The Unpublished Issues

Online Versions Of This And Past Issues

(Choose the year and then the date for the online issue you want)

Issue #1107

Shuffling the bikes….

I know it’s mid summer but something that has been nagging away, way in the back of my mind, is how am I going to park / store the bikes next winter. Our 2-car garage holds the truck and car and 1 motorcycle quite well and still has a place for the snowblower. Said blower spends the rest of the year under the back deck but it needs to be easily accessible during the winter for obvious reasons. I’ve been trying to come up with a plan that would create a space for both bikes, be easy to put them in their places, and not effect the blower’s usability. To that end I spent some time moving the bikes around. The Harley will be parked where it and it’s predecessors have always parked, along the back wall in front of the car. (The work bench is in front of the truck making that section of back wall unavailable for storing a bike. One idea was to put both bikes along the back wall where the Harley sits but that would leave the blower sitting out in the middle of the garage between the truck and car and totally in the way. Another idea was to set the Enfield on it’s side stand along the wall on the other side of the truck, the south wall of the garage, with it’s front wheel up against the workbench. I thought that might work until I tried it. No. It stuck out too far. The last idea and the one that seems to be the best was to put the Enfield in that same spot, but facing away from the work bench and sitting on it’s center stand. It can be snugged up close to the outside wall and the truck’s front fender can be clear the bike and still not be forcing the truck too far toward the center of the garage. That plan looks like it should work so I can relax now. Funny how things like that can eat away at me, but if I couldn’t make it work, I’d have a real problem on my hands.

Strangely enough, we are one of the few people on this street, or on any street in the town, who actually PARK in their garages. Most people has so much junk and stuff in their garages that they must park outdoors all the time. In many cases they choose to park on the street which drives me nut, rather than on their driveways. I can’t figure out the logic behind that except to say that if they park on the street, they don’t have to shovel their driveways when it snows. Very strange in deed. And, I can’t for the life of me figure out why the town lets them but it does. Makes no sense at all. However, we will continue to park in the garage. We never get wet or cold walking to the car, we never have to scrape ice or snow off it it, and so on.

Bike parking at the gondola….

Shortly after the gondola opened back in 2014, the concrete contractor that did all the cement work there put in a big concrete pad, on his own dime, for motorcycles. That worked out well for several years as it gave bikers a safe place to park, kept their bikes away from uncaring car drivers and off the loose gravel. Then, the current operations manager decided he wanted that space for cars and trucks, and, pretty well told bikers that not only could they not park on the bike pad, but in fact they weren’t even welcome there at all.

I like to go there on the bike, weather permitting on the occasions that we do in fact actually go there anymore. And, I don’t really give a damn what the operations manager thinks. So, now we are parking the bike on the sidewalk by the office and no one says anything to us about it. They wouldn’t dare because I’d let loose with a loud rant that spelled out what I thought of the current way that place is being run.

doug

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This series of ‘unpublished’ issues is my way of keeping track of what I’ve been up to during the summer when we are not sending out the normal Squamidian. No one knows about these issues but that’s ok. This also keeps the issue number in sync with the passing weeks.