8 August 2009 Seattle, Washington

Today I had to get going because I needed to get my sprockets on order if they weren’t available at the Kawasaki Dealership and I needed to stop at an ATM machine for U.S. Dollars. We stopped at a parts store to pick up some engine degreaser. We stopped at a Starbucks Coffeehouse to check if my laptop will hook up with their WiFi. It didn’t, which was a bad sign that something is wrong with my computer. Carol and I drove over to Best Buy to have the Geek Squad take a look at it. They ran it through series of checks to see if they could get it to hook up with their WiFi. No luck. They ran it through some other checks and determined the WiFi card was bad. This is my workhorse when comes to communicating with the outside world and my major information source. I asked if they had any recommendations and they said to purchase an external WiFi Unit which attaches to the USB port. So that’s the route I went with. I also purchased a networking cable so I can hardwire into the hotels and campground internet if they don’t have WiFi. I also stopped at the Kawasaki Dealer and bought a new chain and sprockets. The sprockets I had to order and they wouldn’t arrive until Wednesday. That was another bad thing. At this point I was planning a maximum of a five day stay in Seattle and I wanted to put on the sprockets when I changed tires. I couldn’t do this if they were on order. So it was back to the house to start work on the motorcycle. First thing on the agenda was to check the valve adjustment. I removed the saddle bags/panniers, the seat and the gas tank. The top of the engine was now exposed so I could work on it. Ken immediately started washing my saddle bags, side panels, gas tank and seat. Everything was a mess with dirt and sand. While I was working to get to the valves, Ken kept washing. Before nightfall I accessed the valves and checked them. They were in pretty good shape considering I haven’t checked them in over 10,000 miles/16219 Kilometers. Three valve clearances were setting at their high limits and one was in spec. It didn’t need adjustment. Tomorrow I will adjust it to its high limit so all the valves are uniform. It will be 10,000 miles/16219 kilometers or more before I check these valves again. By readjusting this one valve to its high limit all the valves will be uniformly at their high limits, which will be great. It’s too dark to continue working so that’s it for today. We ate supper and went to bed.