Halloween 2009

So I work with a friend, his name is Chuck. He's the guy who's Yamaha XS we have diligently been working on and he comes up to me a few weeks ago and asks me if I want to go in on a costume idea with him for the Halloween Costume Contest at work. I said sure, not really having any idea of what he had in mind. Chuck's idea and he even bought the costumes. A couple of "Nun-Chucks"!

Proud Pappa

I know I don't talk too much about my job with you guys but I do get to do some pretty nifty projects at times, the below building being one of my tops. This is a Lowe's project across the freeway from the San Jose, CA International Airport from which we were required to take design cues. We were given a general elevation approved by San Jose Planning and Zoning and it was up to me to turn that idea into a set of construction documents. Design cues included the corrugated metal paneling, glass feature framing the entry and the rectilinear awnings at the Garden Center and Customer Loading Canopy. Seeing something like this constructed from details that I physically put on paper is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. I'm not particularly fond of the colors used but those were dictated to us by the developer.

Finally!

After much anticipation, my family pack of Windows7 arrived today. My plan is to install the first copy on my Home Theater PC to see how things go. Although I have been running Vista with zero issues for over a year now on two different machines, given all the positive press W7 has been receiving from pundits on both sides of the aisle, I thought I'd give it a shot. Microsoft is offering, while supplies last, a 3-pack of upgrades for $150 which is very hard to beat for people with multiple machines. In-depth report upcoming.

Don't try this at home.

11:48pm on a Friday night...
36 degress in my neck of the woods...
and I just got back from a 30 mile ride on the interstate.
That's why you shouldn't try this at home...unless you have sweet-ass heated riding gear like John and I have. See below:

I've probably told most of you how John made heated riding gear for himself using an old electric blanket. I doted on it quite a bit and probably dropped more hints than my momma would consider polite. So when I mentioned it to him a couple of weeks ago, he had me a "loom" already made up. Basically, he had everything from the battery all the way through the switch to the resistance wires in the blanket. All I had to do was the monotonous task of sewing the resistance wires into the removable liner of my MotoGP jacket. And so that's what I did this week whilst I was recuperating from surgery. Nothing better than sewing with one eye swollen shut. As for more of the details, there's an 8amp fuse in-line just off the positive wire that comes off the battery. And observe some of the other kick ass features in the pic below. For example, there's the male to female audio jack "quick disconnect" feature. Basically, if you forget you're plugged in and start to walk away from the bike, you just come unplugged instead of ripping the loom out of the jacket. And also notice the craftsmanship on the on / off switch. It's encased in JB Weld. Turns out John knew JB Weld personally. They were best buds growing up. I'm just saying that's a fine job done with the JB Weld.

And so is the proof in the pudding? Indeed. I went out for a 30-mile ride, mostly all interstate, at around 11:30pm tonight. Got back around midnight. It was in the low 40's today and was spitting rain off and on. Roads were dry when I went out tonight, but it was cold as snot. I was wearing thermal long john pants (under my brown pants of course), similar long sleeve shirt, a t-shirt and the MotoGP jacket with the liner in it. Heavy gloves and a neck gator. Honestly, at 36 degrees, it wasn't toasty, but it was warm enough to counteract the bitter ass cold. There was no heat from sunshine either, mind you. So I'll typically never ride in the dark and probably never ride in 36 degree temps, and if I do I would wear my rain gear as additional wind break. That helps, by the way. But in these conditions, sustaining 70 to 80mph indicated, I was able to maintain a decently comfortable core temperature. It kept me warm enough that when the ride was done, I was feeling good enough to clean my chain in my UNHEATED garage. There's a lot to be said for that. I think if the air temps were 10 degrees warmer, say in the mid 40's and if riding in daylight, I would be quite comfortable. This is a victory in my book, and a nice addition to my bag of tricks.

Bike Contest

Hey guys. As most of you know, I don't go on the OA too very much anymore, but I do frequent the SR500 board. It's quaint there. Six hundred members, but plenty in Europe and tons of Aussies. Not an overwhelming number of daily posters, so it seems like a very small forum. Anywho, someone had the idea to do a bike contest. I wanted to participate just for the sake if having a good turnout, so I entered the ZRX in the "Non SR section" of the contest. There's voting and everything.
Here's a link to the thread with all my pics:
http://www.sr500forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=1737
Here's a link to the sub-forum with all the non-SR bikes, so you can see the competition:
http://www.sr500forum.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=51

Ralph Wayne's Backyard Nationals

Today was the 17th Annual Ralph Wayne's Backyard Nationals. It's a Kansas City event held at a local guy's house each fall. It's literally a bike show in the guy's back yard. Miraculously his neighbors have put up with this for nearly two decades. The really nice bikes get waved on up into the back yard. And then all others line the adjacent streets. It's a really cool event. I spent a few hours there today.

This year was particularly interesting because my friend Dave, who I've told you guys about before, debuted his recently completed board tracker replica bike. Dave has spent the last few years building this bike from the ground up. He literally started with drawings of the frame and then welded it up from there. The power plant is a lawn mower engine. The craftsmanship is top notch. Very cool bike. He chronicled the entire build on his dedicated blog: Board Tracker Blog

Rough and Tumble Tour 2009

Most of you know that Chuck and I had originally planned this Arkansas romp for Labor Day weekend. We postponed three weekends in a row due to rain in the Mountain View area. But we caught our break last week and made it happen….finally. Our plan was to meet up in West Mineral, KS, the home of Big Brutus, the 16-story decommissioned shovel crane. We planned to make Mountain View by Saturday night, ride the Bixby Ball Buster on Sunday and return home Monday. What follows is how it all unfolded.

I arrived at Big Brutus at 11am….right on time….only to find no Hickl. A phone check revealed the following text message from Chuck:
“Check your voicemail. ZRX is hosed.” Sent at 10:15am.
A follow up text sent 45 minutes later read: “Hang tight at Brutus. I’m continuing on.”
Chuck arrived on the smoke-billowing Rex at around 11:30am. The decision was quickly made that we would “Shit and git” – to quote Chuck. Without spending any time at Brutus, other than in the museum’s toilet, we took off for Tulsa to retrieve Optimus Prime, aka “the Fizzy.”

We arrived in Tulsa close to 2pm. We parked the ailing Rex, ate lunch at Subway, and headed off for Mountain View at 2:45pm. At this point, we both had about 300 miles of super slab underneath our belts. We were both dragging a little bit of ass, especially considering we knew we had almost another 300 miles to Mountain View ahead of us and would probably be arriving in the dark. We slabbed it over to Huntsville, where we picked up the Pig Trail. We stopped at the same Shell station there in Huntsville where we always gas up. Chuck scored some “EXTREME CHICKEN SHOOTERS” for a snack. We took hwy74 through Kingston and Ponca where we saw literally dozens of cars parked along the side of the road watching the Elk that roam that bottom land down there near the Boxley Corner. It was like the circus was in town. Through Jasper and by the time we hit Marshall – fifty miles away from Mountain View – it was already completely dark and a little bit chilly to boot. Jacket liners, neck gators and clear shields came out for that last push to our final destination. As we left Marshall, we passed a kid on a bicycle who greeted us with the middle finger. This got Chuck’s dander up so much that he later lamented that he didn’t stop to to punch the kid in the face for being so rude. And I quote: “While I punched him in the face, I would have said to his friend, ‘Tell his parents why I did this’.” (Just for Deekster, there’s a great line from “The Big Lebowski” here: “Do you see what happens Larry?! This is what happens, Larry, when you fuck a stranger in the ass!”) We arrived in Mountain View just before 9pm. We stopped at the Mexican joint in town before we even checked in at the motel. More than 12 hours on the bikes and 543 miles total for the day, but we made it in one piece and in good spirits.
BELOW: Saturday morning and Chuck is overjoyed by the breakfast menu at the Angler.

Saturday was the much-anticipated Bixby Ball Buster. I know of nothing to speak of in Bixby. It’s a dot on the map. I’ve just enjoyed the alliteration (Bixby Ball Buster) and the challenge of making it all the way up there and back in one day. It was fun heading up into “uncharted territory”, a sort of modern day Lewis and Clark on sport bikes. But in reality, we didn’t encounter any Lost City of Gold, no El Dorado of the twisties up north of the border. (I am getting lost in my own expeditionary metaphors here.) We did come across one unique, recently-paved, no painted lines, stretch of HIGH speed sweepers up in the Mark Twain National Forest. Route KK it was. We set it at about 100mph and maintained that for about 10 minutes. It was ridiculous. Another really nice road is HWY19, but it’s the stretch up near Eminence, MO. Jody, and Joe B and I have been on the lower leg of HWY19 in the past and only noted the continuous blind hills and complete LACK of corners. But there is some really nice stuff up near Eminence. We logged 412 miles on Saturday, a day that started with HYW9 and ended with HWY58. We scored pizza and a calzone for dinner at a little place there in Mountain View.

Monday morning we left for home via Yellville. Chuck’s rear tire was showing steel cords by the time we parted ways there. I was quite worried he might not make it back. But stupidity prevailed once again and he made it home safe and sound….I’m sure with sparks flying all along the way.
BELOW: I got the wonderful aroma of cedar whilst on the ferry ride.

I made it back at around 6:30pm Monday evening. All told, I racked up 1,360 miles for the three-day weekend. One hell of a bender.