February 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm by Bob Weber (Alert)
Here’s hoping everyone had a nice leap day.
Want to apologize for the lack of content this week. I’ve been busy trying to get all caught up on work. Planning a trip to Moab next weekend, and I want to have as much done as possible.
Look for more next week, and soon new Pics from Moab.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm by Bob Weber (Warrior, Toys)
Last summer, when we went out to Nebraska to ride, I had some trouble with my Warrior. While riding in Headworks Park, the bike just didn’t want to run. When the problems first started I pulled the choke out, and it would run a little better. A few minutes later it stopped running completely. After some inspection we discovered that the rubber intake manifold had cracked.
Attempts to wire the carb to the engine just didn’t work out and my riding was done for the week.
Once we got home, I got on good old eBay and ordered me up a brand new, heavy duty replacement. I don’t remember the cost off hand, but around $30. Had a couple challenges putting it on. Both ends of the manifold are the same bolt pattern, but it they are rotated in relation to each other. I bolted the engine side to the carb, and then couldn’t figure out why it was at such a weird angle. Got that fixed, and the holes on the carb side were a little small for the studs. Had to take my drill and expand them a bit, not sure what the story was on that.
While replacing this I discovered that I was missing three of the four motor mount bolts, a common problem with the Warrior. The probably cause of the failure of the manifold was excessive engine vibration. Had to go get some bolts and lock nuts to fix this.
Our next outing, the trip to Red Feather with Jed, ended up being the FIRST (and so far only) TIME since purchasing the Warrior that it came back from a trip without a breakdown. Hopefully I’m getting close to having all of the bike’s issues worked out.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm by Bob Weber (Tech)
Eeesh, just realized my picture gallery is down again. Not sure what the story is there. This is at least the second time that it’s happened to me. Think I’m just going to convert to the
WP Photo Album - WPPA that I’m using on Bob’s Bad Binder. I’m pretty happy with the way it works, although a slick ajax screen fade effect for viewing the full size images would be better. Some of the bigger images get chopped off currently.
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February 21st, 2008 at 9:21 pm by Bob Weber (Warrior, Toys)
In my continuing quest to improve my 1988 Yamaha Warrior I made two modifications.
The first major change was adding two Yamaha Banshee front shocks.
As you can see in this picture, the Banshee shocks are longer than the stock Warrior shocks.
I purchased both of these of ebay after a significant amount of research into the best/easiest modification to make. Paid around $100 for both, not a bad deal when a good set of aftermarket shocks are AT LEAST 3 times that. This picture is of the bike with one shock installed.
It was a bit tricky putting these on by myself. Had to compress them down an inch or so, and that’s quite a chore by hand.
The shocks turned out to be a GREAT upgrade. The weekend before I put them on we made a trip to Red Feather, and the Warrior suspension really wore me out. Jason has an LT250R, Jeff has a Wolverine, and Jed has a Banshee. I was always well behind these guys, not just because I’m slower (actually my Warrior keeps up really well with the Wolverine), but because the bike just didn’t handle well.
Shortly after putting these one we went up the Poudre to the Green Mountain trail. Rode in the snow and had a blast. The Warrior was like a different machine, much more manageable. Worked great, right until Jeff broke a tie rod, but that’s another story…
You might also notice the new handlebars. These are YZ High bend I ordered from Rocky Mountain ATV. Nothing special, just steel bars. Figured I’d use them until I bent them, since I wasn’t sure how they would work. I’m pretty happy with them, make the bike much more comfortable to ride. I
will probably get the same bend in some aluminum bars sometime down the road.
Popularity: 22%
February 21st, 2008 at 11:11 am by Bob Weber (Economics, Politics)
“This is like deja vu all over again.” - Yogi Berra
The New York Times has an article comparing the late 70’s inflation to our current situation in 2008.
That got me to thinking, the 00s are a lot like the 70s, at least from a national perspective.
I could think of some more, but it’s interesting we haven’t really learned any lessons in the last 30 years. Looks like this country is repeating more of the same. The next president, republican or democrat, is going to have a long road. They will inherit a complete mess, and likely by demonized for issues beyond their control with the 2012 election rolls around.
Popularity: 8%
February 19th, 2008 at 9:27 am by Bob Weber (Tech)
Since upgrading to Slackware 12 I’ve noticed vim creates backups of every file I edit by appending the file with a tilde (~).
looks like this is a compilation option for vim 7.1 that comes with Slackware 12. My previous install did not do this, so I’m guessing the compile options were changed for Slackware 12. I confirmed this by running
vim –version
One of the options that is set is
+writebackup
No problem with vim writing backups, in fact it can be good. Only problem I have with it is when I’m working on one of my web development projects I have to be careful not to ftp all of these extra files up to the server. There are two options.
I could disable the backup for vim by adding this to .vimrc
:set nobackup
The other, and better, option is to set a dedicated backup directory
:set backupdir=~/.backup,.,/tmp
Now all of the backup files get created in a single .backup directory. This isn’t a perfect solution. Files with identical names (index.html) will get overwritten, but I’ve never once used a vim backup file, so this is still better than nothing.
For more informations, you might read this article
Are *.swp and *~ files littering your working directory?
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February 18th, 2008 at 1:41 pm by Bob Weber (Personal)
Today is the seventh anniversary of the tragic fatal accident that took the life of one of the most amazing men, and one of my very few heros, Dale Earnhardt Sr.
I remember that day vividly. I had been at my sister’s house, and we didn’t even watch the Daytona. We turned on the TV and it was all over the news. His passing struck me very deeply, and still, as I write this, I feel a definite sadness for a life cut short.
Growing up as a farm kid, car nut and chevy guy, it’s just natural that I would have great respect for Dale. I remember many races in the early 90s, when he earned the name “The Intimidator”, where he just dominated the sport. One race in particular was the 1991 Busch Clash. The race was run in two 10 lap segments, the field was inverted after the first race. Dale won the first segment handily, and had to start at the rear of the field for the second segment. The first lap of the second segment he passed four cars, in the second lap he dropped the car to the apron and passed the remaining nine cars. It was one of my personally most memorable NASCAR memories.
Dale wasn’t the best man who ever lived. He had his share of problems when it came to family and his personal life, but one thing always struck me about him. No matter how famous he became or how much money he made, he never forgot his roots. At the time of his death I remember a number of interviews with local North Carolina residents remarking on his generosity and kindness. On the track he was all business and would spare nothing to win, off the track he was undoubtedly a man of character who is still greatly missed.
#3 Forever
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February 18th, 2008 at 10:39 am by Bob Weber (Laugh Stupid)
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Kyle Kendrick got news Saturday that he was being traded to Japan. Fortunately, this was just a prank by another player.
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February 14th, 2008 at 3:14 pm by Bob Weber (Tech)
One of the strange issues I’ve had with my Slackware 12 install is KDE Kicker (the toolbar across the bottom of the screen) crashing. It just seems to go away randomly, and typically when I’m not looking. Might be related to the screen saver. Initially I didn’t know how to fix it and was restarting X, which was a PITA. Eventually, I found a posting explaining that all I had to do was run the ‘kicker’ command and it would restart. Now it just crashes every couple days. Not sure if it’s worth trying to fix.
If anybody has an input on the problem, please leave a comment.
Popularity: 9%
February 13th, 2008 at 5:04 pm by Bob Weber (TV)
Looks like the writer’s strike is over I can stop Tivoing the Sleuth channel… maybe.
Sounds like most of our shows won’t be back. Chuck, the awesomest new show in 5 years, probably won’t be back until fall. 24, the awesomest show EVER, may miss the 2008 season completely. At least Leno will have better jokes, and Conan won’t be doing any more ring spinning. I guess that’s something.
Popularity: 7%
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