Riding Motorcycles in Tampa

Winter stinks. It really stinks. Riding Motorcycles in the cold stinks too, and since tropical temperatures in February are really hard to come by in Alabama and Georgia, my cousin and I decided to drive down to Tampa to meet up with another of our compatriots to go riding.

Part 1 -- The longest road:

Nathan and I agreed to meet in Columbus, GA after work, and we actually had a good plan to meet and make the trip cheaper and more fun for both of us. He was going to drop off a bike he was selling, and I would be able to load up my bike on the trailer to complete the trip to Tampa. The plan was to meet around 8:30pm EST and go from there. That would make for a late arrival, but honestly, not all that bad with both of us driving and keeping each other company. But with all good plans, stuff goes awry. The meeting time was the first thing to go. I ended up working late, and instead of leaving at 5 CST, I didn't get on the road until 6:30pm CST. That put me into Columbus at well after 9pm on a cold night of riding. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Nathan was experiencing troubles in getting away from Atlanta with the trailer, so neither of us were going to be even close to our planned departure time for the next leg of the journey.


I rode on into Columbus to get dinner and warm up. I stopped at a Waffle House in what turned out to be a not-so-good place to be, but being tired, cold, and apparently a bit thick-headed, I stayed anyway. I'm positive I broke up a drug deal in the parking lot when I pulled in. There were two people in a parked car. I pulled up, looked their way with my goofy neon yellow riding jacket, and one person hurriedly jumped from the car and sped off in their own car soon to be followed by the first car. Perhaps that should have been a clue. Bah, not to be deterred from getting my hash browns and coffee, I walked into the shop. Everyone stared at me in the most uncomfortable way. I just walked over to a table and sat down to wait on Nathan to arrive. It was a really strange experiment in human nature. You should try this some time. Put on the most ridiculous clothes you can find and then walk into a restaurant where you are obviously not the normal clientele. Very funny and awkward.

Around 10:30pm, Nathan arrived in town, and I went to meet him since I was feeling a strange urge to get away from the Waffle House where I had been encamped. The guy that was going to buy Nathan's bike was only 20 minutes away, so we decided to wait at his house after Nathan grabbed a seriously questionable Ruben sandwich from Applebees. This guy proceeded to be "Only 20 minutes away" for the next 2 hours, and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. I was getting tired of waiting and Nathan was equally P.O.'d at this guy. I won't go into detail of how we nearly dropped my bike off the trailer in an effort to be ready for when the buyer showed up and we could get going. The lesson being, don't tie down your bike in the dark when tired. This guy told us he was leaving wherever he was and would be home in 20 minutes at least 3 times during our wait, and with each passing minute we realized it would not be a "late night" when we arrived in Tampa, it would very possibly be "Early Morning". Eventually this clown showed up and the sale was competed. We were tired yet thrilled to actually be moving. We were about 6 hours drive from Rick's house, and we decided to take shifts driving and sleeping instead of talking as we had originally planned.

In the end, we made good time and got to the house just as the sun was rising. Rick's wife was up and heading out to work when we stumbled into the house amid the barking of dogs. 6:30am was the final arrival time. We made a normally acceptable 8 hour trip into a 12 hour trip. After a very short discussion, we wisely decided to go ride our motorcycles after getting some sleep, and our adventures on the bikes will be the topic of the next post.

Nothing like a good cliff-hanger, eh?

Faded Loves & Materialism

As most of you know from this blog, or from knowing me personally, I like to ride bikes. A lot. For long distances. With friends or on my own and in most any conditions. As of late, I have noticed a big change. This "as of late" that I speak of really refers to the entirety of the past 12 months or so.

The issue at hand is that I don't feel the drive and love of riding bikes as much as I used to, and I can't seem to fix it. It's not as if another hobby has consumed all my time or that I don't like to ride bikes. Every time I get on any bike, I find myself smiling, but I just can't get myself to go out and do it like I used to. I used to ride all the time in any weather on almost any terrain. Now, I find that have to force myself to go spin in the basement on my rusty trainer while watching a movie or something because I can't get motivated to even ride across the street to Spain park and goof off on the trails. My love of riding seems to have faded, and the true "jumping the shark" point was the Tour of Tuscaloosa. Since then, I haven't really been out with my friends riding on the roads. I have done very few loops around Oak Mountain on my beloved mountain bike. I haven't ridden more than (this is going to sound silly unless you know how much I used to ride) a thousand miles since the crash last April 1.

Now, about how materialism plays a part in this post. The question here is; can materialism serve to remedy this faded love of riding? I have had an off and on urge to purchase a new mountain bike, and I find myself trying to justify spending that money as a medium to inject some spark in my lack of riding. I look at my current mountain bike, which has been patiently sitting in my garage in a state of cleanliness than no mountain bike ever wishes to endure. I love the bike and it is absolutely a top end bike with loads of good stories and fun memories attached to it. Why the urge to replace it? If I got a new bike, would the old bike get relegated to the back of the garage to gather cobwebs instead of mud and good old trail dust and grime? I know that I have no urge to get rid of it, so that would most likely be it's fate.

When I objectively look at my thoughts of throwing money into a sport that I seem to be fading from, I feel pretty foolish. Materialism generally fixes nothing aside from things in the short term, and the short term impact is even more abbreviated when one already has one of the items being bought. The reason being is that everything gets old. Even if I bought a Ferrari and drove it a bunch, I would eventually find it was not as new and amazing and would begin to look to other cars. I guess I answered my own question. I should just ride my current bikes until they truly fall apart and then there would be some justification for upgrading or replacing a bike. Putting off this purchase also hedges against my declining drive to ride. I guess that until I can empirically show that I'm going to ride consistently again and have re-ignited the fire to compete in some fashion or another, why risk wasting money on a new bike.

I say all that when I look at this decision objectively. Oh, but a new 29r would be soooo sweet on the local trails...

Racing with Cub Scouts

It had been a really long time since I raced a pinewood derby. In fact, I am intentionally not counting the years it has been since I was in Cub Scouts racing a car that Dad and I put together.

It was pretty fun to remember the times melting lead to weight down the car all those years ago. I remember that we won the first race with it and I felt really good about it.

Now fast forward...probably not all that many years...honestly, I only have a 7 year, old soon to be 8. I CAN'T be THAT old!

Bryce is in Cub Scouts, and it was our first try at a Pinewood Derby. Bryce picked out a great looking design and we spent a few nights cutting it and sanding...and sanding...and sanding...and loading weights into the body and puttying it in to make it look good. Heck, even if it wasn't faster than a really fast gastropod, it was going to look good doing it. We painted it Bryce's pick of a fire engine red (personally my favorite too) and loaded up the wheels with graphite and put stickers and a lead engine shaped weight on the back. I mean it, I would have been proud to race this car. You should have seen Bryce's face when I gave him the spray paint can. "You're going to let ME use it?" I was somewhat worried that we would both be painted more red than the car, but I kept my mouth shut after my initial instructions. He painted perfectly and the car gleamed with it's fresh red color.

We worked on the wheels to get them aligned and lubed them with a dry graphite. I wish now that I had worked them more to break them in, but I was worried that I would get the alignment out of whack so off we went to the weigh in.

The car only needed two pennies of extra weight to get it to the maximum 5oz. By the way, a penny is one tenth of an ounce exactly. Yep, you learn something new every day.

Saturday morning came, and we went off to the early morning basketball game and cheer leading for Bryce and Ansley. After we rushed home for some lunch, we were off again to the races. I had planned on going mountain biking since I figured that we wouldn't do all that well against the more experienced parents. Oh, did I say parents? I mean kids...since no parent would take the helm and force their kid to race some car that they didn't design...

Race 1 - Bryce won by quite a bit. Then it didn't register due to some technical difficulty. So a restart was called. Bryce won by quite a bit again, and actually set the course record. WOW! What a start!

Race 2 - The little Red car came in with almost the same time, but was a few hundredths slower, resulting in a second place. Literally, hundredths of a second. These people take this stuff seriously. His car was really consistent during all the races. His course record still stood.

Race 3 - Another car had a good run and Bryce lost by hundredths of a second. His record STILL stood though.

Race 4 - Another car had finally run a great time and the course record fell, and Bryce came in third.

All in all, Bryce averaged the second fastest time of his Den, and the second fastest average time of all the Scout Dens in his Tigers rank.

He came away with some serious hardware for his first Pinewood derby event. Not too shabby.

He is already talking about what design he wants to set up next year. Sadly, my hyper-competitive nature is thinking the same thing. I want to make sure that the stuff I can help him with makes his car as fast as possible. I won't force him to race some super sleek design that will have a better chance to win. If he wants to race a tank with cannons or the QE2 next year, I'll cut the wood for him and let him at it, but the weight, wheels and axles will be as good as they can be.

Congratulations to Bryce! He will probably sleep with the trophies tonight...

I hope he doesn't hit his head on them while sleeping.

Top 10 Reasons I haven't been writing

1. Work
2. Kid Basketball
3. Kid Cheer-leading
4. Sick of computers when I get home from work
5. 3 active kids
6. Not riding bikes or motorcycles with all the rain, ice and cold so no adventurous posts.
7. I'm tired and not feeling "chatty" (Stupid darkness)
8. Wii games
9. Projects to worry over but not complete (or completely avoid) around the house
10. Motivation

I really want to write something in order to keep this blog going, so I guess I'll find a topic and at least get something down on paper, as it were. I'm sure all my devoted fans have been struggling with my silence of late.

My deepest apologies, and I'll get a story written about some amazingly compelling topic...soon.

Now where did I put that Wii remote??

The Pumpkin Patch -- 2009

Wow it was cold. Something happened over the days leading up to this year's pumpkin patch excursion. Summer ended in a torrent of rain and went directly to winter...do not pass GO...do not collect 200 dollars... It had to be 40 something when we went, but we needed pumpkins to carve, so sacrifices must be made.

We showed up with another family of friends and the kids spent quite some time running around, riding the train, jumping in the big jumpy thingys, playing in the teepees, and rummaging through the gift shop. The gift shop had cute places set up to take pictures of the kids on pumpkins and hay bales and such. It's surprising how hard it is to get a picture of all the kids together. The shop also happened to be the only place warm. I wonder how their "shaved ice" booth's sales were this year? Hmmm...That had to be a lonely gig for the 15 year old employed to sell the stuff.

Ok, this is the part of the post where I get really lazy and post pictures instead of writing anything creative or funny.

Ooof...Lift with your legs...That's the advice right?


Wheeeee! Thump!!


Can't talk...eating taffy...mmmmfff...

Attack of the killer Sunflowers? Much more fun than a movie by a similar title.


I love the laugh...

I was driving to work the next Monday morning and kept hearing a "Thump" when I made turns. When I got to the parking deck to investigate, I found our pumpkins sitting happily in the back where I had forgotten to remove them in the effort to get the cold kids into the house after the trip. I wonder if I can get a tax credit on my car as a produce transport vehicle?

Aiden stole my hat and thought it was great. I thought the photo opportunity was better.

The End of Daylight Savings

Every year, around this time, I dread what I have come to call The Darkness. Otherwise known as the end of daylight savings time. For some reason the powers that be decided to make Alabama part of the central timezone, and this has the effect of turning most of the useful part of the day...into night. This is when the coming winter, that already curtails my outdoor fun, has the added dis-incentive of being pitch black at 5pm. Once this happens, the only outdoor activity after work is tied to whether or not I have batteries charged on my bike's God Lamp.

Since I have moved here, I have handled the late fall and winter's seemingly constant nighttime with different methods. Some more effective than others...

2004 - Working 90 hours a week...Who cares, it's going to be dark anyway.

2005 - Watch DVR'd football on the couch and eat...lots.

2006 - Go out with friends and watch sports at a local restaurant regularly, and eat...lots.

2007 - Jeez...It's still dark and cold. I'm tired of this...Maybe if I eat a lot, and pay a bajillion dollars for the NFL Ticket on Direct TV, it will go away.

2008 - Last year, I realized my pattern of "Hey, the sun just set at 4:30pm, time to go get fat!" wasn't helping my Seasonal Affective Disorder, and I started attempting to do more healthy things. It's demoralizing to have to re-lose 10-15lbs every spring only to have it show up instantly at the end of October again.

Just what are they saying for Saturday? How ominous is that??? Click on the image if you can't make out what the Weather Channel had put on their forecast just for me...

2009 - This year I have a plan, and I'm going to do something different. With the darkness that sets in starting tomorrow, I plan on spending the winter making myself more active when it is light, and more active in general. That way I don't have to work so hard to shed pounds and the accompanying bad mood come spring. (I'm sure Brenna just rolled her eyes wondering how I could be "more active in general")

When the time changes, it is light at 5:30 in the morning around here. I am going to attempt to move my patterns to fit the sun as often as I can. I have to have more daylight and more activity outside, and I plan on being out in it whenever I can, no matter the temperature. I'm sure they have invented these nifty things called warm clothes by now.

We'll see how all this works when I actually get around to setting the alarm...beep beep beep...

A Fine Lunch Hour

As I sat behind my desk on a fine Wednesday with 70 degree temperatures and clear blue skies, I was suffering from too much Excel work and a serious lack of out-door time in my windowless office. I wished that I had a poor enough work ethic to suddenly "come down" with some wickedly foul and violent sickness. (i.e. play hooky for the rest of the day)

The morning dragged on with budgeting analysis and other wildly exciting activities, and as lunch approached, the phone rang. It was my wife, who seemed decidedly more excited than I did. She was on her way over for lunch. But not only was she on her way to meet me for lunch, she said she wanted to go ride the motorbike. She already had her helmet, jacket, and 2 Subway sandwiches. The dark pall that was hanging over my day lifted (cue the angelic music here) with the opportunity to hang out with her sans kids, and I was (and still am) pleased that she was excited about riding the new bike.

I changed into my commuting clothes and met her in the parking lot of the office. We threw the sandwiches in the new top case that I added to the bike and roared off for the hills. We twisted and turned through all the hilly back roads, which are surprisingly accessible from the office, and stopped at the top of Coosa mountain. The big overlook was a perfect place on this sunny day and we quickly munched on our sandwiches and looked off across the ridges of the Appalachian mountains. It was great to be out of the office doing something that I don't normally get to do on a Wednesday afternoon, and we had an equally fun time on our return trip to the real world.

The small things and activities make life really great sometimes...

but they do make it hard to go back to work.