First Ride Of 2013

My God, July 15th and I'm just getting the bike out.  What's happened to me?  The last couple of years I've not been riding much.  I blamed the new job, new house and other things for being too busy but I think part of it is I got fat.  I was kind of embarrassed to be seen on my little sporty motorcycle.  I've seen other fat guys on FZ1s also and they aren't doing themselves any favors.  Being seen fat on a bike shouldn't and really isn't reason enough to keep me from riding.  The truth is it was uncomfortable as hell.

Well yesterday was the first ride since I've lost 50 pounds (I'm still loosing too).  I felt considerably better than I have in years on the bike.  I still got the same stiffness in the back and aches in the wrists but it took longer.  I actually lost feeling in my throttle hand which is odd but I write that off as too much Play Station.

So some sights from the ride;

I stopped at a pull off on a long straight stretch of road to put my rain gear on.  An older man on a three wheeled Honda Goldwing pulled off at the same spot.  I looked over to see an old dachshund with a sweet grey face in a carrier.  She was riding in the passenger seat, looking for a way to get off and explore.  The rider said she loves to ride but every time they stop she wants to wander.  It made me wish I could take Ruby, our chihuahua, with me.  I think two hours a night laying on me while we watch T.V. is probably sufficient bonding time and she would be dead of fright in about a mile.

It started raining on me in Hartsel, it wasn't as unpleasant as it could have been.  I love riding in the rain almost everywhere but the interstate.  I used to be petrified of it when I first started riding.  My fear of it made me much more dangerous to myself than the actual act of riding in the rain.

So I got to Fairplay and met up with my brother-in-law on his Aprillia.  It's a beautiful bike with a custom paint job he did himself.  We took off across CO 285 for Denver and again it started pouring on us.  This is one of the few times I didn't mind being stuck behind the endless string of fifth wheel campers and 4x4s with ATV trailers.  Traffic was going a decent speed and I felt safer going 55mph in the rain.  Plus it's so gorgeous on 285 I had time to look around.  For some reason I haven't learned the trick of slowing down and enjoying the ride by myself.  Maybe I should get a Harley so I have to go slow.

After my brother-in-law and I split up in Morrison (he lives in Silverthorne) I headed home the back way.  One thing I don't like about Colorado is there aren't many alternative routes, it's pretty much I-25 or CO 85 or 83 south from Denver.  The worst part of the trip was at a stop light in Castle Rock.  I wasn't paying attention when the light changed and got on the throttle.  Nothing extreme, just a normal take and the back tire started spinning and heading to the right.  I let off the throttle and looked back to see that I had been sitting in what looked like a little puddle of motor oil.  That could have been ugly and I was reminded again that riding a bike is nothing like driving a car.

I got home and the trip meter read 230 miles even.  The bike also turned over 30,000 miles on the odometer.  It should have passed that years ago were it not for my fat lazy ass.  I plan on making up the mileage form now on.

Books

I've been reading a lot lately.  I got a Nook last year.  That model is mine by the way.  Nothing fancy, no apps or movie capabilities, just a small device that's easy to carry.  I used it for awhile then it set collecting dust for another while.  I picked up a book I had been wanting to read for a some time now and started it.  Turns out it was a terrible, terrible book.  The Ghosts of Manhattan.  I do not recommend it.  So even though I never finished the book, I decided to start reading some more.  I had a few books on the Nook and viola I was hooked (again).  I used to be one of those people that wanted to hold a book in my hand, smell it, thumb through the pages and gaze at the cover art.  For the longest time I was against eReaders.  Boy was I silly.  As much as I love to collect my favorite books and look at them I realized I was turning into a hoarder.  I would read a book but couldn't bring myself to get rid of it when I was done..  My wife has been mocking me for years about the boxes full of books I have been dragging around the country.  The Nook is great because I can store hundreds of books in a tiny package.

I do still like to go to the book store a lot.  I go, browse, take a photo of a book that looks interesting then come home and buy it through the wi-fi.  My last trip to the store though I noticed some trends I hadn't before.  First I noticed the sad state of affairs for fantasy and science fiction (mainly fantasy).  There are dozens of sub-genres, most I don't know the name of.  Urban fantasy is one, post-apocalyptic and steam punk are a few more.  I think the reason this annoys me is it tells me there are so many of these types of stories being written that they have their own catagory.  That's a lot of unoriginality.  I suppose there are a lot of good stories being told but it's generally my experience that the bad out weigh the good and I'm too lazy to weed through them.  Steam punk in particular seems to be full of bad, cliche ridden titles.

There are also currently more books based on video games than there are video games.  If this isn't true it certainly seems true.  There is a paperback book for everything including strategy board games.  I'm sure some of these are probably good and I'm assuming there is a large fan base to make this lucrative.  If you've ever read a book based on a franchise you were unfamiliar with you know that they tend to be hard to follow.

My last word on fantasy is the womanizing of the genre.  I'm not talking in a Conan the Barbarian, drinking and wenching kind of way.  I'm talking about this...

Hi, I'm a frosty haired choade.

I think I'm going to puke.  Thanks Twilight, thanks a lot.  Something I found interesting was the number of middle-aged women browsing the fantasy section these days.  I eaves dropped on two a couple of months ago and boy they were into the series they were following.  It was cute.  I really missed Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard at that moment though.  This is how you end up with that guy in the picture above.

The womanizing of fantasy may have led to the increase in historical fiction, there seems to be a run on hairy chested Vikings and Gladiators these days.  No dudes named Tristan here.

I'm not a fan of an author that is bigger than his or her book either.

Both figuratively and literally.

I like Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club anyway), but come on.  I guess when there are people that read anything a favorite author puts out it makes it easy to find on the shelf but shouldn't you at least have the title of the book on the spine? Call me old fashioned.

Sure I'm bitching, what else is new, but really it's a great time to be a reader.  I've read quite a few good books the last couple of months, including the new adventures of my old favorite super hero from when I was a kid, Doc Savage.  I've also discovered the westerns of my favorite author Elmore Leonard, who also has a huge name on the cover.  And I've found a good political book from one of my favorite writers at the National Review, Jonah Goldberg.  So I'll do what I always advise others to do when they see something they don't like, I'll ignore the frosty haired choade.

And finally, one last image to leave you with...

In case you can't see because of the glare, that is 1000!

Soooo....

The election didn't really pan out as I was expecting.  Now I'm sitting here wondering how to perform my day to day functions with my head in the sand.  Turns out I'm not the only one.  Jonah Goldberg has written a pretty good op ed piece on National Review Online covering what a lot of us conservatives are feeling these days.  There are some pretty bitter op eds out too but this one kind of sums up how I feel about the whole thing.  I once felt passion and pride in the US voting process although I always knew that we were sliding to the left.  I guess the thing about Obama's second term victory is I was hoping it wouldn't have happened this fast.  I was kind of hoping I would have been dead.

So here we are heading to Europe.  I guess it's not all that bad, most Europeans I know are nice enough, I'm just not looking forward to the Greece phase.

At the end of this next four years I'm not going to be in much of a mood to say I told you so no matter how much you have it coming.

Trick Or Treat And The Electorial Process

So we're sitting around passing out candy and going over the mail in ballot.  I will never for the life of me understand why people are posting on Facebook that they'll be glad when the elections are over.  I love voting.  It's the greatest thing anyone (everyone) can do for their country.  I suppose you could be cynical and point out that special interests really decide the outcome of the elections and on any given 2nd Tuesday I would be inclined to agree but the best voting is local elections.  I love it.  It all may be an illusion to placate the peasants but I'm buying it.

Go vote!

Fraud

Just a few quick observations on fraud.  First a note to credit card companies.  Please stop sending me pre-approved applications with  personal information already included.  Second, a note to anyone reading this; I am totally aware that ain't going to happen.


Second, I've noticed a new trend in scams.  The scammer contacts the would be victim and claims to be an acquaintance, friend or family member in jail.  The scam is a request bail money be sent.  It happened to my niece while she was visiting this summer.  Someone texted her without mentioning a name.  She was suspicious enough to not send any money.  Then today I called my Dad to let him know I was locked up in Dayton.  Dad is pretty smart but even he he wasn't that clever I think he still would have caught on to the fact that I'm not his grandson (this ain't Chinatown).  Dad told the guy he's not to bright and the only retort the guy could come up with was, "Well you aren't to bright either because you stayed on a long time."  Not exactly Brad Pitt and George Clooney, this one.

Southern Poverty Lie Center

Well, okay.  That might be a little harsh I suppose but I couldn't think of another word that sounded close to law.  They might not lie with the intent to create harm but they are stretching the truth to exaggerate for what is an otherwise good cause.  They clearly get carried away with their open hatred of people that don't agree with them.  I was checking out their website a few weeks back when I saw this headline:  SPLC Intelligence Report: Cadre of Hard-Core Activists Fueling Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate.  The thrust of the story was that Rush Limbaugh and Fox News were causing an increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes.  Me, being the skeptic I am, did some digging and found out that their claims don't really match FBI and Department of Justice statistics.  Of course the DoJ has their own touchy feelie take on hate crimes but even they admit it's difficult to track the trends.  The FBI report for 2009, the last year available shows Islamic victims make up 8.4% of the targets.  Jews? 71.9.

It's fine to have a cause but you loose a lot of credibility when you just make something up to scare or influence people that are unfamiliar with the subject.  That goes for you too Michelle Bachman and your claim that HPV causes mental retardation, despite no scientific proof.  (Equal time for right and left wing loons).

A Brief Catch-up

Some things going on lately.  An old acquaintance was killed a few days back in a motorcycle accident.  He was around when I first got my Vmax in '97.  We used to ride together quite a lot in Gallup New Mexico.  He was one of those Harley or nothing guys.  I'll give him credit though, he rode as much as I do.  Over time we went our separate ways and crossed paths occasionally, the last time he was actually a huge ass towards me.  I know generally I have it coming but this particular time I didn't.  I don't hold any hard feelings and I actually prefer that he was still around.  He was always kind of right on the edge of obnoxious jerk and decent guy.

I probably shouldn't have led with such a downer but at least it's out of the way.  Now on to the good news.  We bought a house at the beginning of this month (August 26th actually).  It's great to not be renting, there is finally a sense of permanence.  I'm looking forward to hanging my Frazetta posters, Lisa on the other hand is not.  The dogs love the back yard, there was a bobcat spotted in the neighborhood and we have a giant buck eating the neighbors' flowers every night, life is pretty swell.

I'm going to go back to posting here as much as possible.  Twitter and Facebook kind of drew me away but then I realized that all I was doing was spamming friends with stupid articles that I thought were interesting but no one else cared about.  Sometimes Twitter makes me an asshole too.  Yeah, sure, blame Twitter for that one. 

A Metaphor For Life

The other day I was standing in the garage when a little girl came barreling down the sidewalk. Her pink bike was trailing streamers off the handle bars and she was standing bent over locked in full Lance Armstrong mode. She was traveling so fast I barely caught a glimpse of her and her blond locks flying free in the wind. I turned back around to whatever it was I was doing and a second later I hear a shrill whiny voice screaming "Ashley, come back. We have to wait for my Mom! Ashley, Ashley, Ashley!" There stood a little girl who clearly didn't understand that Ashley either was too far away to hear, or more likely didn't give a flying fuck whether she was with little Miss Prissy Pants' Mom or not. She had a hill to fly down and some over-regulated sheep girl and her Overlord keeper weren't getting in Ashley's way. I felt a moment of what it was like to be a child and hoped the little girl carried that rebellious, thrill-seeking side with her the rest of her life. I also hoped she didn't get hit at the intersection of the next street.