Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Sat, 27 May 2006

The cloud deck is how low?

I ended up just doing ground work today, as the clouds were scattering around between 300 and 600 feet above ground level. Suffice to say, that's far too low for a visual rated pilot such as myself.

Turns out I still know how to read a sectional chart, but I have to refer to the key more. And I still know basic pattern approaches, and approximately how to communicate on the radio.

When we actually go up to do some air work, we'll work on some airport approaches and maneuvers like stalls and steep turns. Should be a good workout.

Posted at 19:25 permanent link category: /aviation

Thu, 25 May 2006

First-aid kit, hooooo!

I found this description of a good motorcycle first aid kit a few weeks ago, and set about to gather the bits and pieces. All told, I ended up spending about $75 at the drugstore, followed by another $30 on other pieces, and $15 today for the bag to hold it all.

I'm trying not to think about the cost.

But in any case, I now have a very well-suited motorcycling first aid kit. Unfortunately, it's kind of huge. Like, 2x bigger than I was imagining initially. I could make it smaller, but only at the cost of making it less capable.

I may try to assemble a less complete, but still useful kit out of the remaining parts, as something that I can carry more regularly.

Posted at 19:38 permanent link category: /motorcycle

How not to do it

On my way in today, I was passed by a guy riding a Honda ST1300 (an expensive sport-touring bike). Not remarkable in and of itself, but I noticed that he was wearing a 3/4 helmet (no chinbar), a questionable-looking jacket, khaki pants, and hiking sneakers. So, not very concerned about falling off, I thought to myself.

I watched him ahead of me. This is on the stretch of Highway 99 (if you know the Seattle area) at Greenlake, where it goes from lots of stoplights to sort of freeway-like, with a 40 MPH speed limit. No one actually goes 40 unless there's a cop right behind them, 50-60 is the usual speed.

Anyway, as I watched, he changed lanes suddenly, without signaling, and without looking over his shoulder. Ok, I thought, not very conscious about his vulnerability on the bike. Nothing bad happened (it's not one of those stories).

I made my usual turn at 39th, but noticed that he was leading me. His turn signal was on this time. As I came around the corner, I saw that he was still correcting from running wide, 200 feet down the road, approaching a very sharp and blind descent down a steep hill.

The real capper for me was, as I pulled up behind him facing steep downhill, I saw that he'd pulled hard up to the car's bumper in front of him, bounced from foot to foot a few times (he couldn't quite get both feet down), then did something and completely relaxed. Remember, steep downhill. No hands or feet on controls. He seemed unaware of the world around him, or that someone might come crashing down the hill completely out of control.

I wondered what he'd done. Maybe the ST1300 had some kind of a parking brake I didn't know about? Did he have some cool accessory that allowed him to do that? His brake light wasn't on...

Nope. The light turned green, and he hurriedly started the motor (he'd left it stopped and in gear so it wouldn't roll), turned left without signaling, and ran really wide on his turn. Fortunately, he wasn't going the same way as me.

That guy is an accident waiting to happen. I hate it when they take nice bikes with them.

(For reference, when I stop at a light, I am waiting with the bike running, in gear, my hand on the clutch and watching the rearview mirror waiting for the car that's going to come in too fast and rear-end me. My foot is on the rear brake so I can take off at a moment's notice. I don't relax from that until there is at least one car fully stopped behind me. Oh, and I always signal turns and lane changes, and don't run wide going around corners. This is just how you ride when you don't want to die.)

Posted at 10:20 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 23 May 2006

I strike at thee, green-hearted denizens of the field!

I just got medieval on the back yard, which was approaching 4' tall in places.

Me. A scythe. A pitchfork.

That grass didn't stand a chance.

The neighbors looked on laughingly, waving to the brave victor of the battlefield.

Posted at 20:25 permanent link category: /misc

Mon, 22 May 2006

It's been a long time...

I called up Northway just now, and scheduled myself for an hour of ground followed by an hour of flying time. I had a brief but interesting conversation with Jim, the owner, who is usually there answering the phone and running things.

Last year (see the previous journal entry in this subject) I had what might be termed a terrible time flying. I was so aggravated and annoyed that I seriously wondered when I would have any interest in flying again.

I mentioned some of this to Jim, and he was actually troubled enough by my report to go dig through the old invoice to see who I had flown with (the only place I have it written down is in my logbook, since I apparently decided last year not to name names). It's always kind of nice to have a business show concern for your happiness.

So, I signed myself up for an hour of ground instruction with young Jared (seen on the right there) followed by an hour of flight time in the Cherokee. I picked the Cherokee since it's my favorite plane, and the idea of re-introducing myself to flying in a foreign or uncomfortable plane is not very appealing. I figure if I'm going to do this at all, it'd better be as appealing as possible.

We'll see how it turns out. Hopefully next weekend will be nice and I won't have to also contend with bad weather.

Posted at 15:50 permanent link category: /aviation

Fri, 19 May 2006

I am the weirdest rider in the world

I realized today that my riding produces exactly the opposite effect on tires from everyone else. All the reports I've read about tire usage read something like, "I get n miles out of a rear tire, and n * 2 miles out of a front tire." However, I'm the exact opposite -- I usually go through a front tire faster than a rear tire.

I guess this is likely due to my in-city riding. However, it means that I'm spending a lot more time braking than everyone else, and obviously I'm not accelerating much. If I were, I'd be going through rear tires a lot faster.

And despite that, I get terrible gas mileage on whatever I'm riding. How lame is that? At least front tires are a bit cheaper most of the time.

Posted at 09:56 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 18 May 2006

Montana, here I come (later)

I have been asked to join in on a little theatrical venture later this summer. The kink of course is that it's in Montana. And for some odd reason, it's on a Monday night. So I'm looking at the Google map of the route and thinking to myself, hmm... there are a lot of interesting looking secondary roads along that route, and I would have two days to do it... Then I thought to myself, if it's going to take me two days to get there, it's also going to take me two days to get back, which means I'm already taking three days off from work, so why not take five, and make a real trip out of it?

Yep, time for a road trip!

So, I've been feverishly researching Montana, motorcycle camping, tents, sleeping bags and pads, flashlights, radios, national parks, first aid kits, etc. All in pretty much random order. It's been very distracting.

Fortunately, this isn't happening until later in the summer, so I still have plenty of time to research and plan and acquire backpacking-quality camping widgets. I'll be heading to Portland soon, so a stop into Powell's is definitely in the cards, to explore their large travel books and maps section.

Hooray for travel!

Posted at 10:34 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 16 May 2006

Frustrating doctors

Ok, so this is really frustrating. I went to the aviation medical examiner last year (a year too early, as it happened), and after an easy exam, he got to the blood pressure part.

There was a bit of frantic brow scrunching, as he explained that I was one point away from being over the FAA limit, which is 155 or so on the systolic. I passed, but he was worried that my blood pressure was dangerously high. Arg! This was particuarly aggravating as I'd been to see my normal doctor (who's even now still not certified as an FAA AME, double arg), and specifically asked him about the high blood pressure the AME had noted.

He said, "I've never seen any indication of high blood pressure with you," or words to that effect. Cool. Only, the AME was still reading high.

So today I went in for a physical with my regular doctor, and noted with interest that my blood pressure was 120 over 80-something. That's definitely not high, and is nowhere near the 155 limit I was brushing last summer.

What changed? I made a conscious effort to reduce salt, but it seems surprising that it would have had that much effect so soon. I pointedly related the story of last summer's AME encounter, and he looked at me incredulously, saying "I've never seen any signs of high blood pressure, Ian, you're fine."

I must say, this is frustrating. I guess I must tense up when I get around the AME, or his equipment is measuring differently, or he's testing differently, or something. Whatever it is, it makes me really wish my regular doctor would get his AME certification.

This all came up, by the way, because I'm finally going to get back into flying, so I can try going up on the 4th of July again. I don't want to dislike flying, but the federal apparatus around it makes that very difficult at times.

Posted at 10:54 permanent link category: /aviation

Mon, 15 May 2006

Replacing throttle cables takes how long?

To my dismay, I felt the "return" throttle cable (the one which closes the throttle, and is mostly redundant) break on the Goldwing as I was headed up to Jesse's house on Saturday. I was going up to help him with maintenance on his CBR600. It's been his commute vehicle since he moved up to Shoreline last year, and hasn't really had the maintenance it needs for a while.

In any case, about 5 minutes out from my house, I felt the cable snap. It took me a moment to decipher what exactly had happened, because the only change that I could feel was that the throttle suddenly had a lot more play. By the time I arrived at Jesse's, I knew that the return cable (also called a "push" cable, since a system like this is referred to as a "push-pull" system) had snapped, and judging by the amount of pressure it'd taken to break, there must have been one strand left.

I got to Jesse's house, and we replaced his tires, chain and sprockets. That's easy to say, but it ended up taking us nearly 5 hours to do all that, and we didn't even fit in balancing the wheels with the new tires on them. His old tires were pretty worn out, with the rear somewhere beyond the wear bars, and the front nearly bald as well. Jesse said even on dry pavement, the rear tire would slip -- eek!

He ended up buying Continental Road Attack tires, both based on my (review-based) recommendation, and on the fact that they were the cheapest set he could get. I'm looking forward to hearing how they work, since they came very highly reviewed.

So, yesterday, I sat down after the obligatory Mother's Day brunch to replace the defective cable (and the complementary "pull" cable, as long as I was in there). Fortunately, the previous owner had a set of throttle cables in among the spare parts included. Although they were a trifle crusty looking, they also looked like they'd never been in service, and so were a better choice than the busted up ones on the bike.

I got ready to actually replace the cables (fortunately, the garage was clean from earlier, when I'd prepared it for changing the front tire on the Z), and took off all the bits I figured I'd have to remove. Then, as I got down and got a good look at the cable attachment point, I realized this was going to be way more work than I'd thought.

I pulled down the manual, but it didn't describe any procedure for changing the cables. I realized with slowly mounting horror that I would have to remove the carburetors from the bike before I could get at the cable attachment points. D'oh! Those carbs are huge, and it looked like a massive pain to get them out.

And, in fact, I was right. It was a huge pain. Honestly, I'm not sure it's possible to remove the carbs as a unit -- the four carburetors are bolted to an intake manifold. The whole thing is bigger than any of the openings out of which it could come. The manual seemed to be saying it was possible, but I'm not entirely sure they were referring to the model of bike I have.

In any case, after two hours, feeling beaten into submission, I had the cables replaced and the bike about half reassembled. It shouldn't take more than another half hour to get it finished up, but what a huge pain. At least it'll be done, and another thing I don't have to worry about for a while.

Posted at 11:56 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 13 May 2006

Whew. Or, That's not a Nail, THIS is a Nail!

After more prep work than should have reasonably been required (the garage was on the heavily cluttered side... sigh), I got the Z propped up and ready to pull the wheel off. I grabbed my trusty multitool and pulled out the nail I'd seen a day or two before.

To my surprise and delight, the "nail" was a tiny piece of metal, maybe 3-4 mm long. It had not punctured the tire completely, leaving enough rubber in place that it didn't leak a bit when I pulled the offending object out. Hooray! That means no patch, and no having to pull the wheel off to wrestle with tire irons.

Unfortunately, the front tire is definitely on the cupped side, so it'll need to be replaced soonish. It's still acceptable, but that could explain some of the uncertain feeling I get from the front end.

It turns out that getting the Z750s's front tire in the air is no mean feat. The factory has access to this nifty adjustable "double" jack, which grabs both sides of the engine case, to support it very stably while leaving the inconveniently-routed exhaust pipes uncrushed. I guess technically I have access to it too, if I cared to spend a couple hundred dollars on the special tool from Kawasaki. However, between some cleverly-rigged tiedown straps and the slightly off-center jack from underneath, I managed to get the bike up and stable. Not really the way I'd normally choose to do it, but it worked in this case.

In other news, I got a phone call from someone in Florida(!) today, asking about the Le Mans. He sounded pretty interested, but it would involve crating up the bike and shipping it down there. He knows of some shipping company which will perform the crating as part of the shipping service, though, so that's encouraging.

I suggested to Nils (for that was his name) that he should consider flying up here to inspect the bike in person, relating my own bad experience with the R100 (in brief, it was Not in Advertised Condition). He seemed to appreciate the suggestion, but for all I know that killed the sale. Who knows. I'd rather not ship the bike if I can avoid it, although I'd also rather sell it and ship it than not sell it at all.

Posted at 12:46 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 12 May 2006

Less arg.

I rode the Le Mans into work on Thursday, because I finally remembered to post my bikes-for-sale to the internal motorcycling list. One of my coworkers from a previous life (back when I was compiling builds, instead of dealing with email) mailed back indicating his interest.

So, on Thursday, he got a chance to look at it, and hear it roar a little. He still seemed interested, but I'm not really holding out any hope on that front. If it turns into a sale, I'll be thrilled, but I won't be shocked if he declines.

In riding the bike in, I was reminded on several counts of why I really like the Le Mans. It has a beautiful drivetrain -- the clutch and transmission are buttery-smooth. Power delivery is invigorating, particularly rolling on a heavy dollop of throttle at around 3k RPM, when you get that hearty V-twin staccato roar from the exhaust. It feels really nice to ride, like it's working with you to make riding more enjoyable.

Of course, to counter that, I was reminded also of its relatively heavy feel at low speed (the Z750s is no better, although it's different). I remembered the huge driveline lash as all those gears take up their play going from acceleration to deceleration. I filled the tank, and was reminded of the terrible in-town gas mileage.

So yeah, for all that I like the bike, it's better that someone else buy it and use it for it's actual intended purpose -- distance, moderate to high speed riding.

Posted at 21:43 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Arg.

I looked down at my front tire today to see a jolly little metallic glint wink back up at me. Yep, there's a nail buried deep in the front tire of the Z750s.

Fortunately, this is nowhere near as grim as it could be. I have two different patching/plugging technologies available, it's not losing air, and I have a spare front tire. How convenient is that? I figure I'll stick on my spare tire tomorrow morning. If I dislike it (as I did on the Le Mans, which is why it's a spare in the first place), I can always go buy a new front for the Z later on.

It's very unusual to get a nail in the front tire, usually they're in the rear -- the front tire kicks them up, and the rear rolls over them once they're aloft. I've even pondered some kind of a deflecting sweeper system that would redirect anything kicked up by the front tire out of the rear tire's path. It'd look goofy, though.

Posted at 21:28 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 09 May 2006

Yeah, that'd be no

I got a call from the guy who sounded so excited about the possibility of buying the Z750s. You can probably guess what he said.

Yep. "I guess it's not going to work..."

Posted at 21:19 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Mon, 08 May 2006

Arg.

The guy who was interested in the Guzzi just called and (in many many more and less-direct words) said, "not interested." Anyone want a Guzzi, cheap?

Posted at 11:46 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wow. Just wow.

Amazingly, after far too long worrying I'd never even see any interest in the bikes I'm selling, I'm doing well.

I showed both bikes this weekend. Each person (one per bike, fortunately) walked away saying, "I'll have to see how my finances are going to work out..." That's definitely with an implied, "so I can buy this bike." Woo!

Of course, none of this means anything is sold yet. That has two implications: 1. potential buyers, keep it coming: money talks (although I always give people right of first refusal based on who contacted me first, so latecomers will have to hope that the first people to contact me aren't actually ready to put up cash); 2. I'm not taking any action on the Ninja 250 front. I still need cash in hand and a clear spot in the garage before I go plunk down my cash for a 250.

But when I do get a 250, it's going to be an interesting time. I'm planning on following a fairly regimented break-in procedure (documented here), which will leave the bike out of "normal riding" commission for several days. I'm also intending to change things like tires and suspension and probably brake lines quite early on. Ideally, none of those things will take too long to install, but practically, I expect the first round of modifications to eat up a weekend.

I'm kind of conflicted on changing the tires immediately. I'm tempted to leave them on for a while, so I can see how bad they really are. The general consensus on the Ninja 250 board is that they're terrible, but I don't really remember what they were like on my previous bike (where they also had ~9000 miles on them).

Posted at 11:45 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 06 May 2006

'Tis the weekend of bike interest

I'm pleased to see that my bikes are finally generating some interest. I've gotten several inquiries about both the Le Mans and the Z750s. I'm probably meeting someone on Monday with the Le Mans, and possibly Sunday on the Z. Here's hoping they're in a buying mood!

I called Lake City Honda/Kawasaki just out of premature curiosity, and they have both a blue and a red 2006 Ninja 250 in stock. With any luck, I'll own one of them before too long.

I am most interested in the red color, but honestly, the only color from this year's selection I wouldn't want is the yellow, leaving me with blue, red and black to choose from. Any of them would be great. Here's the red, from Kawasaki's website:

It's a pretty classy color.

Anyway, this is all premature drooling until I actually have some cash in hand and an empty spot in the garage.

Posted at 13:33 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Ugh. Cinco de Mayo.

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the holiday itself. Just the morons who go out, get blitzed, and then take to their cars as if nothing's wrong.

Fortunately, I'm speaking only in theoretical terms, and not based on some actual encounter. I had to come home late after a show last night, and I was hyper-aware of every car around me -- I suspect if a cop had been following me, he would have pulled me over on suspicion of being drunk myself. I was just keeping everyone at a distance as much as possible, and coming nearly to a stop at every intersection when I was riding through a residential neighborhood.

I really value being alive, I guess.

Anyway, nothing bad happened, I got home just fine. Still, I hate having to be so completely aware of all the drivers, and having to expect any of them to suddenly move unpredictably.

Posted at 11:44 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 05 May 2006

Hooray for scams!

So, I posted the Z750s in a SoundRider ad about a week ago, and finally got my first reply:

Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 03:48:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: david cole 
Subject: Sound RIDER! Inquiry 2005-Kawasaki-Z750S-60414
To: Ian Johnston

I am  a car dealer based in the UK and i am intrested in buying your
bike .And i will want to know the price of the bike and the firm
price.Expecting your reply.

Thanks

David.

---------------------------------
Love cheap thrills? Enjoy PC-to-Phone  calls to 30+ countries for just
2¢/min with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.

Riiight. You want me to sell you my motorcycle and crate it up, and ship it to England? How dumb do I look?

(There's a very common scam on the Internet these days where someone outside your country contacts you about a big-ticket item you're selling, like a car, boat, plane, motorcycle, etc. They offer to buy it, often for a bit more than your asking price, and then explain that, through a complicated business relationship, they have your price plus 50-100% in a cashier's check. They'll send you the check, you take out your price, then send the rest of the money and your big-ticket item to the scammer. Several weeks later, the bank comes back and explains that it was a counterfeit cashier's check, and you owe them the entire amount. You're now out one vehicle, the price difference you sent back, and the entire value of the cashier's check.)

Anyway, I sent him back a reply explaining that if he would like to fly to Seattle and hand me $5800 in cash, he can take the motorcycle.

I don't expect to hear back from him.

Posted at 10:26 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 02 May 2006

The sound of one wing flapping

I've received several good suggestions for how to make a wing flapping sound. Thanks for those -- it ends up that what we actually wanted was a kind of enhanced fluttering sound (which Kirk ended up making into a microphone for me, after attempts #1, 2 and 3 all met with his dissatisfaction).

To make my own flapping sounds (which I think ended up sounding pretty good), I actually built a kind of pseudo-wing out of cardboard, with triangular "feathers" cut in the trailing edge. That gave me pretty much the sound I was going for, but it's not what Kirk wanted.

In any case, it's sorted out, and thanks for the suggestions.

Posted at 15:16 permanent link category: /theater

Better

Fortunately, the board crashing was kind of a blessing in disguise. The actors got some work in that they needed, and wouldn't have been able to do if we'd proceeded on plan last night.

It was still a really stressful and annoying blessing, but at least we recovered and are at least theoretically in a better position than we would have otherwise been.

It's all about the silver linings.

Posted at 14:11 permanent link category: /theater

Mon, 01 May 2006

Oh. Crap.

I just got a call from our lovely production manager, Peggy. "Hey, just so you know, the lighting board is broken, and corrupted the disc or something. So, you're going to have to rebuild all the cues from scratch. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news."

It's not her fault, and I'm not actually all that upset. This just means that we've lost a day of progress -- maybe less than that, since we've now seen the looks we want, and can more easily recreate them.

It's just really, really, completely annoying. Really. And we were already about a week behind. I don't know if a day more or less makes any difference, but I'm still certain that this show is going to kick ass when it opens, and even more so when it closes two days later.

Posted at 17:07 permanent link category: /theater

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.