Am I older then I thought?

Honda West Cleburne was having a Demo Day today, so my dad and I, having nothing better to do, decided to head that way and see what we could ride.

Got over there around 3:20 and discovered that the last ride left at 3:00. But seeing as we are in there all the time buying parts for our various machines and they all know us by first name, they setup one more run for us.

The bikes they had to choose from were a pair of GL1800s, what seemed like all the cruisers Honda makes, the Reflex, and the Silver Wing. If we'd had time we would have ridden all of them, but since we only had one pass, we picked the Wings.

sorry, new camera, just had to use it

Dad got the one that had $18,799 written on it (Silver), and I had the one with $20,699 on it (Black). Mine had the Navi system, his did not. Both had the CB.
couldn't tell you how many buttons there were or what all they did
I managed to figure out how the stereo worked, but thats about all.

Dad managed to get his in Reverse and Jeff (ride leader) had to go help him out on that one.
Once he was moving in a forward direction, we took off.

The first thing that I noticed was how the Honda engineers had managed to figure out a way to drop 3-400lbs off the bike as soon as its moving. I don't know how they did it, but it sure is effective!

I actually really enjoyed taking that boat for a spin. While I wouldn't trade my VFR for it, swapping the ST1300 did cross my mind... Thus leading me to the title: Since we all know GoldWings are old men's bikes, am I older then I thought?

I have read all kinds of stuff about how well the Wing handles, and how much power it has, yada yada yada. But until you park your keister in the seat and experience it for yourself, its really hard to believe.

Dad was curious to ride them as he absolutely disliked the GL1500. Said its seat was too high, and it felt heavier then it was, didn't like the engine. Just plain didn't like it. After sitting on the GL1800 at the IMS show back in Nov, he decided that maybe it wasn't as bad as the GL1500.
After taking the GL1800 for a spin, he was just short of singing its praises (dad getting excited is saying "yippie" in sarcastic, flat tone)
Dad's too much of a cheap-skate to buy a new one, and probably a used one, but I wouldn't be surprised if he kept his eyes open for a salvage one

I was quite impressed with the bikes, and as always, very happy with the service from Honda West Cleburne

The Night Stalkers

The Night Stalkers by Michael J Durant and Steven Hartov is a tale of deft and daring, skill and courage. Well, actually is quite a few smaller stories about that.

Its a collaboration of stories of the pilots and crew of the US Army's 160th SOAR(A) (Special Operations Aviation Regiment), the pilots who fly the Special Ops guys into places. Most always flying at night, with no lights on the birds.

If you are even slightly interested in recent military history, or the military in general, I highly recommend this book.

2007 Texas Pathfinder Camporee Video

I seem to have a knack for whirl-wind trips

So, made another whirl-wind trip to GA this past weekend. And as usual, there was no real reason to go, just wanted to go.

This time I went with Pamela and Danny and we took Danny's mom's new Subaru Forester. While there's a certain appeal to riding the bike, it was nice to be able to nap while somebody else was driving.

Took off after work on Thursday and made a bee-line for GA. With three drivers we were able to make it almost non-stop and made it in 13hrs. Not bad considering its 850mi.

So we arrived after our friends/family had already left for work, so we just crashed till they got home .

Saturday we went to Stone Mountain and attempted to climb to the top. I say attempted cause we somehow missed the trail and only managed to walk 3/4 of the way around this thing.
We finally made our way back to where we could climb up, but by that time we had a pair of knees that weren't really wanting to climb and an ankle that had decided to see if it worked on its side. so we just got in the car and went home.

So we sat around for awhile and ordered pizza online. Now, I"m a geek and even *I* think that is just ridiculous. How hard is it to dial a phone!?! Pizza was good regardless and we had fun playing card games and just generally yacking.

Got up sunday and slowly, begrudgingly hit the road home around 1030 TX time. 12.5hrs later we landed in Keene and headed for bed.

Was whirl-wind trip, had some interesting tensions and discussions, but it was a good trip.

So when we going again?

A beautiful day for a ride!

Took off this morning to try my hand at a street enduro hosted by Precision Challenge.

To explain basically what this is, you leave the start point with a very specific set of directions at a set time (0900 this time) and drive exactly as they tell you. The goal is to arrive at each of the check points at the exact time they pre-determined. This repeats at each of the checkpoints along the route.

I met Ryan, Steve (friends from TWTEX.com) and a gentleman on a Harley (Mike) there. Along with the folks putting it on. Ryan, Mike and I are in the same class. Steve is in another one because he brought his wife on the back of his Tiger.

So myself and Ryan are assigned to the first group. We decide to work together to get this done (none of us had done this before).

Made the first check point ok, got our time card stamped and punched and off we went.
Got to the second check point, took of and promptly (well, 3 miles later) discovered we'd gone the wrong way. So we are now 6min behind schedule. Gotta make up time.

Traffic on I35 (where we were supposed to be) was thick and we couldn't make up any time.
good fortune shined on us once we left the interstate though and we were able to make tracks (At the posted legal limit of course )

Arrived at the third checkpoint exactly on time and took our 40min lunch break.

Got back on the road and nearly missed the 4th check point. (I think they were trying to hide from us...) Then back on the road.

Somewhere along this stretch we got to looking at the route sheet and realized things were a bit funny. we were WAY WAY ahead of the alloted time. and we were running 5 UNDER the limit.
So SH121 saw myself and Ryan running ~12mph on the shoulder trying to eat time.
Steve and Mike caught up with us and we discussed whether there was typo or we really were supposed to take 2hrs to cover ~35mi.

Finally rolled in about 20min before the route sheet time and discovered that they'd made an error in the calculations. They felt horrible, but now I've got a crazy story!

I had an absolute blast. Cost me $25 to enter and I walked away with a tie for 2nd place, a $150 check, and a nice trophy.

So when's the next one?

Ah, the sound of a Viffer...

Finally got the Viffer back in running condition Monday night. Got the valve inspection, oil change, thermostat replaced, and headlight relay replacement finished Sunday, then did the Throttle Body sync (Thank you Gary!) Monday evening.

Took her home that evening in place of the ST1300 and wow, I'd forgotten how SMOOOTH that V4 is! not to mention that slight (I think I need Staintunes...) exhaust note. Pure heroin I tell you, truely addictive.

Now I've got to decide if I want to take the ST1300 or the VFR for my first Saddle Sore 1000 in a week or so

How to spend Easter weekend as a geek

• First, volunteer to do the video for the Texas Conference Pathfinder Camporee like you have for the past seven years.
  
• Drive for 4hrs with $15,000+ in equipment in a SUV.
  
• Spend the next hour getting everything setup.
  
• Shoot people setting camp up
  
• play Ghost Recon while waiting for more people to show up
  
• capture the video and stay up till 2400 editing
  
• get up at 0600 and start filming people
  
• repeat till dark
  
• edit till 0100
  
• prompt fellow editor to work on his section
  
• while editing, crash the editing suite, thus rendering your computer useless
  
• fight with computer and finally break out the backup machine
  
• get up at 0600 and film more people
  
• escape the rain and go back to editing
  
• fight with the backup machine
  
• prompt fellow editor to work on his section
  
• get it finished and show to the people who were brave enough to stick around
  
• pack up and drive home at 0100
  
• marvel at 1" of snow on the road between Caldwell and Waco
  
• arrive home at 0530 and promptly go to bed
  
• repeat as seen fit
  

Homeshow was great!

SWAT Homeshow was Saturday night. I was pleasantly surprised that it came off as well as it did.

Spent all of last week working on various things for it. Had the regular practice every day, shot video Tuesday through Thursday evenings, then I was up till almost 3AM Friday morning editing.

Friday afternoon was spent setting up and rehearsing for the show.

Saturday, I adjusted the length of a song and showed up for final setup at 5PM.
Had a bit of trouble getting all the videos from the other editor, but it all worked out. Now if they hadn't been in 1080i HD my system wouldn't have had trouble playing it . My system plays it fine, but when you are trying to compress it down to fit on a 800x600 screen its a bit slower.

The gymnastics part of the show went off really well. 95% of everything hit and thats a lot more then I was expecting due to a lack of focus in some of the team.

Looking back, it would have been very nice to have someone run the lights/sound/videos instead of having myself do all that, try to run a couple cameras and perform as well, but it really worked very well and really wasn't a problem.

Now if I could get a chance, I'll start editing the video from Homeshow and get it put on a DVD.