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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
06-25-2022, 07:07 AM
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IMHO Pikes Peak was spoiled when they paved the final section. Having the dirt surface at the finish sorted the real drivers from the wannabes!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
06-08-2022, 07:13 AM
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...and that's just the guys! :rolleyes:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
06-08-2022, 07:02 AM
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A Chelsea Tractor driver wouldn't even know where to start with a S2 LR as there would be too many levers sticking up out of the floor (3 of them, gear shift, 2/4 wheel drive selector and high/low range selector) and too many pedals under the dash (3 of them rather than 2)! They are used to just two pedals and the letters 'P' and 'D', most of the time they panic if the selector says 'R', gawd help 'em if they ever had to put it in 'R' with a trailer on the back!
They wouldn't have a clue what to do with the floor mounted button for the headlight dip switch (bright/low selector for left-pondians) or the floor mounted, foot operated, manual pump for the windshield washer! :confused:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
06-07-2022, 05:59 AM
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If you have a Land Rover you don't need no stinking roads!
Fun fact, the first 4-wheeled vehicle I ever drove on a public road (I had driven 3-wheeled vehicles before) was a SWB Series 2 LR complete with a full sized and fully loaded hay cart on the hitch! I was 18 years old and I only had a motorcycle licence, had never had a car driving lesson and wasn't insured to drive it! I was helping a farmer during hay making season (in return for hunting rights on his land!) and he was driving an old Fordson 3-cylinder tractor and full trailer so he threw me the Landy keys and said drive that home and park it anywhere in the yard! When I started to raise legal objections he just said "It's less than a quarter mile, on a quiet country road, who's going to know!" then drove off! :lol:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-26-2022, 03:22 PM
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I wonder if people liking/disliking whisky comes down to genetic differences like people liking/disliking cilantro or Brussels sprouts which apparently have genetic factors involved. I personally hate both but strangely don't mind the dried form of cilantro i.e. coriander seeds, the fresh version however always tastes like soap to me.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-25-2022, 07:05 AM
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Nah, further south and west than Yorkshire. I was drug up in North Staffordshire me! :)
Same here, why waste time acquiring a taste for something foul when you can use that time to drink something with a pleasant taste and aroma! :lol:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-24-2022, 07:52 AM
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I like eating a well made Christmas fruit cake (i.e. moist, rich and full of booze like my mum used to make not a sawdust brick that is drier than the Sahara!) with a mature cheddar. Take a slice of each and then a bite of each and masticate together and enjoy the glorious taste explosion in your mouth! Wash it all down with a spirit beverage of choice. Mine would be a fine brandy/cognac or a good, non-blended or spiced, dark rum as I can't stand the taste of that Scottish peat bog juice!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-03-2022, 07:03 PM
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Oh definitely the bike, IIRC the collector was a hairy a$$ed biker much like myself. :lol::lol::lol:
---------- Post added 3rd May 2022 at 22:38 ----------
The Gold Star 500 cc was indeed a versatile beast and it was one of the first true 'ton-up' bikes capable of 100+ MPH in stock form direct from the factory. It was one of the favourite rides amongst the 'cafe-racer' crowd of the 60's and rightfully so. There was a world of difference between the 500 cc B33 I owned (shown above) and the 500 cc Gold Star. Mine was meant to be a sedate, sidecar power plant, with lots of low speed torque whereas the Gold Star was built for speed right out of the box. Mine had a long stoke, small bore engine while the Gold Star had a short stoke, large bore engine which revved much faster than my bike.
There was mention above about regretting not getting certain bikes when given the chance and I have one of those stories too. I once had the chance to buy a rival to the BSA Gold Star and that was a 500 cc Manx Norton ( manx norton - Google Search ) for £25 (mid 1970's) that had been lying gathering dust in the back of a commercial car repair garage for years. It was in road race condition and would have required a lot of work and money to get it street legal as it had no lights and no battery/charging system so I passed on it. I wish I could buy it now for that price!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-03-2022, 08:22 AM
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Way back in 1974 when I was just 17 years old I used to hang out at a pub/bar in my local town in the UK (yes I was underage, no it didn't matter to anyone) that was home to literally dozens of the local motorcycle fraternity, on good nights we could have 30-40 motorcycles in the parking lot and many of them would have been 2-up! We even had our own room in the pub with a jukebox filled with our own records, a tweaked and very fast pinball table (it's back legs sat on stacks of beer mats 4" high!) and a table soccer/Foosball table that had more than triple the normal amount of balls in it (whenever we came across a table somewhere else like a college rest area or cafe we would steal the balls from it and add them to ours!) It was a hive of activity and a great place to hang out.
I was hanging out there one night when a buddy suddenly stood up in the middle of his intense table soccer game and said "Oh sh!t, I've got to pick 'Ness' (his GF) up from work but we're winning, can someone pick her up for me!". I said I would but I wasn't sure how much petrol/gas I had as I didn't get paid until the next day and I knew I was running on fumes. He reached into his pocket, threw me his keys and said "Take mine, I filled up before coming here and don't be afraid to open her up as you only have a couple of minutes to get there and she works at 'X' (a fancy, expensive, hotel/restaurant on the edge of the town, so about 3 miles away). It's parked next to Mike's Commando!" I went outside and looked for his bike and sure enough right next to Mike's Norton 750 Commando stood a gleaming Kawasaki 350 S3! As I had only been riding for about 6 months and had only been qualified to ride larger bikes and carry passengers for about 3 months I was really looking forward to seeing how this performed compared to my lowly Suzuki GT185 I bought as a 'learner' bike.
I threw my leg over her and kicked her into life and set off to ride the 3 miles to pick up 'Ness'. The first hundred yards or so were quiet and tame until I turned left off the main drag onto a dead straight, slightly uphill, residential road that ran for about 3/4 of a mile before it ended in a T-junction at another main road. His words ran though my mind as I saw this dead straight road ahead of me and I duly wound open the throttle. Holy Cow Batman! The needle on the rev counter shot around the gauge and the speedo needle was quick to follow it. The front wheel decided it was tired of running on the tarmac and reached for the sky and I was literally clinging on for dear life! I was in 3rd gear and doing 65 MPH in a 30 zone before I got the front wheel back down again! What a beast! I was very careful about how fast I opened the throttle for the rest of the trip and the return with 'Ness' on the back (killing your buddy's GF on his bike was NOT an option!)
I had a very healthy respect for the Kawasaki two-stroke triples after that and lusted after a 750 version (known amongst the MC fraternity as the 'Widow Maker' because it killed so many riders) for a while before I eventually upgraded to my Honda CB400F I mentioned in an earlier post.
# Happy Days! :D
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-02-2022, 04:53 PM
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I used to own a 1953 BSA B33 500cc long-stroke single back in the late 70's, the sprung-hub version.
Like this but all black.....
I was trying to restore it but unfortunately I was still living at home with my parents (I was 19 or so) and had no room to keep it in the shed so it lived under a tarp behind the house and as fast as I worked on it Mother Nature sent it backwards with her rain and damp UK fall/winter weather! I did get it roadworthy and rode it as a daily ride for a while but had to sell it as it was deteriorating faster than I could restore it! A local collector bought it who had the time, money and resources to do a proper job and I saw her several years later at a classic motorcycle show and she was stunning!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
05-01-2022, 07:53 AM
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I bought a Honda CB400F almost as soon as they were released in the UK and put many thousands of miles on her before I traded her for a 3-wheeled Reliant Supervan III because I wanted to get out of the cold and snow for the winter! That was a big mistake as I still miss the 400F and I would rate it right up there amongst my favourite bikes alongside my last one, a BMW R65LS I sold when I emigrated from the UK.
I took part in the National Motorcycle Rally on the CB400F one year which required participants to ride a route while stopping every so often at checkpoints to get a card stamped to validate your chosen route. All participants started in different places around the UK and the challenge was to create their own route that ended at the same place, ideally with a total ridden distance of between 600 and 620 miles in a 24 hour time span (without exceeding the speed limit, including the average overall speed!)
The finish was 150 miles from home so after riding 600+ miles in 24 hours I had a brief rest and then rode another 150 miles home again! The bike ran almost faultlessly and the only mechanical issue I had was a broken speedometer cable on the way home from the event! The three other bikes I was riding with, a CB750F (with 4 into 1 pipes) and a pair of Suzuki GT550 3-cylinder two-strokes (ridden by a visiting pair of Canadian tourists!) did not fair so well. The CB750F had a pair of punctures at different times (one front, one rear) after running over some thorn branches a thoughtless farmer had left in the road and one of the GT550's had a faulty alternator that would not charge it's battery so once it went dark it's battery had to be swapped out with the other one at every stop so one bike could charge a battery while the other one drained one!
My only other issue was rider related rather than bike related as I became aware of my girlfriend (later my #1 wife) pounding vigorously on the top of my crash helmet while I was traveling at 70+ MPH on the motorway. Apparently I had fallen asleep on the front and was wandering and weaving from lane to lane and it was only her sense of balance, as a rider herself, that was stopping us from ending up as a red smear up the roadway! Needless to say I woke up real fast and the rest of the journey went without incident but I think she had an advantage as she had been asleep on the back of the bike from dusk to dawn and had been held in place by the side panniers and rear top-box and the fact that I had fastened both our motorcycle jacket belts together, end to end, so she was effectively strapped to me for the entire time she was asleep!
Fun times! :lol:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
04-18-2022, 07:34 AM
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Sorry to lose #1 as I always enjoyed his posts, he went on my 65th birthday too! :(
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
04-03-2022, 12:47 PM
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Ouch! :eek:
Did the watering eyes mess up your aim? :(
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
04-01-2022, 07:26 AM
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This was a party political broadcast brought to you by every political party to have ever existed since the beginning of time! :mad:;)
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
03-31-2022, 07:28 AM
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Rupert should be able to answer that for you.............oh, err, maybe not! :(:o
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
03-27-2022, 08:08 AM
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I had a similar experience once when I still lived in the UK. I had been asked to drive my ex-inlaws (they were still current at the time) to Birmingham airport so that they could get their flight without having to leave their car at the airport. We were close to Birmingham on the motorway (M6) when I heard a loud squealing of brakes and tyres and big bangs and glanced in the mirrors to see a car behaving like a ball in a pinball machine right behind me. It was bouncing off the vehicles in all three lanes and the wall of the central reservation (median). It was terrifying to see as car parts were flying everywhere! We had a quick discussion as to whether we should stop but the inlaws decided that the plane had to be caught as they were on a business trip as well as a pleasure trip and that others would call the emergency services via the roadside emergency phone system (this was in the early 80's, long before cell phones were a thing).
We never saw another vehicle behind us for the rest of the journey and got the inlaws to the airport in time. We stayed at the airport long enough to see the flight leave (no 2 hour delays in those days) and then headed home. When we got to the scene of the incident the opposite lanes were still blocked with fire, police and ambulance vehicles in attendance and the tail-back went on for 10+ miles!
We were very lucky that day and were just one vehicle ahead of the carnage, it could easily have been us in that wreckage if we had been a few seconds slower! From what we saw it looked like there were at least 6 vehicles and possibly as many as 10 involved (including some large trucks that had been on fire) and this was before the days of crumple-zones and air bags so injuries would have been severe!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
03-17-2022, 04:57 AM
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Back in my hometown in the UK there was a Woolworth's store a bit like that. It was built on a steep hill and the main entrance at the front was on the ground floor but if you walked down the hill there was a second entrance that led into the basement floor. It would have caused some problems in an emergency if say a fire blocked access to an exit as everyone would have to switch floors and use the other one. There were two staircases between the floors (one along each long side) but no escalators or lifts/elevators so pushchairs/buggies and/or wheelchairs would have been a major hazard on the stairs.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
03-06-2022, 08:03 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-22-2022, 07:57 AM
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ROFL....you could say that yes! :rolleyes::D
True story.....when they were filming the early Red Dwarf shows they wanted a swear word or phrase they could get past the pretty stringent censorship rules on British TV at the time but the writers/producers couldn't think of anything suitable. The great Craig Charles a.k.a. 'Dave Lister' chimed in with a comment that back in Liverpool they had a phase for someone who was an idiot or a 'waste of time' and that was 'smeghead'. The writers/producers had never heard the term before and asked Craig if he was sure it was safe to use and he assured them it was a term local to Liverpool and no-one else would understand it! So they adopted the word and used it in many forms in the show, 'smeghead', 'smeg-off', 'smeggin' this or that, it was basically used as a replacement for a common 4-letter swearword that starts with 'F'!
It was only months (possibly a year plus) later and long after the series had become hugely popular that the writers/producers discovered to their horror that they had been duped by Craig and the term was extremely rude and offensive! :D
It is in fact a shortening of the medical term 'smegma' and Goggling that can lead you into a very dark place! Here's a quick definition if you are interested: Smegma Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The fact that the writers/producers used the term for months before they found out and were then forced to keep using it because it worked in the show makes it extra funny when you hear it used. :lol:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-21-2022, 07:52 AM
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They use them to hold the doors open in summer of course!
You could place them in the garden and tie a wee doggy to them too!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-10-2022, 04:20 PM
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Been there, done that, messed the T-shirt! :(:o
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-10-2022, 02:55 PM
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I don't see a twist in those straps to prevent them flapping in the wind!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-10-2022, 09:43 AM
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Well it's not all the time, it really depends on how I'm feeling and the season of the year. I suffer from ME/CFS (my main disabling condition) plus osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and hyper-thyroidism (held in remission with meds). With ME/CFS there are more than 60 symptoms and you can suffer with up to 20 of those in any one day and every day it's a different combination so you have no idea what each day is going to be like until you start to live it. Some things are a constant like fatigue, poly-phasal sleep patterns, tinnitus, brain fogs and short term memory loss (I have those every day) while other things come and go with some more frequent than others. For instance acid re-flux (a frequent issue) invariably leads to IBS a couple of days later.
It also damages your immune system so you are more prone to picking up any bugs that are going around so I have to be particularly vigilant with regard to Covid precautions. It also messes up your ability to control body temperature so in the severe heat of our summers (90+°F with 90+% humidity) I can't be outside for too long before I start to over-heat and have to dive back into an AC controlled indoor environment while in the winter (-10°C or lower with a 'feels like' of -20° or colder) I can only go outside for short periods while wearing 5-6 layers of clothing to stay warm before I start to shut down from the cold. I also have to be extremely careful of having a slip and fall accident as my orthopedic surgeon told me my hips are more likely to shatter than break! Basically I rarely go outside from early December to early March especially if it is snowy or icy. This winter so far has been an exception though as I decided to smash my right hand in a basement wood-shop accident one week before Xmas so it's has resulted in multiple trips to the local hospital (ER and then fracture clinic) and from next week it will be physio sessions to try and get some movement back in the outer fingers of my hand!
It's been a very frustrating few weeks as I couldn't get back into the basement workshop to finish my project and working on the computer was difficult while wearing a cast and guitar playing was pointless when you can't hold a plectrum or finger pick the strings! :mad:
---------- Post added 10th Feb 2022 at 11:54 ----------
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-09-2022, 07:55 AM
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A little over 6 weeks for me, not that it will make much difference apart from the source of the funds as I have been stuck at home for the last 20+ years due to my medical disability. :(
Covid restrictions are child's play after being virtually housebound at times for that long!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
01-23-2022, 07:08 AM
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I am pleased that I was able to help you get to third place Racer.
;)
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