My own private Idaho

I flew to Salt Lake City Sunday night and got up Mon. at 4:00 a.m. and drove 4 hours to TheMiddleOfNowhere, Idaho for work. It's beautiful out there, even though the entire state is on fire and it was 97 degrees without wildfires. I only saw about a dozen motorcycles the entire trip and none of them on the highway. I'm not sure why. There are bikes everywhere you look here in the middle west. While I was out there I had many interesting observations and thoughts in my head that would be perfect for the old blog. It would have been nice to have a laptop but I could have made some notes. I did not. I did have a nice conversation on the plane with a guy who club races an Aprilia RS125 and we talked bikes a bit. I went out there by myself so other than the work stuff that's really the only conversation I had save for ordering food and chatting with the wife on the phone. I read an entire book on the plane which is no small feat for me. I also read most of the latest edition of Bike. It's a great magazine and I may write a review of it here. No time now though. I've got to figure out why I have no place for body text in my email. Jeez. Later.

Oh and for the record- I did not ride a Norton, have narcolepsy or do any other chicken-hawk like activities as the post title may have suggested. I have seen the B-52's, however.

Iss no bad...

Today it's hot dog Friday at work. A fellow engineer brought in a bunch of hot dogs. (I was gonna say an ass-load of hot dogs but that really presents some bad images to a perv such as myself). We all pitched in and we've got all the fixins for all variatons of hot dog. I had a 9:30 break chili-dog and I just polished off two Chicago-stlyle dogs. I need to finish this before the bell rings so I can cram some more free grub down my cake-hole. On a much better mental picture note, I "applied for" my 2008 Moto GP tickets today. Hmmm, applied for. Sounds shaky. Anyway, Moto GP is coming to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in September 2008. It kind of makes the fact that I have to fly to Idaho this Sunday night suck a little less. Rock on folks, have a weekend!

Ruben Xaus on the Hypermotard

Knee down, sliding sideways, thumbs up. Man can this guy ride.

Happy Independence Day

Enjoy your independence

Is it wrong?

O.K. so I bought a new bike. I really like the new bike. I don't like that my friggin hands hurt after a 20mi ride to work but that's a rant for another day. I got the new Cycle World magazine the other day and there is a review of the new Kawasaki Versys. The bike is calling me. It's singing the siren song of new motorcycles. I've only got about 210mi on the Suzuki and I haven't made payment one yet. I have an overwhelming desire to take a new Versys for a ride. Of course it's an 08 model and I'm sure there won't be one on a showroom floor for a while. The MSRP is only a few hundred bucks more than the Zook. Is it wrong for me to be wanting this bike? Is it my hurting wrists and more practical nature urging me in that direction or is it just new bike envy. I was leaning toward the V-Strom anyway and the Versys is the direct competitor to the V-Strom but much cooler looking. This is like trying to find a girlfriend and striking out all over the place, and then after you have a steady girl all the chicks some sniffing around. What the hell? I could sell the SV when the Versys hits these American shores and I'd probably be happy with either bike but... I should probably take my own advice and just go ride.
But it's so much more practical... Hmmmm.... Most of the bike guys I know would just buy it and park it next to all the other bikes. If I see one, I'll let you know. Opinions?

I'm glad I took some pictures

The purple car has been reduced to ashes. The engine, an original 40hp., now is tuned up and lives in my buddies 60 bug. The chassis is waiting to go to it's new home, someone's project. And the wooden body was set afire. I'm glad I took the pictures I did. R.I.P. purple parade car.
On a less somber note, my new bike has almost 200mi. on it.
My band played a summer festival thing this past weekend. We set up in front of the grandstand at the county fairgrounds and along with two other bands and bookended the fireworks. The fireworks were way cool. There were some vendors and such but the coolest thing was the dude on the Dresser sidehack rig pulling a trailer with a Jawa speedway bike. He was advertising speedway races at the same venue for next weekend. Bitchin. I'll see if I can get some pics of hot racing action.