If you have been reading my Milan - Taranto blog (and why have you not been?) you will now I had a 2 week trip to Italy in early July and ran in the Milan - Taranto rally on my MV 350B motorbike.

I returned to Australia mid July and started work straight away which came as a bit of a shock and its taken me a couple of weeks to stop wishing for Italy any longer.

I have doing little, just bits and pieces around the house, messing about with my computers (building a new mythtv box) and thinking about building a new webserver virtual machine to take over from my old one that has been running now for perhaps 3 years. I’m worried its a bit exposed.

What do people recommend as far as a flick the switch web server goes? Just down load a LAMP server from VMware and fire it up?

Meh, I don’t know. I’m thinking of going lightweight web-blog as well, wordpress seems to me to be the most bloated of all weblogs, I’m thinking nanoblogger.

So, suggestions on webserver VM and blogging app please.

Check it out at…..
www.milan-taranto.com

That didn’t take long.

Big thank you to my wife for putting up with me.

My old man will be in Italy tomorrow week so it has worked out to be very good timing.

Today is the last day of study for me with my final exam ever (I hope) at uni tomorrow at 9am. Its on Torts law and I am so sick and tired of studying. Wish me luck!

Its one of the final steps of a project that has turned out to be a little larger than I thought it was going to be - however, its al a learning experience.

Anyway - here are some pics of the bike in the crate.

I expect it to actually leave on the ship next Saturday with a transit time to Italy of about 40 days which should give us a few weeks of the bike in italy with out me there which is very decent indeed.

One of the things I did to get the bike into Italy is to get a Carnet de Passage. My only concern is that when they get it in Italy no one will know what the heck to do with a bike arriving on a carnet de Passage and procede to make life uncomfortable for me in getting the bloody thing out of customs - fingures crossed.

Pics as always.

In the crate - on its way

The 250km trip from the Southwest back to Perth went without a hitch (save for loosing a foot peg rubber somewhere around Bunbury). All up now I have put arpound 700km on it over the last month and all if

The bike went well, no oil usgage, no funny noises (save for tapets that are now in need or re-adjustment) and not a single hickup.

So, in a couple of weeks, assuming all goes well the bike will be packed into a crate and shipped off to Italy. The trip is comming together!

Well hello all.

The MV 350B is on the road and I need to get some km’s on it b4 it gets on the ship in a couple of weeks for Italy.

As its easter this weekend I took the oportunity to ride to Dunsborough in the south west of WA. 250km there then 250 km back.

Got to Dunsborough fine Friday morning. Leaving to go back to Perth tomorrow midday.

Went for a quick ride to the Cape Naturaliste light house this arvo, have pic to prove it.

From a young age I recall a cuckoo clock she had on the wall and although it was there when I moved in I wasn’t sure if we had thrpown it out - funnily enough I actually thought about the clock a little while ago and concluded its was gone.

Guess what was in the long packed suitcase - the cuckoo clock.

Its awesome, still works and keeps time.

Its great when you find thing you thought had been lost for ever

Having fitted the fuel taps I thought it prudent to fill the tank a little with fuel, swish it about and then empty again to get rid of any bits and pieces that may have found there way into the tank, I was shocked to see flakes of grey paint flowing out when I tipped the tank up-side-down.

It would appear that the cleaver chap that chemically stripped the tank thought it a great idea to not only spray the outside of the tank but to also stick a bit of paint inside then role it around inside to ensure it doesn’t rust - he shouldn’t have gone to so much effort. Its obvious his thought process didn’t include “This is a fuel tank, I should not put paint that gets stripped with flurocarbons inside”. Dim wit.

What a complete mess, after trying with a chain to scrap it off and multiple petrol swill-outs its still in there and its going to be a job to get it all out.

We will have to resort to a tank sealer kit I think with the hope that it will form a seal over both the bare metal and the still painted portions of the inside of the tank - my only fear is that the sealer will strip the paint as well causing all sorts of fun. If this fails it may need to be stripped again and repainted - something I don’t want to dwell on too much at this stage.

Wish me luck during the week.

Just need to get the tank back from the painter now which should be next weekend then take it for a run - can’t wait!