So in my quest to modify my Harley because, well that’s what you do if you own one, I have been on a very strict budget.  As in, make my own parts budget.  Sure, they may not be all billet aluminum with fancy engravings and such.  But, they won’t be found on any other Harley either, since they are not the same parts that millions of other Harley owners see in the same catalogs, from the same manufacturers.

See, being creative doesn’t just lend itself to art, or design or the mainstream of what many people feel is “creative”.  Creative might take form in using something for other than its intended use (I stress we should strive to make this use safe, but yeah, we all fail at that at some point).  It may take the shape of re-purposing a material of sorts.  It might even come as a solution to a problem.

All Of The Above

I laughed when I wrote that little header line right there…”All Of The Above”.  I stole it from Obama.  He’s been running ads on Facebook about his “All Of The Above” Energy Approach – though that is neither here nor there as I have a blog post on another blog about “Truth in Advertising”.

As you can imagine, making custom parts for a Harley takes some engineering, some creative thinking and some out-of-the-box approaches.  Huh?  Yeah, it’s a motorcycle – it has to look good, run as well as a Harley can run, be rideable and, should be safe at speeds up to, let’s say over the 75MPH Interstate speed limit, just in case.  It also, in my case, took some re-purposing of existing parts.

So, here’s a few pics with a bit of what I did.  As an explanation about what makes this unique:

First, I spent Zero.  $0.00.  Nada.  Zilch.  I had some steel left over from making my turn signal relocation that I used to fabricate the primary bracket to hold the ignition coil.

Second, given the space constraints and a poor design (I did not pull the fuel tank off before the guesstimate on the bracket), I could not place the ignition switch on top of the coil, nor could I place the coil with the plug wires coming out of the top as they ran into space issues with the fat 4.5 gallon fuel tank.

Third, given my budget for the project, I could not buy new spark plug wires, and the short one is, well, short.

So I improvised!  I cut the primary bracket coil mount a bit and put a different bend in it to hold the coil out from the cylinders a bit.  Doing this caused one more issue – where to mount the ignition switch.  Being “creative”, I re-purposed the original ignition switch (read that as, I took a 4 1/2 grinder to it and cut it up, rounded some edges and repainted it) to come off the back bolt only.

What you see are rough photos – I will take some proper photos as some point (as in when I install the lock washers to keep the ignition switch bracket from moving around, even when properly torqued down).

Photo Comments

1. Ignition Switch’s new home, yes I can still get to the key easy
2. Same as 1
3. Same as 1 and 2
4. See the nice space under the front of the tank?  It’s not all filled up with plastic wirelooms and ignition switch
5. Same as 4, wider angle
6. Doing the wire “tuck” – hiding the wires under the tank, since I pulled all the plastic wirelooms off
7. Different angle of 6
8. Blurry photo of finished work
9. Not-so-blurry photo of finished work
10. Close up of front of bracket, just because.

Well, here it is mid-way through February, and I haven’t updated this in far too long.  Been busy, considering the fact that I am now “under” employed.  I state “under” and not “un” as I am working on some projects, but haven’t started anything that is long-term or consistent as of yet.

That being said – things are well here.  It has been just over 3 weeks since I left my post as the Sr. Web Developer at the PBR, and it has been an interesting time thus far.  I am very excited to see what the next few weeks hold for me, as I am launching a new project and launching several products that I should have launched some time ago.  Though, in retrospect, it is fitting they were delayed, as added experience that I gained in the past 12 months has made things much easier.

Forward Looking

Looking ahead, I am setting up an editorial calendar for this blog and two others that I have attempted to operate over the past few years.  Hopefully with the extra time I might have now, I can get into a decent publishing habit on them and provide better updates, more frequently.

As well, I am starting a new venture (project as I like to call it – and indeed did call it in the previous section).  It is centered around some newer cool technologies and I hope to be able to reveal it within the next week or two.  I am working diligently on launching it, as I started it well over a year ago and due to time constraints, travel and life in general it just never received the attention that it deserved and needed over the past 12 months.

In Retrospect

Looking back at the journey of the past 12 months, 18 months, 24 months and more, I know that it has been one of the best learning experiences I have ever had.  I will never discount any experience that I learn from.  Not only did I learn more about myself than I had imagined, I learned more about how to change and direct what is important, what succeeds, how to avoid failures and how to be the person I truly wish to be.  Invaluable experience, in my view.

More importantly, I learned just how important my family is to me, and how big of a hole was left when I was so unavailable for various reasons – work and travel primarily.  It is this realization that I carry forward – with a renewed focus and renewed vigor for life and for being what my family needs, before being what anyone else needs.

Here is to the rest of 2012 and what promises, hopes, dreams and desires it may hold for all of us.

Click on the links below to be the first to hear some new material for an upcoming album, titled “Puzzles”, as all life, all people and nearly everything is a “Puzzle”.

Distant

Canyons

Plethora, Minora, Majority

Jam – Take 1 – aka Metal Mash

What a whirlwind year!  How was your 2011?  Any major accomplishments, life changing events or other items that stick out in your mind?  If so, why share it in the comments below!  I know my year was beyond insane and crazy – amazingly awesome and yet amazingly, brutally testing of who I am, what I am, what is important to me and it was likewise testing on my family.

There were many joyful moments, some painful moments and even more that were somewhere in between.  There were trying moments, and dumbfounding moments.  Several moments stick out as having shaped my year the most, and those I reflect upon here – the experiences, lessons learned, and how that will impact me going into 2012.

 Travel

To begin with, I traveled to Arlington, TX.  Home of the Dallas Cowboy Stadium.  For work, we had a bull riding event there, Iron Cowboy II.  All hands on deck.  I will tell you this, if you ever get a chance to see this stadium, it is a testament to what we, as people, are truly allowed to do.  Being on the “crew” I got the full access – locker rooms (including the Cheerleader Locker Room – empty of course), and all thing that go with that – unbridled access to the most amazing stadium in the USA.

Fast-forward to Tampa, FL.  I was working on investigating the JHE truck, working with a great team from there, on how to implement some new hardware.  This was the “discovery” phase, to see what we had, where and how new hardware could fit into it.

PBR Tampa with Family

While there, I was able to take meet my brother-in-law and his family for the first time.  I got them “behind the chutes” access for the the PBR event and took them on the full tour of the bull pens, up on the “chute seats” and had a great time.  After the day was over, we all went out to dinner and had a great time.

From there I was home for a a bit, then on to Des Moines, IA.  Des Moines, despite being in “middle” America, is a fun town with great people.  I met several people there I still converse with on various mediums – Facebook, Twitter, Text and phone.  It was a great PBR event, and good times for sure.  I was there to install new hardware for the PBR Live Center audio service (PBR Live Center).

On to Duluth, GA., a suburb of Atlanta.  Let me tell you, if you have never driven in Atlanta or gone through Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, you are missing out on the East Coast hub of transportation, rivaled only by LA and LAX.  It was a good event, with Chad Ochocinco attempting to ride Deja-Blu.  Yeah, he didn’t do that well, but he put and didn’t shut up, and that is to be respected.  Duluth was fun, but crazy, especially with the one and only PBR Road Crew at hand.

Take a few months forward to July, and I found myself in Charlotte, NC.  Yes, home of some famous race tracks.  I was there helping to rebuild the JHE Production truck that powers the stats, in-house video and houses several other PBR related items.  This 53′ semi-trailer was introduced at Madison Square Garden in January 2011.  By the summer break, we knew we had to rework some items to make sure the show went smooth and didn’t have any hiccups.  We were successful, as test at Thackerville, OK on July 29, 2011.

A week later I was in Orlando, FL.  Not for just a weekend, or a week, but for 2 1/2 months.  I arrived July , 25 and came home Oct 12.  That’s a long time away from home.  But, Orlando being a “tourist” trap, was fun all the same.  I was working with a company called Lightmaker, who was helping design and build a new PBR.com.  This was so much work, so short of time, but fun with good people to boot.  I missed my family tremendously, but will never discount the experience of working on a true software development team.

Harley

In March, I started the modifications to my 2008 XL883C Sportster Custom.  I began my fabricating some turn signal relocation brackets for the front turn signals.  This moved them from the front handle bars to the lower front forks.  It looks and works great.  From there I installed some custom exhaust, hand built by Walt at Ragerbuilt Choppers.  These were some short, nasty and loud pipes – is there any other way to “pipe” a Harley?  No.

With the Pipes installed, I moved onto installing a Fuel Moto Power Commander III.  This allowed me to adjust the fuel injection to compensate for the free flow exhaust.  Next was a free flow air intake.  For this I used a K&N high flow air cleaner with a Debrix Cycles breather kit.  This allowed me to fabricate my own backing plate, and for now I run the air cleaner open, though I have plans for a cover.

With the travel and going to Florida mid-riding season, I didn’t get any other modifications done, and found out that I think a front wheel bearing is going out.  So the Harley was parked and is now being tore down to make more mods, fix the wheel bearing and make it ready to kick-ass this spring.

Family

2011 was an eventful year for all things related to family!  My step-daughter was married in February, with me performing the service!  Never though I would perform a wedding, let alone for my kid.  My brother-in-law was station to Germany for 3 years, so he and his family moved there a month after my step-daughter was married.  Was a very joyful and bitter time, especially since he was sent to Afghanistan shortly thereafter.

My step-son then was married in November, and guess what!?  He and his wife are expecting a child, so yours truly is going to be a “step” Grandpa…ok, I am now grandpa Bill.  How awesome is that!  Well, I think it is pretty awesome….save for the fact I will be a grandpa before I hit 40…but all the more time to enjoy the grandchildren, I say.

Other than that, family life was kind of non-existent due to long hours and traveling for so long.

How Was Your 2011 & What Are You Doing in 2012

So how was your 2011?  What are your plans for 2012?  Me?  I’ve been working on enhancing the Live Center on PBR.com, working way too much.  Plan to finish my Harley mods by the end of April, nearly a year after I started them, and by all means spend more time with my family.

MerryChristmas 2011

A very very rough cut (as in, I had my acoustic guitar and my phone to record with “rough cut”) of something that came to me tonight.  It seemed to remind me of Christmas – so I post without abandon.  Click the link below to listen to the MP3.

Christmas 2011

You can view the full size on my Flickr.

Enjoy.

I recently had a need to get some tires on my Harley.  Next time I will drive 50 miles to the next nearest Harley-Davidson dealership – it was not a good experience, and you can  Read Why Here

About a week and a half ago, I was lucky enough to get to a bit of travel.  Not for long, actually 2 days total, half of Monday, all of Tuesday and half of Wednesday.  However, it was my first time flying, first time to California, first business trip, first time having sushi and it was fun.  We were evaluating a some new web technologies we want to use where I work, and it was impressive.  We may even travel back again in the future.

Speaking of traveling, I have found I love to travel.  Whether by car, motorcycle or airplane, I love going new places.  In fact I would enjoy traveling for a while.  Many of us would, but hey it does cost quite a bit…so some day…it’s on the bucket list so to say.

Second Things, Now

I would like to begin posting more frequently and am getting to a point where I should be able to do so.  With that being said, I would like to being some series of posts on poetry and photography on here.  Neither of which are going to be spectacular, but fun for me all the same and may you all might enjoy it (all 3 visitors this month anyway).  I have collect quite a number of each, and will be working up some posts collections of each over the next few months.

Until then….

There will be many system updates taking place at that time – some of them will include a complete Linux upgrade, WordPress upgrades, database upgrades and more. Most of these items will be performed in multitude to lessen the down time.

Once all the upgrades are done, within a day or two after I will be moving the server to a new data center. This will allow the server to operate at a fast connection, with much more ability to serve the growing needs of several blogs and other sites hosted on it.