lykos23
01-24-2013, 12:11 PM
Since this is a new forum I believe I should introduce myself, even though I've done so in previous threads.
I am Garit, my internet username is normally something along the lines of "Lykos" or "Lykos23", in case you don't know it's Greek for "Wolf". I like Greek stuff and I like wolves, so there's your backstory.
I started getting into scooters when I learned that they average over 80mpg and are within my price range for a new vehicle. This was years ago and I had been trying to find a scooter ever since. Then one fateful day, around October, someone on Craigslist contacted me about my precious guitar formerly owned by the rockstar Rick Springfield (Jesse's Girl) and a supposedly street legal running scooter he had for sale. I reluctantly told him that if he could drive the thing all the way to my house from his which was an hour and a half away, then the deal was on.
When he got here it all went downhill. Firstly, my little brother's nintendo DS went missing that day... Secondly the man demanded more guitars to equal the value of his run down 22 year old scooter. Out of desperation I gave him another electric guitar, my first electric bass guitar, and a brand new acoustic guitar. In all fairness he then included a foldup DiBlasi scooter in the trade (but that nintendo DS is still missing! DAMN YOU CRAIGSLIST!)
When he went to supposedly get the title out of his truck... he was gone. And there I sat with a 1990 Honda Zook that was missing all the plastic, its headlight, tailight, broken speedometer, and missing airbox, and best of all it didn't even run. After days of fiddling around on it, changing the oil, changing the sparkplug, changing the gas, putting a makeshift air filter on, cleaning the carb, nothing would work. Then I just sprayed some starting fluid into the carb and she fired right up! ...Then died. After a lot more fiddling around all is in working order as long as the carb has restricted air flow. The DiBlasi started right up with a spray of starting fluid as well. Lucky for me. Unluckily I can't even drive either because neither of them are street legal.
Enter 2013. Just a day or two after new years day I contact a seller on craigslist selling a 2009 Bashan Peace Sports 50 inquiring them of how much they wanted for it. They wanted $900! Luckily for me my father had just given me two gifts (of which only cost him $350) which totaled just under that value; an HP Touchsmart TX2 laptop, worth about $550. and a Nabi2 worth only $200.
In order to convince the person it was a fair trade a lot of work needed to be done. Firstly the laptop had just had copper shims installed and thermal paste had been put in, windows 7 and anti-virus were installed making the laptop value closer to $700+ due to all the work. Next the Nabi2 tablet had to have something done to it; so I rooted it and loaded it full of (legal) free games. This took me hours, at $25 an hour I would have charged well over $200 as the rooting process alone took several tries. The deal was on!
They suspiciously looked over every inch of my devices and inquired multiple times of exactly what made them so valuable and I had to reassure them with demonstration. They seemed to reluctantly accept the trade. However, this time I insisted that they start the scooter up and show me that it runs, which it did.
The nice couple who owned the scooter then agreed to deliver the scooter to my house where I work on it every day thanks to the wealth of information on this forum. Just yesterday I finally got my license plates for it.
http://i49.tinypic.com/xdta8.jpg
I am Garit, my internet username is normally something along the lines of "Lykos" or "Lykos23", in case you don't know it's Greek for "Wolf". I like Greek stuff and I like wolves, so there's your backstory.
I started getting into scooters when I learned that they average over 80mpg and are within my price range for a new vehicle. This was years ago and I had been trying to find a scooter ever since. Then one fateful day, around October, someone on Craigslist contacted me about my precious guitar formerly owned by the rockstar Rick Springfield (Jesse's Girl) and a supposedly street legal running scooter he had for sale. I reluctantly told him that if he could drive the thing all the way to my house from his which was an hour and a half away, then the deal was on.
When he got here it all went downhill. Firstly, my little brother's nintendo DS went missing that day... Secondly the man demanded more guitars to equal the value of his run down 22 year old scooter. Out of desperation I gave him another electric guitar, my first electric bass guitar, and a brand new acoustic guitar. In all fairness he then included a foldup DiBlasi scooter in the trade (but that nintendo DS is still missing! DAMN YOU CRAIGSLIST!)
When he went to supposedly get the title out of his truck... he was gone. And there I sat with a 1990 Honda Zook that was missing all the plastic, its headlight, tailight, broken speedometer, and missing airbox, and best of all it didn't even run. After days of fiddling around on it, changing the oil, changing the sparkplug, changing the gas, putting a makeshift air filter on, cleaning the carb, nothing would work. Then I just sprayed some starting fluid into the carb and she fired right up! ...Then died. After a lot more fiddling around all is in working order as long as the carb has restricted air flow. The DiBlasi started right up with a spray of starting fluid as well. Lucky for me. Unluckily I can't even drive either because neither of them are street legal.
Enter 2013. Just a day or two after new years day I contact a seller on craigslist selling a 2009 Bashan Peace Sports 50 inquiring them of how much they wanted for it. They wanted $900! Luckily for me my father had just given me two gifts (of which only cost him $350) which totaled just under that value; an HP Touchsmart TX2 laptop, worth about $550. and a Nabi2 worth only $200.
In order to convince the person it was a fair trade a lot of work needed to be done. Firstly the laptop had just had copper shims installed and thermal paste had been put in, windows 7 and anti-virus were installed making the laptop value closer to $700+ due to all the work. Next the Nabi2 tablet had to have something done to it; so I rooted it and loaded it full of (legal) free games. This took me hours, at $25 an hour I would have charged well over $200 as the rooting process alone took several tries. The deal was on!
They suspiciously looked over every inch of my devices and inquired multiple times of exactly what made them so valuable and I had to reassure them with demonstration. They seemed to reluctantly accept the trade. However, this time I insisted that they start the scooter up and show me that it runs, which it did.
The nice couple who owned the scooter then agreed to deliver the scooter to my house where I work on it every day thanks to the wealth of information on this forum. Just yesterday I finally got my license plates for it.
http://i49.tinypic.com/xdta8.jpg