Miscellaneous ramblings....

I came home yesterday to find that I had no running water in the house. So I checked with my neighbor and she had running water. Hmmmm. So I looked for my city of Deland water bill and sure enough, I forgot to pay it. I must have overlooked it with my recent vacation and work travel.

So I made a payment on the web to get current, hoping the water would magically turn itself on. No luck :=( So, after assisting my friend Carl with some minor woodworking (in preparation for his upcoming nuptials to the lovely Teener), he and I searched the property for the warter shut-off valve...which he found...which he turned back on...voila...INSTANT WATER! So I am all paid up now and back in business :)

Here is Carl and Teener's wedding website. Leave them a message if you feel like it. They are having the wedding here....but I started looking for a room too late so I am staying at this lovely little spot.

I got a new cubicle here at work. One of the cherished window cubicles. Oh how I love it so! Here are a few tremendously crappy pics using my cell phone camera.

I bought a new mattress set the other day. The one I had (queen) was nice enough but just too gd soft for my liking. So that mattress set will go to guest room #1. The bed in guest room 1 will move to guest room 2(aka computer room) and my new mattress from Fox Mattress Factory will take its place in the master bedroom. I got what is called a Fox-O-Pedic, which is a firm mattress, but with a pillow top as well. Staying on the road at Marriott hotels and sleeping on these pillow top mattresses had me wanting one.

Home from Alabama

I arrived home from Alabama Friday late morning only to find my a/c was kaput. That was no fun. So I spent a fairly sweltering night at home last night. I got my inflatable guest bed out of the closet and tried to sleep in the living room under the ceiling fan...but the airbed was kinda wobbly. So I moved to the couch and that was better...still hot but at least it did not move when I laid on it!

I checked everything I could re:the a/c but it still was not working. Had an a/c guy come out and it turned out to be the thermostat unit had been fried by a lightning storm we had here while I was in Bama. Now the house is cool as a cucumber once again!! Yahoo!!

I worked on the bike for a couple hours today. It has been running a little strangely since I returned from the Omaha trip. I also mowed and put down some fertilizer/weedkiller. Man oh man the excitement just never ends at Casa Galardi.

Now I sit here Saturday night watching the Cornhuskers give Southern Cal a pretty good game (so far). Tomorrow I might go on a charity motorcycle ride for the families involved in the horrific plane crash that happened in Sanford, FL a little while back (a small plane crashed into a house).

UPDATE....Today (Sunday) I spent a goodly amount of time cleaning/re-arranging my garage. Whilst there I just had to take a few pics of my Moto Guzzi Breva 1100....
(click pics to make larger)

Heading home from B-ham

I spent most of this week in Alabama...Alexander City to be more exact. This town is located about 70 miles south/southeast of Birmingham, Alabama. Nice enough town. Fairly scenic drive down hwy 280 from B-Ham. My rental car was a pretty cool Chevrolet HHR. I liked it.

I was working at a client called Aliant Bank. They are going live with our Desktop Sales and Desktop Teller software. This is software used by bank customer service reps, personal bankers and tellers.

This was my second trip to a client site...my first solo trip. Lots of challenging moments, lots of phone calls back to my co-workers in Lake Mary, Fl to solicit advice and counsel :=) But overall it seemed to go okay.

Now I sit here in the Birmingham airport typing this blog entry and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, going for a long walk tomorrow and watching some college football. Go Big Red?

She's a baby biker...honestly!!

Amy and Bruce Krause's daughter Honest Leigh posed for some snapshots wearing her new duds and do-wrap on neighbor Carlo's Moto Guzzi Bassa!

Camera mount

Before I left on my trip I installed a camera mount on the Breva. My hope was to take some pics of scenery while riding along. Well, I got some pics, but due to my really crappy, cheap digital camera, the vagaries of road irregularities and motorcycle vibrations, they are pretty pathetic pics.

But, keeping with my trend of putting any kind of crap on this blog, I now present to you my crappy camera mount pics...TADA!!!!

p.s. That motorcyclist in one of the pics is none other than Mike Caniglia on the Blue Goose!

Home at last....

I made it home to Deland, FL today. The total trip mileage was 3340 miles. My Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 performed flawlessly, racking up the miles with aplomb. Fuel mileage ranged from a low tank of 40 mpg average to a high tank of 50 mpg average. Most tanks ranged in between, from 42 - 48 mpg. Very pleased with those numbers!!

Before I left I had a good dinner at Doc and Eddie's BBQ in west Omaha with my pals Mike and Mark....delicious!

I took 3 days for the return trip instead of two. I left on Thursday to start heading back. I stopped Thursday morning at Jackson Cycles in St Joseph, MO Thursday a.m. to have Guzzi expert Ace Mallott give check a couple scheduled maintenance items on the Breva and check it to make sure it was in a good state of tune.

I forged ahead to Cape Girardeau, MO and stayed there at a very nice Holiday Inn Express Thursday night. Friday I stopped for breakfast at Waffle House....man they make some good waffles! I then motored on to Birmingham and rode around looking for Barber Motorsports park...to no avail. I could not find it and just gave up and kept going until I reached Alexander City, Alabama. There I stayed at yet another Holiday Inn Express (not so nice as the first one but OKAY).

This morning I finished off the trip after riding for about 8 hours. I got rained on every day to some degree....some days light rain, others heavy rains, lightning and wind. The Breva was quite filthy so I gave her a good warshing today.

All in all a great trip...seeing my family and friends was great. Seeing more of this beautiful country by motorbike was awesome....there's no better way to travel in my opinion. So many sounds and smells and sights are noticed on a motorcycle that are missed while in the relatively sterile and isolated environs of a car or airplane. Thanks for showing me around my Breva...until the next trip!!!

I made it...and now I'm gonna make it back!

It's been a few days since my last post. I made it to Papillion, Nebraska Sunday evening around 5:00. On Saturday I had ridden from Deland, FL to Memphis, TN. I got rained on a lot in Georgia, but that all passed and it turned out to be good weather for the most part. That was 849 miles and about 13 hours in the saddle of the Guzzi.

My friend Mike from Papillion rode his 1998 Guzzi down to meet up in Memphis....a lotta mile (715)...what a good riding pal! We stopped at a supposedly reknowned and fantastic BBQ place in Memphis called Interstate Barbecue for dinner Saturday night....it was a terrible experience. Simply AWFUL service and MAYBE average pork ribs. Not good at all. Mike was in a fighting mad mood as we sat and waited and waited and waited.....

We rode from Memphis to Omaha on Sunday and that was 715 miles and about 12 hours. Neither Guzzi had any issues during the trip.

Once here I had time to visit family and friends. My brother Luke and his wife Marica and the kids were great hosts, letting me stay at their place in Papillion. They even had a great cook out on Labor Day and my mom and dad and some of my brothers and families were there.

During thr week I visited with some friends....all great FUN and just a really swell and keen way to spend my days off.

Tomorrow a.m. I will start my journey home.....here are a few pics from my trip so far. You can see my friends Mike and Bruce doing their white rapper impersonation....what you can't see is the white guy in the background adorned in gold chains and his cap flipped to the side, almost falling off his head. So hey, a little joking was in order!! Also you see my niece Cecilia modeling her new dress for me...she modeled several outfits for me! My friend Sherrie is looking good trying on my RayBan shades...made in Italy baby....the shades, not her :=)