This is another repeat photo of the sidecar because this morning was another repeat callout. My buddy Lance should, by now, know that you cannot use a fax machine with phone service that comes from anybody except the phone company. Faxes will not work with any circuit that is digital, and that includes phone from Comcast and MagicJack.
You require an old-fashioned analog phone line which you can only get from the phone company. (Yes, the phone company will supply you with DSL, a “digital subscriber link” but that is a digital signal that goes down an analog wire. The analog wire is still there.)This gave us time to go test drive the sidecar, which made a believer out of Lance. He rode the car as we drove a mile to the shopping center south of Aventura. In the short time there, four women approached me and talked (none my type, I’m not into soccer moms). But Lance was wide-eyed, probably because he didn’t believe me when I told him about it over the phone, or at least this effect on women.
Well, now he wants one but he’ll have to get something custom made if he wants what I got. Harley and other sidecars are so different I think they actually look funny. He knows a welder who made one out of a bed frame, “bed frames never bend”. The sad part is Lance just sold his big bike a month ago because his ladyfriend would not ride in it. And he lost money on the sale.
On the return trip, I got a massive short in the battery cable that pulled me off the road. The battery fuse was fried and melted. I sat on the median in all the traffic and traced every wire. Nothing. All dry, waterproof, and clean except for the parts I know are trouble and which I’ve already rewired. Fortunately, I broke down across the street from Bennett Auto Supply, but two people stopped to ask if I needed gas and a lady in a wheelchair came by to make sure I was fine. Tales from the sidecar.
I replaced the entire (melted) fuse assembly but did not find the cause. This prompts me to consider rewiring the entire bike with 18 gauge stranded, and expensive proposition unless I can find a supply of colored wire without having to buy a whole roll of each. I’ve studied the diagrams to know that each wire only does one thing and that is enough for me to trace and replace. It means taking the Honda top side apart which I will not do until the scooter is back here in running condition.
Here is the fried fuse, or what is left of it in the melted assembly. That’s a 30 amp fuse, so that was a dead short onto the cycle frame. Yet I saw no sparks and found no obvious arc points. Nor were any of the plastic harness points black, another common indicator of where to find a short. Back home, I traced the exposed wiring under the seat, and all of it is in great condition. The problem won’t elude me for long but I’m not happy about the downtime and the need to redo everything. Then again, there is never a good time to do this type of work.
By the time this was done, I was so hungry I headed for the bakery and ordered their biggest sandwich, consisting mostly of foods not on my diet. That’s my big Friday and it is only late afternoon. I’m tempted to go out, but right now I’ve got no eBike, a scooter in the shop, and a sidecar with a random short. It’s a good thing I like adventure. Within reason, I mean.
I can’t count the reasons I hate Windows, but among the top is their ass-clown search algorithm. It blocks half the screen and when done, doesn’t spell out what wasn’t found. But it is so damn slow. You can’t specify which directory to search except on the main drive. I’ve been running a search on a 500 Gig drive for nearly three hours. I can’t wait to get an Apple, but my year-end is approaching, which brings major changes to a halt. Why, if it wasn’t for the wonderful news that certain people who don’t like me have had such a turn of back luck recently, I’d be depressed. You know who you are. And so do I.
Friday at home. The only unwatched movie I had left was “Give ‘Em Hell Malone”, which is not my kind of picture show. Another bulletproof ex-cop who knows everything. I still have a hard time understanding how jazz music ever became popular. Or those singers known as crooners. The tunes aren’t even catchy and I have this vision of some cool cat in a zoot suit snapping his fingers off beat.
ADDENDUM
After running out of movies and books last evening, I looked through some of my files and found a complete two hour documentary I made in February 2006 about a trip to see JZ. My dislikes about the system in Florida were about the same. Different street names on the same road, no through roads, not even freeways. The camera was aimed out the car windshield and I see the same streets before all the businesses went bankrupt. I even barked about the Denver, how their freeway off ramps go nowhere.
I’m even talking about my decision to stay here until my affairs get settled, which as we know took until late 2010. I lambaste the system over the Sunday traffic, the bad maintenance and even catch the illegal immigrants on camera. They back right off when they spot the camera, then pass at 80 mph hoping you won’t notice. We take the Palmetto, the famous freeway that goes nowhere. I point out the roads that were under repair when I arrived six years ago and some of them are still not complete now six years later. That’s Florida. No, I can’t post the video, which is full of security lapses.
See motorcyclists weave through the traffic at 100 mph. People blocking the left lanes, forcing others to pass on the right. I cover the route I used to drive to work and find it hard to believe I did that every day for so long. I was driving the station wagon with the cracked windscreen visible the whole trip. Passing through Hialeah where I lived for a year saving up all the money that kept me going for six years. Mentioned are invasive species, the imported palm trees, the old job headquarters, the gas prices, my hope they find life on Mars, dad’s health, Judy and other rich kids.
We swing through Coral Gables, Snapper Creek, lots of walled subdivisions, and dozens of our old hangouts during my search for JP. Wow, was I skinny back then. There’s the restaurant, the church, the condos, the bad drivers and the terrible condition of the roads. Bouncing all over the potholes, repairs, and patch up jobs, we eventually get back home. I’m surprised to see myself walk into the church with my known reaction to incense (deep, lingering headache, sore throat, dizziness), but then the last time there I had no reaction at all.
You can see how idiots drive in your blind spot so the only way to change lanes is to cut them off. I’m wearing my old eyeglasses that were the fashion and I’m wearing sweaters I eventually had to chuck when I knew I wasn’t losing weight. The video will shortly be destroyed.
