Bummer

Ok, so you have a few people, a pending (modest) hardware budget for unspecified stuff, and no money on a monthly basis. When you get the computer get two identical external USB backup drives. Tb, tb&1/2 are pretty cheap now. Attach one drive to the system. Put the second in a safe place - the top of your closet, for example. Have the people put all the data into a specific directory on the computer. At the end of each day/week (as appropriate) have the system back up that directory to the USB drive. (This can be done with a couple of lines of DOS, BASIC, or Perl, and a Chron - ez and pretty close to free. Winders may even have something to do this already.) Go by at some time after the back up is complete and swap drives. You could even hook it to your computer and make a copy there too. That leaves you with the data on the main computer. The data is on another drive sitting next to the computer. The other drive, with the data, is in a completely different place or two. Computer dies? You have two backups. House burns down? You have one backup (maybe two if you copy it to your machine too). World ends? No backups, but there's nobody left to care. Cost? Two USB drives, a book on whatever you decide the script should be written in (if you can't do it with something buit-in), an hour or two to scan the book and write the script (don't let this freak you out, it really only needs to be a line or two if you need to do it at all), and a little time to drive by now and again and do the swap. I did something very much like this for Navistar so the suits could carry around compressor logs whenever they wanted to. It took a zip drive, a couple of disks, and a little time writing and debugging a Perl script and a Chrontab. And that was a fairly complex copy. Yours wouldn't need to be anything nearly that complex. Cost:

Congratulations, Randy!

I didn't have any bolts missing, that I know of. However, the bike comes from Japan in a box. The top half of it's in pieces packed around the rest of it. The dealer has someone, usually a contractor as far as I can tell, put the thing together. They don't always do a wonderful job. Loose bolts, missing bolts, antenna on the wrong sides, stuff like that. Dreyer Yamaha in Indy used to always have a Venture sitting in the showroom with the antennas on reversed. I mentioned it to a sales person every time I saw one lile that. They always patted me on the head and explained how much they know about the machines they sell. One day they were having a big event and I wound up talking to the boss. He followed the wires, as I'd been suggesting, then thanked me for telling him. He also commented that their contractor must not be able to understand it from the installation sheet. Now the antenna are always on the right sides.

Congratulations! It's great to hear things went well!

In the early 90s I installed a set of Polk Audio 400 series speakers in my First Gen. I also added a small (by today's standards) Alpine power amp. By themselves the speakers decreased the volume out. Combined with the amp they made a huge difference. I was able to run the volume knob at half what I had before with about the same sound level out. Of course I could also crank it up nicely. This change also greatly reduced the distortion levels out of the stereo. The sound was much cleaner with the stereo running at 1/3 volume acting as a pre-amp rather than running 2/3 and doing it all. Eventually I plan on removing the cassette and putting an amp in its place with gauges replacing the face plate. If I can find an amp that'll fit.

I want to thank you guys for posting the info about Tim Horton('s). I just knew them as Dunkin' Donuts North. I had no idea about Tim Horton the person.

I knew there was something I wasn't doing right. And on a more serious note, I'm looking forward to seeing some higher res pics of it when you get a chance. It's definitely worth a full spread in your Gallery.

I have a set of Baron's 4-2-4s I picked up used. I like the look of four exhaust tips out the back of my four cylinder bike. I had to make baffles for them. They came without, and boy were they loud! I'm trying to find the right balance of packing to keep from creating too much back pressure while still keeping the noise reasonable. Indiana law says nothing about motorcycle exhaust systems, so in theory I could run straight pipes. However non-factory pipes are illegal throughout the USA. No DOT stamp. It's a Federal law, so nobody enforces it. The Feds have mandated a $2,500 fine each time a vehicle that's non-DOT compliant rolls out onto any road that has any federal funding associated with it. That's pretty much all of them. I kept the stock pipes. I'm hoping for a 'fix-it' ticket if the time ever comes. The motorcycle LEOs out in Oakland made a big deal of changing all their bikes to after market pipes because they wanted to be heard. They even blew $1200 on a study to say loud pipes make more noise. (Like there was a lot of doubt.) Eventually they spent $15,000 changing over the exhausts on 30 bikes. It's been a few years since they changed. At the time I first read about it they'd racked up over $250,000 worth of fines that nobody was levying because there's no active enforcement.

Don't you always have to ride west for that to pick up a signal? The flames look pretty good too. I'm not sure if the prizma stuff is working, though. I moved back and forth but it stayed the same color.

That sounds great all the way to the part where I'm on all fours with my head nearly on the ground looking at the sight glass. At least with me underneath it the fairing and bars wouldn't get all scuffed up.

I prefer the mirror on a stick. The bricks/boards under the kickstand method scares me something awful.

I would absolutely love that, even on my showy second gen!

Now there's the right idea!

That's a real scenic place. If it looks like that now, you need to be out riding.

Your profile is set to not receive PMs so I couldn't respond directly. I posted a question on the Uniq Technology web site. The question's there and I got an email thanking me for posting it. No response, though. I sent an email to Bike MP3 but haven't heard anything from them at all.

Know anybody with a Linux based computer? It's possible to extract audio from a DVD with a program called transcode. It's a command line utility, but it works pretty well.

Congratulations! I'm glad it worked out for you!

Speedy recovery, Paul! We hope things go as well as possible!

The lumps and bruises will go away with time.

I kinda wish I needed one, just 'cause they're so much prettier than the original.

Whew. That's a relief. Harley? I think not. The Second Gen is a knock off of an Indian.

I have to admit, Randy has, or at least is fantasizing about a nice one. Wonder where that one inflates? (Airplane's Otto anyone?) I used to have a Gumby strapped to the trunk rack, but haven't seen him in years.

September 18 2005, I got off work at 3pm and headed for home. At the time I lived 20 miles away, either around or through Indianapolis. It was a beautiful day, great for riding. I debated on whether to put on my helmet, but left it in the trunk and decided on the short route through town. I was going to look into a small race track I'd heard about and that seemed to be the most direct route. As I went past a school ball diamond with a game in progress I was tempted to stop, but chose not to. I had a chore to do once I got home and didn't want to waste too much time along the way. The road was two lanes each direction with parking along the side that went away to allow for a center turn lane at intersections. Traffic was not particularly heavy. I had barely put 9k miles on a new '05 Midnight and was thinking about lane position, speed in and out of intersections, and all the other things I'd gotten from the Proficient Motorcycling magazine series. I'd been a fan of David Hough's work for years and was taking safety seriously. I was following a van at a fairly good distance and moved to the right wheel track to increase my visibility as he pulled into the left turn lane at an intersection. I saw a Neon pull into the oncoming turn lane, but I was nearly through the intersection. A threat, but not a large one. There was no entrance to the parking lot on the corner for him to pull into. He appeared to be planning a normal left turn. As I cleared the intersection the Neon pulled directly into my lane well before the intersection. I shoved hard on the right handlebar. I had space on the right to dodge. I looked back to the left. He hit me. The bike was at a 45 degree angle, half way through an emergency lane change. The bike spun out from under me and I was punted about half a lane to the right of where I was hit. I realized I was laying in the road. My left leg had been crushed at and below the knee and bent at the wrong place. I laid it out flat and scooted myself with my elbows a bit to straighten it out. Getting ready for the medics. (Funny how old training kicks in.) I looked down and saw the bike laying on its side, stereo still playing. I looked up and saw the Neon sitting in the intersection. After a couple of moments he sped away. There was a forty minute car chase. A young lady in traffic didn't appreciate what had happened and followed the Neon, yelling at the police on her cell phone the whole time. The police finally caught the Neon. The driver had no license, no insurance, no green card, and wouldn't admit to being able to speak English. At first the police thought the car was stolen, but eventually figured out that it was shared by a group of people and didn't require a key to start. The LEO who wrote it up couldn't believe what I told her, so she reported it as a normal crash in the intersection with me sliding twenty feet. It never occurred to her to wonder why I wasn't covered in road rash after sliding that far in jeans and a t-shirt, or why I would have slid the opposite direction from what she thought were the forces of the crash. The prosecutor's office went through four assistants before the case finally went to trial. I explained what happened to each one. In the end they plea bargained away the reckless driving, crossing the double yellows, no insurance, and half a dozen other things. He wound up serving a total of ninety days for no license and fleeing. He was not deported. I was out of work for almost a year. I nearly died - severed artery. I almost lost the leg - six breaks including a split knee plateau. Still, in large part because of wonderful medical care I pulled through. Today I only limp a little when I'm fatigued. My employee health insurance paid most of the medical expenses of over $150k. Progressive paid off the bike and showed up with a check for the uninsured/underinsured coverage. I had gotten that largely by accident. I got the insurance on line and simply didn't know what I was doing. Today my bike insurance is maxed out with the highest uninsured/underinsured available. This time it's intentional. What could I have done differently? Pick the other route? Take a break when the voices suggest it, no matter when? I can tell you I don't like to ride into the city. Oncoming traffic makes me a little twitchy. I always wear a helmet and kevlar clothing. I still don't really know what I'd do differently. Sometimes it's the other guy's game and you're just left minimizing the damage.

You can go here to learn about the different models with Yamaha's V-4 engine. Just follow the links.

You got 'em.