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@ACE,I like some of the points you make. The slower approach is a doable end game because the West will continue getting tired and could slowly let it slip in that scenario. The Russians initially didn't anticipate a real fight and they went in with that approach. The Ukrainian people had a little more gumption than expected and they knew how to play the hearts of the outside world. They played fast and played it well. The Europeans had a nice gentle reminder of what passive subservience looked like. It's not hard to find many that were not reminded of a little guy with a goofy mustache and how he changed central Europe little pieces at a time. That association was enough to make them care and get involved. The US also doesn't want to play another war game. I wouldn't say that any one person is wholly viable with corruption being a tool to that end. I'd argue that is more along the lines of collaboration with involved powers. To all those parties, they underestimated Russia's willingness to sacrifice their own resources to a seemingly small game. It's hard to fully understand the Russian end game unless you look back in history. That's where the Europeans get nervous. They've been through the slow creep of a dictator. The rest of the world got involved before that game was done. Putin never had any intention of negotiating. His strategy didn't leave room for the option. I'm pretty sure we all know he's not that naive. His real end game is the old world hierarchy with his name moved up in the ranks. That makes a person dangerous especially when they have their hands on the trigger. His end goal is becoming more diluted as this mess drags on and he has more to lose.

That's quite the number. Thank god you are wrong. I'm not fond of non farmers owning land and I'm sure not fond of China owning farm and forest. I don't think it helps the argument when we throw complete B.S. numbers out there. Now, the dang Canadians, that is a problem. By far the largest percent owning US farm and forest land.

I remember when this started and thinking they would have it wrapped up in a matter of weeks. I'm sure they thought the same thing. It's not getting easier as time passes. The whole works is turning into bad exit no matter which side throws up a flag. Both sides are digging deeper and dragging everyone else along for the ride. They also know this is going to get worse. The long term prep on both sides doesn't include exit strategies. They have plans to move refuges to longer term housing. Germany is already tight on good options and making plans for additional housing and transportation. The Russians are working on methods to fight cheaper so they can go long term. BTW, we are wasting our time debating the left or right arguments. That's just a bunch of political posturing being done up top on both sides. It's a chest pumping power game and the public is being played like pawns. We are smart enough to know better. Politicians on either side won't come up with a good reason to let this mess move across Europe.

Time blindness is a real disease. Most of us call it laziness, irresponsibility, or just plain dumbness. Years ago I ran a facility that had a tight attendance policy. Late was late even if measured in seconds. The old timers knew the rules and didn't take chances. Some of the younger crew thought the attendance policy was too tough. They complained and played right on the fringe with the point system and rules. Corporate came in and announced they would be closing the place in just over a year. Anyone that hung around would get a "Stay" bonus based on their years of service. The bonus amounts were some nice change. I had people looking at 100k just to play by the rules and stay till the end. Pretty simple stuff. All the old timers made it to the end. I had a few younger people that always complained about the time rules who did not make it till the end. To this day I'll never understand why this stuff didn't make sense to them. One guy that was up in points did a no call with three months left. He lost 38k with that dingus move. The real topper was a guy that rode right at max points his whole tenure. We even coached him to reel it in the last year so he had some play in case he had an emergency situation. The guy had an emergency happen and the punch was 31 seconds late. Less than a month left and we walked him out the door. His bonus check would have been 46k just to play by the rules for another few weeks. It has to be a disease. There is no logical reason . . . .

Post cracking? Are they talking about the crank?

Construction or an actual solar farm? They build fences around solar farms.

Do the therapy after surgery and take it easy as recommended. Friends have had tear replacement done at the same facility. I'm a bit surprised by how well they have recovered. I saw how little they could do before the procedure. I recommend the PT because one of them didn't do the work and tried to ignore the recommendations. They ended up with another small injury and had to go back in for cleanup. They were told that they were pushing it too fast before the area was strong. Not sure if the diagnosis was 100% correct, but they did it right the second round and seem to be doing well. If your situation is anything like what I saw, you must be in a lot of pain.

That's the silly part. People should have been giving themselves credit. People quit buying so much that oil went negative. Demand was low and supply was high. Drilling operations shut down because it sure didn't make sense to spend money on a money losing game. That's the simple part of how supply and demand works in an open market. The hard part was catching up supply as fast as people wanted to start buying. Drilling doesn't ramp up that fast, so supply was outstripped by demand. Prices went up. People also had the silly thought that politicians could control price by using the SPR. We were ramping up consumption too fast for that to help. It also was not designed to play the market. It is a Strategic Reserve. The design was to help carry through supply disruption. (People made the argument that money losing, drilling shut downs, were a supply disruption.) Politicians bowed to pressure and opened exchange bidding which just kicked the can down the road. The original idea was to have bidders replenish by matching purchase volumes. Basically, they had to supply for consumer demand and back fill the reserves. There is some irony to the idea. Oil prices were high at the time and the gov could make tons of money on cheaply bought oil sitting in the SPR. That little game has kept drillers busy trying to supply consumers while the government is filling the SPR. That has extended out demand.

That's the irony of this political bickering about policy that creates supply and demand. People love to go round and round about how so and so made it happen. We are giving way too much credit and blame to politicians. They are more than willing to stand in line to take credit when things look good. The finger pointing goes up when things look bad. In reality, we as consumers create demand. When demand is higher, people will line up to make profit off the consumer's desire to buy. It's not real complicated. Oil is a supply-demand business. Energy overall fits into that model. That creates another irony. Somebody forgot to tell mother nature that consumers use things like sun and wind based on their personal desire. Consumers really don't care when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Desire over rides policy and oil fills the gap.

I get that part. This country was founded with main principles, one of which is the principle of freedom and included religious freedom. The basis for our founding is on the escape from control and tyranny. The early founders didn't come zipping across the pond because life was so great on the other side. Their writing and execution of those principle is something to be admired. It wouldn't hurt anyone to read and relearn the principles of our founding. There is a lot about individual rights. Those are easy to accept. The harder part is that we have responsibility as individuals for our choices. As we move away from responsibility, we move toward the things we tried to leave behind. The cake eaters had a choice and a responsibility for their choice. The bakers wanted a choice as well. If both parties made a responsible choice, there would have been no need for intervention. I also get the point of turning it into a religious choice. That allows the issue to be pushed and tested against interpretation under constitutional law. The problem is how religion continues to evolve. It is entirely possible to create a religion of pretty people. As our definition of religion evolves, we step back to the government to argue our freedom. This issue I have with that method is how we essentially are forcing others to accept our choice by using law. We create more government oversight and reduce freedom of choice. It's a dirty cycle and it gets supported by both sides when it agrees with their views. Again, Be careful what you wish for.

That is one of my biggest issues with the two party fight fest. People are so wrapped up in a party platform that they have lost sight of the big picture. The whole works turns into a game of back and forth. Honest to god, if you changed the names the talk sounds the same from both sides. What an incredible waste of time and effort. The arguments sound an awful lot like the grade school playground. But, "Billy said it's true," "Billy's a liar." The stuff goes back and forth with the rest of the kids taking sides. In the end there's a fight and no one seems to know or care if Billy was telling the truth. There is some irony to the Trumper argument. He actually looked like he was different. He came across like the truth actually mattered and keeping it simple was important. As time passes, he throws more B.S. and whines more than the wildest of the left. The dude is turning into the "Karen" of politics. It seems hard to believe that these yahoos think we are this dumb, but we keep getting the same game. It's time to stop making heroes out of playground popularity contestants and actually get down to doing business.

Some of this stuff makes sense and some seems almost dangerous. I do like to say "Be careful what you wish for". It's interesting to cheer about two laws that essentially contradict each other in terms of measuring people. One says you can discriminate and the other says that discrimination is a problem. The cake law ruling has potential for things to go down a path that could create a real mess. I don't like your beard, those pants are ugly, and the bald head is a dead giveaway. That could create a real problem if some doofus decides it's against their belief to only do business with "pretty" people. I'd probably go hungry.

The 1/4" won't make that big a difference if they are the same cupped blades. It does make a difference if you are SS and cupped tips. The older aluminum blades tended to flex and people added pitch to try and cheat top end. There are a lot of factors in a prop. Size alone isn't enough. Have you tried the 21 pitch? I wonder if it is a straight tip? I'm surprised they even had one that far out and kept it around. I bet that would barely plane out with anything in the boat. HSR is right on track. Try less pitch. Do you have any buddies that have the same drive spline? It might be worth trying a few different props to get it running just right. Some of them may have extra props laying around. There is room to run quite a bit better with that boat. I bet a lot is just in the prop. In my boating days, I kept quite a few props laying around to "play". Holeshot, speed lock, hybrids, and plain ol fast, were changed with simple prop swaps. If that motor is running right, it sounds like you simply have too much prop. I doubt it is in the 1/4" diameter.

Why do elected members waste so much time with this stuff. Isn't there actual business to do? With the two party setup it's just a game of back and forth. It doesn't matter which party at this point. They are both playing. These ding dongs spend all day trying to pick on each other like grade school playground theatrics. Throw in a couple of old jocks trying to win a popularity contest and it's a total do nothing free for all.

It seem utterly ridiculous to cover "prime" farmland with solar panels. In our area there is a 540 acre solar farm on what was pretty sweet farm land. A quarter adjacent to the glass reflector farm, sold last year at a record price for a reason. The land is productive and some of the best in the area. Sadly, the big power decision makers think that the area is a good spot to build more glass reflectors and backup generation/storage in the same area. Their reasoning is that it makes sense to keep building because they already have a big glass farm right there. I'm not against solar and wind. I'm against building it on prime farm land. Once they start, there is no turning back. Another down side to the renewable generation is all the infrastructure they require. The generation is low density per unit of land which makes it require a lot more land. That also means a lot more power lines to interconnect the low density power generation. Big power plants get by with a big set of power lines from generation to city centers. The city folks don't care where the power comes from as long as their knick knacks and do dads work. They might care a little more when it's hard to buy food. I can tell you from the history of what has already happened, prime farmland is going to continue disappearing fast if we don't change. Hydroponics are not the solution in their current form. They are energy intensive food production that is also expensive. If we think those are the answer, we are in for a tough dose of reality. Build the solar and wind out where the best crop is weeds and random cowpies. The population is low density, and the land is cheap. We could even provide some actual work for people living in those areas.

I wonder how many scheduled replacements are waiting for a farmer to whack one of their old power poles? One of our guys was demoing a high speed disk last year and did a nice clean pole hanger break. It wasn't a big line, but they charged like it was. I think it was 6k all said and done. The initial repair was just a big steel compression sleeve on the old pole. They came by later in the season and replaced the busted one along with most of the other poles along that road.

Good luck with that project. Did the skid steer have enough whack to move the bracket? Probably easiest to just flip it over and let the next pole bend it back again.

I've used the Rox ASG with the base plastic frames. After using them a few seasons I just leave them on most of the time. They leave quite a bit of access to the bars and don't really get in the way. I also fight cold thumbs at times and these are not perfect for that issue. The material around the bar is a little too loose and lets in air at speed. I tried gorilla tape over the opening and it helps quite a bit. I also have the PMadd X2 setup with hand guards. They are warmer but also make it harder to access the bars vs. the ASG. They are a little deeper and have a smaller open area. I usually take these off and store them because they are harder to use all day. This style takes a little extra room to store because the stiff material doesn't fold or smash down easily. I hate cold hands and mine are messed up from years of abuse. I'm usually after two main goals. Ease of use and warmth. I've fooled around with quite a few gauntlet/handguard variations over the years. Plain ol handguards don't seem to help keep my hands warm at all. I've tried the oversized guards like flex tec, coldwave, and heatlocs. They are a little better than nothing, but not enough for super cold. I did like the easy access. I've tried a couple variations of window gauntlets. Maybe it was the early stuff, but the windows were worthless after a couple cold weather folds. I never did find a set that didn't seem bulky. Some of those cheap floppy velcro attached gauntlets are dang warm,but hard to use. They cover the gap on ride or not ride decisions for the worst cold days. I carry a set around for super cold days and emergencies. The ASG is my main setup. Easy to use and they don't look terrible. They are not the warmest set, but good enough for most days. I had a super cold trip last season where I tucked a set of the floppy cheapo jobbers under them. (One advantage of the handguard style mount) If you want warm hands that really does the trick, but it's more work.

My dealer has one of those sleds in his shop. This is a recall I wouldn't ignore. That sled is not in good shape with only three clicks on the odometer.

He certainly doesn't sound like the same old B.S. and political posturing we've heard over and over. Cedric Alexander seems to also be a no B.S. guy. I like that dude. I hope he continues being a straight shooter and a doer. BTW, I agree entirely with the chief being spot on. The issue won't fix itself with kids doing the crime with little or no repercussion. There are plenty of people that know we have a problem. Not many are willing to seriously address it head on. Playing nicey nice politics isn't the answer. It's a relief to hear a couple people that actually sound like they have balls and a real focus on real problems.

To a certain extend I'd agree. I'd also argue that it's not just the brand. Skid geometry is a big factor. @Tommcat, do you do the longer length with rail extensions and the 129 skidframe? I'm asking because that seems like the sweet spot setup. The stock 137 skid is easy to ride, but it's mellow. The old 129 was not quite enough hookup unless you lifted the front. It didn't have the "squat" effect on launch, so you had to work on flat launches. BTW, the new 129 Cat is crazy. Most riders have forgotten how to handle a bronco. They might have a little learning factor if they go to that setup. It's fun, but you have to work again. I think a bit more length on that skid will really be fun with some bigger power.

It is a pretty cool feat to do this trip with all the gear they are hauling. The updates that I've caught make it look like it's no walk in the park. Cutting a path through downed trees, doubling back to grab gear after breaking trail, etc, the list is probably long. It can't be easy to log miles. I hadn't heard about their clutch issues. I wonder if they were trying to limp those primaries after the dreaded 7,600 dead spot started kicking in? They are running the 800 motors which seem finicky with that clutch. @Not greg b, How are you getting updates on their progress?

For years the movie studios spent big bucks on explosives and fancy mechanisms to throw and flip cars for the stunts. All they really needed was an old tire and rim to throw in front. It certainly was an oddball. Looks like it wasn't lug nuts. Rotor is still in the rim.

It looks different than the Sherco version.

Buddy had an ADAPT that went through the hands of some dugga dugga tech in their shop. Dude overtightened the main and locked up the bearing. That one kinda sucked. They loaded it with a forklift and we didn't know until we were up north and ready to ride. Funny thing, that clutch ran fine otherwise except for the center bearing. I think he had another 700 miles on before it was swapped. I'm sorta obsessive about torque specs. I scribble them on the clutch near the specific fastener. The ADAPT cover bolts have a higher torque than previous covers. The cover also flexes a bit more on the ADAPT. I can see rookie crankers breaking covers by torquing a couple with other bolts still loose. You really need to ease these covers down with even force. I know a little about the kablango pic @Not greg b posted. I wish I knew why it happened. It was a stock clutch with 3,300 easy miles and 77.2 hours. The little "pop" happened on a deer hunter trail with lots of up down speeds and go fast sections mixed in. The stationary sheave just didn't want to stick around for the ride.