The Portland 8 Bridge Bide 2

This is the start.
We got ther about 7:00AM and had to chang our 10 bridge red shirt to and green 8 bridge shirt. We were gaven the wrong ones, the night before the ride.

I learn a day or two later that this was the biggest turn out of bike rider, there was 20,000 riders at the start.
If you look closely the bikes go back about 5 blocks or more and we are about 1 block from the start.

The start was a lot easer then I thought it was going to be.
There was no pushing or any thing like that, no one fellow over.
Everone started pushing there bikes and after 100 feet or so, there started to ride.



I shot is picture over my shoulder as I was riding alone, in the begain of the ride.
Daniel was right be hind me, as you can see by the picture.
The Weather was just right, the temperature was about 75 degrees and over cast.
At the 17 mile mark, I felt some rain for about 5 minutes, but that was it.

Dad, Ben, Sam and Daniel start the ride together, but broke off into pares, Ben and Daniel, Dan and Sam.

The Portland 8 Bridge Ride 1

On Sunday August 11, The Boys, Ben, Sam and Daniel and my self rode the 26 mile 8 bridge ride around Portland Oregon.
More pictures to come of the cool ride.

Really Old Bikers

On Friday August 10, I took a day off and drove up into the mountains, geocaching in the Kirby Peak area.
I was looking for the so called shorter trail to the peak, I didn't find it, but I have two more ideals as to where it is.
As I was look for this short trail to the peak, I met this lady who was driving ahead of the group of people on road bikes.
I talk to her about where and when they had started.
They had start on first part of the week, I believe that she mint Sunday, that they had started in Gold Hill, Oregon and rode over Bear Camp road to the cost to Gold Beach, and then down the cost to Brookings and then in on Smith River Road and had started in Cave Juntions that morning and would finsh up in Gold Hill tonight.
She said its about 650 miles, at about 70 to 90 miles a day.
The avarage age of the riders is 65 years old, with one rider who is 82 years old, and He still ride circals arnoud the the younger riders, (So, everone is a younger rider to him?LOL).
When I left these riders they where coming on a place called Deer creek with a about a 3000 feet change at about 10 mile long.
This makes me tired thinking about doing that.

A Member of the Family Is Sold

This member join the family about six years ago, to serve and protect the your men of the family.
The 1980 Volvo was found at a tow yard auction in Medford. It had been abandon and towed in and set for about 3 or 4 months, that was in 2001.
I bit $25 as the first bit and a women was biding also, she stop biding at $45 and I won the bid at $50.
It had a died battery so I couldn't tell if it would even run at the time. I did turn the engine over by hand and check the oil and what have you, and every thing looked ok. So cross my fingers and some luck, it would be and easy fix.
Got Randy's Suburb and a car trailer from some friend from church and took it home.
Got home and had it running in about 15 minutes, the alter was bad.
The owner before me had run the battery died and left the car behind.
I pull the alter down and found the the bushes were bad, pick up some bushes at the part house for $3 and that fix it.
I really brought it for Sam to drive as His first car, and turn out that it was Daniel first car also.
It had a slate 4 cyl. and a 4 speed trans and 4 wheel dic brakes, and build like tank as the body goes. I had to replace the out side door handle about 4 or 5 time in the six years that I had it.
The inside of the doors had this big chuck of steel inside of the door to protect the driver and passagers for side hits.
I do know that Daniel did hit a deer and all the damage that it did was damage the grill, and we found another on E-bay for $40 and it was in good shape again.
With 2 different teenagers driving it, I'm sure it hit lots of thing that I will never know about.
I later fixed the right rear corner that was bent up some, I bet it out and bondod it and painted, It look better than did before.
Over the years I spent about $600 fixing it and keeping it running.
I put it in the nicko paper to sell for $300, I got about 10 call on it.
A funny thing happened, on Sunday a Brain call and said He would be out Monday night to buy the car. Will when I got home Monday, Daniel said that I had a call from Brain, and Daniel gave me the phone number and I called and Brain said wasn;t sure if he could buy the car and said could I come down the price and went me to bring it to him and on and on and on.
This is wried and so I check the phone number and found that is was different from the Sunday night call so I called and it was a different Brain, and that He would be out in a short time and get it for the $300.
And any ways It left home and now live in Cental Point. Not to far from home.
The little car did a good job of protecting Sam and Daniel, and if the car could talk I sure it would have tails to tell.

Gary Has A Bad Day

When up on Fielder Mountain the other day Gary got a hole in his rear tire in the side wall.
As I start to ride off, I felt this like something was blowing on my ankle repeatedly and I look at my ankle to see what was going on, and couldn't see what had happened. I started to move out and the tire was flat.
When I unloaded the bike and got my gear on and rode to the gate and started around the post and I rode over some rocks and I must have slid side ways and cut the side wall.
the cut is about 1/2 inch long. So much for riding up the hill.
Went back to the car and load the bike and walked up to the cache.

Cleaning Up On The Caches

Took Friday off and played around, on Fielder Mountain, I removed two cache because 1, its a long driver to get these ones and if you miss a turn , you could drive around for some time, and 2, with the price of gas at $3.00 gallon these days.
So I took the hard ones, to find and left the one cache on top, its a drive a hike and not much driving around to look for this one and it as great view of the Rogue River and Savage creek area. The cache name is Old Bike parts with a view, the cache has old dirt bike parts from the days when I dirt biked on this mountain. And it was reported missing so it need checking.
I add some pic to the cache page to help those hunting, to better find this one after the trip up to the top.

More Up To Date Info

The end of June, the family went to Seattle, to dive in Puget Sound.
Had a really good time. I did 9 dives in about 6 days.
Dove at Edomen dive park, saw 4 foot lecode and there was this cabizon with very big head, about 18 inch acrossed.
Lots of small boats, in the dive park 15 to 30 foot long, way cool to see.
At a place called 100 foot rock. You dive on a rock thats 100 feet to the bottom, pretty dark, down there, and some fish.
But as I was coming up and came these red string things, I looked above me about 10 feet, and about 20 ahead was this red jelly fish, with a body about 12 across.
The string spread out over about 35 to 40 foot area, very cool to see.
I kept swimming to the right to get around it and missed most of the string, but one got me on the upper lip, not to bad, but weird.
We dove at Mukoto ferry area, look around for a boat, but could find it, one of the other divers frecked out at 95 feet because of the cold and being very dark, I took them to the top, and all was ok.
We did dive here again to make this my deepest dive to date, got down to 126 feet, and Rochelle beat that by going to 131 feet, I was off the bottom about 6 or 7 feet to keep from stirning up the mud. As we came up we did a 3 minute safty stop, we found this rope and came up it to bouy, we stop at about 20 to 15 feet, and held on to the rope.
I was watching dive computer to track the time and turn it over to look at the detph and found the we move up about 10 feet and I hadn't move on the rope, so I drop down 5 feet to get back down to 15 feet and stay there.
What had happed was with that the 5 of use coming up the rope we pulled the bouy down about 10 and with high tide, it was under water about 5 feet.
All so a funny thing happpened, as we hanging on the rope, these little, weed look thing got all over our gloves and wet suit, as we were taking our gear off, I saw that there were moving, and I looked closer and there looked like little shurimb or skorpins, and they dug into our gloves and wet suits, had to pick each one out as they wigged around.
Lots of thing like this happend all week, to many to list.

Wow, Time Flys

I thought it had alone been a couple weeks that I last post something, June 2, its been about 8 weeks. The new system is still new, but now we (the shop personal) have figered out some trick to the system, some back doors so to speak.
Tuesday we will do the first part inventory with this system, should be interesting.
What else happened in the past 8 weeks.
Gray the new bike tryied to kill me two times, front wheel in chuck hole and me over the handle bars, and about a week later I hit a tree with my left shoulder on a skinny trail on waters creek trail, I was only going about 8 mph, it knocked me off the trail and down the hill side about 15 feet. It seem that nothing was broken or the Gray did have any trouble.
About week later I was diving in Seattle, and my left shoulder started aking like a bone brake would hurt, so I think I cracked something in my left should area. Started carriering the dive gear on the right shoulder more it is seems ok after that.
I found the the seat that came with the bike had very little padding on it, and it seem to be hurting more then should so I got another seat, and when I was install it, I found out that the seat was bent and crocked.

The Beast Is Out

The new system rolled out this last week, and I think it roll right over the shop.
After 3 days of training, I'm still not sure what I'm doing. The manual is open all the time just to create WO ( was and is in ever other shop call and RO repair order).
You can see who wrote the soft ware for the system is a soft ware writer only, no ideal about mechanic world.
The system was set-up for the bean counter world, not the real shop world, were time is every thing, the the real work is making the bus safe for kides to ride. Not look for the most $ you can turn on a bus.
The mechanic has to log in and log out of ever job he is doing. Meaning if he is doing a A inspection and a tail light fix comes in he most log off the A and on to the light inspection. The time to do the log off and on, adds about 5 minutes to each job, because he is not standing next to the termal, so now he walks to unit, log off, then create WO log on, go inspect job, then walk back in log off inspection and log on to fix, get part and fix bus, then walk back in and log off fix, then log back on A inspection.
We can do 2 dozen fix a day like this, between 3 shop.
And the icing on the cake is that there to cheap to put and termal in the RR shop. So now the mechanic write up everything and I have to hand inter ever thing for the day till he comes into the GP shop.

Now on to fun stuff.

New Record set by Dan.
I dived last week in the Smith River and had my longest dive on a 80 cu. tank of 63 minutes at 48 feet, most of the dive was at about 25 to 30 feet.

Purchested new mountain bike, Gray Fisher, wahoo, 19", realy nice to ride, I'm trying to ride 25 mile a week, had to make up 5 miles this AM, took about 30 minutes.
Bying the bike has to be cheaper then a gym fee, and I will have it forever. Trying to ride about 4 to 5 days a week, till after june then because of heat, drop to 2 days a week till it cool off.
I'm working on cleaning up on the lots of geocache that I have not been getting, after schools out June 13.
There is about 100 + to get around Grants Pass and Medford area close in, and 300 + all round the both areas.

No Time For Fun

Lots of thing going on.
The new computer system is planned to go live on May 29.
I have 12 hours of training and each shop man has to have 3 hours each, in the next 2 weeks.
The roll out is taking in the parts inventory so every thing has to be right on the nickel to make it work right. We will soon see.
Been riding the old mountain bike, it about one of the 1st ones. Its about 13 years old I'm gussesing.
I injury the arch on my right foot, I let it heal about 2 weeks and went back the hiking and I kelp re-injuring it. So about first part of April I started to ride the old bike and did not hurt my foot.
I was riding on the green way trail by the new brigde and run out to the Valley of the Rogue park.
I would turn around at the rest area. Best I could tell was that it was about 3 mile one way.
At first is was prettty slow, in first gear the hole time (only have 18 gears). I got up to 2 and 3 most of the way, avaged about 8 mph.
I moved to Catheral Hill monday and had to pick and trail that I could go part way up.
I having to push it up the last 300 to 400 feet. The plan is to be able to ride this in about 2 weeks. The ride down is about one and half miles.
The hole ride takes about 30 minutes. If I feel good by the end, I will add and small half mile loop one.
Looking at buying a new bike, 24 speed. Its a Gray Fisher 19 inch.

GeoCaching # 1000

"Lake Forest" GCJHQF I needed one that I had to work for, little hard then most to get to for 1000th find. I was the 2nd find as will.
10:27 am Number 1000 finds. Came prepared to get this one this time and with some help. My Daughter and Son-in-law came alone to keep an eye on the old man, what can happen, its only water. Brought 2 rafts and a fill them at the car and walk down to the lake. We got down there and there was a guy in a boat fishing about 50 feet, from where we put the boats in.
Its was and easy roll across and back, took about 5 minutes.
The cache is in good shape after 2 1/2 years of not being found. The guy in the boat left after we did, so thing the cache is safe.
T= turtle yoyo L= sea turtle.
Thanks for the cache.
DrDan

No More Snow Please!

Another day trying to keep school buses going in the snow.
2 hour late start every wear, and every one was still running late.
It was going to warm up by 10 am but it just started snowing more.
You tell the driver, if there something wrong with the tire chains get the bus in so we and fix the problem, NOOOO we have to weight till they need the chains and there 30 mile from you to say. OH! one is broken, or don't fit the wheel or what ever.
It was one of those days,
I will be up at 4 am tomorrow to check roads and make a guess if the roads will be clear to drive a bus on.

28 Years and Holding

Febury 13 we'll be married 28 years, just seem like yesterday we where married in Okland CA.
We went to Brooking , Oregon on the cost. About 2 hours away.
We hike about 4 mile each day that we where there, on cost trail over looking the ocean.
We looked for 9 geocache and found 8. Had great fun, looking for these.

A Long Ways to Drive- 2.5 Million miles

This was so cool to see a every day car meaning a daily driver, Irv drove 1500 miles in the first 48 hours He had the car and then 250,000 mile in the 1st 5 years.
So facts like to drive 2.5 million miles at 50 mph would take 40,000 hours or

40,000 hours = 1,666 days = 4.7 years, this is 24/7 driving.
2.5 million miles @ 24 mpg = 104,166 gallens of gas at $2.00 per gal.= $208,333.00

Sixty-four-year-old retired science teacher and Long Island native Irv Gordon made history in 2002 when he reached a milestone no other individual had ever accomplished in more than 100 years of the automobile: driving two million miles in the same vehicle. He continues to break records with his latest one-car feat.
Four million kilometers is 2,485,484 miles, or put in a different way, Irv and his trusty Volvo P1800 have traveled the equivalent of ...

- Almost 100 times around the world (via the equator).
- Nearly five round-trips to the moon.
- 1,111.111* completions of the Tour de France (*recurring).
- 7,104 swims across the English Channel.
- More than 114 Great Races (New York to Paris).

In addition to Irv and his Volvo P1800's impressive mileage/kilometer score chart, they have racked up some other amazing numbers ...

- 710 oil changes. Irv recommends changing your oil every 3,500 miles
(5,632 km).
- 100,000 plus miles(160,934 km) per year since retiring in 1996.(275 miles a day)
- 0 false starts. Zero. Zip. Not even on the coldest of mornings.
- 0 replaced engines. The Volvo P1800 still has its original engine,
though it was rebuilt at around 675,000 miles (1,086,307 km).
- One new starter.
- $4,150. The cost of Irv's Volvo P1800 back in 1966. "The best
$4,150 I've ever spent."
- 99 tune-ups (every 25,000 miles, or 40,233 km).
- 8,285 tanks of gas (The Volvo gets 25 miles, or 40.23 km, per gallon).

This just make my back side hurt thinking about sitting in a car that long.

Walk, Walk, Walk

I have been walking evey night this week so far. Doing in threes, 1st night one mile, than 2nd night one and half miles, and 3rd night at two miles.
I don't know how long I can do this, but I been doing 3 days now.
At the 1st of December I started walking three days a week, but the bad weather got the best of me so, it didn't always work out.
Trying to get a little stronger for diving and hiking.

Nothing But Freezing and Snowing

Had great time at work, last week.
Started out with 2 hour delay on thursday the Jan11, than no school on Friday the Jan 12.
Had Monday off for the holiday that was good still very frozen, about 22 deg.
Than came Tuesday the Jan 16, school was on and it was about 20 deg. out and I got to the shop about 6:15am and help with the phones and all was going okay, till about 9:30am and it started to snow, and of couse the snow stuck very quick and it turned to a mess real quick.
School thought it was going get worses so, they going to sent every one home at 1:00pm when normal time is about 3:00pm it realy did help, because most the kids go home about 2 to 3 house late then they normaly did. The sherlf was closing road in a lot of place so are bus would be sitting for 2 to 3 hours, and some driver did know how or would not put the tire chains on. So I sent a mechanic out to help but he could not get there for about 3 hours.
Had 4 buses stuck in ditches that need a tow trucks to get them out, the next to the last bus was out of the ditch by 6:30pm, about 3 hours in the hole.
The last one that was pull that night was not out till about 8:30 pm.
Both need two truck to get them out. One bus the tow truck could not get, so we left it till Wednesday. I left the shop about 7:30pm and was home about 8:15pm.
There was no school on Wednesday, thanks goodness.
So we left the chain on all of the bus and thought that we would be ready if it started snowing again, we end up pulling the chains at 2:00pm on Wednesday, that went realy will, no trouble with this at all.
I was so drove out about 11:00 to the bus we left out over night in the ditch, the boss guess that I could drive it out, up the hill, even with all four chains, on the front and back tires it would not even move 1 foot up that hill and out of the ditch at the same time.
I said lets back down the hill in the ditch, the boss thought the bus would turn over on side once the other front wheel hit the ditch.
Lucky for me I did not think it would, do this, a bus can get way over be for it will rolls on its side. I start back down and sure enough the right front tire went in and when it came up the other side of the ditch the back right back tire came out, and the front axle was straddle of the ditch, I stayed that way for about 150 feet till I came to the covert and I had to jump the front end out of the covert and out onto the road. The boss was realy pleased with this, no tow bill and the only damage was to one smal mirror.($21.00 for mirror)
Drove about 2 mile and took the chains off and got back to the shop by 12:00, the end of the day of fun.
Will this did not rap up the week, come Thurday morning some one had removed the valve cores out of 36 tires on 9 buses at Fleming middle school, we did not find this out till about 30 minutes before the buses had to roll on route,
Called in two tire company road service place and our own service truck, we had three air compressures going, cover 3 of the bus and got the others on the road, about 15 minutes late.
And about the time we finshed this a nother bus had slipped off the road, and the boss spent about 2 hours being tow out, no damage, that good.
Will friday was realy good, not a problem at all, spent all my time getting my desk cleared off and putting parts away.

Will

All Is Going Will

All cars running okay and weeks off for the time being.
But I trying to build a bench out of an old bed fram. The bed fram came to me about 1974 of so, from and old family friend. They have had it fore many years, I'm betting about 20 year or more.
So the fram got to be about50 years old. No one wanted it for a bed, and I did not what to throw it away, so now its going to be a bench. Its made of round steel tubing, in realy good shaper, no rust on the inside or outside.
So I have to cut in the foot part in half, and weld the two to the head part and use the rails for the cross section to seat on. I have to cut the old cross rail suport off because there to low and run the wrong direction, I'm stuck some what at removing these support, one left to do.

A New Year 2007

The year 2006 is about over and all the thing the I need to do in 2006 are about done.
All the famliy is will and I am doing will even if I am turning 50 in April.
Ben has started a new job, making web pages for book company.
Molly works at the same place disigning the web pages, and is happly married.
Robyn is working work as will for the same place as an edeter, and is happly married.
Sam is in Eugue going to school and has a very nices girl friend, Elmy.
Daniel is 17 and junor in high school.
Rochelle is kniting like crazy.
All the family has learned to scub dive but Molly and John, Molly's ears are to bad.
I would like to chang the look on the page.

Two Babies and I Hit 900 Finds Today

Zac and Fiona, deliver twins on the 21 of December. Names are Nuala 6lbs 11 oz, 20 inchs and Bran 6lbs 10oz 20 inch long, beaituful badies.

Out caching today and made it to 900 finds, my 900th was" EEk's Half Brother" GCYDTJ.
What a fun game.

Started A New Game At Catch Place.

The game is called "TheOrient Express" Its about a train that travel through diffent countrys, and we have to find a cache with something to do with each country.
You could start finding on Nov 18, but I did not no that the game was even k going till about Dec 1.
As to date, I have found 6 caches to fit the game.
Having fun this.