Oh Joy,

I woke up this morning around 6am for some strange reason. Especially strange because I was helping my wife with a report until almost 3am.

I looked at the clock – and it was off. I looked at my cable box – and it was off. Needless to say, all the electricity was off. Of course, nobody knew this was going to happen.

Supposedly there was a note put on the door, but we never saw it. Anyhow, so today was without warm water and electricity. I decided I could either read, or, better yet, go for a little motorcycle ride.

I went to the Dnepr store (factory) and picked up a few parts on the way to picking up my wife at work. Pretty cool… Though my Russian is only fair, at BEST, I felt comfortable enough going into the shop and purchasing a few spare parts for the MT-11. I said hello to the same old factory worker that we saw the previous time we were there. He nodded and said zdrastya back. Pretty cool. and I obviously parked next to a sitting area for the “old guys.” One of them came up to me and asked me something (in Russian) that I didn’t understand — but I told him that I was sorry, and that I only spoke a little bit of Russian. He understood, and did not pursue his original line of thought — though I think it had to do with me parking so close to where they were sitting, but I could be totally wrong. Who knows.

Anyhow, so I go into the store, and wait a couple of minutes and get helped. The guy was nice enough, and patient with me. I think it helps to at least try to speak Russian. So after a few minutes and several times pointing at parts in the MT-16 manual (basically the same as the MT-11, but the MT-16 is dual-rear-wheel-drive), the manager comes out and drops a few parts on the bench in front of me. Obviously he recognized me, though I didn’t see him when I walked into the store. We had previously discussed a couple of semi-rare parts that I needed, and he delivered!!! I was so stoked! Not only that, but he gave one of them to me for free (a “present”). Very cool.

The whole bill came to less than $7 USD. I got two throttle cables, a seat lock, a drain plug with washer O-ring, and an oil pan gasket. Man — I like this place.

We made it home by 4:30pm or so, and the power was still off. We opened the refrigerator for the first time and quickly pulled out our lunch/dinner: cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, mustard, hot-smoked sea perch, and some chicken, with some black bread of course.

Right at the end of our meal, BOING! The electricity came back on. Woo-hoo! Time to post