Greetings and welcome!
Well it looks like another busy day today. I started this 3 hours ago and never got past the date. Anyway, Yesterday was like that too, and I missed some stuff.
First, events..
Next Saturday (12/12) the NEW Vintage Low Buck Riders are having an antique snowmobile show at the Gateway Bar in Crivitz. I have been there quite a few times, and it is a good sized show with some great sleds. Usually there are over 100 old sleds there, and they often raffle one off too.
Also next Saturday, the Ranger City Rider is having a snowmobile safety class at their clubhouse in Amberg.
I also heard a rumor that they are looking for trail patrol people, and that if you are interested, you need to let them know quickly so you can get in on the classes. Again I believe that the RCR club has something to do with the training, but you should be able to ask almost any snowmobile club’s official and they will guide you to the right people.
Gary mentioned about using your GPS and snowmobile together in his comment yesterday. That is a great topic idea. I will recommend a guest post if someone knowledgeable in those things is in for it.
I have somewhat limited experience with that. I had one of the $99 yellow ones, but it worked poorly and had no map overlay. I’d go out riding all afternoon with the yellow one velcro’d to the dash, and I’d come back and be surprised at the readings. Whaddya mean 13 miles and a top speed of 27mph? I guarantee both were well over the century mark. Then it died.
The non-$99 models do work a lot better, and if someone that uses them is into it, I will gladly welcome a guest post about it. They are clearly complimentary to snowmobiling in a lot of ways.
It is after deer hunting now, and the guys have been out putting trail signs up. Seeing those along the roads is one of those mile markers that come as the season inches closer.
Also coming along is the cold. It has been a couple of cold days, and it is really here. There is snow possible for today and tonight, but it is only expected to be flurries or a dusting. The storm for Monday or so could go 1-3 or 2-4, and the one for Thursday could turn into something. Promises promises..
A couple of more days like this, and we shold be able to hear the ice on the lakes start singing. As it freezes and expands, it makes strange noises. It is one of those cool things like dowsing or the northern lights.
In the blue room..
Very little related to snowmobiling is going on. I did fix the blue room itself up a little over the summer, but have been too busy to get near the sleds. Now that working on the snow plow for the truck needs to be a priority, I will likely get a little shop time in too.
Since last winter I did set up a nice TIG welder, and have projects stacking up, including fixing up a pull behind dog sled looking towable and welding up a couple of crank up lifts to hold the track off of the ground for storage and warming them up.
I picked up a very nice 93 RXL over the summer that had a blown up motor. Since I have one of those engines (ok 3..) it was a good deal. I had visions of turning it into an Xtra 12 suspension and getting the other engine into it by November. Those visions are sitting next to the sled in the same spot that it came off of the trailer in June.
Since then I learned that the RXLs were actually wider than the other Polski chasiss’s (?!?), and the Xtra-12 out of my 96 XLT might not fit. Ok NBD. Maybe next year I will look at it closer.
I got some insulation foam from a barn that a friend was tearing down, and as soon as that gets put on the roof of the blue room, the sled work will begin.
The XLT will get fresh gas, a check over, and a test run. I kind of wanted to put a different hood on it and sell it, but until I fix the newer RXL, no sale. The 92 RXL needs a battery and some fresh gas, and should be a runner. We will find out how good of a storage additive that Sea Foam is there. The XLT got Stabil, the RXL got Sea Foam.
Once those run, finally the crash sled will come in for the engine extraction, and work will begin on the newer RXL. That sled was really in nice shape cosmetically, but the engine was run so hot that not only dd it lock up, it burned some of the EFI wiring. I ain’t skert.. I have those parts too.
I have been a busy boy to the point that I haven’t gone out and sold ads for the snow page or been able to finish it. I have a big project wrapping up, and I will be able to show it off in a few days. It is a cool product, one of the best I have seen. Very soon it will have an on-line store too.
Once I wrap that up, I have a few more weeks of associated work, and things will get a little more normal. It might sound like I am complaining, but not even close. Really I am most delighted to have the work and the opportunity to be associated with the people and products that I am working with. There are also Christmas kid dreams of having a good snow season AND some money to play with when I go out to ride in a few weeks.
While all of that has been going on, I have been taking serious steps toward starting a web hosting company. Yes I already have one of those. This one would be automated and instant set up for DIY folks and resellers on one side and enterprise class stuff on the other.
As my on line store count grows I am starting to need some pretty high end servers. I use premium quality hosting at data centers in Texas and a separate company on the west coast for redundancy, and want to add servers from an Ohio company that are really premium for my enterprise level customers. That would open my current high end units up, and allow me to do shared hosting on them as well as mirroring the Ohio servers. It should be nice when it is done.
I am not going to spend a lot of time on global warming other than to say that the dominoes have started to fall. Gore canceled his appearance at Copenhagan, the head of the Hadley CRU steppd down, they erased a bunch of original climate data, they found more fraud in more places, and more guys resigned.
The train is rolling down the mountain with a big head of steam now, and nothing will stop it. Even the press is on board, with the usual exceptions. The CBSNBSABCMSNBC NYT WAPO crew are the only ones denying now. There is nothing to see here.. these are not the droids that you are looking for...
Well, I am off to get back to work. Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB
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