On or about 3 March 09 I was called in to the office at xpedx Cincinnati to be informed my services of the past 20 years were no longer needed. Not just me, but my coworker too. The end of a 30+ years of Taussig’s Graphic Supply;xpedx graphics service in the Cincinnati area.

Wow, I have no job. That took a few minutes (days) to sink in. In fact, the 45 ride home was full of a whole range of emotions. First and for most, survival. What should I do now? I have a little breathing room financially but watching other people around me, including my wife Darlene, lose their jobs and have difficulties finding a new job, I didn;t want to wait too long to find something else.

I made a number of phone calls with business contacts, and one of those phone calls were to Les Burman of Glunz & Jensen. Too make a long story short he encouraged me to apply, and April 27th started my first day on an install in Winchester Virginia.. The down side to this is I have to relocate to the South Bend Indiana area. I’ve got that more narrowed down to Mishawaka, In.

Currently, as I type this on Memorial Day eve 2009, I’m staying at the Hampton Inn in Mishawaka if I’m not out in the field doing an install.

Prior to the new job thing I did manage to squeeze in a Spring trip with my riding buddies. Ron Bien, Steve & Doug James, and Steve ‘Polecat’ Snead.

What a trip. Ron Bien, and his wife went with me and Dar to go visit the James Gang in Michigan. They live in Waters Michigan, up there near Gaylord. Beautiful vacation place on the lake is now their retirement home, where Steve and his family have been enjoying for 38 years now. In the winter it’s a snow mobile haven. I never knew how many trails there were in the US for snow mobiles.

On day one we did 70 miles of unmapped trails, and on day 2 we did 100 miles of the groomed, mapped routes with plenty of snow. Temps were in the single digits for the most part, and got up as far as 12 or so, and when we were riding, we were sweating. We were nice and warm with all the right clothes on. This was my second visit there for snowmobiling and I was getting a little cocky and trying to keep up with the big boys. I ended up in the snow 3 times. The first was the funniest. We stopped for a break, and I walked in front of Ron’s sled and tripped right over the rail and went face first in about 15″ of snow. I when I finally got back up (bundled in clothes) I opened my face shield and all this snow came out. What a riot.

Then next was when Steve and I was getting on it in the twisties and lost it in a curve. He went in the ditch, I spun out trying to avoid him and the ditch and flipped it. Could of been worse. We were ok, my sled got a little banged up. When I say “my sled” I mean the one I was riding which belongs to Doug, Steve’s brother. 

The third was when we were going up, then down a step hill, and I let her rip on the way down, hit a rut, and it bounced me right off. I’m getting too old for this self abuse. I’m paying for it now, but dang was that fun!

Here’s a few pic’s. Winter ain’t all bad sometimes.

This is a slide show of some pictures of places I went to and people I met up with in 2008.

Chopping My Windshield

I then put black door edging on it, and it gave it a finished look.

Exhaust Sound Test

A friend loaned me a set of AllyKat mufflars to try out, and I thought I would try to video the difference in sounds between stock and AllyKat’s. Here’s the result. Not too impressive in the audio of it though.

A group of us from The FreedomBoard had our annual Pay It Forward trip 13 - 15 June 08, and this year we were in Canandaigua , New York. Our “Ohio contingent” this year included Ron & his daughter Becca Bien with Bear and Richard from Louisiana. This was Becca’s first big motorcycle trip, and you could just tell she was excited, and really looking forward to a new experience. With our preference being, see the country, we took back roads all the way.

Day 1 we worked our way out of Ohio staying off the interstates and spent the first night in Franklin Pa.
Day 2 we wondered up along the Allegheny River going past Kinzua Dam where we planned a stop for a little geocaching at Rimrock. We also met up with Ed Holt & Seadog with their wives.
After climbing through some caves which were pretty tight to say the least, and doing a little hiking it appears that our cache, Cornplanters Cave Cache, had been removed. We made it to the right place.

It was time for us to move on so we continued on up to Allegheny State Park. From there we wanted to go through Letchworth Park. I wished we would of had more time to explore Letchworth. It’s a beautiful park, and there is a fee ($6) to drive through there. I highly recommend planning time to do that if you go through there.

From there it wasn’t much further to our destination, Canandaigua , New York.

We checked in to our hotel and right away started seeing old friends and making new ones. After we checked in we decided to ride down to the 4H campground where the others were. As soon as we got there it was quite obvious we were about to be right in the path of a good storm. Since Steve & Joanie were there in their car Dar, Becca, and Julie Basham got a ride back to the hotel. Ron and I stayed at the pavilion with some others and waited till the storm to pass before we road back. Turns out that wouldn’t be the last of the storms for this visit to the Finger Lakes.

I have a friend, Curtis Pierce, who lives in Wisconsin. He e-mailed me a couple weeks ago about him and 3 of his buddies heading to South Carolina for this years Wing Ding, and they wanted to play around in Ohio a couple days. I was more than happy to come up with something.

On Saturday, 4 bad to the bone bikers invaded Ohio in search for their Wingy Windg in South Carolina.

I enlisted the assistance of Al Schuman, a HH resident who lives on 14 acers on a ridge about 7 miles outside of Laurelville, to provide some Hocking Hills hospitality and make room for some big bad burly bikers camping their way to the Dingiest of Wings Buttrock
Since his shop is nice and roomy 3 of us put our air mattresses in there instead of pitching tents. That way the tents stayed dry for a day since there was plenty rain around. We were pretty lucky about dodging most of it when we rode.

On Saturday we packed up camp and headed to Laurelville for some breakfast.

After indulging in mass quantities of hot liquid caffeine and some grub we headed to Cedar Falls in Hocking Hills for a little hiking to work off some of the grub.






After that we parted company with Al in Logan, and headed up and over for one of my favorite roads, 555. In my map below on the right it shows us going acrooss to the north of Burr Oak. Well that road was closed so we went around to the south side down 13 and went up 78. I’m glad we did that because 78 is an awesome road, and it was my first time on it. We picked up 555 there, and it was in great shape. They are repaving it now and have quite a bit done. I suggest taking the time and doing some of that.

Oh, I had a little fun with a sport rider. The 4 guys from Wi were pulling trailers and that slowed them down a bit. I told the tail gunner on the CB to wave him around and let him go. I don’t know why, but for some reason I feel compelled to tag along with them for a bit. I was dragging this guy for a few miles hitting some pretty good speeds for 555. I wasn’t racing him, just playing around. If for some reason you are a member here, and is reading this, thanks for letting me play around. It’s fun to use the “crotch ricket” side of this wing. You guys that haven’t rode one yet, and still think this is the lazy boy on wheels…..uh, we’ll it si that stil, but what I’m trying to say is,

this ain’t your daddy’s wing.

Check back as I bet as this gang putt’s across the country there will be some stories, and more pictures. I over heard them saying they may want to stop along the way at a pond, and go skinny dipping.
I sure hope a gay cop, then a family with little kids doesn’t stop at the same watering hole for a dip. I mean, after all… You did see the movie, didn’t you????