August 1, 2016
As many of you know Linda and I are eventually moving to Hyde Park, just north of Poughkeepsie. I've bought three houses before this, in my life, but this purchase has been troublesome. We found a house in Poughkeepsie but the hidden problems found during the Home Inspection were too numerous to ignore. Another house was pulled off the market after our offer was accepted and this last house looks like it will happen but the paperwork has been overwhelming. Since the Crash of 2008 banks have tightened up on Mortgages so we have been bombarded with requests for documentation and proof of funds.
Added to that, this house requires a new heating oil tank. The owners have had to jump through hoops with the Town of Hyde Park for permits to have the tank swapped. All that poisonous fuel oil represents a threat. Linda is facing a deadline to vacate her apartment since it's been rented out to a new tenant. We have been investigating moving and storage companies since it looks like the closing will be after her "Vacate Date". Fortunately she has a son near her job to live with until we can move in and place all her worldly possessions in the house.
In the meantime I'm digging things out of drawers, closets and rooms to either purge or save here in this house. It's amazing what you can accumulate in fifteen years of living. Hopefully this trial will be over soon and we can concentrate solely on the upcoming wedding. Living together might prove boring in comparison to the whirlwind we're going through now.At least I hope so.
Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 22, 2016
I declared the other day that if the
scooter gave me any reason to doubt its ability to do a long ride I
would drag one of the Japanese motorcycles out of the bull pen to replace it. It
happened. The hole in the big scooters muffler would not stay fixed
and I needed a reliable ride to make a quick run to Hyde Park last
night. That sounds like an easy trip but it was 150 miles each way. A
three hundred mile ride is starting to test my physical endurance but
the Kawasaki 750 made the trip a li...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 18, 2016
As I have mentioned repeatedly in the
last couple of installments I have been riding the big scooter to
Linda's in Danbury. It gets excellent fuel mileage, is fairly
comfortable and I enjoy the challenge of making a Tour on a small
engined scooter. Lately though its Chinese-ness has begun to show
through. As noted last time I heard a shrieking noise on the trip
home and a squirt of oil in the neighborhood of the speedometer drive
seems to be holding that at bay. It rode quite nicely last wee...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
July 12, 2016
I just finished trip number four to Linda's in Danbury and back and have a couple of conclusions. Conclusion one. Chinese scooters are scary. Conclusion two. Japanese motorcycles are a much better bet for a long ride.
I came to the first conclusion this morning when the big scooter did something unexpected. I was on Route 17 in the very middle of nowhere when a shrieking noise came from the front end. I couldn't feel anything vibrating the handlebars but the noise was there. Not wanting to sto...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
June 22, 2016
I'm sitting at Linda's in Connecticut concocting this and the 250cc scooter waits outside for another trip home. In the last week I've done this trip to Danbury once and am half way through another run now. It has been an amazing series of events. The scooter has been both reliable and incredibly fuel efficient. I just checked the mileage for this latest trip and it has delivered an amazing 83 mpg. I always laugh to myself when a Toyota Prius passes me and I say, "Gas Guzzler." The trips have...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
June 3, 2016
Years ago when I bought the big scooter
I had ideas in my head that we would do some serious miles together.
Events since then have conspired to deter that and it settled into
the role of commuter and doctors visit machine. Yesterday it finally
got to break out of those roles as we took a three hundred mile trip
together to Danbury, Connecticut and back. It was a rousing success.
I always knew it was a comfortable scooter but hadn't spent a long
time in its saddle since I picked it up on Lon...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
May 26, 2016
Sorry for the delay in communicating
but I have been so busy lately that writing here fell on the back
burner. I have been searching for a new home in another part of the
State so driving to far off places has been occupying much of my
time. In the last couple of months my cars have been getting their
wheels run off as each trip to Poughkeepsie puts another three
hundred miles on the odometer. I'm not up for a three hundred mile
ride in six or seven hours so the bikes have lain dormant for m...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
May 6, 2016
I know it's been a while but I haven't been idle. In addition to commuting on the big scooter, I've ridden pretty much all of the fleet at one time or another in the past month. On Tuesday I did my first longish ride in less than ideal condition in a long time. The Retreads meet on a weekly basis to have ice cream at various locales in the area and this week it was in Oneonta. As I left the house a light mist was falling, which is what was forecast by the various online weather services. To m...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
April 5, 2016
I know it's been a while since I last
did this but I've been busy. As I confessed on Facebook sometime back
I have experienced a unique event in my life. Way back in the Dark
Ages I met a girl while taking Drivers Education in Summer School.
She was from a Public High School in my district while I was a
Catholic High School kid. I was invited to a Pool Party at her house,
we spent a lot of time together at the party and became
boyfriend-girlfriend. We attended each others Senior Proms, atten...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
March 8, 2016
I was going to write about this later but a little voice is telling me to do it now. In thirteen days it will be six months since Sara passed away. While her spirit is still strong here, her presence is sorely missed. The house is quiet and the sounds of the evening news or Judge Judy is silent. In the last four months of her life Sara watched "Judge Shows" daily and the raucous dialogues between defendants and the judges would ring through the downstairs. No longer.
I personally believe in th...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.
If you wish to comment my e-mail address is h1500e@hotmail.com. I'd like to hear anything-good or bad-that anyone would like to say. As they said in college, we're all lifelong learners.
