Santa's New Ride

That's my boy !!

Happy Birthday, Ride Leader!!!

2006 BMW 330xi

Couple of pics of the new car I snapped while at the cabin. Car is a 2006 BMW 330xi, the "x" designator indicating all-wheel drive. 3L I6 pushing 255hp through a 6-speed automatic transmission. Car has less than 30K on the odo, a year left on factory warranty and 2 additional years through BMW once that expires as it a certified pre-owned vehicle. The car is an absolute hoot to drive and would love to really run it through its paces out in the hills of Arkansas, something I couldn't do with the precious cargo I had onboard over the weekend.

Tilt Shift Photography

Been playing with a post production process emulating tilt shift photography today as it is all the rage in iPhone apps at the moment. Although tilt shift is typically achieved with a special camera lens, it can be "faked" with image editing software. Below are several examples of some images I produced today. I don't find any of them exceptional and did it just as an experiment as tilt shift photography is typically used to make wide angle shots from above look "miniaturized", a category into which none of these photos fall.

The boat still floats

It's been a while since the boat has seen the water. Made a quick trip out to the local spot to see if it still floats, threw the fishing poles in the boat just in case. The boat motor is still has a few issues. The alarm triggers after about 3 minutes after its up to speed. Not a cooling issue, I've check all that out...(and no it doesn't have a radiator on it!) The oiling system is also hooked up to the buzzer. Once the buzzer sounds, kill the engine, wait for about 3 or 4 minutes, and off we go. As long as we keep it under about 2K rpm, no issue. The book says that 'old' oil or a clogged filter can cause this. I have no idea where this filter is, not yet anyway.

As expected fishing was pretty slow. Several boats were out passing the time of day and we didn't see a fish caught. We drifted up to a shell reef that's about 2 foot deep and dropped the anchor. Just on the other side the water drops to 28 feet. I was throwing plastic in the shallows when the fish hit. Quickly hoisted the anchor, cranked up the boat and took after the fish as it headed for the deep water. After about 10 minutes or so, we landed the fish....a black drum...kin to the redfish. The fish is in the 30 lbs class. My fishing reel is spooled with 12 lb test! After the photo opportunity, we released the drum to fight another day.

The Traveling Roadeo

The Traveling Roadeo, or "7 states and 2300 miles in 4 days".

I needed another motorcycle like I needed a hole in my head, but heck, what does "need" got to do with it!!!

Jody and I left my place at 0500 on a Thursday morning with the intention of making a marathon road trip to Tennessee to pick up a new 2008 CBR1000RR and get a couple days of riding in the Tennessee mountains.

Along the way we hooked up with a few OA members - zrxrob, Luke, Thunderbolt, smart3900, and eatmoretwinkies.

Along the way we made a couple of "night time strafing runs" in the dark back to the hotel in Chattanooga after a day of riding braving the 40 degree temps and indiginous wildlife along the way.

All in all it was a good trip, albeit on a very tight schedule.

Tennessee and Georgia roads rock and so does the new CBR.

I am nowhere near articulate enough to put into words how good the new bike is to do it justice.....so I won't even try.

Unfortunately, being on such a tight schedule did not allow much time to stop and take pictures.....and believe me there were a lot of scenic opportunities worthy of stopping........but we just did not have the time.

So, here are the few we did take.

Jody and Joe on the Cherohala Skyway

ZRX group ride

luke, zrxrob, thunderbolt, and jm1

Radiator repair at Signal Mountain

Radiator repair in Cleveland

Thunderbolt on the Cherohala

ZRX group

At the hotel in Chattanooga

Fresh from the dealership at the hotel

Am I High?

I bit the bullet today and bought another ZRX1200 for no other reason than I just wanted it, damn it !! Is that so wrong? Not if you are a member of the Hoolie Crew !! Now we all have at least two bikes draining our meager resources. I keep asking -What Just Happened? Did I really just commit my son's college money for a motorcycle? No-I tell myself-just the next 20 Christmas presents from my wife !!

But don't we all deserve to indulge ourselves once in this crazy mixed up world? I feel better now-the oxycodone is starting to kick in.

Enjoy the pics !

Flight 1549 Recreation

Ran across this reading my WIRED magazine online. ExoSphere3D has gathered all available data and recreated the entire flight of Flight 1549 from takeoff to Sully's spectacular ditch in the Hudson. See embedded video below. I am sure you guys realize that if you hold down the CNTRL and the ALT keys and then click the video, it will throw you straight into YouTube where the video is easier to watch.

It's that time again...

Well, as Daylight Savings Time comes to an end and I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, it's officially PC gaming season! Below are a couple of videos of a game I have started the season with. Incredible stylized graphics, interesting storyline and spectacular soundtrack. First video is an official trailer and is a little "glammed" up for marketing reasons but the second one is very close to actual game-play footage, being a vignette of the armor class I am playing. We have come so far from the Beyond Castle Wolfenstein I started on in 1984! See gameplay footage in last video.

I recently acquired some new photo editing and management software and I came across this pic while it was scanning using a face detection program. Anywho, that's not really the point. Point is I came across this pic and thought: "Where the bloody hell were we in this pic?" Since I found it out of context, not knowing any of the pics that came before it in the folder, I just couldn't place it. And by looking at the people in the background, it looked like we were in an old folks home. Hence the caption. I mean no offense, Dick. Just thought it was a funny pic. I apologize in advance.

Facebook Follies

Oh, the agony of Facebook and hometown heroes living "back in the day"! Don't get me wrong, I had a great time in High School but it wasn't the high point in my life like it seems to have been for so many on Facebook. "The Hustlers"? Seriously? Makes me think some of the coaches had some things they were hiding or just didn't get the irony.

The Last Emperor

Dick and Douglas are well aware of my man-crush on Fedor Emelianenko and my passion for watching Mixed Martial Arts(MMA)matches of all kind whether it be UFC, Affliction, Strikeforce or the now defunct Pride and K1 highlights. MMA has come a long way from its early days of glorified "human cock-fighting" and has transformed itself into the highest form of combat sports available today combining all the combat skills whether it be Greco-Roman wresting, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Karate, Muay Thai, etc. Without going into too much detail, Fedor is a heavyweight fighter out of Russia who is considered by many to be "The Baddest Man on the Planet" having an MMA record of 31-1-1 with the only loss beeing a doctor stoppage early in his career due to a cut. Plenty of info on him available on the internet if you care to learn more so I won't bore you with it here. To me, Fedor epitomizes how I wish all elite athletes would carry themselves but that is a conversation for another time. Enjoy the fight below before it gets taken down from YouTube.

Halloween 2009

So I work with a friend, his name is Chuck. He's the guy who's Yamaha XS we have diligently been working on and he comes up to me a few weeks ago and asks me if I want to go in on a costume idea with him for the Halloween Costume Contest at work. I said sure, not really having any idea of what he had in mind. Chuck's idea and he even bought the costumes. A couple of "Nun-Chucks"!

Proud Pappa

I know I don't talk too much about my job with you guys but I do get to do some pretty nifty projects at times, the below building being one of my tops. This is a Lowe's project across the freeway from the San Jose, CA International Airport from which we were required to take design cues. We were given a general elevation approved by San Jose Planning and Zoning and it was up to me to turn that idea into a set of construction documents. Design cues included the corrugated metal paneling, glass feature framing the entry and the rectilinear awnings at the Garden Center and Customer Loading Canopy. Seeing something like this constructed from details that I physically put on paper is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. I'm not particularly fond of the colors used but those were dictated to us by the developer.

Finally!

After much anticipation, my family pack of Windows7 arrived today. My plan is to install the first copy on my Home Theater PC to see how things go. Although I have been running Vista with zero issues for over a year now on two different machines, given all the positive press W7 has been receiving from pundits on both sides of the aisle, I thought I'd give it a shot. Microsoft is offering, while supplies last, a 3-pack of upgrades for $150 which is very hard to beat for people with multiple machines. In-depth report upcoming.

Good News/Bad News

Although I'll leave the ride report to Douglas, I will fill you guys in on something that happened at the outset of the ride. As you know from a previous blog, I had purchased a set of trackday take-offs from Ocelot on the ZRXOA and had them mounted up on the ZRX with the intent of surprising Douglas by showing up riding "mean-green". Bike has been running superb since I got the coil issue addressed and was excited to be back on the Rex with a chance to get it back in the twisties! Leaving Tulsa Saturday morning it was a little cool so the bike was running even better. I got about 100 miles north of Tulsa when I pulled over to the side of the road to check my map and to my great dismay, I was soon enveloped in a choking cloud of blue (oil) smoke emanating from my tailpipe! What to do now? First instinct was to turn around and head home so as not to get caught out on the road with a disabled bike. I called the wife to let her know I was returning and also called Dick who reinforced my decision not to push the bike any further than I needed to. Called/texted Douglas to let him know my plan and headed back to Tulsa. Once back on the road, I noticed the bike wasn't really burning oil at speed and was still running great. Since I was so close to Douglas, less than 30 miles, I stopped, texted him I was on my way, turned around and continued on to Big Brutus. Met up with Douglas at Big Brutus and was pretty bummed about what was happening. Douglas was very positive about the whole situation and suggested we ride back to Tulsa, get my Fizzy and continue on our trip which is what we ended up doing. Trip turned out wonderful but I knew rear tire on my Fizzy wasn't up to the task but had little choice other than to take it given the pickle we were in.

As for the ZRX, she starts/runs fine with no obvious noises. Bike puffs blue smoke at idle and partial throttle and throttle blips. If I idle it up to 5K, the smoke eventually clears up almost completely and there is very little noticeable smoke at speed. I initially thought it might be a valve guide/seal but when decelerating using engine braking, the smoke doesn't seem to get worse as one would expect given the vacuum this maneuver is creating. I had a valve guide/seal go on my manual transmission Z-28 and whenever I would engine brake, it would pull all the oil down the valve stem and smoke like a sum-bitch. In any case, I don't plan on messing with the ZRX before the rally and will look at it over the winter. At Dick's direction I'll start by pulling plugs to see if it's isolated to one cylinder or affecting them all. Hopefully, it's just a valve job and not a ring issue although I suppose a scored cylinder might mean it's 1224 time! Maybe this is a great thing in disguise! Any thoughts appreciated and ask any questions you might have.

Yikes!

This is what my rear tire looked like after getting home! Once again, I pushed my rear tire to the limit and almost didn't make it home. Turns out the Diablo is a steel-belted tire which is probably what allowed it to last as long as it did. After getting to the motel Sunday night, it was obvious the tire was done but there were no chords showing. By the time we got to Yellville, Monday morning, things were looking grim and I was dreading every mile home from that point on. More on the trip later.

New Mexico Trip

God I love New Mexico !! Wonder why I ever left....

John McEnroe vs. Novak Djokovic U.S Open 2009

Ran across this accidentally and thought it was pretty funny. I grew up playing racket sports and followed tennis enthusiastically in my youth. The battles between Jimmy Connors and young McEnroe still stand out in my mind as some of the best tennis ever played. Although I don't follow much now, I do try and keep up with who the current players are, Djokovic being one of them. I guess he is quite the jokester and pulled this little stunt after running through an opponent in the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open. Priceless stuff!

The Butterly Effect

Just enjoying the yard and getting pics of the dogs when this little guy showed up! He looked pretty beat up but seemd to be operating normally. Took 75 pics in about 5 minutes and these are some of the better ones. Enjoy and I'll be happy to send full-res images if you e-mail me with a request.