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October 2, 2007October 2, 2007

Bengals 1-3, Currently there are no professional sports in Cincinnati

That was simply unbelievable.

Oh my, where to start?

Carson Palmer 21 of 35 for 234 yards, 1 TD and 2 picks. That works out to QB Rating of 65.65 (Ben Rothesburger Type numbers) Carson is supposed to be much better than this.

I counted 2 dropped balls by the rookie, 3 catches that Chad had hands on but that were nearly impossible to catch. The fact that he got hands on them was pretty amazing in and of itself.

About 6 completely blown throws including the miss-communication that lead to the interception. Is that on Carson or Chad? Based upon recent trends, I put that on Carson.

Things that rung loud and true after the game.

New England is a machine, a team of men. The Bengals are still a team of boys. The biggest problem is this offensive unit has been in place now for 5+ years and time is quickly running out.

It was a game that required the third rookie wide receiver and the tight end to come up big and they almost did. Kenny Watson played well too. But in the clutch it was Carson that let the O down from my perspective.

We knew the D would struggle, and all we could hope for was that the O could keep it close. Keeping it close would give them a chance. Nobody really expected a win, but we didn’t expect to be man handled in that way either. Our O, even without Henry should be able to keep pace with *most* teams. At least on paper.

Injuries suck, no doubt about that either, but guys need to step up.

Justin Smith? Come on… Make a play. Our only sack of the game happened because we jumped off sides.

Some Positives

1) S. Graham made all of his field goals.
2) The special teams kick coverage wasn’t horrible.
3) K. Watson, ran well.
4) T.J. 10 catches for 100 yards
5) M. Williams 8 Tackles and he didn’t play the whole game. It’s positive that he made 8 tackles, not positive that he had to make the stops.

It is truly a sad day though when the Cleveland fans can actually feel better about their team than the Bengals fans can.

Marvin was allegedly upset after the game and rightfuly so. But some bad coaching calls were made.

3rd Quarter, down by 17, time running out, and you haven’t made a decent defensive stop all day and you kick the field goal. I understand the logic if your D is playing at least marginally. But that was the time to make a statement. The team mailed it in after that field goal. 3 points is 3 points, but that was the time to make the statement. It’s as if the team mailed it in after that.

September 26, 2007February 3, 2016

The $50 Oil Change

or How much horse bedding does it take to soak up 1 gallon of Castrol 10w-30?

Ugh… One of those days. I spent most of my day interviewing and eliminating candidates from a job we’re looking to fill. The nerve of some folks, man… It just goes to show that a good resume will get you in the door, and that you can’t judge a book (or person) by their resume alone. Felt like my whole day was a waste.

On the way home I decided I’d do something productive. The cage was a little overdue for an oil change and for the first time in a long time I had an evening free.

So I pull in the driveway, jump out, put the car up on ramps. It looks like it might rain soon. I run in the house, change clothes and get busy. Like any shade tree mechanic in 85 degree weather with 90% humidity I opt for my wife beater, shorts and flip flops.

This isn’t rocket science and I’ve changed the oil on this car ~20 plus times if not more. Should take 5-10 minutes tops.

I get the oil pail, of course it’s full, from the last time so I dump that into a 5gal pail. Crawl under and remove the drain plug. Simple as that.

Then we get to the oil filter. This particular car, a 1999 Chrysler Cirrus, has the oil filter right there where you can see it and reach it. It’s right there where you can’t really get a decent oil wrench on it. No sweat, been down this road before and I can usually muscle it off, but not this time. I really try not to over tighten them but with this car it always seems to bake them on or something. After busting knuckles trying all 3 of my wrenches and being unable to come up with the combination I’ve used in the past, I start the hunt for the big-ass channel locks that I have, but they are missing.

I finally give in and go with the ‘drive a screw driver through the filter’ plan. That rarely works unless you get it clean through the center, even then it’s a iffy situation. As in this case it only tore the filter open. But open enough to allow me to grab the damn thing with the smaller pair of channel locks that I could find and get it off.

Easy peasy…

I locate my spare filter, lube it up and install it. Just about then it starts to sprinkle, and thunder quite a bit. #@!$!, so I hop up, grab the gallon jug of 10w 30 and start pouring it in. Of course you can’t pour it in with the funnel I have so you dribble it in.

I’m about 3/4 way through the gallon, just about ready to stop and check the level and my right foot feels funny. Uhm, it’s wet and slimy feeling. I look down and realize that I never put the drain plug back in.

$#@%@$% The cardboard I was laying on is totally soaked and a river is forming that is running into my barn. @@#$#@! I don’t have any oil dry so I throw my rag down in the path hoping to slow it down. I hoof it back to the other barn hoping, no, praying, that we still have some shavings left. I grab the package from and run back to the car. About a 1/2 a package of shavings and think I’ve got it covered. But I’m also covered in oil/shavings…

What a waste and mess!

Luckilly I had another gallon so I could at least finish the job.

Sorry no pictures, didn’t want to get the camera in the messy state I was in.

Hope your day was better than mine.

September 25, 2007September 26, 2007

Yep, we’re havin a baby…

Claudine gave me grief the other day because apparently I hadn’t yet mentioned that we’re having a baby on the blog…

Yeah you read the right; the Disher clan is expanding again.
Taking inventory,

We’ve been married for 18 years.
We have 4 Children currently:
Michael who’s 16
Maggie, 13 12
Molly, 10
Maria, 7

And we’re about to add one more. Sex still unknown and won’t be known until he or she is born.

We’re still arguing over ‘M’ names. We didn’t mean to start this ‘M’ phenomenon, it just happened.

Michael is named after my father in law, Maggie after Claudine’s great grandmother. Molly, was just a name we liked, and by then it was too late. Maria was an easy name to follow suit. We liked the name Maria and she also carries my aunt’s middle name. Jo Ann was a very special person.

Now we’re kind of hosed.

Claudine and I both have acceptable ‘M’ names picked out. Problem is we don’t agree on any of them so we’ll have to see what happens. There’s still time to negotiate.

We’ve been very blessed, no doubt about that. We seem to be the most fertile couple on the planet. Yes, we know what makes it happen.

We always knew we’d have kids. We thought we were perfectly happy with 1, then came Maggie. Shortly thereafter Claudine informed me that we were supposed to have 4. Of course I thought she was certifiable at the time, and as fate would have it, we did end up with 4, heck even after 3 I didn’t think we’d actually have 4, but none the less, that’s the case.

This one is certainly more of a ‘surprise’… We’re not exactly young pups anymore. We are still younger than some of our friends who just recently adopted their first so we’re not alone. It’s comforting to know that we’ll never be as old as them. We certainly see plenty of older couples with younger kids. In fact there are quite a few older parents whose kids are in gymnastics with Molly. So it’s not quite as unusual as I had originally thought.
Of course as luck or Murphy would have it, we got rid of ALL of our little kids stuff about 3 months prior to the incident.

But that’s OK, baby gadgets have evolved quite a bit in the last 7 years so we get to get all new stuff for the most part.

We’re certainly veterans at this. The biggest issue so far has been getting the attic finished so we’ll have room, but other than that the pregnancy has been pretty easy.

More info as it becomes available.

September 23, 2007

Week 3 (1-2) Which to me means 8-8 is starting to look highly optimistic.

Wow!

The Bengals were in this game the whole game, which was absolutely amazing.

I read in one of the columns were Seattle said they’d focus on Chad and T.J. because Rudi wasn’t worth paying any attention too.

Rudi Johnson: 17 carries for 9 yards… I guess they weren’t too far off the mark. Kenny Watson and J. Johnson combined for 10 carries and 72 yards on the ground. Kenny: 9 for 60, when it mattered this time because we were behind.

Carson and our special ED special teams lost this game.
Carson 27 of 43, 342 Yards 1 TD, 2 INT’s for a QB rating of: 70.10
Vs. Hassleback’s 24 of 37, 248 Yards and 3 TDs, 2 INT’s for a QB rating of 88.56

In the end Shawn Alexander got his 100 yards.

Both Chad and TJ had good games. Chad dropped one, maybe two balls, the rest just simply weren’t catchable. Carson threw some really bad passes while under pressure.

—

Everyone fully expects them to get beat and bad Monday night by the Patriots. Perhaps this Pat’s will play the same kind of game the Bengals did in Cleveland. Somehow I doubt that. Bill Belichick’s teams don’t fold like that.

It’s certainly time for a coaching change, maybe not Marvin, but the guys that are more hands on. Starting with special teams coach Darrin Simmons, then follow up with Chuck Bresnahan. Both of these units have been well below average for 3 seasons now.

We also need some depth at all positions. Our backups/2nd string players are very weak compared to the rest of the league. We had a LB dept issue last year because of injuries. We’re only 3 weeks in and we’re in the same boat.

This is very, very frustrating. Looking ahead I’m thinking 3-4 after week 7 is probably the reality.

September 17, 2007September 17, 2007

EOM Days 3 & 4

Saturday, The rain had stopped sometime in the middle of the night. There was still a little wetness out and about. We were up and ready to roll by 7:30, in time for the ‘Riders Meeting’:

There were two roads that focused on twisties, puckered sphincter, and puckered sphincter south. We elected to take the latter. A lot of folks were looking for a more leisure ride, so the three of us took off as a group.

Unfortunately my eye flared up pretty badly. I still suffer from recurrent erosions, from a dirt bike incident over 6 years ago. Usually I just need to lay down horizontally and keep that eye closed for 5 to 10 minutes but I couldn’t get it to stop hurting or watering. We took off anyway. It had acted up a little bit on Friday, but by the time we got down the highway to the good roads it had stopped. I figured the same would happen today. It didn’t, so we had to stop for a while near this dam.

Did I mention it was cold? Friggin cold. But unlike some folks, I didn’t leave my electric gear at home, so I was ok for the most part.

After the stop at the dam we continued south on 20 through Pipestem through Rocky Gap

and west on 61. We took a side road up and over a mountain (623), I highly recommend this road. It’s as good as ‘the gap’ just as twisty and freshly paved. In the middle of Burkes Garden you’ll find a nice country store. The lady running it won’t win any prices for hospitality though.

We showed up there at 10:30am. Inside there was a sign that said ask about sandwiches…

So I asked “What kind of sandwiches do you have?”, her response was “Nothing until 11am”. Well crap…

About 8 bikes passed us when we were dealing with my eye at the dam. We caught up with them at the store. Most of them bought something there, either a drink or a snack or something. She seriously looked and acted like we were messing up her whole day by visiting the store.

I asked Dad and Joe what they wanted to do? We could get something to eat down the road in the next town. When she heard this she said she could fix us a sandwich, if we wanted cold cuts.

Turned out the chicken salad was really good.

It was still a bit chilly but the views were absolutely stunning.

From there we headed back out 623, and again west on 61 to 16 through Hungry Mother State Park, then east on 11 to 52.

52 was absolutely amazing. It followed a creek, most of the road was covered and some of the trees had already started to turn.

While it wasn’t a highly technical road, it was an excellent ride! From there back through Rocky Gap, out 420 to 219 and back to Lynchburg. A nice 320 mile day.

The EOM Dinner was Saturday evening. The food was outstanding for a buffet, and as always there was a plethora of door prizes.

Sunday started out much the same except the fog was thick and seemed to be hanging around. Sundays ride would the ‘puckered north route’ which was really the ‘west’ route, but I digress.

We started off with breakfast at Bob Evans to give the fog some time to burn off. This time we picked up a 4th rider, Duane from Cleveland. He thought for sure the Bengals would beat up the Browns but I kept explaining to him that this is exactly the kind of the game that the Bengals will blow. And apparently that’s exactly what they did.

Again we headed out 64 West to Sandstone, south on 20, but West on 3 to 19. Then 19 to 16 North.

We stopped in ‘War, WV” for lunch at this little hole in the wall called The Lunch Box Cafe. Calling it a hole in the wall is being kind.

We were sent there by a couple riders who had eaten there the day before and recommend it for the ambiance.

They were lucky, they got to sit in the main dinning area at the bar. (Which only sat 4 people) Since those spots were taken the ‘cleared a booth for us in the dining room’ aka storage/closet.

The menu was literally scribbled on paper.

Apparently they didn’t know much about them com-pute-tors.

The food wasn’t bad for what it was. Joe wasn’t impressed at all. That’s because he didn’t get bacon 🙂

It’s worth a trip if you’re in the area for the humor alone.

The front area was this big:

Literally 4 seats and that’s it. I’m standing in the corner to get a photo of the whole thing.

Out of War we continued north on 19 to 99, then east on 64 back to the hotel. Another 300 mile day of riding really good roads.

At the end of the day the EOM crew were doing Throttle body syncs. For the most part it looked like the blind leading the blind. There was a lot of confusion happening. I know one guy’s AE didn’t run so well after being ‘tinkered’ with. I’m not saying doing a TBS is a bad thing, but doing it in a parking lot with 82 other folks some of who may not actually know what they are doing isn’t a good thing.

The ride back on Monday was fairly uneventful. We took the shortest route this time which included mostly highway.

It was another near perfect day and the perfect ending to a near perfect trip. (Had it not rained Friday it would have been perfect).

Till next year…