Joe Berk

Idaho’s Lucky Peak State Park

By Joe Berk

I love Idaho and the Boise area, and no story about this part of the country would be complete without mentioning at least one of the motorcycle rides out of town. A short and easy one is the run along Idaho Highway 21 to Lucky Peak State Park.

It’s easy: Just grab Interstate 84 east out of Boise and then Highway 21 north. You’ll be running alongside the Boise River up to Lucky Peak. It only takes about 10 minutes to get up to Luck Peak State Park if you are in a car or on a motorcycle. If you’re into bicycling (I am), it’s about a 30-minute ride on the Boise River Greenbelt, a dedicated bike lane that parallels Highway 21 along the river. The bike lane is protected from traffic by a concrete barrier. I didn’t have a bicycle on this Boise trip, but I found myself wishing I did. It looked like a great bicycle ride.

Highway 21’s north and south lanes are separated, and the northbound lanes up to Lucky Peak State Park don’t have good places to pull off and grab photos. For that reason, most of my on=the-road pictures were taken on our ride back to Boise, including this one of a sign for the Diversion Dam.

You get a great look at the Boise River’s Diversion Dam heading to Lucky Peak, but like I said above, there’s no place to pull off for a photo. On the way back, you see the sign in the above photo, but you can’t see the Dam from there. It provides water for Idaho’s agricultural canal system and it also generates electricity. The company that built it in 1909 took a financial bath on the project, but the dam didn’t give a damn. It’s well over a hundred years old and it’s been doing its job well the entire time.

The Lucky Peak State Park is a multi-use park. You can swim in its freshwater beach, there are a couple of boat launch ramps, we met people there for kayaking, you can rent watercraft, you can fish, or you can just hang out and take pictures (which is what we did).

There are two dams in this area. The first is the Diversion Dam mentioned above; the second is a much larger Army Corps of Engineers Dam that forms Lucky Peak Lake.

The ride back had places along Highway 21 to pull over and grab a photo or two, which is what we did. There’s a lot to see and do in the Boise area and in Idaho, and there’s more coming up here on ExNotes about that. Stay tuned, my friends.

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Product Review: Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit

By Joe Berk

No matter how much I scrub a bore with patches and solvent, I can’t get all the copper fouling out. For that, I need to turn to a bore brush, and the general rule of thumb seems to be one complete back and forth stroke for each round fired. 50 rounds fired (which I sometimes will do), and it’s 50 back and forth strokes with a bore brush. The copper literally has to be scraped out of the barrel.

The problem with this, of course, is that a new bore brush takes a lot of force to drive through the bore, and in doing so, the cleaning rod I’m pushing it with flexes if it is not supported while the bore brush is in the bore. That can cause the rod to bear on the chamber entrance or the leade in the chamber, and that can damage the chamber.

The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit is a contraption that allows you to protect a bolt action rifle’s chamber from the cleaning rod. An added benefit is that it prevents solvent or oil from dripping into the action. The concept is good; the execution is slightly flawed for some firearms in my opinion. That said, I’ll continue to use it on my bolt action rifles.

Here’s how the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit comes to you:

The packaged Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit as delivered from Amazon.

The pieces include a tube, an end piece with a slot for adding solvent, a sleeve that includes a combination bolt/set screw, an optional bore guide for an AR-15, and three different rubber funnels (for lack of a better word) based on the caliber.

The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit components.

In the photo above, the bore funnel is the red rubber piece on the left end of tube. Its purpose is to align the tube to the barrel. The two red rubber pieces above the tube in the photo above are for different size bores. The brass piece above the tube is the combination set screw/bolt (its use will become clear in another photo below). The stubby black at the top right of the photo above is the AR-15 chamber adaptor. The red rubber piece on the right in the photo above is guide that guides the cleaning rod into the tube. You’ll notice an elliptical cutout in it. The elliptical cutout’s purpose is to allow you to add solvent or oil to the cleaning patch at that point. The idea is to not insert a cleaning rod into the rifle with a solvent or oil soaked patch. This is to prevent the solvent or oil from dripping into the action as the cleaning rod and patch are inserted into the gun.

The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit rubber tip that inserts into the chamber mouth.

The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit sleeve and “bolt” that also functions as a set screw.

The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit inserted into my Ruger GSR.

The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit, with the “bolt” down in the GSR.

Inserting a cleaning rod and bore brush into the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit.

There are some things I did not like about the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit.

- The first is that the red rubber guide fits into the chamber will not withdraw from the action when the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit is pulled out. The rubber chamber guide hangs up on the rear of the action. It’s not a big deal. I just pulled on the tube, the guide falls off, and I reinstalled it. I only needed to do this when I was finished using the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit and I wanted to remove the thing.
- The feature that allows you to add solvent through a port in the rear red rubber guide is something I didn’t need for applying the solvent. I just dipped the cleaning rod tip (with patch) into the solvent bottle and ran it through the bore. The same is true with the oiled patch after I’m done cleaning. That extra port solves a solvent or oil application problem that doesn’t exist. But it sure came in handy when I encountered the next problem.
- The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit doesn’t work with a long action and a 26-inch barrel as the kit is configured. I tried working a new bore brush through my .30 06 Mark V Weatherby, and the cleaning rod handle butted up against the rubber guide at the Tipton bore guide’s rear end with the tip of the bore brush just showing at the end of the muzzle. That was a real “uh oh” moment. There’s no way to back the bore brush out (especially when the brush is new). The bore brush, the bore brush rod, and the Tipton were locked in place. That’s when the opening in the rear guide came in handy. I was able to grasp the cleaning rod with a pair of needlenosed pliers and turn it about an eighth of a turn at a time (my cleaning rod handle allows the rod to rotate, a feature intended to prevent the cleaning rod from unscrewing). Then I’d release the pliers’ grip, move it around the section of cleaning rod visible through the red rubber rear guide, and turn the rod another eighth of a turn. I did this for several minutes until I could get the rod unscrewed from the bore brush, and after that, I put an extension on the rod. It was a real pan in the ass. I’ll cut the length of the Tipton bore guide down to prevent this from occurring again. I feel the Tipton’s bore guide instructions should have a warning about this.

The above notwithstanding, I think the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit is still a good purchase. It seems to work well, and it prevents cleaning rod flex when running a tight-fitting bore brush through a rifle barrel, so it does what I want it to do. I paid $13.01 for mine when I bought it on Amazon. For $13, it’s a decent deal.

The Ruger .308 GSR story is here!

More product reviews are here.

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Zongshen Acquires Loncin

By Joe Berk

Two of the largest motorcycle companies in China are Zongshen and Loncin. I recently learned that Zongshen became the major shareholder of Loncin, turning Zongshen into the largest of the motorcycle companies in China. I asked my contact at Zongshen if he could tell me more about this, and he did.

Hi Joe:

On July 3rd, Zonsen Power, a listed company under Zongshen Group, announced official news. Here are the details:

Zonsen Power announced that its associate company intends to invest 3.35 billion yuan (CNY) to acquire a 24.55% stake in Loncin. Upon the completion of the transaction, Zonsen will become the largest shareholder and the actual controller of Loncin.

In fact, before this acquisition, Loncin Group had been trapped deeply a debt crisis due to heavy losses in its real estate business, leading to significant debts in 13 of its subsidiaries.

In previous years, Loncin had been trying hardly to resolve this issue, and some companies proposed acquiring shares in Loncin, but ultimately, none succeeded.

The Chongqing court ruled that Loncin Group must resolve this debt issue before August 2024, or the company will be auctioned. This acquisition of Loncin by Zonsen is likely the result of coordination by the Chongqing government.

As the previous acquisition of Lifan by Geely Automobile was not successful. Geely, a powerful automotive enterprise in China that is the largest shareholder of Daimler and once acquired 100% shares of Volvo, but had no intention of developing the motorcycle industry by acquiring Lifan. Instead, it aimed to obtain Lifan’s electric vehicle production license. However, after the acquisition, Geely did not invest much in the motorcycle sector, causing Lifan to decline significantly, which greatly displeased the local government.

Although Loncin’s real estate business has suffered heavy losses, its motorcycle business is still operating well. Therefore, the local government is unwilling to let Loncin suffer the same fate as Lifan, so it coordinated with Zonsen to acquire a majority stake in Loncin, and state-owned assets also invested in Loncin.

Whether Zongshen and Loncin’s businesses will be merged is yet to be announced officially, but most people believe that Loncin will maintain its current structure and business, and there will still be competition between the two companies in the same industry.

Thanks!

These are interesting developments. In case you were wondering, Zonsen is the name by which what we knew as Zongshen now wishes to be called. Another bit of information: 3.35 billion Chinese Yuan is the equivalent of approximately 461 million US dollars. I first visited Zongshen more than a decade ago, and the company impressed me greatly.

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Idaho: Check!

By Joe Berk

Susie and I were talking a few days ago about the states we haven’t visited. I’ve hit all but North Dakota, partly due to a sense of wanderlust and partly due to the jobs I’ve had over the last 50 years. Susie has about a dozen states on her “yet to see” list, and one was Idaho. That became our latest destination, and boy oh boy, do I have tales to tell about the Gem State. We flew into Boise with my trusty D810 Nikon and its 24-120 lens and rented a Jeep. Talk about fun! Here’s a brief look at upcoming posts.

Lucky Peak State Park

This was a great ride out of Boise: A super road and an awesome watersports destination.

World Center for Birds of Prey

Fun beyond description with an up close and personal look at raptors and scavengers. This place is fantastic. It was one of the best stops on our Idaho adventure. But they all were great. We had a blast.

Idaho State Capitol

Beautiful, laid back, and fun: Idaho’s government has its head screwed on straight, and they do it all with a part-time legislature.

Idaho State Penitentiary

A fascinating old territorial prison with fantastic stories. We loved this place.

Yanke Motor Museum

I’ve got to wait for permission from the Yanke family to share this story and all the photos with you. It was a very impressive automobile, motorcycle, tractor, and musical instrument collection.

Idaho Military Museum

Small but cool, that’s how I’d describe the Idaho Military Museum. Guns, armored vehicles, aircraft, and more. You’ll enjoy this one.

Basque Museum

The Basque Museum is a small museum in downtown Boise. It covers the history of the Basque people in Idaho as well as other parts of the United States. There were a lot of interesting things to see there and we enjoyed the stop.

Warhawk Air Museum

This is an awesome place with great exhibits, exciting photo ops, and fun docents. We chatted with a guy who moved to Idaho from Alaska, and he knew I guy I went to school with who moved to Alaska. We live in a small world, my friends.

The Hemingway Idaho Connection

Ernest Hemingway had a strong connection to Idaho. We stopped in a restaurant and general store in Picabo on our way to Craters of the Moon National Monument, and we saw three guns that Ernest Hemingway used when hunting in Idaho. Hemingway gave them to a friend, and we got a few photos.

Craters of the Moon National Monument

I blew through this area 8 years ago leading a group of Chinese motorcyclists across the American West, and I didn’t really get to see Craters of the Moon National Monument on that trip. That’s a character flaw I fixed this time around!

Shoshone Falls

Ever wonder how Twin Falls, Idaho, got its name? Well, wonder no more. We’ll tell you the story!

Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon Jump

Do you remember when Evel Knievel jumped the Snake River Canyon 50 years ago? We found our way there on this trip, and we climbed the ramp that Evel used for his wild and crazy Snake River Canyon jump. You’ll get the full story in a near term ExNotes blog!

Hagerman National Fish Hatchery

We tried, mostly because we’ve eaten a whole bunch of steelhead trout over the years. Alas, the fish had all left town by the time we visited, but that’s okay. There were plenty of other photo ops!

Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument

Commanding views of Idaho’s Snake River, prehistoric fossils, the Oregon Trail, and more were all a part of our ride out to the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument.

We covered a lot of ground, we checked the box next to Idaho for Susie, and we did all the above in just 5 days. I snapped something north of a thousand photos, and I selected the best ones to share with you here. Stay tuned, buckle up, and get ready for Idaho!

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AI Is Making Us Dumber

By Joe Berk

I’m all for intelligence (most folks would agree there’s too little of it), but I’m scared to death of artificial intelligence.

Turn the clock back 60 years. I’m a kid working in a farm and garden center and the boss (John Bocchieri, who was a neighbor and a nice guy) put me on the cash register after I’d been there about a week. The first time I rang up a sale the customer handed me a $5 bill and I had to make change. Mr. Bocchieri saw my dilemma and he told me how to do it. “You just take the amount, take money out of the drawer, and while doing so count up to what the customer gave you. That will be the right amount.” That little secret made life a lot easier for me. It even worked if the customer gave you a little more in change (you know, so you could give them back only paper money).

Today, the electronic cash registers try to make it even easier, but all they did was just screw things up. Kids will ring up a sale, the customer gives them, say, a $20 bill, the kid enters the $20, and the cash register tells them how much change to give back. If that feature isn’t working, I’ve often had clerks mentally lock up when they have to determine how much they should return. I first started seeing this during the Bush administration. (Whenever it happens, the phrase “No Child Left Behind” pops into my mind.) Relying on the cash register to determine how much change to return robbed clerks of their ability to think. Give a clerk a little extra to get paper money back (you know, say the price is $11.79 so you give the cash register jockey $20 and 79 cents), and it really throws them into overload mode.

I ran into this same phenomenon of machines doing peoples’ thinking for them in my manufacturing days. In the old days, production planning involved what the job title implied: The ability to plan a production operation. Production planners (or schedulers, as we sometimes called them) were people who knew the required manufacturing delivery dates, the manufacturing times, and the supplier component lead times. With that information, they determined what we needed from suppliers and when we had to order it, and what had to happen (and when it had to happen) in the factory to deliver product on time. We usually did just that: We delivered on time. When things didn’t go as planned in one or more of the work centers (as often happens in the manufacturing world) or if a supplier was late (another common occurrence), the production planners could develop workarounds and our products still shipped on time.

Then an evil computer program called MRP (Manufacturing Requirements Planning) came on the scene. It was software that required as inputs the info described above. The idea was that it would simplify production planning. But a funny thing happened. Over the course of a few years, the skilled production planners who could actually plan workflows through a factory retired and they were replaced with folks who were essentially data entry clerks. These folks were still called production planners, but they couldn’t plan a trip to the bathroom. The really bad thing about MRP is that it assumed everything in the factory and our deliveries from suppliers happened on time (and as anyone knows who has ever worked in a factory, it never does). When production hiccups occurred, MRP was useless and so were our so-called production planners. I guess I shouldn’t complain. I was a manufacturing consultant specializing in helping companies that couldn’t deliver on time. I made a ton of money thanks to MRP’s inadequacies and the managers who thought it was the answer to all their problems.

Another form of this disease comes in the flavor of nav systems. You know, the things driven by global positioning systems that ask for a destination and then tell you how to get there.

Don’t get me wrong: I love these nav systems. But when I use them (which is nearly all the time anymore), I lose the sense of where I am, where I’m going, and how to get there. I don’t have to think. I just listen to what Waze (or whatever program I’m using) tells me to do and I do it. I’ll tell you how bad it is: I’ve almost driven through stop signs and red lights listening to my nav system. And I secretly sort of know, deep down, that if I didn’t have the nav system, I would not know how to get to places I know that I know how to get to. If that sentence gives you trouble, read it again; I wrote it and I know it’s tough to follow. But it conveys what I’m trying to say. Maybe AI would do a better job writing it, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask it to. Writing is one of the few things I have left.

Ever been embarrassed by the autocorrect feature when you write something on your cell phone or your computer? I find it highly annoying, and my experience is that it makes as many mistakes (by auto”correcting” to a word I didn’t want to use) as it fixes. It’s a feature that’s teaching us it’s okay to not pay attention to our spelling. Maybe some people need it. Those people shouldn’t be posting comments. We are already a nation bordering on illiteracy. We don’t need help to speed us along.

Now the talk is all about artificial intelligence and where it can take us. Self-driving cars. Diagnostics software for medical doctors. Social media algorithms. Nuclear weapons control. Chatbots. Blog articles. Think about what these programs will do. They’ll degrade doctors’ ability to make diagnoses themselves. They’ll eliminate the need for drivers to drive an automobile. They’ll decide what violates “community standards” and take down posts (they are already doing this and no one likes it). They’ll decide when to launch a nuclear attack. Can you believe this is being seriously discussed? What could go wrong? Think about chatbots or the automated questions you get when trying to reach a human being on the phone. Have you ever come away from one of these encounters thinking “gee, those folks really made it easy for me?” I don’t think so.

How about AI-generated writing? I get three or four email inquiries a week from services that want to pay me to allow their blog content here on ExNotes. When I asked to see what they could do (back before I realized what they were doing), the content was awful. Thanks, but no thanks.

Nope, you can keep your AI. What’s lacking in the world is not enough plain old real intelligence, and AI will only make that worse. We need more intelligence. The real kind, not the artificial kind.

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So Cal Triumph

By Joe Berk

I recently wrote about viewing the Triumphs and Enfields at So Cal Motorcycles in Brea, California. I included a bunch of Enfield photos with a promise to show a few Triumphs in a future blog. This is that future blog.

I’ve always considered myself to be a Triumph guy, even when I rode Harleys, Suzukis, CSCs, and my current Enfield. It’s a brand loyalty that goes back to my motoformative years in the 1960s. It was a lot easier then; Triumph’s models could be counted on one hand. Today, it’s confusing. I’d have to take off my shoes and socks to count them all. It’s too much for my 3-kilobyte mind, and I’m not going to cover all the Triumph models here. So Cal Triumph probably had them all in stock, though. There were a lot of motorcycles there, including a vintage Triumph Bonneville.

A Triumph gas tank. — One of the most beautiful motorcycle fuel tanks in the world: A Triumph Bonneville gas tank.

A Triumph Bonneville. — An original Triumph Bonneville. These are very classy motorcycles. These bikes weighed a scant 363 pounds.

There were two models I wanted to see when Sue and I visited So Cal Triumph. One was the new Triumph 400 single we wrote about a few months ago; the other was Triumph’s 2500cc triple uberbike at the opposite end of the spectrum. We saw both.

Check out the comparison photos of the vintage Bonneville’s 650cc engine and the Rocket 3 engine.

The fuel tank and powerplant on an original Triumph Bonneville.

A Triumph Rocket 3. — A similar view of Triumph’s latest and greatest: A 2500cc Rocket 3. For their size and weight, I found them to be surprisingly nimble.

The Rocket 3 is a study in excess in all areas, including price and fuel consumption. That said, I find this motorcycle irresistible. I test rode one at Doug Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino when Triumph’s big triple first became available. I had a beautiful blue Triumph Tiger in those days and Doug himself let me ride the new Rocket 3. The Rocket 3 was huge then and it is huge now, but it felt surprisingly light and nimble. I don’t know how Triumph did it, but they somehow made the Rocket 3 flickable. I like it and I’d like to own one. The styling on the latest iteration makes the bike look even better.

Triumph Rocket 3 motorcycles. — So Cal Triumph had three of these monstrous Triumphs on the showroom floor.

The Rocket 3 rear end. — The Rocket 3’s single-sided swingarm and industrial-sized rear tire.

The Rocket 3 fuel tank. — Another chrome surface, another selfie.

The price for this massive Triumph? Here you go:

Triumph Rocket 3 price. — A new world fiction record: An $1800 setup and freight fee! Have they no shame?

I mentioned that there were a bunch of different Triumph models, and I suppose I should be embarrassed that I don’t know all of them like I used to. I think the problem is that I know so many things there’s only a little bit of room available for new knowledge, and I don’t want to squander that on Triumph’s extensive offerings. I know there’s the current crop of modern Bonnevilles; I don’t know all the variants thereof. But I recognize a good chrome gas tank when I see one, and I know a selfie opportunity when it presents itself.

A chrome-plated Triumph fuel tank. — In the “have you no shame?” category: One more selfie.

Back to part of the objective for this blog: Seeing the new smaller Triumphs. One of these is Triumph’s dirt bike. I have no idea what the TF or the X represent (maybe the X is related to moto X, you know, as in motocross). The 250, I’m pretty sure, is the displacement. These bikes are made in the Triumph factory in Thailand (as are all models in the Bonneville line). The 250cc Triumph is not a street bike (although they made a street 250 back in the ’60s). I’d never seen the new 250 prior to my So Cal Triumph visit.

A Triumph motocross bike. — The Triumph motocross livery.

Tall, gangly, and handsome: The Triumph TF250X.

The I found what I really wanted to see: Triumph’s new 400cc singles. There are two models here: A Speed 400 (the street-oriented version), and the Scrambler 400X (another street-oriented version doing a dual sport motorcycle impersonation). The styling works for me; they both looked like what I think a Triumph should look like. We wrote about these when they were first announced; this was the first time I had seen them in person.

Triumph’s new 400cc single. The styling works. It looks like a Triumph. I like it.

Another Triumph 400cc single. The fit and finish are great.

I asked a salesman in the Triumph showroom where these were made. He told me India (which I already knew, but I wanted to see if he would answer honestly). He then quickly added, “but they are built to Triumph quality requirements.” It was that “but…” qualifier in his comment that I found interesting. It was obviously a canned line, but for me, it was unnecessary. I have an Indian-made motorcycle (my Enfield) and I would put its quality up against any motorcycle made anywhere in the world. I suppose many folks assume that if a motorcycle is not made in Germany, Japan, Italy, or America, its quality and parts availability are going to be bad. But that’s not the case at all.

The price on the Street 400 is a lot lower than the Scrambler; it is about $5K.

The price on the Triumph 400 Scrambler was substantially higher than the price on the Enfields I saw at So Cal Triumph. The Speed 400 was within spitting distance of the Enfield’s price, though. Are the Triumphs really better than the Enfields? I don’t know. So Cal Enfield/So Cal Triumph probably does; they see what’s going on with both bikes when they are brought in for service. That info would be interesting.

I didn’t ride either bike, mostly because I’m not in the market and I didn’t have my helmet and gloves with me. I sat on the Triumph Street 400 and it fit me well. I recognize that’s no substitute for a road test. I also recognize that a short road test is no substitute for a 1500-mile run through Baja, which is the kind of duty my motorcycles see. I like the Triumph 400cc singles and the Enfield 350cc singles. They are both right sized, good-looking motorcycles. If money didn’t matter to me and I had room in the garage, I’d buy both bikes. They both look good and their Indian-origins don’t scare me at all. If I had to pick one, it would be a tough choice.

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Coming Up: A Soprano Safari

Yep, that’s what I’m planning now. Susie and I are flying to New Jersey for a class reunion, and I’m going to be the ultimate tourist. What I have in mind is a series of visits to key spots that were featured in the HBO television series, The Sopranos. If there’s something you think I’ve missed, let me know and it may just show up on the list.

Holsten’s Restaurant

Holsten’s is the restaurant where Tony was whacked. It’s still open. Never been there; I’ve been wanting to ever since The Sopranos hit the airwaves.

Bahr’s and the Sandy Hook Marina

Bahr’s is the outstanding seafood restaurant Tony and others mention frequently in the series, and the Sandy Hook Marina where Tony kept his boat (The Stugots) is just below it. I’ve been to both places many times, and I’m looking forward to going again.

Pizza Land

Pizza Land is the pizza place you see Tony drive by in the opening scene of every episode. It was a low revenue pizza joint before it made it into the Sopranos. It has since become a sensation. Today, they ship frozen pizzas all over the world, and it all came about because of that brief glimpse in the opening scene.

Wilson’s Carpet Store

The giant carpet guy statue is another feature seen in the opening scene of every Soprano’s episode. It’s in Jersey City, the same place that xxx gun store is located (there the guys that handle the FFL transfer for the MacManus Award 1911 every year). I’ll got a shot of the carpet guy and the gun shop.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

This is one of two churches used in the series. It’s the one Tony shows to AJ when he explains what things were like for the Italian immigrants who came to America. Like Wilson’s Carpet Store, it’s in Jersey City. My Mom grew up in Jersey City and my grandparents lived there for a while. I want to see it again; I haven’t been there in more than 60 years.

Cleveland Auto Body

This is a body shop that was run by Big Pussy Bompensiero and was taken over by his wife, Angie Bompansiero, after Big Pussy was whacked for being a rat. I understand it’s a real body shop. I want to get a photo.

Tony and Carmela’s Mansion

Yep, it’s an actual house that a couple actually lived in when The Sopranos producers spotted. They asked if they could rent the house and the rest is history.

The Rutgers Campus

Rutgers is mentioned many times in The Sopranos. In the story, Tony attended a semester and a half at Seton Hall, but in real life, James Gandolfini attended and graduated from Rutgers. So did I. I want to visit the campus again, stop in to say hi to the ROTC detachment, and shoot a few pictures.

The Paterson Falls

There are a couple of scenes filmed at the falls in Paterson, New Jersey. In one, Mikey Palmici throws a guy off a bridge. In another, Hesh threatens to do the same. I’ve never been there. I’ll fix that on this trip.

The Skyway Diner

This diner appears in several scenes, most notably with Janice Melfi (Tony’s psychiatrist) and Christopher Multisanti. We have a lot of diners in New Jersey. I’ve never been in a bad one. If it’s still in business, I’ll stop there for a cup of coffee.

Joe’s Bake Shop

This is bakery where Christopher Multisanti shoots a counter guy in the foot for slow service. I don’t now if it’s real, but if it is, I want to stop and get a pastry. I know it will be good; it’s where I grew up there are no bad bakeries in New Jersey.

Father Phil’s Church

Father Phil was a kind of a mealy-mouthed priest that Tony saw through right away. There were a few scenes filmed in that church. I’m going to stop in.

Satriale’s

Satriale’s was a fictional pork store used by Tony and his crew. It’s since been demolished and today it’s a parking lot. That’s the pork store used in the series. What you may not know is one quarter of a mile away on the same street is a real pork store that was used by the DeCavalcante crime family, the real organized crime group. If I can get a photo without getting in trouble, I’m going to.

The Bada Bing

There never was a real Bada Bing topless joint, and topless dancing is illegal in New Jersey. But The Satin Dolls in Lodi (a similar bar with a similar theme, but again, not topless) that was used for the show was real and I will stop there. I read somewhere that it had closed too, but you never know. Anything for the ExNotes blog, guys.

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The Wayback Machine: The Springfield Mile

By Joe Berk

That photo above? It’s the Springfield mile, with riders exiting Turn 4 at over 100 mph on their way up to 140 or so. These boys are really flying. It is an incredible thing to see.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Two blogs back I wrote about the East Windsor half-mile dirt track, which has gone the way of the dodo bird. The Springfield Mile is bigger and better and last I checked it’s still with us. A dozen years ago I made the trek out to Illinois to watch the big boys (and a lady or two) mix it up and it was awesome. I don’t know if this is accurate or if it’s more biker bullshit, but the guys claim the bikes hit 140 mph in the straights and maintain a cool 100 in the turns. And “straights” is a relative term. The track is basically a big oval, with the straights being less of a curve. What’s nice about oval track racing, though, is you usually can see all the action all the time. When you go to a grand prix type event, you get to see the bikes or the cars for just an instant when they scream past wherever you are. Oval tracks are a better deal, I think.

We planned to ride to Springfield from So Cal, but just before it was wheels-in-the-wells time my good buddy Larry passed and I stayed for his funeral. We flew instead and because that gave us a little bit more of our most precious commodity (time), we bopped around Springfield a bit more. We visited Springfield’s Lincoln Museum and had a lot of fun getting there. I drove our rental car and we promptly got lost (it was in the pre-GPS era). We pulled alongside a police officer and he gave us directions. As soon as I pulled away, I asked my buds which way to go. “I don’t know,” they answered, “we weren’t listening…” Neither was I. We all had a good laugh over that one.

An interesting Norton in the fairgrounds parking lot.

The Illinois State Fairgrounds has two tracks, one is a quarter-mile dirt oval and the other is the big mile track. The quarter-mile races were awesome. This racing, all by itself, would have been worth the trip out there. I love watching the flat trackers.

These boys are kicking up some dirt coming out of Turn 4 on the Illinois State Fairgrounds quarter-mile track.

One of the riders lost it coming our of Turn 4 and he crashed hard directly in front of us.

I didn’t think he was going to get up, but he did. The next day, this guy won a heat on the 1-mile track. The announcer said he was “tougher than a $2 steak.” I believe it.

The next day, we went to the 1-mile track on the other side of the State Fairgrounds.

The field entering Turn 2 at over 100 mph on the Springfield 1-mile track. The noise is incredible and there’s nothing like it. These guys are drifting sideways at 100 mph, just a few inches apart!

The same shot as above, but with the two fastest riders at the Springfield Mile identified. The arrows point to Chris Carr (National No. 4 in the white and orange leathers) and Kenny Coolbeth (National No. 1 in the black leathers). Coolbeth won on Sunday and Carr won on Monday. This photo was just after the start.

One lap later: Coolbeth and Carr are riding as a closely-matched pair well ahead of the group.

I was really happy with these shots. I had my old Nikon D200 and a cheap lens (a 10-year old, mostly plastic, $139 Sigma 70-300). I zoomed out to 300 mm, set the ISO to 1000 for a very high shutter speed (even though it was a bright day), and the lens at f5.6 (the fastest the inexpensive Sigma would go at 300mm). The camera’s autofocus wouldn’t keep up with the motorcycles at this speed, so I manually focused on Turn 2 and waited (but not for long) for the motorcycles to enter the viewfinder. It was close enough for government work, freezing the 100-mph action for the photos you see above.

Kenny Coolbeth, after winning the Springfield Mile.

Nicole Cheza, a very fast rider. She won the “Dash for Cash” and the crowd loved it.

As you might expect, there were quite a few things happening off the track, too. Johnsonville Brats had a huge tractor trailer onsite equipped with grills, and they were serving free grilled brat sandwiches. It was a first for me, and it worked…I’ve been buying Johnsonville brats ever since. There were hundreds of interesting motorcycles on display and a vintage World War II bomber orbiting the area.

An old B-17 flying above the track…it made several appearances that weekend.

An old Ariel Square Four. The owner started it and it sounded like two Triumph 650s.

An old two-stroke Bridgestone, a marque that never quite made it in the US. Imagine the marketing discussions in Japan: “Let’s logo it the BS…that will work!”

So there you have it, along with a bit of advice from yours truly: If you ever have an opportunity to see the Springfield Mile, go for it. I had a great time and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

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Jesse Watters At The Nixon Library

By Joe Berk

Jesse Watters is an anchorman on Fox News, and one of the five panelists on the Fox News show, The Five. We recently had an opportunity to listen to him speak at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. I’m a bit behind on my blogging, I guess. We’ve been to the Nixon Library a number of times and I keep meaning to write about it, but I just haven’t gotten to it yet. I will, but not in this blog. This blog is focused on Mr. Watters.

I’m a bit conflicted about this post because here on ExNotes we try to steer way away from anything political. It’s not that I’m not political, nor is it that I don’t have opinions. We just realize that if we start taking positions we’ll insult half our audience no matter which side we take. That’s what America has become. It might be left versus right, Republican versus Democrat, CNN versus Fox, Trump versus Biden, or any of the hundreds of other topics that have the nation polarized. Hence our editorial position is we don’t take a position. No politics. Jesse Watters works for Fox News, so there’s a risk half of you might interpret this as a right wing, Republican, Trump-biased, Fox News kind of blog. If you think this is political or if I offend you, hey, mea culpa in advance. It isn’t my intent to do so.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’ll share with you that we have friends in high places at the Nixon Library. That’s a good thing, because the Jess Watters event was sold out weeks ago. It was 50 bucks a pop, and not only did they quickly fill the 700-seat main auditorium (modeled after the White House’s East Room), but the Library had to open a remote room to accommodate another 300 people. We stood in line for an hour waiting to get in. It was worth it. We had great seats.

On the air, Jesse Watters is an articulate, captivating news announcer and panelist. He started his work for Fox doing man in the street questions in a series called “Watters’ World,” in which he’d ask people questions about things in the news. Most of the time, the folks he asked had only cursory knowledge of the topic, or no knowledge at all. It didn’t stop them from attempting to answer, though, and their responses were entertaining. Jay Leno used to do something similar in a series he called “JayWalking.” Watters started his “Watters’ World” series while Bill O’Reilly hosted the Fox News 5:00 p.m. news hour, but O’Reilly lost his job during the Me, Too movement. I didn’t know about O’Reilly’s misygony and I thought he was the smartest guy on TV at the time, but he screwed up and he was gone. O’Reilly was replaced by a guy named Tucker Carlson, whom I couldn’t stand (not because of his politics; for reasons I can’t put my finger on I just didn’t like the guy). Carlson didn’t last long, and when he went, Watters became the main news dude. I like watching Watters do the news.

Jesse Watters’ new book, Get It Together.

Watters has written at least two books now, and our tickets to this event included a copy of his latest, Get It Together. I haven’t read it yet. When I do, I’ll post a review here.

The format for the Watters event was unusual, at least it seemed so to me. Instead of having Watters speak for the usual 45 minutes or so, a woman whose name I can’t remember interviewed him. It was interesting conversation and I enjoyed it, even though it was different from the format I expected. My impression was that Watters seemed nervous speaking in front of a large group and that surprised me. He was articulate and I can’t put my finger on anything he said or did that made me feel he was nervous; it’s just my impression. Maybe I’m wrong.

If you haven’t seen the “Watters’ World” interviews, I found a couple on Youtube I’ll share with you here.

I mentioned that I thought the earlier Jay Leno “JayWalking” interviews were better, but you be the judge. Here are a couple of Youtubes for those, too.

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A 1961 Ford Starliner

By Joe Berk

I was having a bad day and I was in a blue funk, but new friend Chuck and his magnificent 1961 Ford Starliner came to the rescue. Read on and you’ll understand.

A white that is almost a very faint gray. Chuck’s 1961 Starliner looks great; I think it would look even better in lipstick red.

The blue mood story goes like this: I have a 2018 Subaru Outback that I love except for the entertainment system. That’s the touchscreen, the backup camera display, the navigation system, the Bluetooth phone system, and the radio (including Sirius XM). Subaru calls it the entertainment system, but it has been anything but entertaining. It went out repeatedly in the first couple of years that I’ve owned the car and the Subie dealer replaced it three times. God only knows how many times I’ve brought the car back to the dealer to have them reflash the chip, the part in which miracles occur that govern everything.

After it was fixed, the entertainment system still had its moods. When I ‘d hang up after a phone call, the radio (even if it wasn’t on before the call) immediately went to max volume. When I start the car the radio turns on, even if I turned it off previously. The nav system scrolls through screens whenever it feels like doing so. The touchscreen stops taking inputs. Maybe Subaru named it correctly. It has been entertaining.

You can guess where this story is going. As a 2018 model, my Subaru is off its warranty, and the entertainment system went out again. I took it to the dealer and they charged me $215 to tell me my car needs, you guessed it, a new entertainment system. The price? Close to $2500.

So that’s what put me in a foul mood. If you go online and Google this topic, Subaru entertainment system anomalies are all over the Internet. There are literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who have experienced the same issues. I think Subaru should have extended the warranty and addressed the underlying design problems. I called Subaru of America and bitched about my situation and they “opened up a claim” (whatever that means). They are supposed to get back to me later next week.

On the way home from the dealer, I stopped for gas. It’s dropped $0.20 per gallon recently, which puts regular unleaded at $4.79 a gallon here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. That’s still way too high. It added to my blue funk. Then I saw the Starliner. As I shut off my Subaru after pulling up to the pump, I saw this cool rear roof profile and heard the deep rumbling of an American V8. You know, sounding the way an engine should sound. I could feel the vibrations of its thumps through the ground. The way God intended automobile engines to be before Gen X, Y, Z, or whatever we’re up to now started saving the planet. At first, I thought this anti-Gore convenient truth was a Buick, or maybe an Oldsmobile, because all I could see from my vantage point was the rear roof line, with what looked like the three portholes that graced the fenders of early Buicks. But I was wrong. It wasn’t a GM product at all.

390 cubic inches and 375 horsepower. Lots of chrome. No chips. America at its best, in my opinion.

Tri-Power. Three two-barrel carburetors, if you come from a generation denoted by a letter. A great time to be a teenager, the 1960s were.

I spoke to Chuck, the owner, and he told me I was looking at a 1961 Ford Starliner, one of fewer than 30,000 Ford Galaxie variants made that year. Even fewer were made with Ford’s 375-horsepower, 390-cubic-inch, Tri-Power engine. Wow. Tri-Power. I hadn’t even heard the term, Tri-Power, in maybe 30 or 40 years. The car has a 3.55 rear end and Posi-Traction (another term I hadn’t heard in a while). Chuck opened the hood and showed me the engine. I was in heaven. I forgot all about my Subaru woes.

I told Chuck about the ExhaustNotes blog and asked if I could take a few photos. “Sure,” he said.

A retro-modern interior, with the period-correct aftermarket Sun tachometer. Cue up the Beach Boys or Jan & Dean.

A Hurst shifter, with a genuine Hurst T-handle. I had one of these in my GTO. Wrapping your hand around a Hurst shifter handle is a sensual experience. It was cool when being cool meant something. If you know, you know. If not, go play with your cell phone.

I asked about the wheels. They’re made by Ford, but they weren’t the wheels that came with the car. Chuck pointed out that the rear wheels are wider than the front wheels. His Starliner now has disk brakes, an upgrade from the original equipment. Everything about this car was appealing. Especially the, you know, exhaust notes. It sounded heavenly.

The wheels just worked on this car. They looked great.

The view from the rear quarter. It was an amazing car. Made my day, that Starliner did.

Chuck told me the car was for sale. The ticket in was $35,000. That’s just about what I paid for my Subaru 6 years ago. “It’s nice, but I couldn’t swing it right now,” I told Chuck. “Not enough people are clicking on the ExhaustNotes popup ads.”

The gas pump on my Subie clicked off, setting a new record: $77 to fill my tank. I didn’t care. The Starliner had me in a good place, and I was going to stay there.

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