These last 4 days have been an emotional roller coaster for us, and is a week that is burned into our memories.  This weekend Emily and Ian came to town and brought their two other family members with them, Gus and Illias.  Well Saturday night, Cory let all the dogs out– there were four at our house– and Gus ran away.  We spent 2 hours looking for him to no avail, and with Gus being a miniature pincher, we weren’t very confident that he would make it through the night. Saturday night the temperature dipped into the lower teens, and on Sunday, we printed out 300 colored flyers and handed them out in Pheasant Ridge with Emily and Ian. Emily and Ian had to leave for their home in Pittsburgh Sunday night, but we were determined to find him. Katy put a post on Craigslist for Gus, and a couple hours later we got a call from a gentleman in Michigan that said he saw a min-pin crossing SR12 in Michigan just north of our house about 7 miles.

We then put an ad in the Elkhart Truth for Gus and waited.  Monday came and went, and Eva ended up taking Tuesday off to go look for the pup.  Eva began the day handing out fliers around the area, and headed into Michigan.  While Cory was at work he got a phone call from a women who works for the Zion Lutheran Church, which is just down the road.  She said she spotted Gus in the area, so I promptly called Eva who then scoped out the area. Gus was there and was so afraid that she had to coerce him with lots of ham to get him to come to her.  GUS WAS SAVED! We are all so happy that Gus is back with us! But the story doesn’t end there.  Gus spent Tuesday night at our house and got along with Mozart pretty well.  They both were battling for the attention, while we were home. Well, today Emily and Ian were on their way to our house after work to pick him up and take him home.  Cory was in the garage getting stuff ready to pack up, and had just come in and sat down to eat some pizza. There was a knock on the door and under the porch light, Cory could see a women with a concerned look on her face. He answered the door and she said “I think I just might have hit your dog.” Cory asked, “Is he black and white?” She replied “yes” and Katy bolted out the door before I had a chance to put my shoes on.  Through the vehicle lights I could see Katy running towards a body lying in the road that looked like Mozart. I ran as fast as I could to the motionless body, kneeling beside him see if he had a response.  I could hear the lady in the background saying how sorry she was, but I didn’t care. She had killed our dog.  Tonight has been a difficult night for us both. We have shed more tears tonight, than ever. I can’t remember the last time I really cried like this. It hurts so much, and we will miss him.

More Mozart Pics

Mozart’s website

Photo from Ben

Another Photo From Ben

I found the story of this town very interesting, and felt the need to write a little about it. Centralia was established as a mining town and was originally named Centreville until 1865. Centralia was incorporated in 1866 and it’s main business was Coal Mining until the 1960s when most of the mining companies went out of business. During that time, the town would burn their trash they would dispose in empty mining pits. The town would get a couple of volunteer firefighters to monitor the fire, and make sure it doesn’t get out of control. Well, this fire was never extinguished and had spread from the lower depths of the pit to a hole that led to an abandoned mine shaft. This fire was started in May of 1962 and burned throughout the 1960s and 1970s despite attempts to extinguish the fire. Throughout this time, locals almost forgot about the problem until 1979 when a refueling station owner lowered his wooden measuring stick into his underground tanks to measure the fuel. When he pulled the stick out, it felt extremely hot and after taking temperature readings, found the temperature of his underground gasoline to be 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Word spread quickly throughout the town of the seriousness of this problem that was thought to have been contained. State officials were notified and in 1981 a 12 year old boy was playing in his backyard The boy would have likely died if it hadn’t been for his cousin who pulled him to safety. Ironically that same day a state representative, state senator, and a mine safety director was in town doing some investigative work on the mine fire problem. Through out the next few years, people were evacuated because of safety concerns, and in 1992 Pennsylvania claimed eminent domain over the town and revoked their zipcode. Some families still stayed in the town despite having their properties condemned, and the apparent safety concerns. Since then, homes have been demolished and more recently in 2007 the Moyer residence was shredded but remained occupied until this time. You can still see smoke pillowing from the ground because of this almost 50 year old fire that was the death of this town. It is believed that the fire could burn for another 250 years with the amount of coal that is estimated to be below the town of Centralia.

This town is extremely fascinating to me, and I hope that I can one day visit this almost empty town. It’s crazy to think that just one minor misjudgment caused many people to have to leave what was once their home town.

You can see more more photos on Flickr
And Read more on Wikipedia

Well, this weekend I decided to do a redesign my blog. My old theme was a modified Green Marinee Wordpress theme that I found 3 years ago and was looking pretty out dated. I hope everyone likes this new theme and feel free to leave comments. I can’t seem to figure out how to get rid of the underline styling on my Flickr images in the sidebar. I’m no CSS master and after tinkering for 10 minutes, became frustrated and said screw it. I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, I know I did. Katy and I went to Goshen friday night and brought some friends with us to a Goshen College party. Besides having to break up a fight due to my dumb ass friend, it was a pretty good time. Note to self: Do not allow a friend to pee on a stranger. Cheers!

I finally pulled the trigger, I sold both of my bikes in the past 2 weeks. I sold one to my brother, which didn’t really bother me. Partially because I still had a bike that I could ride, and because I knew it was going to a good home. But today, I gave up my last bike to some guys that I will probably never see again. And above all, it was a bike that I had dreamed about owning for 6 years. It was the most powerful and well designed streetbike that I had ever owned. My 2004 Honda RC51 will be missed, it has been to the race track 3 times since I have owned it and down to deals gap once just recently. Now that my bike is gone, I feel kind of empty. Especially, since I work so much it was nice to commute on a motorcycle to break up the monotony of everyday life. I enjoy everything about riding on two wheels, and now that joy is gone. Also, it’s going to be that much harder to buy a motorcycle when I get back since the money I got from the sale of the bike is going towards paying it off. So it will be another 2 years until I get a motorcycle. Fuck that’s a long time. But it had to be done to do the things Katy and I want to do. I’m not sure if I should be mad at myself or just sad. I just have to be careful to not take my anger out on Katy, because it’s not her fault and it wasn’t her decision. I think I’m going to go sulk. Thanks for listening. I’m going to miss riding on two wheels, a lot…………

Motoczysz will be mentioned in the July Edition of Cycleworld Magazine. If you’re not sure what MotoCzysz is and what they do, then I will give you the short version. They are a radical thinking Grand Prix Motorcycle Development Company that is base out of Oregon, and has been around since 2005. They are radical in that they have created and patented a motorcycle motor that has two counter-rotating cranks, and mounts in the frame long ways to reduce gyroscopic forces which are created by the motor. In short the bike handles as if it had a smaller motor, which makes it easier to ride in the corners. The Discovery Channel aired a documentary on the MotoCzysz group earlier this year called Birth Of a Racer which I will say is very exciting and informative. I really hope these guys make it, since originally their plans were to build a 1000cc bike to compete in MotoGP But in 2006 the regulations changed to build 800cc MotoGP bikes, shortly after Motoczysz began development and construction of their Prototype C1. Hope is not lost though since AMA and WSB still race 1000cc motorcycles. Currently they are still looking for investors to help stay afloat and compete against the big Japanese manufacturers.

Here are two videos that Yamaha just uploaded to their server from the recent scooter introduction they did. The videos feature former Daytona winner Scott Russell, former Superbike champion Jamie James, GP rider Colin Edwards II and the ever-lovely Meredith Penrod of Yamaha US.

http://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/products/modelvideo/607/656/0/video.aspx

http://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/products/modelvideo/608/653/0/video.aspx