Moving lights

It's getting busy at work just as expected as the month of August winds to a close. We had a production booked where additional lighting was added on Friday evening and confirmed on Saturday morning causing a Saturday shop call to pull the gear and I had to come in to get paperwork sorted. On my growing list of things TO DO was to get custom road cases built for the new Mac 350 moving heads. We are the first in the area to invest in these LED powered moving lights so we don't have the option to call a case company and ask what is on file. Being that Saturday was my only off-day for the week and I was at work I figured I'd do my best to do a little of work and play. I'll take one of the lights to the case company via the motorcycle and then I'll get to talk face to face with the designer and we'll work things out for the design without the use of email and phone calls.

I called Jack up at Tour Duty case company in Delaware and asked if I could possibly drop off a light today at his shop if he happened to be near his shop. He said he was at work too, and that it would be no problem. I finished up my paperwork and called the wife to tell her my brilliant plan for the day. Told her she could come with me or do things on her own but I needed to get this done and not put it off another day. She said she was in, so I packed up my light with case foam that we have in stock for the 1.5 hour journey North. It's a Saturday, there won't be any traffic.



We get on the road and everything is smooth until we hit Delaware. There was major traffic and as our speed slowed from highway to crawl the reality of the heat set in. Miserable is a good way to describe a fully loaded motorcycle with a passenger, in the heat, in heavy traffic. After sitting in stop and go for a while we made it to our location and meet up with Jack. We talked for about five minutes about the best way to build the case with the plan B of using the case in the future for more standard gear if the market just doesn't like these fancy LED lights. We are having the cases built from the shell of double 1-ton motor cases so we can retrofit the case easily if the manufacturer puts out the version II model that is twice as bright and 3" wider in three months. High End System has had a habit of doing that sort of thing, and I'm sure Martin would do the same thing given a willing market.



My one goal of getting some work done was accomplished, but the play for the day part wasn't exactly complete because the slow burn of Delaware beach traffic wasn't satisfying. I asked Jack where we should have lunch in the area since we are in a different town and he directed us to the Dutch Market that was close by. We rode over to the market and parked by a bunch of Harley Davidsons, one of which had zebra stripes to complement the chrome touches. The market was more like the "Dundalk Dutch market" - if you get the joke good, if you don't I can't explain it here. Anyhow, we walked around and had chocolate covered bacon as a treat which was really tasty, then a hot dog in a soft pretzel dough and then a slice of pizza. And, no I didn't go to the gym on Saturday.



On the ride back home I pulled over on the side of 95 in a shaded spot so I could stop burning my clutch for a little while and to have a drink. No sooner did I pull off the road to have a drink of water than the traffic starts to move at a reasonable pace. Five minute break and we're back in the mix. The rest of the trip was uneventful except for honking my horn at a teenage driver next to me who was text messaging while driving at 65 mph. She snapped her head up and then looked at me with a WTF glare then honked her horn back in protest. This detail was satisfying.