Cafe Jack

"It Is Better to Travel Hopefully Than to Arrive"

2009-11-08T04:37:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is from Robert Louis Stevenson.

I ran across the quote in a good book called Lois on the Loose written by a young woman who left her cubicle in London to ride a 225cc Yamaha Serow trail bike from Anchorage, Alaska to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina at the tip of South America.

There's an interesting article about the author Lois Pryce here and information about her motorcycle at this link.

She doesn't think the world is a scary place, and consequently is able to do things some people only dream of and others would never consider.

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A little side-note on Robert Louis Stevenson.

He is considered one of the first outdoor adventure writers for his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes written in 1879. He writes about the sleeping sack he designed saying "I was determined, if not to camp out, at least to have the means of camping out in my possession; for there is nothing more harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge on foot."

His sleeping sack was 6 x 6 feet, waterproof, lined with sheepskin and so bulky it forced him to travel with the donkey to carry it.

The hull of his schooner the Equator is stored at the Everett waterfront.

Road To The Olympic Peninsula Today

2009-11-05T01:26:00.000-08:00

I rode my motorcycle over to the Olympic Peninsula today. It was a fairly long day with two ferry rides and quite a bit of circling around through Port Orchard to locate the office of the person I was meeting. I should have listened to his directions a little better - but my iPhone saved me from having to ask for directions again.

The purpose of my trip was to look at a nice old Harley Davidson leather jacket I saw on Craigslist and to enjoy riding on what may be the last warm/dry day for awhile. The jacket fit me perfectly and cost less than a 1/4 what you'd pay for a new one. It's heavy leather and like new - never been wet or scraped along the pavement. The guy I bought it from was really nice and interesting to talk with. He wants to downsize before moving back to Tennessee so he's selling a lot of items he's collected over the years at good prices.

He bought the jacket at a Harley dealership when he lived in Hawaii, but it was generally too hot to wear it there so it hung in his closet for years. He's 66 and currently doesn't have a motorcycle, but he loves to talk about them. His grandfather was riding motorcycles until his 80's and one of his uncles into his 70's - until he died in his sleep on the front porch after a motorcycle ride.

It was a good day. I got to ride along the West side of the Hood Canal which I've been wanting to do for quite awhile. I got to feel the weather warm up and cool down as I rode. There wasn't any rain. It got a little chilly riding in the shady areas, but not too bad. I need to work on my layering techniques and get a pair of warmer gauntlet style gloves for longer rides when it's in the 50's or below. The ferry ride from Edmonds to Kingston is $5.15 for a motorcycle and rider.

View Around Hood Canal in a larger map

Motorcycle Links

2009-10-28T06:11:00.000-07:00

I've been immersed in reading about motorcycles lately - magazines, books and online.

These are some of the links I've bookmarked.

General Interest -

Adventure Rider Motorcycle Forum
Horizons Unlimited
MicaPeak dot com

Sportster / HD Specific -

The International Portal for Sportster and Buell Motorcycle Enthusiasts
The Sportster Home Page
V-Twin Forum
Harley-Davidson USA
Home Page - Sound Harley
Washington Motorcycle Dealer - Eastside Harley-Davidson
Harley Davidson Maintenance - Harley Davidson maintenance tips and advice.
How to change transmission oil in a sportster
Poor Man's Sportster Service Maintenance Guide
Self Help Information and Tips - Harley Davidson Community
YouTube - Harley Davidson Motorcycles : How to Do an Oil Change on a Harley Davidson Sportster

Equipment -

webBikeWorld

The most interesting link for me right now is the first one - Adventure Rider Motorcycle Forum. It has stories from a guy who rode a Harley hard-tail chopper around the world The WRONG Way Round.... on a Chopper! - ADVrider and one about a young man who rode a moped from Australia to London Sydney to London on a moped called Dot - ADVrider

Nothing new about boys wanting to have a motorcycle adventure as you can see from these early 1900's Online Books at MicaPeak dot com. I haven't read them but they look amusing and it's interesting to think about what young men in 1906 were reading.

MicaPeak dot com also has Motorcycle Registries where owners leave their impressions of motorcycles they own or have owned.

Horizons Unlimited looks like a good site if you want to ride your motorcycle across the Sahara Desert or something like that.

2000 Miles

2009-10-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

I've put about 2000 miles on my motorcycle in the last 5 weeks. I've been going in circles a lot and haven't gotten much more than 100 miles from Everett. If I would have driven in a straighter line I could have driven to Juarez, Mexico or Madison, Wisconsin. Maybe next year.

It's interesting to think about what makes a good motorcycle and why people buy motorcycles and ride motorcycles. I've been lurking around the Harley forums and some owners like to modify/customize their bikes not so much for riding as for the aesthetic pleasure. That's cool - you see some real works of art.

Other people like the speed factor. That's cool too - but when you get to be my age enough speed tends to be something quite a bit less than it is when you are younger. Before I bought this latest motorcycle I was thinking about putting a motor on a bicycle, but I wasn't sure if it would have enough power to pull me up a hill. So my sights (powerwise) were set pretty low.

Some people like to belong to a club or define themselves by what mode of transportation they use. That's not really my cup of tea - I'm happy riding a bus, bicycle, train, airplane, subway..walking etc. But I don't think of myself as a member of the occasional bus riders club. I'm not really brand or mode sensitive when it comes to transportation.

My definition of a good motorcycle is one that runs. I like all sorts of motorcycles but I'm especially pleased when I see some old beater type bike that someone keeps running and uses to commute or for touring. There's just something about the functionality and keeping something old running that appeals to me. Not that a nice decked out BMW, Gold Wing or Harley isn't cool too.

I was thinking about putting on a different seat, shocks and saddlebags but the more I think about it I think I'll just leave my bike as it is and see how long I can keep it running without having to take it to a mechanic.

I just have to stop looking at other motorcycles on Craigslist...there's a 2007 Suzuki Bandit 1250 with various upgrades and 2900 miles on it for sale in Ellensburg for $5900. That looks like a nice bike and a good price - but it doesn't make sense to have two motorcycles sitting in the garage over the winter. Maybe next spring...

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That's a picture of the back of the stock seat at the top of this post. I like the stitching that says "Sportster Since 1957" - it looks sort of old fashioned and reminds how long this particular Harley model has been around.

Harley Davidson motorcycles have a long history, having been around since the early 1900's.

My maternal grandfather John Williams had a Harley in the 1940's, and he and my grandmother belonged to a motorcycle club that would go on rides around Wisconsin and stop to have picnics and socialize. He was a machinist and quite mechanically inclined - he built my mother and her sister an electric car and built his own speedboat, among other things.

He was killed riding his motorcycle when a car load of women who had been drinking stopped to make a U turn in a blind spot in the road. I'm sure it was very sad for my mother, her sister and mother to lose a father and a husband. My grandmother was an independent sort and worked as a school teacher for many years, after moving back to Montana from Wisconsin, where she'd worked in a defense plant during WWII.

Katsura This Fall

2009-10-13T19:06:00.001-07:00

Katsura This Fall
Originally uploaded by Jack Crossen

This Katsura tree has done well in our front yard. It has a nice shape and delicate leaves that really get bright in the fall. I used to pinch off the ends of branches when it was small to stimulate more branching, and prune the crossed branches - but it's doing fine on it's own now.

Ferry Then Motorcycle Ride

2009-10-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

I took the ferry from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island on Sunday and this motorcycle was in front of me in the ferry line. It's a Suzuki 650 that looks like it's been around the block a few times - including Alaska. It's a functional bike with the metal saddle bags, large rear rack and GPS. The guy riding it lives in Seattle and was meeting his friend who got on the earlier ferry. I hadn't thought of a 650 as a touring bike but reading through reviews at micapeak.com it's obvious that owners really like the Suzuki DL650 for distance riding and lots of other things. It's got a big gas tank (5.8 gallons), top speed of 115 mph, 0-60 mph in 3.98 seconds and there's a new one on eBay for $6000 (MSRP is $7500).

The fare for a motorcycle is $3.05 and you get to get on and off first. You have just enough time to drink a cup of coffee on the run from Mukilteo to Clinton. You get to park your motorcycle on the front of the ferry on the main deck at water level so you get a nice view too.

I rode the back roads along the water up Whidbey Island to Langley, over to Fort Casey State Park and then north over the Deception Pass Bridge and dropped down to La Conner where I sat by a fireplace in a bookstore and drank a cup of coffee.

These are a couple of pictures I took at Fort Casey of the water and some tame deer that were hanging around.

Columbus Montana Stone Quarry

2009-10-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Tours Feature Monuments to History

My daughter Becca ran across this article.

Bad Driving - Kills People

2009-10-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

Riding a motorcycle makes you hyper-aware of how bad some drivers are. You learn to drive defensively - look ahead, plan ahead, anticipate what may happen based on what's ahead, never assume someone is going to do the sensible thing and leave yourself an escape route for those times when you need it.

I was driving East on Madison last night at about 9 pm. At the intersection with Broadway the light was red. The light turned green right after I stopped and no one was behind me so I wasn't in a big hurry and sat for a couple of seconds after the light turned green getting ready to enter the road. I was wearing some goggles that force me to turn my head to see to the sides, so that added some time as well.

A guy in a full sized pickup talking on a cell phone blasted through the red light. He would have hit me if I would have entered the intersection as soon as the light turned green or if I would have arrived a couple of seconds earlier and went through the green light. The speed limit on that part of Broadway is 35 mph and he wasn't going any slower than that. He apparently had no intention of stopping since the light was red for several seconds before he drove through it. I don't know if he didn't see me or just assumed I saw him and would stay out of his way.

I followed him for a few blocks at a distance because I was curious to see if he was drunk or just an idiot. He got out of his pickup at what I assume was his house/apartment and was still talking on his cell phone standing on the porch.

Edgar Waiting For His Soccer Ball

2009-10-03T19:25:00.001-07:00

He can play fetch all day..

Washington Motorcycle Safety Training

2009-09-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a Washington Motorcycle Safety Training class this weekend.

I'm pretty psyched up to learn all I can about safe riding in the morning classes, and in the afternoons we get to ride little motorbikes around a course - which sounds fun.

I'm taking the Novice Rider Course to get all I can out of the experience. It's two days and costs $125 so it's a good deal.

I haven't ridden a motorcycle since I was in the Navy in the 70's and high school in the late 60's/70's - so I'm pretty much a novice.

I started with a minibike, went to a Honda 350, then a Yamaha 750 and now a Harley 1200. I've ridden my Harley over a 1000 miles in the last few weeks; up to the top of Stevens Pass, up highway 410 by Mount Rainier, around the Everett area, and once in rush hour traffic to Seattle.

I'd forgotten how fun it is to ride a motorcycle and one of the best things for me is it gets me away from my laptop and out of the house.

iPhone Repair

2009-09-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

I cracked the glass on my iPhone last week. The Apple Store wanted $199, for the repair, which would end up being $217 after tax. That seemed pretty steep considering I paid $199 for the phone (with a two year contract), and the same phone is $99 now (with a two year contract).

I sent a text to Tom at Jet City Devices in Ballard and set up an appointment for that afternoon. Once I showed up he had my phone glass replaced in a few minutes, with a 1 year guarantee, for $95 including tax. Jet City Devices has a shop in Chicago as well.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA

2009-09-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

On The Way Home

2009-09-21T22:00:00.001-07:00

P1010134
Originally uploaded by Jack Crossen

I took this picture of Rachel on our way home from the Grape Stomp at Jack's place in Yakima. It was a fun weekend as always. Great to be with family and friends.

I put the photos Betsy and I took (and some old ones from a grape stomp 15 years ago) in a set called Grape Stomp on Flickr.

Meditation on a Bike

2009-09-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

I rode a few hundred miles yesterday on a motorcycle. It was a fine early fall day with sun, coffee, forests, shade, smells of cedar, pine, rivers and meadows. Washington State Highway 410 is designated an All-American Road for it's beauty. It's also one of the most popular routes for motorcycle riders, as I learned yesterday.

I also learned to not follow cars too close and how to use my front brake. I was following two cars around a sharp corner near the top of the pass going about 35 mph and the girl driving the lead car decided she needed to make a quick stop to look around. I locked up my back wheel and started to go a little sideways before I got the front brake engaged.

That brings me to the point of the title. When you are on a motorcycle about all you can think about is riding safely. There's no time to think about what you did yesterday or what you will do tomorrow. There's enough time to smell and feel the open air, sun, shadows, the sound and vibration of the bike and engine. You are in the moment.

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I've been thinking that when people ask me what I do my answer will be, "I'm a student of the good life with a focus on happiness."

We would all benefit from some introspection on what makes life good for us. There's a distinction between having fun and being happy. There's a lot of ways to have fun. There are a few simple (not easy) rules for being happy. Work hard, love one another, be kind to all living things and yourself.

Tom Barrett over at the Interlude Retreat has a mediation this week on The Good Life.

A pretty good book from Utne Reader on this topic, Goodlife: Mastering the Art of Everyday Living, is available used for 47 cents on Amazon.

Mt. Rainier Today

2009-09-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm riding my motorcycle around the mountain today - it's beautiful.

How to Be Happy - wikiHow

2009-09-08T03:04:00.000-07:00

Pretty good basic advice on How to Be Happy

Harley = Fun

2009-09-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

The Worlds Smallest Motorcycle Repair Shop

2009-09-01T01:06:00.000-07:00

I've been driving by Randy's Cycle Repair in Everett since it opened in 1985. It looks like an interesting place with lots of old motorbikes, and often the owner, out in front talking with people or working on bikes.

It's a tiny little shop - but big enough.

Randy has a book out called How To Get Your Motorcycle Up and Running - Service and Repair Manual.

I like the practical nature of this video from Randy where he explains you have to have spark, fuel and compression for a motorcycle to run.

Rent-a-Ruminant : Winning the War on Blackberries The Eco-Friendly Way

2009-08-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

I've been reading about people using goats as a green way to clear brush and was particular curious about how goats can eat blackberry brambles.

Himalayan Blackberry and Evergreen Blackberry are European species that were brought into Washington State as a fruit crop. They are now one of the most invasive species in this part of the state and in some spots cover more area than all of the other invasive species combined.

If you are curious about goats in general, or using goats to clear blackberries or other brush, Rent-a-Ruminant has a cute website with some good information. Rent-a-Ruminant is a company based in Vashon Island, Washington that rents out a goat herd to clear brush. Really quite fascinating - the woman who started it was a paramedic and worked in the burn unit at a Seattle Hospital. She decided she needed a break from that life and started with 10 goats and eventually grew her herd to over a hundred. She rents her goats out to people who want to clear brush off of land. The goats are confined inside an electrified fence while they work the land and can clear blackberries, ivy and other invasive species from about 1/4 acre in 3 days.

Goats, like cows, goats, sheep and deer, are ruminants with multi-compartmented stomachs. They regurgitate their food (cud) and chew it again, which helps explain how they can eat woody things like blackberry canes and the bark off trees. Unlike sheep who graze and will eat grass to the ground, goats are browsers who like to munch on things higher up. When goats are used to clear brush, any trees that the owner wants to keep have to be fenced off.

There's a 3 part interview with Tammy Dunakin, the owner of Rent-a-Ruminant, on YouTube where she talks about her goats. She has Snowflake her "ambassagoat" with her. She says the goats favorite food is blackberry bushes, but they won't eat the big blackberry canes. From the looks of the before and after photos they eat enough of the blackberry bramble to make it a lot easier to clean up what they leave, and if the goats are brought back to the same area for a few seasons they will get rid of the blackberry brambles. In the interview she says she has more business than she can handle and would like to involve people in franchise rent a goat operations.

Double Nickle

2009-08-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

I've been celebrating my birthday this weekend. Today's my legal birthday and tomorrow's my traditional birthday. Fifty five feels like a good age. This has been one of my best birthday's, right up there with last year when we went to Elk Horn and Fairmont Hot Springs in Montana. I'm very fortunate.

I grew up in Montana but I was born in Cody Wyoming where my Mom and Dad had traveled to a cattle auction. My parents went to Wyoming to get a cow and came back with me. My family always celebrated my birthday on the 25th and I was surprised when I got my birth certificate, so I could get a drivers license at fifteen, and found out my legal birthday is the 24th. My Mom told me I was born after midnight and the nurse filling out the birth certificate got it wrong. It's worked out fine - although I have to stop and think for a second when people ask me my legal name and date of birth. My legal name is John, which no one has ever called me, and my legal birthday is on the 24th, but my real birthday is the 25th.

August Weekend

2009-08-23T21:40:00.001-07:00

Lineup
Originally uploaded by Jack Crossen

Bill, Buckley, Edgar and Ralph (front to back) playing in the backyard this afternoon. Edgar's all tuckered out now, asleep on my lap. It was a fun day and weekend. Got to eat at Sutra where the food is wonderful and the chef comes out and rings a nice gong reminding people to give thanks before the meal. They have a nice selection of wines. I had the juniper berry DRY Soda. They serve 4 courses, and the food is fresh and vegan with no tofu or fake meat in sight.

I received a huge variety of vegan food from the Sno-Isle Natural Food Co-op, we stopped at Peets in Fremont, Archie McPhees in Wallingford and we went to the Everett Farmers Market to get fresh flowers, blueberries, corn, peppers, and some tasty baked goods - and then spent the afternoon enjoying an August Backyard Lunch

Setting the Record Straight on Health Care Reform

2009-08-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

From the website Organizing for America -

"It seems like a new lie about health insurance reform crops up each day. These lies create fear and anger – and we're seeing the results around the country.

It's time to work together to set the record straight and expose the special interests and partisan attack groups who deliberately spread these rumors and lies in a desperate attempt to preserve the status quo."

It's going to take a broad based citizen effort to push Congress into enacting meaningful health care reform. It will be interesting to see if the grass roots effort that helped elect Barack Obama can make another positive change to ensure quality affordable health care is available to all.

Who Opposes Health Care Reform?

2009-08-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

Richard L. Scott is on Hannity tonight talking about his group Conservatives for Patient's Rights that is funding ads "intended to pressure Democrats to enact health care reform based on free market principles."

It's too bad Fox doesn't provide a more complete biography of their guests.

Richard L. Scott was the head of Columbia/HCA, a for-profit hospital chain. Mr. Scott was forced out of that job amidst what turned out to be the nation’s biggest health care fraud case to date. Columbia/HCA reached a plea agreement with the U.S. government to avoid criminal charges and ended up paying more than $1.7 billion to settle.

In the New York Times article Health Critic Brings a Past and a Wallet Jim Rutenberg writes,

“He hopes people don’t Google his name,” said John E. Hartwig, a former deputy inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, one of various state and federal agencies that investigated Columbia/HCA when Mr. Scott was its chief executive."

Health Care - What's The Problem?

2009-08-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

If you are lucky enough to have good health insurance or receive socialized medicine via Medicare it's easy to forget about the millions of American's who can't afford to go to the Doctor, Dentist or Optometrist.

The Independent has a sad article about thousands of people, who can't afford to see a dentist, get prescription eyeglasses or have basic medical tests and treatment - lining up for a temporary free clinic staffed by volunteers in Los Angeles.

The clinic is made available by the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps which was originally created by Stan Brock to deliver basic medical aid to people in inaccessible regions of the world - but which now does 60% of their volunteer work in the U.S. - doing their best to help the hurting and helpless, those who don't have medical insurance or are under-insured and can't afford the deductibles.

The article Hidden Hurt from the Washington Post describes the work this organization does in Appalachia and this CBS video, describes the work they do in Knoxville.

If you watch these videos and read the associated articles - it's very clear how dysfunctional our society is in providing basic health services to the approximately 60 million people (about 1 person in 5) without health insurance. It's sad to think that in a country as great as ours that we would be so callous when it comes to something so basic to human dignity.

Depending on which measurement you look at in the World Health Organization study the U.S. is either 37th or 24th among the 191 nations in quality of health care but we spend 13.7% of our GDP on health care - compared with a socialized program like in the U.K. which spent 5.8% of GDP or Norway that spends 6.5% of GDP.

The people that don't want change in health care policies are those with money to lose. They are willing to spend money to convince relatively affluent people who can afford health care via private insurance and those who already enjoy the benefits of socialized medicine (Medicare), that the status quo is fine. They are of course also willing to spend money lobbying members of Congress to keep whatever facet of our current health care system provides them with a profit.

I'm guessing that the people who showed up at the Remote Area Medical free clinics in Knoxville, Virginia or L.A. hoping to get some free basic medical care; are not the same people holding signs and yelling about the evils of the government intervening in what they know to be a broken system. I'm hopeful the millions of thinking and caring Americans can work together to do something we should have done a long time ago - make health care available to everyone and find ways to reduce health care costs.

Change will be hard with the big money special interest groups lobbying, and tabloid news going for the idiot angle, but it isn't impossible - Norway and Great Britain are just two examples of nations who provide quality universal health care while spending half what the U.S. does as a percentage of GDP.

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I was watching Sean Hannity present the non-thinking person's view of health care reform while writing this. It was a weird juxtaposition to think about working people queueing up in L.A. at 3 am in hopes of getting an abcessed tooth pulled for free, and what the cable news and radio talk show hosts are feeding the sheeple who take their drivel seriously.

Health Care Reform Scare - History Repeats Itself

2009-08-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

In 1961 Ronald Reagan was shilling for the AMA in their opposition to Medicare. He tried to scare people with a prediction that if Medicare passed, the government would among other things - force Doctors to live in certain locations, tell your children where to go to school, what job they could have, how much they'd be paid and we'd end up spending our not so golden years, telling our children that freedom ended in 1961.

The great actor was talking about the evils of Medicare, with a few jabs at Social Security thrown in for good measure. He asked people to write to Congress supporting the "continuation of our traditional free enterprise system."

He wrapped it all up saying -

"And if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

Of course Medicare passed thanks to John F. Kennedy and the Democrats, and has turned out to be a very popular, and necessary, program for senior citizens.

This Sunday on Meet the Press, Dick Armey picks up the Reagan mantle and gets skewered by Rachel Maddow. There's some funny (I guess) video of Ronald Reagan's 1961 Medicare ad in the video as well.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This is a much more in depth description Ronald Reagan and Medicare if you are interested in learning more.