Had a great weekend up until tonight when the computers started fighting me. Mostly it's the BIOS on this new server, but aggravated by stupid installers. Enough about that, here's the fun I had:

Saturday I got up early (for a Saturday) and got to Ride West in time to be there when the parts and apparel swap opened. I just missed a rear seat for the R50, but I'm next in line if the buyer decides that he doesn't want it after all. It was in really rough shape, but priced at only $5 I could put some effort into it. I did manage to score some really nice Lee Parks gloves at about half price. I also met a few vintage bike people and chatted a whole bunch. I met up with Morgan and we chatted for a while. Just as I was about to take off cooncat and G showed up so we chatted a bit.

I took off from that and after doing a few things at home I headed to the brew store to pick up an apple crusher and ratchet press and hauled them over to ibexris and mimsy's house. It was a lot of work, but oddly enjoyable. After several hours of work we managed to turn 630 pounds of organic apples into about 34 gallons of cider. I took home 5 of that, 1 for drinking and 4 to turn into hard cider.

Sunday I returned the crusher and press and picked up a few oddments for brewing. I then visited my brother to help out with my nephew's halloween costume. He's going to be a lightning bug this year, and I'm in charge of illumination. I've got 100 yellow LEDs, I just need to figure out how to wire things up. I'll be making some little lens-like devices with the laser cutter that will hopefully diffuse the light better. It's all going to be powered by a mintyboost.

After looking over the costume and testing a few things Andrew, Jack and I went to Costco. Jack was pretty good and even let me hold him long enough that my arms got tired. He's a cute kid.

Now I'm home, waiting for this install to finally finish so I can copy a bunch of data off a failing array. It's not the way that I wanted it set up in the first place, but it's close enough that I can fix things later.

Thanksgiving was pretty good. We went down to my parent's house and had dinner with them and my brother and his family. Jack is getting big and is still as cute as a button. Friday we went over to Julie's parent's house for dinner and they had a smoked turkey. It was amazing. I've found a new food to love. It was like a turkey that had been made of ham. I'm definitely going to try smoking my own one day.

I made fudge earlier this week. The first batch turned out ok, but the second was better. The only difference was how I handled the temperature control. I let the first batch cool down too much before stirring which resulted in the need for a lot of upper body strength to actually stir the stuff. Both batches were fun to make.

I finally ordered the parts for the R50 last week. New bearings, seals and gaskets all round. I also included a new rear main bearing holder since mine was borderline and it's the single hardest part to replace in the entire bike so I might as well do it now. Next weekend should see the bottom end going back together. Then I need to figure out what to do with the top end.