iWing’n Around America

As of February 2015 Darlene and I became Buckeys again. We are currently residing in Liberty Township Ohio (Cincinnati area) which now allows us to visit family more often, and finally get to see them Grandkids more.

It also allows me to start riding on some of my favorite roads in SW Ohio.

Well, it’s been a great week for me as I just returned from a business trip forced upon me to St Maarten. I got to go from one end of the weather spectrum to the opposite side in 1 day. Had breakfast on the beach at 0700,

and praying I make my way through the white out conditions on RT 31 by 22:00 (Which by the has a nice bypass around Kokomo now).

My flight from Atlanta to South Bend was canceled so I decided to fly to Indy then rent a car to drive the last 3 hours. (Glad I did)
I went back up to South Bend airport around 13:00 today to return the rental, and find my van.

I can’t believe its been 4 years since I’ve done anything with this blog. Why is that? Facebook? Yea, could be. I find myself in a few groups and love keeping up with my family that way too.

Family! Yea, that’s changed a little in the past 4 years. Dar and I now have 2 beautiful grandkids. Gianna 2 1/2, & Dominic is 7 months.

Erica, my oldest daughter is the proud mamma of the two grandkids. Jenna, 2 years younger then Erica is UC graduate now starting her career with a large corporation, and my step son David, an OSU graduate working in the financial field and has his own financial blog. ShermanCents

Jenna is now married to Matt Nally who is about ready to ship out (ooops, Navy term) leave for Army boot camp. Erica was ordained and actually married Matt & Jenna.

David is living with his long time girlfriend Ashley.

Still working at Glunz & Jensen in northern Indiana. We just had a pretty big snow storm followed by -15* temperate.
We got around 15″ or so, and 2 days later it hasn’t melted a bit and the roads are still ice.

This new job really has cut in to my ride time. I was fortunate enough to get a little trip in this Spring as we do every year. This year Ron Bien, Steve & Doug James, Jay Brewsaugh and I did about 2500 miles of back roads going through Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, & Kentucky.

Didn’t take any pictures this time though, but Killboy & Zeephoto did. Here’s a slide show of Steve and I running Deals Gap.

As I mentioned, I didn’t take any pictures this time around. This time I mounted a little HD camera on the bike, and did some filming. I put a video together and loaded it on my web site which you can find on my video page of my web site.

rod knock

22 August 2010

During the Spring Fling ride we took in April I developed a nasty noise on my Wing. When I idled at 1500 RPM’s or lower there was a nasty knocking sound. To me it sounded like a rod knock, but when it was above 1500 RPM it was as smooth as usual. I put a sound file here. We checked it over for obvious things, but found nothing. I decided to ride on, and just keep my idle above 1500, and hope like hell no missing pieces are floating around the engine causing damage. I made it home just fine, and started a post on the GL1800Riders board. Many good ideas came out, and once my friend Rocky chimed in it became quite obvious what I was up against.

The bike had to sit idle for a while as my priorities at the time had my focused on  something else. Our official move to Indiana. Ug….THAT was fun.

By the time we moved and I got the bike in it was mid-July. I spoke with the service manager at Hayden Honda (Ralph) and he’s had experience with doing the ACG repair which entails pulling the engine. I felt confident taking it to them. Thirty minutes after we left Ralph called me and said he found cracks in my frame. This is an 03, and I had the re-weld done on the recall so I was thinking I was ok. Turns out, I should have been checking closer.

Here’s some pictures of the crack & a naked Wing.

Hayden Honda did an outstanding job. I was very pleased with the quality of work done, and in a timely manner. I felt like I was riding a new Wing we I rode it home. The detailed the bike to and she was shining pretty good.

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.