R-133 Self Medicating - Back Now

 Sounds more serious than it is. I was just kinda -- tired(?) -- in a non-specific way that warned me that I was not 100% and probably ought to cast an eye toward recentering. 

Heh - Dr. Oz level psychobabble, of course, that basically meant I needed to take a moment and scrape my shit back into one pile. "Tired" is as good a description as any, and "Centering" speaks as accurately as anything to my more Reiki-inclined readers. Nonsense words, but accurate in their own domains, as Sean Carroll would say.

Or to mix three or four metaphors, I was getting too deep in the weeds and decided I needed a palate cleanser to get my head back in the game.

Whatever. It all means I walked away for awhile and spent some time out and about:

Bettina Saves The Day
AKA: 80 MPH Fat Boy On An Electra Glide (Harley Joke)
(Photographed by A Guy I Was Riding With One Day)

By happy coincidence, my main method of shaking the lint out of the filter suddenly became available. 

I don't remember if I mentioned that Bettina (my motorcycle) developed a minor oil leak that I could NOT track down. I finally gave up and took it into a shop to let the pros take a shot at it. After a couple of days they diagnosed an internal transmission seal problem and estimated around $1400 to crack it open and fix it. 

I was not happy. 

But I told my service rep to be sure, and if he was, to go ahead. We have history and he knows that I will pay anything without a murmur to get stuff done right, but have no patience and enormous capacity for shit stirring in the event of incompetence. He stopped the transmission tech and his partner just as they got the bike up on the lift. 

He asked an old, crusty Master Technician come over and give a second opinion as a favor. The Master Tech got under the bike, grumbled, cleaned, looked, grumbled some more, then said, "Yeah, I've seen this before," and walked over to his tool box and came back with a torque wrench. He reached into a nearly inaccessible spot and torqued down three bolts. 

"Yup," he said, "all three were under torque spec." He stood up and looked at the two junior service techs who were about to crack the case.

"Dumbasses," he said, and wandered back to his project. I love crusty old farts, not even counting that I are one. The entire thing cost me $80.00, and it's been tighter than a...whoa, almost said that, didn't I? Well, bottom line is that there ain't no more oil leak, and hasn't been for at least a couple of thousand hard miles.

Anyhow, I got 2- or 3-thousand miles on and am ready to get back after it. No, didn't go to Sturgis. Someday I'll tell you how much I don't like Sturgis. Or more accurately, that I love the area, but have no use for the biker rally. We'll see how it goes.