My latest project to keep myself busy at "work" was to build this clock.
We needed a clock in the living room, and being a fan of timekeeping devices in general, and a hacker / tinkerer, I set out on Google to find an LED clock kit. After about an hour of searching, I couldn't find anything that I liked under $60. Then I remembered an old Sparta alarm clock from the 80's that was tucked away in my closet (I never throw anything out.) An idea for a new case sprung into my head, and for the next few days during the down time at work, I tinkered with building a new plexiglass "case". After pulling the old alarm clock apart and tossing the unneeded parts, (the clock said "Sparta of Property" on the inside of the case. Wacky furiners.) I started on the task of soldering a crapload of wires from the control board to the display, and wiring new buttons for the hour and minute settings. I also had a few blue leds laying around, so I mounted them behind the control board for extra ambience. I drilled a bunch of holes in the 6" x 6" plexi and found some plastic standoffs for the boards. Everything I needed was "borrowed" from work except the four stainless machine screws to hold the case together.
This is actually the fourth alarm clock hack I've done. The first two were extremely realistic looking bombs. The next, and still currently in use, was a day/night switch for my bedroom alarm. At night, you could land planes with the green led display, so I took an old switch and some extra resistors and wired it in line with the display commons. (Inside that clock, it said "ProperPy of Wesclox".)

My latest adventures in home ownership: Washer hookups.
Among the myriad of upgrades I've done to my house since I purchased it in June of '05, this is the latest thats been taking up my time. I've been wanting to tackle this for a while, since my washer was, until today, in the kitchen, hooked up to my sink via a quick-connect coupling to the faucet. I needed the extra room in my small kitchen. I installed the dryer outlet and vent some time ago, as well as the drain for the washer, that I tied into the old cast iron drain lines. It seemed the easiest way to tap into the water lines was where the bathroom sink tied into the galvanized pipe. You can see where I added tees to the galvanized and ran copper from there. It was my first time sweating copper, and my first few joints were kinda messy (see elbow in top pic) but by the third or fourth joint things were going smoothly. Also in that pic you can see the years of rot caused by the leaking bathroom sink drain. It took me about a half an hour to fix that mess with that giganto-krazy straw apparatus. The next project will be to slap a new floor joist next to the rotted one. But, I digress.
The bottom pic shows the new 2x4's i used for the drain, faucets, and new outlet. (I've also rewired 99% of the house; it had the old "knob and tube" stuff. Extremely outdated, and a fire hazard. There's still some left in the attic - I'll get to that soon.)
So in the kitchen, I moved the fridge to where the washer used to be, and wa-lah!! That's about six extra square feet of floor space! Not to mention not having to run to the washer every time it drains because the kitchen sink couldn't handle the water fast enough.
Anyway, now that's done, so maybe I can dig into those hondas again soon.

Well, there hasn't been much progress on the Honda front lately. I've either been busy or too lazy or the "gumption factor" hasn't outweighed the low tempratures, as is the case today.
The last thing I got done was extracting the camshaft, taking off the points, advance unit, and side pod, after some nifty welding by Garner to extract some frozen screws. (When he wasn't helping me, he was spraying me with sparks, welding on his new project.) Now the head should be ready to come off, but it looks like I'll have to take the engine out of the bike to do it. On my 500 it was super easy to take off the head compared to this one. On the 350, the head and cylinders are bolted together as a unit, and then that unit sets on bolts that extend all the way from the crankcase to the top of the head. So, I have to lift the cylinder head off over the top of those bolts, but there isn't enough clearance above the engine. Crikey. I started on taking the cover off over the drive sprocket so I could get the chain off and check the sprocket, but the last screw was frozen, of course, so I gave up there. I'm assuming the front drive sprocket is trashed, because the back one is. Basically, I'm just going to take the chain off, lay the bike on its side, unmount the engine, then lift the bike up. I hope that works. If I have the engine out, I might as well take the bike down to the frame, I guess. I'll need many more plastic butter tubs and cardboard boxes for that venture.

Things are kinda slow on the Honda front lately. The only progress I've made lately is to go to Sears and get a 1/4" drive universal 10mm socket. ($10!!! What a rip!) It's a 10mm socket/
universal joint combination, and it's small enough to fit down in the cam galley and get to the cam sprocket bolts. I went directly from Sears to Gjarner's and tried it out. The top bolt came out fine, and after some major grinding on the poor ol' socket, the bottom one broke loose too. I started to take the side pods off that house the points and tach drive, but after struggling with the frozen phillips screws, I didn't feel like continuing, so I cleaned up and left. I should have put some penetrant on 'em, but I forgot.
I've been thinking about the chopper/bobber thing lately - I still want to do it, but I don't think I have the heart (or I have too much heart) to chop up my 500. (I need to get another seat, though. I hate that King&Queen jobby.) I put a lot of time, effort and love into it just to cut it up. I'd rather dig a rough one out of the weeds and resurrect it as a bobber. I'll stay on the lookout.
Other than that, nothing much new has been going on. My brother is coming to visit this weeked, so that should be a blast. I'm sure we'll get drunk and reminisce.

Howdy folks,
Sunday it was a ridiculously balmy 66 degrees here in C-town. I helped Amy clean house for a while with a mop I broke at the last party, so the handle was about a foot long. I was about to head down to Garner's when the man himself rapped on my door, MC Homelite in tow.
He was going for round 3 or 4 with the ol' Maple, but the old chainsaw just wouldn't go. As soon as he put some ass into it, it would just bog down. We fiddled with it for a few minutes and then gave up altogether. You win again this time, Maple, but your time will come.
I grabbed some distilled water for my battery, and headed south to Garner's. I beat him there, and he pulled up shortly after with some Pony Express and Lone Star. Ah, a couple of guys drinkin', workin' on motorcycles. Couldn't get much more macho than that. As I tore into the engine, we chatted about girls, stealing golf carts and other heavy machinery while whiskey drunk, That guy might get me into trouble one of these days. Good times.
I got the exhaust loose and removed the upper engine mount. I took the valve cover cap nuts off, but the cover wouldn't come off until I had removed the rear and front engine mount bolts and rotated the engine forward a little.
The camshaft galley and rockers looked neat and clean, and were coated with oil. No moisture up here. Not much wear. I tried for a while to get the bolts out of the cam chain sprocket so I could get the head off, to no avail. I couldn't rotate them into an accessible position, the engine being seized up and all. I loosened the cam chain tension all the way, but it didn't make much difference. I think with the purchase of a 1/4" drive u-joint, I can get to the top one at least, and rotate the engine as a last resort to get to the other bolt.
I got fed up with mine and put a clutch cable on Mark's bike. The screws in the case broke loose relatively easy, to my surprise. I had to drill out the hole in the case a little so the cheap aftermarket cable would fit. Worked like a charm. His bike is almost ready to go.
I finished out the evening at garners hanging out with his roommate and house guest, drinkin' a few more Lone Stars and shooting the shit.
Next up is dealing with the local Honda shop, which I despise. The customer service is lousy. If you call in to order a few things (petcock seals in this case), you inevitably get put on hold. They have this horrible store song on an endless loop. 5 minutes of that and I want to smash the phone repeatedly into the desk until it shatters. Last time I lasted two minutes before I hung up. If you do get through, the parts guys really don't give a crap about you or your stupid '72 Honda. Has to be done though, unless I want to drive 30 miles to the other nearest Honda dealer in Jeff City.

So last night my band thinline had a show in Jefferson City. It was a hoot. On the journey back up 63 going north, about 1:00 of the a.m., a truck whizzed by us going the WRONG WAY on the divided 4-lane. Dumbass!! Just as I was wondering if I should call the people that were leaving after us to warn them, Phil called. He asked where I was - he was still at the bar, selling cd's...which were in my truck. Rats!! I told him of the idiot driver and to get their addresses so we could send their cd's.
Today I lugged all of the old maple tree out of my front yard that I could handle by myself. Wood is heavy! Two loads of logs in the Suzi went to the mulch site. It's kind of a shame - I had hoped that somebody could use it as firewood, but nobody would ever pick it up. Too late! There's still 5 or 6 3' diameter pieces to chop up, hopefully Garner and MC Homelite can help a brotha out with that.
After that, I cruised on over to Garner's to do some cycle work. I was hoping I could maybe assess the situation with my (purple) honda. I started on Mark's. I opened up a new can of brake cleaning spray (just isopropyl alchohol), not noticing the two that were already open on the shelf. Oops. I cleaned out the tank and the petcock. The seals were rotten. Add that to the list. I set that stuff aside and pulled the left hand spark plug out of mine. It looked nice, still a bit wet with oil. I sprayed some penetrating oil in the plug hole. Remember, this one's seized up. I went to take the right hand plug out...it wouldn't budge. Rats. I sprayed some penetrant on it and went on to the tank.
Hooo boy. The tank is horrible. I took it off and there was stuff rattling around inside. It was coated once, and it was flaking off. I dumped most of it out and took off the petcock. Wow. The tube for the normal "on" setting that exends up from the petcock was split down the side...water got in, and froze? I guess. I cut it off, cleaned the rest of the inside of the petcock. Rust and corrosion everywhere. I plan on getting some sand and gravel, halfway filling the tank with it, and shaking the hell out of the whole mess until suitably clean.
I went back to the plug. I tapped on the ratchet with a dead-blow. No go. I put a 1' metal tube on the ratchet. Still no budge. I kept at it. Crack!! The plug broke. Rats!! Now the head would have to come off. The anode of the plug had a light brown dusting of rust on it. Oh, no.
I took the float bowl off of that side and it was full of rust and corrosion. Crap. Water got in the carb. I took the carb off...same story with the intake port. It was evenly coated with rust dust and flakes of aluminum oxide. Rats!!!
Hopefully I can save it. I'm optimistic - if I rebuild the head on that side and the rust isn't that bad in the cylinder, I can hone it out and and re-ring it...I'll just have to pull the head and see.
I took the three brackets off for the old ferring. At that point I had had enough. I cleaned up and got out.

'Twas a busy day today.
This happens to be the busiest day of the two-week cycle that is my job. Every other Thursday, I have to zip around town to 5 different locations and go to the bank twice before heading down to McBaine for my last stop around 3:30 pm. (Oh, on the way to McBaine, I was following this pickup with a flatbed trailer. On the trailer was one of those huge telephone company lookin' trucks - with cherry-picker and everything. The whole affair was leaning precariously to the right, as if the tires were low on the trailer on that side. The road towards McBaine is less than level, and often the road is curvy and has a pitch to it, mostly to the right. At least 3 times I thought the whole thing was gonna tip over. It was scary and adrenaline inducing.) Plus this brand-new NASCAR pinball is taking up my time - it's experiencing problems already...the thing is less than 3 months old. Stern Pinball sucks. I miss my Williams/Bally pins. The classics. Built like fuckin' trucks. Why did you stop making pinballs, Williams, Why!?
Anyway, Tuesday I finally got the cycles over to Garner's with Steve's help. Wednesday band practice. And directly after work today, I went home, snacked on some chips and salsa, put on a sweatshirt over my tee, broke out the longjohns, gloves and "stalkin'" cap, and took the 4-mile drive to Garner's. On the gold Honda, hereinafter known as "Mark's", I threw the battery on the charger and went to work: I ran the valves (not bad), points (right on), and checked the plugs (right on). I also suceeded in spilling oil and gas on Garner's garage floor no later than 15 minutes after I got there. I used his freshly built work table. I put on a new front brake, tach and speedo cable. I removed the old side bags and brackets, and the broken case saver. I removed the brackets for the now defunct front ferring and windshield. I also found the rear tank rubber mount down inside the frame. It was still in good shape! I started getting hungry, put all the tools away, threw the old side bags in the Suzi, and headed home.
Next visit I hope to start on my Honda. I'll break the engine loose and check the points, plugs, and valves on it, and probably yank a carb or two. Maybe start on de-rusting the tank. I cant really decide if I want to do a frame-up resto on it....that would be a lot of work. I'll probably just get it running good and looking decent. The paint and chrome are in dern good shape anyway. Yeppers.

After a loooong night's deep sleep, I got up around 1:30pm today. My toe hurts like hell. New year's day, I got up to pee around 5:00am, and upon completing the task (sitting down, of course) I was on the way out, staggered sideways, and bashed the long toe on my left foot on a cabinet in the living room. It hurt like hell then, but I was back asleep within minutes. By the afternoon, the toe was an ugly shade of purple and green right around the first joint, (Actually I like that color scheme on anything but human flesh) and ohhhh....the pain. I've had a pretty good limp since. I'm pretty sure I broke it, or at least jammed the hell out of it.
Anyway, I had arranged to see Garner's garage on the south side of town today. He had to go into work around 3:00, and I figured if I got there by two he would be up and could show me around. When I got near his house, (the jouney was quite maddening; I had to follow a pickup truck with a trailer, holding a new fridge, going about 20mph down the curvy road) I immediately recognized his Blazer, which I had seen out in front of my house one frosty morn. I had been sleeping lightly, recovering from a party I had hosted the night before, when I heard several deep thumps. Now, my house was built in the '20s, and it has since settled down into the soft clay, slowly becoming more in tune with the earth, able to pick up the slightest vibrations. It's like a 900 square foot hardwood-floored seismometer. At the party, Garner (which should be spelled "Gjarner", as it is in my phone memory; I think I typed it in that way thinking it was funny...and it is...to me) and I had been talking about this gigantoid tree in my front yard that had been recently cut down by the city. It was a huge old rotten Maple, and I got it cut down for free, since it was growing up through some power lines. But removal was my problem. Garner said that he would try and help me, I guess; I don't remember any specifics, because I was drunk as hell. So I forgot about that until the next morning when I heard the thumps. You can hear his first-hand account of the battle with the old tree on his blog. (link above.)
So there was his Blazer towards the edge of the street in the driveway, followed by his work-in-progress International Scout, then the Corpsica. The garage door was open, and Gjarn was in there doing some last minute cleanup. He gave me a quick tour of the small one-car garage, and recounted several hilarious stories from the neighborhood, mostly involving his own drunken hi-jinx. Or is that jynx? Never used that phrase before.
I had planned to deliver the cycles today, but it was cold, dark and windy, and I wasn't feeling too motivated. Steve, my help, was busy hanging out with a girl. Stoopid girls. I got to my warm house and it internet sucked me in as usual. Steve said he could probably help me tomorrow. We'll see.