Evidence showing Criss Angel and the number 1

I returned to Seattle, exhausted, heart-broken and no wiser to the absurdity that is Las Vegas. However, as I unpacked my bags smelling of sweat, stripper sweat and failure, a deliciously sparkling bright spot stood out in my mind.
That bright spot was the Gin Rickey.

For the uninitiated, the Gin Rickey is comprised of gin, limejuice and soda. Rumored to have been created by Col. “Joe” Rickey while stationed in New Jersey, ordering this drink is guaranteed to evoke the question, “How old are you?” (Seriously, go order one and see).
However, if there ever were a perfect summertime cocktail, this would be it!

We bought our first round of Rickey’s from the Aurora Bar in the Luxor Hotel. The Aurora Bar was ringed with neon to give it the feel of its namesake, the Aurora Borealis. I personally think it failed, but that’s not important, we were there to drink! Our bartender, a personable guy named Mike, knew how to make a Gin Rickey (the first bartender we asked didn’t), which he did after checking that we were of legal drinking age. “How old are you guys?”
After a small delay (Mike had to cut up more limes), a round of clear, sparkly highball glasses appeared before us. We dove in with gusto and were rewarded with a wonderfully crisp, dry and refreshing burst of summertime goodness. It was surprising; I’ll admit that I too believed the Gin Rickey to be an “old man’s” drink. Additionally, I not the worlds biggest gin fan. But at that moment, in the heat of August Vegas, that cocktail tasted better than any single malt scotch I ever had. Its dryness compared to the arid desert, yet I felt any added sweetness would have ruined the effervescent impact. The balance of lime was a wonderful calming Yin to the chaotic soda Yang.
A collective, “Oooo!” escaped everyone’s lips, punctuating our astonished realization that maybe those old guys knew what the hell they were doing.
What else were they right about? Sock garters? Adult diapers? I don’t know, but when I find out, I’ll let you know. Keep an eye on the “Stupid Human Tricks” page on cheeseandbeer.com

But in the meantime, the next time you see me sitting on the patio of my favorite bar enjoying the summer sun, you can bet that I’ll have a Gin Rickey in my hand.

I look at the clutch parts list and start going through the various parts laid on on my bench.  Pressure plate – check.  spring cups and springs – check.  Driving plate…. um, I have 2 plain ones and one bonded.  How many do I need?  Oh, 6 of each.  Brilliant.  Then I look on the parts diagram and notice all these other parts that are nowhere to be found.  So basically, when I got my bike back from Adrian, he must have forgot to give me a box of parts.  A large box of parts.  I basically need 75% of the clutch assembly.  *sigh*

I just placed an order at British Only for the parts listed over to the left.  These are the gearbox gears and shafts and such.  A few of those parts listed there were acutally broken.  Most were missing.  And a couple were just rusted shut and I can’t remove them.  Mainly the mainshaft, the bearings and the nut are all fused together and rusted.  That alone is costing about $250 to replace.

Feeling a little frustrated tonight, but I think it’s mostly because I’m not making any progress.  So I’m biting the bullet and ordering the parts and we’ll go from there.  I’ll keep checking ebay for some other parts.  We’ll see if something good pops up.  I haven’t ordered from British Only before, so I don’t know if they will get that whole list of parts over there or not.

I went through and identified all the parts that I had for the gearbox.  Mind you, this was taken to a local shop, who took the transmission out of the bike during the 6 months they had it and gave it all back to me in parts.  The actual gear cogs internals is where most of the problems are.  There were broken cogs in there that I knew needed replacing, but have also discovered missing parts and rusted parts I can’t get free.  This includes the mainshaft which needs the bearings replaced, but I can’t get it off of the inner cover.  To replace the mainshaft, well, that’s about $200.

On the suggestion of a friend, I went looking for an already built set of gears to go in their place.  I found a set from a ‘63 T100 on ebay.  I thought they would work and ended up winning the auction at about $200.  Come to find out, that in ‘63, it seems there were 2 sets of gear ratios for the T100 and the set I got don’t seem like they’ll fit.  I’m sure I can offload it for a similar price hopefully.  I’m thinking of just sticking with my original plan of replacing the parts I need to replace and using the ones I can reuse.  I’ve catalogued everything and bagged the parts accordingly.

Stacey is working on the outside of the bike.  Day 1 … err… Night 1 found him just getting the front wheel off.  It gets dark here in the winter – and rainy – so we left it at that.  I got the back wheel off one day where we had some brief sunlight.  Now I’m just waiting for him to come over and we’ll carry the thing down into the basement next to my laundry, so he has a dry place to work as well.  I should point out that my house is *very* small and everything doubles up.  For instance, my workspace where I am doing the engine rebuild is also the “warehouse” for my record label and my storage for all my brewing equipment, not to mention my “wine cellar”  ha ha.  It works, though, and the beer is never far away.

I’ll get some pictures up soon.

I have the good fortune of working above a Vivace Coffee bar here in Seattle. Vivace is a local espresso bar that is all sorts of awesome. Over the years, I’ve heard nothing but good things about their Capital Hill locations and the few times I’ve visited them, I’d been met with velvety cafe lattes that were poured with artistry.

The bar near where I work (unlike Starbucks, I refuse to call it a ’store’ and it is too grand to be a ’stand’, so it is a ‘bar’) is always busy. I sometimes will grab a latte there in the morning or maybe an americano. I’m not one for the really crazy caramel, white truffle mocha machiatto – half-caf/decaf of course. I’m a simple man. On the occasions that I’ve ordered a “double”, I’ve been told by the baristas that “all our shots are doubles” – a practice I’m familiar with around these snooty coffee parts. For some reason, I also thought that they employed bottomless portafilters. If you are unfamiliar with that term, it is where the portafilter which holds the coffee has no bottom on it. The idea is that the coffee touches nothing before entering your cup, thus providing the most crema possible.

I was interested in trying that out as a straight espresso, so I head downstairs and get in line. While there, I notice they only list one size for “espresso”. I assumed that it was a double as they had mentioned in the past that “all their shots are doubles”. Not quite true. At the top of the menu, it stated that Vivace serves their espresso “double ristretto”. Not super familiar with italian, I assumed that meant “strength”. After getting a tiny shot of espresso that tasted like I was licking the bottom of an oil drum, I looked the term up. In fact, “cafe ristretto” is a method of pouring espresso that uses half the normal amount of water and twice the normal amount of coffee. An interesting experience to say the least. If you’re near a Vivace or other coffee bar that serves their espress “ristretto”, you might as well give it… ahem… a shot. It’s only going to set you back a couple bucks. Maybe you’ll actually like it. For me, I’ll be avoiding the cafe ristretto from now on.