Turtle 911 !!!

Today at lunch Scott the Canuck and I headed to Publix to grab a snack. On the way over whilst walking across the parking lot we noticed a FedEx truck approaching us and then coming to a brief stop for no apparent reason...then continuing on. Odd, we thought.

Well, the reason soon revealed itself. Slowly trudging across the parking lot was a good sized turtle. He almost bought the farm! So we decided a rescue was in order. Scott grabbed the little guy by the sides and we walked him over to the nearby retention pond.

Now he is free to frolic with the fishies and ducks and all other sorts of friends :)

Pardon the crappy camera phone pics...

Mike and Paul sightsee Florida

Well, my pals Mike and Paul have now departed back to their respective FROZEN places of living. But before they left we all did some fun in the sun sightseeing here in Florida.

We stopped in St. Augustine to check out this city which was founded in 1565. We also drove up coastal highway A1A, stopping near Marineland and in Daytona Beach, where Mike and Paul purchased some of the famous Zeno's saltwater taffy.

Additionally, we traveled to the Kennedy Space Center (near where we saw a huge crocodile sunning himself in a ditch) and Cocoa Beach.

It was great to have the fellas down!

***CLICK HERE FOR PICS ON MY KODAK PHOTO GALLERY***

Gator Bowl 2009

My friends Paul and Mike and I left early Thursday morning for the trip to Jacksonville and the Gator Bowl, pitting Nebraska vs. Clemson. We arrived a little before 10:00 a.m. for the 1 p.m. game.

There was a lot of pre-game activity going on, with numerous tailgate parties and bars, etc. grilling foods for sale and serving beer, drinks and soda. We wandered around for about 90 minutes soaking in sights, sounds and smells. The weather went form cloudy to sunny to cloudy off and on. Temps were cool at about 60 degrees but great football weather. We even got to see Larry the Cable Guy as he did a trivia bit during the game :)

The game itself started off looking like the Cornhuskers were not going to represent themselves very well, with an inept offense in the first half leading to a 14-3 halftime deficit. However the game became much more entertaining in the 2nd half, as the teams traded scores and some turnovers. In the end the Cornhuskers were victorious 26-21. It was a very entertaining day! Here are some pics and a link to more pics on my Kodak Photo Gallery.

***MY GATOR BOWL PICS CLICK HERE***

Spider leaky

Lately I have been smelling the aroma of fuel whilst driving the Alfa Spider. So today was the day to have a looksee. Letting the Spider idle I started examing the various fuel delivery hoses and voila, culprits identified!

Two of the fuel hoses connecting the fuel rail to fuel injectors were leaking...drip drip drip. So I started to removing a mess of hoses and intake bits n pieces so I could get access to these hoses to remove and replace them. Actually a pretty simple job...the toughest part was tracking down the correct diameter. After checking four parts stores I was close to giving up hope when I went to the last one, an Advance Auto store in Deland.

Lo and behold they had what I needed! So I bought a couple feet of it, removed the old bits of hose and cut some new bits to length with my trusty exacto knife and put those on and put everything else back together. Yeah it works! No more leaky!

New hose and chunk of old, leaky hose
















Underneath this mess are the leaky fuel hoses
















Ahhh, nice new hoses in place!

ABS on the Alfa 164L

Well, to take my mind off the Breva crash I decided to head outside and do a little work on the Alfa Romeo 164L. Occasionally the Anti Lock Brake (ABS) warning light illuminates on the dash. Upon investigation I found out that this could be due to dirty ABS sensors at each wheel. These are little electronic devices which measure the wheelspin at each wheel and feed this data back to the ABS system so it can work properly.

I took each wheel off and then each sensor and cleaned each one. They were rather filthy with grime and little bits of magnetic swarf, to borrow a phrase from my friend Bob Alf :) Here are a few pics. I'll go for a test drive and see if it made a difference.

***UPDATE*** It didn't make a difference...the light still comes on :( But I did find some Sierra Nevada Christmas Celebration Ale and am enjoying that :)

CRASH goes the Breva

Today's lesson, boys and girls, is to NEVER let anyone ride your motorcycle unless you absolutely know them and are confident of their riding ability.

A couple days ago a Guzzi riding friend of mine contacted me and asked if I might be willing to allow him to borrow my Breva for a day. You see, his father-in-law is in town for Christmas and my friend wanted to go out for a motorcycle ride with him. The father-in-law was supposedly a lifelong Harley rider with a lot of experience.

So, being the idiot that I am, I agreed to let them borrow the bike and have a nice day of riding.

Read my lips...BIG MISTAKE!!!

I had a voice message from my friend to give him a call when I got a chance. Well, I called, and he told me the father-in-law had gone down on the Breva at low speed.. The father-in-law was ok, a little sore, but the Breva sustained a fair amount of damage, most seemingly cosmetic.

From what I can gather it appears the father-in-law somehow lost control of the bike and hit the back of the car and fell over on the right hand side, all of this happening at low speed when pulling away from a stop light.

The bike got towed to a Guzzi dealer in nearby Ormond Beach so I drove up in the Alfa 164L to assess the damage. A good deal of cosmetic damage to the right hand side, including a destroyed head guard and a valve cover that was hit hard enough to have actually cracked open.

Friends, take a tip from your Uncle Chris. Just don't let anyone else ride your motorcycle, no matter how nice a gesture you think it to be. There's just too much potential for bad things to happen.

Pardon me now, I need to go weep.

***UPDATE***: I just got a call from the dealer. Total repair bill will be roughly $2,300, to be covered by the father-in-law's insurance. Hopefully that will go smoothly.

My New Year haircut