Climbed out of bed at 3:33am this morning, having crashed out at 7:30 the night before. Why did I do this ungodly thing? So that I could hop on my bike and ride to work before the morning traffic picked up.

50mph is a lot warmer at 5am than 65, lemme tell ya!

I walked into the office and was amazed at how uncomfortably hot it was inside… I had to open the door next to my desk and get some cool air blowing in.

‘course now I’m getting rea–*yaaaaawn*–lly sleepy.

Just got back from a ride. Its 10:31pm (server is in central time or some shit).

The bike has 286 miles on it. I just went out to gas up and back, but I couldn’t trigger the light at the gas station, so I just had to suck it up and go ride the 1 from carmel valley to del mar heights… Was a nice ride, not much traffic.

I killed the bike once (shifted into 1st accidentally without my hand on the clutch) and stalled it once (was too nervous about the car coming up behind me… afraid it wouldn’t see me). All in all, a real good day of riding.

I think one of the nice things about riding (right now, anyway) is that I just kinda turn off my brain, and everything is about the ride… How does the bike sound, how does it feel, is it leaned over enough, too much, am I going into hypothermia, is that enough gas in the tank, is that guy gonna see me, which lane should I take so that I don’t have someone behind me at the light, if I don’t have someone behind me at the light am I gonna get run down…

I’m not thinking about my boss, or my love life (although I may get the occasional “hey, baby!” floating through there as I pass joggers), or whether I’m good enough at my chosen career (which isn’t the job I’m working at)… I just ride.

214 miles til I can open her up a bit more… I’m not feeling very restrained at these speeds (unless I’m on the freeway), but I’d like to let her go another thousand or two before shifting…

Vroom.

So, you know… I’ve heard james mention this before, but I can now confirm it… Riding at night is friggin cold!

I’m exhausted. I’ve been on the road every weekend for a month, which means I can’t really remember the last complete night’s sleep I’ve had. Even when I have the chance to sleep in, I can’t manage it. But I’m adjusting to lack of sleep, I suppose. 6-7 hours is pretty much the norm for me these days.

At some point in the last month, I think I kicked something with my “ring toe”… I’m pretty sure its broken, but what can I do about it? Nothing, really…

So, I picked up my motorcycle yesterday morning. I was really nervous about it, but I’ve adjusted to it pretty quick. I’ve been stalling it out like crazy, though, and its really frustrating. I remembered an exercise from MSF, though, where you plant your feet, and roll the bike back until your toes are pointing at the sky, then you let the clutch out and slowly roll forward until your feet are flat again… It seems to be helping.

I got the bike on the freeway for the first time today. Well, it was on the freeway last night with james (he rode it down from ventura for me; very cool thing to do), but it was my first time on the freeway with a motorcycle. I actually was pretty comfortable… But I have trouble with lane changes. I’m a bit nervous about looking over to see if the lane is empty, and I’m not quite sure if its clear when I go… I guess I’ll get better at it.

I rode through the 805/5 merge going both ways, during sunday traffic (which isn’t bad at all), so I’d say that was definitely a freeway ride.

I’m sore and muscle tired… feels great.

I got the bike with the hopes that it would be a new form of exercise, and I’d lose some weight. Man, if I can keep this up, I’ll be thin in no time.

Put about fourty miles on it today. First, I started off with a short, early morning ride while james was in the shower. Then up and down the 56, down to my bank, up the 805 to the 5 to the 56 to the grocery store for some batteries (so I could take pics of the bike), then back down the 56 to the 5 to the 805 to the sorrento valley exit and back home…

I’ve been fucking around with quicken all day, and discovered that the issue I was having was caused by the 2 GIG (!!!) file full of stock records… Once I deleted it, all is right with the world (aside from the huge chunk of $$ I owe).

I got a love note from the IRS last week, telling me that they hadn’t quite gotten all they needed from my tax return… Guess the electronic sig hadn’t gone through so they needed me to fill out a short form and mail it in. Fairly painless, actually. I guess that’s the joy of having a simple tax life.

We’ll see how simple it is next April.

OK, so I’m offically a biker… Did the class, got my license, got a bike…

Here’s my day old Suzuki SV650S.

Here’s the two machines (with a tree rudely blocking the mitsu).

Chicken Strips.
Really me.