The Battery Assault

I have quite enjoyed riding my motorcycle to work and back the past few months. It's been nice to not spend so much on gas and still get around. The other day I had come home from work and stuffed it in the garage and didn't think much else of it. I had left the key on though so overnight the battery had the chance to die on me. The next morning as I tried to fire it up I quickly realized I had left the key on all night and the battery wasn't going to do anything for me.

I'm used to older motorcycles. When a battery is dead you can roll start the thing and let the alternator do it's job and charge the battery. Also you can jump start the battery and again as the motorcycle runs it will charge the battery. Needing to get to work I attempted to roll start the beast and not being on the biggest hill in the world gave up after three attempts and half a gallon of sweat. I removed the seat and tried to locate the battery. I looked at what I thought might be the battery but in a frustrated attempted to hurry off to work I ended up stuffing it in the garage and taking the car. I figured I could figure out where the battery was and jump the thing when I got home.

After work I grabbed the jumper cables and popped the hood on my car. The battery is stuffed far enough under the seat that I couldn't clamp the lead on the battery so the best I could do was hold them there. I saw sparks and the lights came on so I knew it was getting a charge. I fired it up and the second I pulled the leads off it died. I did this several times creating sparks and smoke (The plastic around the leads were getting hot and melting).

At this point I was pretty aggravated. I pulled out the charger and hooked it up to let it charge overnight but when I plugged it in it didn't show it was pulling very many amps (again an old motorcycle will pull upwards of over 6 amps and slowly pull less and less until it's charged). When I turned the key the lights would come on and it drew some amps there. Problem was it was going to the lights and not really charging the battery. Eventually I pulled the battery all the way out and set it down to charge. It still wasn't drawing much. I started looking around on the battery and I found that for a standard charge it will pull 1.1 amps for ~5-10 hours. Alrighty then.

I let the thing charge overnight and this morning (along with our little mouse incident) I put everything back together. It fired right up without any problems. The Trips had been cleared and I had to reset the clock but other than that everything was fine. Looking around on the internet newer bikes are totally dead without the battery. You can't jump them or roll start them. No battery leaves you dead in the water. Guess I won't be leaving the lights on overnight anymore. It's nice to have a fuel injected unit and not worry about a choke, but I guess the trade off is when it's dead it's dead.

The Mouscepade

A few years ago not long after moving into our house we had noticed that we weren't the only ones living in our house. Some mice had decided it was a good idea to move in with us. They hadn't been paying us rent so we got some exterminators to give them an eviction notice for us. It seemed to work quite well. We stuffed steel wool in the holes that they had created and called it at that.

Just this last week we noticed that a hole had been chewed in a bag. We started seeing signs of the return of the rodent. This time we decided to go with a home brewed remedy. Last time we had gotten some things before the exterminator, but nothing really seemed to catch their attention. I had caught a few mice on my mission with a good old fashion wooden trap. We got a handful of those and some of the sticky variety as well. We cleaned out the floor of the pantry and set up the traps. Top tip: Caramel doesn't seem to be a big winner with the mice. I don't think it's very potent. We ran and got a small jar of peanut butter and smeared that on the wooden traps. I thought for sure that would do the trick. I didn't think the sticky ones would do much good because there really wasn't anything to lure them to them. We have had the traps set up for days without much luck. We hadn't thought about it for a day or two.

This morning when we got up and went to look in the pantry and lo and behold we had one of the little ninjas at last. It was on one of the sticky traps and it was struggling to get loose. The trap had fallen down a step or two from where we had originally placed it. In a mad struggle to escape it probably moved around enough to move the trap and get itself stuck even more. I don't know how long the poor thing had been there. Enough that it only twitched every now and again to try and get loose. My wife was getting exited wondering what to do with the poor thing and how to put it out of its misery. She wanted to let loose the hounds and let one of the dogs at it. I've seen what he does to chew toys and leaving Mouse entrails all over the house didn't seem like the best option to me. She called her parents and they suggested drowning it. That seemed better than the hammer I was considering.

I filled up a bucket of water and as I got the trap to dunk the feller in it started squeaking in it's panic. I dropped the trap it and it was floating. I think it was submerged enough that it drowned but I got a stick and submerged it to make sure. I am hoping that there is only the one. There hasn't been a lot of evidence of a lot of them. Just maybe one or two. Hopefully there aren't anymore.

R.I.P. Ninja Mouse #1

Phantom of the Motorcycle

Well I broke down and got a new motorcycle. I have been occasionally riding an old 1980 CX500 Custom for a while. My dad got it a while back and it went to my uncle and then back to me. Recently it started having a few issues, and me not being the most mechanically inclined wasn't quite sure if I should sell it or ride it for one more year. I had registered it but hadn't reinstated the insurance just yet. My wife and I walked into Honda World just to poke about. She wanted to look at four wheelers. We went in and looked around and the light of glory came out of heaven and shone forth on a Honda Shadow Phantom. I've been looking at getting one for years. I was looking at them on KSL and wasn't really looking for brand new. My wife just got a brand new car last year and I really hadn't considered anything new. The guy we talked to said that the Phantoms go really fast. They don't send a lot of them over. The main difference with the Phantom is the engine is blacked out. It was shipped in on Thursday, built on Friday, and put out on the floor that morning (Saturday). He said that it would be sold that day. The only thing in question was who would take it. I tossed it back and forth a bit. My wife encouraged me to get it.

Long story short we got it. I have never been happier with a motorcycle that I am with this one. We took it on it's maiden voyage up to Heber and back. I have taken it to work now for the past couple of days and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Gas mileage is 56 mpg and it has a 3.7 gallon tank. I can get close to 200 miles per tank and it only costs about 11 - 12 bucks to fill up. We don't have kids yet so we might as well enjoy a few things. We got a Sissy bar so my wife can ride along with me.

Before I added the Sissy Bar

Last night I sold the old CX500 Custom. It was sad to see it go but I'm glad that someone else could enjoy it.

Mika Howls for a Walk

Job Benefits

As most of you know I switched jobs a few months back. I now work for ARUP Laboratories and I love it. One of the perks of working here that I thought others would be interested to know is that every month we swap out older computers. They are usually 4-5 years old or so. I am allowed to haul these guys home if I want. I just need to sign out for them and I can take them home. They won't have a hard drive in them as we need to keep them around or destroy them according to HIPAA laws and such but if anyone would like a newer computer for the price of a hard drive (and possibly a windows license) I can get you set up. Hard drives start around $50 and Windows will be around $100. This wouldn't include anything other than the computer tower. If anyone is interested let me know and I can get something started for you.

Team Natalie

So I need help for Team Natalie. Natalie has been struggling to lose weight. She doesn't feel like she has any support. I have started to get up with her and crack the whip and help her get up in the morning and work out a little bit. I can be the workout Nazi in the mornings. What I need from everyone else is a support team. Someone to check in on her at least a couple of times a week and see how she is doing. She works during the day so texting or an email would work best for her. If it's after 5 you could call her. She just needs to feel some support from friends and family so she doesn't feel like she is alone with this. When you talk to her if you are noticing that she is losing weight tell her that you noticed. Being around her all the time it is hard for me to see if she is or not, but those of you that only see us every so often can see it easier. I'm not trying to make it about her weight, but about her health. I'd like to keep her around for the next 50 years or longer if I can. I want her to have a better quality of life, and the best chance of having kids and being able to run around with them. If anyone has some ideas for healthy meals send them to us. We are trying to eat healthier. If there are any meal ideas that are quicker and healthy we are open to the idea. Cooking until 7 or 8 at night takes it's toll. Your support will greatly help us out!

A New Buddy

So we already had two dogs. A couple of Pomeranian's. I really haven't wanted another dog. My wife likes to look on KSL and send links to me and say "Please?!". My answer has always been no. A couple of weeks ago we have some friends that landed themselves a little wiener dog. They joked that we would end up with him. They have a two year old, and a 3 month old so adding a puppy to the mix was a little much. A couple of days ago my friend told me that they were going to put him on KSL, but would give us first dibs before they did. My wife did her usual "PLEASE?!". I know that she wanted me to have a dog. I asked her if it would end her quest in finding another little fluff ball to add to the pack. She said yes so I consented. She went and picked him up and brought him home.

At first I just said yes because I wanted to stop getting links to other dogs on KSL every so often. I'd met the little tyke a week before and he was groovy but I wasn't fond of the idea of having three dogs. They are kind of like a cell phone plan. The more you add they are only a little more work, but we are pretty good at neglecting the ones we have. The only saving grace is my schedule is about to change as far as work goes so I'll be home every so often. After having him for a couple days now nothing has gone terribly wrong. They have had a couple disagreements but there hasn't been any blood yet. They get along fairly well. Our next order of business is to get him fixed (which our friends so kindly said they'd pay for). He at least understands the concept of fetching (something the other two snub). When we took him on a walk he knew how to walk in a straight line. He is pretty well behaved. I just started calling him Buddy. I can't really say why but he responds to it so it works. He looks like one of the wiener dogs my parents had. He is a ball of energy and won't sit still for anything but when he is asleep. It'll be interesting, but he's here to stay.

Buddy, Mika, and Sophie in their "gated community"