MOTORCYCLE PRODUCT REVIEW

I took my bike into the shop to get the oil changed (I have a oil change plan that came with the bike, otherwise I would do it myself) anyway I decided it was time to get a engine guard put on, so I checked with the guy at the parts desk and they had one in stock. I had been looking at one made by Cobra but decided to go with the one made by Yamaha. It’s a one piece with chrome from end to end. So then it was up to the service department to get it installed and the oil changed by Friday. This was important due to I wanted to take my bike to Greenville Friday morning. Well the service kept up there end of the bargain and the bike was ready Thursday afternoon.

I picked up my bike and the engine guard looked great,

I could not have been happier. So I decided to go inside the dealership to see if I could find any foot pegs…well I did…for a healthy price tag of 130 dollars..Wow!!! I decided to pass and got on my bike and headed home to look on EBay. On my way, I passed a small Harley shop and stopped in to see if they had any pegs…well they did…two kinds; one cost around 70 dollars and the other was around 30 dollars. Hmmmmm, guess which one I bought. Yea you guessed it; I went with the cheap one made by Drag Specialties …Ha-ha.

Truth is I had never used pegs before , so I was not sure if I would like them or not. So off to the house I went with my new pegs tucked away in my saddle bags. Once home, I went straight in and got some tools out of the workshop…I only used a few wrenches and a big crescent wrench.

The pegs came with a loop to fit a 1” bar or a 1 ¼” bar (like mine) simple installation; just pick the proper size loop, one bolt holds it to the engine guard and one bolt tensions the flip up motion of the pegs…it took me all of 5 minutes to hook them up…easy (anyone could do it)

First problem; the chrome cracked and flaked away on the loop as I tighten it to the engine guard (yep cheap…you get what you pay for) not sure if you can see it in the photo BELOW but the chrome did chip off.

My second complaint; was the pegs are chrome with little strips of rubber spaced around on it…I found it very slipperier when my foot was placed on it, and my guess is the rubber will tear soon.

Besides that they look great (well I think so…anyway)

The next morning I was off on my trip to Greenville, Ms (250 miles away) to watch my boy play baseball. I could not wait to try out the pegs and was using them before I even reached the highway…love them. I did notice that once I reached highway speeds my right foot wanted to try and be pushed off by the wind. So I reached into my saddle bag to pull out my tool bag (wait a minute…I don’t have one yet!!!…Chessie would not be proud. Chessie for you that don’t know is one of my bike ridding on line blogging buddies…great site by the way check it out when you get the chance.

http://chessiestales.blogspot.com/

She is always preaching

about how every biker needs a good set of tools somewhere on their bike.

Hmmmmm… so I looked around a store while getting gas and bought a 3 dollar crescent wrench it worked fine. I turned the peg in a little, made it kind of a V to the engine guard…no more slipping foot…worked great!!!

I’ve only been on one trip so for (AROUND 600 MILES TOTAL) I can’t believe I have been riding a bike without pegs. Its soooo nice to be able to stretch your leg out while riding. I will say, I will most likely buy better pegs with a heel loop soon. But as for now the Drag Specialties pegs work just fine, and the engine guard I can’t imagine how you could get one any better.

As for the trip to Greenville, Ms I’ll have a blog on it soon.
Big Al

Where I’ve been update

To sum it up in one word…BASEBALL, BASEBALL, BASEBALL…Ok I know that is three

words but you get the point. Ha-ha. Anyway for you non-petal-a-lights out there 11 year old baseball is in full swing

(no pun intended) at this point Petal is undefeated, wining the Sub-District, District and last night won the South State District against Pascagoula.

This means we are heading to Greenville Mississippi Friday to play for the State championship. We will be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday if everything goes well, so I’ve been told.

All the above said this left me very little time to blog…

biGalscompound.blogspot.com

but I plan to redeem myself, I plan on taking my motorcycle on this trip and report back on everything Greenville

http://www.greenville.ms.us/

has to offer on my blog. Oh yea there will be baseball updates too for you guys and girls who are following along. (I have been posting most of the baseball photos on FaceBook, due to time, remember just request to be my friend on facebook if you want to see….I’ll let you in…I have nothing to hide. Ha-ha)

Win or lose the boys have done a GREAT job…and lets not forget the coaches…THEY HAVE GIVEN UP SO MUCH OF THE TIME…THREE CHEERS!!!

For them all!!!

Until Friday
Big Al

Sturgis NO!!!

Sturgis…….is a no go…this saddens me very much…it’s that pesky thing call work again…it’s like a double edge sword…

the job gives you the money to go on such rides but it also has the POWER to take away the dream at the drop of the hat.

You might remember from one of my older post

http://bigalscompound.blogspot.com/2009/03/smoke-out-rockingham-north-carolina.html

that the company I work for, AT&T, may be going on strike

in August, August 8th to be exact. Well I meant to save an email I got from work the other day and post it here (sorry I lost it) but it basically said that since I’m management I have to be able to be in Connecticut

within 24 hours of the strike date…yea you guessed it, that’s just about the time I had planed to be at Sturgis…this would make it almost impossible (due to the long ride) for me to get my bike home then catch a flight to Connecticut in time. So, you see, I have no choice but to cancel my trip this year…but there is always next year. Well till next time…ride safe.
Big Al

Ewww that smell!!!

What a title but you will understand it, give me a minute to explain…have you ever owned a puppy

or had a friend that had one? This same puppy well lets just say it has that puppy smell. So you put him in the tub and give it a good bath…soap, shampoo and conditioner.

Once done your puppy smells like a bouquet of flowers…but you know from all the excitement that the puppy most likely needs to go potty. So you carry your now clean smelling sweet bundle of joy outside sit it in the grass, let it do its thing

and let it take a short walk around …then you pick it up only to find that puppy smell is BACK…what is the cause of this??? At first I thought it was the fur…wrong…I know this due to I also own a cat (Lucky) Lucky never has a smell…lucky smells the same, wet, dry or even if its been two years from taking a bath…

I mention the above because I have a story to tell…about a different kind of smell… DIFFERENT but the same…now that I have you totally confused here is the story…a few days back I came home for lunch my daughter Allison was cleaning the kitchen and my son was down the street at his buddies house playing…

As I was sitting down in my favorite chair I noticed out of the corner of my eye a flash of golf carts and four wheelers turning into my driveway. It was my son and his posse (group, gang, for you people out there not in the know. Ha-ha) I have to admit they drive some pimped out carts…

Ok the photos above are not their carts…but some of them look almost the same... anyway after a few moments I heard the group come in the back door on their way back to my boy (Myles) room to play. I got a quick hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello from each of the boys as they disappeared down the hallway. Then a few minutes later my daughter was heading down the hallway, on her way to her room…as she passed Myles room I hear…”Ewww you boys smell” I dismissed this and went on with my lunch.

Well I finished lunch and it was time to go back to work so I made the walk down the hallway of doom, as I now call it. As I walked I was all of a sudden hit (like with a brick)

with that unmistakable LITTLE BOY SMELL!!!

Oh my god!!! It almost knocked me off my feet (you have to imagine little boy smell time six in a very small room) Wow!!! Killer, killer. I swear it made my eyes water…

Then I made my way out the back door trying to escape the smell open the back door and was hit with a worse one…LITTLE BOY SHOES…

twelve in all…even my little dogs Taco and Bell did not even dare to come up on the back porch to have a chew!!!!!

Well I guess the moral to this story is…HMMMM I guess there is no moral…little boys just stink…for all you non parents out there…you just want understand, until you have one OF YOUR OWN… Ha-Ha.
Big Al

Fruit trees update!!!

Before I get started on the trees let me take a second to apologize

for the slow

posting and lack of commenting on other blogs I have been doing lately. (I promise I’ll do better) hang in there, I will get back to more than just a few posts a month…work has been killing me lately…driving me crazy is more like it…

well that’s all I need to say about that….I’ll do better.

Ok now onto the tree story…as you may remember from an earlier post http://bigalscompound.blogspot.com/2008/12/texas-road-trip.html

I bought four fruit trees while in Texas with my dad. Came home and planted them between the pool house and garage (thinking this was a good idea to shelter them from the cold wind in the winter) well turns out I was a genius…

it worked all four trees survived and are now producing fruit…lemon, blood orange, Satsuma and a kumquat tree..

I know you real farmers

out there are thinking what a idiot…he did not kill four trees and thinks he now has a green thumb…its not that at all, I just think of this as a small farming victory…in my world..It’s BIG…

Here are some photos…after eight months of growth…

Lemon tree (I find it funny that one lemon has been yellow the entire time the rest are green)

Blood orange

Satsuma

Kumquat (is just starting to bloom, very small fruit is starting to appear)

Hmmm next year or maybe this fall I plan on covering the compound with fruit trees…I figure if you are going to plant trees…it might as well be trees that you can eat…

Thanks for reading…
Big Al

WIFE'S RIDING LAWN MOWER

My wife always wanted a riding lawn mower.

She works all day and was always tired and
thought that a riding lawn mower would help
her get the yard work done quicker so she would
have more time for the chores inside the house.

SO, being the handy sort of guy that I am, I
made her a riding lawn mower.

I guess I thought she would squeal with delight or
something and give me a big hug.

To this day I have never been able to understand why
some women are so hard to please.

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Thanks for the email Libby

Big Al

WHITE WATER RAFTING WITH THE FAMILY (PART 2)

After a debate with myself I decided to post the second part of the rafting photos to my FACEBOOK account. http://bigalscompound.blogspot.com/2009/06/white-water-rafting-with-family-part-1.html (LINK ABOVE IS TO PART ONE)

I did this due to the ease of added many photos to FACEBOOK…if you have never done it before it is quick and easy. Where BlogSpot takes awhile to add a lot of photos…to be honest I’m just feeling to lazy to add them here today…if you want to see just click on my FACEBOOK link at the top left hand side of my blog page then look under photos http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26725&id=1428018628

…if we are not friends yet on FACEBOOK just request and I will be happy to let you in. Sorry for the inconvenient.

On a positive note…I see I reached 20,000 readers to day….ya hoooo…thank you everyone for your time and comments over the last few months…you guys and girls keep the blog alive…thanks again for reading.
Big Al

News flash!!! Mouse update!!!

Well if you have been keeping up with my blog, you know by now that I have had a mouse invader at my home…http://bigalscompound.blogspot.com/2009/06/oh-yea-its-on-now.html
that being said if you looked at my comments on the same blog you would have seen I did the little fellow in. (R.I.P.)

Well, there is a little twist to the story. As you may remember from my last story, I set four traps and the next morning I sent the mouse to the giant cheese wheel in the sky. I also have to mention a second trap had sprung but missed the mouse. This got me to thinking…is there more than one mouse??? I decided to leave the traps out one more night just to be sure, I tried to reset the sprung trap and found it to be defective. This left me with two traps that were still set from the day before, and then off to bed I went.

Morning came, I went in the kitchen to make some coffee

(truth is I had forgotten all about the traps) but then I remembered and took a look…first trap…same spot no movement…GOOD…second trap…GONE!!! I’ve been trap napped…what the heck? I looked everywhere and could not find it…then I thought to myself my wife and kids were up later than me, so maybe the trap killed a mouse and they threw it away. So I went on about my morning. Oh yea one thing I forgot to mention all around my stove were pennies lying around on the floor.

(Make me think of the twilight zone) Hmmm…

When the wife woke up later, I asked her where she put the trap…her answer “what trap?” We searched the house EVERYWHERE but could not find a mouse or trap…it was like it vanished in thin air. Later the kids woke up and were able to shed a little light on the subject…it appears that after the wife went to sleep the kids heard a strange noise coming from the stove…so being the brave kids they are, they climbed up on the kitchen counter and threw pennies at the stove until the noise stopped.

Well this was a relief, my guess was a mouse got its foot or tail caught in the trap and drug it under the stove. So I went to investigate…hmmm no mouse and no trap…what the…?

Well that night I was in bed SOUND asleep…and what do I hear? Honey are you awake? (This is at 11:30pm on a workday night) so many evil come backs came to mind but I answered with something like what do you need, DEAR!!!…(What I was thinking!!! SEE BELOW. HA-HA)

Her answer…it’s the mouse it’s under the stove, I can see it. So I go into the kitchen and sure enough the mouse and the trap are at the edge of the stove, as I get closer it drug the trap back under the stove just out of reach. DAM you mouse!!!! So I do what any man would do (right guys) I turn the stove on high and try and wait the little bugger out!!! I hear a few squeaks and moving around under the stove…but after 30 minutes of waiting…no mouse… so I do the next best thing and bring our cat Lucky in and lock her in the kitchen...

but what really happens...see below.

Well to make a long story short, I plan on moving the stove out this weekend to retrieve a DEAD mouse with its foot caught in a trap…. (I hope) but to all you other mice out there, just remember…as my friend Arnold once said…I’LL BE BACK!!!

Big Al