Story time....

[Bumblebee]

Speaking of cats....when my boys were young we got a girl orange tabby.....she was a great cat and treated our sons like her kittens.....

I should have written a book about her adventures.....each boy in different years tried to smuggle her to school in their backpacks for show and tell but were caught each time when she stuck her head out of the zipper.....

Many times I found her in one of their dresser drawers when she got in there and they didn't notice then closed the drawer...I'd hear a faint meow and find her.....I'd find her in their laundry basket in a closed closet the same way...a meow...

Anytime I was packing to deploy, she'd get in my barrack box and get grumpy when I took her out....

I recall one day riding home from work on the bike and seeing my boys and a few neighborhood kids looking up this huge elm tree we had in our yard.....I looked up and saw this orange speck and knew the critter climbed the tree......so up I went.....I stuffed her in my uniform shirt and brought her down...

She lived until she was a little over 18 and was a great friend......

I was trying to find a picture of her but can't at the moment....

 

[Oz22]

Earlier today, I was talking to a friend of mine who took his Ducati Panigale V4 via enclosed trailer to Florida to ride around during the holidays....

He rode it for a day and it broke....he took it to a dealership and the part he needs is back ordered so back into the trailer it went.....

I swear the only time, in all my years of riding, that a bike broke down on me -other then a catastrophic failure flogging a 650 katana- was back in 1982. I was cruising up the West coast highway north of Perth and suddenly the bike lost all power. I got my tools out, pulled off the the little round alloy side case on the engine and one of the two sets of points had a broken bakalite lifter, so the points were permanently closed. You wouldn't believe it, I broke down 100m or so past a roadhouse. I went in and dropped the offending set of points on the counter and the attendant pulled a set of Lucas points for a Holden off the wall and they were an exact match. Back on the road again .

Ducati, no thanks. Once you've grown up reliability you have no time for problems, of any sort!

 

[Bumblebee]

I swear the only time, in all my years of riding, that a bike broke down on me -other then a catastrophic failure flogging a 650 katana- was back in 1982. I was cruising up the West coast highway north of Perth and suddenly the bike lost all power. I got my tools out, pulled off the the little round alloy side case on the engine and one of the two sets of points had a broken bakalite lifter, so the points were permanently closed. You wouldn't believe it, I broke down 100m or so past a roadhouse. I went in and dropped the offending set of points on the counter and the attendant pulled a set of Lucas points for a Holden off the wall and they were an exact match. Back on the road again .

Ducati, no thanks. Once you've grown up reliability you have no time for problems, of any sort!

My Bumblebee left me on the side of the road a couple summers ago.......it was a real sinking feeling.......

I was trying to get hold of our auto club to come get me for a half hour and out of frustration decided to try and start it......bang, it started right up......I threw my gear on and went down the road towards home........it quit again.........I waited for a half hour and then tried it and it went....I made it home with the FI light flashing all the way....

Got it home, shut it off......deescalated my anger and then tried it again....it started right up with no FI light.....took it around the block and it ran perfect until I got 20 feet from my driveway and the FI light started flashing and it quit..

I went into diagnostic mode and started with anything that wasn't factory on the bike....first thing to go was the Bazzaz fuel system.......I plugged it into my laptop and nothing came up.....it wasn't communicating with my laptop and I noticed one of the lights on the Bazzaz brain box wasn't lighting up.....I hit the reset and nothing.....so I went to the Bazzaz site and they were out of business but left a diagnosis program on their site so I downloaded that and still nothing....

So off came the Bazzaz.....I ran it on the stock tune for the summer...it was a bit of a dog though....even though the ECU was flashed it still had stock mapping because the Bazzaz took care of them.....

I managed to retrieve one of the dyno tuned maps and sent that along with my ECU to Chris Moore and they set up the mapping....

When I put the ECU back in the bike and rode it, I could instantly feel the difference, it was like it was when the Bazzaz was working.....a lot more snappy and responsive....

 

[Oz22]

...first thing to go was the Bazzaz fuel system.......I plugged it into my laptop and nothing came up.
So off came the Bazzaz..

Well, aftermarket tinkering, what can you expect
I'd never touch the motor, 180HP is enough for me. I just upgrade pipes and forks and you can't get into any trouble there. Glad to hear you got home! I demand basically 100% reliability out of the factory. It's what I grew up with. Today many riders think 98% or 90% is adequate and will buy these Chinese and Euro bikes happy to put up with a breakdown out in the middle of nowhere as long the bike is Orange or otherwise distinctive in it's marketing. They try to make out it's normal for a bike to breakdown. It's not normal, it's a sign of bad or rushed design.

 

[Bumblebee]

Was out and about last evening and visited a neighbor who was a Korean war veteran....he's getting way up there in age and likes talking to a fellow veteran...

He was telling me of when he was in the battle of Kapyong where Chinese and North Korean troops regrouped for a counter attack......he was a tank commander and was saying how the waves of enemy troops surged across the field towards their positions, the lead wave had bandoliers of ammo, the second wave had rifles and when the first wave dropped the second wave picked up the ammo, the third wave picked up ammo and rifles from the ones that dropped in front of them...apparently there weren't enough rifles to go around.........
He said the infantry and tanks were in a hull-down position and he said they fired so much that they burnt out the barrels of their main and co-ax guns.......he also said there came a time when they called in artillery on their own positions as the Chinese got into their lines....he was shooting the enemy off other tanks and vice versa........everyone was beyond scared......

They fired a round called a "flachette" round which was basically a big shotgun shell......and they were devastating....when they ran out of those then went to HE rounds firing direct....he said it was days before he could hear anything other than ringing in his ears which made commanding a tank a challenge to hear anything on the radio.

They eventually broke the attack and made the enemy withdraw......enemy snipers then set up amongst the dead and started targeting them.....so they called in a couple British Crocodile tanks which lit up the field, he said you could hear the screams of any sniper that was caught in the fire stream and the cooking off of any rounds laying out there.......he said sometimes he still hears those screams.....

Sadly fellows like this will soon be gone from us and their experiences will go with them...it's only through talks with us younger veterans who can relay them to other generations.........he has a few kids but none of them ever served and he said they don't seem interested or understanding of what he tells them about his war experience....

 

[Bumblebee]

I went over to see the old veteran again......

He's pretty mad right now....mad at what is happening in politics......he has zero filters regarding this anger....he especially HATES all this 51st state talk as he remembers all his lost comrades who fought and died under the Canadian flag and the several times when his unit were sent to assist American units getting overwhelmed by Chinese and North Korean troops....those Americans were pretty happy to see Canadian tanks rolling in assistance....

He said one particular time, they reenforced an American line and he noted they (Americans) were using dead Chinese and North Korean bodies as sand bags....it was winter and they were all frozen (the bodies)......he said he had never seen such a sight before and the defenders were all walking around with 1000 yard stares....he said the piles of .30 and .50 cal brass was incredible......

I've seen piles like that in different countries I was in after a sustained fire fight by conventional units....crazy how much ammo gets used in a firefight......

 

[Oz22]

Sadly fellows like this will soon be gone from us and their experiences will go with them...it's only through talks with us younger veterans who can relay them to other generations.........he has a few kids but none of them ever served and he said they don't seem interested or understanding of what he tells them about his war experience....

They were different men back then hey. I had an American client a decade ago, a Korean vet, he's passed on now. He used to tell me all sorts of stories, mostly ones about Texas where he came from. One night he'd stopped at a railway crossing for a train and a ****** came out of the dark and pulled open his passenger door, Yikes I said! What did you do? He said he always kept a loaded 45 on the dash and simply shot him. What happened then I asked? He said that when he got home he called the sheriff and told him there was a dead ****** out by the railway crossing. Bloody hell I thought, that was casual. Different days for sure. Different men.

 

[Bumblebee]

They were different men back then hey. I had an American client a decade ago, a Korean vet, he's passed on now. He used to tell me all sorts of stories, mostly ones about Texas where he came from. One night he'd stopped at a railway crossing for a train and a ****** came out of the dark and pulled open his passenger door, Yikes I said! What did you do? He said he always kept a loaded 45 on the dash and simply shot him. What happened then I asked? He said that when he got home he called the sheriff and told him there was a dead ****** out by the railway crossing. Bloody hell I thought, that was casual. Different days for sure. Different men.

Pretty intense.......

The US used to be (and still is) pretty violent......this sort of thing would be very rare in Canada even in those days.....

I recall a long time ago in the first few years I joined the military we were at the Legion for Remembrance Day and a WW2 vet was sitting at the bar and he had a Pegasus patch on his blazer....one young cocky guy who had just got done his parachutist course was eyeballing the old guy...

So I said to the vet, now tell him where you did these jumps.....the old guy said "I did five in training, one in Overlord on D-Day and one in Arnhem in Market Garden......" He said they lost over half their battalion on both drops..

I remember the young guy started asking questions and acting like a human being after that....

I spoke to that old guy a few times and sadly we lost him in the mid '80s.....

I also had the opportunity to meet several "Devil's Brigade" members......they were very interesting to talk to.

 

[Oz22]

Pretty intense.......

The US used to be (and still is) pretty violent......this sort of thing would be very rare in Canada even in those days.....

Yeah, shocked me a bit too and it was one of my first incites into how other people live. Of course it happened here too, but a hundred years ago and more. I'd like to think we've mellowed a bit since then.

 

[Bumblebee]

Yeah, shocked me a bit too and it was one of my first incites into how other people live. Of course it happened here too, but a hundred years ago and more. I'd like to think we've mellowed a bit since then.

I have read that the crime rate in Canada and the US at least is down to a record low.

Here in Canada we have a fair amount of shootings with weapons smuggled here from the US and often perpetrated by gangs affiliated with American gangs....we have a similar but somewhat different culture to our American neighbors.

 

[Bumblebee]

Saturday past my friend and I were reminiscing about our time in uniform...

He brought up a time when we were attached to an armored unit and the issue I had with a certain Sgt....we wore no insignia or badges and this Sgt didn't know us but he was one of those big, loud bully types that has to get his own way or else he threatens you and tries to intimidate you.....
He was bigger than I was so he tried to push his position in the armored unit in an attempt to show us who was the top dog......he was also their unit's CQC instructor so was feeling his oats I guess....

Needless to say it didn't work nor did it go over well.......as time went on, this big guy and I got to know each other a little and he saw the kinds of things we were involved with and that dawned a new respect out of him....

Outside uniform, I ended up coaching his kid in hockey (I was the assistant coach) and this guy and I started to become friends........he got killed in Afghanistan along with an armored guy from my hometown of whom I knew his older siblings and parents pretty well....
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My friend also brought up a guy in the same armored unit who was the same kind of guy, big, loud and trying to push his weight around.....but not so much towards us but his own guys........one time I took him aside to give him a little friendly advice and constructive criticism which he took to heart knowing what I did for a living.......he and I became friends outside the military as well.....he had an older 90's Katana and we would sometimes go riding.....one summer he got posted away to Yellowknife and in a couple years came back but I didn't know and......I was out riding my GSXR one day when I saw a blue and silver gen 1 Hayabusa with the rider almost falling off because he was waving so hard......I thought "now who the heck is that?"

It turned out to be this guy and we went riding once in a while..........he got killed in an ATV accident and at his funeral, his widow asked me if I wanted his Hayabusa because he thought I would be a good guy for it to go to if something should happen to him........I did a lot of thinking on the subject and came to the conclusion if I got it, I wouldn't want to ride it because of memories.....and I had a garage full of bikes that sat most of the time as it was.....

It's kind of ironic how as we get older, instances such as these stand out more and more.....

 

[Bumblebee]

This fellow was quite a man.....

He spoke of his time in the Marines fondly as well as his time in country for as awful as it was, he bonded with his comrades in ways most people would never know. A crazy Canadian fighting for America....

Terry Russell Houghton Obituary February 19, 2025 - Malcolm, Deavitt & Binhammer

View Terry Russell Houghton's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.

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