The Cupola
On the Historic Clarksville Square
131 North Locust Street
Clarksville, Texas 75426

Opening Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 10 am. We will be open late due to the Clarksville Bazaar and Street Dance. Stop in!

Hours:
Thursday – Saturday 10 am – 4 pm.

The Cupola carries art, antiques, collectables, and regional/Texas products from a variety of vendors. We will also carry a selection of books and music by area authors as well as a selection of used books.

We will eventually expand to include a coffee house, ice-cream, sandwiches, and a full soda fountain.

The Cupola is also the headquarters for Stormrider Press.

Check out our website (here) for more information!

Oh…and a preview of some of the “art” part…

Dragon in a Pickup? (a sculpture by Roger Scott, hand carved from a single piece of wood)

That’s a philosophy…and not just about motorcycles. I apply it to pretty much everything. Life, and the people and things in it…are meant to be touched, felt, ridden, flown, enjoyed, and in short…experienced.

Sometimes experience breaks things.

The magic UPS fairy showed up with this yesterday. It’s for the wife’s ride (Da ‘altima, otherwise known as “Crunchbird“).

New Wheel for Crunchbird

The old wheel is bent. Reasonably spectacularly bent, in fact. One experience of ours or another was too much for it. Since it was time for a tire or two I figured it was time to replace the wheel.

That’s slated for tomorrow.

There’s a pile of motorcycle parts here too…that work is slated for tomorrow also. At least the start of it. Bringing it back to stock/undamaged is first. Then I might modify something.

Muhahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

(snif)

Oh, and if you’ll look closely in the top right of that picture, you’ll see that Pierre (the Polydactyl, Maine Coon, Hemingway cat) approves of the box and packing. Pierre pretty much supervises all of my construction and other projects.

Here’s a closer view:

Signs if Pierre...he approves of the box and packing!

Lots of work for tomorrow…

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Well, turns out he was upset with the city for towing a junk car off his property (after months of warnings), and was going around town taking pictures of other people’s stuff. He apparently feels he was singled out and we weren’t because we know the code enforcement officer (he is a good friend).

Annoying really. Both I…AND the code guy have so much more integrity than that.

Knowing the code guy doesn’t buy me any favors at all. He would follow the same procedures with me as he does with anybody…and since he stops by regularly to visit, I’d have little chance of “not getting noticed.”

The dude in the van was actually shooting pictures of my bucket truck (the left-handed fargle-snorker), thinking since it doesn’t move much it must be a junk vehicle.

Truth is, it moves quite a bit…usually every weekend but every other weekend at least.
I moved it this weekend to hang my banner on my evil headquartes…but that’s another story.

I move it to haul stuff from the shop, pick up stuff from the lumber yard, to mow the area, and sometimes just to run it around the block and keep the batteries charged. I think the longest it has sat is about 3 weekends…that happens sometimes when we miss a weekend or the projects just don’t take me “fargle-snorkering”.

Thing is, there’s really only one good place to park it the way our gates/fences are currently layed out so I park it in the same place every time.

Whether it moves or not though is truly irrelevent and frankly, none of anybody’s business.

It’s registered, inspected, insured, and operational so it’s not a problem with the city.

I don’t know…I guess the guy’s harmless…but really dude, if I have something that’s a problem with the city…that’s between me and the city. You need to deal with your issues. Being a dickhead and creeping out my houseguests isn’t going to change your situation one little bit.

Or at least stop and talk when confronted. You might learn something new, or even make a new friend.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

On my commute home…northbound on US75. Traffic was heavy, very heavy…and getting worse the direction I was headed.

Up ahead I could see the eastbound ramp to I635 was clear though…that would work. I’ve been here all my life…I know every shortcut. It was time to bail on this road.

This interchange is massive…some of the bridges 150 feet in the air and heavily banked. The downgrades are unusually steep as well.

Yeah, so they are usually fun. When I hit it at night, I consider this billion dollar structure to be my personal, motorcycle, jungle gym.

I headed for the right lane, cleared the traffic, hit the steep, curving, uphill ramp, and twisted the throttle to its stop.

Full power on a Valkyrie is an absolutely awesome thing. She hooked up, dug in, and flew.

But she took that moment to speak as well.

“Uh, boss?”
“Yeah, I felt it.”
“I think it’s pretty serious.”
It was. I already knew the problem. “We gonna make it home?”
She actually laughed at me. “Oh please. When have I ever let you down?”

She has a point. In 140,000 miles, as long as I’ve kept her in fuel and tires, she’s gotten me unfailingly to my destination. Besides…in Dallas traffic…if it will roll, you keep it rolling. Lives can depend on it and abandoned vehicles stand no chance at all. The animals will tear them apart.

We are a team…she and I.

Home safe. I parked her in the garage. She’s down. She’ll get me home as long as I do my part…but my part also includes knowing when she’s had enough.

“I guess I’ve been pushing you pretty hard lately.”

She snorts. “Lately?”

Heh…she has another point. My philosophy on machines (and indeed, on most things in life) is to, “Ride ‘em hard. Fix ‘em when they break.”

Anything else is a waste of potential.

I won’t be able to work on her today…or tomorrow. My job…and other aspects of life intrude.

“I don’t like this boss.”
“I know babe.”
As the door rolls down she asks plaintively, “You will fix me, right?”
It was my turn to laugh. “Oh please. When have I ever let you down?”
She sounds better. “Ah. Good. It’s just that…well…I simply need to fly! It’s what I was made for!”
“I know babe. Me too.”

I’ll have to take the cage into work tomorrow. “Big Iron”, 450 hp v-10 Dodge, patiently waits in the drive. I’ll need to put on the new license plates I picked up three months ago. They’re still sitting on my desk. Absently I wonder where I left the keys to that thing.

Maybe she’ll even start.

Some parts are on order. Others I have on hand. Some surgery involved…wondering if I should take the excuse to do some modifications. The Valk’s personality…her soul, peers through a mostly stock exterior. Me, I know what’s inside. I wonder if it’s time to show it to everybody else.

Heh…like I need another project.

Pics…of the problem and fix…coming later.

They’ll talk. It can save your butt.

Are you listening?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Called the city this morning.

The service guy said, “I’ll check it out.”
The billing lady said, “We can see the usage over the last three months spiked. We’ll adjust the bill.”

Got home from work and it’s fixed.

Gotta love it when it works like it should. Kudos to the city guys/gals!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

The utility bill came today. In our city, electricity, water, sewer, and trash pickup are all on the same bill. I seldom give it a glance if the $$ amount is in a “reasonable” or normal range for the time of year.

A quick glance.

Wait. What?

This time, it was higher than normal. Just what I need.

Hmmm…a second look tells me somehow we managed to use 16,600 gallons of water! Sixteen. Thousand.

To put that in perspective, that’s about 256,000 glasses of water…or about 450 toilet flushes each day (which you’d probably need to help you get rid of the 256,000 glasses of water). Or perhaps I took a hot shower…with the tap on full blast…for 8 days straight.

Anyway, there’s no way we used that amount…that’s about 5 times as much as we usually use. I knew immediately either they misread the meter or we had a leak.

Oh, and I *knew* we didn’t have a leak…16,000 gallons would make a hell of a mess in the yard AND we’d have water running down the street.

Off to read the meter I go.

Ooops. Well crap.

The meter box (in the ground) is full of water. That’s not a good sign.

It’s near the curb and a storm drain…so the water is seeping down into the drain without ever getting in the yard or on the street. You can’t tell it’s leaking unless you open the meter box.

Gad.

Anyway, the meter is leaking at the connection…on my side of course.

I have to call the city to see if I need to reset (remove/replace) the meter or if they will. Normally you are responsible for any leak on your side of the meter…but this is actually AT the meter and they usually frown upon homeowners digging up the entire meter/meter box.

Too late to call today, and I really don’t want an emergency disconnect tonight, so we’ll have to see tomorrow.

Somebody gets to play in the mud. I kind of hope it’s not me.

16,000 gallons.

Sheesh.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

TOOL.

Wanted to get used to the boom movement/bounce etc…since I haven’t been on a boom truck since my Llamco Electric days…gad…30ish years ago…and that was a squirt boom instead of a knuckle boom…

Anyway, wanted to test it out and practice a bit before trying to use it up against our building on the historic square in Clarksville or the Old Vic, so out to the family farm we went.

My favorite pic:

Flying low (came down to grab the camera). We kept side extension to a minimum today as even though the outriggers were on hard-packed gravel, it’s been REALLY wet. All “way out” extension was done in line with the truck today.

About 80% up…went up 100% but I had the camera by that time so no pic from the ground…

The wife and my nephew looking pretty small:

Decent side view:

Well, ready to work. Just have to get started.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

I’m writing a “heap-big-check”…

Well, big at least, when compared to the monthly cable bill or something LOL!

We’re closing on this tomorrow…

More pics

This has vast implications on my writing/books/etc.

Among other things…(art studio, coffee shop, internet cafe)…it is the new world-wide headquarters for Stormrider Press!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Everything is busy. Phone calls EVERY single night (we don’t have enough people to cover all the shifts anymore). Hours of sleep lost. The twelve-hour-day Thursday…oh, and the major system that got killed Friday morning. Oh boy. An all day all-skate. Weeee.

In addition, the wife and I have a big event coming up this Thursday…involving another set of keys to an old building and writing a big honkin’ check.

And a bit more work…some of which, we’ll probably get started on Thursday afternoon.

Oh, and there’s the trip to the home improvement store, the oil changes for both The Dragon and Big Iron, and just for grins, I think both of them need a state inspection sticker too.

But that’s all in the future. Today seemed a good day to relax and recover a bit. Seeing as how it’s my birthday as well, that’s a good excuse!

Happy birthday to me! Happy Saturday to you!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer