The Bike runs right again!

So after a week of driving around with inner tube on my air filters, I received my new jets for my carburetor.  Switching them out only took about 20 minutes so that is cool.  Taking the carburetor off this bike is really easy.  I have a 1980 Yamaha xj 650 maxim.  The main jets in this bike are 110's and the pilot jets are 40's.  I went up to 116's and 41's.  That made all the difference.  The bike can be driven like normal again!  It seems faster and able to get up to speed faster but I cant really tell because I remember driving around a messed up bike for a week and don't remember a regular bike.  With the new pod filters on there I actually have an air filter though.  When we broke apart the stock air box last Saturday we found no filter in my bike so that is good.  I don't have any pictures of the jet change because you cant tell a difference from the outside but trust me, there is a huge difference.  I did pretty good guessing which jets to buy the first time around I would say.  I've never done this stuff before so I surprised my self.  When I put the carburetor back on the bike and just drove around on it it seemed like it needed some tuning and that worried me because its just one more thing but I think the weirdness was due to the fact that the carburetors weren't full of fuel yet.  Now I am looking at what kind of handlebars I want to get to replace the antlers I have on there now.  I'm looking at some clip-ons but I worry about their strength and If i'm too big for them.  I don't want to die because I was going down the freeway and my handlebar broke off.  Still need to figure out the seat situation and get real blinkers plus a bunch of other eBay stuff but all the extra parts aren't too much so its cool.

September 26, 2013

Capture:  I really enjoyed our second teaching opportunity today.  I liked sharing what we had to teach.  I remember from last time that the advice that I was given was to not teach to the board so I did well with that but there is still things I could have done better.  Geoff said to never apologize to the class for that little stuff like not being prepared.  It seems just natural because I could have done better but he made a good point about it taking away from the lesson and the class's attention.  It could make the students lose faith in you.
Analysis:  I think I do this, and we all had silly little things that we could have done better but, it is a way to relieve the pressure or tension from teaching.
Action:  We just need more time to practice teaching.  I feel like I did many times better this time compared to last time.  If I just had more opportunities to teach to the class then I would get better.  I get a little anxious but I enjoy it each time.  I get fired up to share what I've learned.

Bandaids

So while I still don't have the right jets for my carburetor I needed a way to still go on the freeway and get to school and back I came up with a solution.  I luckily had some pieces of inner tube from my mountain bike that were perfect for slipping over the pod filters.  I thought this would help restrict the airflow to a manageable level.  I am not at 100% previous power yet but the bike idles really well so I've got that going on now.  First gear is tough because of this jet issue I think.  Also going faster than 60mph is hard because of the same reason but it'll get there.  Happy with having a project but I probably could have picked a better time for this because of school.  Once the bike is up for winter I will take it all apart and do the big cosmetic stuff.  It will be sweet!

More work on my xj!

Yesterday I went to a friends house and spent way too long going over my carburetors by we did them and then installed the pod filters that I had ordered.  The bike sounds good but is completely gutless most likely because I've changed the air to fuel ratio and now there is too much air.  A quick Google search of the problem verifies that is most likely the cause of the sluggishness.  I should have prepared for this with the right jets the first time but I've never done this stuff before and my friend who was teaching me how to do a carb rebuild didn't know to expect this problem.  The bike still needs a lot of work but its coming along.  I almost forgot about the oil change adventure we encountered.  Who ever owned the bike before me that changed the oil last messed up the but that keeps the filter cap tight.  We tried getting it off with a regular wrench but couldn't get it off.  It was rusty and ruined.  We tried cutting a notch in the bolt so we could  try and get a big flat head screw driver in there but that didn't work either.  My friend Levi had a welder so he found a nut that fit over the ruined bolt and welded it to the end.  This gave us the area to put on a big breaker bar and use that to get enough torque to remove the stuck bolt.  It was a long day and I could hardly say it was worth it but its over now even if my bike doesn't run all that well at the moment.  I also came up with a name for the bike that I think is funny.  "The Racing Moose".  I'll decide if I make it official as I go on.

xj650 project

I needed to document this somewhere so I will do it here.  I recently got my first motorcycle!  It is a lot of fun and pretty quick to get up and go.  I havent taken it to its top speed because riding is a new thing to me but I am impressed with myself and how fast I have gotten comfortable with riding it after only a week.  I picked it up off ksl for 800 dollars and I am really excited to get going on  this project.  I need projects in my life to keep me interested and mentally active.  Honestly I am thinking about my different projects at the most inappropriate times.  Anyway,  It is in rough condition at the moment but I picked this one over the many others because I saw potential.  It is a 650 cc engine bike so it has enough power to move my meat around town and get down the freeway just fine.  Its carburetors need to be cleaned out but we are going to do that this weekend.  I say we because I made a new friend last week, Levi.  I got his number from a mutual friend and called him to see what he would charge to help me with my brand new tires.  I got over to his house and we talked about motorcycles and then he mentioned he needed computer work so i told him that i do computer work and a trade was made.  I wiped the awful windows 8 off his laptop and put on windows 7, and he is gonna help me with my bike.  He flips bikes so he has the experience with them that i do not.  Seriously he has a ton of bikes at his place.  So overall im pretty excited and cant wait to get going on this bike.  making a great little machine.

Week Three

I want to write about the different teaching styles lesson we had today.  I dont remember all the different styles that were presented but i took away from the lesson that there are many different methods of teaching because there are many different types of learners.  I keep developing this image of what my classroom is going to be like when i finally get there and how we are going to do things.  I want lots of hands on stuff and lots of fun projects with some lecture in there too just because some things need to be illustrated and discussed as a group.  I realized today that that may not do so well with all the students.  Of course some of the students might not know this about themselves so it will be impossible to just teach differently for those other students and do the regular stuff that I want to do with everyone else.  It is inevitable that I will have students that dont want to do hands on stuff and wont take part in those activities because they just dont learn like that.  That is okay.  I am going to have to have activities that play to the strengths of all the students.  I dont mean that these activities and assignments will be perfect for everyone but one activity will work with some students better while the next might be better for the other kinds of learners.  High school classes you dont generally pick so Im sure there will be kids that dont want to be in there.  This will take some thought but im sure that I can come up with stuff that engages everyone.

Week 2!

I am reading the section in the Wong book about classroom management.  The book describes what should be done to prepare for students.  Everything from the way the room is set up to the things you have on the walls is discussed.  I understand and agree with the idea that the way a room is organized will affect the level of comfort and ultimately the amount of work that can be done.  I know that I am a pretty organized person and and I like things in their places so i don't think this will be a problem for me.  The book talked about having nearly bare walls and anything that might be in the line of sight of students to the board away.  I have been in some classes where the teacher had every available section of wall covered in something.  It wasn't distracting for me but I don't know about my classmates.  I like the way Shum's class is laid out.  I like the two rows and the board but also the space around the classroom for the rest of the projects that we do in there.  Its the perfect room for a technology class.  Keeping only things that students are allowed to touch accessible was another thing that was mentioned and I remember it because here at our school we don't seem to have a theft problem and i forget that things get taken in the real world.

The First Days Of School

I read through the part in the beginning of the book tonight about the way we dress as teachers.  I've thought about this and I realize that my regular shorts or jeans and a t-shirt will not do.  I never wanted a job that I had to wear slacks and a button up shirt but I never thought I would be on the path to teaching either.  The section went on about how students will look at you and judge you based on your appearance which is normal.  I still do this.  Most of us do because that is usually the first thing we experience about a person.  I look at the way my teachers dress now and I am comfortable with the idea of dressing similarly.  I don't have much of a critique of what I read in the text about dress in this workplace.  It would be inappropriate to dress another way if for no other reason than just being distracting.  They went on about the way we act and talk to students and people in general and I could see myself saying certain types of things from both of the columns of good and bad.  Ill need to watch how I talk and act around students and fellow teachers so I don't put out the wrong impression about who I am and what I am about.  My Idea that I have for my future classroom is a really cool environment where we all get together everyday and learn something new and apply what we learn to our immediate world.  Id really like to improve the school as we go along as far as the tech goes.  Maybe my class could run the schools website and other stuff like that.  I looked at the website that my old high school has now and it looks pretty lame.  We could do a lot of cool work for free which has got to be cool for the administration.

To Start Things Off...

This will be cool because it will stick around from now on and will be a record for myself and students of the learning that went on in my life concerning training to be a teacher.  Just thought about that today and wanted to write it down.