Barry Barry Zero Prime

Snubbed at Hill's

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:18:24 GMT

It's been a while since I've been so completely and totally hardcore-ignored at a restaurant in Austin. I was picking up a motorcycle from my buddy's shop today, and decided to stop at Hill's Cafe on South Congress for lunch. It was after the lunch rush, so they weren't crazy busy, and were probably starting to go on breaks or whatever. But even the hostess seemed kind of hacked at me for some reason. She seemed miffed that it was only me that wanted to eat today. She sat me in the frontish area with the small booths, and then I proceeded to remember that oh yeah, Hill's, for all of its good foods and Austin flavor, doesn't have anything remotely resembling a vegetarian anything, except their sides plate, 90% of which is probably AS bad or worse than a burger. That's okay, it's been a while since I had a big ole Tex-mex Burger from there. What the hell. After 5 minutes or so of reading the menu, and 10 minutes of trying to garner ANY passing waitstaff's attention, I finally had to get up and ask if there was anyone that was waiting on my table, to which they answered "I'm not sure, let me go check..." and they too promptly disappeared. After 5 more minutes, I gave up and left. Thought about complaining to someone, but all that was going to do was make me more angry, and I still wasn't going to get my food in time to get my bike and get back to my office.

I should have stopped at Opal's. At least people THERE like me enough to serve me still ;) Or at least they did... maybe I shouldn't test that theory today, since I obviously have my "No Service" karma turned on today. The lady at Wendy's was nice to me, even when I asked for a side salad instead of fries with my chicken thingy on a bun.

First Edition

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:01:00 GMT

I just bound the very very very first edition of my book. It's just one of those springy binder things, but it's still kind of cool to see MY BOOK in something approaching book form. Will take it to bike night tonight and float it around and see if people like it.

Dear City of Austin

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:39:25 GMT

Dear City of Austin:
I am sure that you are far wiser than I am, and understand a great many things about proper traffic flow, reasonable numbers of parking spaces, city ordinances, and all this manner of thing. However, I would like to take umbrage with your closing of city pools before August is even over. While I know that the children are returning to school, and that demand will drop significantly, it is still over 100 degrees out, and will continue to be over 90 well through September. It is shameful(and confusing) that even the large public pool near my house is still open, but only from 11:30am to 1:30pm, and then 5:30pm to 7:30pm for swim lessons. Oh, and suddenly you're going to charge me $2 for using a pool that is normally free for my use as a taxpayer? This seems very odd to me.

I would be a regular swim-patron at your other fine Municipal pools, but they cost $4 unless I want to get to Barton Springs before 9am, at which time, I am usually trying to get to work, not go swim.

- A Frustrated Swimmy Monkey

And you thought being a cosmonaut sucked...

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:28:15 GMT

Imagine being an Iranian-onaut(one wonders what they'll be called, besides "The Late" something something). Iran officially announced their intentions to put a man in space in the next ten years, after sort of almost kinda making a rocket into orbit this week. And they PROMISE they are NOT planning to use any of this orbital guided rocket stuff to launch nuclear warheads at people. Riiiigght.

Javascript

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:02:00 GMT

Now I understand why I've never learned Javascript(well, REALLY learned it). It's a COMPLETE pain in the ass, is tough to debug, and will never tell you when it's broken without a lot of third-party helper apps that will "take a guess" at whether something is right. Blech.

I keep reading stuff like all the recent "Javascript is finally ready" smarm on the blogosphere. Even with dojo and scriptaculous and whatnot, I'm still saying it's a scripting language in a tiny sandbox, and that there should be a MUCH better standard for Ajax-like behavior than Javascript. It's just terrible to deal with, and slows my productivity down.

Workplace GOLD

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:44:38 GMT

Oh... my... gawd... these are TOTAL workplace safety GOLD! Check out some of these AWESOME-O stickers:
http://tinyurl.com/67asav

Blog trends

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:07:27 GMT

I use an application called Adium for my mac that basically assembles all of the blogs I like to read in one place, like Bloglines, or so many others. This is good, in many ways, because I don't have to wait for each page to refresh, or anything else, and I'm not generally bombarded by blinking/vibrating ads and such.

However, to the end of the blinky flashy advertisements, many blogs, especially big corporate ones, are going to a model where I get the headline, and maybe the first two or three lines of info or a summary, and then I have to go visit their site to get the rest.

This is better than sifting through each site individually, but still annoying. The whole point of an aggregator is that I don't have to leave my environment that I like. The whole point of rss feeds is to provide the data and the information, and now all it's doing is providing lures into their sites a lot of the time, which is almost ideal for them.

Grr.

Pencil

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:24:20 GMT

I think my favorite mechanical pencil is dying. I've only had it since about 1992... and it's been continually repaired where it breaks at the joint of the grip and the body. A KOH-I-NOOR Rapidomatic 0.5mm. It's done a lot of physics homework, drawn a lot of electrical diagrams, and written a LOT of software schematics.

The new ones aren't as good. They're $10 when you can find them, but they made the grip less pleasing, and more slick. I suppose I could retrofit it onto a new one. There's an awfully nice Rotring 600 Series 1 0.5mm on ebay that has the style of grip that I like... it's unfortunately $90, which is a little silly, even though it solves the problem that my Koh has, which is a plastic body that cracks easily(the Rotring is brass).

*le sigh* So many toys...

Austin Priusism

Wed, 07 May 2008 19:18:52 GMT

So I'm driving to work this morning, North on Mopac, and just pass the 360 intersection. I notice a slow moving Prius in the left lane. I move to the right. He is passing an even SLOWER Prius. I move over. A THIRD EFFING PRIUS moves from the entrance ramp and proceeds to match the speed of the second Prius. For a moment, the entire highway was blocked by three different Priussesess(Prii?) in three different colors. That was a bit odd. Thankfully, they have absolutely NO drive from 60mph, so dropping two gears and blowing by them on the remainder of the entrance ramp was not an issue.

Cel phone ringers

Mon, 05 May 2008 15:12:57 GMT

Am I the only one that's amused by the number of people who seem visibly embarrassed by the ringer on their phone? I was getting a breakfast taco this morning, and a meter maid was paying, and her ringer went off with some bad hip-hop song. Her hands were full, so she couldn't turn it off quickly, and it went on and on. I can't decide if it's like riding in elevators, where you "try" to appear not to be listening to anyone else's conversation, but always do with great intent, or what. Are we becoming socialized to the ways of people's annoying ringtones such that we won't turn them off/down, but we will look embarrassed instead?

Selling things

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:23:13 GMT

I really hate selling things. Not because I don't want to get rid of something or whatever, but because people are so annoying to deal with when it comes to them buying things. They will ask you a million inane questions, and then just disappear, or they'll say they want to come look at it, and then never show, or they'll come, look at it, say they're coming back, and disappear, or they'll make you some obscenely low offer hoping you are desperate and then go away if you don't bite. If, by some FLUKE, they ACTUALLY show up with money in hand and actually DO buy it, then about half the time they keep bugging you about stuff that you told them BEFORE they bought it, but they chose to selectively ignore. *sigh*

Does anybody want to buy a bicycle?(not expensive!)

Or want some 4x100 bolt pattern wheels(cheap!)

Deiner bloggen ist verboten! (or something like that)

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:36:32 GMT

Former CNN producer Chez Pazienza, fired for blogging:

When I asked, just out of curiosity, who came across my blog and/or the columns in the Huffington Post, the woman from HR answered, “We have people within the company whose job is specifically to research this kind of thing in regard to employees.”

Yes, corporations have gestapo members that dress like little old ladies doing exactly this.

Helicopter Day

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:34:19 GMT

It's helicopter day at my office. I'm on the 18th floor of an office building facing the Texas Capitol, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and I sit almost directly next to those windows, so I had an interesting vantage point for all this SimCity craziness today.

First, there was the Life Flight helicopter that I'm used to seeing lift off/land at the nearby hospital. For no obvious reason, it came barreling northbound on Congress Avenue at a height slightly LOWER than the floor I'm on, and then banked hard left towards the West, basically at a 90 degree angle with the ground and the rotors at almost full power. This is unusual. They never fly that low, and never that fast, and the hospital is to the east, not the west from here. I'm assuming that he was an immediately available eye-in-the-sky for the second helicopter...

Second, there was the Police helicopter three or so blocks to the Northwest, that was hovering above a man that was carrying a large rifle near the Capitol building.

Third, and presently, is a small group of Army helicopters(two Apache attack helicopters, an Apache Scout, and a Blackhawk) that are orbiting around the Capitol just above the height of my building.

What's next for this SimCity madness? A UFO? Volcano? Geraldo?!?

Albert Schweitzer

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:20:26 GMT

Herr Schweitzer was a rather observant, and not surprisingly, well-written guy:

"He would daily throw out crumbs for the sparrows in the neighborhood. He noticed that one sparrow was injured, so that it had difficulty getting about. But he was interested to discover that the other sparrows, apparently by mutual agreement, would leave the crumbs which lay nearest their crippled comrade, so that he could get his share, undisturbed."

I suppose he has his reputation for a reason...

Early?

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:45:34 GMT

So, I've been getting up about ten minutes earlier everyday, and left about half an hour early this morning. So why did I get to work at the same time?

Ride report and yearnings for new things

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:40:28 GMT

Foreword: I've been riding my bicycle from my office in downtown Austin(literally at the Capitol building) to everywhere within reach at least three times a week. I crammed the rear sprocket on my Cannondale road bike getting snarky on the hike and bike trails, so I switched to my ancient mountie that is nearly 14 years old now.

It must be time to find a new route. What WAS taking me an hour to ride by bicye, is now taking me more along the lines of 45 minutes. And I rather like the full hour ride. I THINK that if I add in some more of Town Lake Hike and Bike I'm likely to push it to 1:15, which is a bit long, but might make a better goal to get down to an hour.

Unfortunately, I have a jonesing for a new bicycle(T would murder me, I'm already at 5 just in the house). And to make it worse, I want one of the new mounties with a 29" wheel instead of the smaller 26". *sigh* Something like this one.

They ARE awfully cool. And a new mountie would be pretty cool.

Nope nope. Being a semi-irresponsible human being and limiting myself to a cheap used racing motorcycle...

Boots down

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:58:17 GMT

Home from the great adventure. Was going to make the 900 miles straight home yesterday, but a storm the likes of which I've never ridden through stopped me cold about 90 miles out of Fort Stockton, and then I had to run into it, through it, and past it in order to get to Fort Stockton. When you are doing 40mph feeling the tires skipping in the water, and you can't see, and a semi-truck runs past you at 70, and washes the entire road of water on top of you and the bike gets almost sideways as the rear washes out, it's usually time to call it a night.

Fairly easy 350 or so miles this morning from Fort Stockton to home. Yesterday started North of Tucson, and I did about 600 miles or so. Actually had to grab a McDonald's near the border of New Mexico/Arizona because I was starving. I've forgotten how HORRID that alleged food is. Not to mention the fact that management was a complete clusterfuck there, and there was a line forever. I had stopped for a Carl's JR, which I've never tried. But it was beyond closed. It was a crater next to a tall sign with a smiling star on the top advertising its previous location.

Not too many pictures of the trip home. Hardly any in fact. Not much to see across the miserable state of Arizona from Palm Springs to Tucson, and even less from Tucson to El Paso through South New Mexico. The complete opposite of what I'd seen on the way out via the North route. It's faster, but DAMN it's boring.

And so the road continues

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 05:41:28 GMT

Left Santa Cruz at about 11 this morning, headed for Camarillo, a handful of exits that are about 55 miles North of LA. Went down the PCH until I hit an accident just after joining the 101. The PCH fails to disappoint. Beautiful road. Beautiful scenery.

Stopped shortly for a cup of coffee at the Henry Miller Memorial Library. found what I'd written in the guest book almost a year ago. Not many pages have been filled in there since then. A few, but not many. Still a lovely, calm little stop on the PCH. They have changed around a lot of what I took pictures of last year. I liked the messiness of it last year better. Seemed more honest.

Ended up taking very few pictures today. There are only so many pictures of the beauty of the Pacific coast before you realize that they never match up with what the reality of it is. It's better just to look and remember I think.

Did take a few pictures of Highway 33 South of where it joins 166 North of Ventura. Great road, some beautiful scenery. Would be nice if there were fewer golf-ball sized rocks from the mountain in every tight corner though.

Camarillo, where I'm staying, isn't even on the map in my GPS. It's the first set of exits South of Ventura on 101. I took the first exit, knowing only the name of the road the hotel was on, and the name of the hotel itself. I took the first exit for gas in Camarillo, and remembered seeing an exit for Del Norte Blvd. Upon further examination of the road, it was pretty obvious that it WASN'T the right Del Norte, since it was supposedly Del Norte Road, not Boulevard.

Went back to the exit where I had gotten gas, and saw the hotel from the highway. Turns out, I had magically pulled into the right exit, gone the right way, and was a few hundred yards from the hotel when I had stopped for gas and to look at the names again on my sheet of paper.

They had two free beers for each guest, and I get a hot breakfast of some sort tomorrow morning. There are only two places in the area with food, and I chose the Mexican place, the Iguana Grill and Cantina.

What a strange place. The food was okay, they had every Mexican beer known to me, but the slutty waitresses were something else. ALL the waitstaff was JUMPING at all times. Just frantically running around. The manager was continually browbeating them about stuff, and taking care of customers. But the most striking thing was the theme they had going of very exposed cleavage. One girl was at least a 3D, with a huge platform bra that pushed her tits up out of her very open blouse. I kept getting distracted watching them float and bob inside of her blouse. She wasn't especially attractive, and certainly crass and tacky, but she kept taking pictures of herself jiggling her tits. Her compatriots were less well-endowed, but only two showed little or no cleavage. The one that showed none, came in later, and was more interested in the baseball game on TV. The other was a quite nice mocha-colored girl that kept bending over and showing the crowd her thong out the top of her pants. The cocktail waitress had some nice C's that were on proud display in their own shelf and swimming around like goldfish in a small bowl out the top of her shirt.

I'm guessing, that from the mostly Hispanic crowd, and the way they were all living it up with the waitresses, that this is quite normal. I say that, just given the little exposure I've had to Mexican-only bars in Texas, where most of the wait staff is similarly on display.

Came outside to go back, and I hear a swarm of sportbikes revved to the limiters pulling into the lot. Then I see three out in the street pulling wheelies at about an 80 degree angle. They come back the other way, and do it again, and pull in the lot next to their other Rough Rider MC friends(very obvious from the logo on the windshields, jackets, etc. Same logo as the Ravens in Biker Boys if you ever sat through that miserable piece of crap movie). In Austin, the Rough Riders are mainly black businessmen with totally tricked out Hayabusa's. Here, they seem to be mainly scrawny Mexican kids with Kawasaki's and smaller Suzuki's bestickered with Tecate logos and such.

The cops pulled in about a half second after the wheely kids pulled in, and yanked one of them. He was put on the curb, interrogated, and eventually had his bike impounded for a month, and it will cost him $2000 to get it back out. Dumbass. Hope you liked that wheely, because it will be your last for a bit.

Going to try to make it to Tucson tomorrow. Mostly big highways, so the nearly 600 miles should go fast, but there won't be much entertainment along the way. Desert. Lots of desert I'm thinking. Hopefully I don't get fooked by the traffic in LA tomorrow. Likely will though. I'm getting better at lane-splitting with authority though. It still stuns me that people really do move over in the lanes for you. Crazy. My worst Austin commute would take me 25 minutes if I could lane-split.

Surfing

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:04:23 GMT

I still smell like the ocean, even after a shower. It's kind of nice.

Only going to go surfing once this trip, but all the little problems I had last time I didn't have this time. I had no issue staying balanced on the board, and no issues with getting lined up on the wave this time. I stood up more regularly, and could almost always ride the wave just propped up on the board.

This time, my problem really was that I kept wanting to stand all the way up, instead of staying crouched, so I tended to get wobbly at some point in the wave and tip off. Waves were great all morning though. They actually had a negative low tide, which put us WAY out from the beach, and made for regular packs of 3 to 5 foot waves every few minutes first thing in the morning.

Definitely ran out of steam again with the paddling. Also jammed my toe into a rock falling off one time. Thankfully I was wearing the wetsuit booties because it was so cold this morning, but they slid up on my foot and I had to extract my toes from being balled up in the end of the bootie. Still pretty sore. Don't think I broke anything(my initial fear), but pressure from walking is kind of painful, esp. on the first toe next to my big one. I think I just jammed it really well though.

Not sure how I want to leave for home tomorrow. Going to send a big load of stuff to T, including my camping gear, since I don't foresee needing it, and the weight is wearing out my rear tire a little faster than I would like.

If I go the short way, and skip Yosemite(can't find any place that's near a good stopping point that takes me through it without making strange reroutes), then it's only 1700 miles. Very boring miles though. I'm pretty sure there is no good way to cross Arizona/Southern Nevada. Definitely don't need to go across North Nevada again, and I'd like to skip going North/South through New Mexico again. That would put me, effectively, in LA late tomorrow, and then cross Arizona/Southern New Mexico(probably Roswell) the next day, unless I find something fascinating along the way to distract me, which I might. That would leave me with about 550 miles to Austin on Monday at the earliest. Will think about it. Going to go do a little shopping for post cards and such, and then head back to the room for a bit, and decide what is staying on the bike, and what is going in tee box.

Temperatures

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:48:43 GMT

How can it be one degree cooler in Santa Cruz than it is in Austin at this very second, and yet I'm freezing? I know there are sea breezes and lower humidity and whatnot, but it just doesn't seem possible.

The Ocean

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:32:55 GMT

There are few things in this world, if any, that can't be made to seem small and insignificant if you sit in the dark, and listen to the ocean talking to you.

I wish there was a way that I could easily achieve that would let me listen to it in the truest natural dark of our planet. Everywhere I've ever known has been polluted in some way by our desire for light. Even in Torrey, there was light from the hotel. Even while camping, there has been a light, normally ignorable, that could be seen in the distance.

That light reminds you that you are near your kind.

Being near the ocean in the dark that I can find, reminds me of many things.

If I swim only a few hundred yards out, it is not my world. It is a world more normal and natural than I may ever be accustomed to.

Creatures swim next to other creatures that eat them, or at least, will if the others are hungry and they are not able to dissuade them by ruse or swiftness.

We have become uncomfortable with this idea.

The taste of the ocean this afternoon reminded me of something more honest and intent than I have remembered in several months.

There is our world.

And there is the real world.

I am nothing compared to this.

It is important to remember.

It is why the picture of me sitting on a board watching the ocean is so important to me.

Spiffy day

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:46:22 GMT

Had a generally spiffy lay-about day in Santa Cruz. There were no waves at Cowell's today, so I rescheduled my refresher course for negative tide tomorrow morning. It wasn't even worth paddling around on it was so flat.

Bought a new skateboard at Santa Cruz Skate Shop from a very helpful Jordan. It's a lot of fun to play with, and something I've wanted since I was like 8.

Fixed my potential cash flow issues, since my old job is being slow about the severance and bonus checks, which are all paper anyhow, and not direct deposit.

Ate the holy banana pancakes at Cafe Brasil in Santa Cruz this morning. Will do the hop to the bagel shop in town tomorrow after surfing.

Finally remembered that the Red Room is one street over from Pacific, and not ON Pacific as I had remembered. Met several very nice people, and one drunk jackass there. He was an amusing follow-up to the jackass with the $72k MV Agusta motorcycle I met at Cafe Pergolesi(coffee shop) earlier. I loved the bike, but I really didn't care that it will pull a wheelie at 120mph or that he hit redline in sixth gear on the way back from San Francisco for the first time, or that he has 11 other exotic bikes, or that he has tattoos on both arms OF this bike and another one. No, really, can we talk about something OTHER than you? Anything? He was part of(obviously the alpha jerk) a pretentious bunch of pricks that were a motorcycle club called the Vampires in Santa Cruz. I'm sorry, but I really thought only harley guys thought leather motorcycle club jackets were neato. Seeing them put them OVER their matching motorcycle leathers was a strange experience. Freakin' Cali weirdos. It's a motorcycle. I love them, and so do you. Why do you need to be so exclusive about it? Are you THAT insecure about who you are?

Anyhow, grabbing a beer or two and heading to the beach in the dark for a bit.

Heading back home on Friday. Should take about five days or so, since I don't want to do any more 700 mile days if I can help it.

In Santa Cruz for three nights

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 06:09:20 GMT

Made Santa Cruz today around lunch. Stopped in on the Zeitgeist in SF last night, but they had no available rooms. I didn't know the Apple Developer Conference was going this week. There were no cheap rooms to be had. But, stayed at the Mosser again, where T and I stayed last Christmas, and am still enamored with the place. It's at 4th and Market street, and just awesome. Small rooms, yes. Some have bathrooms down the hall, yes. But, if you get the deluxe room, you get your own bathroom, comfy beds, and really nice service.

Had a few Radebergers at the Zeitgeist before I ran down to the Mosser. It was packed. They were having a film festival in the backyard. Made friends with the staff again, and dropped off the postcards and stickers I'd promised them from Austin.

Threw my bags at the doorman at the Mosser, and headed for Moki's, which had been closed for maybe five minutes when I got there. Decided that there was bound to be food on Haight street near the Toronado, and was the last customer at an Indian place next door. Decent chicken Tika Marsalla(sp?), but great naan(sp?) bread.

Stewart rememered T and I from Christmas, and I met Kirsten, who lives in Santa Cruz and commutes to SF two times a week to work there. Made my way back to the Mosser after the Toronado closed, and found out the garage I'd been told about was closed. My penalty was that I had to wake up at 7am to put quarters in the motorcycle parking meters next door. But really, it's a quarter an hour, so it's a pretty good deal as far as SF parking goes. I just wanted more than five hours of sleep.

Ate breakfast at Mel's Drive-In down the street. It's not a drive-in at this location, but it's still called that.

Got a coffee from the front desk and watched a little TV. Then went by the Apple store around 9:30. They open at 10. Strange. Anyhow, wandered with another coffee from the front desk to Union Square, and watched people and enjoyed the cold shade and cool breeze mixed with hot sun.

By 9:50am, there was a crowd of Apple faithful lined up to get in. Somehow, I got a genius bar time in about half an hour for my broken iPod. They replaced it quite happily and nicely, and I went back to the room, finished packing, and headed out to Santa Cruz. Nice little drive down the PCH, with a stop for pictures at the lighthouse.

Still getting used to lane-splitting in Cali. In SF, riding a motorcycle is about like guerrilla combat. No wonder you see so many dirt bikes-cum street assault vehicle there. They EXPECT you to filter to the front of the line at lights and blast off I think. Worked for me. Elsewhere, it's a bit more random. Didn't really need to lane-split much through traffic because of when I left.

Santa Cruz is still beautiful. It smells like Santa Cruz. The waves still crash on the beaches and all that.

Downtown is getting a major facelift, with all new lofts and buildings and construction. Lots of new shops replacing the fun litle places I found last year. It feels 20% more California yuppy, but still has a lot to love. Can't seem to find the Red Room again, my favorite bar. Don't love it, but I had a good time last year. I remember walking past it two or three times last year looking for it. I'm sure I'm doing it again. It's in an odd hole with almost no street-facing presence except a door.

Signed up for my surfing rental/refresher course tomorrow. Low tide is around 2:30 in the afternoon now. Much better than the 8:30am from last summer. My motel is literally a block from my surf shop, and across the street from the boardwalk/wharf/Cowell's Beach/etc. My front porch looks out over the pier and I can watch people playing volleyball on the beach during the day.

Walked around in the surf a bit, and sat on the beach for a while soaking in the sun.

Ate a lovely dinner at the Seabright Brewery. Australian Sea Bass with awesome kaper chutney and kickass almond rice. Beer was okay. Not awesome, but okay. Was forced out because of a pair of valley girls(one especially) that I reflexively wanted to murder. "Like oh muh gah! I was in Santa Barbara last weekend? and we ran into Dave Chappelle? and he totally talked with us for a while? And I never believed that pretty people don't have to wait in line? but we totally just went to the head of the line at this restaurant and told them we needed to be seated and they did? It was so awesome!" Still having stabby thoughts. To top it off, the two girls were playing dice on the bar with a cup, and seemed to be enjoying making the bar bounce by slamming the cup down as hard as they could. It made my eye twitch every time they did. And to top THAT off, they were drinking champagne... over ice. What the HELL?.

Ran away, and sought other venues downtown. Didn't really find much new, but I am tired. Sitting on my porch listening to the sea lions under the pier and the waves crashing and the kids shooting off fireworks on the beachand such.

In the bad news department:
Apparently Marlo is not taking well to staying at T's place, and has begun pissing on the bed and shitting on the bath mat. Also, Trader Joe's no longer makes Java Drops. The bags I bought two years ago are just about empty, and possibly, are the last in existence. I even asked the people at the store. And THEY said they hadn't seen them in almost a year. *sigh* But what will I keep in my travel bag for those caffeine fix emergencies? They were perfectly flavored, and very highly caffeinated. One or two of those could make me not kill someone for an entire day without coffee.

Tomorrow, I'm thinking of either The Bagelry, or Cafe Brasil for breakfast. I could kill for either. And then I found an Afghan restaurant on Soquel I want to try for dinner. Will also get a haircut. This mussy longish hair is driving me crazy. Finally gave in and shaved my throat today, since I was starting to get annoyed by the helmet strap and the hairs.

A few pics on Flickr from the trip yesterday into SF, and today from SF to SC.

Staying until Friday, then I head home through the southern route over the Tioga pass in Yosemite, then Vegas and other places most likely.

Loneliest road in Nevada

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:34:49 GMT

Left Torrey this morning around 11am, and made my way to Ely, Nevada. Took a picture of the only liquor store near Torrey for 50 miles or more. It's a strange place.

Apparently, highway 50 out of Utah to Ely is known as the loneliest road in Nevada(or is it the US?). I'd believe it. I only had to pass two people, even at 90-100mph. I came across less than five cars in over a hundred miles, and actually came across about a half dozen people on BICYCLES crossing through the completely barren and empty lands between the mountains. You would be up at 8000 feet, and then down at 5000, and then up again to 6500, and then down...

Saw sets of dust devils following each other across one of the valleys. Got an okay picture of the biggest one. Just getting used to seeing things that are hazy in the distance and then crossing them.

Going to Sacramento tomorrow, then San Francisco the day after.

Ely is... interesting... sort of. Good dinner though. A chicken fried steak the size of the plate, floating on a pile of mashed potatoes and cream gravy. The soup was especially good... chicken vegetable. From the number of closed restaurants in town, I'm thinking it's the last surviving one. Going to skip the VIP Lounge Massage parlor. Drank some local beer at the Twisted Tree, and talked with various locals, the bar keep(who has been doing it for 27 years), before they started karaoke. It's a Sunday night in the most remote town of its size in the US. Literally 200 miles from anything. 150 miles to the nearest wal-mart. Looks like there are a lot of buildings available for sale though. I liked the look of the empty old-school gas station with two-car garage on the side, complete with glass doors and the whole bit.

Supposedly, the Hotel Nevada was the tallest structure in Nevada until the fifties. I'm almost used to walking past the slot machines in the casino downstairs. Almost. Still seems strange.

Today was a short day of riding. Tomorrow will be longer. I wanted to rest up a bit for the longer stretch tomorrow. Maybe I can find the Apple store in San Francisco and get my dead ipod replaced. Wind noise and Italian machinery thumping away is entertaining for about a hundred miles, but after that... I could use a tune. I caught myself whistling in my helmet...

Reefer Madness

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 07:59:17 GMT

The Ducati convention was officially today. Started out on a ride with some guys that were riding 10% faster than I wanted to, and hooked up with a different group that was still pushing on occasion, but were not being stupid on mountain roads with traffic, rocks, cattle, trees, and gravel. Went from Torrey to Escalante, and down the Burr Trail. Some good pics today, and some insanely good riding. Scrubbed in the sides of the new tires, had a wonderful lunch at the Trailhead Cafe(they grill sandwiches on a civilian grill out amongst the beautiful scenery while you wait. Delicious, with nice waitresses.

Ran across the "Desert Doctor", a guy that rides around the trails on a motorcycle helping motorcyclists that are broken down in the desert. He knows when ALL the groups are coming to the area, and brings specific supplies with him for the events, riding back and forth all day on the mountain roads.

I can't really say enough about riding in this area. The roads are incredible. From ridges that were only as wide as the road and dropped thousands of feet to the bottom on either side, to being surrounded by rock formations that I've only seen in pictures, and then to pine-lined windy mountain roads with thousands of feet of elevation change. Really. This is motorcycle heaven. It's temperate. Now, if it was only somewhere that you don't have to legally eat something before they can serve you a 3.2% beer. We made the 8 mile trek to the next town over and bought real beer at the "State Liquor Agency", where a crazy old lady was rocking out to her own tune in her head the whole time. I paid $12 for a 6-pack of Samuel Adams. This state is insane.

There was a big banquet, and then the raffle, where they cut playing cards in half, and drew them out to award prizes, threw some out, and then awarded the people that went on the treasure hunt. The organizer had run around the day before, leaving business cards "60 paces from the monument at the end of the paved road at the end of Burr trail", and "With 'Carul', the crazy lady at the liquor store". The prizes were many and good, sometimes hundreds of dollars. I won two shirts and an aftermarket Ducati repair manual. The BCM Ducati mechanics' shirt was awesome, and I love that I won it.

Tomorrow, we watch the GP races, and then I head out to central Nevada, before going through Reno and then into San Francisco, hopefully on Monday.

Overall, an incredible day. Worth the trip in every way.