Blogging Is Back On

FIRST... I will resume blogging as of now. I can use my real identity Goolag account with age verification to access my posts, and then return comment using my nom de guerre logging in with name and URL. That is, until I am threatened with loss of my Glypto Dropem Goolag account and all my data in which case, I will have a difficult decision to make.

 

SECOND... I went through the process of activating my Obongocare health insurance renewal for 2026 yesterday. For 2025, the full freight cost of the plan we chose was $2575.37 per month and the subsidy we qualified for was $2186 making our premium an affordable $389.37 per month. Since the Demon-Crap gubmint shutdown circus, unless you are a welfare recipient the 400% of the poverty rate subsidies created during COVID are gone. Keeping the plan we had last year is going to cost us, BIGLY! Are you ready for this....

$3085.79 per month or $37,029.48 for the year!

Fully 30% of our combined estimated annual gross earnings! For comparison, this is almost double our fucking monthly mortgage payment. Thankfully we have no car payments but this is NOT affordable by any stretch.

So our plan is as we have done before. We will save what we would expect to pay in increased premiums in a separate account and pay cash for services. Neither of us have chronic health issues. As we have seen before, doctors love it when you pay cash and charge way less than they charge insurance companies for the same services. They get paid on the spot with no complicated medical billing and coding or a waiting period to get paid.

As it stands now, the open enrollment period ends on December 15th. Payment will be due by January 1st. We will simply be automatically cancelled due to non-payment. If... and that's a BIG IF... the gubmint decides to fix this mess and will cover a large chunk of the premiums meaning a larger subsidy than before (the $2186 from last year will make my payment still unaffordable at $899.79 per month) before January 1st, we'll pay the premiums. If they totally revamp the insurance mess there will need to be a new open enrollment period to sign up for whatever the new offering might be.... if it is actually affordable.

If gubmint does nothing... Obongocare and the health insurance industry is going down the shitter... WHERE IT BELONGS! The estimates I have heard are 20 million people no longer paying premiums and simply dropping out like we are about to do.

So I have a question for the hardcore Demon-Craps and TDS sufferers (I could name names, but you know who you are). It is the same one you always ask Trump supporters when he does what he does that makes you Libturds wig the fuck out:

"Is this what you voted for?" 

Blog Activity Is Paused

DUE TO GOOLAG AGE RESTRICTIONS, ALL ACTIVITY ON THIS BLOG IS ON A INDEFINITE HOLD.

 

I blog under a nom de guerre with no ties to meat space, and that's how I want it. Goolag's new age verification prevents ME from viewing blog posts I ACTUALLY AUTHORED because I have the age restriction turned on for a layer of security. It prevents the average basement dwelling Hot Pocket/Pop Tart eating SJW troll from calling for my blog to be shut down because they were warned and clicked past it. It also prevents the internet archive sites from hoovering up my content to live on the internet forever. I tried to fake them out but so far their stoopid AI is thwarting my efforts. I am also having this issue with my legit personal Goolag account for which I may have to use my actual birthday and verify my ID. It is the account I use for my Android cell phone and can't afford to lose.

So for now, until I figure out what to do, this blog will remain frozen in time. 

Had A Visitor

How well do you know your wildlife scat (poop)?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Large, black, and full of bird seed is the sure sign of a Black Bear. This was located in a grassy parking area on the right side of the driveway heading up towards the house and was not there a couple of days ago. My little poodle rescue girl found it and "pointed it out to me" by paying too much attention to it. I texted my neighbor that I had something to show him and to stop by on his way home from work. He did and we had a poop viewing party. He was shocked to say the least.

In the 20 years we have lived in the woods, I have never seen a bear on my property, but this is the third sure sign. In 2005 or 2006 my dogs found a similar pile in the woods right behind my house where our fire pit is now. In 2016, we woke up to find an ornamental iron "shepherd's hook" bent flat to the ground, and the suet cake basket at the top crushed, mangled, and empty. My bird feeders are now high up in a tree with a rope and pulley system. But the birds drop seed all over the ground which the squirrels, chipmunks, and ground feeding birds mostly eat. I figure the bear was probably licking it all up.

I have had my Marlin 336 in .30-30 handy since a fox was hanging around near the chicken yard a few days ago. At the time all I had handy was my 9mm G-17. I should have braced myself on the deck railing but I didn't and given the distance firing off-hand, I missed. Twice. Now with a bear in the vicinity the rifle was handy last night when I was in bed. I am on a 24 at the FD so there will be no predator control until tomorrow. My wife certainly won't pick up the slack.

"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is loaded with 150gr Federal soft-point ammo. The ammo is rated for white tail deer and is probably overkill for the fox and a little light for bear. I have the same ammo in 170gr but that is way too heavy for the fox. The scope is a Bushnell Trophy and the rifle is sighted in at 100 yards. 3 shot groups are covered by a Kennedy half-dollar. For the 170gr ammo I just hold high about 2 inches. Well placed shots will be the order of the day. I don't hunt and never have, but I bought this 1971 vintage rifle with the scope mount when I started raising chickens and discovered I did not have a good varmint/predator rifle. $265 plus tax back in 2007 when every gun shop had a well stocked used gun display.

The Heat Is On

The song from 1984 by Glenn Frey of The Eagles for the movie "Beverly Hills Cop" starring Eddie Murphy.

 

 

Yes.... the heaters are now working on "The Beast"!!! It took quite a bit of troubleshooting but everything was testing out fine. I did get stuck and confused at one point but an examination of the complete wiring diagram showed me why the manual was telling me to do the step it was. I made up a jumper cord to connect the contact leads for the heater relay as the instructions said and BINGO! voltage on the pins where it was supposed to be proving good grip and seat heaters. I got to the point where it was either a bad HCU (heater control unit) or main ECM (electronic control module). Knowing either could be an expensive proposition, I made sure the connector for the HCU was freshly cleaned and snapped it in place. I started the bike and turned on the heaters. Still nothing. SHIT! I could not find any documentation anywhere about what the actual signal was from the ECM that tells the HCU to provide heat. Is it ground? Is it full battery voltage? Is it less voltage and if so how much? Or is it some kind of data signal? If you read the first post of this problem, you'll recall that the system does not work above a certain intake temperature and there is no "GO" signal to the HCU to allow heat. I was apprehensive about trying to measure the signal and possibly blowing something up. So I had a thought.... I wonder if the ECM simply needs to be reset? So, I disconnected the ground wire on the battery, turned the key to on and punched the starter button to drain every bit of juice from the whole bike. I then went in the house to get a snack with the ground still off the battery. When I came back out after 15-20 minutes, I reconnected the ground and started the engine. VOILA! Within a couple of minutes the seat and grips started getting warm. I left the bike running long enough for everything to get real toasty. The next thing I needed to do was splice and solder the wire permanently for the left grip. I shut the bike down and did an inline "Western Union" style splice, soldered the wire wraps, and buttoned it all up with heat shrinkable tubing. The Western Union works better for an inline splice whereas a pigtail hangs off one side. The extra wiring was looped and ty-wrapped in place at the base of the handlebar, and a check was made to ensure the extra bit of wire did not interfere with steering. I did one more test of the heaters to make sure it was all working, and it was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been cold the past couple of days so I have limited my time in the garage and today was no different. The plan is to reassemble The Beast on Saturday since I am working tomorrow. Hopefully afterwards, I can take it out for a spin and really give the rejuvenated heater system a workout. 

Progress on "The Beast"

My fear has been realized. It was the bane of my existence when I had my 35 year career in telecommunications and I.T. What is it you ask? A system that goes down, with not just one problem causing the outage, but multiple problems, making troubleshooting difficult and sometimes finally resulting in a "shotgun approach".... replacing everything replaceable and getting the system operational again. Usually an expensive proposition.

I received the replacement left heated grip for the first new one I inadvertently broke while installing it. It went on just fine and I metered it afterwards to make sure I still had continuity. 2.4 ohms... perfect! I temporarily wired it in and tested the heaters. No heat. Shit!... time to dig in and do some serious troubleshooting.

The pile of parts removed so far. It will be growing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The service manual is open to the electrical portion and Chapter 17 - Heaters. There is a long step by step process, but with the bike partially disassembled I could test some individual components and "cheat" a bit. First thing was to check both fuses with a meter and neither one was blown open. Next is the heater system relay. The book says to replace it with a known good one. The one for the horn and turn signals is the same type. I did a double test by using the relays to try and operate both systems. Both relays operated the horn and turn signals, but would not turn the heaters on. The grip heaters are wired in series with the rear seat heater. Because the seat was out, I had access to the connector for the rear seat heater. This allowed me to meter the entire grip heater circuit which proved that the throttle grip heater was good. I then metered the rear seat heater and got the normal 2.4 ohms. I then metered the main seat heater elements and found both of them to be good. The seat heaters use thermistor circuitry to ensure the seats don't "get too hot." In the manual, there is a chart that shows thermistor resistance based on temperature. My super duper Klein True RMS multimeter has a temperature probe. It was about 10 degrees C in the garage yesterday, and the chart said the thermistor should read between 90 and 101 ohms. All 4 thermistors read a perfect 98 ohms. It's gotta be chilly when you work on this system or it will not operate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The left grip has the Kuryakyn chrome grip cover installed to protect it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You'll notice the dashboard and speaker grilles are out. I needed to ensure the potentiometers that control the amount of heat desired by way of controlling the voltage output from the heater control unit were connected. They are located below the LCD screen and just above and on both sides of the ignition key. Something I did not check previously. I found out the service department had that out to do the fork seals according to the service procedure. There is one multi pin connector for the pots and the switches that control the display which were all working. This also allowed me to clean dust and debris from behind the speaker grilles that blows in through the fairing.

So, the next thing I need to do is pull the lower trunk half and then the left saddlebag to access the heater control unit and the main cable connector. I will need to connect all the elements and meter right to the connector. It starts with the basics of voltage and ground, and progresses to the other elements. Hopefully it is a simple wiring issue and doesn't turn out to be the main controller unit.