10 years of motorcycles

This week I will have been riding for 10 years. It was the weekend of Seafair in Seattle back in 1998 when I had taken a motorcycle safety class, and that following Monday updated my drivers license with a motorcycle endorsement. I was then qualified to ride a 250cc bike on a closed parking lot course.

Of course, things turned out different than that.

I bought my first motorcycle that Monday, the next stop after the DMV. It was a slightly used BMW F650 in this orange color from Cascade BMW, with maybe 800 miles on it at the time owned by a gal named Meghan who worked there. She was a sweet woman who smoked unfiltered camels and had a greyhound named after Valentino Rossi, who was one of her heroes.

That bike was like a paint shaker. It was fun, I put 10,000 miles on it in about 6 months. Then, I needed new tires and bought a K1200RS. I won't bore you with the details, but I put about 60,000 miles on that bike in 2 years. I rode a lot.

I really didn't associate much with other folks much during that time of my life. I had just sort of established my own independence where I moved out of my dad's house, then started riding a little while later. In a lot of ways, the bike was my girlfriend. No, I didn't have sex with it, but we went everywhere. A few years later with my first serious Long Term Relationship (with another person!) bike riding fell to a utility. I would still go on rides occasionally. She worked around the bike shop a lot so there was lots of motorcycleish things we did.

Nowdays riding is strictly a business affair. I use it to get to work and back, to beat the traffic and find easy parking. This is balanced by the danger of bad drivers and bad weather, but it is still worth it.

This morning I was thinking about my ride every day. I leave from south of Cougar mountain, and drive north to Kirkland. There's 2 or 3 ways to get to work, and I have to choose which one every morning. To be honest, I still use the method I did when riding everywhere just "because". I look up and check the weather, and ride in the direction that looks more desirable. Way back when, I would always ride where the skies looked clearest, or where there was civilization or some other thing that made the trip easier.

Nowdays, when I watch the sky in the morning as I head out, I find myself drawn towards the dark clouds on the horizon, looming behind the hills that surround where I live. For instance, this morning there was a clear division of dark rain clouds towards one direction, and electric blue sky the other. In between the clouds personify their gauzy indecision, clinging to the hillsides.
The sun shines through these wisps diffuse and casting a cold blue and white glow wherever I go. So obviously I choose the more melodramatic routes, at the risk of being rained on.

As I was riding I thought about how short my commute is, about 20 miles every morning each way. It should be the same ride, but every day is slightly different. Today was rain spray on my face shield, bright sun, looming clouds, dark green trees. Yesterday was high overcast, dry, lots of traffic. After a while they do blend together, but taken individually they are as unique as my sorties into random places along the western united states that I used to travel on a regular basis.

Perhaps it's just another sign (along with my perpetually sore elbow) that I am getting older, but I try and dwell on the tiny details, as I seem to garner as much satisfaction from these tiny daily trips as I did the huge rides I used to take.

At some point, I would like to take my wife with me on some longer trips - I don't know when we will be able to do that with our new child and financial situation, but I keep my hopes up that we can really have some great adventures once the oppertunity presents itself.

I anticipate that if I can derive pleasure from my short 20 mile commute, I hope a couple thousand miles under the tires will add up to far more.

Framing done (I think)

I got the rest of the framing done, so now we have a perfect little pantry with a pocket door. That has a nice onomatopoeia to it does it not?

I also included an open style coat closet so you can close the door then park shoes and coats right inside the front door, like mister rogers did. Now it's time to get the electrical finished and drywall, then it might actually be a room again. Whee!

Kitchen work

I just got some more of the entry way framed up. A little wall with a 10.5" flag hanging off the corner, to accommodate a heater vent, and to give us some privacy during the entrance. With cheereos all over the floor, the dog licking his crotch, baby toys strewn about and occasional dollops of cat barf for the sheer joy of it, I'm sure we need as much privacy as we can.

I really like framing up walls and other features. I'll be setting up a pantry with a pocket door, and an open closet thing that allows me to put shoes and stuff in the bottom in little cubbies. Framing goes the quickest, and utilizes my two favorite power tools: compound miter saw and a framing air nailer.

It is nice to have this wall up because it gives me an actual feel for the kitchen size when finished. I have been concerned that it will be still too small after, but I think it will be great, considering the type of house it is in.

Tomorrow? Patching holes in the roof, figuring out where to put drywall, and sweeping up cheereos.

Office werks

Our office move is coming up at the end of July. I'm tasked with getting the internet tubes hooked up so our big trucks can carry data through pipes. Or some sort of internet meme. I think that what I do is really, REALLY abstracted from the real world. You know, (or maybe you don't?) the ground you walk on, cars you drive, the sunlight, moonlight, or rain. Total disconnect.

I think I read somewhere that if you were to weigh all the information on the internet, where the "information" was actually the electrons carried through our networks, it would weigh .02 millionths of an ounce. Very tiny. So imagine the task that the humble IT servant endures, shunting our meager electrons around in the various patterns necessary to go about our business. From the context of physical labor, it's completely effortless - you're flapping around the breath of angels on heads of pins.

Thus, my frustration about the job sometimes - I think I'd rather be pushing around mounds of dirt with a bulldozer. My office a 14 foot tall enclosed glass box, with many controls at my finger tips, diesel engine pushing hydraulic fluid through high pressure hoses and driving huge tracks. I follow the whim of whatever project manager has in mind, making piles of dirt here and there.

It's essentially the same thing, the heavy equipment operator and I - we shunt around basic elements of our universe (dirt, electrons) into useful patterns (roads, networks, computing) so other people can be blissfully unaware of what they are riding over the top of, in order to accomplish an idea of their own. We both shape ideas into other ideas, forming a system for others to utilize.

It's somewhat of a thankless task but I think when you stop and ponder the details it carries it's own rewards.

Stop and smell the flowers, and think about who or what planted them there.

Tired

I've been working on fixing parts of the house for a while now. I just finished installing sheetrock in the basement, and it still awaits taping, then sanding, then filling, then texturing, then painting. It's like the work never ends, but I am anticipating the outcome. It will be nice to have a cozy room to call our own.

It's hard to find time to get all these things done, between, screaming babies, wives, traffic, and the world-at-large. I need to persevere.

Fuel prices

So normally I ride a motorcycle to work. Yes, the usual risks, disclaimers and cautions apply. I got left turned into on may 23rd by a guy with a truck and trailer, and fortunately I wasn't hurt. The bike isn't really ridable though. There was a witness and the dude in the truck and I both got her contact info.

It seems that his insurance (State Farm) tried calling her once, but she never heard from her. So now I don't have a bike, I'm driving my truck (expensive!) to work, and it's all in limbo based on someone's 3rd party account of this whole shebang.

I wish it would hurry up and get figured out - I don't like driving to work, I want to ride to work.

New electricity

Well, my house isn't engulfed in flames, my wife didn't have to push my convulsing body away from live wires with a wooden stick, and I can still post blogs. I guess that means that my electrical repairs to the house were successful. It feels really good to see things done correctly, instead of half ass shitty. Ahh.

Lunch: serious business.

So I just got back from lunch with my old manager from my Microsoft TV days, and boy it's interesting how much the world can change and stay the same. Investor deals, content delivery methods, big data centers - all very exciting stuff my inner nerd loves to talk about. I'd love to be more specific, but then I'd have to kill you.

Doughnuts

So last night JP and Gwyn came over at about 9:30 at night so we could get a doughnut at the crispy creme shop in issaquah. We pile into cars (because they're going to drive back home after) and make our way through the night out to the land of doughnuts. What do we find? A closed shop. They used to be open till midnight, now they're closed by 10 pm. Fuh.

So, we decide to go to the grocery store down the street. Also closed. Just a few days ago probably too. Well damn, now what? Ok, lets drop doughnuts and go get ice cream. We need some sort of unnecessary fattening product. Baskin robins! Uh. Also closed. Then, Amanda decides she's hungry and wants a taco from taco bell. Also closed! Our impulse fast food jaunt is quickly becoming far more difficult than we were hoping for.

Finally, we give up and go to another grocery store that is still open, and I buy a doughnut and some milk for Amanda and I to share. Before we leave that store, the folks there too decide to turn the lights off. Whats with that? We chill out in the parking lot the 5 of us in the car, (I'm hanging out with the dogs in the back seat) eating our sweet greasy treats.

While relaxing in the cargo area of our car, my mind fleetingly touches on the subject of suburban decline. Maybe this is what it will eventually be like - things become too expensive or impractical so people leave for more populated areas, the exodus revealing vast abandoned spaces like shopping stores and dark neon signs. The remaining inhabitants scurry around watching the fuel level in their vehicle seeking out the remaining beacons of American capitalism glowing in the twilight of civilization.

I mean, whats more American than unnecessarily driving around late at night to eat doughnuts?

First post11!!11!one

I created the blog on a whim, while taking a shit on the toilet. The battery on my laptop is about dead, (it's beeping at me, all kinds of angry over my treatment of it) and the shift keys are busted off. This makes it exceedingly difficult to type on.

Hooray for me, I've finally different, just like everyone else.