Jon Barclay

I love this skit about Real Estate Agents. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

On a recent episode of Wired Science on PBS they interviewed a Computer Scientist from Carnegie Mellon, Luis von Ahn. Not only was it interesting to see this brilliant academic interviewed, but it also introduced a really cool tool he has invented called reCAPTCHA. Basically reCAPTCHA is a way for people to not only prove that they are a person and not a computer when filling out forms on the web, but it utilizes that process to digitize books! How cool is that.

So, inspired by the interview I have switched my spam filtering to reCAPTCHA. Make a comment and see how it works. Also you can check out the interview bellow.

Watching the last several Republican debates have been more like watching WWE wrestling matches than Presidential forums. First it seemed that all the candidates were set on insulting and attacking Romney. This was probably because he was seen as unstoppable if he won in New Hampshire. Now that he has lost the barbs are flying elsewhere. The biggest attack in the debate last night came from Fred Thompson and was directed towards Mike Huckabee. The thing I get a kick out of is the worst insult in the Republican Party is to call someone a Democrat. My guess is that Huckabee and Thompson are going to throw down in the next few days since they are competing for the same voter base.

While I love my new Trail 90, there are bound to be things wrong with a 37 year old bike. One of the small things that was not working when I bought the bike was the tail light.

A few days after bringing the bike home I started troubleshooting the light problem. My first guess was a blown bulb, but a replacement did no good. While fiddling with it I noticed that when I hit the brakes with the lights off the tail light would sometimes flicker on. After taking off the light assembly I quickly saw what the problem was. The green ground wire was not connected to anything. Thus when the lights were off the brake light would come on because the tail light wire was acting as a ground.

Once I grounded it and got it back together the light worked perfectly!

The next problem to tackle is to look at why the brake light is not triggered by the front brake. My guess is that the switch inside the handle bars is the culprit. Who knows though, I may find that something else is the cause. One of the fun things about these bike is that they are fairly straight forward to work on, even for a complete beginner like me.

For the past couple of months I have been keeping an eye out for a good used Honda Trail bike. Buying one of these is not necessarily easy as they are a vintage bike in demand from collectors and enthusiasts. As I looked for a good buy I soon realized that bikes that were competitively priced and in good condition went very quickly, many times selling the same day they were listed.

About a month ago I saw a listing for a 1971 Trail 90 up in Ogden. The ad listed the bike as having 20,000 miles, but in great running condition. It was priced right at $700 and included a small trailer. At first I was reluctant to call about it. That many miles is A LOT for a little motorcycle, and even though they say that sitting is much worse for these than being used I was not sure I wanted one that used.

Even though I was still unsure about this particular bike my Dad and I decided to drive up and take a look. What a difference seeing the bike made. It was 10° outside, but the bike started on the third kick. The seller was a bike enthusiast and had taken very good care of it. In addition the mileage listed was incorrect. The bike only had 2,700 miles.

We ended up getting the bike. Even though we are still snow bound, it has been loads of fun putting around on it. I can’t wait to get out on the trails with it. Below is a picture of my model. Unlike this photo mine is red.

Jennifer posted pictures and video of the bike on here blog here.