| Omaha, NE to Charlotte, NC. 3 days, 1180 miles, and a side trip to Charleston, SC. I think I’ll probably be adding GPS to the bike before we leave, mostly to get the trip computer functions. Part of it is laziness. We used to run SCCA road rallies, so we got pretty good at TSD (Time/Speed/Distance) calculations. In fact, I still have an 80s vintage Casio programmable calculator we used to to TSD calculations on the fly when running in the assisted class. Still, while that’s pretty easy to do with a navigator in a car, it’s not terribly practical on a bike. It would be nice to see our average speed and ETA as we ride, so we know for sure whether we need to speed up or can keep a more leisurely pace. Besides, it’s good for finding one’s way back to the planned route, just in case.I’m excited to make the trip. | |
| The ride across Missouri isn’t much to brag about, but we’ll be going through what I have been told is some incredible scenery, especially once we get across the Mississippi. We’ll cross our first mountains and get to see the western part of the Carolinas. Once we hit Charlotte I’m really looking forward to doing a little sightseeing, exploring the area with Lisa, etc. I know the trip from Charlotte to Charleston is a pretty nice ride, as I’ve made that a couple of times. |  |
| I even ordered a little powder… 🙂 Now to get the rest of the preparation work done! The oil has been changed, I’ll probably replace the tranny & primary fluids as well. The rest of the bike is in fine shape and ready for the road. | |
One partial solution for airline security
I have an idea that I think would greatly improve the safety and security of air travel. Why not deputize a large number of ordinary, non-professional law enforcement people who travel regularly as auxiliary Air Marshals? Take people who fly regularly and shoot regularly, can demonstrate superb accuracy with a handgun under realistic conditions, can pass a training course and qualify. Give them the training they need to handle hijacking and terrorism situations in the air — make sound shoot/no-shoot decisions, when to engage and when to shut up and sit still, that sort of thing. Allow them to fly armed with concealed weapons and special ID. Now you have a significant possibility that any given flight, especially those on heavily traveled routes, will have at least one trained, armed person aboard who is able and willing to prevent a hijacking or terror attack. Continue reading “One partial solution for airline security”
It’s officially Spring
I went out this morning to check the fruit trees in the back yard, as I try to do every couple of days. We have hundreds of tiny little apricots starting to form! Right now they’re about half the size of a healthy grape, oblong and green…  but it looks like we’ll have a bumper crop of apricots this year.
The apple tree is in full bloom, and should be following along in a few weeks!
Dickie’s Bar-B-Q
There’s not a whole lot of BBQ joints in west Omaha these days… oh, who am I kidding? You can’t toss a dead cat without bouncing it off a sign with some variation of flames and pig. Anyway, Lisa & I ate here one night a few weeks ago. The food wasn’t bad at all. They even have passably good fried okra, which seems to be in short supply this far north. Hmmm, maybe I should plant some in the back yard, I’m sure THAT would thrill the neighbors. Anyway, aside from the country music playing (mercifully not too loud) the place wasn’t bad. Pretty pricey, though. If you find their food irresistible, you’ll go back. We may or may not — it’s a tad above average in food quality, but a few points higher in price than I’d like to see. Apparently the rent is pretty high, or they figure they’re in the high rent neighborhood.
Ask Ted Turner how that worked out for him.
The Sy-Max 2 Redux
Well, after a number of delays and false starts, we now have a pair of very nice looking, pearl white Sy-Max 2 helmets with J&M headsets installed.
I ended up having to do some serious but not overly complicated surgery to get the headsets installed. The Sy-Max 2 has expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam between the side of the fiberglass shell and the cushioned cheek pads. This reduces the depth of the cheek pads, meaning if you just drop the speakers into the cheek pad cavities like you’d normally think, they’ll crush your ears. I had to remove the cheek pads, then remove the EPS side pads – fortunately, they are separate pieces that snap in and are secured with one screw on each side. Some X-Acto knife work made some nice cavities for the speakers. The mic boom exits between the front edge of the side module and the shell. All in all, they fit great and sound even better.
Lisa has plenty of room between her face and the chin bar, but mine was right up against my chin. Pretty annoying, and a non-starter for longer rides for sure. I knew I had to do something about that, and toyed with the idea of warming the chin bar to give it a little more pointed shape. Tonight I found I could remove the plastic inner shield behind the vent and latch; there’s a chunk of EPS about 3/4″ or so thick behind that. With the shield completely removed, I have plenty of room but the vent won’t do much good to keep the shield from fogging. I ended up trimming it to about 2/3 its original thigkness and re-installing it without the foam block. I may do some further modification, but as I type this I’m wearing the helmet and it’s not bad. It’s still contacting my chin, but I think I’ll let it break in before doing any more chopping.
All in all, they look great, feel great, and I find there seems to be a lot less wind noise – as I had hoped all along. I’d like to keep the intercom VOX from tripping in crosswinds and when passing semi trailers; we’ll see how it all shakes out this season. Hopefully between the new helmets and the new headsets, it will be a little more comfortable on the road.
Chevy HHR… well, it just sucks.
Hertz gave me another HHR yesterday. I should have made them take it back.
I can really find almost nothing to like about this thing. It’s butt-ugly, for starters; this one is far uglier than most, with a very unfortunate muted greenish-bluish color that looks like something you’d see on a 60s-vintage drafting board. The thing is a pretty blatant attempt to cash in on some imagined nostalgia craze that has people snapping up Chrysler PT Cruisers by the million (which doesn’t seem to be happening, thankfully). It looks like a copycat, plain and simple.
It’s got blind spots the size of Rhode Island – the most disturbing of which is right in the center of your field of view while driving!! The rear view mirror is smack in front of your eyes when taking a ramp or turning right. The engine is more or less adequate for a commuter car, but buzzes like mad when you push it – like on an entrance ramp. Controls are inconveniently placed, and the narrow slit of a windshield is far enough in front of the driver’s seat to ensure you’ll strain your neck trying to see the traffic signals on your way to work. If you roll down the rear windows at anything much over parking lot speed, you’ll be treated to a pulsating wind buffeting that threatens to pop your eardrums until you roll them back up — ALL the way up.
All in all, this thing is a POS. It’s a bad idea poorly executed, and GM should hang their heads in shame for not only copying Chrysler (bad enough to begin with) but doing it this badly.
My rant about the economy
I’ve been harping on this for years. What we are seeing is the exact same thing that happened over 30 years ago. The economy was good, so we (collectively, the American public) got lazy and stupid. Cars got bigger and bigger, because that’s what was selling. To hell with gas mileage! I’ve got money, so that 10 MPG monstrosity (3-ton sedan then, 3-ton SUV now) isn’t a big deal. Make my car bigger, faster and louder; I want to see horsepower numbers, not fuel economy. So the auto makers follow the money, and for some unfathomable reason think it will last forever. Short-term thinking sets in, no one looks past the next quarter or two, and they keep churning out F-150s and Escalades instead of looking to improve the smaller, cheaper, more efficient vehicles. That market is left (now as it was then) to the Japanese, only now the Koreans are in the game as well.
So, our Arab brothers decide to jack up the price of oil — why? Well, because they can! If you see that your biggest customer will buy whatever you offer, at whatever price you demand, it follows that you’re able to do whatever you want with the prices. Besides, we’re just a bunch of filthy infidel that will eventually be converted or killed anyway (in case you missed it, these people are not our friends). Throw into the mix that China is finally waking up from a 60-year sleep and starting to rub its eyes, look around and see that there is business to be done and money to be had. The cheap labor market has shifted from the Japan of the 50s and 60s to China (along with other places like India), and the standard of living in those places is rising. As a result, their demand for oil, steel, and other commodities is rising sharply.
All the while we’re blissfully cruising along at 80 MPH in a 4-wheel-drive pickup or SUV sucking down gas like there will never be an empty tank. Wind power? Too expensive to develop, coal is cheap (never mind those nuke plants starting to age out). Hydroelectric? God forbid we build any more dams! Solar? Again, why bother when gas and oil and coal are so cheap. Oh, hey, wait. Now they’re not, and now we’re 30 years behind where we should be. We wasted three entire decades when we could have been weaning ourselves off of foreign oil, because we were too short-sighted to see that the oil problems of the early 1970s would be back, without fail. Why? Well, for pretty much the exact same reasons there were back then, I guess.
And where was our government during all of this? Well, I guess we get the government we deserve. Don’t try to lay the blame at the feet of any one administration or political party; not a damn one of them did anything significant to help move us in the right direction. It’s not politically wise to tell people during good times that there will be bad times at some future date, and to prepare for them. We could have had strong leadership pointing the way to energy independence and the use of renewable, ecologically sound fuels and energy sources, but we didn’t. We could have had policies that encouraged American businesses and consumers to think long term instead of short term, globally instead of locally, but we didn’t. We still don’t. I don’t know that we ever will.
I have very little sympathy for American car manufacturers, or for Harley-Davidson for that matter. It should have been blindingly obvious all along that the ride couldn’t last forever, yet all of them have been pretending that it would. Now, when things are looking a little bleak as they were bound to, they act like it’s a huge surprise. Gee, they say, why aren’t people buying our behemoths any more? Must be that pesky ol’ economy, we’ll just make some more Yukons for when things turn around. Yeah, that will work.
And the Harley crew… my God. Did they learn nothing from watching the cigar boom of the last decade? Dealers building new, huge showrooms well after the market peaks and starts to decline? How incredibly obtuse can you be, to not see what is so obvious to even a casual observer? I watched American Chopper last night; the Teutels are building a new plant and expanding their operations. I wish them luck, but my prediction is that in a few years you’ll be able to rent space in that place for indoor tennis courts.
Don’t get me wrong; I think the economy will pick back up. Historically, it always has. I’m not frantically selling off stock right now, I’m buying at cut-rate prices (just not Ford, GM, or Harley). But I do wish that some day we might collectively, as a nation, wake up and remember that we’ve been here before, and maybe figure out that we might want to address some of these problems before the next crisis. If we don’t, these recessions will just continue to get worse.
HJC Sy-Max II helmet review
Mine arrived today… and went back today, but that’s a whole different story.
The Sy-Max II is brand new from HJC, one of the nicest flip-front modular helmets I’ve seen anywhere. These are really nice buckets. The liner pops in & out easily for cleaning, as do the cheek pads. Unfortunately it was raining all day and the helmet wasn’t the right size, but I’d still have taken it out for a quick ride if I could have. Looks like there is pretty good ventilation with one chin bar vent and one near the top, both of which can be opened or closed. There’s also an integral retractable tinted sun shield inside, which slides down into one of 3 positions so you can ride without shades. I’m sure the tinted shield isn’t polarized, but it ought to be just the ticket for those days when you don’t need really dark glasses, or are in and out of bright areas. I can see taking the shades off during the last gas stop of the day, so I can retract the tinted visor when the sun starts to go down. The J&M headsets look like they’ll fit with no problems, plenty of room for the speakers.
Unfortunately, while the CL-Max I tried on locally fit me fine in XL, the Sy-Max II was tight – so it’s on its way back to exchange for an XXL. We’re definitely getting the pair. Last time we got silver helmets to match the bike, this time they’ll be pearl white. I was a little leery of the color choice, but I think Lisa liked it better… once I got it out of the bag, I lost any reservations I had. It’s beautiful (and not girly). And, kudos to New Enough! Their customer service is earning their pay on this, I love these guys already. Not to mention, their prices are the best I found anywhere.
Anticipation…
Man. I have parts arriving today & tomorrow from two different sources. My new helmet is due in some time this week. According to FedEx, my shipment of circuit boards is in town, so I should see them today. It’s like freakin’ Christmas morning here!   🙂
Public Pulse
Had a letter to the Public Pulse published a week or so ago. I had emailed them two; one on the DC V. Heller case, the other a response to yet another person whining about how Nebraska doesn’t allow casinos, which would of course solve ALL our problems. Yeah, like they have for Iowa.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m no opposed to gambling on a moral basis or anything. It’s a decision a responsible adult should be able to make on their own. I’m just saying that overall, I don’t think the casino business is all that good for a state. Jobs are created – but they’re mostly subsistence wage jobs. There is money brought in from outlying areas, but it’s a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the money flowing out to the casino’s parent corporation. The casinos, of course, take no responsibility for addressing the increase in crime, job loss, divorce, bankruptcy and other problems associated with gambling by those who get in over their heads. There are those who remain convinced that the casinos have been a major boost for Iowa’s economy and quality of life –just as there are those who can plainly see that it’s just not the case.