I really don’t know how to possibly spin this, but my back hurts and I have another check mark on my frequent customer card for Charon’s ferry, and I have no idea if they are related because I have no idea how I got either one.
I now have 4 check marks on the back of my loyalty card, more than a third of the way there to my reward. I also have no memory of earning that latest check mark. When I went to bed there were only 3 marks on the card (I make it a habit to review the check marks on my card before I go to bed) and I woke this morning with a backache and another check mark on the card. And I also checked for surgical scars and it appears I still have both my kidneys, so that’s good and also not the source of my new check mark.
So now I have 4 marks, and only remember earning one. That’s not a good average, to be unable to remember 3 out of 4 times you died. Or maybe it is good, to not remember having died multiple times. I mean the time I can remember was pretty bad, what with the blood everywhere and going blind and passing out from the pain multiple times. That also may be why I can remember it, because the event left marks on my body. It might also mean the backache this morning was from sleeping in a bad position, not because I died during the night. The one may be entirely co-incidental to the other.
On more cheerful subjects, the TGS2 is not dead (kinda like me). The data I was able to extract from the process of scaling the picture has contributed to the design of the rear frame section. The frame is very simple, basically almost a straight shot from the front axle to the rear, the bottom rails particularly will be straight back 34″ apart all the way front to rear, 31″ inside width especially where my butt sits. The “short but wide” 32 gallon tank is 32″ wide and 14″ tall and 17″ front to back. The “narrow but tall” tank is 26″ wide and 18″ tall and front to back. So I have to make room for me, at 45″ from bottoms of my feet to the backrest of the seat, the steering linkage that sticks 6″ to the rear of the front axle centerline, the engine/transmission that is basically 25″ in front of the rear axle, and 32 gallons of fuel in 100″ of wheelbase or less. By my math I’m looking at 94″ of stuff between the axle centerlines before any crossmembers are installed between compartments to keep me out of the fuel tank and the fuel tank out of the engine. Using the same size tubing to make the crossmembers and the frame rails that makes the minimum wheelbase 97″, or 3″ of room to fudge the installation of the fuel tank and the driver’s controls. That 45″ measurement was with my legs straight out in front of me, so bending my knees could also change that distance a scoshi bit.
Making an abrupt change in subject, I managed to find the original track for “Autobahn” by Kraftwerk on YTM, the 22+ minute album side version. (For you younger people music used to come on vinyl discs with grooves that had the music recorded in analog format, and the longest playing format was the 33 1/3 RPM LP that held roughly 45 minutes of music maximum. The first release of “Autobahn” was as an entire 22:43 side of the LP.) This is my preferred version to get lost in. The ’70s were no place for ADHD until punk hit at the end of the decade… Another piece of music I like to get lost in was the long version of “Tubular Bells”, an excerpt of which was used as the theme for a scary movie you might have heard of, “The Exorcist”. Another piece from that era was Tull’s “Thick as a Brick”, that I first heard live in concert because none of the local radio stations would play it in its full 43 minute glory. My contemporaries used to call this “tripping music”, to be listened to while under the influence of psychoactive substances. I didn’t need those, I tripped just from the music.
Witch on a Bicycle 