Dancing Grace

We enjoyed Grace's first dance recital this past Sunday - she performed beautifully and made us all proud. It looks better in "high quality" but the video stutters a bit.

Random Kid Stories

"Thanks my dance class, amen"
-- Grace, prayer

"Thank you for gravity, all the wonderful things on earth and baby Jesus, amen"
-- John, prayer

Mommy says, "Grace, stop eating the dough."
Grace grabs more dough to eat.
"Grace, *stop* eating the dough!" says Mommy in a stern tone.
Grace grabs more dough.
Mommy says, "Grace, look at me, didn't you hear what I said?"
Grace says, "yes" - as she grabs another glob
"Then why do you continue to eat the dough!?!" asked Mommy, nearing frustration
"'cause I like eading da dough" says Grace matter-of-factly
-- Grace & Mommy, cookie making dialog (while daddy diligently contains laughter)

Battery change

It's been cold of late... really cold. There's not much worse than going through the five minute operation that is "gearing up" only to have a bike that won't start - though such an event really warms the body. So with the [near] blessing from my local mechanic, I head off to Batteries Plus to get an Odyssey battery to solve all my problems. Only, I forgot which one. The clerks weren't much more knowledgeable than I - which is sort of scary come to think of it. After some time, I concluded that the PC-535 was the right one so I paid for it. Then... realizing he had a browser open, I ask him to do a search for 'advrider 1200gs odyssey fit'... which he obligingly does, returning a picture like this one.  So, second guessing myself, I think ok, well, return the 535 and I'll get that one - it's more powerful anyway, great. Only... I glanced at the picture and didn't see that tidbit about a seat modification to make it work. So anyway, I get my new PC-625 home tonight excited about riding tomorrow after much too long. During installation I found myself thankful for the recent feastful holiday because were it not for those extra pounds I may not have been able to stuff that big pig of a battery into such a small cavity.


With battery in place and wires reconnected, I decide to give her a test start. Push button... purrr... nice, I love it when things [roughly] just work. Man, I'll just put the seat back on and get to ride to work tomorrow. But... wait a minute... the seat doesn't fit anymore. A little Google-time leads me to this . Which leads me to my own little adhoc seat mod. I'm sure the angle grinder approach is perfectly sound, but I don't have one and it's late, the kids need to get to bed, and I have to work with what I've got so I take a faster alternate approach.


... and ended up with this...



and an up close view...

which, once you add the fasteners, ends up like this:

Now, I've got two fastening solutions in my toolbox and I went with duct tape this time. For a heavy-duty application like this I normally wouldn't rely on the lighter fastener but Gorilla Glue just seemed too "permanent" for this particular application. Man, I really need to find a middle ground...