Adaptive Curmudgeon

I meant to replace a road trip with it’s expensive corporate hotel into an experimental “overnight drive” and happy solo campout. I’d done what I intended. I’d been exhausted but “caught up” on sleep. I partially recovered from the shock of the cat. (The cat had nothing to do with this particular trip. And the brutal rain was just bad luck.)

I was determined to stop moping. Buck up little camper.

My night didn’t start well. It was very cloudy. Super dark. Cavelike. I couldn’t see a damn thing.

I’ve used a cool Smith and Wesson flashlight for years. It failed me. I has dual parallel light circuits. Sadly, both circuits use the same batteries. The user, me, had failed to check them.

The flashlight was hot shit when I bought it but now it’s obsolete. The good news is old school non-rechargeable batteries can be swapped in seconds. Better news is the holster carries a spare set of batteries.

Operating by feel only, I swapped the batteries. How awesome am I? Not very! The replacement batteries were stale. The light was weak. Note to self: check your gear once in a while.

In the fading light I hurriedly tried to ignite my Coleman lantern. Unfortunately, the mantles were broke. Really?!?

Mrs. Curmudgeon had an emergency deer stop while the lantern was rolling around in the car (in its case). I hadn’t checked the mantles.

I’d stashed a spare pack of two mantles in the carrying case. Operating half by feel, I tied on the mantles. I lit them to burn them (part of installation) and fired up the lantern. Behold! Light!

It was like fresh air to a SCUBA diver on a depleted tank! The light made everything better.

A few minutes later the flashlight died for good. Close call! (I still had the car’s headlights as a last ditch option.)

I lit a fire. It might drive off some moisture, everything was soaked, including me. More importantly, I wanted to warm my heart. I wasn’t sure about my heart. I only had one pack of wood. One pack wasn’t enough. I’d need a lot of fire to cheer myself up. Honestly, I needed to be hugged by a bucket of puppies.

The fire eventually caught. It was magic as fire always is. I began feeling chipper.

A few RVs rolled past. I was glad I’d worked out reservations and would have no territorial disputes. Aside from that the campground was mostly empty and very extremely quiet.

Looking at the low fire, I wanted more. I zoomed to the park entrance to pick up another pack of wood. There had been a whole bunch when I bought the first package. They were all gone. The RVs must have cleaned them out.

On the way back to camp, I stopped at a winter warming hut and raided the woodbox. Rain and darkness had pushed me to a life of crime. (Don’t get your undies in a wad, I paid for a bundle and asked them toss it into the warming hut woodbox when I left.)

The night got increasingly, bizarrely, oppressively dark. Y’all are chuckling “no shit, it’s always dark at night” but that’s oversimplifying. There’s a whole spectrum of night one only understands if they experience it. I can function fine in “full moon reflecting on fresh snow” and usually get by with “partly cloudy”. But this night was “too dark to piss and know you’re not facing the tent”.

The moon was behind thick clouds. Occasionally they thinned and the sky dimly glowed, which made it seem perversely darker when the glow inevitably faded.

For once, I stayed within the radius of my lantern.

Dinner was comfort food. Mountain House chili & mac. I enjoyed my newly 3d printed salt and pepper shaker. I planned to make hot cocoa but switched to a room temp water bottle with a Crystal Light packet. I’ve made the same meal in the remotest places I’ve been.

I balanced my Linux-ed Microsoft Tablet on a t-shirt on the picnic table. By lantern light, I typed the first post of this series. Exorcising demons I guess.

Then, the pièce de résistance of a great night, literature! I got out a small speaker and listened to the final chapters of Dog Logic. It was perfect!

(I highly recommend Tom Strelich’s book Dog Logic. It’s gentle and sweet. It’s got the best example of “unreliable narrator” I’ve ever encountered! It’s a little dark. It’s funny. It’s not woke. It’s not frantic. It’s miles above our debased modern world of spastic capeshit fiction. I’d put it up there with Terry Pratchett, which is really saying something.

Another treat, this is one of the rare times the audiobook was so well produced I recommend it over the book. Of course, when I listen to an audiobook it’s in a dark lonely forest by a dim fire. I get the full dose of the experience. If you’re listening in earbuds while taking a dump before work… you get the experience you created for yourself. I’m just sayin’.

Finally, I’ve only read/listened to the first of the series. Please don’t comment with spoilers.)

All in all, everything was perfect. The fire danced merrily. The literature had been enthralling. The very deep night was kept at bay by the lantern, but just barely. I was well fed. I was drying out and feeling human again.

I felt the strength of nature filling me. It was good.

That was when a final interesting thing happened; a new “camp critter”.

It’s my theory that every campground (or really any camping place that’s heavily used) has one dominant form of critter. Often, it’s a garbage seeker attracted by generations of Dorito eating recreationalists. Other times it’s chance.

Most of this summer I’ve camped at a place overrun with raccoons. I know another place that has gophers. Back in the day I stayed at a place with lots of dump bears. I know a place with “camp robbers”. (That’s a northern/Canadian variant of a plain old blue jay. Camp robbers live up to their name.) It’s always something; chipmunks, spiders, you name it. One thing always takes over.

This place looked like it was mosquito hell in summer. I’d missed them by camping after the freeze. That must have been the “campground mascot animal”.

Wrong!

An owl started hooting. Then others. More joined in. Two or possibly three different species? Multiples of each type of call. I’ve never heard so many friggin’ owls!

I’m not an easily spooked dude. But I’m only human. I mean… how many owls can you hear from the impenetrable forest on a dark, still, oppressive, humid, night? Try it sometime. Make sure you’re alone, wet, road tired, and your cat died at dawn. Nobody’s as stoic as they think they are!

I didn’t crap myself or run screaming or lock myself in the car. I just rode it out. The owls made the night Scooby Doo scary. I tossed another log on the fire (stealing that wood was worth it!) and hunched closer.

Stay tuned for things that happen in your head when you hear too many owls…

There I was…  exhausted, in a car, engine off, in a downpour, grieving my dead cat. Nowhere to go, no idea how go there, and no spirit to anything about it. These things happen.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Eventually my iPad lit up. Earlier I’d tried to use my phone as a WiFi hotspot in conjunction with an iPad to find and claim an unreserved campsite. Cell service was spotty so it didn’t work… until it did.

A campsite not far away was unreserved! Nobody could evict me; so long as I reserved it right away. I drove through the rain to the site. Normally I’d call Mrs. Curmudgeon to lock it down. It’s a simple matter from her more civilized internet situation. Not this morning. She was even more distraught than I. Best leave her to her grief.

I tried to change my reservation. The connection failed. The page crashed.

I’d borrowed Mrs. Curmudgeon’s vehicle and it had an SUV-ish hatchback space. It would have space to sleep if I hadn’t stuffed it full of camping gear. Could I toss all my crap onto the picnic table, cover it with a tarp to keep it dry, and sleep best I could in the car? Nope. Note to self: next time bring a tarp.

I started rearranging camping gear inside the car. I hoped to make space for myself. It didn’t work and I completely scrambled all of my gear.

The iPad pinged. The transaction had gone through. I didn’t even know it was still trying!

I was no longer squatting. Greenlight to setup my tent! Some tents can be erected during rain and still be dry inside. Mine is not one of them. It’s strictly designed for “dry setup”. If only the rain would let up.

As if on queue, the rain stopped. Thank you God! In a big rush I pitched the tent and assembled cot, mattress, sleeping bag, little stand for the CPAP, the CPAP itself, and the battery to run the CPAP. I even folded out my backpacking pillow.

It was unseasonably warm and the air was super humid. I was tired and coated in sweat. A hotel sure would have been easier. I flopped on the cot.

A minute later the rain returned. I closed my eyes. My very long day was over.

It would have been cool if I’d slept well. I didn’t.

Over and over I’d drift off. Each time I’d feel the feather light touch of our cat hopping onto my cot. I’d reach down to pet him and remember all over again. The little guy was dead and I felt the loss fresh and raw each time. Four hours passed. I gave up “resting”.

Campground showers look like the set of a creepy prison movie. They’re nothing like your house. Weird plumbing fittings project through cement block walls. You stand on wet concrete that’s probably a vector for every disease known to man. Woe be to the fool who forgets his shower slippers! The water cannot be adjusted and it’s barely warm enough to be “not too cold”. Did I mention the spiders?

This time things weren’t half bad. The place was ugly but clean. No spiders. The water had good pressure and (what an awesome blessing!) it was nice and hot. Proper hygiene made me feel more human.

After that, I drove through the rain looking for a nice coffee shop. That would salvage my mood. I’d buy a stupidly expensive latte and lose my worries doomscrolling on free WiFi.

What luck! I found a modern building with easy access and great parking. It was surely a coffee shop. Nope; it was a pot dispensary. Dispensaries are one of the weirdest things about living in the future. I had to listen to a lifetime of hippies and libertarians bitching about dope; including all sorts of stuff about hemp rope and how pot cured whatever ailment they imagined. Then, the whole thing flipped. It emerged legal (where it is legal) in the least hippie/libertarian way possible. From a distance, it looks like a creepy blend of Government regulatory capture and potheads simply delighted to do what the man tells them. I didn’t foresee firebreathing libertarians (many but not all) turning boring at the first legal puff.

How is “dispensary” even a word? It’s dope! Folks don’t buy Jim Beam at an “apothecary”.

I drove on, frustrated at the lack of Starbucks or anything similar. (Yes, I see the dual standard. Caffeine is a thing… but I don’t get coffee at “dispensaries” either.)

I turned the corner and bumped into a place with a security perimeter appropriate for a nuclear reactor. WTF? It was a pot growing facility; presumably(?) associated with the structure I’d seen nearby. (I’m not sure what it was really. Do they actually grow a plant? I have no idea how a plant becomes gummies or whatnot. Nor can I articulate the difference between a “dispensary”, pre-packaged shit they sell at the diesel register in truck stops, and Cheech and Chong.) All I know is it was ultra secure. I’ve seen military installations with less.

Eventually, I wound up at a casino. It was the only thing around.

Gambling at noon on a Thursday. If you’re searching for winners in the game of life, that’s not where you’d look.

I didn’t belong. I seemed to freak people out. I meant to be unobtrusive but the crowd of gambling geezers sighted me at a distance and parted like the Red Sea.

Not wishing to be rude, I strode quickly through; which made me look closer to RoboCop than anyone else in the building. I ignored rows of dipshit arcade consoles. Not real arcade games; where you use dexterity, memorization, or problem solving to reach higher levels. This was senseless blinking, blathering, noisy, machines. It’s a room full of reverse ATMs; a system intended to slowly digest Social Security checks. And for what? Usually just ephemeral images on a screen.

Just like I don’t care about pot, I’ve got no problem with gambling; but both more as an idea of freedom than the lame ass state of their realization. Especially on the day my cat died, everything seemed alien and strange.

At least I’d found a roof and WiFi. I ordered food and wondered if my outfit caused the stir. I was wearing boots and a hefty camo rain jacket. I also had a tactical daypack slung over my shoulder. (It carried nothing but a Linux-ed tablet and a paperback.) Or my size. I’m not Jack Reacher but I was a foot taller than everyone. Healthier too. A freshly washed, thoroughly soaked, grieving, bearded outdoorsman in that room was Paul Bunyan visiting a kindergarten.

The meal was cheap and tasted cheap.

Back at camp, I slept some more. Ghost cats didn’t visit me. It continued to rain.

After sunset the rain stopped. I crawled out of my tent. I wasn’t properly rested but felt a whole lot better. Maybe it was rest. Maybe it was getting over the cat. Maybe I’d had enough of being rained on. Who knows?

I camp because it makes me happy. I hadn’t yet been happy. Time to turn this shit around…

It’s just a cat but I’m pretty broke up about it. I’ve had cats that I don’t give a shit about. This one wasn’t like that. He had an outsized presence in the short time he was with us. I sorted through some photos, which doesn’t make me feel one damn bit better about it. I’ll get over it eventually. These things happen…

I wrote this last Christmas:

“It has moved into the house and rules the roost… as a kitten ought. I couldn’t keep the little scoundrel out of the house, it invaded my peace, it owns the cozy woodstove, it delights Mrs. Curmudgeon (and grudgingly me too), and the floor is littered with various cat toys. It wasn’t what I wanted or planned, but it’s what happened. We like critters in general and clever tricksters doubly so. So it’s here to stay.

I’m just glad the cat lets me live in its house!”

He appeared in our woodpile last October:

• Well That Didn’t Go As Planned
• Pics Or It Didn’t Happen: Kitten Edition

He was so cute (and agreeable) that he made himself inevitable.

• The Christmas Cat Attack
• Video Representation Of The Cat Attack
• Obligatory Cute Kitten Photos

I built him the world’s nicest cat shelter, which he never needed since he could teleport.

• Cat Mansion: Part 1
• Cat Mansion: Part 2
• Cat Mansion: Part 3

You may ask yourself. “Well… how did I get here?”

It should have been a moment of triumph. I’d successfully completed a personal challenge. I wanted to see if I’d restored some of my constitution.

I had. I’d been awake roughly 22 hours.

I was hundreds of miles from home. I’d driven all through the night. Road conditions had sucked; a long, gloomy, miserable, rainy, moonless, deer ridden night.

Monitoring myself all the way, lest I wind up a geezer asleep at the wheel, I ground it out. To my delight, I’d done well.

Now for the second part. When I was younger I would pretend a tent was a hotel room. Could I still do that?

Some background; I’m broke. Last year I retired abruptly into austerity. A lifetime of frugality meant I had a tiny financial buffer. My health went haywire and I bailed out of the workforce; effectively trading the buffer for health. Everyone says “health is more important than money”. Do they mean it? I did. Bullet dodged. But, I’m broke.

Was I tough enough drive all night and camp rather than stay at a hotel? This would bring my life full circle. I was born into a society where people simply didn’t stay in hotels. I’d like to return to that. A career of endless work travel, with endless nameless hotels; let it end. When I was young, life had been simpler, but that doesn’t mean better. Tents are inefficient. They take time. They’re not climate controlled. They’re uncomfortable. They’re inconvenient.

I still camp but tents are pure recreation. Does it have to be that way? Young men and retired men have one thing in common, more time than money. Why not burn a few hours setting up gear and save a hundred bucks?

I’d showed up at the campsite many hours too early. It was just before dawn. A hulking truck camper slept in the spot I’d reserved. Entirely reasonable. It was still their turf. Nobody expects a person on vacation to bug out at dawn for the convenience of a bearded cheapskate who just pulled off an overnight drive.

I parked in front of an outhouse. My phone, gathering very limited signal, informed me a nearby empty spot wasn’t the solution. It was already reserved. Someone would show up in a few hours to rightfully claim it.

What now?

I could (if necessary) afford to pay for a hotel but I was committed to camping. A hotel would require at least another hour on the road. I didn’t want to do that. I was spent and didn’t know when I’d hit “the wall”. My back ached. My head too. I’m not the young bulletproof man I once was.

Nor can I kick back in a driver’s seat and take a catnap. I needed sleep for real. I needed my CPAP. Especially after health issues last year, I freak out about missed sleep.

I had my trusty tent. And the cot. And the mattress. And the sleeping bag. All tested. I’ve blogged about them before and can set them up in a flash. Less speedy is the CPAP to keep me alive and a battery pack to keep the CPAP alive. For a night or two the battery would be fine. I’ve tested that too.

All that gear. Back in the day I’d sack out in my station wagon. Dirty clothes for a pillow and an old jacket for a blanket. The material word accretes upon our ideals.

What if I setup somewhere short term as a squatter? I could relocate as soon as the truck vamoosed. A bit rude, but only if someone shows up. I didn’t want to be a jerk but maybe that’s what I need to be? Is it inherent in using a tent instead of a hotel room that you have to be a bit aggressive? Is this a “fake it until you make it” moment?

The sun was just peeking through a cloudy humid morning. I was almost dizzy with fatigue. I sipped a bottle of water. It wouldn’t do to get dehydrated!

Road weary, I was too addled to think clearly. I gave myself a few moments of inertia. Something would happen.

It did.

A text from Mrs. Curmudgeon. Our much beloved cat, still practically a kitten, was at the vet. The news was grim. Before that news I had a bit of energy in reserve. The text consumed everything. I was crushed. I’m a softy about cats and dogs. I’d known the little guy was sick. A dire outcome was possible but I didn’t think it likely. He’s a young cat and hadn’t been sick long. I’d been optimistic.

I sat there. Sad and uncertain. My mind went blank. As if to piss on me personally, the heavens opened up with a genuine downpour. I could barely see out of the windshield. Then came the next text, the cat was dead. I mentally collapsed.

Some mornings are harder than others.

A month ago my 3d printer was giving me fits. The quality was shit. I deduced the situation was a loose hotend heating element. There are four tiny screws buried in the print head. Three were loose and one was missing!

I tightened the three screws (which is all I had). Quality improved dramatically; though it wasn’t ideal. I went from “Soviet 1976” to “Temu”.

I ordered the part. It came quickly but I was distracted replacing a tire on my motorcycle. Once the bike was fixed, I returned to the printer. I took a lot of photos because there’s a lot of details. I didn’t want to finish the job with leftover parts!

Join me in a voyage of discovery…

Here’s the printhead with the cover removed and the hotend (the nozzle) removed. On a Bambulab A1 (or pretty much any 3d printer) swapping the nozzle is routine. Getting this far is no big deal. Note: messing with your 3d printer is OK; even a rite of passage. These things are delicate but also modular. Learning to service the modern ones isn’t too difficult.

The hotend (nozzle) sticks to the heating element with a powerful magnet and a small clamp. The heating element goes behind it and is far more technical to access and swap. It was the heating element I was replacing.

I paid $20 for a genuine part from Bambulab. Here’s a link to a similar thing in Amazon but YMMV. It’s a $14 version by a company I’ve never heard of. If you want to buy from QIMATOP feel free. It’s probably identical. For all I know it’s made in the same factory? I paid an extra $6 to know I had the real McCoy.

Returning to the story… the back of the print head looks smooth. You need to pry off a back cover with your fingernail; which I always hate. It did come off after some fiddling.

It looks exactly like something I shouldn’t be messing with.

I fearlessly pulled the heater element wires.

There’s an annoying little “wire track” that slides off.

The track holds wires to a fan and the heating wires. The heating wires are tiny. I pulled the cooling fan plug too, just so I could remove the fan’s wires and get in there. I also loosened some screws so the front of the printhead moves toward to get a fraction of an inch more access to the wires.

I was getting nervous by now. Some sources said you need to remove the cooling fan. Some said not to mess with it. I could only find two screws holding the fan on but one source suggested there was a third but if you break it, it’s no big deal. Egad! I loosened the fan but left it in place.

By now, I was committed.

After a few more screws, I’d removed the old heating element. It’s black. (This element still works and it’s already in my “spare parts” storage. All that’s wrong is a single missing 1.5mm screw.)

The replacement is white. I don’t know why. In 2026 I assume someone is shrieking that it’s racist.

Assuming the larg-ish thing is some sort of heat sink-ish thing I hope they’re identical. The replacement has a little adapter thing. I have no idea why. I installed it where it seemed to go.

The important thing is that I had 4 screws instead of 3. Those are 1.5mm screws. Way too small for the meaty hands on the end of my clumsy arms.

Here’s what it looks like before you mount the new heat element and start routing those ridiculously delicate little wires. Note the cooling fan (the big grey thing) that’s loose but not disconnected. (There’s a little dust in there. To be expected where two fans have been operating. I didn’t have compressed air or anything. I cleaned it a little, but didn’t go overboard lest I break something.)

Route those wires just so. I spent a good 20 minutes fussing over the wires in the routing channel. It’s a tight fit in there. I needed tweezers. Don’t rush.

The horizontal base to the print head is the slide on / slide off cover that hides about half of the wiring track. When I finally got it clicked in place I was pretty happy. I didn’t realize until I looked at this photo, but it helpfully points out “cable channel”. It’s tiny inaccessible letters and I never saw them.

I plugged in the heating element and reinstalled the fan’s plug. I was relieved to put the cover back over that little board of delicate things.

I’m almost home! Time to install the hotend (nozzle). That’s the thing with the cooling fins. Over the nozzle goes a “silicon sock”. You need to do this whenever you swap nozzles. The sock is a cheap part but it’s easy to tear (consider it a consumable and buy a three pack to keep a few on hand). I remembered at the last minute to tighten up the cooling fan mounts.

The last step is to put on the cover. A while ago I broke my printhead cover. I 3d printed a replacement. (I didn’t design it, I just downloaded a design from Makerworld.) There’s a zillion choices. I chose a black and white pattern but print head covers can be anything from kittens to skulls to flowers to steampunk.

Bambulab sells a replacement and it’s not excessively priced but that’s missing the point. The goal is to be a big bad 3d nerd so you don’t have to buy stuff. Making a replacement that’s just as good and also cooler is good for you. I think Bambulab encourages flashy print head covers as a “good first experience”.

I tested with a no-frills default Benchy in basic PLA. (This is the internet so I’m sure some dude is dying to tell me why my Benchy sucks. Please don’t. It’s good enough to make me happy.)

Then I reprinted a thing that had given me fits a month ago. A multi-colored, two-sided cell phone case in the image of a Pokedex (whatever that is) with print in place hinges. It came out gorgeous on the first try.

I want to give credit to the guy who made this model. It’s made by a guy called Billy 3d and you can tell he loves his art. (His name is covered and invisible when you insert the phone.)

I downloaded it from Makerworld. I’m in awe of people who can do stuff like this.

In a world that’s increasingly enshittified this guy is holding the line; in fact he’s making the world better! You can download the model from his link. I encourage you to do so. It was a great model. It worked “automagically” (once I got my 3d printer tuned and loaded with filament of the proper color).

I think he gets some sort of small income from Makerworld and/or there’s some sort of economy around “boosts” and whatnot. If I were in charge of the universe, he’d live in a solid gold house!

I don’t have a license to sell this case. I made one for a friend and gave it to him. That’s all I can do. It’s how the creative commons license works. I’m happy to be living in a world where a dude that skilled lets me sample his designs!

Also, I want y’all to step back and look at what you’re seeing.

This is flat out science fiction technology.

I had a friend that wanted a case for his new phone. Together we looked at a zillion options on Makerworld. We picked one among many. I downloaded it (legally!). It was free and complete and well designed. The case is super cool. It’s stylin’!

The cost in filament was something like $1.77.

You heard me right!

I’m in awe at what just happened:

I created a consumer object that is super cool and precisely designed for my specifications. It was printed in my house, on my equipment, but without me having any particular design skills. It was cheaper than a cup of coffee.

Are you tromping around sad because everything sucks? Are you pissed that Orange Man Bad or the price of Diesel or because AI is going to eat your housecat? Are you blackpilling over whatever the news is feeding you? Stop it! Look at how close we are to having a functioning replicator in a normal middle class guy’s house.

It’s a big thing that’s happening.

Yes, it’s not perfect. Life never is. You need a $500 printer. You need to know how to operate the damn thing. You need to figure out stuff like heating elements. You need to buy spools of filament. This particular object is just replacing something you’d otherwise buy from Walmart or Amazon

But… $1.77!

$1.77 …in the colors I want, to fit the phone I specified… delivered… to my desk.

Some things are so awesome it’s easy to miss just how cool they really are!

I also want to point out importance of a properly tuned printer. Last month my printer was messed up. (I was also using the wrong color filament because I knew the printer was off and I didn’t “want” to waste my supply.) These photos are copied from last month:

Conclusion? If your printer was great and then starts making shit… there’s something wrong. Fix it and it’ll stop making shit. (That said, the trashy first version of the case functioned adequately, it just looked like ass.)

I’m deliberately trying to do “retired guy” stuff. I’ve played bingo… perhaps for the first time since elementary school. I’ve started to go to the library.

When I was a wee lad, libraries were literally the the place they kept the knowledge.

If you didn’t want knowledge, you didn’t go there.

The library was a high end, Lisa Simpson and Mensa nerds, place. You had to get there, which usually (though not always) implied you had a car. Nobody went there to engage in group fun. There were no green haired harridans griping about capitalism. There were no homeless people (fuck it, I’m calling them bums, because bums is the word). Bums weren’t doing unholy things in the bathroom.

Librarians were cranky but also absolute bastions of learning. Card catalogs were less effective than a modern relational database but librarians loved it when you came to them with questions. Or at least they were nice about it.

Me: “I need to know what Hemingway was doing in Cuba and if this was before or after he wrote ‘The Sun Also Rises’.”

Librarian: “Glad you asked. Let’s check this book I noticed the last time some poor sap attended the same class taught by the same teacher.”

Everything was well lit, clean, and quiet. It was civilized; a refuge. A place so chill and boring as to drift into timeless mellow.

I fondly remember demographic bands ebbing and flowing. Children happily reading Cat in the Hat were the same age but not the same mentality as their “window licker” peers. To many kids, a trip to the library was a treat. Imagine that!

Then came little old ladies with knitting bags. They diligently ground through endless versions of “handsome cowboy and the school marm”. (Harlequin romances?) I’m not sure if this still happens. It was before plots about hunky vampires and wolfmen vying for the affection of vaguely undefined, possibly minor-age, girls. It feels like the age of “romantasy” readers is younger, but what do I know?

I was uncommon; young, male, broke, blue collar, literate, and trying to lever information into… something. I dredged through stacks for a Chilton’s Manual to keep my car running. (I was a shitty mechanic then too, but cars were simpler. I don’t know if Chilton’s still exist.)

My other purpose was school work. I wasn’t doing school work at school libraries because I actually learned shit… at least I learned as much as was possible. In general, nothing intelligent and minimal learning has ever happened at school (or college) library.

At the public library, I found the only word processor I could get my hands on. I monopolized it. Back then you could write a paper, on paper, with a pen; like a medieval monk. What kind of idiot would do that in the new world of word processing? The answer was “nearly everyone but me”.

I’d grind out a paper in half the time of peers using paper and pen, because word processors excel at their purpose. There were some logistic issues. The printer was always broke. I got good at fixing it. It was often out of paper. I brought my own paper. (It was tractor feed paper I’d “allegedly” stolen from some unattended secretary’s workstation.) It would be decades before electronic submission of papers. (I presume crappy student essays are now downloaded directly from the student’s AI to the teacher’s AI detector.)

I disciplined myself to do solid mechanical A-/B grade writing. No surprises. No deep thoughts. I tried (sometimes unsuccessfully) to avoid letting a teacher know I had wrongthink. (Did you suppose teachers being commie pinheads is new?)

Teachers back then (and I assume now) hammered into their students the idea of being a human meat-bot aggregator. Literally, our essays were akin to Large Language Models. If you have interesting things to say… don’t. Say what everyone else says. Never, ever, under any circumstances, spring original thought on a teacher!

To me, grades were vaguely irrelevant. In my eyes, one A meant you got the material, ten meant you could have (and should have!) taken more credits. (Especially in college; where every credit has a dollar cost!) Before grade inflation, I believed straight A students we’re just mid-level minds that could have gotten a B in twice as many credits. Maybe I was wrong? I also don’t know A means anything in 2026. I’m not sure the degree means anything. It’s not my world.

An aside:

Before bitching about AI, remember it’s just an LLM. People have been assigned the idea they should freak out are following orders. Who cares their opinion? The same A students I mocked decades ago with their bic pens and paper notebooks now think someone who is not them ought to control a machine lest it “outthink” them. In due time and they’ll go back to fretting over climate, or cholesterol, or my 3d printer, or whatever else they’re told to chatter about.

Technology changes things. That’s life. I don’t give a shit about a John Deere combine displacing armies of men with hand scythes in 1925. You’re not sad you’re not out there breaking a sweat in Kansas are you? Nobody gave a shit about robots welding car parts in the 1970s. Nobody cared about an ATM being a bank teller in 1990s. Nobody gives a shit about “AI” calculating the best fuel injection nozzle geometry; because that’s out of their realm of experience.

We’re just monkeys encountering a new thing.

I was once impressed at a microwave oven. AI won’t be an extinction level event anymore than the microwave was.

If the mind control tracking machine you carry in your pocket instructs you freak out try turning the phone off. What’s really happening is that the “AI bubble” is going to deflate. Nobody knows when, but it’ll happen. Before it happens, corporations that put all their chips on the table need regulatory capture. That offloads their risk. Agitating the easily agitated is a predictable and well used fiscal gambit.

LLMs only tell people what globs of text statistically stated, on average. Picture your dipshit cousin sitting on a barstool. He’s on his fourth light beer and talking about how the economy is really controlled by space lizards in Newark. He’s never been to Newark. Wherever he picked up his idea it’s probably virtual. Let’s say it’s Reddit. Your cousin amplified right back to the virtual world. Let’s say Facebook. Someone bounced it to X. And it goes round and round. The LLM digested all that crap. Just like your idiot cousin, the LLM has never physically been to Newark and it hasn’t seen a space lizard. That a lot of text was written about them does not make it true.

AI is always telling you exactly what a crowd of thousands would say. Aggregating is not thinking. Teachers trained students to do the same. Politicians trained it into voters.

People in groups don’t think, they’re just a mob. Five years ago they wanted to put me in a camp over a shot. In some places (I’m looking at you Australia) they really did put people in concentration camps. Now, they’re whining about “super intelligence”. Sure Jan. The thing that’s dangerous is stupid people following instructions and nothing more.

Anyway, back to my memories of libraries.

Back then I was jealous of retired guys leisurely going to the library. They would read the paper as if they didn’t give a shit about anything… because they didn’t. They’d read the paper for free; as if the $0.25 savings mattered, which it didn’t. Sometimes they’d have a cup of coffee, absolutely verboten yet carefully ignored. Nobody messes with an old man’s coffee, which is right and proper.

It was a long time ago.

Amid my piles of literature searches and Monday deadlines, I wanted to be like them. This summer, I ventured into the long abandoned world of a library.

First thing’s first; the reputation is tarnished. The internet makes libraries moot and Kindle holed them below the waterline. Also, city libraries have a reputation as open air zoos of creepy weirdos. The books are reputedly crap freaky leftoid librarians picked out of their progressive brain.

But I found a rural library. It’s tiny. It’s in the middle of nowhere. You need a car get to get there. It seems rather sane! It’s not as degraded as the rest of society. It’s politics free or at least the progressives are keeping it in their pants. They have some DVDs, which probably mystify the younger crowd and don’t appeal to me.

When I venture in there I feel like a man from a different time. I am.

Kindle changed my behavior and I have fewer dead tree books in my house than I once did. The library seems to have fewer physical books too. (I checked out an e-book from the library, which seems like a self-licking ice cream cone.)

There are still lots of kids. The kids seem as happy as ever. They have crayons (!). They were using them without the expected mishaps. That’s great!

There are computers. Why? For the six humans who still don’t have one? These machines were ignored. At least they aren’t being debased by weird bums surfing porn. (I think bums are now issued cell phones for that purpose?)

It was empty, but quiet, polite, and civilized. I see potential.

I was looking for a specific book. I expected they didn’t have it. They didn’t.

I got a library card, which required more ID than voting.

I immediately ordered some stuff from interlibrary loan. This didn’t annoy the librarian, nor did it impress her.

At home, I logged on to their “web presence”. This too reminded me of the past. Libraries were the first to embrace the burgeoning “internet”. Back when I had dial up modem I searched through my college’s online card catalog. I would come to the library with my desired books already selected.

When my special request book arrives I’ll get a text. When I get a text I’ll ride there on my obsolete motorcycle, walk in all armor clad like RoboCop, and walk out with a dead tree edition of a book I’ve already read.

There’s only one loss. I can’t be the old guy reading the paper. They have newspapers but what kind of lunatic reads them now? I stopped reading print newspapers sometime in the Obama administration. A habit I began as a paperboy with a bicycle died 20 years ago. I still miss it but it won’t come back. I outlived not just the media, but the concept .

Oh well, some things last and others don’t.

I’d purchased the wrong tire? WTF!

Everyone and their dog insisted the PC800, especially in the first year (1989), needs a tire exactly the right size. If the tire is too big it bumps into (and damages!) the bedonkadonk. Honda (wisely) reduced the cargo area in 1990 to make more room for the tire.

That’s right boys and girls, my bedonkadonk is the biggest bedonkadonk they ever made!

The tire situation is known. It’s fact. The lore of PC800 handed down through generations is very clear. I’d been careful. How could I have possibly gotten the wrong thing?

• Perhaps I’d ordered the right size but Amazon delivered the wrong size? I checked my order and the shrink wrapped tire sitting in my garage. Nope, I’d gotten precisely what I’d ordered.
• Perhaps I’d misread the thousands of threads and discussions? Nope, I’d correctly (as much as I can tell) ordered precisely what everyone suggested.
• Had I’d been riding around on the “wrong” size all this time? Yes! Dammit!

What an unforced error! Installing the “correct” size seems obvious. Who could miss that detail? It has been known since the first Bush president was in power. That’s right, 1989 is back when phones were bolted to walls and bitching about AI was a science fiction plot. Yet technology of the internet (which didn’t exist in 1989) was telling me getting the wrong tire was extra bad. I’d been riding on it three years. WTF!?!

I delved into tire spec details (at the level of ultra-nerd) because this was bothering me. I’d ordered a Dunlop K555 size 140/80. This is EXACTLY WHAT HONDA TOLD ME TO DO. That’s the OEM recommendation. I’d pulled off a Dunlop D404 size 140/90. You don’t accidentally wind up with a bike this weird, why would you mount something that supposedly causes problems?

The good news is, there’s no damage. I think I know what “saved me”. In tire sizes, the first # is the width. Same width for both tires, thus they’ll both fit on the same rim. The second # is the tire’s “profile” the D404, with it’s 90 instead of desired 80, is about a half inch taller. A half inch is no big deal on a “normal” bike but on mine it’s sketchy. Luckly, I’ve never ridden two up. (In years gone by Mrs. Curmudgeon would ride with me. One day she announced sane people prefer vehicles with roofs and doors. Fair ’nuff.) If I’d ridden two up would I have compressed the shock just enough to create an issue? Maybe.

Just goes to show, God wants me to ride alone.

Further cogitation on the origin story of my bike:

The bike is old. It has hardly any miles. It must have sat, unridden and ignored, for some unknowable period of time; possibly many years. When a machine sits unused it degrades. The person who finds this glorious piece of history has to put their “barn find” back on the road. That means fiddling with all sorts of stuff. Brittle gaskets, leaky fuel lines, rust in the fuel tank, dead batteries, mice in the air filter, old tires, etc…

I didn’t want the drama of “resurrecting” a PC800. So I deliberately bought a PC800 that was 100% road worthy. I literally rode it home.

The owner said he’d had the bike “gone through”. You can either do this yourself (if you like misery) or hire a mechanic (if you hate financial solvency). The way he phrased it implies he paid to have it done; which makes me jealous. I can’t get a mechanic to do a damn thing most of the time, and when I can it takes forever. I deal with things myself as best I can but I’m (as I repeat often) a shitty mechanic. To me, “going through” a dead machine is terrifying. (I have been through the trauma several times. I hate it.)

I did not get a straight answer about when this happened. Also, nobody likes working on a PC800 so I wanted the name of the mechanic who willingly undertook this venture. I got the name of a dealership. Later on, when I inquired as the dealership, they wouldn’t give me the time of day.

Where am I going with this? The bike was dead at some point. It was “gone through”. During “gone through” someone mounted the “wrong” tire and also torqued the living shit out of it. Why?

I checked the tire. It was manufactured late in 2019. The front is roughly the same age. The tire has the date of manufacture embossed on it, NOT the date of installation.

It was made far away (South Korea I think?). It surely took a while to get from the factory to a dealer that mounted it.

What happened roughly when a 2019 tire was presumably mounted?

The bike was last serviced in 2020. The year everyone lost their damn mind!

Thus, I infer the bike’s origin story! It was sitting around for a long time. Then, the guy I bought it from paid someone to “go through it” exactly when people were stampeding like lemmings.

Remember back then? Don’t let them gaslight you. You saw what you saw. I learned more about human nature than I ever wanted to. I specifically and correctly, remember shortages of everything; likely including motorcycle tires. It was a world where people were closing schools, arresting hikers on open air trails, wearing bandannas like they had a medical purpose, arrows were painted on the floors of stores, churches were closed but not Walmart. (People did all that weird shit and they insisted it made sense. Never forget what you saw with your own eyes!)

That chaos was the moment when someone mounted whatever tire they happened to have in stock. Then they torqued it like a gorilla on crack.

Everything makes sense.

I’d be pissed if they did that shit in 2026. I find it in my heart to forgive it in 2020. Mounting “the wrong” tire to the wrong torque was a raindrop of “whoops” in a tidal wave of absolute pants shitting hysteria.

When the Visigoths are surging toward Rome, quality of service declines.

Everything after that was mundane. I took the wheel and the tire (the right tire!) to the shop. They said it would cost $50 to mount. I almost died of surprise when they charged me $50 just like they said they would. I never get stuff at the quoted price from a dealer! (Since I didn’t pay a disposal surcharge, the left over old tire is sitting in the back of my truck. I’ll deal with it.)

I also got the greatest gift ever from the service guy! The splines of a shaft drive require molybdenum grease. I don’t know what’s special about molybdenum but everyone says so. It would probably be cheaper to put cocaine on the damn splines. I was about to buy a tube, which is stupidly expensive (and I only needed a tiny amount). The shop guy was like “I’ll put moly on the splines for you. It’s like $90 a tube and that’s ridiculous.”

I wanted to give him a hug!

I had to buy an $8 tub of plain old lithium grease for the axle. What’s the difference between molybdenum and lithium? Dunno. Eighty bucks and a few more syllables?

I decided to drain and refill the gear oil in the rear drive. This was super simple. Now that I know how to do it, it seems like a thing to do whenever I swap a tire.

I cleaned the brakes but they didn’t need new pads. I didn’t mess with the bearings. There’s no indication they needed anything and I wasn’t about to go looking for trouble.

I torqued the 27mm nut of misery to spec using my crude manual torque-wrench. It felt like the torque spec was a lot less than I’d encountered. I’m sure somebody overtightened it, possibly because they were wearing a mask or listening to “news” about various cities in states of complete anarchy. I think my next tire swap will be a whole lot easier because the nut is properly torqued instead of “cranked on like someone hates axle threads”.

In 2026, in my quiet garage, where I do not allow people to freak out, the bike was reassembled in an entirely different manner than its last event. Moving with extreme caution I did it all in a few hours. No muss, no fuss. Someone more skilled could do it in 20 minutes. Someone more skilled than me had done a half assed job about 6 years ago.

It looks a lot cleaner now. Just like the guy in the YouTube video that started all this. I hope he know he inspires others.

Looking at the photo I see that it’s clean but not YouTube/TikTok clean. My bike is for riding. It’s never for show.

I took it for a test drive. It was super windy  so I didn’t get to take a nice 300 mile inaugural ride. Shame. I earned one.

I daydream about a late season motorcycle campout. The weather sucks now. Maybe I missed my chance, maybe not. Regardless, the bike is ready to go.

Thanks for joining me.

A.C.

P.S. This is my “huge service manual”. It’s not an original. I paid for a download (there are free ones but I wanted better quality). Then I paid to have it printed and bound. It’s not nicely bound or perfect print but I couldn’t find an original for sale. It’s the best I can do. It helps offset my ineptitude.

I tried an impact wrench. Nope.

I soaked everything with Liquid Wrench, left it overnight, and then tried my impact wrench. Nope.

I started having doubts about the tire. The bike is 37 years old, has < 20,000 miles, and I bought it used in 2023. By mileage alone it could, conceivably, be on its second tire. That’s terrifying! No motorcycle tire that old is remotely safe. But why was it so hard to break free? Every time the tire is changed, the axle nut has to be removed. It absolutely can’t have more rust and corrosion than accumulated since that most recent tire was installed and God I hope it wasn’t decades ago! When I bought it, 3 years and several thousand miles ago, I’d checked the tread was adequate, but not if the tire dated to the Paleozoic! I was having excess drama and I started having dark fears.

What the hell had I been riding on?

The only way out was through so I decided to go to town and buy whatever size impact wrench I need no matter how much it cost (mine is pretty weak). Many of YouTube videos (including for more common Shadows) show people attacking their rear hub with beefy torque wrenches. So, that’s the next step I supposed. I’d either twist the nut off through pure brawn or simply tear the bike in half. It is what it is.

But I’d also lurked in on-line forums. And their information was entirely different. Lots of people have trouble just like I’d encountered. They all uniformly said “no” to torque wrenches. That was not the way. Instead they talked about breaker bars and their favorite “cheater” to put on the handle to get more leverage.

I don’t know why but that’s how it was. Videos had impact wrenches, text was all about breaker bars. A clear binary choice; as if the various forms of media had a secret meeting 10 years ago.

Reluctantly, I went to town and bought a Craftsman 1/2″ breaker bar. This pissed me off because I’d dropped well over $40 on a crude hunk of metal made by a company that had its heyday a generation ago. I was sure it wouldn’t work. I also bought an extension so the breaker bar wouldn’t swing loose and hit the plastic “bedonkadonk” if it suddenly broke free. That’s another few bucks.

I asked everyone if the low quality impact socket I had was loose tolerance. I thought maybe I should get a regular 6 point socket meant as a hand tool instead of the deep socket impact from some Chinese factory? Nobody seemed to know what “tolerance” meant. They didn’t really understand my question. The problem was solved in that there wasn’t a single 6 point 27 mm socket in the county. Can’t buy what ain’t there.

Back at my garage I tossed down my wife’s yoga mat on the hard cement. I was going to give this a serious try, the floor was hard, and she hasn’t done yoga in a while. (Side note: to my surprise she wasn’t mad when she saw it. She’s awesome like that!)

I got the lever in the optimal position and pulled as hard as I could. Nothing. I tried several times, with and without taps from a hammer. Nothing is what I expected and it’s what happened.

Damn. Obviously the tire had last been mounted when Clinton was president. It was rusted on so hard I’d need Thor to move it.

But the text stories had all been clear. This can be done.

Steady Curmudgeon. Breathe. Try again.

I gave it another go. I strained everything I had. “Something’s going to give” I thought, “and it’ll probably be my shoulders”. But life is hard and you gotta’ try as hard as you can.

There was an almost imperceptible shift. At first I was like “that’s it, my arm is fucked”. I stopped immediately. But my arm was still in its socket… so that’s nice.

Time to inspect what had happened. The nut hadn’t loosened. The whole damn axle had spun!

There’s a pinch bolt on the opposite side of the nut. It’s specifically there to pinch the axle so it doesn’t spin willy nilly. I hadn’t loosened it because I wanted it to hold. It had moved. Just a smidge.

See that hole on the end of the axle? When I took this, and the axle was still practically welded in place, it was vertical. It had moved a fraction of a degree.

I got out the “emergency toolkit” wrench and tightened the pinch bolt. There wasn’t much give, but I tightened to the full strength of my hands on the smaller wrench.

Then back on the other side of the bike, I pushed on that breaker bar. Bit by agonizing bit, the nut freed. Finally I could spin it off.

I was completely exhausted.

I slapped the bike’s bedonkadonk from the yoga mat; “was it as good for you as it was for me?”

After I got the nut completely off, I went back to the pinch bolt and loosened it. In fact I fully removed it, and just threaded it on a little to store it (so I wouldn’t lose it). You don’t have to do that but I wanted to be sure.

Then back to the yoga mat. I threaded the nut on to protect the threads and tapped the nut with a mallet. This drove the axle out the other side of the bike. After the He Man battle of torque death everything went smoothly. The axle slid out with hardly any drama at all.

I did it! Look at that axle, sliding out smooth as butter!

Once you get that axle out, the wheel hub slides off the splines of the shaft and there’s nothing left to do but muscle the tire out of the tight confines of the swingarm / bedonkadonk.

The brake mechanism popped right off so I could inspect the brake drum (on the hub) and pads (on the mechanism).

Carefully, I set it down. I was bushed. Sometimes breaking a single 27 mm nut free is all a man’s got in him.

I inspected the old tire. I compared it to the tire I’d bought. Remember, this particular model is very finicky about tires and this particular year is the most finicky of that model.

I’d bought the wrong size!

Mother fu*****!

Breathe Curmudgeon, you’ve gotten pretty far for a dumbass, you’ll get the rest of the way there.

But not today. I closed the garage door and went into the house for an ibuprofen.

This is what it looked like when I left. Note the brake pads in their assembly with the axle jammed in it so I don’t lose it; lower right. Note my wife’s yoga mat, which more or less gave its life for the project, on the bottom left.

More to go… the bike ain’t rolling yet!

Pics or it didn’t happen!

The bedonkadonk (trunk) of a PC800 is unique among motorcycles. The cargo area is under the seat like a scooter’s but it’s larger. Scooters can have that storage because they have entirely different engines and drivetrains. I don’t know of any “normal engine” motorcycle with anything like the PC800’s bedonkadonk.

It makes me happy. It’s weird yet practical. Why have hard saddlebags, when you can let engineers off the leash to come up with something entirely new?

In the photo below, I leaned the new tire (shipped in plastic wrap) against the bike. The old rear tire is still on the bike. It’s tucked under and behind the license plate. I’m not sure Yoda could fit in there!

BTW: The old tire isn’t super bald, I expected this whole “new tire” situation to go on forever and started early. I could’ve maybe run it a bit longer. On the other hand, the bike was used and I’ve no idea how old the tires actually are. Better to swap early than wreck trying to squeeze out a few more miles.

Gaze on the glory of the bedonkadonk! The lid (the rear passenger’s seat) is huge. There’s awesome access to the whole storage compartment. It seals out water perfectly. The bedonkadonk is said to be so good you can dump ice in it and use it as a cooler. (There’s a drain if you want to do that. Of course they thought to include a drain!)

Someone added a mirror. I don’t like it. What am I going to do, use it to adjust my eyeshadow? I leave it there because it’s not taking up space and I don’t want to rip it off and create an adhesive cleaning issue.

The bedonkadonk has a little “dome light”. I can even have it automatically turn on when I open the lid. It’s amazingly civilized. Usually I leave the “auto on” switch off, but it’s a pretty neat feature.

Accessing the tire seems hopeless. But don’t despair. Honda engineers are clever. They gave you all you’ll need. See those four screws on the rear edge of the trunk? Remove just two of them and the whole thing is accessible. It’s diabolically effective.

I’m not sure about vocabulary. Some of the things you find on a PC800 just don’t exist on motorcycles. Anyway, two hex screws is enough to loosen the rear bumper / license plate holder / tail & brake light… um… “assembly”. From there you pop out two friction fit tabs….. GENTLY! It’s very solid but also old plastic that’s irreplaceable. Once it’s free, unplug three lights, wiggle the wiring free and Bob’s your Uncle.

If you knew what you were doing, it would be a 5 minute job to get that far. The biggest risk is setting the removed assembly down on your garage floor and accidentally stepping on it.

I zip tied the wiring out of the way just to be safe. Out of curiosity, I compared the dreaded and feared PC800’s body panels to my very traditional 1999 Honda Shadow ACE. With the assembly popped off, there’s more access to the PC800’s tire than the Shadow. (Also the Shadow lacks a center stand.)

I want to repeat this because everyone loses their shit about “plastics”; after 5 minutes of fiddling, the PC800’s access is actually better than reaching under the metal fender of a “normal” cruiser.

I’m as surprised as you.

I really liked what I saw with the rest of the rear hub too. The rear drum brake linkage (with the spring) is held with a wingbolt! (The bolt also adjusts the brake position. You can tweak your brakes without even needing a tool.) To remove the linkage, just spin the wingnut off! (This is the exact same linkage design as my Yamaha TW200 dirt bike.) Drum brakes aren’t sexy but any brake you can adjust with a wingnut is super practical.

The bar below the brake linkage links the hub to the swingarm. I presume this is so the hub doesn’t spin around. I had to pull a cotter pin and loosen a 10mm (or 12mm, I forget) bolt. I got this far with tools from the bike’s “emergency tool kit”. (How better to test if you’re travelling with adequate tools?)

Nice!

The 27 mm axle bolt on the other side of the wheel was a different story. I tried the wrench from the emergency kit. I didn’t expect it to work. It didn’t work. “Emergency kits” have their limitations.

I drove to town and bought a 27mm impact socket from Horror Freight. I tried that with my impact wrench. Nope!

I began to wonder how old that tire really was? Would I be fighting 10 years of corrosion? 20?

It was time to walk away and ponder. (Actually I lurked on more online forums. I can’t be the first guy who’s encountered this. And I wasn’t.)

This is the exact point where Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance would go off on a three chapter discussion the Ancient Greek concept of “Arete“. It means the quality of excellence or “full realization of potential or inherent function”.

Whoa? Where did that come from? Apparently, I remember more of the book that I thought. Huh?

I like the word Arete. It inspires me to think of greater meanings in the things around me. The ancient Greeks were not perfect but they diligently explored thinking; and how to properly live. They had words for degrees and types of virtue and excellence; with a whole consideration of “fulfillment of purpose”. Smart dudes like Plato and Socrates were pondering virtue, knowledge, self-restraint, and justice 2,500 years ago.

What have we done with our time? Our half ass existence is embarrassing. In all that time, we should have mapped the contours of wisdom. But no! We’re absolute dumbasses.

How did that happen?

Consider arete and then consider what we think about. The debate of the day is what to do about a woman who killed her three children. Regardless of what I say about it, I’ll piss off roughly half the populace. A couple millennia should have been enough to suss out a general policy for infanticide. Nah, we just freak out when it happens and then line up in a circular firing squad. Our families are broken. Our words obfuscate. We’re forced to refer to bums as “unhoused”, illegal aliens as “undocumented”, and lies as “disinformation”. A jurist on our highest court cannot define “woman” and neither can an organization of Women’s Basketball. Our movies are propaganda. And it’s not even good propaganda. The richest nation on earth amassed the largest national debt to ever exist in the entirety of human civilization. We invented Pop Tarts, stare at screens, and got fat.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Diogenes would know what to do. Half naked, living in a barrel, and whacking off when he felt like it, he still worked hard trying to live correctly. He’d bitch slap every damn one of us, fling a plucked chicken at Congress, and then go back to his barrel. A lunatic talked smack to Alexander the Great because what he had to say was wise. Murderous violent conqueror Alexander listened, because he too was wise.

We are either idiots, or we mimic their behavior; functionally the same damn thing.

Which is to say, I couldn’t fix the bike until I got that 27mm nut loose.

The next post will ensue when I get my ass in gear and type it.

The Pacific Coast is very picky about tires. In 1989, the first year of the model’s existence, clearances were extra tight. This is the kind of detail only the true aficionado knows. Both the Honda Pacific Coast 800 and the Yamaha TW200 are odd duck machines. Both have cultlike followers that do a great job compiling all sorts of technical errata. I own both… this may say more about me than the machines.

I dove into an online forum. They discussed tires like some people discuss religion. I selected what I think was the right size, and placed an order with Amazon. It was going to take 16 days but delivery was free. I could stop thinking about it for a couple weeks. Win!

Four days later the tire arrived. “Ball is back in my court. Damn!”

The PC800’s fairings are a Rubik’s Cube. They’re ingenious. They can be solved but you ain’t doing it yourself. You need to know what Honda’s engineers intended. You can’t just puzzle it out. (I test drove a PC800 where someone had used a Sawzall to cut his way to the battery! I didn’t buy that bike!)

Everything’s hidden and overlapping. The guys at Honda wanted the bike covered and by God that’s what they did. In fact, not only do you need to know what hidden screw(s) or panel(s) to remove but in what order. The only thing that saves your sanity is that you know it is absolutely possible. It’s not unsolvable, just confusing. Nor is it for the impatient or faint of heart. Did I mention that 37 year old plastic is delicate and irreplaceable?

You can do this Curmudgeon. Steady. One step at a time. Deep breath.

I approached it slowly, as if it was a cobra. I consulted my huge 300 +/- page manual. (At least a year ago I purchased a download. I paid to have it printed and bound. I knew I’d eventually need it.) Alas, it didn’t help. Maybe, it assumed I’d be smart enough to do a tire. I’m not! I’m just well below Honda’s expectations. (Also the manual is from 1989, expectations of a mechanic in 1989 is way higher than expectations in 2026; not that I’m a mechanic.)

Lowering my sights, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos. They were almost comical. The Honda PC800 is built basically from a Honda Shadow which are as common as pigeons on a statue. Also, there’s no such thing as a bike designed such that you can’t change a tire. It has to be do-able! Yet the crazy redneck shit people do to get at that mostly hidden rear tire is without bounds.

I’m not saying they don’t work, I’m just saying Honda had an approach in mind. “Strap the bike into your truck and hang the rear tire off the tailgate” is not the intended solution!

Finally I found a guy who seemed to have it together. He showed how to patiently and intelligently approach the plastics. Ah ha!

In the same video, he pulled the tire, complete with explanation and commentary about his wife’s lawnmowing, in 15 minutes flat. When I grow up I want to be like him!

All hail this guy!(1)

I eventually tried it myself. Everything that guy said was true. Every part was obvious when you knew where to look. Everything was right where it made sense to be. I felt like I was learning!

I might someday be able to change a flat on the side of the road without divine intervention!

That day had not yet come.

I couldn’t loosen the 27mm axle nut. I started with the wrench in the emergency tool kit. It didn’t work and I didn’t expect it to. I drove to town and bought a cheap 27 mm impact socket. I have a cheap old battery operated impact wrench… it did absolutely nothing. I feared I might round off the nut and be utterly doomed!

So. There. I. Was.

Robert M. Pirsig had a lot to say about such a situation:

“Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn’t just irritating and minor. You’re stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It’s absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle. This isn’t a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck.”

Stuck!

Pirsig went off on a tangent about the value of a bike with a stuck bolt being $0 until you unstuck the thing and something something… Phaedrus… mental breakdown… quality… and other shit.

Young Curmudgeon didn’t grok it then. And I was stumped by an axle nut in 2026.

Wisdom includes knowing when to step away from the challenge. I slathered the nut with liquid wrench and stepped away from the garage. I had no idea what I’d do next. Probably more procrastination.

A.C.

(1) Just for the record, that guy’s 1989 Honda PC800 is cleaner than a dinner plate. Under my bike, I found 40 years of dirt. He pops off the axle nut cool as a cucumber. I call shenanigans! I’ll bet he’s done it a dozen times and it’s smooth as butter on his bike. On my bike, I’m starting to wonder if my tire is way older than I thought. It’s probably a good thing I’m not riding on it.

(2) I can sense hands moving towards the keyboard to instruct me on what to do next. I appreciate the impulse but it’s OK. I got it. By the time I typed this, I’d already removed that infernal axle bolt. I’m taking y’all on a journey I’ve already finished.