Dry Spline

I am finally getting around to some bike maintenance. The transmission input spline needs to be greased roughly annually. To get this far, I removed the tank, seat, air box, battery box, swing arm pivots and several emissions hoses. Then the bolts holding the trans to the engine. Pull the clutch lever to separate the engine and the transmission. It took about an hour to get this far.

In the picture above, the transmission is on the right and the engine on the left and you can see the spline roughly in the center of the photo. The shininess isn't necessarily good. It means that it doesn't have any grease on it. Now I need to pick up the appropriate grease and moly 60 and some sort of brush to apply a thin coat of the grease/moly mixture to the spline then put it all back together. I probably should lube the swing arm bushings and they did have plenty of clean grease. I will be teaching an IPv4 multicast workshop at the University of Connecticut next week so I need to get it all back together tomorrow. I'll get to stop and visit my parents in Corvallis, OR, on the way back home next weekend. That'll be a nice break as I haven't seen them since last summer.

On another note, I visited the clinic to ask about my sore knee and mentioned that it started hurting when I started jogging. The doctors response was simply "don't jog". I can live with that as my only motivation was to try and recover some time. Today I walked about 1½ miles and it was starting to get sore. My upcoming travel should help my knee get some rest. I think my miles for the next couple of months will be low...

Friday Afternoon - This afternoon, I stopped at the local Harley/Honda/BMW dealer to try and pick up Honda Moly 60 and it didn't look good for a while. The guy at the parts counter had never heard of it. Fortunately, someone else walked by who knew exactly where it was. A couple of tubes in a cardboard box under a counter. It was something the guys in the back used in the shop. Rarely does anyone actually ask for it at the counter. I suspect that this tube should last a lifetime as it isn't used for a lot.

Friday Evening - Yum, a mixture of Unocal heavy grease and Honda Moly 60 paste. This is what I spread on the transmission input splines. When I started to clean them, I found a thin layer of grease so I was glad that I didn't wait too long to do this maintenance item. I assembled the rest of the bike but didn't adjust the swing arm bearings. It needs to be centered in the frame and I need don't have time to do it today. I just reassembled the swing arm so the pieces weren't laying around catching dust. I'll center the swing arm within the frame and adjust the bearing pre-load when I get back from Connecticut.

Sore Knee

I went for a jog/walk this afternoon and I now have a dull pain in the middle of my right knee. I guess, I should avoid any kind of running for a while and just stick to walking. I guess that is what I get for trying to increase my activity level. The last thing I need is some sort of knee injury. No significant activity over the weekend except for a diabetes conference on Saturday and a wedding on Sunday. Kind of made it difficult to get in any sort of exercise (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it) except for walking to church. I was originally trying to jog/run since I can cover the same distance in less time. From everything I've read, your Calorie consumption per mile was pretty much the same whether you are running or running. For some reason, I have a hard time believing that since it is so much more difficult to run.

Since it will be warming up this week, I plan on finally getting some work done on my motorcycle. When it is below zero outside, the garage is just too cold to work on things. Just some routine maintenance that, for me, only needs to be done annually. I still need to address the difficult starting and rough running in rainy weather last summer. From reading Charlie6's July 2008 post, the problem may be very small hairline cracks in one or both of the coils. There are a bunch of other things as it is an old BMW airhead. I think they are known for needing a lot of routine maintenance. But, at least the average person can actually do the work. No need to take it in to the shop for most things.

Dead Nike+ Sensor

Not in Barrow anymore. The blizzard let up long enough for the plane to make it in. The ride into the airport from NARL was pretty exciting. The snow drifts across the road were averaging about 16" deep and driving through them felt a little like sailing on the ocean. Every time you blast through a drift, the snow would blow over the hood and cab. It was very warm when I got back to Fairbanks. Extremely slippery conditions with freezing drizzle and cars in ditches all over town. Even though it has since cooled off (-17°F), the slick conditions are lingering on. Not good weather for trying to jog outdoors.

Earlier this week, my Nike+ sensor died. Actually, it was just the battery but it is a sealed unit with a non-replaceable battery. I would normally not bother with such a device but it does last for about 1000 miles so they don't need to be replaced very often. About every five months for me. I had a spare sitting on the shelf at home so no big deal. The annoying thing was, I lost about 7 miles. Since my mileage has been way down between travel and getting sick, it bugged me. Odd behavior...

I'm in the process of reviewing the slide deck for the Internet² Multicast Workshop. I haven't looked at them for over a year and haven't taught from them for maybe 2 years. I think I'm going to have a busy weekend.

In Barrow Fighting with the Network

I haven't posted for the last couple of weeks not because I was stuck somewhere in the Seattle airport but there just isn't much going on. I picked up a virus in Salt Lake City and I'm finally starting to feel "normal". This week I'm in Barrow setting up new network gear in a old building. This evening, I finished the hard part this and tomorrow I get to run around the NARL campus setting up some more wireless stuff. Nothing real exciting. The wind has been blowing and there is a lot of snow drifting across the road. Maybe I'll have time to get some pictures...

Very little exercising as walking around outside is discouraged due to occasional polar bear sightings. I haven't seen any on the NARL campus but one of the cooks at the college mentioned there have been almost a dozen seen around the campus. NARL was originally built back in the 40's as the Naval Arctic Research Lab and was finally closed in the late 80's. The run-down buildings are now occupied by a variety of organizations including the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC), Ilisagvik College, a handful of businesses and some residential units. If nothing else, it is an interesting place to visit and is located about 1/3 of the way between the village of Barrow and the Point Barrow, the most northern land in Alaska. Between here and the North Pole is just sea ice.

Thursday Evening - One of the best things about having to go to Barrow is Osaka. Easily one of the best Japanese restaurants in Alaska. No kidding, better than all in Fairbanks and Anchorage. Decent selection of sushi and sashimi but the prices are, understandably, kind of high. No luck getting pictures today as the blowing snow was obscuring just about everything. Visibility was about ½ mile and the light was really flat. In fact, it was a little difficult seeing where the edges of the road were. Still trying to debug some wireless gremlins. This is on a 5.x GhZ point to multipoint network servicing an area about ½ mile radius from one of the main buildings. Multipath is a real problem here due to all of the metal roofs and metal siding on the buildings. Many of the buildings are quonset huts made of corrugated sheet metal from the 1940s. Fastening an antenna mast to them is more than a little challenging due to their shape.

Friday Evening - The weather is even worse today and now it is even a question whether the blizzard will be over by the time I'm supposed to be heading home (Saturday evening). This is a shot from the steps of NARL building 360 and the "NARL hotel" is the structures on each side. It's kind of hard to capture the blowing, drifting snow and the 35 mph wind in a still photo. One of these days I'll learn how to post video. This evening, I even passed up an opportunity to get some sushi and ended up having dinner at the college cafeteria. The conditions really were that bad. The road behind the building had drifts over a foot deep crossing the road. The last thing I need is to get stuck in a blizzard. I guess the weather back home in Fairbanks is creating treacherous driving conditions due to the warmth. Warm. moist air and very cold road surfaces means lots of glare ice.