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Despite the threat of thundershowers this afternoon, I rode the Harley to work today. It’s July now and we are in the afternoon thundershower cycle that is typical for these summer months. Lunch time comes around so I run out to get some fuel in the bike and a sandwich to bring back to work and eat while I listen to Neil Boortz on the radio.

I fill up the bike and roll over to Zaxby’s Chicken to pick up a sandwich. The club is $5.49, no drink today, thanks. The young man is ringing up my order and I’m pulling my money out. I’ve got a five and a hand full of change so I figure I’m good for $5.49 plus tax. The young man tells me my order is $5.29. Hum, that’s unexpected. I give him exact change and he hands me the ticket.

There it is, right there at the bottom of the ticket, staring me right in the face, “$.55 Senior Citizen Discount.”

At my age a senior citizen discount is a double edged sword. On the one hand I like the discount. After all, fifty-five cents is fifty-five cents. I could actually buy something with that, not much, but a coke or something. Not bad, I’ll take it.

On the other hand, do I look like I should get a senior citizen discount? Yeah, I’ve got some obvious miles on me, but man, a senior discount? Don’t you have to be about 65 or more for the senior discount? I rode in on the Harley, I wasn’t driving a Buick! I wasn’t wearing plaid shorts with socks and sandals! I had on motorcycle boots!

Apparently this kid behind the counter thought that I qualified because he gave me the discount without even asking! But then, he was just a kid, probably 17 or 18 years old. Everyone looks like a senior citizen to kids. They think old is 35. That’s the ticket, it was just the kid thinking everyone over 35 is a senior citizen.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Did you ever wonder what a Toyota Prius is good for?  Watch this and see!

My friend Dick from Florida sent me this. These are quotes from Barack Obama from his two books that he wrote. The quotes are very telling about his attitude toward “white” people. As an angry white man, I felt that I should share this with my friends.

This guy wants to be our President and control our government. Pay close attention to the last comment!! Below are a few lines from Obama’s books his feelings and his words:

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’

From Dreams of My Father : ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.’

From Dreams of My Father: ; ‘It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.’

From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’

We’ve had the Ultra for three weeks now, and as is typical, with I get a new bike we start having either cold or rainy weather every weekend. This year is no exception. But, I have managed to get past the 500 mile break-in and can start to ride the bike a little harder. Below are a couple of update photos. I’ve been able to install most of my “do-dads” except the GPS and the air horn. Hopefully I will get those on this coming week. I feel really lost without my air horn.

There are some things I really like about the Ultra. First and foremost is the brakes. This is the third Electra Glide that I have had and it has by far the best brakes of all of them. My ‘96 Electra Glide was my first big bike.  I added aftermarket front brake rotors and pads in an effort to improve the braking performance of that bike. The ‘05 had better brakes being fitted with dual piston calipers compared to the single piston calipers of the ‘96. The ‘08 has Brembo four piston calipers and newly designed rotors. This combination really works well, very good stopping power with good control. The BMW K1200LT had some terrific brakes and they were servo assisted, making stops from high speeds effortless. However, the Beamers brakes were a bit touchy, over boosted, at low speeds making slow speed maneuvering more difficult. The ‘08 Ultra has nearly as much stopping power with low lever effort as the BMW without the over boosted low speed problem. Also, this Harley has the optional anti-lock brake system. I haven’t had the opportunity to get into the anti-lock brakes yet (fortunately) but I am sure that sooner or later I will!

One of my other favorite things is the cruise control. I never thought that I would like cruise control on a bike, but after having used it on the BMW I was a total convert. This cruise is easy to use and does a great job of holding a steady speed on the highway. There is an indicator on the speedometer that shows if the cruise is on (yellow light) and if it is engaged (green light). Pulling the clutch, either brake, or closing the throttle will disengage the cruise.

The stereo on the ‘08 is a significant improvement over the older Harmon-Kardon units.  This has a much more user friendly display that has automatic dimmer that adjusts the back lighting on the LCD display for day and night.  The disk player not only plays CD audio disks, but MP3 disks as well.  I can get approximately 150 songs on a MP3 disk as compared to about 20 tops on a regular audio CD.  Of course, being an Ultra Classic, it has the built-in CB radio and four speakers instead of the two that I am used to with the Classic.

With just over 600 miles on the bike the engine is starting to limber up and run better and cooler than it did a few weeks ago.  The additional torque of the 96 CI engine is hard to miss, the bike pulls very good from low RPM.  I have been surprised that the bike appears to respond better if you keep the revs up.  I would have thought that with that long stroke V-Twin that it would pull harder in the lower RPM range, but it seems no stronger down there than the 88 Twin Cam on my ‘05.  It has been my experience that it usually takes several thousand miles to get the Harley engines really broken it.  I am hoping that this one is going to bet better, because right now the fuel mileage is much poorer than the ‘05, which was consistently over 45 MPG city or highway.  This bike is getting 35-38 right now, mostly city, but some highway riding in the mix.

I am still undecided on the six speed transmission.  You really need to be going at least 60 and 65 to 70 MPH is better before you shift up into 6th gear.  It is really a TALL gear.  At 70 MPH the RPM drops to about 2600 when you get into 6th gear.  The bike will pull small grades OK in 6th at that speed, but a steep overpass or hill has the engine sounding like it is struggling.  This is especially a problem if you have the cruise on.  The other issue with the transmission is that 5th gear, where you will wind up doing most of your riding, has straight cut gears and they are whiny.  There are speeds at which the gears are pretty quiet, but at about 40 miles per hour they are pretty loud.  The delivery guy at Killer Creek H-D told me that Harley designed the transmission that way so that you would know that you were in 5th gear and had one more gear to go.  That might be some bovine scatology or it could be that they tell people that to keep them from bringing the bikes back to service to have the whiny 5th gear checked out.  After 600 miles it seems that the 5th gear is getting quieter or it could be that I am just getting used to it.  Actually, the BMW had gear whine that was just as bad, in all gears, but it was especially noticable in 5th gear when you were cruising at a modest road speed.  In the BMW the whine came from the primary drive gears.

Overall I am very happy with the ‘08 Ultra Classic.  I have just gotten my Fuel Injection Tuner this past weekend so when I get the bike over the 1000 mile mark and to the first service, I’ll start the process of tuning the bike for better performance and economy.  That will be fun!

Yesterday, Governor Sonny Perdue signed into law a bill that expands Georgian’s (who have concealed carry permits) rights to carry their firearms on public transportation, in restaurants, and in parks. This bill had been very controversial while it was in the House and Senate, and still is getting lots of coverage in the local press.

Last evening, on the local evening news programs, the local stations had numerous man on the street interviews expressing grave concern over this bill, most saying that it would reduce the safety of the general public as well as potentially increasing crime. I searched the Internet this morning looking for statistics on crimes committed by people that have legally licensed firearms permits….I couldn’t find anything. Certainly if such a thing happened it would be all over the liberal media!

I am constantly amazed at the general public!  The average citizen seems to be unable or unwilling to be self reliant enough to defend themselves, instead leaving that responsibility to the government, specifically law enforcement.  Actually, under the Georgia Constitution it is not the duty of law enforcement to protect the public, it is their duty to enforce the law.  Of course, when ever possible law enforcement  will act to protect the general public, but that is not their primary duty.  But the public thinks it is, and expects it!  Amazing!  The dumb-masses think that a person of good character that has the permit to carry a firearm is a danger to the general public.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution had an article in the online edition this morning on the signing of the bill. The article was surprisingly neutral considering the AJC is terribly liberal but it did note several of the state organizations that were against the bill and the fact that it would most likely be challenged in court rather quickly.

The AJC had a online pole on the bill. The question was:

Do you think the new law to allow guns in restaurants, parks, and on public transportation is a good idea?

I registered my vote and the results at that point in time were:

YES - 71.88%

NO - 26.47%

Undecided - 1.66%

Seems like the general public is overwhelmingly in favor of this bill, despite the news coverage to the contrary. I think it is a great expansion of the Georgia carry permit law. I think that the bill got a lot of support because of the murder and mutilation of a young lady in a state park earlier in the year by Gary Hilton. I certainly would feel better about hiking in a state park if I was able to carry a firearm for protection, from the two legged predators, not the four legged ones!