Bourbon Pundit

Pressure Treated Lumber is Heavy

The instructions said 2 people, 5-7 hours setup time. Yeah, right. Took about double that.

If you ever consider buying one of these monstrosities, you'll have a choice of pressure treated lumber or cedar. Cedar will be more expensive, pick it. Pressure treated lumber translates to permanently green, wet, heavy lumber.

My fear? Emily will play on it a half dozen times and then it'll turn into a roost for pigeons.

Finally complete

Slideout. This wasn't in the instructions. I learned this on the history channel.

This is where it's gonna be, I ain't moving it another inch.

Ok, so she halfway likes it...

Watch what they're teaching in school now!
Tiny Tim The Turtle (17meg MPEG)

Can I get a gigantic WTF?

Exam boost for pupils if pet dies

A system giving students extra marks if they have suffered personal trauma is being defended by an exams authority.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4527129.stm

For those of you that lived it, this is "outcome-based education" taken to it's logical end.

Really, what's the world going to be like when we no longer have a way to identify and classify stupid people?

Memory of the Camps

Sixty years ago, in the spring of 1945, Allied forces liberating Europe found evidence of atrocities which have tortured the world's conscience ever since. As the troops entered the German concentration camps, they made a systematic film record of what they saw. Work began in the summer of 1945 on the documentary, but the film was left unfinished. FRONTLINE found it stored in a vault of London's Imperial War Museum and, in 1985, broadcast it for the first time using the title the Imperial War Museum gave it, "Memory of the Camps."
Watch the video online.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/
WARNING: Content VERY graphic

I have no words of my own

Picture released by the U.S. Army Tuesday, May 3, 2005 shows a U.S. Army soldier comforting a child fatally wounded in a car bomb blast in Mosul, 360 km (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 2, 2005. 15 Iraqis were wounded in the combined suicide bomb attack. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! [Matt 18:5- 7]

Update:
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/05/little-girl.html
Major Mark Bieger found this little girl after the car bomb that attacked our guys while kids were crowding around. The soldiers here have been angry and sad for two days. They are angry because the terrorists could just as easily have waited a block or two and attacked the patrol away from the kids. Instead, the suicide bomber drove his car and hit the Stryker when about twenty children were jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. Major Bieger, I had seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the Iraqi hospital. She didn't make it. I snapped this picture when Major Bieger ran to take her away. He kept stopping to talk with her and hug her.

The soldiers went back to that neighborhood the next day to ask what they could do. The people were very warming and welcomed us into their homes, and many kids were actually running up to say hello and to ask soldiers to shake hands.

Eventually, some insurgents must have realized we were back and started shooting at us. The American soldiers and Iraqi police started engaging the enemy and there was a running gun battle. I saw at least one IP who was shot, but he looked okay and actually smiled at me despite the big bullet hole in his leg. I smiled back.

One thing seems certain; the people in that neighborhood share our feelings about the terrorists. We are going to go back there, and if any terrorists come out, the soldiers hope to find them. Everybody is still very angry that the insurgents attacked us when the kids were around. Their day will come.

Ride Report: Deal's Gap

Loaded Up!
All washed and waxed...in a couple days you won't be able to tell.

Shopping for Cobras in Cincy
Don will be considered foolish if he lets me drive it when he gets one. I'm just not responsible enough for this car.

Destination

Calderwood Damn at the Overlook
This was a quick ride up the beginning of the dragon...a good place to stop and get back in your head and get ready for the rest of the run if you've never been here before. It doesn't get easier from here....

Backup at the overlook
Everyone stops here to bullshit and gaze at the bikes.

Sorry, no pictures of the dragon itself. I was too busy with the road and there was nowhere to stop anyway. I'll put a video camera mount on the bike next time. There were a number of fast riders out there, even with the wet roads; but everyone was being respectful and staying in their lane. I moved over a couple times for guys who were evidently on a mission from God.

Down on highway 28, off the dragon
This a great diversion off the back of the tail of the dragon resort. The dragon is a great destination but there's a thousand other roads down there that are just as fun and don't have near the traffic.

Every other mile, I just wanted to pull off the road and pull out of fishing pole. Next time, I'm gonna add a day to the trip and actually bring a pole.

I'm not sure this isn't upside down

What to do after the gap?
Down at Robbinsville, eating lunch, a bunch of old farts were talking about how the skyway was fogged in. An hour later, it looked like the sun had burnt off most of that...boy was I about to be wrong.

1000 feet up the Cherhola Skyway...5000 more to go.

It rained like hell up on Cherhola. The clouds were at about 2000 feet and we thought we might get above them at 5000...it didn't happen.

Later that night, we're having dinner at Up The Creek, kinda like a Friday's, but mostly seafood and steaks. Our waitress...what a piece of work. Don, foolishly starts talking to her. A couple minutes later she had told us how she'd thrown up at the IHOP the night before. Then, she asks us where we're from...Indiana. She says..."oh, I hate northerners" and continues to expand on her IHOP story. Stupidly, we order another round...it's raining...what the hell. Six rounds later...actually, I don't remember...

The ride back was incredible. The day was perfect and we rode almost all backroads through the mountains, and through Kentucky. We were on some really twisty roads and I was thinking to myself...where are all the squids? I hadn't seen any bikes all day. Almost on command, a pack of a dozen of them rounds the corner in front of us...every one of them with loud pipes.

I used to like loud pipes, but the FJR has spoiled me. I now know I don't need loud to have power.

Back home...
Check out the chicken strips; burned those off in the rain.

The bike may be standing up, but I'm laying down. I'm done riding for a couple days.

Just over 1000 miles in 3 days; a good portion of it in the rain. The new Avon tires stuck like glue, the FJR ran perfectly day in and day out. The ride down to Maryville, TN was under 400 miles, making it a pretty easy run if you stop every hundred miles or so....takes a day's ride; but the stops keep you refreshed.