Metal of Honor should be out of the shop tomorrow. She is having her exhaust pipes powder coated over at Chrome Fusion. Just in time, too, we have a busy week planned to kick off November.

Our first appearance with Metal of Honor is Saturday, November 7th from 10AM to 3PM during the 2009 Vegas Valley Book Festival. We'll be in the plaza at the 5th Street School (with the Target Children's Festival.)

The Vegas Valley Book Festival, the largest literature event in Las Vegas, will be held November 4 – 8, 2009, with most events taking place at the historic Fifth Street School downtown. Now in its eighth year, this annual community festival was founded on the simple premise of bringing together those who write books and those who love to read them. The five-day festival is presented by the City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, Nevada Humanities and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

If all goes well, we'll have one or two of the local Pearl Harbor Survivors on hand to answer questions and meet the public. (It depends on their health, as they are all over 85.) We'll also have plenty of free Metal of Honor bookmarks and posters. This is a wonderful activity for families and anyone who loves a good story!

Image from : blog.lasvegasweloveit.com/

Each year the participants enjoy a day of fun and socializing on the links – and - have the unique opportunity to watch the “Air Cover” as world class Aviators go through their the final “dress rehearsals” directly overhead on the last day before Aviation Nation begins. Thomas McGrath, Chairman of the Tournament Planning Committee and a founding member of the tournament said “If you plan to concentrate on your golf game, this is not the tournament for you. However, if you want to have a memorable day, have a chance at winning some tremendous prizes and, at the same time, provide children with Christmas toys...this is your tournament”.

Over the past 7 years, more than $90,000.00 has been raised by the tournaments to help provide Marines much needed support for our community’s children, who otherwise, might have no Christmas at all. Since 1947 Marines have been distributing shiny new toys to needy children and last year alone, the tournament contributed $25,000 in proceeds to benefit the Southern Nevada Toys for Tots program.

McGrath added, “in spite of the current economic environment, we are very encouraged by the early and strong interest from companies, individual players and other organizations in providing support for and participation in this most important fund-raiser”.

When you have a bike like ours, you have to be very careful what products you use to clean and maintain the finish. Anything has any harsh abrasives could scratch Metal's chrome or paint. Worse, any residue left by the cleaner would leave gunk in the engravings, dulling their exquisite details. When Metal of Honor first came out of Chrome Fusion's shop, Jason recommended Wizard's Mist n' Shine as the only cleaner we needed.

So that's what we've been using, liberally applied to a multi-fiber polishing cloth. You just wipe the bike down with gentle strokes and the bike just GLOWS. The cleaner contains no wax, solvents or silicone. It doesn't have any petroleum in it to possibly damage the leather seat or discolor other parts of the bike if you did happen to over spray.

We've been really happy with it so far and gladly recommend it for any show bike. You can try it in a small size with this handy saddle pack containing a cloth, Mist n' Shine and two other detailing products.

Wizard's is also made in the USA, another plus in our book! You'll be hearing a bit more about Wizard's from us in the future, as we've struck up a relationship with them to do some promotional marketing with Metal of Honor.

Our friends in the band CTS made it possible for us to have Metal of Honor on display this weekend at the Fremont Street Experience. Catherine and her staff at Vegas Experience were so friendly and helpful, not to mention the nice folks at the Golden Nugget.

We were overwhelmed by the response from the public. The minute Dana pulled the bike in, the crowds started. We had anywhere from 2 to 20 people around all the time. We must have talked to two thousand people over the two days. Since this was Bike Fest weekend, of course a lot of fellow motorcycle riders - many of them veterans - saw the bike. Fremont Street is also very popular with tourists, so we also saw a lot of kids and families. I enjoyed watching people do that double take as they were walking and get drawn into looking at all the engravings. The many emotions passing over the faces of the vets and the public were truly awe inspiring.

It was a great venue for us and I hope they invite us back.

Metal of Honor looked lovely under the world's largest sign.
Who is John Finn and why did he sign our gas tank?

Quite a few people, including these two lovely ladies, asked Dana to sign posters or pose for photos. It was the first time he got to feel a little bit like a rock star.

My mom (a.k.a. the Deontos Publishing Booth Mama) got into the spirit of Fremont Street's Summer of '69 promotion and wore one of my brother's Jerry Bear tye dyes.

The cameras came out to snap pictures of Metal of Honor - especially from the many veterans who were at Fremont Street over the weekend.

We didn't have stanchions until a bit later in the day on Friday,
but everyone was very respectful of the bike.