Monty

I love to grill. Steaks, burgers, chicken, pork loin, whatever. I can also make mouth-watering BBQ, using just a crock pot & an oven. The preferred way is to use a smoker and some hickory sticks.

Aspen Classic here. Never had any trouble pulling it. http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i274/13thAFMonterey/Image8.jpg http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i274/13thAFMonterey/Image2-1.jpg

I kinda like the new uniforms. Beats the heck outta dungarees. I wonder how they take 'em off and use 'em as flotation devices, though.

Contributed by: Mike McCaffrey, Admiral (retired USN) Never forget this, a Chief can become an Officer, but an Officer can never become a Chief. Chiefs have their standards! Recollections of a Whitehat. "One thing we weren't aware of at the time, but became evident as life wore on, was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples any lad was ever given, Chief Petty Officers. They were crusty old bastards who had done it all and had been forged into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of us had time on the planet. The ones I remember wore hydraulic oil stained hats with scratched and dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic. Most of them were as tough as a boarding house steak. A quality required to survive the life they lived. They were, and always will be, a breed apart from all other residents of Mother Earth. They took eighteen year old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards into sailors. You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been born a Chief's kid. God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a return option. A Chief didn't have to command respect. He got it because there was nothing else you could give them. They were God's designated hitters on earth. We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins, and combat air crew wings in my day...hard-core bastards who remembered lost mates, and still cursed the cause of their loss...and they were expert at choosing descriptive adjectives and nouns, none of which their mothers would have endorsed. At the rare times you saw a Chief topside in dress canvas, you saw rows of hard-earned, worn and faded ribbons over his pocket. "Hey Chief, what's that one and that one?" "Oh hell kid, I can't remember. There was a war on. They gave them to us to keep track of the campaigns." "We didn't get a lot of news out where we were. To be honest, we just took their word for it. Hell son, you couldn't pronounce most of the names of the places we went. They're all depth charge survival geedunk." "Listen kid, ribbons don't make you a Sailor." We knew who the heroes were, and in the final analysis that's all that matters. Many nights, we sat in the after mess deck wrapping ourselves around cups of coffee and listening to their stories. They were light-hearted stories about warm beer shared with their running mates in corrugated metal sheds at resupply depots where the only furniture was a few packing crates and a couple of Coleman lamps. Standing in line at a Honolulu cathouse or spending three hours soaking in a tub in Freemantle, smoking cigars, and getting loaded. It was our history. And we dreamed of being just like them because they were our heroes. When they accepted you as their shipmate, it was the highest honor you would ever receive in your life. At least it was clearly that for me. They were not men given to the prerogatives of their position. You would find them with their sleeves rolled up, shoulder-to-shoulder with you in a stores loading party. "Hey Chief, no need for you to be out here tossin' crates in the rain, we can get all this crap aboard." "Son, the term 'All hands' means all hands." "Yeah Chief, but you're no damn kid anymore, you old coot." "Horsefly, when I'm eighty-five parked in the stove up old bastards' home, I'll still be able to kick your worthless butt from here to fifty feet past the screw guards along with six of your closest friends." And he probably wasn't bull****ting. They trained us. Not only us, but hundreds more just like us. If it wasn't for Chief Petty Officers, there wouldn't be any U.S. Navy. There wasn't any fairy godmother who lived in a hollow tree in the enchanted forest who could wave her magic wand and create a Chief Petty Officer. They were born as hot-sacking seamen, and matured like good whiskey in steel hulls over many years. Nothing a nineteen year-old jay-bird could cook up was original to these old saltwater owls. They had seen E-3 jerks come and go for so many years; they could read you like a book. "Son, I know what you are thinking. Just one word of advice. DON'T. It won't be worth it." "Aye, Chief." Chiefs aren't the kind of guys you thank. Monkeys at the zoo don't spend a lot of time thanking the guy who makes them do tricks for peanuts. Appreciation of what they did, and who they were, comes with long distance retrospect. No young lad takes time to recognize the worth of his leadership. That comes later when you have experienced poor leadership or let's say, when you have the maturity to recognize what leaders should be, you find that Chiefs are the standard by which you measure all others. They had no Academy rings to get scratched up. They butchered the King's English. They had become educated at the other end of an anchor chain from Copenhagen to Singapore . They had given their entire lives to the U.S. Navy. In the progression of the nobility of employment, Chief Petty Officer heads the list. So, when we ultimately get our final duty station assignments and we get to wherever the big Chief of Naval Operations in the sky assigns us, if we are lucky, Marines will be guarding the streets, and there will be an old Chief in an oil-stained hat and a cigar stub clenched in his teeth standing at the brow to assign us our bunks and tell us where to stow our gear... and we will all be young again, and the damn coffee will float a rock. Life fixes it so that by the time a stupid kid grows old enough and smart enough to recognize who he should have thanked along the way, he no longer can. If I could, I would thank my old Chiefs. If you only knew what you succeeded in pounding in this thick skull, you would be amazed. So, thanks you old casehardened unsalvageable son-of-a-*****es. Save me a rack in the berthing compartment." Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i274/13thAFMonterey/IMG_3796.jpg http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i274/13thAFMonterey/IMG_3800.jpg

Get you a ghillie suit, and a very good video camera, then go stake it out. Catch them on video doing it, then turn it over to the PD.

I am very sorry to hear of the loss of your son. My oldest son has had 2 motorcycle wrecks, and it shook me up so much each time, but we were lucky. My heart goes out to you, as I can't imagine going through what you are. Just remember the good times you had together.

I've been riding at least once a week, for most of the winter. Hasn't been that cold here, but we've had lots of rain. Been enjoying it alot here lately, at it'll be 78 degrees on my way into work tonight. Cages around here are used to seeing bikes all year round, but you still have to keep an eagle eye on them. Mostly texters. Ride safe!

You know Tom.....if'n I really wanted to, I have enough info to find out who that Deputy is. I DO have the phone number for the ECSD. Hmmm:whistling:

It looks like it might have been this member, although his membership has expired. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/member.php?u=9593

Is there someome here named Scott Crego? Possibly from North Carolina. I have someone by this name attempting to join our Facebook Venturerider group. His profile pic is of an RSV. When I tried to add him to the group, it said he was already a member, but when I check the group roster, he isn't on it. It will not let me use the "ignore" function, nor will it let me add him. So, it's just sitting there, asking me to add him, but I can't do anything with it. It could be a major glitch, or he could have some kinda weird privacy settings that is preventing it. Did one of you guys add someone by this name? Is this the name of a member here? :think::think::think:

Might have to try them on and ride real fas.....err see how they look on mine.

Oh I'll be there. Live just a few minutes away. Don't know if I'll have the funds, though.

You're just tryin to get me to break down and buy some of this stuff, aren't you? You keep posting them in my color.

If I wasn't on Facebook, I would have never found over 200 of my old shipmates, and organized a reunion for this June. Haven't seen most of them in over 20 years.

Plunger would be alot better than a snake...or roto rooter.

Just added 2 more. Going to bed now.

Wow! 19 new members, just today.

Also, if you think it might be flooded, open the throttle all the way up, then start it. This lets in lots of air, easing the starting.

There sure has been an influx of members joining today.

Hey Don...how many phone calls did you get from these addicts?

It's right here!!!!!!!

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=41546&highlight=copper

Sounds like it's trying to flood, and spark is not hot enough. Here's how I fixed mine.... For some reason, these bikes call for resistor plugs, although the plug wire caps have resistors in them. Since I couldn't find the non-resistor plugs around here, I took the resistor out of the plug caps, and replaced them with copper wire, cut to the same size. After that, it fired up quick every time. There is a thread on it here somewhere.

Is it dragging, or just spins over alot before starting?