So, since I got my motorcycle around October last fall, I didn't have much time to ride before winter hit Minnesota.  It's already been a long winter, but I've been keeping myself busy with some winter projects.  One of my first projects was to fix the various cracks and warps in the fairings.  To do so, I used the ABS cement trick described in the Ninja 250 FAQ.  I picked up a cheap soldering iron from Radio Shack and I had some ABS cement on hand.

The process is simple:

1. Find the crack
2. Sand down the rough edges
3. Use the soldering iron along the crack to melt the fairing back together
4. After it cools, sand down the crack again
5. Add ABS cement to fill in the gaps
6. Sand the outside face until smooth
7. Repeath steps 5 and 6 as needed

You can just solder the inside face, which would make it hard to notice from the outside.  That also has the advantage that you might not have to repaint, which you would if you sanded both sides.  I knew I was going to repaint, so I did sand both sides.  Here are some pictures of my fixes.

This is a crack in lower fairing	The outside is sanded
The inside is cleaned and sanded	The crack is soldered from the inside
ABS cement is added to strengthen the joint	Here's the result from the outside.

I had two cases that took a lot more than one pass to completely fix.  The first was on the upper fairing, which you can see from an earlier post, a pink streak by the front-left turn signal.  That was a large crack that a previous owner filled in with Bondo.  Bondo is great for filling in dents or other divots, but I don't think it's the right tool for joining cracks.  I sanded that down until the original crack was exposed, and then soldered it together.  It took several (probably 8 - 10) cycles with adding the cement and sanding down until it was smooth and there were no bumps.  The rear fairing had a crack that made a small ripple.  That one also was a matter of sanding off the hills and filling in the valleys.

The upper fairing's Bondo streak

The rear fairing a few cycles into the process

It took a while, but they're smooth now.  I'm now in the process of painting, and that's very satisfying.

We normally let Olive run around outside with just the "sparkle" (shock) collar on.  She enjoys it, and we get to stay inside.  Win-win.  However, that doesn't keep her from getting into stuff.  A few days ago, she came back in and after a while, I noticed her poor face puffing up.  Either she ate something she was allergic to, or got stung by something... we may never know.  Our sweet little puppy is a trooper, though.  Even at her worst, she still wanted to play with her toys.  I had to put her in her crate to keep her still.  Some peanut butter flavored "puppy crack" with a sliver of Benadryl, and a few hours later, she was feeling, and looking, better.

Oh, Puffy Face!

Feeling better

Apparently, the door to Olive's crate wasn't fully locked, so she had a day with free reign of the house.  Here's the casualties:

Total Loss:
3 Apple earbuds
2 pens
1 cactus and plastic pot from IKEA
1 *brand new and unused* yellow purse

Partial loss:
WeightWatchers book (cover chewed off)
Calendar for Betsy Wall Photography (edges "rounded")
1 shirt (belonging to Ann.  Sorry sister)
1 document

Things she surprisingly missed:
The table full of my winter motorcycle projects (wires, small plugs, etc...)
iPod USB cables
Apple laptop charger (she has a reputation, since she's chewed three of these in the past)
1 bottle of body wash (thankfully)
Any of the numerous power cords around (again, she has a reputation)
Bundles and bundles of yarn

Things she unsurprisingly missed:
Her food
Her toys

This is how I found her	This was pretty much all of the chaos
Earbuds...	Pens...
One unfortunate cactus	Brand new purse...
Headphone jack...	Address book...
Flower pot...	Bad dog!

Betsy and I spent a week vacation in Cancun over last week.  Yes, it was nice.  Yes, we skipped the -20° weather everyone's talking about.  Betsy posted a good entry about the trip on her blog, so you should read that first.  I'll just show you some pictures of the trip.

We had to be at the airport by 4:00 AM	This was my spectacular view We named it "Spotty"
This was the drain after they fixed it	This our room's shower pressure at maximum strength
The beach, however, was wonderful	The drinks were weak, but plentiful
We did this a lot and fully enjoyed it	They made us towel swans!
Right in the middle of the Hotel Zone	We saw a full rainbow on the plane home

Some of you have noticed some issues with my website.  I've been fighting with some unusual situations and I think I'm narrowing down on a permanent solution.  Yes, my site was "hacked".  I reacted as quickly as I could (seeing that I spend last week in Cancun, more on that later).  Things should be better from now on.

Betsy has left the state for the weekend to spend time with her friends.  She's been planning this trip for a long time and has been getting more and more excited by the day.  I'm really happy that she gets to have a fun "girls weekend", but it's going to be pretty quiet around here.  I've got some projects to keep me busy.  We finally got our Christmas tree up and decorated, and it looks great.  After reading Sarah's post about their tree, I wanted to copy them and have a hunter-gatherer picture of me carrying... a box.  It would have been funny and I laughed a bit in my head.

On my tree, my favorite ornament is the light-up Starship Enterprise!  When no one's around, I take it off the tree and fly it around.  Ok, I really don't... or do I?  Some of my weekend projects will be to continue putting our house into festive order for dinners and such that we'll be hosting.  It's really just exciting to finally have our house coming together.  I believe last year during the holidays, the dining room was just a storage room, or at best, empty.  Now it's happy and ready for dining!

Another project I'm always happy to have time to work on is my motorcycle.  I'd like to remove all of the 80-fab stickers and have it be just plain black.  I also have grand schemes of wiring in a brake modulator and extra lights.  I may be getting a little too ambitious for one short weekend.

Anyways, there's always a certian puppy who'll demand my attention.