Went for a morning ride and breakfast this morning. It was good to get out and feel the wind. Not a long ride at all but never the less fun to be with the Brothers and motorcycling.
Goldwing Squeak…
I had taken my GL1800 to the local Honda dealership Stockton Honda Yamaha service center to have a recall performed. I had also wanted them to replace all my brake pads at the same time since I already purchased them. Long story short the place did not replace the right side caliper set stating it didn’t need it. I was pissed since I always replace the fronts in pairs as the manual states.
Day 5 of diet & fitness…
It’s now the 5th day of dieting and fitness awareness. Most importantly that many days without white steam rice!! Holy shit is this really happening!!
No more steam rice!!!
Well, at least for 3 months is my immediate goal. I want to see if this has an effect on my weight issue. Today I almost hit the 10,000 step mark on my Garmin VivoActive HR. I’m sure I’ll be hitting that value soon as I’m more aware of it and know what I need to do to achieve the goal.
63 Thunderbird Glasspacks…
After debating to make the Thunderbird even louder I decided to have the 12″ Glasspacks removed as they were acting as resonators suppressing the sound of the Flowmaster 40 series. I took it to a shop in Lodi, CA. to have both removed and also the exhaust pipe bolts shortened and retightend. The right side was beginning to rattle during car startup.
In addition to the work already done a crossmember pipe was fitted between the two exhaust pipes to add stability. This place did a very good job in there care and workmanship. I was impressed with the fact that they just didn’t use a saws all to cutout the needed replacement pipes but instead used the pipe cutter and machine to create the proper diameter flange fitting.
Off today…
I needed an additional day off of vacation to shake some the old joints loose. One thing for certain, I am more aware of physical activity or in my case the lack of. I’m also starting the MyFitnessPal monitoring program again so my diet intake should be improving.
Fitness Time!
I quit smoking close to a year ago and since that time I have gained at least 15 pounds. I was already overweight and it just made things worse. My wifey and I decided we are going to get healthy together which means for us a healthier diet and adding daily workout activities like walking or running. Whatever is needed to burn calories and not just sit.
We spent a week watching our daughter using her FitBit Charge HR and became inspired to do the same. I for one need data to see the benefits of working out. The “walking is good for you!” isn’t enough. I need to know how far and fast I need to walk to make any contribution to my weight loss and healthier lifestyle.
We both entered the fitness tracking world. I’m using the Garmin VivoActive HR and wifey is using the FitBit Charge HR. Both are very popular in the fitness tracking community.
It’s going to take a while for me to get used to idea of wearing a digital watch again. I’m an Apple product supporter and I didn’t purchase the Apple watch since it had no appeal to me. When I was researching the various watch trackers I tried very hard to have the iWatch as my choice but the lack of standalone built in GPS and the poor battery life didn’t work for me.
The size of the Garmin VivoActive HR is noticeable but the weight is nothing. Since I wear glasses I have to use a clock faces that allow me to read the vitals easily. I’m still going over what is available.
One thing that from the start that I had to get used to was the brightness of the display.
Back in Cali…
What can I say, we are back in California 🙁
Big Easy Chillin’
Sometimes it’s just nice to kickback and relax. That’s what we did today watching our grandson.
The 9th Ward District…
During our stay I wanted to go by the 9th Ward District to see if there were any changes since the last time we had gone. That was in 2007 over nine years ago. The landscape has improved but there are homes that never got rebuilt and 9 years of foliage growth has taken over the lot.
I originally planned on taking a photos of the abandoned homes but the GPS coordinates took us to the “Living Museum” a home that was converted to a museum with the support of the local community leaders and the city of New Orleans.
The home was a typical “shotgun” style house layout so it worked out being to display and educate the public. While going through the photos and captions I ran across Ted Ellis. He’s an original resident of the 9th Ward that left to pursue a career as an artist. At the time of our visit he was working on one of the five large collage pieces that will be used for a “traveling” gallery as well as being displayed outside of the museum.
This was one of those chance acquaintances that turned out to be a learning opportunity and a better understanding of the 9th Ward and the folks that lived there in the past and present. I’ve always said the “creatives” of this world are the ones with a vision for change and to help make a better way of life for those around them. They give so much of their time and energy to pass down their heritage and culture to the younger folks. Creatives also have a very important attribute and that’s their natural skill set to take action and make visions a reality. I give a lot of props to these folks.
