two teenage boys who were shot to death by their mother last week, who then set their house on fire and shot herself. The younger of those two boys was a recent student of mine. He was a damn good kid. Always…

I’ve been trying to sell the avocado green ‘78 Apache Wareagle my buddy and I bought together a couple years ago, and affectionately called The Death Camper for a couple months now. We had our fun with it, and want to go another direction for track camping in the future. Typical CL/FB Marketplace stuff. Tons of…

Recently I’ve been seeing this 67-72 Chevy around town. I got an up close look at the liquor store a few days ago (I was buying a couple 4-packs of my favorite root beer, and stuffing them under the seat of my scooter).

My friends and I have been talking about building this deck on their house for several years. They’ve helped out a bunch on our house whenever we needed extra help, so it feels nice to be able to repay that labor. I haven’t worked on a deck in years, and this is the first one I’ve ever built where I was in charge. I’m…

It’s a nice 20-footer, but up close it’s a bondo bucket.

This will probably seem strange to those who don’t live in the rust belt, but the only GMT-400s you see at work anymore around here, are rusty beat up piles. I’ve seen this at least 19 year old Chevy 2500 pulling FedEx duty a couple times now. It looks really clean. It makes me happy every time I see it.

I’m waiting outside the liquor store while my wife buys cheap wine. This fine machine pulled up. My daughter wants “the Jeep.”

Actually, I’m not there anymore. I spent Wednesday-Saturday there for training at Milwaukee School of Engineering. The training was for a Flight & Space class I have to teach next year. I didn’t have much time for fun. I explored the city a bit on the scooter(it was nice), but I was doing homework until 11 each night…

I just made my second and third mod to my Zuma 125. I bought a genuine Yamaha rear rack. I won’t use it often, but it will be really handy those times I do use it. While I was installing that, I popped in a helmet lock that I pulled off that damn Helix.

That’s how long there were only two scooters in my garage. After selling that albatross of a Helix Saturday afternoon, I of course went back to my continual Craigslist/FB Marketplace search for more 2-wheeled motorized conveyances. On Saturday this 2005 Kymco ZX50 was listed at $180, and I thought, “Hmmmm ... maybe.”…

Last year I bought an ‘87 Honda Helix, with plans to run it in the Gambler 500 Illinois. While it ran and rode the day I bought it, after it sat for a couple months it would not start. When I switched the ignition on, gas was getting pushed right out of the carb and onto the ground. Well, parts being cheap, we…