Participation

Hello. We apologize for the delay. Thank you for your patience.

I've been quite busy since the last legitimate post. I'll be making an effort to post more often and will be recounting some of the significant events that had happened recently in my little life. Let's start with the future ....

Scooter Rallies!
I've decided that this year will be the year of rally participation, starting in March with the Las Vegas High Rollers Weekend (10th Anniversary). This will be local for me, so it'll be a nice start. It'll also be chock-full of Brits. Every other year British folks attend this rally en masse. I'm hoping the poor economy will be offset by the strength of the Euro, and the Brits will come in numbers bigger than the last time they came. It's always fun to laugh at their accents right before they trounce you soundly on the road.

The following weekend will be the Rides of March in San Luis Obispo. I've wanted to go to California more often since I'm this close, but can never come up with a good reason. This trip should be a good test run road-trip to get all the kinks worked out for the next rally, Amerivespa. This rally will be in Los Gatos/San Jose, and should be a blast.

All this rally fun should be even fun-er now that I've popped on a Sito Plus exhaust on the Stella and re-jetted. I can hold my own out there on the surface roads now. I have to hold myself back, though. This is a lot more power on 10 inch wheels than what I was used to.


More to come about past events... like Burning Man 2008!

Surf's up

Went snowboarding yesterday. I don't think I did so bad for my first time ever, however I spent most of my time lying down on my back or on my face. I'm pretty durned sore today. I can't say I remember having so many body parts feel this way at the same time...


Also, the High Rollers Scooter Rally was a blast. I took a bunch of photos, posted here. The rides were fun, and I wasn't always last of the pack. I got to re-meet and ride with some Vegas folks I met last year. All in all, it was good fun with (relative) speed and fumes.

Where's the 'any' key?

The weather is getting a little colder here, so I'll probably pick up some warmer motorcycle gloves at a sale. I'll soon put up a review of a shield defogger I found recently, called Cat Crap. I'm anticipating today's trip after work to Fry's to pick a Weller WTCPT soldering station for my mad plans. It appears to not be in much demand, as they are only getting one, and I called in to reserve it. Fry's had the best price I could find so far, which is highly unusual.

I will probably also stop by the boot store. To look at boots. Red Wing boots.

I am also eagerly awaiting the upcoming Las Vegas Scooter Rally which I missed last year due to a newly broken thumb in a splint.

Also also, I'm awaiting the paperback version of Terry Pratchett's latest novel. I'm still waiting for a decent and affordable ebook reader, and reasonable ebook prices, but until then I will hold out for paperbacks.

breaking news

It appears that on President's day, I fell off of my scooter and broke my right thumb. The fracture was in a hard to set place, at 42 degrees off of the norm, so I had to wait a week and a half and just had the surgery to insert 3 pins so that it can heal correctly. I was lucky in that there has been no pain other when trying to use the thumb before the splint was strapped on. I've been told that it will take about 6 weeks to heal. I just got back from the clinic and am doing fine...waiting to see what the swelling and pain might be like.






The accident itself was minor. The speeds and impact were that of falling off of a bicycle. I slid no more than 15 feet off onto dirt, had never hit my head, and stood up. Several factors came into play in laying down my ride, most of which could have been avoided. First, there was a little sprinkle coming down; Not enough to be significant in a place like Georgia, but perhaps the little that fell made it oily enough out here to contribute. The corner was very tight and the road gravelly. I was always careful going around this corner before, but this time I was leaning a little more to come around (rolling on the throttle, but in too high a gear in my opinion). Which brings us to a final factor, Don't Look Down. I think I can recall, just before falling to the left and sliding across the ground on my belly, arms out (leather saves skin!), that the last thing I was looking at was the ground in front of the bike. Unfortunately my MSF instructor was not riding on the bike with me to smack me, so I had to learn the hard way and smack myself.

The thing that blew the most is that I specifically came back to Vegas at this time to participate in the annual Las Vegas scooter rally. I made most of the events, but I missed out on the rides.

The damage to the big bad motorscooter was minimal, I rode it home (no more than 500 feet) before driving myself to ER with a funny looking hand. The lessons learned important, and the memories will last a lifetime.

Everything happens for a reason. At the least this will keep me indoors so that I don't distract myself from study time.




Plus, I look like Mega-Man (Rockman)!






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