First year

It's just about that time, Halloween (my birthday), and because of this I thought I'd share a few pictures that I found online. These are snapshots of what I considered a playground when I was a lil' kid.

I grew up right next to the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, mostly just referred to as "the cemetery".
Here is a shot of the front gate. The house I grew up in faces the same street and is the first house next to the wall way to the left of this pic.
You can see in the picture that, being a National Cemetery filled with vets, almost all of the headstones are uniform; rows and rows of white tab shapes. I remember walking home from Dunn elementary school through the grounds and coming across a Medal of Honor recipient - the carved in name and date info was painted in gold (leaf?). I also remember coming across a David L. Paton marker once - ran my ass home.

Not all of the stones are of contemporary design. Near the back corner of the park is where the President is buried. I believe that he and his wife are currently in this mausoleum here, which I remember well, but were originally buried in two other places, one of them being a kind of barrow just behind the current mausoleum. We ran, fell, rolled and goofed up and down this mound countless times.

Growing up there wasn't much scary about the cemetary, it was, naturally, a quiet and fairly pretty place. The wall was made up of large grey stones and was wide and flat on top so that as kids we could use it as a route back into the neighborhood. It was also super great for playing "war". So thats that.

J also likes to point out that I was born in the same year that the American Church of Satan was formed, 1966. Yes, I am that old and will officially be older come Sunday.

UPDATED: Forgot the first time - here is an image of a vintage postcard depicting the cemetery - having a lovely time, wish you were here. Also I have just found out that the Dunn elementary school mascot has been changed from the Devils to the strangely unregional Dolphins. When I attended the school we were jacked by a tornado. Not only did Mr. Norsworthy's car get tossed across the lot, I remember hearing that he sailed down one of the hallways. He was a great librarian.
The Dolphins, sheesh.
If that wasn't stupid enough, a Dunn school in COLORADO also claims the Dolphin as its mascot. Weird.

Related to the tornados that swarmed the state and smacked my school, one of the countless large trees that was felled that day resided in the Zachary Taylor Cemetery. It was a large stately tree and it upturned a great deal of dirt when it fell over. As us kids inspected it the next day or two, looking at the roots and climbing on the downed trunk, we noticed that if you looked into the hole the roots had dug up and left, you could make out the corner of a buried coffin!!

Henges and barrows; scratchy or otherwise

Julian Cope's site was mentioned in an aural interview with the member's of Sunn O))), it (the site) is here. Within the interview there was mention of Cope's book - The Modern Antiquarian - a guide to Megalithic sites in Britain.

He also has a new book coming out - supposedly released yesterday - called the Megalithic European.

Seeing as how we have a trip to Britain in the near future, I have also found this site on prehistoric remnants, www.megalithic.co.uk

Happy Anniversary nerds

Flywheel puller

The flywheel puller is screwed onto the bike, sitting there, waiting.
I pulled the generator cover off with a bit more effort than I had hoped; one of the standard hex screws had been replaced - I reckon before I ever bought the thing - with a phillips head screw that unfortunately was dead set on staying put even if that meant the stripping of its head.

So that damn thing finally came out, and the outer cover came off. The generator has some rust on it.
It took some futzing about but I think I got the initial component of the flywheel puller solidly attached to the generator. The next step was to screw the second part of the puller to the first part and watch as the device pulled the generator apart. This has not happened yet.

All these pieces I have just mentioned are still together, very tensely together out in the garage. A bit of WD-40 has been splashed all around in hopes of it penetrating what ever gunk and time influenced bonds holding these metal shapes together. I became concerned that I was just going to destroy something, at the very least my evening.

And yes, I have tapped and tapped and tapped.
There will be more tapping. It worked with getting the other side engine cover off.

A Reaganite argues that Bush is a dangerous, profiligate, moralizing radical - and that his reelection would be catastrophic for the right and the US

These sorts of articles continue to appear. It is no wonder that, seeing as how many conservatives are repelled by the President, today is filled with news of dubious RNC voter registration behavior.

Serious conservatives should deny their votes to Bush. "When it comes to choosing a president, results matter," the president says. So true. A Kerry victory would likely be bad for the cause of individual liberty and limited government. But based on the results of his presidency, a Bush victory would be catastrophic. Conservatives should choose principle over power.

Odometer readings vary with each vehicle.

The spiral jetty is, or rather it has been without me knowing it, above water again. This fact has finally come to my attention via a visiting couple of friends who were in town for a few days. They had been part of a show that had several performances in Europe and used Los Angeles as a resting point before heading home to Australia.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, a large Robert Smithson show opened up at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Being that I am a practicing home-body, I seem to only get out to art shows or museums on special occasions or when friends visit and they turn into the catalysts for going on a look-see. This happened with the Rodney Graham show when D. came in town. All sorts of things can happen when people visit including flat tires, visits to National Parks, Belgian Beer Fests or simply having the gumption to deal with the madness that is Amoeba records.

So yeah, the Jetty is above water - at least recent pictures have it that way. Before I forget, here are the directions. I was attending grad school when I first learned that there was more to Robert Smithson than just the jetty - a real nerd, there is plenty of science ficstraction to wander through as well as some very brutish work - brutish in a marshall stack sense - not so much that its sloppy or poorly made.
When I was in school there was an article in ArtForum in which a critic wrote how he heard that the jetty was much more visible than it had been for years because the Great Salt Lake's water level was lowering. It was one of his favorite works of art even though he had never seen it or visited. Being that I had a trip to SLC planned at the time, a friend K. and I decided to make the pilgrimage. It is out there - you gotta want it - and it takes up most of a day. When you get out there you are pretty much left with yourself. At the time, there was still a bit of heavy debris left littering the hillside down to the shore; an old Army tractor or some such, perhaps a rusted truck and maybe the skeleton of some old trailer. At the time (1993?), the Jetty was really not above water. The larger stones along the edge poked out into the air, but there was an easy two feet of water covering the middle "road" of the piece. We wandered around on it for a while, sloshing through the hyperbriney waters and slipping on the ridiculously hard salt crust that covered everything. The water was pink and the sky was blown out blue/yellow. I made a super-8 film that I still have today.

So thats what I have been up to since last Wednesday night, hosting. Out friends journeyed on late Sunday and we were left on our own until the work-a-day started up again yesterday. No work has been performed on either machine. I have ordered a new centerstand for the BMW. It has an appointment in two weeks for its yearly checkup. I also picked up some small green bulbs that I need to put in its "dash" to replace the ones that have failed - soon, bright clocks.

The Yamaha, being that it is in a coma, sits patiently.

Where are you?

Here at the work-a-day there are televisions or LCD's placed on all the floors that are set to always play the network. Lunchtime has scheduled Scooby-Doo episodes that feature celebrity guests. Being that these cartoons were made a few years back, the celebrities are very much of their time (Sonny and Cher or Jerry Reed), or maybe timeless (The Harlem Globetrotters) or, as in the case of what I saw today, sadly long-gone. Today's celebrity guest mystery sleuth is Mama Cass.

Sixty plus miles

A bit of inspiration. If that just happened a today, a few hours north of here, I can fix this damn bike.
Something ordered from ThumperStuff today: a flywheel puller.
Something learned today: there are things called Snap Ring Pliers, which would have made getting that circlip, aka the snap ring, off the kickstart shaft much, much easier.

I have been told to determine if the point is sparking (I don't think so) and if not, to follow it back to its source - first checking the connection from the points to the generator. Spark should be coming from somewhere and as the coil is almost at the end of the line it is best to start at the front.

Multi-metering

Welp, plenty was done and more was attempted and yet I am still NOT getting spark. Since Friday I have stumbled my way through changing the points (point?) and condenser and replacing the pawl guide plate assembly which is the new bits that replaced the broken piece of nonsense I found in the oil sump. I also believe I have finished cleaning and restoring parts of the carb.

It has all be terrifically dirty work. Enjoyable while sometime frustrating - only because I know so little about what I am doing I need to stop every few steps to think about what comes next.

The points and condenser were fairly easy, barring the one minute when I thought for sure that I had just watched a spring flick super valuable and itty bitty washers to the far corners of the garage. Fortunately the replacement parts did just that, replaced what I had stupidly let fly away.

Still, I wasn't getting any spark on the plug when stepping on the kickstarter so I bought an inexpensive multi-meter. My MANUAL seemed to think that, once the points and condenser are replaced, the most common culprit to not getting the desired fat blue spark is the coil. I tried to run the tests mentioned in the MANUAL but I definitely did not get the results desired. Emails have been sent out and a call will be placed.
Meanwhile the side cover of the engine was removed and after a bit of futzing with a circlip (grrr) I got the kickstart mechanism out and replaced the broken that I found behind it. Lord knows why that guide plate snapped in the first place. I saw more traces of the act in the form of scratches on the inside of the engine casing. Yow.

Many, many new parts

I have a great deal of anticipation for this weekend. Yesterday a few additional parts arrived in the mail - mainly the new Pawl guide plate and a couple other bits that go with it - as well as a spark plug and some other chinga that is for the carb.

Additionally I now have a set of keys!
Andre up at Abe's Lock and Key finessed some new keys into two parts of the old Yamaha; one set for the ignition and a second set for this small lock that fits in one of the side covers. Beautiful.

I hope to have a few images up over the weekend as well. Other projects include putting the carb back together, fixing the kickstart mechanism and seeing if the machine still gives spark.

Meanwhile I'm still praising Odin that the BMW has a sidestand.