Gonna Have to Stop In Medford

Well, it looks like we'll be hitting Medford while we're in Oregon, because I need to track this guy down and shake hs hand.

The Triumph Demands Proper Footwear

One of the laces on my boots broke the other morning.

Since I was barely half-awake at the time, I just strapped on the closest pair of shoes, put on the rest of my gear and hopped on the Triumph to ride in to work.

On the way home again, I remembered why I always always always wear boots on the Triumph.

The Triumph runs hot. When the bike is warmed up, the temperature gauge generally indicates about 100 degrees celsius, or higher. During the cooler months, I can sort of get away with not wearing boots. During the summer, however, the heat coming off the motor burns my damn legs.

I had two nice red patches just above the tops of my socks last night where the Triumph had cooked me. Good times.

I didn't manage to get new boot laces last night, so today I rode the Vespa in. So far, so comfy.

Countdown to Oregon

I think it's safe to say I won't be getting much work done this week.

Lady Luck and I are flying into Portland on Friday night. We haven't decided yet whether we're staying in Portland a day or two, heading south right away, or west to Astoria and then south. I assume we'll get that figured out tonight or tomorrow.

I was hoping the Lady Washington was going to be in Portland while we're there, but it doesn't appear to be. Oh well.

Anyhoo, I expect we'll be hitting Albany, Corvallis, maybe Eugene depending on how far south of Yachats we want to end up.

This trip is half vacation and half deciding where we want to live when we finally blow this hole, so if you've got any advice on places to check out, that'd be awesome. I'd also love to hear about the reality of living in a given city.

Welcome Makers!

It seems I'm getting a fair bit of traffic from the Make Magazine blog.

Hello new readers! Thanks for stopping by!

The Hut? Seriously?

So, Pizza Hut is changing it's name to "The Hut" in order to fit with their new, less-pizza-focused brand direction.

Perhaps it's because I remember the movie Spaceballs, but I refuse to eat at a place called The Hut. Of course, I refused to eat there anyway, but run with me for a second.

So you've got a brand KNOWN for pizza. You are, in fact, so well known that Mel Brooks created a anthropomorphic pizza villain named after you. Your pizza creations have inspired frozen pizza makers to stuff their crusts with cheese. You even have a worthy adversary in Papa Johns. How many people can say they have a worthy adversary??

And so you decide to branch out into other foods rather than, say, increase the quality of your pizza offerings?

Just how much reefer were those execs smoking? Clearly, they need a firm hand, which is why I'm leaving work right now to enact a hostile pizza takeover and turn things around over there....

Or, you know, not.

In Case You Havent' Seen Anything Cool Today

Ride To Work Day, and Stuff!

ARGH! I had this nice post all written up, and it got lost somewhere in the ether.

So, here's the abbreviated version because I don't want to type it all up again: Ride to Work day today. First time I've actually ridden on the designated day. Bad things prevented it in the past. I'm half expecting something horrible to happen to me on my Ride Home From Work (Trademark T.G.M.P.T.) today.

Also, this blog has been in existence for four years now, as of last Monday. Go me. To celebrate, beer tonight.

That is all.

Meeting Outsider Artists and Other Persons of International Renown

So the race between Chris Cope and I was to see who could post the quickest about the drunken midget who offered to take our photo at the bar.

Chris won. He doesn't need sleep.

Chris is on a great American road trip, and we managed to talk him into coming down to Phoenix along the way. Last night, we took him to Pizza Heaven and enjoyed a pepperoni and jalepeno pizza before heading over to our most favorite bar in Phoenix for beer, bad pool and brilliant conversation. I haven't laughed so much in ages.

Anyway, it was great to meet you Chris. You're welcome to visit again any time.

Evading Enforced Squishiness

This morning I split lanes on the freeway for the first time. It wasn't impatience, or a desire to go fast that inspired me to dart between the cars in front of me.

It was a desire to avoid become the jam in a car sandwich.

As I've mentioned previously, there's some gnarly road construction going on along my route to work. Traffic in this particular stretch is bad anyway, and now it's extra exciting.

So I was puttering along in tightly packed traffic, and things sped up a bit. I, naturally, also sped up. Then the car ahead of me slammed on its brakes. So I also applied maximum braking to avoid giving that car a Triumph enema. And then I heard something no biker ever wants to hear: squealing tires getting louder behind me.

I did not check my mirrors. I did not check my blind spots.

I did let go of the brakes and accelerate between the yellow Jeep and white whatever-it-was which were still braking. Instinct told me I didn't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the others also running from it.

I felt kind of bad cutting around the Jeep, but mostly relieved I didn't get smooshed. I didn't hear a crash, so I assume the skidder got himself under control again.

Needless to say, the adrenaline rush didn't make it easy to maintain a reasonable pace on my way in to work.

So, since I've now had two close calls along that same stupid stretch of road I'm going to go ahead and start using a different route in the morning. Seems prudent.

New Budget Ural

So I'm probably the last guy to discover this but Ural is releasing a new "budget" model, the Ural-T. Looks like it comes in flat black with red pinstripes. It's missing a lot of the amenities those of us who like Urals drool over - such as the spare tire, shovel, fuel can and gun mounts - but those can be added later.

Of course, I want the Gear-Up. It comes stock with spare tire, luggage rack, shovel, fuel can, gun mounts, aimable spotlight AND on-demand two wheel drive. But if that's not cool enough, check the "Death Valley" movie here.

It will be mine.