Wretched XS

[noodlenoggin]

Ice tires? Are you crazy, man? Will these ice tires keep me from freezin' to death? They'd find me in May, laying on my side in the ditch, frozen solid like one of those Hasbro Evel Knievel rev'n jump toys!

[wrecks]

[noodlenoggin]

Here's One From The Vault

Hey, I was mining my backed-up hard drive, and found this pic. This would've been around 2002 or so -- my son is 8 now, if that's an idea.

[noodlenoggin]

Went to the Beach Yesterday!

Yup. I got out on my lunch and went to the beach yesterday. Here it is:





Oh, and here too:



And here:





So yeah...no motorcycles on the road. Nobody here's crazy enough to ride in this. If it were 37 instead of 27 degrees, maybe.

[noodlenoggin]

No Motorcycle Content

Nope. Not really. I mean, we're (meaning me) hoping to get the bike on the road this spring, but I say that every spring, so whoop-de-doo.

More exciting (for me) news is this..... I've been accepted by Michigan State University's weekend MBA program. Classes start at the end of July, and March 2011, I graduate. Until then, I'll be making the 3-hour drive to campus every other weekend for class. I'm pretty stoked about it.

[Wrider]

Sweet! Congratulations!
And think about it this way... Once you get the MBA you'll be able to afford whatever bike you want to be on the roads!

[noodlenoggin]

I know it. And we're not ruling out the thought of relocating at the end of this all -- to someplace warmer, or at least with less than seven months of winter every year.

Wow...with the possibility of riding all year...and a $90k/year job... I have a hard time even imagining!

Sweet! Congratulations!
And think about it this way... Once you get the MBA you'll be able to afford whatever bike you want to be on the roads!

[noodlenoggin]

The Annual "Maybe-This-Year" Post

So here it is again: Spring in Michigan. The snow is mostly gone, (mostly) the daytime highs are reaching the 60's, the grass is starting to kind of green up, and the motorcycles are starting to appear on the roads.

It's that time of year again, where I start thinking, "Maybe this year I'll get to insure the bike and put it on the road for a season." I think it every year, really. It hasn't happened for several years now, though. My wife and I have talked about it, a little bit anyway, and she's said it'd be nice to get it on the road. It'd cut our day-to-day gas expenses, even if it won't earn back the initial plates'n insurance hit to the pocketbook.

Last spring, I had been thinking of selling my '84 Ford LTD and using part of that money (like $1000 at the most) to get the bike on the road and maybe fixed up a bit....then we loaned it to my brother-in-law....and he drove it until this January..... and gave it back with a flat tire and the exhaust hanging from clothesline. So while I still have the thought of selling the old Ford and getting the bike legal... It now requires $$ to make it honestly sellable. $$ and time that I don't have.

There is even part of me that's thinking that I should just sell the bike and claim a bit more space in the garage, on the assumption that when I graduate and get the better-paying job that I'm shooting for, I can go out and buy myself a new ZX-14 or something. I could use the $ to help pay for my upcoming drives down to Lansing for school. Then again, selling my old XS would kind of feel like cutting off a limb.

So there it stands. Another spring. Another round of wondering whether this year will be different; whether this year will see the old Yamaha move under its own power. I can say that the pangs I get when I see bikes on the road are less painful and more wistful this year. I'm starting to say "I used to ride" more than "I ride." It bothers me less that there are things leaning against my bike in the garage, and I haven't bothered with putting the cover on it in a year, so it's covered with dust that 15 years ago wouldn't have been allowed to settle.

Oh well. Thus ends another "Oh, poor me, when will it be my time" post from me.

[noodlenoggin]

Hello

Nothing motorcycle related, really, so anyone who so desires can skip away, or hit the "back" button on their browser.

My MBA program is starting to feel really real now. Last Friday I made the 3-hour drive down to Lansing for the "Admitted Students Dinner." Being in a room full of 160 other Weekend MBA students, with instructors and an alumni panel...all eating chicken, potatoes and tuxedo cake -- that tends to put some reality into what has heretofore been a completely virtual experience. I applied, was accepted, signed up for and received financial aid all on the internet. Not to mention, I picked up my textbooks for the one-week residency in August. I am going to complete three full college courses -- 5.5 credit hours -- in seven days.

I have some reading to do. I have Financial Accounting, Supply Chain and Managerial Principles books to read, as well as quizzes, questions and exercises to complete. I also have three on-line prep courses to complete. I'm going to be busy. The maddening part (for me) is that there is a huge on-line component of all of this pre-work....but I won't be able to access any of it until June 10.

Otherwise, my brother-in-law moved out of our basement this month. Now that his purple Pontiac Grand Am is out of our driveway, I have the real possibility of moving my old Ford LTD around so I can work on it. It has a flat tire that needs replaced, and the exhaust is hanging from clotheslines. The tire's not a big deal...I have a pair of tires for it, all I have to do is find a time when I can jack the car up, take the old and new tires to the shop and have them swapped, then come back and put the wheel back on...all in one shot, as I can't really use jackstands in the soft dirt the car's parked on.

Next, I need to buy a new muffler ($30-ish) to replace the one that fell off, and whatever clamps and short pieces of pipe to re-assemble the exhaust and hang it.

THEN, after the tire and exhaust...and a battery charge, I should be able to sell it, and if I manage to sell the car there's a real probability of that being motorcycle insurance money. I'm not really holding my breath, though, that anyone will want a navy-blue, 17-foot-long Ford that's 25 years old and gets 18 miles per gallon, when gas is pushing $3/gallon around here.

What I'm expecting is that if I sell the old Ford (which I don't really want to do, because I still really like it) the money will probably go to feed the gas tank of the Volvo as I start making 300-mile round-trips to Lansing every other weekend after I start my schooling in earnest.

Okay, I think I've exhausted all the blah-blah-blah I have in me. I apologize for having a 99.9% un-motorcycle-related post...

[noodlenoggin]

Not Dead. Not Even A Little Bit.

Hello all, from the frozen wastes of Michigan, just shy of the 45th Parallel. I've had my head in the books since June, with a break for the holidays. Business school is going just fine, no complaints there. And, since it's usually about 24 degrees and icy, nobody's riding anything with two wheels around here.

However, my wife did say the other day that I should get my motorcycle on the road this spring, to help with my stress levels while I work full-time, go to graduate school full-time, and help run a household and take care of four kids.

So holy d@mn, I have spousal approval after only four years or so of non-riding!

I'm thinking that I'll need a new battery -- the last one was just strong enough to let the motor run but not to run the starter...I had to kickstart the bike the entire last season that I rode... and that was, again, about four years ago.

I'll probably get by with the tires it has, even if they are 1993-vintage. I definitely need to change the oil, and adjust the valve clearances, and the timing chain tension. I might even get froggy and get the expensive 14-watt (or whatever) bulbs it takes for the little turn-signal and hi-beam indicators.

I'm in a bit of a quandary about my helmet, though. It's a nice Shoei...but I got it about 10 years ago. Empirically I know I should replace it, but I don't want to go spend more hundreds of dollars.

Anyway, I'm pretty geeked that I might get to put the bike on the road this spring.