Motorcycle Maintenance, Part Umpty-Squat

My friend Ed’s training a young protégé in the art and discipline of motorcycle maintenance. What are they practicing on? My Goldwing. Here are Ed and Matthew draining and cleaning my left fork before installing new seals and filling it back up with fluid: I mentioned in a previous post that the seals on the left fork […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news. YCRT! Banned Book News Local pastors petitioned to have LGBTQ-themed books removed from a Banned Books Week display at the public library in Rumford, Maine. The library, backed by patrons and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, stood its ground. Per […]

Strokin’

Here’s the group photo from Sunday’s Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride in Tucson: I’m the gent in the front row wearing a black shirt with red stripes and a hat, blocking out the riders behind me. As befits distinguished gentlemen, riders wore ties, vests, vintage riding outfits, even tuxes with tails. I modeled Donna’s embroidery work, which you can see […]

Paul’s Book Reviews: Playing Catch-Up

My book review posts don’t normally have a theme. They are what they are: reviews of the latest books I’ve read, fiction, nonfiction, thrillers, whatever. This time, though, I include three books I’ve had on the to-read shelf for years … more than a decade in one case … that I finally got around to […]

Tuesday Bag ‘o Ancient Chinese Curses

Today someone tried to add a spam comment to a blog post I wrote ten years ago. I reviewed the post after trashing the comment: the text is still there but the photos are gone. In my beginning blogger days I uploaded photos to the host server, but they took up a lot of room and […]

Air-Minded: Big Jets, Little Trams, Tall Tales

Pima Air & Space Museum’s fleet of Boeing jetliners continues to grow. Thanks to Cathay Pacific and Boeing, PASM now has a 777. The aircraft, line number WA001 (the first 777 built), flew non-stop from Cathay Pacific’s home airport in Hong Kong to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, landing around 11 AM Tuesday morning. After defueling, […]

You Can’t Read That!

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news. Banned Books Week is September 23-29. In honor of those who fight to protect our right to read and write, I offer my annual rant. YCRT! Banned Books Week Annual Rant Every year conservative pundits line up to tell us Banned Books Week is […]

We Gonna Rock Down to Electric Avenue

… and then we’ll take it higher. For months now, contractors have been building a new volunteer center at Pima Air & Space Museum. When I went in yesterday it was open, and I became one of the first volunteers to use it. The really big surprise, though, was finding two new electric trams parked […]