Off to Niseko on the early bus! Party time! Maybe…
(0)Monthly Archive for December, 2011
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Okay, landed fine. The pilot clarified that the level of snowfall in itself wasn’t preventing operations at the airfield, but cloud cover and visibility might make him abort landing. Visibility was fine, and turbulence actually not bad. THe runway was a bit rough from the compacted snow, but other than that, the landing went off without a hitch. Hooray!
(0)Whoa! The ANA flight to CTS before my JAL flight was cancelled “due to snow”! Oh krapp! OK, JAL is only saying that they will take off and return to NGO or reroute to HND only if they can’t land due to the immediate conditions.
(0)Flight to NGO was actually a Triple-7-200. Older aircraft, but a lot nicer (and cleaner) than the retired 747SUD’s and old 767-300’s that JAL usually uses on the Hawaii runs. Not sure why it was upsized from the usual 767 – maybe marathon season? Most people had whole rows to themselves, which actually worked out better than getting upgraded to business class, since I could fold up the armrests and lay flat out across the three seats.
(0)At HNL. Glad it’s breezy and cool for a change. Maybe I actually won’t be stinky by the time I reach Sapporo. No – the trains will be sauna-hot.
(0)The JMA forecast is usually pretty spot-on. Derek says they have some crazy supercomputer that yields far better results than whatever the NOAA uses. I fly out to Sapporo via Nagoya tomorrow and will be in Niseko on Friday. It should be smack dab in the middle of five days of snow. If all goes according to the forecast, there will be a day-and-a-half of new base and several more continuing days of snowfall in store. Will I finally be able to ride Niseko on something other than Krunk? Just so long as the winds stay moderate, I may actually luck out… finally.
Stay safe out there, tis the season for craziness on the road. On Kal hwy edge of Hawaii Kai, a mangled roadbike under a cement truck! I think no fatality as only one lane closed. Two more accidents on H1. And misc weirdness, roadie with clip less Crocs?
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Finally pulled the broken CV shaft from the rally FX. Well now, 100 hp by current autostandards is no huge supercar figure, but 100 horses is still 100 horses. It seems it’s still enough to shear an axle shaft apart. There might have been some kind of flaw in the metal. Actually the right hub seems to have all kinda of problems. Thats the side I blew the shock and strut top mount bottoming it out. When I went to take the half shaft out, I discovered the main hub axle nut was loose again, and in fact had sheered the safety tabs on the cap. The bottom ball joint also required barely a push on wrench to loosen and after I took off the castle nut for the steering arm, I put the extractor on the joint and as I tightened it with my fingers to line it up, the joint popped loose. Nuts! I pulled the hub assembly and I’m going to take it to Ken to replace the bearings. I’m going to also order the ball joint. New, not reman, Empi CV shafts are on order but it’ll take close to 2 months.
Oh, and while were on the subject of the rally FX, I’d like to give a shout out to Pacific Paradise Towing. Used them twice now and really like them. It’s a small family run service, dude is really cool. They cover island wide, in addition to standard truck (nice & aircon) they also have a flatbed if needed. They take credit cards. Their number if you ever need a tow is 677-8850.
Image upload currently broken – Ok, I’m not a big fan of flavored malt beverages, but my mind has been broadened by having Hoegarten as one of my faves. I was heding quite a bit on this season but finally decided to take a chance. Pours a cloudy medium dark rose, fairly strong head. Cranberry aroma and tang is strong. Mouth feel is pretty syrupy, strong carbonation clears some of that. But that sour, it just doesn’t do it for me. This is going to be a chore finishing this sixer. 1 out of 4 berry monkeys. Note that I did finish drinking the bottle though.