Christmas is a distant speck in my rear-view mirror, and we are already most of a month into 2012.  I wouldn’t really say I have any “resolutions” for the New Year, but I do have some goals.  It is odd how the completely arbitrary change over of a calendar causes me to re-examine my life, but I will take advantage of it.  It is time to give some thought to what I want to focus on in the next year.

Things I intend to do in 2012

• Spend 25% less money:  2010 and 2011 were incredibly expensive years for Irene and I.  It wasn’t all just big things like motorbikes and new roofs, either.  I have to stop treating my depression with expenditure: both Irene and I want to at least have the option of retiring before 65, and unless we decrease our current burn rate significantly, Freedom 95 starts to look optimistic.  It is important to note that I don’t say “spend no money”- Irene and I want to still enjoy our lives.  Interestingly, I said something very similar last New Years, but this time I’m going to make it stick
• Get lots of motorcycle riding in: I had a ton of fun and experienced a fair amount of personal growth as a result of my motorcycle rides last year.  During 2011, I put nearly 24,000 km on my motorbike.  I intend to keep that up: not necessarily the same mileage, but lots of trips.  However, I’ll be looking for ways to minimize what my longer rides cost- I’ll probably be buying a tent and a sleeping bag, for example, and stopping in campgrounds instead of hotels at least part of the time
• Be prepared for unpleasant work changes: My career is jeopardy.  My employer doesn’t have much room for technologists who don’t want to travel 50% of their time, and even less for technologists from North America who make substantially more than their Indian counterparts. I don’t expect my job to be the same, or possibly even exist, within the next year.  Irene and I need to be ready for a substantial reduction in our circumstances
• Find ways to be more at peace: I might lose my job, or reach the point where I can’t tolerate staying.  If that happens, Irene and I will have to give up a great deal, most likely including our house.  And that’s just the “small” stuff- life is happening all around, and much of it isn’t pleasant.  The problem isn’t all of this “stuff” that is happening- the problem is that I dwell too much on eventualities I can’t be certain of and frankly have little to no control over, and not enough on the good fortune I have already
• Write regularly in my personal journal:  I’ve found over the last few years that problems, aggravations, and worries lose their power when I write them down in my journal.  The process of writing the thoughts down causes me to formalize my concerns, and it put problems in a different perspective.  And maybe writing things down forms a kind of “resolution” or closure, allowing me to put some issues to rest that otherwise reside perpetually in my  mind.  I usually write regularly for a couple of months, then get out of the habit, picking it up again months or  years later.  I will do better this year
• Keep on struggling with my weight: I’d like to find a healthy balance of sorts, but I definitely haven’t yet.  I managed to get my weight down to about 180 pounds by May of 2011.  By August, I was over 190.  As of January 2012, I am 200 pounds: 10 pounds heavier than New Years of 2011.  I know why: I don’t like exercise, and I eat for comfort.  l don’t expect any great changes this year, but I don’t want to give up the fight

I’d also like to say that I’ll communicate more with my friends and family, or that I’ll spend some time making new friends and acquaintances: such thoughts are inspiring, but I know they are a struggle against the deepest parts of my nature.  I need to pick my battles: that’s what the list above is intended to document.

My second big motorcycle trip of the year took me down the Coastal Highway (Highway 101).   Road trip #1 had already established that I enjoyed motorcycle touring, so now it was about seeing where that enjoyment would take me.  I still had questions I wanted to ask myself during the ride: how far in a day is too far, are scenic roads just a little more enjoyable than “main” highways, or a lot, and is driving through unfamiliar cities on a motorbike ‘way more scary than in a car?  I packed up my bike and set out on August 1 to see what new things I could learn about myself…

The Coastal  Highway trip

Link to Gallery: Coastal Highway pictures

I was fortunate to be able to start my second motorcycle adventure joined by my brother Colin.  He travelled with me right from my house, crossing the border with me that early Monday morning.  It was great to have his company, and he got me off to a fantastic start.

My overall route looked something like this:

• Starting from home, cross the border at the Highway 15 (176 Street) truck crossing
• Stay on Interstate 5 to I 405; divert onto 405 to avoid downtown Seattle
• Turn off I 5 onto the 101 at Olympia; follow the 101 around the Olympic Peninsula via Port Angeles etc
• Continue on the 101 to Seaside, Oregon, where we stopped for the first day
• Seaside to Brookings, Oregon on the 101: that was day #2 with Colin
• Brookings to Mountain View, California: Day #3, with Colin and I parting ways early in the day at Crescent City, California
  • I split off the 101 and on to Highway 1 to minimize the “big highway” part of my trip; I re-entered the 101 near Cloverdale, CA via Highway 128 then on into San Francisco across the Golden Gate bridge

Astoundingly, I was untouched by weather once again: no serious rain, no storms, just perfect riding weather.   On the return trip I essentially came straight home on the I 5, and I won’t say much about that part of the trip.  Interstate travel, at least based on my I 5 experience, is not a chore at all- it is just very bland.  I much prefer the smaller roads, although admittedly the main highways like the Interstates are great when you just want to cover miles quickly.

Colin was with me for the first two days of the trip, and I really enjoyed our ride together.  I liked having the chance to visit with my brother under these circumstances: sharing something we both enjoy, seeing beautiful scenery, and experiencing an adventure together.  I did make one error with the route during those first couple of days, and that was underestimating just how tiring including the Olympic Peninsula would make day number one.  I knew that would add 400 km or so to that day’s ride, but on paper it didn’t look that bad.  If I were to do it again, I would have added an over-night to that part of the trip, stopping somewhere around Port Angeles.  The Olympic Peninsula is beautiful, but travelling through that scenery on a day with over 900 km of fairly technical (for me) riding is just a bit much.  By the time we got to Seaside, I was too tired to care about the hotel or the ocean view.  All I wanted was food and a place to lie flat for a while.

Day #2 of the trip was probably my favourite day of the ride.  We had fewer kilometres to cover, there was a bit less traffic (although traffic on the 101 was pretty light throughout), and it was just generally a more relaxed and enjoyable day.  The second day also brought back to me all my memories of previous trips down this highway.  The coastal views south of Seaside, Oregon are stunning.

Colin and I parted ways on the third day shortly after we checked out of our Brookings hotel.  He turned North, back to meet his wife Betty in Abbotsford, while I continued on to San Francisco and then Mountain View.   I had consulted with friends who told me that the 101 turned inland away from the coast as it approached San Francisco, something I barely remembered from my trips via this route decades ago.  So I had planned a break off from the 101, onto the Highway 1, intending to stay right on the coast and rejoin the 101 after I’d had my fill of that route.

My choice was a good one, although I made one mistake.  I completely missed the Avenue of Giants, where tourists like myself can split off onto the “old” 101 and see the ancient redwoods.  I really wanted to see this, but had forgotten that it was a separate highway and missed my opportunity.  Regardless, I can definitely recommend taking Highway 1 off of the 101 for anyone who wants to experience extreme twists and turns while hanging their toes over the edge of cliffs falling directly into the ocean.  In other words, it was great, and traffic was fairly light.  My path back to the 101 was via Highway 128, which cuts inland through heavy forest and is also a very twisty secondary road.  Unfortunately, the road surface on the 128 was in pretty bad shape: lots of holes and back breaking bumps, including some really nasty ones on sharp corners.  If you take this route, do *not* plan on going fast: you will definitely regret it if you do, and might suffer more than some rough riding.

I arrived in San Francisco via the 101, which crosses the Golden Gate bridge.  Traffic was heavy as I approached the bridge but, thanks once again to advice from my friends, I pulled into a viewpoint park (Battery Spencer) immediately on the north side of the bridge and relaxed for 30 minutes or so before continuing on.  That brief stop relaxed me, took the stress off, and amazingly allowed the heavy traffic to mostly clear out of the way.

I had to pay the toll crossing the bridge, which at $6 is pretty steep for a motorcycle.  Again, I had advice from friends and had the money at the ready so I didn’t hold up traffic at all.  I was able to shut off the engine on my bike, hand over the money, and restart without causing anyone to honk or road rage on me.  Shortly thereafter I was at my hotel in Mountain View, planning out my next day at the Computer History Museum.

The Computer History Museum

Link to Gallery: Computer History  Museum

The Best Western Plus Mountain View is, as it turned out, pretty much perfectly situated for the geek wanting to visit the Museum.  It is barely five minutes away, an easy drive down some low-traffic roads.  Once there, the Computer History Museum itself is computer geek nirvana.

I ended up spending two full six-plus hour days at the Museum, totally indulging my desire to experience the history and amazing challenges computer pioneers faced.  I would imagine that an average computer buff would have their fill of the exhibits in four hours or so, but there are so many evocative artifacts to see, and the complex thoughts and emotions they brought up made me lose track of time.  A big chunk of CHM isn’t just history, it is *my* history: I could remember flicking the switches on an IMSAI 8008 when it was a miraculous piece of the future, the rattle and clunk of my Apple II+’s floppy disk drive loading another surprise, the squeals and chirps of my first 300 baud modem connecting me to an unexplored world.  I could have spent time visiting other shrines to computing like the Apple or Google campuses, and one day I will, but this museum hooked me.

As I was leaving on the second day, one of the grey-haired Museum docents leaving for the day recognized me from inside.  He stopped by to chat about my motorbike and where I was from.  When I said British Columbia, Canada, he said “Oh, that’s too bad: if you were local, I would have encouraged you to join the docent program.  You seem to know your history…”  I felt  a slightly curious feeling of belonging, for a moment, to a rather unique era.  I was there when… and I programmed that… not the beginning, not with founders like Turing or Hopper, but nonetheless a true participant in the generation of people who grew up on the cusp of the computing revolution.  I’m glad I spent the extra time there, and am confident I’ll be back to the area to see the things I missed on this trip as a result of my deep dive into the Museum.

Conclusions

The Oregon Coast highway was as fantastic as I remember it.  Once again I lucked out in the weather department, and experienced a nearly perfect ride as a result.  I cemented my perception of touring being the kind of riding for me.  I experienced a completely enjoyable time together with my brother, Colin.  And I allowed myself the luxury of staring deep into the technology and history of the computing world I love.  I am already giving thought to long motorcycle trips for 2012, and I’m expecting to experience lots of new things, both good and bad, in the process.

We had our kitten Harley, barely five months old, euthanized last night.  His last ten days of life were full of subcutaneous fluids, forced feedings, several antibiotics, and lots of love.  In the end I was faced with a decision I never want to have to repeat.  Harley’s immune system was damaged beyond repair by the feline leukaemia virus and, although we had managed to keep him alive for a few extra days, it wasn’t going to get better.

The prognosis was several weeks or months of life, filled with daily forced feedings, fluids, and drugs.  His body lacked the ability to fight off all the ordinary bacteria found in the air, the water, the food that healthy cats shrug off every day.  The vast majority of kittens at Harley’s stage die before they are a year old. I ultimately decided I couldn’t put Harley through never-ending treatment… selfishly, I couldn’t put myself through it either.  Every time I had to stick a needle in him, or syringe food down his throat, it felt like I was abusing the little guy.

My heart is broken.  I feel guilty, sad, and angry.  Angry at a world where people can’t bother to spay or neuter their cats, where cats and kittens in untold millions are abandoned at shelters because people treat them as little more than unwanted toasters or unstylish throw pillows.

Good bye, Harley- your cuddles and purrs will be missed, and the zipper pulls on my clothes will never be chewed on with so much mischievous love again.

Earlier this year I completed a motorcycle skills training course, bought a Kawasaki Vulcan, and got my motorcycle license.  I had ridden before back when I was still a teenager, but this time I actually got my license.  Between May and September I rode about 10,000 kilometres- most of that was smaller rides in the 100 km or so range, but I had several 500+ kilometres days as well.  During that time I learned a lot about riding, and more importantly about myself.

How I got here

I learned, for example, that I like a bike that can shrug off crosswinds to a degree.  I prefer carrying things with me when I ride, and enjoy longer trips so long as I can maintain a degree of comfort.  I found that my Vulcan became rather “exciting” at around 120 km/h, and not in a good way.  I found that my butt, hips, arms and hands could quickly, in a matter of minutes, become uncomfortable… and that re-engineering the bike could correct many of those discomforts.  And I confirmed that motorcycling is something I’m going to want to do over the longer term- the reality of riding a motorbike is as fun as the fantasy.  These things led me to start considering a different bike, a more “ideal” bike than my Vulcan, and I started assembling a savings plan to replace my bike in a few years.

I started discussing these plans with Irene as early as August.  Some things happened in my family that made me start thinking more about how short life is, and how easy it is to find it suddenly impossible to do the “one day” things.  Of course, this added a certain amount of frustration to my “one day” plans, a frustration that Irene started to hear from me on a regular basis.  After a few weeks of this, in late September, Irene said “Fine- if you want a different bike so much, you can have one now if we can adopt two kittens”.

Irene had, of course, been hinting about adding more cats to our household for years: that was how we made ElCee’s (LC… Last Cat) name somewhat inaccurate four or five years ago when we adopted Nimbus…. then Coco.  I take full responsibility for Iris, but she had extended our cat family against my better judgement as well.  And for a few weeks Irene had been cooing and goo-gooing over certain kittens at the shelter she was volunteering at.  Seeing the writing on the wall, I surprised Irene by immediately agreeing.  I talked about the kittens that joined our household as part of this deal, one of whom was named Harley in commemoration, in a previous post.

What I got

There is no such thing as the “perfect” bike.  There is a vast selection of really good motorcycles out there, from lots of companies that often compete in very narrow niches.  In other words, the consumer has a lot of good choices, and so the first thing to figure out is what type of riding you do.  Going extremely fast doesn’t interest me, so that removes the cafe racer/crotch rocket bikes from my list.  I don’t go off-road, so that’s another big block of bikes that I can dismiss.  I like a comfortable ride and want some luggage to cart things around easily: so that eliminates hundreds of other perfectly wonderful bike models that simply don’t match my interests.

What does that leave?  Amazingly, it still leaves dozens of models and brands to consider.  Bikes like the huge full-dress touring behemoths such as the Harley Electra Glide, Honda Goldwing, Kawasaki Nomad, and others.  Euro-tourers like the BMW 1300GT and the Honda ST1300.  And countless others that fit in as similar or equivalent, but with unique features appealing to particular individuals.  At this point, the choices become mostly based on emotional responses: which bike would make me feel the happiest?  Pure logic can be applied, but when I find myself starting to invent excuses that push a particular bike to the top of the list, I realize logic is not going to get the job done.

Where did my heart take me?  Well, when I was a kid and was imagining the “ultimate” motorcycle, it was always a Harley-Davidson touring bike.  Back then, that bike was the Electra Glide.  This is a full dress bike, or a “decker” (as in “all decked out”)- with trunk, saddlebags, fairing, lowers, stereo, cruise control, etcetera.  So I started looking at modern Harley touring bikes, and found much to like.  But it wasn’t the Electra Glide I kept coming back to, it was the Road Glide, the “black sheep” of the Harley-Davidson touring bike family.  After much soul-searching, I settled on the Road Glide Ultra, a choice that was cemented after a heavenly road test.

My Road Glide

The Details

I picked the “ugly duckling” Harley-Davidson tourer, the Road Glide, although personally I think it looks great.  It is just as expensive as the Electra Glide, but unlike its better known sibling, the Road Glide has a frame attached (as opposed to fork attached) fairing.  In the picture above, you will note that the fairing (the big cowling on the front of the bike) is facing straight forward while the steering forks are turned- this is what “frame attached” means.  What it also means is that wind blasts push the whole bike around- not just the steering.

Frame attached fairings are, by any practical definition, a better design- but Harley traditionalists don’t like them .  Some claim a benefit to the fork attached fairing because the headlight turns with the forks: if you actually ride a motorbike at anything above walking speeds you’ll quickly see that this is a non-point.  At speed, the front forks hardly move in a turn: the bike leans or counter-steers instead.  Others claim that the fork attached fairing is better aerodynamically because the wind force helps the bike turn- anyone who has ridden a bike at speed in a cross wind with a fork attached fairing will know that this isn’t true except in very unusual circumstances.  So that leaves the matter of appearance: some people  prefer the look of the fork attached “batwing” fairing over the frame attached “shark nose” fairing.  I personally like the shark nose, but… to each their own

Batwing fairing (Electra Glide Ultra Classic)    vs     Shark nose fairing (Road Glide Ultra)

The Road Glide Ultra is a new-for-2011 trim package for the Road Glide.  I looked at getting a used Road Glide, but when I priced out the features the Ultra trim package includes (trunk, 103 ci engine, the new for 2009 highly stable frame design), it didn’t make sense to go used.  Harley-Davidsons have fairly high resale values, so a 2009 or even a 2006 with low mileage is only a few thousand less than brand new.  Adding the trunk alone would have added nearly $2,000 to that used bike: the engine upgrade is out of the park.  So, in the end I bought a brand new motorbike that is easily as expensive as many mid-range new cars.

It is worth mentioning a couple of things about cost.  Back in my youth, buying a Harley automatically meant spending close to 50% more than buying a comparable Japanese bike.  That was still true well into the ’90s, but during the last decade or so the price differential has disappeared.  A comparable Kawasaki Nomad or Honda GoldWing is within hundreds of dollars (less than 5%) of the price of my Road Glide.  Which leads to the question- are there any practical (i.e.: non-emotional) reasons for buying a Harley versus one of these near identically priced competitors?

In short, not a lot of reason.  But on the other hand, many of the reasons for buying a Japanese or European bike versus a Harley are no longer true either.  The old “Harleys leak” and “Harley engines are unreliable” arguments are based on two or three decade old observations: any Harley built since the mid 80′s have a newer technology engine (starting with the Evolution) that is as leak free and reliable as anything made in Japan.  During the past decade or so, Harley technology has also radically improved: their new touring frame is incredibly solid and stable, their fuel injection and engine computers are first rate, and the Brembo ABS brake systems they use are amongst the best in the world.

That leaves a few things that differentiate a Harley and which aren’t purely emotional.  One big one: many of the pieces on Harley’s are metal, and are plastic/ABS on their competitor’s bikes.  Notable pieces include the fenders, the engine head covers, and the crank case covers.  Hondas and Kawasaki bikes have plastic in a lot of places you just wouldn’t expect, like on the engine itself.  Another big plus for a Harley is the paint: over 4 mm thick with many layers of clear coat, Harley paintwork is without peer.

But the vast majority of the choice will be emotional.  If you like an utterly smooth, virtually silent motor, then  you’ll want to look at a Japanese or European bike.  But be careful: some of those bikes work hard to capture the sound of a grunting, vibrating Harley motor at idle.  Interestingly, once on the road the Harley sounds and vibrations basically disappear.  That road test I took on a Road Glide was the clincher for me- at highway speeds, the Harley was smoother and more “planted” than my Vulcan by a vast margin.  The tar snakes and road irregularities that made my Vulcan hop, jerk, and drag itself around were ignored entirely on the Road Glide.  It was an absolute revelation to me, and that one hour test ride changed my “one day, maybe” into a “I have to have this”.

At the end of the day, I’ve gone through two bikes in one year and blown the cost of a pretty nice car on what is, for me at least, a recreational vehicle.  It doesn’t replace my car, but it does do something for my soul that a car does not.  One thing about Harley-Davidson: their marketing machine definitely recognizes that riding a motorcycle is an emotional experience.  I’ve already been bombarded with welcome letters, club membership invitations, and beautifully printed “touring guides”.  I’m a Harley Owner’s Group (HOG) member, complete with a patch, a pin, and other geegaws: I have this odd sense of belonging that isn’t at all justified.

Where Next

I’ve already put over 2,500 km on my Road Glide, even though it is getting increasingly difficult to find decent days to ride now that fall is fully upon us and single-digit high temperatures are becoming the norm.  I expect to take some longer trips on my bike next year, and am roughing out ideas for biking vacations down the west coast and to visit friends in Edmonton.  I imagine I will probably put more miles on my motorbike next year than on my car.  And that is probably a good thing.

I’ve been really enjoying my motorcycle riding this year.  So much so that I started planning for my “ultimate” touring motorcycle.  I was weighing different features, reading dozens of forums and reviews, and lamenting the several years which I’d likely have to wait in order to save up the cash.  As you might imagine, this non-stop motorcycle this, Harley that, whining and complaining started to get on the nerves of my lovely wife Irene.  Finally, after hearing one too many “<sigh>I wish I didn’t have to wait another two years” noises from me, she snapped:

“Kelly, if I can have two kittens, you can go buy your Harley on terms”

Obviously, my lovely wife doesn’t snap in a mean way.  And that’s how we ended up adding two more kittens to our already cat-crowded home… and it marks the beginning of a stressful period of uncertainty that is still not over.

You see, Irene has been volunteering at a no-kill cat shelter for several years.  The place is badly underfunded, and would take hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to get on the right track.  She has been going there weekly, seeing the two hundred plus cats in crowded conditions, and falling in love with various waifs for years now.  Three of our existing feline family came from there, and all of them had their problems.  I’ve been highly resistant to adopting more cats from this shelter: I’ve said several times that we’d be better off donating money to them rather than trying to deal with the mental and physical health problems their cats come with.  Each time it puts the rest of our cat family at risk.

But Irene’s “let me adopt two kittens and you can have a Harley” offer had become an agreement, and now she dropped the bomb: the two kittens were coming from the shelter.  One she had already picked out.  So, despite my misgivings, off we went to the shelter.  When we arrived we discovered the kitten she wanted was already adopted out, but that didn’t dissuade Irene- there were dozens of cats looking for homes.  One little black kitten started following me around, and I picked him up: he immediately started purring loudly and settled in my arms: after a few minutes Irene said “that’s one…” and Harley was adopted.  A little while later I pointed out a dilute calico, whom Irene said was a newcomer and wasn’t approachable.  I walked up to her, picked her up, and she started to purr next to Harley.  A minute or so later it was settled: we had our two kittens- Harley and Jasmine.

?

We took both kittens to a vet that someone at the shelter recommended- not our usual vet, and therefore I was a bit doubtful from the start.  He performed a basic health check and found all the expected shelter problems: fleas, intestinal worms, and ringworm; all of which reinforced the importance of our normal isolation procedures.  But we also had him perform an in-office Feline leukemia test, and this is where everything fell apart.  Both kittens tested positive for FeLV, and I was devastated: from what I knew at the time, feline leukemia was a death sentence, and the vet confirmed this by suggesting we have the kittens immediately euthanized.

I knew enough about FeLV to know that it doesn’t transmit readily (i.e.: requires bodily fluid, dies within a couple of hours, etc), and so we ignored the vet’s advice, took the kittens home, and kept them in isolation.  Feeding and handling became a bit of a production, with multiple handwashings between each activity.  I spent several hours that night on-line reading everything I could find about the prognosis for feline leukemia, and started to think that the vet we had taken Harley and Jasmine to wasn’t someone I wanted to trust.

Feline leukemia is a retro-virus that damages the cats immune system, causes a cancer of the cat’s blood cells and definitely can be fatal… but often isn’t.  Apparently, about 40% of cats that are exposed to FeLV develop resistance, destroy the virus, and never become symptomatic.  Another big chunk drive the virus into hiding (i.e.: no symptoms), but become lifelong carriers in whom the virus can “flare up” at any time: apparently, these cats will test negative.  Of those that develop symptoms, many live reasonable lifespans with reduced immunity, eventually succumbing to some sort of secondary infection.  Add to all of this the fact that in-office “snap” tests are considered unreliable for final diagnosis, and I really started to think we needed second and third opinions.

The first step was to get all of our existing cats tested: obviously, if we already have a FeLV carrier in the house from our previous adoptions, the damage is already done.  Five cats and $800 later, we now know that our existing family members are “clean”: no evidence of feline leukemia.  So step number two began: getting everyone’s FeLV inoculations up to date.  That’s underway now, with boosters scheduled for a month from now.  ”Full” protection (about as good as birth control) begins two weeks after that.  So the kittens must stay in isolation for at least six weeks.

In between this, Harley and Jasmine were playing and running around and eating just like you’d expect kittens to.  They started to develop upper respiratory symptoms after the first week and, although this is pretty standard for shelter kittens, the runny eyes and sneezing was freighted with deeper meaning due to the looming spectre of the retrovirus.  When they started sneezing up blood, we immediately raced to step number three.

Step number three was getting those second and third opinions taken care of.  This time we went to a vet we trust, who has a FeLV positive cat of her own.  The first thing Dr. Michelle did was re-assure us that this could work out, that fully vaccinated our current cat family would be reasonably well protected, and that at a minimum we could give the kittens a decent albeit short life.  The kittens upper respiratory problems were basically normal although somewhat severe, and could be treated with antibiotics to reduce the bacterial load.  New FeLV tests, this time performed at a lab, were ordered.  All other health indicators in the kittens were perfectly normal.

And here we are, three days after the antibiotics started.  Harley responded in less than six hours, his conjunctivitis, runny eyes and nose, and bloody sneezing was gone that fast.  Jasmine’s sneezing was vastly reduced in the same time frame and, although she’s still sneezing a bit, it is clear fluid and no blood.  They are both eating huge amounts of food (they never stopped even when sick, although they did slow down a bit), drinking lots, playing like crazy, and cuddling whenever we come into their “isolation ward”.  The second test results just came back yesterday.  Harley is now FeLV negative, Jasmine is still positive.  Basically, Harley (at least) appears to have beaten the virus- he’s probably still a carrier, though.

What does the future hold for Harley and Jasmine?  Well, more tests, no doubt.  And six weeks of isolation.  Problems and expense to be sure.  But when we adopt a cat, we are taking responsibility for a life.  Not an appliance that you return if defective or if you suffer from buyer’s remorse.  There is no way on earth that I want to send Jasmine and Harley back to the environment they came from: if my earliest worse fears had been true, we would have found a FeLV positive home for them, or a quiet shelter with an isolation ward for feline leukemia patients.  But with what I know now, I think we can manage the risks to our other furry family members, and give Jasmine and Harley the best life we can arrange.

I’m pretty much finished my motorcycle lessons. Action Motorcycle has really done a good job giving me the basic skills I need to ride. I’ve completed my motorcycle skill assessment and had the “supervision required” and “no faster than 60 km/h” restrictions removed from my learners. And I took my very own motorbike out for its first ride today- the picture below was taken at about the mid-way point on my ride.

But I’m not quite ready yet to take my ICBC road test…

I’ve been sick all week, so that means I didn’t get the chance to put any practice miles on my bike. When we did our road-ride today, I still felt clumsy: pre-occupied with the mechanics of riding a motorcycle instead of the finesse necessary to complete a road test. My instructor gave all of the students in my class the green light to proceed to the evaluation (i.e.: we are “safe”), but pointed out things we might want to work on first. All of us had room for improvement, and only one of us elected to take the evaluation immediately- the guy who was on his second time through the road skills part of the class, and who had failed his first ICBC road test.

After our road ride, I accompanied one of the instructors in the truck as another student completed a road evaluation- basically, a “simulated” version of the road test ICBC will run. I learned a bunch of things, things I should know before I ride the actual test.

My original plan was to book my road test immediately after completing my classes- that is, I might have been taking the road test this upcoming week. That isn’t going to happen now: my revised target is to have my full Class 6 license by sometime in June. I’m not really disappointed: I want to do this right, and I don’t feel ready. Action will give me the evaluation I skipped today on an upcoming Saturday- I’ll probably call them after next weekend and book it for the next available Saturday. Then assuming that goes well, I’ll book a road test.

So what do I want to work on as I ride over the next couple of weeks? I want to get all of my stops to be smooth- right now, I’m getting about 2 out of 5 of them well-balanced and relaxed; the other three I’m less balanced than I’d like, stopping early and “footing” up to the stop line, and similar things. Similarly, I want my starts to be consistent: I’m better with this task, but there are still times when I wobble a bit. My lane positioning on left turns needs some work, so I’ll be practicing that. In general, I want at least several hundred kilometers on my bike over a couple of weeks under a number of different conditions.

So what did it feel like to ride my own bike for the first time? In a word- fantastic! Some of the things I was most unsure about turned out great. Some examples:

• Shifting: the Vulcan has a full “heel and toe” floorboard shifter, which means you don’t shift with just your toe like on most bikes. I wasn’t sure how quickly I’d pick that up- but in practice, the first time I shifted it felt perfectly natural, even easier and smoother than on the lesson bike I’ve been using. Within a couple of blocks I was shifting more consistently than I had been on the lesson bike
• Weight: my bike is at least twice as heavy as the lesson bike- over 630 pounds. And when moving it around with my legpower, I really felt that- plus the balance felt imposing, like there is much more there to fall. Once I had about 15 minutes on my bike, however, the weight “disappeared”. I found the balance, and with the Vulcan’s low center of gravity it feels steady as a rock
• Power: The lesson bike I’ve been riding feels like it is hitting warp 8 when I’m doing 70 km/h: it is actually kind of intimidating/scary in its own right. I hit 70 on the Vulcan and it felt quiet and steady as it did at 50. To be clear, these aren’t even close to highway speeds- however, I feel a lot more confident that I could get going at freeway speeds without feeling out of control

I need lots of practice, and will have to find some time to get some low speed maneuver practice in. Getting the bike up my driveway was… interesting. I will have to get better at that!