Take A Long Ride On My Motorbike

Hmmmm, seems like the only post I make anymore is the "sorry I haven't posted in so long" one. School is again kicking my butt, although in a good way (I am working on a very involved project that, for once, might actually translate into the real world - as well as give me a project I can put in my portfolio). Hopefully summer will be less hectic - I plan on only taking one (online only) class.

In moto-related news, I got lucky and snagged a spot for a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course in about a month. I must have caught a cancellation - I checked the web page on Sunday and all classes were booked until the end of September, I checked again the next day and there was exactly one spot open for a class at the beginning of June, so I jumped on it. This is actually a new class that they just started this year - it's an abbreviated one-day version of the basic class, for people who have been riding on a permit for multiple years or have been riding on-and-off for several years (sadly, that describes me to a "T"). I took the class about 9 years ago, it'll be good to get a refresher. Maybe I'll sign up for the advanced class next summer...

RIP 1922 - 2007

"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."

When She's Ten Feet Tall

Hey all, not too much new here. We did Easter at my place this year, my first honest-to-goodness hosting of a holiday meal since becoming a grown up (allegedly). It went really well, except we forgot that if you let a sixty-pound dog eat an entire hambone (which he can do in about five minutes flat) , he will wake you up by yakking on your bedroom floor at 4:30AM.

The GF's dad had peeling forearms due to having the Goldwing out all last week during the nice weather, and her brother even managed to get the ancient CD350 he bought off eBay last year out for a day. Needless to say, I felt like a slacker - I still need to make a trip to the BMV before I can get my bike on the road. I did show it to them and we resolved to get together for a ride sometime this summer, maybe head up the road to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum. I'll be sure to take lots of pics...

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Hey all, lots of real-world stuff happening lately... I finally finished the classes that were kicking my but this quarter, and the girlfriend is moving in this weekend. On top of that there's been dealing with all the paperwork for the new car, tons of work stuff, playing referee between her pets and mine (don't ask), and some really nasty weather on top of it all. Some storms rolled through last night and actually blew out some of the support poles in my motorcycle shelter, so I had to take it halfway apart and get it set up again, but it definitely fired up my urge to go for a ride - hopefully I'll be able to post some reports soon...

-D_G

The New Whip

Hey all, sorry for my extended absence, but school has been kicking my butt this quarter. I'm struggling to maintain a low-"B"-to-high-"C" in my first programming class, and my other class is in the early afternoon, right in between two days that I work third shift - meaning I leave work, go home and sleep for three hours, get up, go to class for three hours, go to the computer labs, go home and sleep for a couple more hours, get up and go to work. None of this would be particularly fun even if I wasn't nursing a pretty severe sleep disorder in the first place. Thankfully, it'll be over in a few more weeks, and next quarter will hopefully go a little smoother.

The other thing that has been taking up a lot of my time lately has been car shopping. As much as I love the CRX, it was starting to show it's age of seventeen years, despite all the spit 'n polish. It was also less-than-ideal for road trips given it's small size, what with both mine & the girlfriend's families living an hour away. And she didn't find the spartan accommodations (power nothing, 5-speed, no A/C) nearly as charming as I did.

I drove an F-150 (I'm not a Ford guy, nor a truck guy - I've owned them in the past, but really don't have a need for one, plus the cost of gas woulda killed me), a couple Jettas (too small) a couple Passats (too expensive) and decided to look at a 2005 Impala at a dealer near me - I snuck away from studying for a few hours on Sunday and drove to the dealership, only to find I drove to the wrong one - they actually had two locations for used cars. The salesman told me he had a 2006 Impala, but no 2005's. This was discouraging to me, as 2005 was the last year of the cool round taillights ("Why would they do away with an Impala trademark?!?") I wondered. The salesman encouraged me to take a look at the '06 anyway and pulled it around: It was white. Probably my least favorite color for any car. I told it was out of my price range anyway, but he encouraged me to drive it, and to my surprise, I really really liked it. I even decided the white looked pretty good on it, especially if you tinted the windows. Even the new taillights were starting to grow on me a little bit. I had already received financing from my credit union and knew where I wanted my payment to be, so this car wasn't even a possibility. The dealership convinced me to let them run my info through their system, and they got me a rate two points lower than my credit union (which I just assumed would be my best option). Boom, $2k more car for the same payment. I yanked my stereo equipment out of the Honda and drove it home. (I originally wasn't going to trade the CRX - I knew I could easily get $2K for it, but only after I dropped $500 in it for new shocks & brakes, plus a whole weekend's work of detailing... I decided for a few hundred bucks difference, I would rather just be done with it. Of course, now my friends are coming out of the woodwork and berating me for not giving them first refusal rights). I give you the new whip:

(That's a stock photo of course - mine's already too dirty to be suitable for photography)

It's quite different to drive - remember, I've only owned one other car built in this decade, and that was a Jeep Wrangler with zero options. It has all kinds of power stuff and digital geegaws and doodads and blue LED's everywhere and a jack to plug my iPod into the radio. When the temperature dropped below 32 degrees tonight, it actually warned me that there could be ice on the road. Between that and the remote starter, I feel like Michael Knight. I'll probably get the windows tinted as dark as I can get away this summer, and might look into finding an SS spoiler for the trunk, but that's about it.

The other big difference was when I filled it up - $35.00!!! If the CRX was on fumes I might squeeze $15 into it. And that would last me a week (46 mile round-trip commute to work 5 days a week, plus 30-odd miles to school and back 3-4 nights a week). That's gonna take some getting used to...

I Remember As If It Were A Meal Ago

Leaving Just A Memory

Something I noticed today: Every semester, for the past year and a half, I completely forget how to write batch files. I'm not retarded, I can write large chunks of code in various languages from memory, but for some damn reason I can never remember how to do a simple logon script.

On the other hand, I can listen to the metal station on satellite radio, hear a song I haven't so much as thought about since ninth grade (today it was Exodus' Toxic Waltz, last week it was Megadeth's In My Darkest Hour) and I remember every goddamn word. If I can ever cross-link the IT section of my brain to the hesher section of my brain, I'll be golden...

I Felt Like This On My Way Home

Well, the Bus has new home. The buyer came down one New Year's Day to look at it and wrote me a check, he will be back to pick it up next weekend. I'm sad to see it go, but I need to focus on more important things right now. The buyer is actually one of the founding members of a local VW Bus club, so I'm happy it's going to go to someone who loves VW's and will get some use out if it. Someday I'll be able to afford a new RV (the girlfriend is actually totally on board with this as a long-range goal) and a couple small bikes or scooters to tour the country with, but first I gotta buy a place to park it...

The Sunday Swap Meet Is A Battle Ground

For as long as I can remember, I've always been really good at "the swap". Ever since elementary school when I got Eric Frantz to give up a Sims skateboard (Jeff Phillips model), a skate key, an AM/FM walkman and a tabletop Frogger video game in exchange for a cheapie toy-store paintball gun, I usually come out with the better end of the deal whenever a trade is involved. My girlfriend recently mentioned my VW Bus to her father, and he told her that he had an old friend who was a VW nut that might be interested in buying it. I've been halfheartedly considering it for a while, since I haven't been able to find the time or space to work on it - diehard VW aficionados would rather see the vehicles go to use rather than rot in a yard. Seeing anyone put a VW to use is better than seeing it go to the crusher. (Except for dune buggy freaks, who only want to steal transmissions from buses. Screw those guys).

I wrote up a brief description of the Bus and sent it with some pictures to her Dad to forward to his friend. Since I already had the description and pictures ready to go, I decided to post an ad on The Samba. I included the words that always make the classifieds game much more entertaining - "Will consider trades". So far I have been offered:

-A set of 20" rims & tires (those would look great on my Honda)
-A 75 gallon fishtank (no, but I'm sure the cats would love it)
-A M1911 Colt .45 pistol (hmmm... neat, but I don't really need more guns)
-A 1978 MG Midget rally car (which I wouldn't even fit in)
-A custom-built guitar w/ Gibson body & Fender Jaguar neck (huh?)
-A 1985 Honda CR125 (too small)
-A 1960 VW Bus (cool, but an even bigger project than I have now)
-A Mexican Fender Jazz bass (might knock a couple hundred off for this)
...and a Bultaco Metralla 250 (very cool, but the last thing I need is another bike. Especially a dirt bike. Especially a dirt bike that hasn't been made for 20+ years from a long-defunct company).

Several people have looked so far, with the ever popular "I gotta ask my wife" and "I'll have the money next week" already making appearances. Several more are scheduled for the weekend, I'll let you know how it goes...

Father Christmas, Give Us Some Money

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothin'
While you're drinkin' down your wine

-D_G

You Can't Tuna Fish

I drove 3 hours round trip today, and have at least that much per day over the next four days in order to visit everyone on the Xmas list this year. On top of that, I (stupidly) decided to pick up the girlfriend's Xmas gift myself:



Trust me, whatever the piano movers quote you, it's worth it.

Smell The Glove

A few weeks ago, I went to a charity auction put on by my girlfriend's employer. I actually won lots 'o stuff, but the one I was really gunning for was a new pair of Rocky Boots. I did win them, but they were four sizes too small - no matter, they came with a certificate stating they could be exchanged, and their factory outlet store was on the way home, so we swung by.

The store turned out to be incredibly cool - a huge, three story warehouse filled with all manner of outdoor clothing, camping gear, tools, etc. I actually drove by the store every few months while I was in college - I always meant to stop, but never did. Probably for the best, since I was perpetually broke back then (as opposed to "occasionally not broke" now). One of the items I picked up while I was there was a pair of fingerless gloves - I learned the value of these while I was working in an ice house in high school & college. I spent all day in a giant freezer with augers, conveyor belts, trap doors and automatic cutting machines. 80% of the time you want your hand to be completely covered to stay as warm as possible, but if you had to twiddle with the machinery, you would lose a finger if you try to do it while wearing winter gloves (I saw several people mangled in my tenure). I solved this problem by going across the street to the surplus store and buying cheap USAF glove liners, cutting the fingers off, and putting a pair of heavy canvas gardening gloves over them. The heavy canvas gloves held up better & dried out faster than winter gloves, and with a snap of your wrists your could shuck them off (think of a hockey player in a melee) and quickly manipulate whatever piece of equipment that was about to give out and back up the whole line. The fingerless gloves would then keep you warm enough until you got a second to retrieve your other gloves.

The thing that made the ones I bought different was that they had a flip-down mitten, that was secured by velcro when not being used:




















I thought this was pretty slick - I am still likely to need to twiddle with something, although nowadays it is usually my camera, MP3 player, or cell phone. Anyways, last week I headed out to class to take the last of my finals, and I got to try my new gloves out for the first time, as the temperature was rapidly approaching single digits. After class I decided to walk over to the campus bookstore to sell my textbooks, and get some extra cash to finish my Xmas shopping. Apparently the college was letting a local youth organization use the gymnasium that evening for some sort of awards ceremony, and I encountered lots of cold, confused people asking me for directions. That's when I learned an important lesson:

Nothing looks dumber than a guy trying to point while wearing mittens.

Thinking 'bout The People Upside-Down In Japan

I subscribe to lots of mailing lists - Volkswagen lists, guitar lists, computers lists, etc. Problem is I really don't have much time to read the (sometimes hundreds of) emails that come through every day, so I usually just get them in a daily digest form and give them a cursory glance to see if there's anything useful to me in that particular one. I glanced through one of the Volkswagen lists the other day and was surprised to see a reference to "Bob Hoover's blog". Bob Hoover is as close to a guru as you can get in the Volkswagen community. He made a great number of posts to the Volkswagen lists & groups in the burgeoning days of the Internet that were full of practical advice, useful tips & tricks, and were a great read to boot. These became known as "The Sermons of Bob Hoover" and were greatly prized by many Volkswagen enthusiasts and were collected on web sites, hard drives, passed around on bulletin boards and newsgroups - at one point, an aftermarket supply house was even selling a CD-ROM with all them in text file format. The Internet being what it is, for every 100 people who enjoyed and were helped by these essays, there would be one wiseacre who had to chime in and tell Bob that he was wrong, or that wasn't how Dieter (the $100-per-hour mechanic at the local Haus of Imports) did it. One thing made abundantly clear in Mr. Hoover's writing is that he doesn't suffer fools gladly in real life, so you can be damn sure he wasn't going to put with the electronic version of a jackass - he quietly asked people to take down his postings from web sites, stop selling the CD-ROMS, and greatly reduced his on-line presence in general. It is my understanding that he was perfectly willing to help you if you asked, but he was (understandably) miffed at people slinging unsolicited criticism at him for what was clearly a labor of love. The sermons still popped up occasionally on a bulletin board or a hastily-authored web page, but they never lasted very long. I was glad to see that Mr. Hoover has created his own blog and has posted the original sermons, which range from eminently practical to entertaining to philosophical. Check 'em out.

One Arm Wing Steve...

...was delicious!

Steve In The Bread Pan, Pickin' Out Dough...

Through a chain of events far too convoluted to recount here, I went from having Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom's house, to having it at my girlfriend's house with her family, to having it at my house with just me & her (which is just fine by me). We did the shopping for the dinner on Sunday and while we were putting the groceries away, she told me that we had to name the turkey. "What?" I asked. "You have to name the turkey before you cook it," she said. "Isn't that a bit macabre?" I asked. She assured me that it wasn't - it was a long-standing tradition in her family, and I better shut up and stop teasing her if I knew what was good for me (she might have implied that last part). "Fine", I told her, "I christen this turkey "Steve"". She told me that wasn't a proper name for a turkey, and I informed her that it was my turkey, I bought it, and since naming a dead bird carcass was approaching the high side of crazy anyways, it's name was Steve. "Fine", she sighed. She emailed me today and reminded me to take Steve out of the freezer, so I put him in the fridge to thaw before I went to class. I told one of my co-workers that I had Steve chillin' in the fridge (pun intended) so we would be ready to put him in the oven on Thursday. I guess since at least three of my co-workers are named Steve, the odd looks I received are understandable. Ah well, my brain is fried from building four custom databases and three Novell servers in a week, so I'm looking forward to eating Steve with all the trimmings. Have a good Thanksgiving, everybody...

Aint' No Smoggy Smoke On Rocky Top

Got my 35mm pics from vacation developed, and I had a few that I was pretty pleased with - I finally got to experiment with the 16mm lens I bought a while back, now I just have to learn to keep my damn hands out of the frame. It's interesting that even though digital cameras can rival the quality of film nowadays, the pictures I shoot with my 35mm camera have a distinctly different "feel" to them - I think it's because with my digital camera & a 1GB memory card I can store well over a thousand pictures, so I shoot pretty indiscriminately - this results in pictures that have much more of a "snapshot" quality (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). I think that this actually makes me a better shooter when I do use film, as I am much more deliberate with lens choice, composition, etc., when I finally do drag out the 35mm rig. I am seriously considering a digital SLR in the not-too-distant future, since they are rapidly approaching the "not-entirely-ridiculous" price range, and I won't have to get rid of all my glass. I wonder how it will affect my photography...

Breathe, Breathe In The Air

Hey everybody, back from vacation. Sure is pretty in the mountains this time of year. I was going to do a write up on the vacation with pics & such, but the girlfriend beat me to it - head over to her site if you want to read it (Caution: do not proceed if you harbor any delusions about my secret identity). I still have to get my 35mm film developed, and there's a photography contest that's run by the local entertainment newspaper coming up that I like to enter every year - I took some shots of waterfalls with my fish-eye lens that I think might be very, very cool if they came out. I will post some here as soon as I get them developed.

I spent several hundred dollars more than I intended to on vacation and there was an unexpected $700 bill waiting in my mailbox when I returned home (attorney fees from a matter that I thought was long resolved) so that's just great - looks like I'm going to have to suck up as much overtime as possible at work for a couple of months.

Shortly before I left, my doctor diagnosed me with sleep apnea - which makes sense, considering I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in about seventeen years. The cure involves learning to sleep with a mask attached to my face that is connected to a CPAP machine. This is a lot harder than it sounds - so far, the routine has been 1.) Get ready for bed, 2.) put on mask, 3.) lie awake for three hours, 4.) yank off mask in frustration and fall asleep, and 5.) wake up feeling like crap. Luckily there is a pretty active online community of people dealing with this, and apparently it's a pretty rough thing to get used to, so I don't feel too bad. My biggest worry was that it would freak out my girlfriend, but she's been really supportive about the whole thing (I think she prefers the mask to my snoring).

I need to winterize the bike and put it on the battery tender, don't want to have to drop another $100 on a battery again next year. Lots of people getting in the last rides of the year around here lately, hopefully this month will stay mild enough that I can do the same...

Lazin' On A Sunny Afternoon...

Off for a vacation, everyone. Lots to catch you up on when I return, see you in a week.

Born To Be Wild?

Okay, this is just taking it too goddamn far.

On Streets We Call The Zoo

No moto-related news as of now... me & Meine Freundin had a lovely weekend - we've been spending a lot of time together, but we're usually both so stressed from work thatwe wind up locking ourselves in the house for the weekend. While I have no complaints about that, I decided a proper date was in order - so we spent the day at the zoo, followed by a great lunch. I took plenty of pics, here are some of my favorites...