THE SWINE-LINE

1450 Karen Way Fairbanks, AK 99709

Outpost Web Page – http://www.harleyoutpost.com

Fairbanks HOG Web Page – http://www.fairbankshog.org

Fairbanks HOG e-mail - oldiron@mosquitonet.com

Our Web site sponsor - http://www.fairnet.org

The next General Membership Meeting will be held at the Badger Den on March 4th at 7:00 p.m. Please plan to be there. Riding season is fast approaching and we would like to plan for it. See you there!

For members receiving the Swine-Line by snail mail who would like to receive it by E-mail as well as mid-month updates please forward your e-mail address to Cindy

From the Director

Hey Gang! The Road King is in the trailer screaming at me to let her out and the snow-machines are still on the trailer begging to be ridden. My tired, cold, old butt just wants to sit on the couch and watch TV where it's warm. What to do in the month of February? Well if you didn't make the 2nd annual Chatanika Pajama Party, you sure missed a good time. Once again, Shirley and Ron fed us well, gave us the run of the place and we all cut loose for some middle of the winter fun. If you're thinking, "well I just don't wear PJs"…don't worry about it, some folks didn't wear them. You'll just have to come next year to see what I mean! We have some time now to blow the dust off the scoots and get those new parts on before the road is worthy of two wheels again. If Jimmy King hasn't sent it out yet, there will be a ride/event schedule out for the season that we will try very hard to stick with this year. There are quite a few changes from last year that hopefully will draw back some familiar faces and bring in some new blood. The Chatanika run will be on Saturday this year and Ron says there is plenty of area out back to camp and rooms available. There is live music planned and we won't have to rush home to get to work the next day. There are back-to-back events in June with our rally here this year and the Whitehorse rally the following weekend. The bike show has been moved to August so it can be a real "ride in" show. We have a MDA run planned and a run to benefit the Red Cross. Tim at the Badger Den has graciously given us each and every Thursday night for "Bike Night". We can meet and ride, or meet and BS, BBQ some food or play horseshoes. Each Saturday will still be a planned ride. If you have any other ideas come to the meeting at the Badger Den on the 1st Friday of the month and voice your opinion. As always, ride safe and ride free.

Raven

Memo from John Haddad

Re: New Outpost Pricing Structure
I am writing this letter to explain the reasons for my decision to implement the new price structure at The Outpost and the deletion of H.O.G. member discounts. In the past five years since our purchase of The Outpost, it was imperative to charge 10% over catalogue price because of freight issues. As a courtesy to H.O.G. members, this 10% charge was covered by The Outpost in the form of a 10% discount to members. As time goes by, most business structures change. The change we have seen is that we have the ability to purchase Harley-Davidson product without the freight charges. Roughly 80% of our purchasing is now done in bulk where the freight charge is waived.
The Harley-Davidson world of dealers over the past few years has become increasingly competitive. Therefore, I made the decision to roll back our pricing at straight catalogue pricing which puts us on a level playing field with all the other dealers.
With that being said, I will explain my reasoning on doing away with the H.O.G. discounts.
1. The pricing that you previously paid is the same price you are paying now
2. I understand that our H.O.G. group is a significant amount of our business, and also understand that our members need to be taken care of. Please don't think that this is a shot at the group in any way, but I don't see the same closeness in this group as I've seen in the past years. By example, our H.O.G. Christmas party at The Outpost has dwindled every year, as have the participation level on the weekly rides. I would like to apologize about my inability to attend meetings during the winter months, as I coach the Ice Dogs Hockey Team and travel often with the group. I pledge to start attending as many rides as I can during the summer riding season.
3. The major reason for re-structuring the pricing level is very simple: more participation by more members at H.O.G. functions. We will try to accomplish this by having more H.O.G. exclusive events, where members will be invited to attend exclusive parties and receive "deeper discounts" than at parties the last five years. As Doug explained at the meeting on February 4th, 2005, we are working with the Red Cross and M.D.A. to put together some new and exciting events to go with the "old favorites", such as Chatanika Days, the Two Rivers H.O.G. roast and and exciting events to go with the "old favorites", such as Chatanika Days, the Two Rivers H.O.G. roast and of course, this year, The Alaska State Rally.
You have my commitment that we will do everything we can to make our H.O.G. members feel special, such as priority service, fair pricing on motorcycles, quality events and a knowledgeable, friendly staff. Also, please remember that I am running a business, and all of the decisions I make may not be loved by all. My door is open to anyone at any time to answer questions or listen to how The Outpost can be improved. Your input is welcome!

Sincerely,

John H. Haddad

SECRETARY - Lori Price

Please help us to update the chapter's membership roster. All local members must be a member of national H.O.G. before joining the local H.O.G. chapter. If you joined the local H.O.G chapter by completing an application at the Shop, but did not become a national H.O.G member first you need to do that. You can become a National member by going to the Shop or on-line at http://www.hog.com. If you have questions please contact Lori Price or Aleshia Purcell at the Outpost. If you have different information please let us know.

LOH
NANCY

Members who receive the Swine-Line through the mail and would like to begin receiving an e-mail version are asked to forward their e-mail address to me at c.gollwitzer1@gci.net. In addition to cutting down on the newsletter mailing costs members who request e-mail distribution will receive monthly activities updates when available. The deadline for submissions to be included in the Swineline is the 15th of the month.

Hello all, as the new Safety Officer I guess I need to start doing some research for info to put in the Swine-Line. It's like going to school again. Well here's a quick thought for everyone. Riding season is just around the corner, have you looked at your bike lately? Tires getting worn or dry rotted, are the cables in good shape, how's the battery? There is still time to replace or repair the equipment on your bike you were going to take care of this winter. Well, you could wait until spring. We'll be riding; you might be wishing you were riding, too. See you on the road.

Dave

Well the pajama party was great to say the least. We played the dice game, Twister, and sang a lil music. I hope to do it again next year. Like I said at the meeting I'm going to put together a calendar for the whole year so everyone will know what we are doing every weekend. Once again if you have any suggestion let me know and we will make it happen. A few things that we are going to do this year areBike nights on Thursday night at the Badger Den, bike show at the Bentley Mall in August, we are going to have it Saturday only so we can ride Sunday. It was originally planned in July but that date fell through, also the Chatnika run will be on Saturdayand we will have a band, cookout, bike games, and you can spend the night . This way everyone won't have to rush off like last year. Also we have a few people planning on going to the Yukon rally at the end ofwww.rideyukon.comthey are planning on around 1200 people. Also don't forget about our rally the weekend before. I'm sure it will be a huge success also, see you at the meeting in March.
Email: jking@gci.net

HOG BINGO Information: Dinner is at 5pm and cost$6 for all you can eat Indian Tacos and dessert.Drinks are $1 each for bottle water and sodas.is free.Game starts at 6pm and cost $12.50 for each packet of 16 games.You may purchase more.The winner receives prizes, not money. Money earned goes towards the seniors fuel bill and the GOL (gifts (gifts of love) program.Also, raffling off a beautiful quilt and tickets are .50 cents each. Drawing held April 11.You don't have to be present to win.Will have tickets at next meeting and bingo

Plus more to come!!!!
If you have any questions, you can contact me at # jking@gci.net or 372-2791

Shauna in Whitehorse is encouraging any of our members that would like to attend their rally to get their registrations in and also to get reservations for hotels, etc.as things are filling up fast.Her number is 867-456-7433and the rally website is www.rideyukon.com.Deadline for registration is May 15, 2005.

Registration will be available soon for the Fairbanks Rally.

Ads can be submitted to the editor via e-mail: c.gollwitzer1@gci.net or dropped off at the shop to be put in the Editor's box.

SWINELINE EDITOR
C/O: Gollwitzer
P.O.Box 55574

Sears Craftsman Truck Toolbox. Fits midsize p/u truck. New in box. Black plastic.$110.00 Larry 457-1011

For Sale- 1994 Ford Explorer, V6, 4-wheel drive, 112,000 miles, auto start with remote locks, new Pioneer stereo with CD player, gets 17 mpg, new IM, fully winterized, body in good condition, ABS brakes, cruise control, asking $4,900.00 OBO. Call Tom at home 488-9649 or cell 460-4307.

Computers have diminished in price to the point where software is a large part of the cost. You can buy a desktop computer (less monitor & shipping) for $250.00 to $300.00. The rest of the cost is software. With the advent of Linux and the Open Software Foundation, you can outfit your computer with all the software you need for free and interesting enough, many of the software programs written for Linux have versions that run on Windows. I will attempt to review one cross platform software program in each copy of the newsletter so the windows users can sample what Linux software has to offer.

I invested in one of those Mp3 players this month. The one decided on is about twice the size of your auto-start clicker, has 4 hours of internal storage, and has a slot for an SD memory card, adding 15 hours of recorded music (1 gb card). It also runs 50 hrs on a standard AA battery, something you can find on the road. With the addition of an FM transmitter, it replaces the 10 disk CD player that use to be on the bagger, and takes up a none of the valuable storage needed on our long trips (it also doesn't skip when ya hit a bump). The one I bought is made by RCA and stocked by the local Radio Shack. There are many, and maybe better options on the market, but this fit the bill, and I'm not much for shopping.

This brings us to this month's software review. The player came with ripper software, to convert your CD's to Mp3's. It took about 20 minutes to decide that it was a mistake installing the software. It degraded system speed dramatically, constantly bothered ya with ad's, upgrade come-on's, and was buggy (lock-up's & re-boots necessary). After un-installing the software, I spent about 90 minutes striping 120 registry entrys left over after the un-install. This is normal and is one of the main reasons why Windows computers slow down and eventually stop functioning without a re-build (bug or intent - you decide!). Bottom line - I started looking for decent software.

AUDIOGRABBER is what I found. As always, it runs on Linux or Windows, and is Free. Ripping the CD's is a no-brainer. Start the program, insert a CD, click on the Penguin, which loads all the information for the tracks, (requires internet connection) and hit Grab. By default it saves the songs as .wav along with .mp3, which is OK but takes up a lot of space. Under Settings, you can change it to just save the .mp3. The only issue encountered was finding the .mp3's after they were created. The default dumps the songs in the same directory as the program files. I looked for a way to change the directory and did not find a menu selection. If you want to store your music files in another place, go to the audiograbber dircctory, you will find a file listed as: audiograbber.ini. Open the file with notepad and scroll down to: DestinationDirectory=C:\audiograbber Change it to your choice of an existing directory and save the file. Enjoy.

Past Software reviews.

Bi11

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FAIRBANKS HOG CHAPTER
H-D FARTHEST NORTH OUTPOST
1450 KAREN WAY
FAIRBANKS, AK 99709