Monthly Archives: June 2015

Motorcycling

2015 Motorcycle road trip: An Unexpected Journey

Leave a comment

Life is full of surprises: some good, some not so good.  I don’t deal well with surprises, but to counter that I’ve adopted a ‘seize control’ mentality that sometimes kicks in and gets me past the unexpected.  My motorcycle road trip for 2015 is essentially a case history of that adaptation of mine, and I’m not sure whether to be proud or a bit sheepish.  Either way, here is my accounting of the Journey of Unexpected Turns.  Wherein I was supposed to be going to Reno, Nevada, but ended up going somewhere else entirely…

DSCN1402

Continue reading 2015 Motorcycle road trip: An Unexpected Journey →

Critters

A bit about Pippin

Leave a comment

It all started in August of 2014.  Irene thought her Mother really wanted a companion cat, and so she went out and found what she thought to be exactly the kitten her mother desired:  a Siamese – Balinese cross kitten, to be exact.  The kitten was to spend a day or two in isolation at our house before making the trip over to the island to live.

It didn’t work out that way…

IMG 0957

Continue reading A bit about Pippin →

Motorcycling

2014 motorcycle road trip: Yellowstone

Leave a comment

I set out in June of 2014 (June 28, to be precise) to meet up with my brother Colin for the second of our ‘annual’ motorcycle road trips.  The plan was simple: go to Yellowstone Park, and see what is to be seen.  A very rough map of the sites we visited (if not the route we followed… more details below) looks something like this:
NewImage
And now on to the details…

Continue reading 2014 motorcycle road trip: Yellowstone →

Motorcycling

A Cornucopia of crash caps…what I’ve learned about noggin protection

Leave a comment

Everyone who rides a motorcycle should wear a helmet.  I am sure some people will disagree, and that is their right.  But, and I mean no insult, wearing no helmet at all is foolhardy.  I might even say going lidless is stupid.  But hey, stupid is a choice sometimes too: and it is true that a helmet won’t save your life in every circumstance.  Wearing a helmet doesn’t make you a super-hero, or indestructible, or even close to ’safe’.   You are better off learning how to ride defensively all the time and going without a helmet than popping on a helmet and riding like an idiot.  But if you want to go helmet free, you may as well stop reading now.

The freedom to wear or not wear a helmet isn’t the topic of this post.  I assume you have already chosen to wear a helmet- good for you!  I want to share my continuing journey towards the unachievable ‘perfect’ helmet, in the hopes that someone will benefit from my mistakes and discoveries.  Because I have owned a lot of helmets over my past five years ‘back in the saddle’, and I’ve learned a few things along the way…

Thumb IMG 1467 1024

Continue reading A Cornucopia of crash caps…what I’ve learned about noggin protection →

Geek Miscellany, Site news

My, that is a lot of spam…

Leave a comment

I have been running a personal blog for many years- arguably since about 1997.  I think I switched to WordPress in 2005 after previously managing with a static HTML page and then a PHPNuke website.  I started getting comment ‘spam’ shortly after I started using WordPress: like email spam, spam comments are irritating messages that aren’t really created by actual people who have something meaningful to say.
NewImageThankfully, the folks at Automattic who make WordPress provided something called Akismet to ‘block’ or filter spam comments.  I activated Akismet, and managing spam became more or less a memory… but the numbers, goodness… the numbers are huge.

Continue reading My, that is a lot of spam… →

Motorcycling

Looking for things to make us go: Road Glide performance upgrades

Leave a comment

I decided in December of 2013 that 2014 would be the year I upgraded the performance of my 2011 Harley Davidson Road Glide.  There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with my bike’s get up and go.  But after over 65,000 kilometres of riding, I felt I knew better what I wanted when I rolled on the throttle.  And I had driven some steep roads at American highway speeds i.e.: somewhere around 130 km/h (85 miles per hour), and there were times where I felt the end of the throttle looming.

NewImage

Continue reading Looking for things to make us go: Road Glide performance upgrades →

Site news

Site upgrades

Leave a comment

My vast audience has no doubt noticed that the site has been sporadically unavailable, slow, or outright broken periodically for the past few days.  I won’t go into all the details at this time, although I expect such details will be coming.

For now, be aware that I have made/am making a number of updates/upgrades to improve performance, mobile device compatibility, and functionality of the site.  I also intend to start posting a little bit more regularly.

In the interim, please accept m apologies for the disruptions!

Motorcycling

Motorcycle road trip 2013: Sturgis, New Mexico, Grand Canyon, Vegas, and aliens

Leave a comment

Back in August of 2013 I set out on what would be my longest motorcycle road trip up to that point in time.  Apparently it was so big that it has taken me nearly two years to even start documenting it 😉

That’s a little bit of an exaggeration- I did post a few things for friends and family on Facebook.  And I managed to edit one of what expect to eventually be at least three and probably four videos down to a reasonable size to post.  But along with a lot of other neglect of my blog, I seriously procrastinated in creating a post here.  Time to rectify that oversight!

Continue reading Motorcycle road trip 2013: Sturgis, New Mexico, Grand Canyon, Vegas, and aliens →