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Wow, time has literally flown by since my last blog post, I've been so busy with work and weekends filled with taking the bike out on the track! Everyone has been nudging me to keep the posts going, so I'll do my best to fill in the last three weeks worth without boring you all to tears!

Work is going really well, I've been moved up into the 'front room', where the printing machines are a little bit more complicated, a little bit faster, and a little bit more technical. Packing is still roughly the same, and I've been doing well so far to keep up with the pace of the printing machines (up to 1000 envelopes per minute!) so I'm really happy with everything on the job front. I get along really well with everyone at work, they're a cool bunch of people! One of the ladies celebrated her 15th year in the company last week, which I thought was absolutely amazing! She's not the only long-server either, some of the others have been there even longer! From what I see, the company really looks after it's staff, if they didn't I doubt the staff would stay so long. I'm still feeling really good about being back in the workforce again, being a productive member of society. I'm pretty quickly getting used to the 12 hour shifts, I think working all hours of the day and night when I was with the V8's helped me somewhat with that. Other than that, I'm still learning how everything runs, how the different envelopes are made, and how the rest of the company works outside of the manufacturing floor. I find it really interesting to see how the whole company operates.

Outside of work, I've been concentrating on getting my bike 'sorted' again, thanks mainly to my new flow in income. So far, I've fixed a couple of issues with the cooling cycle, as the bike was tending to overheat on longer rides, and give the motor a good all round servicing in general. Today, I went to a track day, with a couple of good friends, and only had one small issue where the bike started smoking quite a bit after I started using the top end of the rev range... Long story short, I inadvertently over-filled the oil when I did the oil and filter change, and it over-pressurized into the cylinders down the back straight. My friends quickly realized what had happened, and we dropped the excess oil from the sump. I was worried it might have done internal damage, but they said it 'should be fine', so I went out in the next session and let the remaining oil (in the cylinders) burn off by itself. After that, the bike was running better than ever! I was putting in some really good laps, reaching a really good top speed down the back straight, and getting more and more confident with my cornering. My best run was just before the rain set in, and as everyone else was packing up to go home, I decided to stay out for one more session to concentrate on my 'line' at slower speed before I called it a day as well. It was good too, on my last session I had the track all to myself! The flagmen were cheering me on from the start-finish line, which was really cool too. And, the other positive thing was that the bike didn't overheat once all day, so I'm really stoked that the day turned out so good in the end. Initially, when I saw all the blue smoke coming out of the exhaust, I thought I'd done major damage - maybe blown a piston ring, or a head gasket, or something expensive, so when it turned out to be a minor, I was so relieved!

While I'm on the subject, I'd like to say a big Thank You to the event organizers from today, it really was a great day, and I greatly appreciated the officials coming over to make sure I was okay after they saw my bike smoking so much! For anyone riding in the Auckland region, I highly recommend coming to the next event (in September I think), check this out for info: Pro Rider Website. If you do come, you'll definitely see me there!

Anyways, I'm buzzing that everything is still going really well in all aspects of my life, next up is to find a place to move into... The arrangement I have with the absolutely awesome people that are letting me stay here isn't permanent, I'm saving for a bond and looking at 'flatmates wanted' adverts online and in the papers. My only two requirements are: the house has to have a garage for my bike, and that it's relatively close to work. Hopefully that criteria wont be too hard to fulfill! Once I've got a fraction more money saved, I'll be ready. So everyone has to cross their fingers for me again, just this once last time! (Unless you want to keep them crossed for me to win lotto next weekend...? Lol)

Well, that's about all from me, next weekend is going to be a quiet one (at this stage), some of the guys I ride with are going for an annual meetup down south, but I've decided not to go so I can just relax (and save more of course!)

I do hope that everyone out there is doing as well as I am at the moment!


Until next time...

:-)