Been a while.

Ok, so I guess it's been a while since I did much of anything on here.  So...  Let's see...  The Veggie car has been running rather well this year (so far).  I'm getting around 1000 miles per veggie filter and about 1000 or more per tank of diesel (saw 1500 one time when we made a few trips to Clymer).

Also got to thinking about how I really need excercise and I'm staying at my parents during the week and how I said that if I lived that close to work I'd probably use my electric bike.  So, I got out the old electric bike (I guess it's like 8 years old now) and made a go at it.  Can't remember if I made it once or twice before the motor died.  But climbing that monster hill apparently overheated something and it didn't shut off as it should have so it was dead.  Called around and what not, and found that it was basically unrepairable and since it was so old, there was no replacement, nor even updates to the current chain drive setup on the newer bikes (like anything in the last 7 years).  So, I wasn't planning on spending the money, but it really makes sense because it's excerice that I can fit into my life fairly easily and even with the veggie, it probably saves $2 a day from the diesel needed to start and stop twice a day.  So, I found I could get a motor for about $200 that *might* work if I welded on it and invalidated the warranty.  The next option was the full kit for $350, but then I noticed I could get it installed on a new bike for only $400.  So I did that.  Of course, like the last one it was minorly damaged in shipping, but they knocked $40 off because of it (I didn't want ot disassemble, ship, get another shipped and reassmmble for minor dmaage), so I figure I only paid like $10 for the bike itself.  This new one has a more powerful motor and some suspension it which is nice for the nasty bridge abuttments.  And it was setup so that I could strap in one of my old batteries right onto the frame to get double the time out of it.  Which as I found out is a good thing since on the way back up to the house, I use the first battery up after the first 4 miles when I just get to the REAL hill and the last few miles.  But with the two packs, I've gotten the return trip down to about 45 minutes.  (heading down to work only takes one pack, doesn't require much effort and is about half an hour).  Of course, I ended up riding in the rain twice a week or so ago and then it started cranking funny.  Apparently the bearings were shot (not sure if it was shipping, rain, cheapness or combination), so I got a couple new ones, but it still didn't seem right when we started reassembling.  Took it to another shop and they recommended just using the balls without the carrier, and informed me that it will seem rough.  So I put it back together last night and it seemed ok on the way in.  I guess we will see!

Umm, let's see...  Tuesday we got a cool fruit basket at work that was from something like ediblebaskets...  Anyway, it was little pieces of pineapple cut out as flowers with a melon ball in the middle, then other little strawberries, chocolate covered strawberries and grapes all sticking out on skewers, that we later found were poked into heads of lettuce.  That was definitely some of the best fruit I've had.  Very good and sweet.
Then when I got home, Tony had to get somewhere and they were still chopping, so I went out and packed the pile of haylage with the tractor for a few hours.  Then about 8:00 came in and had dinner before going to sleep!

Now, LAST night...  That was crazy.  They said there was a chance of rain.  Well, I went to sleep like 8:30 or so.  Woke up around 9:30 to a pretty good thunderstorm.  Thought, I'm going back to sleep.  Well, then WHAM, some REALLY loud thunder.  Enough to kinda wake me up and take a look at what the heck was going on out there.  So I got up and took a look, and I think this was probably the most violent storm I've ever seen.  I pretty much saw the lightning strike several times fairly close to the house.  At least one was definitely the brightest I had seen.  There was constant "daylight" lightning throughout the storm, and even without it, I could see around my room without the lights on, but when that lightning stuck, I was literally blinded for a few seconds, and I could actually hear a BZZZT, arcing sound for a second or so as it struck.  That was kinda scary.  Definitely a LOT of really loud really bright, really close strikes.  I was up till almost 10:30 before it started easing up a bit, and the coolness finally started blowing in.  I kinda wished I'd gone and gotten the camera, but I wasn't sure what I'd catch anyway.

Umm, also looking forwards to a rally race this weekend down in Wellsboro.  I've never seen a real one, and it seems to be one of the last forms of racing that I think would be cool to watch.  To heck with pavement, I like to see AWD cars driving sideways around corners, and then splashing through foot deep 80 foot wide streams!

Well, I think that's about most of what was immediately on my mind for now.  Hope everyone's having fun!
Levi (: