BlueSky

Unbelievably warm weather here. It's been in the 70's for a while and will continue for another week here in Wilmington, NC.

Yes, we will read anything about sex!

That is one reason I ride old bikes and don't have collision or comprehensive insurance. The liability ins on my Venture is about $200/year.

$1.919/gallon for my fillup yesterday at Sam's Club for 87 octane. It was interesting to say the least when the Arabs boycotted the USA and wouldn't sell us oil in 1973 because of our support for Israel. At that time we were only paying $2 for a barrel of crude. Gas prices doubled overnight. People panicked and started dumping their big gas guzzlers. Gas lines at the stations that had gas to sell. This boycott spurred the guvment to create the Dept. of Energy for the purpose of getting us off foreign oil!! What a success that has been!

These auto parts chains like Autozone and Advance Auto are pretty big too and probably sell as much engine oil as Walmart. Probably their business model probably requires a higher margin.

Looking back on what I observed, diesel fuel was cheaper than gas when it was only available at the truck stops and the large trucks were about the only ones using it. I'm sure that distribution costs went way up when they started distributing diesel to most of the gas stations to accommodate pickups and cars that now have diesel engines. As an afterthought, I never understood why someone would buy a diesel Mercedes car. Spend all that money for a super nice car and select a noisy, smelly, smoky engine just to save a few bucks on fuel.

I much prefer a 4 cylinder bike due to the smoothness of operation and the higher hp per liter. But, I suppose I am part of a dying breed. And the V4 is the most expensive engine design to build and the touring customers have been mostly won over by the big throbbing V twins. Why build expensive fours when the public seems to want a cheap V twin? An FJR with a V twin just wouldn't cut it in my opinion.

Another question is why are the giant auto parts store chains so much higher than Walmart on engine oil? A guy on a truck forum I participate in who works in an oil company lab tells us we are wasting our money buying synthetic oil.

Oops! I had a brain fart I suppose! I meant over $3k, about $3.5k actually. Thanks for catching that. Still ridiculously high. It helps explain why so many New Yorkers are retiring to my area and other areas in the south that have a lesser cost of living. Lots of retired New Yorkers in my subdivision. Back when I was buying and selling lots of used cars, NC did not charge sales tax on used cars with the logic that tax was paid on the car when new. When they fixed that "tax loophole" I slowed down considerably on the buying and selling because I was usually making a few bucks on the sales or at least breaking even. Sales tax on cars was 3% with a $300 limit but now they have eliminated that other tax loophole, the limit.

He just found out that the car sales tax in NYC is 8.8% which means it will be over $8k for the car he wants. Incredible!

A friend had a Dart with the 340 engine and 4 speed. It was a fast car, faster than my 65 Chevelle 327, 300hp, with the 350 hp cam.

Big Foot sounds like a good new handle!

One of the worst things is you can't scratch an itch under all that stuff! Have you ever seen the TV series western movie, "Lonesome Dove" starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Urich, Danny Glover, Steve Buscemi, and many others? It is one of the best westerns ever. That will take 6 hours of your time to watch. I showed it to my kids who didn't think they liked westerns and they sat glued to the screen for the whole 6 hours.

That is such Great News!

Thanks for the knowledge on the delamination. We are researching the issue and hope to avoid that problem. If you google C6 problems, there is a lot to read.

He lives just over the bridge from Manhattan in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. He rides his bicycle to work. He is a music recording engineer and has his own little studio where he can digitally clean up recorded music and mix recordings. He also works with his clients at the new studio built by Ann his friend and previous coworker who built the new studio in Manhattan called "Jungle" where the stars like to record their music. No, he does not need a car and will not be using it to go to work. It will be just a toy for any free time he has to have fun with. For a few years, he worked at Alicia Keyes studio on Long Island and needed a car to drive from Queens to LI. That is when he bought the GT Mustang. He is like me in that he likes hot rods. Immediately upon buying the Mustang he had 4.10 gears installed, had subframe connectors welded in, had long tube headers and larger throttle bottle installed along with a dyno tune. 9" wide wheels in the front, 10" wide wheels in the rear. We spent 3 days that Christmas installing a complete suspension kit. After a few years and when he was no longer working on LI, he sold the Mustang but has missed having a hot rod. The Corvette should satisfy that need quite well! He is also thinking of moving to LA and he will need a car there. The majority of music recordings happen in LA now. And he has been spending a lot of time there recording Beyonce since she and her husband JayZ like to spend the winters in CA. If I was still working I would seriously consider selling my Hemi Magnum and buying one of those Z06s for myself!!

Carrie fisher as well as getting older had a serious drug problem. I think that is what ended her marriage to Paul Simon.

I used to have a bad habit of buying and selling lots of cars, used cars mostly. So in my later years I refused to look at ads or car lots in order to stop that habit! My son is planning to buy a 06 or 07 Corvette Z06 so I started looking at them. What an awesome sports car! 7.0L (427 cu in) engine with 505hp, 470 ft lbs torque, only weighs 3,147 lbs and fuel efficient enough that it avoided the gas guzzler tax. 19 city, 28 highway In order to keep the weight down the frame is aluminum and magnesium with carbon fiber used in some panels. The engine has a forged steel crank with titanium connecting rods and titanium intake valves and a dry sump. According to Car and Driver, 3.5 seconds to 60mph and 127mph in a quarter mile and top speed smelling of 200 mph! They are still expensive but so many of them are super low miles and look like new. My son is 37 and hopefully mature enough to respect the power of this car. He has been living in NYC for about 15 years and has been without a car for a while and he wants a toy. This is one heck of a toy, a far cry from his last car, a modified 2004 GT Mustang!

Looks like poison to me.

I've never watched the Star Wars movies either. Several years ago, my son bought a set of the first 3 on VHS for me to watch and I never got around to it. Watching them is on my list and getting closer to the top of the list. Soon! Hey, with retirement comes time to do stuff like that:dancefool:

Same color as mine!

This is what mine looked like. https://www.google.com/search?q=2004+Kawasaki+Concours+photos&biw=1455&bih=705&tbm=isch&imgil=sX2sEVfWD29E1M%253A%253Bd5H1JChDJR6O6M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.motorcyclistonline.com%25252F2004%25252Fkawasaki%25252Fconcours%25252Fpictures%25252F05%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=sX2sEVfWD29E1M%253A%252Cd5H1JChDJR6O6M%252C_&usg=__CZm4LB3hbI1eYFN8teb6GD8MVJ4%3D&ved=0ahUKEwiB-_fziOLJAhVHWSYKHWRgCKwQyjcILw&ei=oztyVsGdCMeymQHkwKHgCg#imgrc=sX2sEVfWD29E1M%3A&usg=__CZm4LB3hbI1eYFN8teb6GD8MVJ4%3D

Yeah, the seating position on a sport touring bike is leaning towards a sport bike seating position and has high foot pegs folding your legs and your feet are under you. It may not be so comfy for some of us mature riders. If you could test ride one, you could find out. I considered my 04 Concours to be comfy except for putting some of my upper body weight on my arms. The handlebars can be raised to help alleviate this issue. The older Kawasaki Concours XG1000 Sport Tourer is the best used value in motorcycling in my opinion. It was 2010 when I bought the black 2004 in excellent condition with 21k miles for only $3k. I rode it for almost 2 years and sold it for $3k. They have a good reputation for lasting a lot of miles.

Oh, demerol doesn't eliminate all of the pain. You just don't care if you hurt! The last couple of times I broke something, all I was given was Tylenol with codeine, just about useless. In fact, I threw it away and took ibruprofen instead.