Ed & Julie’s Blog!

Words, words, words…

Crazy Busy!

Apr 8

Posted by Ed Nelson in Misc stuff | No Comments

The last 30 days have been crazy busy.

Mandatory overtime at work: St. Pats, Cesar Chavez day…all because the Chico college kids are educated idiots.

Training Seminar: I was on the committee that hosted a 6-day evidence training in San Francisco. It was a year-long project that finally came to fruition last week. Lots and lots of work, but it was still a week in San Fran, which was nice.

Motorcycle ride: I got my 1st nice ride in of the spring yesterday with a 60-mile ride around Black Butte Lake with 18 other bikes.

Riding Club: Sending my packet in today to join the Widow’s Sons riding club (a masonic motorcycle club). A chapter has opened up in my area (60 miles away), and I was asked if I want to join as a charter member…pretty cool.

It’s Easter today…no real plans other than going to a movie, eating dinner at my Mom’s, going to the guitar store, mowing that back yard, and working overtime tomorrow…did I mention I have been crazy busy???

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“What Knockers!” “Oh…thank you doctor”.

Feb 22

Posted by Ed Nelson in Chico Cabaret, Date Nights, Misc stuff | No Comments

 

One of the many, many funny lines from the movie Young Frankenstein.

Last weekend, Julie and I went down to Modesto (a 4 hour drive) to see the Off-Broadway musical version…what a BLAST! They did such a good job on it. Easily my 2nd favorite musical play I have seen (behind Phantom in Vegas).

Here is a montage:

If you get a chance to see it, GO!! Be sure to check them out here: http://www.youngfrankensteinthemusical.com/

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Oh yeah…I have a blog!

Feb 14

Posted by Ed Nelson in Freemason, Misc stuff | No Comments

I have been stretched mighty thin the last few months, and haven’t been a faithful blogger.

Here is a quick catch up:

I became a master Mason with the Freemasons.

Julie got a great report of health from her doctor

We got to see the sound check for Social distortion, meet the band, and got autographs

Work daily

I got a less-than-stellar bill of health from my doctor 2 months ago. Cholesterol is up, blood pressure is up, weight is up. So…the last 6 weeks I have been working out before work 3-4 days a week and am down 12 pounds and am feeling good.  I will never be skinny, I doubt I will ever even be in shape. I’ll settle for less fat at this point.

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Put on your thinking caps again…

Oct 22

Posted by Ed Nelson in Misc stuff | 1 Comment

I got some more trivia questions read on the air in this week’s PodQuiz (Julie and I are big fans of the weekly trivia podcast).

 

 

You can listen to the questions here and see how you do:

Click here–>  http://www.podquiz.com/

Listen to episode PodQuiz 348…my questions are the “quick-fire round” on TV dads and thier occupations.

Good Luck!!

Hit the Facebook “Like” button below or leave a comment and let me know how you do!!

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Let’s do the Time Warp again!

Oct 22

Posted by Ed Nelson in Chico Cabaret, Date Nights, Misc stuff | No Comments

Last weekend, Julie and I (long with 6 of Julie’s family) went to the Chico Cabaret’s 8th annual showing of the play “Rocky Horror“.

 

We had a blast, as always! Dinner at Franky’s (which ended with tequila shots), the play, then 80′s night at LaSalles.

Between the drinks at Franky’s the drinks at the Cabaret, and drinks at LaSalles, the next morning was pretty rough…I spent most of the morning in the sun sealing my brother’s roof. That will teach me!

A taste of things to come…3 of those ended up as mine!

 

Once you get into the play, if you have never seen it before, you are branded with a big “V” for “VIRGIN” with lipstick. This is Julie’s cousin and her boyfriend. Virgins no more!

 

The play had helpers (called phantoms) as ushers and sold raffle tickets during intermission…I had to get a shot of Julie’s nephew Brandon and His girlfriend Hannah with one of the phantoms

 

Anthony Varicelli was the lead in the play for years and years…he actually took this year off.

 

Things just got weird at the bar after the play!!

 

 

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My bike has wings!

Oct 15

Posted by Ed Nelson in Motorcycle | No Comments

Today, I got a package in the mail from Cee Bailey‘s, a motorcycle accessory company that makes windshields and related items.

I had ordered a set of wind wings for my 2007 BMW R1200Gs. They are supposed to reduce the wind buffeting common on motorcycles at freeway speeds. I wasn’t sure if it would fit with my CalSci (California Scientific) windshield, but they assured me it would.

Install went pretty straight forward…

1- Mark the holes

2- Drill the holes (I purchased a brand new bit for the cleanest hole):

3- align the wings, and install the screw, washer, washer, and nut

4- Clean the dead bugs off the bike and go for a ride!!

 

Next up…I have a crazy loud horn on order from England…as soon as it get here, I’ll be blasting drivers on their cell phones!

 

[added that the same day] WOW. Took the first low speed test ride to the store and back. At 40 miles an hour, I have a huge envelope of calm air behind my screen…awesome!

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Handguards

Sep 24

Posted by Ed Nelson in Motorcycle | No Comments

This blog was never intended to be a BMW R1200GS modding blog, but everyone has hobbies, and mine lately has been adding stuff to my bike.

So, until I run out of modification money, I’m posting the stuff I add.

This week, I added Touratech handguard spoilers.

The handguards are supposed to offer protection from branches while trail riding (not that I do much of that), and wind while touring (I DO do that). The stock BMW guards are somewhat small, and offer little in the way of wind protection, so I purchased some spoilers to make them bigger.

Before:

Just a few bugs on my dirty bike!

 

and now After…not a great pic as it was getting dark and the angle isn’t great to show the full size of the spoiler:

You can see how much taller they are with the spoiler…hopefully that will help with the cold wind as the weather changes.

 

 

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I found Bigfoot!!

Sep 20

Posted by Ed Nelson in Motorcycle | No Comments

My bike (like most BMW R1200GS bikes), has a case of the leans:

The reason is because it’s designed to go offroad also, and it needs lots of clearance, thus when it’s parked, it leans due to it’s height.

That’s not a problem when parking in the driveway, but if you park on dirt, gravel, sand, or mud, the kickstand will sink and your bike will fall over.

Today, I bought a kickstand foot enlarger from Touratech…this thing is big and bad and increases the size of the foot.

Before:

See the quarter I used for the scale…now check out after:

BIGfoot!! No worries about where I park now!

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Modding my motorcycle helmet (the quest for the perfect helmet)

Sep 12

Posted by Ed Nelson in Motorcycle | No Comments

Back when I had my cruiser motorcycle (a 2003 Suzuki Volusia VL800), the choice of helmet was simple…just a generic half-helmet. The Volusia had a big windscreen, and the half-helmet served my needs perfectly.

When I sold the cruiser, I purchased a 2007 BMW R1200GS, which is a whole different kind of beast. I purchased a modular helmet, but never really liked it. It was heavy and loud. Next, I purchased a motorcross helmet that has been okay during the warmer months…but I have always been on the look out for THE helmet. I needed quiet, good fit, lightweight, and comfortable.

I did a TON of research, and found the Shoei Qwest full faced helmet. It got great reviews, was supposed to be one of the quietest helmets on the market, so I bit the bullet and bought it. As soon as I got it, I was disappointed. I had to order smaller cheek pads, and it wasn’t nearly as quiet as I had hoped. But…I was stuck with it, so I decided to modify it to make it a bit more suited for me.

2 weeks ago, I took a 600-mile trip on the motorcycle to Crater Lake Oregon. The Shoei helmet had a huge drawback; it fits so snug (which is normally a good thing) that I can’t wear my headphones while riding (I know, I know…don’t judge me). Every time I put on the helmet, it would pull the ear buds out of my ear. When I DID finally get it to stay, my ears were killing me after less than 30 minutes.When I got home, I found a set of helmet speakers online and ordered them. Installation was easier and harder than I thought it was going to be. Easier in that the helmet already had built-in pockets for the speakers, so they installed like they came from the factory. Harder in that the helmet liner is not removable, so routing the wiring was a bear and not nearly as clean as I’d hoped. The result is musical bliss.

I can’t show you the speakers in my helmet, but they are like this:

TORK XPro

The sound out of the speakers is pretty darn good, and the wire has a volume control, which is nice.

 

The other drawback to my Shoei helmet is when using the motorcross helmet has a large bill to shade my eyes from the sun…the Shoei doesn’t. I purchased a Frog Lidz visor on eBay. It’s a cheap (you get what you pay for) piece of plastic that installs on your helmet. It’s effective, but a bit cheaply designed. Can’t complain too much…it works.

Again, I don’t have a pic, but this is the pic on the eBay auction (mine doesn’t have the lettering):

 

So…two effective mods to make an okay helmet better. Not great, but a notch up from not bad.

 

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Trivia Time!

Aug 28

Posted by Ed Nelson in Misc stuff | 2 Comments

Julie and I love listening to trivia podcasts when we are driving around, and this week something pretty cool happened…I was actually mentioned by name on two different trivia poscasts in one day! I’m famous!!

One of our favorite trivia podcasts is PodQuiz, from http://www.podquiz.com/. The format is 20 questions that are broken up into 4 categories. The first 4 questions are normally short music clips with some type of connection…question 5 is to name that connection (such as all the bands have a color in their name) . The rest of the questions fall under various fun categories Occasionally, people will send in questions, which is what I did. I sent him 6-8 questions on Crime Scene Investigation, and he picked a couple to read and gave me a nice shout-out.

Check out PopQuiz #340 at http://www.podquiz.com/ and see if you know the answers!

 

My second podcast shout today came came from a newer podcast called the Thursday Trivia Podcast. Julie and I just found this bi-weekly podcast recently, and I wrote a short review for it on iTunes (my review was the first review posted). I mentioned in the review that the host tends to talk too fast and needed to slow down a bit. The host actually thanked me in his podcast for the constructive criticism, and sure enough…he slowed down it was much better!!

Check out podcast #11  “State Stuff”  at http://thurstriv.tumblr.com/

I’m available evenings and weekends for autographs :)

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