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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mid Summer 2012...

Well. Here I sit. Mid-Summer 2012. Just went through what, to the best of my memory has been the hottest days I have lived through in Alabama. Fairly consistent 100-109 days for over a week! Brother, that's HOT! Yeah, I know, it's hotter in other places, but combine 109 degree temperatures with Dixie's humidity, and you got a mess. Hot is Hot, but add in the moisture and it makes a connection to your body like you wouldn't believe. You sweat like a pig, but it doesn't do any good at keeping your body cool because at 100% humidity levels, it simply won't evaporate. We loose a lot of people and animals to the heat\humidity monster every summer in Dixie. About the only thing you can do to stay cool down here is plop your ass in a creek and just relax!

Now that works fine for "Non-Werkin" folks like me, but them working stiffs might have a hard time pulling that off on their lunch hour. Air Conditioning was a Godsend to the South! TECH FACT: Air conditioning not only cools the air but it also DEHUMIDIFIES it as well. Which is why there is always a stream of water running out of your house or car A\C when it's working properly. That's the moisture (humidity) that it has removed from the air it has cooled. Now, you can scream "Global Warming" all you want, but I think there is something going on with our sun, our orbit, our planet that is changing our environment year by year, day by day. And I don't think our GVMNT is telling all the details to us, the public. Think about rain for a minute... I'm 55, but I can remember back when I was 5-6 years old when it would rain for days. No, not thunderstorms like we have today, just a nice, soft, gentle soaking rain that caused no flooding, no sinkholes, no tornados, just life giving rain. That's NOT what we have today. Today's rain is a VIOLENT occurrence of Nature. Very seldom these days do we have "rain" without the issuance of a Severe Thunderstorm Warning or a tornado outbreak. So, judge for yourself, I personally think something has gone very screwy with our weather system.

No real updates on Project RoadPig. She's still out there, in the garage, waiting. For what? For me, to make up my mind exactly "what" I want to do with her. Matt has recently resurrected my love of motorcycle exploring with his new interest in what they now call "Adventure Riding", which is usually done by dicks on BMW motorcycles. He is chomping at the bit for a KTM 990. and I'll even admit myself I'd like to find a lovingly used Kawasaki KLR 650 to outfit myself. But when you look at the roots of adventure riding, Hell, I've been doing that all my life. Back in the early 1970's, Me on my Honda SL 175, Jim Monteith on his Kawasaki 125, Marty Gillum on his Suziki 90 (with Street\Trail transmission) and Jeff Love with his Yamaha 125 would go ANYWHERE and explore the shit out of it 24\7. Mines, Slate Dumps, US Steel slag pits, Fire towers in Bessemer, closed roads, abandoned neighborhoods, anywhere! And they were EVERYWHERE back in the 1970's.

Birmingport Road (The 'Port" of Birmingham, AL) was my living "Milestone". Every new bike, and later car, that I got as I was growing up, was immediately pointed towards Birmingport Road and I was off to break another record by going to the next street past where I had gone with my last bike. And there were a lot of them before I was 20. The last trip I can remember down Birmingport Road put me way the hell on the other side of Parrish, AL. Which when I look at it on a map today, doesn't really look that far from Ensley. But one intersection at a time, it took a while to make it to Parrish, AL.

The three guys I mentioned above, were pretty much my main riding "posse" and one of them could always be counted on to be up for, and ready to, RIDE! And I have had so many memorable rides with each of them over the years. All totaled, there were probably 25 of us kids that had motorcycles during our teenage years, maybe more. As the years went by, so did the bikes, until I finally started riding Harley's and I have never gone back to anything else. As the old saying amongst Harley Owners goes... "Once you ride a Harley, everything else, is just a toy..."! But hey, toys are fun too. And they have their place.

So I have been "toying" (pardon the pun) with the idea of resurrecting Project RoadPig into a "DualSport" Adventure Ride mount. And I see plenty of possibilities with the idea too. Most of the "factory" DualSport motorcycles are not much more than street bikes with a few basic "off-road" parts and pieces used in place of their street counterparts. I mean, come on, one of the Top-O-The-Line, drool for hours, ultimate Adventure Ride mounts is a freaking BMW! So that pretty well says it all, right? And the nice thing about the factory DualSports is they already look like some sort of Alien Hybrid Moon Cycle and it's hard as hell to even figure out which brand it is much less what exact model. So, PRP (Project RoadPig) has a usable engine size (550cc's), I can change the wheel sprockets for better gearing for lugging 300 pounds of camping\adventure gear, make some ugly but highly functional rack and crash bars that would rival anything a factory bike comes with, and paint the whole thing neon orange like the KTM's and I really doubt if anyone could figure out it was a stock 1976 Honda CB 550-4 underneath all that crap.

So... That's one possible scenario for PRP. It's literally 15 minutes to yank the motor on PRP, so I may wind up just trying to find some titled frames from junkyards and just build several different "style" bikes to suit my needs, seasons, moods, etc. That way I could do a "bobber" for scooting around town, a chopper for styling and longer runs, and believe it or not, I'd even like to do a retro "touring" version complete with a Vetter Windjammer full fairing and saddle bags too. And then there's Logan... I want to build him a bike with my own two hands before I leave this planet, but I really want it to be a Harley Sportster. The 1973 Harley Davidson Sportster XLCH 1000 was my first Harley, the 2005 Sportster 1200 Custom was Matt's first Harley, so I think it only fitting for a Sportster to be Logan's first Harley too. I'd like to build one for Caitlin, Anna and Maggie too. All identical. The Suggs Harleys! What??? What about Wes? Oh, I'd have to build two Sportsters for him, one for each leg! I'm working on that too, he's not getting left out, trust me! That about does it on the Bikes, ON TO THE BITCHES!

Not a lot new there. Had a new Grand Daughter, Maggie Harper Suggs, born to Matt and Val on April 20th 2012. Doing well, getting bigger and bigger. Developing such an adorable personality. Redheaded too like her Daddy. Gonna be a handful of heartbreaker there! Caitlin has a new job since I last updated here. She the Asst. General Manager for the Lee Branch Taziki's Greek restaurant. And is doing well too. Works her little butt off to the tune of about 70 hours a week. She bought her a 2005 Jeep Liberty so my BabyBird has finally flown the coop. More time on my hands for me, liberty and freedom for her, it's all good! Joy got a big job promotion and now works pretty much when she wants too. Still goes in at the butt crack of dawn (4am...yawn...), but not often any more. My Mom is still at Shady Pines at Cook Springs, wish she was closer so I could spend more time with her.

Logan starts Football this fall, playing for Moody. I wore the number 74 jersey the few games I actually played for Ensley High School (3 games to be exact...), Wes wore the number 74 jersey when he played for Gresham Middle School and for Shades Valley High School so I am tickled shitless that Logan Wesley Suggs has also been assigned the Number 74 jersey to play for Moody. Now what I don't know is if he is playing for the Moody Blue Devils or not, but either way, a double proud PawPaw I am! Anna was going to try Cheerleading but all the spots filled up before she got there so she's got to wait for next year. I think watching Logan play football, Wes watching his son play football, and Joy and I getting to watch our Grandson play football is SO FREAKING AWESOME that I am searching high and low to buy a motorhome so Joy and I have no excuses to miss any games. Yes, I'll drive to the ends of the earth and then sleep there just in order to watch my Grandson wear the Number 74 jersey and play football!

So, until the next time I'm feeling "typy"...