Here are some pics of the Lakota i was re-building

Not bad for a bike that sat in a barn for a few years. We rebuilt the topend and pretty much everything else was little stuff i am working on one item at a time.

Who sings this song?

You can drink a shy girl to crazy

You can drink a good girl to sin

You can drink an ugly girl pretty

But you can't drink fat girl thin.

You ain't gonna believe this shit

That's the only title i could think of for this post. As you know i have been rebuilding a Lakota 300. I noticed the head gasket was leaking so i ordered another one. Thursday night i tore the engine down to case in preparation for receiving the gasket on Friday.

Friday comes around and i go pick up the gasket. I hightail it home and start rebuilding the top end. I get it all put together and fire it up. It runs like a champ and there is no oil leaking. I run it until it gets hot and then let it sit for an hour or two and then re-torque the head bolts. Everything is going fine so i decide to adjust the air-fuel mixture. After a few turns of the jet i can not get the bike to start. I reset the jet to where i started and it still won't start. I figured i had flooded it out so i went to bed and figured i would try again in the morning.

This morning o couldn't get the bike to do more than an idle. I took the carb off 2 times try ing to fix it and nothing i did seemed to fix the problem. I was dumbfounded. I then noticed that it was blowing gas out of the intake throat to the carb. This perplexed me. I called my Uncle Bill and we started trouble shooting. We agreed that the only thing to cause blow back out the intake was the bike was out of time. I said that i timed it correctly and i guaranteed that the bike was not out of time.

After checking the spark, changing the plug and countless other things, i decided to pull the timing cover off and take a look. It was then that i noticed the bike had " jumped time ". Now anyone familiar with bikes knows that it is almost impossible for a bike to jump time. Come to find out, in my haste i forgot to tighten the Cam Gear Bolt. What an ass.

I pulled the timing gear, chain and tension er and started over. I reset the timimg and put it all back together. I hit the starter switch and she fired right up. I can not believe that i forgot to tighten the bolt. I am lucky that it didn't bend a valve.

An Old Friend

Back in 1997 i was recruited to transfer to Odessa by the then regional manger. His name was Malcolm Savoie. He lived in Lake Charles but was from Church Point. He preferred to go by Ole Dad. Ole Dad picked me up at the airport and we went straight to the bar until about 0200.

About 3 years prior, i had met Ole Dad at one of the crawfish boils our company had in Baton Rouge. After the crawfish boil we all went to the bar and it was then that i met Ole Dad for the first time and realized that Ole Dad had a bit of a drinking problem. Ole Dad like to get gassed up and then he thought he was bullet proof. He was a fun man to be out drinking with.

So anyhow, Ole Dad decided i would work out in Odessa TX and transfer ed me in. Ole Dad being from Church Point had a thick almost not understandable coonass brogue. When he talked and if you didn't know him you would think he was the most uneducated person in the world. He was a hoot. When Ole Dad flew into town you met him at the airport with 1/2 gallon of Crown or VO, an ice chest and one 7up. Ole Dad didn't like tall glasses or much 7up in his Toddie. About 1500 he decided to take the whole branch to the bar for a Toddie for his Body. We would stay in that bar until it closed. He used to go to the bar tender and say " You see dem boys over der, they works for me. I'ms da boss" He would have a short glass of Crown and after about 3/4 of it he would have to throw it away. he said " Dat drink tase like wader, fix me a new one shovels" Shovels is a common slang name for black folks back in the old country according to Ole Dad.

Ole Dad's drinking got the best of him and he lost his job and his wife. He went down hill and ended up having a stroke. He was placed in a nursing home and he used to call me every now and then. Eventually they released him from the nursing home and then Ole Dad drank himself to death. He died 29 September 2007.

NAME: JAMES MALCOLM SAVOIE
OF LAKE CHARLES, LA.

AGE 55

DIED SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2007 @ HIS HOME IN LAKE CHARLES

SERVICES: MEMORIAL SERVICES WILL BE ON THURSDAY, OCT. 4, 2007 @ 11:00 AM @ OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART CHAPEL CHURCH POINT, LA.

3 BTRS: PATRICK & CHRISTINE SAVOIE CHURCH POINT, LA. TERRY & CONNIE SAVOIE TEXAS KENT SAVOIE CHURCH POINT, LA.

JAMES IS PRECEDED IN DEATH BY HIS PARENTS, CLARENCE & BEATRICE SAVOIE. ALTHOUGH JAMES HAS LIVED IN LAKE CHARLES FOR THE PAST 33 YEARS, HE WAS A NATIVE OF CHURCH POINT.


Ole Dad may have been a falling down drunk, but he was one hell of a salesman and had connections every where. One time i was having trouble getting into the refinery in El Paso. I talked to Ole Dad about and he said he would call me back. About an hour later Ole Dad called me and told me to pick him up in El Paso tomorrow we had sales calls to make. He would fly in with 100 pounds crawfish, boudin, Tasso and everything else and we would have a hodown. He was something else. He got me into the refinery. He was good when he was on his game.

Ole Dad, you will be missed. I will have a Toddie for the Body inyour honor tonight. Rest in Peace.

A long day

Yesterday i was privileged to drive from Odessa TX to Weatherford TX to give a presentation for about 1 hour and have lunch with a customer. All told i logged 586 miles. That makes for a long long day.

As i was leaving Weatherford, i passed a Burger King that had a sign out front that read " Management Positions Open"

This got me to wondering what kind of employees they have if out of the 20 or so employees there, none of them are good enough to manage the store. I decided that i would mark that particular BK as one i will not frequent.

On another note, my Lakota Project is progressing. I re-built the carb and it is running great. 2 of the 4 jets in the carb was clogged so that explained why it ran crappy. I have to change the head gasket. I have one ordered and will change it this weekend. A friend of mine gave me a front and rear rack off of a Polaris so with a few minor modifications it fit the Lakota. I had to weld on a few brackets but it will work.

Next Friday begins Hell Week at the lease. We will all meet up Friday afternoon at the lease and commission hell week 2007 with a butt load of beer. We use hell week to test our equipment. We figure that anything that survives a week with us at the lease, is a quality product. Last year we destroyed the front ends in my Uncle's Jeep and in my scout. Hopefully we will not tear up anything this year.

The towel

Last May, Boudreaux married an attractive woman, Lola, half his age.

> After several months, Lola complained that she had never climaxed
>during sex; and
>according to her Grand Momma, all Cajun women are entitled to a
>climax once
>in a while.
>
> So, to resolve the problem, they went to see the large-animal Vet
>since there was no trustworthy doctor anywhere in Mamou. The Vet
>didn't have
>a clue, but he did recall how, during the hot summer, his Momma and
>Daddy
>would fan a cow that was having any difficulty breeding with a big
>towel.
>This would cool her down and make her relax.
>
> So, the Vet told them to hire a strong virile, young man to wave a
>big towel over
>them while they were having sex. This, the Vet said, would cause
>the young wife
>to cool down, relax, and then climax.
>
> So the couple hired a strong young man from the big city of
>Lafayette to wave that big towel over them as the Vet suggested.
>After many
>efforts, Lola still had not climaxed! They went back to the Vet. The
>Vet
>said for Lola to change partners and let the young man have sex with
>her
>while Boudreaux waved the big towel.
>
>They tried it that night and Lola went into wild, screaming,
>ear-splitting
>climaxes, one right after the other for about two and a half hours.
>When it
>was over, Boudreaux looked down at the exhausted young man and in a
>cocky
>manner said, "And dat, my friend, is how you wave a towel

The hands of time

The hands of time keep on tick tocking away and the world does not stop for your pain or anguish. It just keeps tick tocking away without a care in the world. Impervious to our needs or wants, time will take its toll on every one and every thing.

Yesterday we buried my good friend's wife. At age 44, she lost to cancer. Now my friend and I are both Knights of Columbus and very devoted to our church. We are in my opinion educated in our Catholic Faith. We don't ask "Why did God do this to us?" We know those answers. We know that people will die. We acknowledge that all Love ends in heartache. However, knowing the answers doesn't ease the grief, pain and loss. It will take time to ease the pain. The tick tocking must go on.

The Knights of Columbus were requested to maintain vigil while Sue was lying in Repose at our church. While i was at the vigil in the wee hours of the morning, i spent i guess too much time reflecting on my life and my mortality. Everyone expects to be old when they pass. I questioned if my soul would pass muster if i perished today. These are hard questions to answer. Here is the part that freaked me out. As Christians we believe that when we die, we will stand face to face with Christ and be judged. We believe that our souls depart our bodies and go to where they were intended to go. The scary part is the extremely thin line between life and death.

You can be sitting there one minute and dead the next. There is no " Do Overs " When your done, your done. I only hope that i can get my stuff together and be prepared for death.

This is the first funeral i have been to since my Grandmother passed away. It has been 15 plus years since i attended a funeral. I have never cared about death. I accepted it as a matter of fact. Death never scared me. I never really thought about it. To me it was something i chalked up as "shit happens". This funeral made me realize that funerals are for the living. Those left behind carry a tremendous burden. The grief and pain must be overwhelming. I saw a family put through more than i care to imagine.

I have decided that funerals are too painful for the loved ones and i want my funeral to be simple. I don't want the congregation to tell my family more than once they are sorry for their loss. I say this because at Sue's funeral, the funeral director had the congregation offer our condolences to the family on 3 different occasions. I do not want this. When i die, prep the body and set me at the church for people to say their goodbye's. After that, button the lid and plant me. I think it should be short and sweet. I would like to have an ice chest full of beer by the casket so my friends could give me a toast and revel in a life well spent.

I don't think i will attend another funeral for sometime. I hope i don't have to anyway. I know that life is short and i want to make some changes in my life. I want to be judged to have lived a full and purposeful life. I don't want people to wonder if i made it to Heaven, i want them to be able to look at how i lived and know i made it to Heaven. I want to give more than i receive, forgive more than i hate, Love like it won't end in heartache and be a friend to those that need one. It will not be easy, but that is my goal.