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No pictures, I just wanted to talk about my experiences with my first day of motorcycle ownership.

On Day 0, I had gone with a very experienced riding friend to take a look at the eventual motorcycle I would own: a 1984 Honda VF1100S Sabre V65. It’s an 1100 CC motorcycle, but at a price of $900, it was cheap enough that I could pay cash and own the pink slip on the bike, and thereby keep my insurance rates incredibly low ($75/year). Spent several hours doing all the paperwork and chores to be able to ride legally in Utah.

I had spent several preceding weeks reading instructions, watching videos, and making sure I knew the relevant laws and best-practices regarding riding a motorcycle. But I recognized the same feeling that I’d had prior to trying to fly my first airplane: an unfounded confidence that I would be fine without practicing.

So I broke out my mountain bike during the week my wife was away and spent some time getting used to riding on two wheels again. I loved it; I was reminded why I’d bought the bike in the first place. I had read about counter-balancing and counter-steering on a motorcycle, and realized I did this naturally on my mountain bike. My experience with many years in a stick-shift car had also taught me the necessity of having a soft touch on the clutch to ensure smooth acceleration.

Day 1: My friend drove the bike back to my house, we had a few words regarding operation and what all the switches and buttons do, how to shift properly, and then I took him to lunch at a local Irish-themed restaurant to thank him.

Once I got home, I got over my fear, and sat down on the bike for only the second time. I re-acquainted myself with the controls: clutch, front brake, rear brake, gearshift, neutral, first gear, horn, lights, emergency kill, choke, turn signal… all good. Turn the key. Beep the horn. Play with turn signals. Fiddle with high/low beams. Verify turns signals are all in working order. Break out the PSI indicator and make sure the inflation matches the recommendation in my owner’s manual. Check the suspension… hmm, looks like the left front fork has a bit more oil/dirt than the left. Need to plan a fork pressure/leak check, maybe before I hit highway speeds.

Back it out. Turn it around. Face toward my gravel cul-de-sac down the driveway. Full choke. Squeeze both levers. Go to neutral — all clicks down, half-click up. Huh, neutral is easy to miss. Try again. OK, press start. 30 seconds on full choke, 60 seconds on half-choke, then no choke.

Eased it into first. Remember to brake with the back wheel for slow-speed maneuvers. Begin a gentle left circle around my cul-de-sac.

I’m not breathing.

Stopped the bike. Killed the engine. Paused. Took several deep breaths. Went back into the house, got a drink of water, talked with the wife.

Went back and got on again. Now let’s do right-hand circles. Remember to use the rear brake in slow-speed, not the front. Don’t dump the bike! Let out the clutch a bit, hey, look, it straightens itself out just like the book said!

OK, my circles are getting better and tighter. My cul-de-sac is fifty feet wide. Feels big enough to do figure-eights. OK, right-hand figure-eights are fine. Left-hand? OK, try it slower. Use the rear brake and feather the clutch to keep RPMS up while making a really tight turn.

The gravel is pretty slippery in a tight turn. Probably best not to try to go any tighter until I get some experience on asphalt.

Took another break. Total time on bike: 90 minutes so far. Unfortunately, I live on a cul-de-sac attached to a main road. The only way to get any asphalt driving is to cross the highway. Well, nothing to be said for it.

Rode to the intersection. Chickened out, duck-walked to turn around because I wasn’t confident of my U-turn ability yet. Went home. Had dinner. Waited for rush-hour traffic to die.

Tried again later. Chickened again, went back to my cul-de-sac and practiced not stalling out the bike when moving into first gear. Finally got up the gumption, waited for a HUGE gap in traffic, and crossed to the 25MPH neighborhood streets across the way. Kept the speed down to around 15-20MPH, played with the speed bumps, found a parking lot. Practiced hard stops and starts. Imagined an obstacle, practiced a weave, realized I still suck at it and won’t be ready for the highway for a while yet.

Left the parking lot, found the right road back to my house. Virtually no traffic, easily rode back and parked it in my garage.

Total time riding: 3 hours. My hands ache. I’m very sweaty from my thick leather jacket and gloves.

Stayed up until 1AM reviewing motorcycle safety and instructional videos. Watched crash videos and analysis. Realized that there are a bunch of ways cars can kill me that aren’t much under my control. Resolved to work more on SEE techniques, swerving, and hard braking tomorrow. Riding an 1100CC motorcycle is decidedly different from riding an human-powered mountain bike.

Today is tomorrow. Stuck at work, and all I want to do is go ride 🙂

The comet Swift-Tuttle left an enormous trail of debris in our solar system, and each August our little spacecraft Earth flies through this trail again. The meteors are beginning to be visible, and will peak between August 8 and 12.

The falling stars are most visible from 11PM through dawn, increasing spectacularly a few hours before dawn. Schedule some time with your loved ones and watch this beautiful annual event.

Cohen: I have no quarrels with my wife! In the case of BIG issues I am the decision-maker, in SMALL ones my wife is. This was our arrangement from the first minute on. Gruen: Does it work? Can it work? Really? Cohen: Yes. There were no big issues in our marriage in the last forty years.

Most memorable scene of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight”: The Disappearing Pencil Trick. Not a doubt in my mind. One of the most memorable and subtly gruesome scenes ever.

Seen the movie yet?

This morning I dropped my oldest child off for Oakcrest summer camp at a LDS “stake center”. There were hordes of 12 and 13-year-old girls about. My daughter had some trouble locating her stake leader, but eventually figured it all out and settled down on the lawn to chat with her fellow camp-goers. It looks like she’s going to have a fun week.

I am reminded of similar camps when I was a youth. There was the school-run sixth-grade-camp I went to, from Darnestown Elementary. One night I was woken up, convinced it was morning and that I had KP duty, then locked out of the dormitory with a leering, red-headed kid named Kevin sticking his tongue out at me. He turned off the lights, and left me screaming at the top of my lungs while pounding the door for Mr. Yoxheimer to eventually wake up and, grumpily, let me back in.

That Kevin kid was a jerk.

I am reminded also of the stark contrast such camps were to the religious campouts I went to as a youth. Similar to sixth-grade camp, there was no shortage of peer-on-peer cruelty. For instance, at Goshen Scout Camp, one of my camp-mates thought it would be funny to crack a rotten egg on my sleeping bag while I slumbered therein. Those kinds of shenanigans are painfully well-remembered. I learned what it meant to be the new kid in a school full of children who’d known each other all their lives. To this day, I sometimes have difficulty figuring out when someone is having a laugh along with me, or ridiculing me.

On the other hand, the religious camps had the trappings of traditional summer camp, with a relentless focus on drawing moral or religious lessons from each activity. I would be pulled aside regularly for one-on-one interviews in which I was pressured by an adult to talk about my most private experiences and have that used as a lever to get me to go along with whatever the doctrine du jour was. The one that stands out most, actually, wasn’t at a LDS summer camp: it was a Methodist summer camp that I attended with my girlfriend (we were trying to convert one another), where the counselors were aghast that I had no interest in “surrendering” to Jesus.

My logic at age 16 went something like this: “What’s the point of surrendering when there was never a war to begin with?” Using the word “surrender” to describe one’s relationship to a deity implies there was some sort of conflict that you’re giving up. If you feel you are living your life in harmony with your god’s wishes — despite a few failings — what need is there to surrender? Why not use the word “negotiation”, or perhaps “subsume”, or “obey”?

The camp counselor pounded me on this for around fifteen minutes, then gave up, saying “Well, I understand where you’re coming from, but until you are saved and surrendered to Jesus, you won’t understand.”

Similarly, I was pulled aside for a several-hour seminar on the evils of masturbation at Priesthood camp. In particular, the counselor focused on “mutual masturbation” — the male-LDS-1980’s euphemism for homosexuality — and cautioned us not to give in to peer pressure to do that while at camp. We were then pulled aside for individual interviews with our priesthood leaders, and the only thing I remember getting asked about was whether or not I wanked, at what frequency, and what mediation plan we should come up with to stop it.

The other facet of summer camp that was part of the mind-job was the isolation. This lack of outside contact provides a fertile ground to enter a reality-distortion field, where you can be convinced of many things. I recall another Scout camp where a boy had a broken leg for hours before they finally took him to the hospital, then only after they had him all put together again did they bother to inform the parents.

I understand that it’s nice to get away from it all and unplug for a week. But at summer youth camp you should be swimming, playing, and telling scary stories around the campfire, not being quizzed on your sexual practices, pressured into signing an instrument of surrender on the religious version of the USS Missouri, or hiding serious injuries from parents.

I have some concern that Utah, with a Greater-Reality-Distortion-Field surrounding it already, might amplify the weird and coercive influences I experienced as a child.

As I handed my daughter her blue information sheet to help her locate her leaders, I asked her if she had her cell phone. She replied, “No, Dad, we’re not allowed to bring our cell phone.”

I was briefly taken aback, and responded, “Sara, I don’t want to be a subversive influence on you, but please, remember who you are this week. Just because someone is an authority does not mean they are right. Some leaders and peers take advantage of summer camp to try to advance their own agendas. Have fun, but be willing to say ‘no’.”

“I’ll be OK, Dad” she replied.

And I think she will.

What’s something you could do, would be within your current means and time, but you just haven’t gotten around to it?

For me? I would book a flight back to the East Coast, rent a car, and see the home where I lived up until age twelve. I don’t know why, it’s totally irrational, but it’s almost like I just need to see the place to remind myself that it’s not the same as when I left it, wild in a swamp.

What about you?

I cringe to look at these pictures (not explicit, not gross, just the implications): http://basia.blog-city.com/tykes_on_bikes.htm

Entire families riding on a single motorcycle. Life is cheap in India, I guess.

Sample photo:

I ran across a piece that gives a concise description of why we are currently withdrawing from Iraq (according to the President’s news conference yesterday) and the motivations for this move. Although some of my more liberal friends, I am sure, will take issue with the reasons for withdrawal and positive emphasis on the timing, it’s a useful description of the motivations for the move.

I think it’s interesting that, lately, the right-wing has begun emphasizing the talking point that we are withdrawing “based upon our successes”. As if withdrawal from Iraq is some kind of cookie for doing a good job. I’m not on-board with that analysis, though. I think it’s an excuse for trying to sweeten the well for the coming election. Bush has encountered a hostile congress, and the back-pedaling seems, to me, to be a lame attempt to try to reconcile in time to get incumbent parties re-elected come this Fall.

Too little, too late. Although the anti-incumbency sentiment was at its height in 2006, I think enough remains that we’re going to end up with a Democratic White House and at least either the Senate or House of Representatives is going to tip Republican.

From the noises they are all making lately, though, I’m not sure it makes much difference what party controls the Congress. My party — the Republican party — held the ideals of less government, lower taxes, strong military, and fiscal responsibility dear. The current Administration, both Presidential candidates, and the Congress, seem to be ignoring those ideals.

Yeah, you read that right, NASA is in need of more urine in order to test their Orion space capsule.

Odd request. Even odder that they’ve filled it. But based on the trickle of jokes on Slashdot, I foresee a stream of responses.

And sings.. and makes music..and.. oh its gonna be fun..

“DR HORRIBLE’S SING ALONG BLOG”

A NEW musical by Joss Whedon is now available to watch for free at drhorrible.com – but its crashing a lot and it will go down in a few days.

I decided to just buy the thing from itunes so I can have it forever. Act 1 is today.. act 2 is tomorrow, act three is the next day, then in a week it disappears.

Haven’t watched it yet.. but am about to..