I am really enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of this part of the country. I want to say “again” because it feels so much like the Pacific Northwest. The trees are lush and green and thickly line the road. There is a feeling of life and vibrancy emanating from the woods as I ride through.

Because I’ve got a possible CS up in Burlington VT tonight, I am heading in that general direction through the back roads of New Hampshire and Vermont. There is no specific destination in mind today other than Burlington by evening, so I’m off adventuring.

All I’m seeing as I roll through the countryside are trees, the occasional lake or stream, and very small towns. It’s a sleepy afternoon and the traffic is light on these back roads, the temperature is warm but not stifling, and I feel fantastic to be on my bike and riding.

The roads are just throwing lazy curves at me and I’m in no hurry to get anywhere or to go in search of the tighter and faster ones. All the world is right today.

My first destination of the day is when I see the Adirondack Park and Lake Placid in my approximate path. It’s a name etched into my brain as it was the place of the first winter Olympics that I was aware of growing up. Being the end of June, it won’t have quite the same flavor as it would seeing it covered in snow, but then I’d be pretty limited in the places I would be able to get to on a sport bike!

Lake Placid Ski Jumps from afar

The first real sight I have as I enter the Lake Placid area are the ski jumps towering over the trees. It’s quite an impressive sight, and I bet it’s even better up top.

The rest of the town just wasn’t impressive, or more likely I didn’t know where to go to find the best spots. But no worries, I’m just enjoying the ride today.

On the way out of town towards the ferry over Lake Champlain to Burlington… a huge Ford F-250 Diesel decided to push his speeds up through the corners as if he could beat me. I just smiled and let him pass me, then followed him for about 10 miles at high speeds through quite a few curvy sections. Nothing to prove and didn’t even want to pass him, I was just enjoying the presence of someone else who was also enjoying the roads and speed.

As I waited for the ferry, I met two couples on Harleys that were taking a tour around the north-east. They fit the cliche image of older guys with big bellies and longish beards sporting their leather Harley vests. And their women were of the same mold. But regardless of the cliche, they were wonderful people, just like everyone I’ve met on my journey.

After a long wait for the ferry, a fairly short ride on it and watching a magnificent sunset, I was over into Burlington… a small college town with plenty of parties happening at the bars.

As my CS contact never called me back, I was turning up a big goose egg on a place to stay for the night. I went to a gas station to fill up both my tank and my back tire while I pondered over what I should do for the evening. There didn’t seem to be a near-by forest area other than across the lake I had just come across, and if I drove around it would be a couple of hours or more.

As I sat there contemplating and drinking an energy drink, I met “Tank”. Tank is a 60 something old ex football coach selling insurance or something of the sort, and he matched his name as he is a tank of a man. Maybe 6′3″ and 250lbs. I’m sure in his younger days he earned the name very well.

He was interested in what my story was all about with my luggage all strapped down on my sport-bike. After I told him, we started to swap various adventure stories. We sat in the parking lot and chatted about various adventures and ideas for about 30 minutes before he suggested we go grab a beer and chat some more.

Long story short on this one, but I soon enough figured out that Tank is a closet homosexual who is too ashamed to come out and confront his desires, but strong willed enough to end up going out and get what he is needing. Note that he never told me this, and nothing happened between us, but I could tell he was slipping in various hints to allow the openings to happen. A great guy with tons to give the world, but is still held back by his lack of acceptance of his own desires. I suppose at his age he has settled into a way of living his life that fits best for him. All my best to you Tank if you’re out there and happen upon this blog.

** I wrote this back in August of last year, and never got around to finishing my journal of my trip. I will endevour to complete the articles again… **

Tuesday, June 30th, 2008 – It is so NICE to get out of the city and the traffic I have been bothered by for almost the whole east coast!! I feel free and easy. The weight lifts off your soul and you relax into your life again. I wonder at the people living permanently in those areas… how do they do it? I suppose it’s mostly my personality that just doesn’t deal well with the lack of freedom and nature to connect with. To my mind it seemed that the feeling of my surroundings changed instantly when I entered Maine.

Throughout the east coast the franchises ruled the road. You see Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Subway, McDonalds and all the other crappy, overpriced, unhealthy establishments spread like a plague all over the landscape. But that all changed in Maine. As I ride along the highway I start to notice the independent eateries and stores. At first I just think it’s quaint and part of the draw to attract tourists, but then I start to notice that the franchises have been muted down too. There aren’t as many of them around. Imagine that!! People would rather eat at a quality run Mom and Pop place than heading to McDonalds, but that’s only possible if they’re given the choice.

If you have a chance, please support the independent establishments. Go the extra mile, take the time to do a quick search for something else, drive around and look. You might just find your new favorite place to eat in the world or you just might help to keep a proprietors dream alive.

The one exception I see everywhere, even in Maine, is Dunkin’ Donuts… this franchise is EVERYWHERE on the east coast. There were some places where there would be two of them on the same block!! I really didn’t know that east coasters loved their donuts that much.

I had made arrangements for a couchsurf in Portland this evening, and it was only about noon as I hit the area. So I started to head up the coast of Maine to the northeast. I got as far as Rockland before I thought it would be best to start heading back to Portland again. In Rockland I stopped into a restaurant on Rockland bay and had an awesome bowl of New England clam chowder.

Heading back the way I came, I made my way back to Portland. One thing I’ve found is that when I’m exploring I don’t like to take the same road twice. There are so many roads out there and so many new things to see it seems like a waste of my time if I’ve already been down that road. But in this case there weren’t many other options to get where I needed to go.

Back in Portland, I met up with my CS host Steph and after dropping my bags on her floor, we went out walking to find a bite to eat. It was a Tuesday night and we soon found that most of the places were closed. Portland is a sleepy little provincial town when you compare it to the big cities.

Thus, I decided to go 98% paperless. Everything that comes in that I want to keep, I scan and file into my on-line storage. It is put into a very organized folder structure with a well named and dated filename, so that finding it is easy when it’s needed. The files can also be emailed, or printed out whenever I want and I can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection.

I currently use one main method for backing up most my data, and that is Subversion. Subversion is a source control system mainly used for programming, but I use it for all of my files. Well…. almost all. I have a server somewhere out there on the web that I have my Subversion server on. This server also functions as my SSH (Secure Tunnel) server and Web Server.

The biggest exception to this rule are my media files… Music and Photos… which total over 60 Gigs.

So what are the biggest reasons to choose on-line backups of your files vs a portable hard-drive?

• Being able to access them from home, work or when you’re on the road
• Having them securely backed up for the cases of disk failure, accidents or disasters.
• The ability to find your files quickly and easily (holds true probably more so for local backups)
• Keeping track of any changes to your files by using versioning
• And in the case of media files like photos, music, and videos… to be able to show them or play them where ever you want.

There are plenty of other options for online backup of most files if Subversion is a bit beyond your comfort level. For instance I also use DropBox as it provides incredibly easy setup across all your computers and if you drag a file into that folder it is automatically synced to the server and down to all your computers! No need for carrying disks or harddrives back and forth.

Backing up large media files

I have about 20 Gigs of music files and 40 Gigs of photos. Since those change very rarely and are so big, Subversion isn’t the best place to store them. I was just storing them on a portable drive until I decided to find an on-line storage point. And as of a few days ago the “accident” I spoke of above happened to me I ran a script that wiped out my portable hard-drive… and lost about 10 Gigs worth of photos that I hadn’t gotten around to saving to my on-line solution. That loss prompted me to get back into making sure everything is backed up.

Photos

For my photos I use Smugmug (if you sign up, you can use this coupon code eVUIu2CdBatR2 to get $5 off). It costs $40/year for a basic membership which includes unlimited storage of your full size photos and the ability to share your albums with everyone or keep them hidden. They allow you upload and store the original and then it can be viewed in various sizes up to the original size. This is great for a real on-line storage and sharing of your photos. There is even a plug-in for Firefox called FireUploader which allows you to bulk upload and download your photos when you want.

Music Files

I use Mp3Tunes for my on-line music storage. It also costs $40/year for up to 50 Gigs of music storage, or you can get a free account which holds 2 Gig. They provide a syncronization client to make sure as your music files change they are constantly backed up and in sync. And… while you’re at work, you can listen to your music or where ever. You can also direct download your music files to your phone or other music device.

It’s becoming simple and cheap to backup your data online. Don’t lose those important files. Take action now.

My Hayabusa along the St Joe River

I just love my Suzuki Hayabusa! Not only is it an incredibly sexy looking machine, but it’s also a marvel of engineering.

I’ll explain where my passion for this bike comes from…

How many other machines can be: purchased for $10,000; ridden at 200 mph; easily take corners at over 100 mph and more than a 45 degree angle; run constantly and truly for many hours while the engine is revving from 1000 to 12000 rpm and doing speeds from 20 to 180 mph; and go over 32,000 miles with all the internal workings of the engine in perfect alignment…?

Just Beautiful

My love affair started before I’d even seen a Hayabusa in person… I knew I was ready to start riding again after a 15 year hiatus and started to look at various sport bikes on-line. When I saw the Hayabusa I knew it was the bike for me. After furious researching, I also knew what it would cost and what it would do… I was ready to buy.

An acquaintance (who later became my regular riding partner) was trying to tell me it was too much bike for me when he learned about my upcoming purchase. But I wasn’t to be dissuaded.

Having only one Suzuki dealer in Spokane WA, they didn’t feel they had to give me a decent price, so I purchased mine in Seattle by negotiation over the Internet. I flew over to pick up my shiny new ride and drive it back home.

When they handed over the keys and had it sitting out front idling, my stomach was doing flip-flops. I hadn’t ridden in about 15 years and here I was sitting on a monster. … would I wreck it on the first 50 feet in the parking lot?  …would I even make it home alive?

Surprisingly my body remembered all the things I needed as I took a few laps around the parking lot. I was shifting like it had only been a few months off, and the leaning came with unexpected ease.

Naked Hayabusa

As I rode it out onto the street I was still taking it very easy and slow while I learned the sensitivity of the clutch and how much power I was in control of… but as I started to enter the freeway and saw almost a half mile of empty on-ramp ahead of me… my inner caveman came out and wanted to run! Still in first gear I opened the throttle full up and felt the whole bike jerk forward with incredible speed and held on for dear life. Up to 70 mph in a few seconds I shifted to second and felt the power and speed continue to rise. I knew it had so much more to give. I was hooked.

The next day I rode it the 300 miles back to Spokane. It’s all freeway, and a normally boring trip, but the excitement of my new bike kept me smiling and happy the whole way home.

Like I mentioned above, it had been a little while since I’d ridden and even then it was on a cruiser, not a monster of a sport bike like this. It was time to get out and practice. Over the next month I started to take it every opportunity I had out on the back roads to learn how to lean, brake, accelerate, and move my body.

Soon enough I was getting very comfortable on it, and started to go on longer trips to find some curvy and fun roads. I also signed up for a motorcycle racing course, to have professionals give me some instructions.

Lolo Pass, MT

Some of my favorite trips were to Lolo pass, Hells Canyon, and Rattlesnake Gorge. On my trip up Lolo pass I was leaning hard enough to touch the footpeg down to the pavement for the first time. I almost lost control when it happened because I wasn’t expecting it, but what a rush.

During all of my time on the Hayabusa I did general scheduled maintenance but no more, and never had a problem.

On a ride through Hells Canyon, I hit a deer (a yearling, but a deer non-the-less) going about 50 to 60 mph and amazingly kept the bike up. At first there appeared to only be minor fairing damage, but later I would find that the fork seals were damaged and began to leak a little about a year later… and then about 2 years on during my trip around the US did I find that the radiator fan had been pushed right up next to the radiator… slowly grinding into the coils and eventually caused a failure in the radiator. But even so, this is all amazing considering the damage that even small animals have on cars.

Finally after 32,000 miles which included a 2 month journey around the US over the course of 2 months and putting 17,000 of those miles on it… and a 200 mile track day taking the bike to it’s extremes… it started to run a little sloppy.

2008 Hayabusa Leaning

Being a bike owner, you hear every ping and thump and start to worry if you’re going to have trouble. But after having my mechanic go through it, he told me that all the valves were perfectly set, and everything was in fantastic order. The only things found was the brake pads were worn down pretty badly (oops on my part) and the throttle body was out of sync. Once adjusted, it purred like a kitten again.

As I rode it home on a cold evening, and parked it in my garage for what I knew would be a number of months… gently putting my baby to sleep for the winter… I was already thinking of the roads still to come and the melding of my body into one with a beautifully crafted machine that almost becomes an extension of me.

Not everyone understands the my passion for riding, but to those who do I give you the standard motorcycle wave and hope to see you out on the road.

I will post this one, but don’t plan at the moment to continue the practice.

As a final update: I finished the 30 days, and for workouts did very well… Overall working out every day was a breeze and enjoyable. No problem there. Drawing didn’t keep coming quite as easily. I love doing it, but I often get stuck on a drawing and feel like I need to finish it, but don’t really want to. And meditation I ended up converting to tiny breath meditations throughout the day instead of blocks of time.

Day11

Drawing - 20 more minutes of drawing on the abstract design for Briana’s birthday.

Meditate - 20 minutes of Deep Meditation.

Workout - Both a good shoulder and back workout, and then I did about 30 minutes of racquetball with Stacey. Was wiped at the end.

Day 12

Drawing - 30 minutes on Briana’s drawing. I finished the coloring and shading on the main design and started to experiment with the 3d style checkerboard to draw behind it.

Meditate - 10 minutes of deep meditation… as I was getting pretty late for work.

Workout - Went in pretty late without much gusto… but I made it in and did some chest and triceps and shoulders.

Day 13

Drawing - Started work on the 3D checkerboard part of Briana’s Birthday drawing.

Meditate -

Workout - Worked out after getting home from work and did some legs, then a little upper body that wasn’t tired. Need to get more legs in!! Or skiing is going to HURT.

Day 14

Drawing - Continued work on the 3D checkerboard of Briana’s drawing.

Meditate - 20 minutes of deep meditation. Was feeling some energy at the third eye chakra… was interesting.

Workout - Chest and triceps and legs with Rickey… it seems looking back on the week that I’ve been overdoing chest and triceps Time to mix up my routine.

Day 15

Drawing -

Meditate - A lot of mind chatter today while meditating. I couldn’t seem to stay focused on the mantra.

Workout - Great workout.

Analysis – A color treatment would have felt better with this drawing because the best details are the colors and subtle color differences on the wings. Without using color the details were surprisingly few. I noticed some errors in the outline after I had done quite a bit of work on the drawing and didn’t want to undo it all… so this was a constant eye sore to me as I continued on.

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Note – I’ve decided to start posting my drawings to my blog. For a few reasons… To share the art, to stimulate me to draw more, and to keep a record of them all.

Day 6

Drawing - 20 more minutes of drawing on the Moth… worked on shading and texture.

Meditate - 20 minutes of Deep Meditation. Was drifting deep (deep sleep or deep stillness I can’t tell ) but the alarm startled me. I know people say you don’t need an alarm, but when I do it before heading into work, I don’t want to come up out of it 2 hours later than I should.

Workout - Odds and ends of the body, some stomach, calves, etc. Also tanned and burnt my butt So a little sore on the muscles and a little sore on the skin.

Day 7

Drawing - I spent my drawing time with my daughters today. I love it when they want to draw with me. Finished up the Moth… next is to start drawing Briana’s birthday picture.

Meditate - I did 20 minutes of meditation while my girls were here. It’s the first time I’ve ever meditated with other people in the room. I filtered out their activity very nicely and went pretty deep.

Workout - This will be tricky… I need to workout today, but I have my daughters over…. They ended up staying home while I ran to the gym next door for a few minutes. I rushed through my workout and got back quickly

Day 8

Drawing - Missed

Meditate - Missed

Workout - Went with Rickey and did a quick workout of back, shoulders and biceps.

Day 9

Drawing - Started Briana’s birthday drawing. She picked an abstract design and wants it on a 3d checkerboard… This will be a fun and interestingly different drawing than I’ve done before.

Meditate - 20 minutes of deep meditation. Felt some good moments of stillness.

Workout - Evening workout of chest and triceps with Rickey. We both weren’t really into it, so we went through it pretty fast.

Day 10

Drawing - Worked on Briana’s drawing for 20 minutes in colors of blue.

Briana's Birthday Drawing Part 1

Meditate - 20 minutes of deep meditation.

Workout - Two workouts today!! Yay! One was at lunch time where I did some quick but strenuous cardio. The second was legs in the evening… again pushing light reps and going until they hurt bad to prepare for skiing.

Meditation

A friend of mine asked if I could post some meditation links for him, so I thought I’d explain a little more about what type of meditation I am trying.

I have tried meditation off and on, but never stuck with it for very long. This month I am doing it for 20 minutes every day and recording more about what happens or how it affects me, so I’ll learn a little more.

The first 2 weeks I’ll be doing “Deep Meditation”, the second two weeks will be “Connecting with the Inner Body” explained below. Both styles are about quieting the mind and finding the stillness within you.

The two styles I am planning on trying are “Deep Meditation” which was recommended to me by a friend and taught by Yogani from Advanced Yoga Practices:

Find a quiet, comfortable place where you can sit, preferably with back support. We want to remove unnecessary distractions. Just sit and relax somewhere where you can close your eyes for twenty minutes without interruptions.

Once you have gotten comfortable, slowly close your eyes. You will notice thoughts, streams of thoughts. That is fine. Just observe them without minding them. After about a minute, gently introduce the thought …I AM… and begin to repeat it easily and effortlessly in your mind. If your mind wanders off into other thoughts, you will eventually realize this has happened. Don’t be concerned about it. It is natural. When you realize you are not repeating the mantra, gently go back to it. This is all you have to do. Easily repeat the mantra silently inside. When you realize you are not thinking it, then easily come back to it. The goal is not to stay on it. The goal is to follow the simple procedure of thinking the mantra, losing it, and coming back to it when you find you have lost it. Do not resist if the mantra tends to become less distinct. Thinking the mantra does not have to be with clear pronunciation. I AM can be experienced at many levels in your mind and nervous system. When you come back to it, come back to a level that is comfortable, not straining for either a clear or fuzzy pronunciation.

Do this procedure for twenty minutes, and, then, with your eyes closed, take a few minutes to rest before you get up.

And the other is from “The Power of Now”:

When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and especially last thing at night before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, “flood” your body with consciousness. Close your eyes. Lie flat on your back. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first. Feel the life energy in those parts as intensely as you can. Stay with each part for 15 seconds or so. Then let your attention run through your body like a wave a few times. This need only take a minute or so. After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Be intensely present during that time, present in every cell of your body. Don’t be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body, and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice this has happen. Just return your attention to the inner body.

Give yourself 20 minutes of your day in meditation and see what it can do for you!!

Drawing

Meditation

Workout

For the month of January I have chosen 3 places to focus my efforts on my 30 day trails. Usually I would want to focus on just one item, but I’ve done these 3 before. Namely: Drawing, Meditation, and working out.

I want to really establish these activities as part of my daily practice, along with testing out what kind of physical shape I can establish with a full 30 days of working out.

I’ll be consolidating the reports on each day into batches of 5 days or so.

Day 1

Drawing - Drew for 25 minutes the outlines of a Hayabusa. Not very original, but I wasn’t prepared so I grabbed a model off my desk and started drawing.

Meditate - Did 20 minutes of deep meditation. No strange occurrences or even drifting off to sleep. Just sat and focused on the mantra.

Workout - Worked out with Rickey for about an hour doing chest and triceps. Right shoulder hurt a little when we were doing heavy dumbbell presses. Otherwise felt very good.

Day 2

Drawing - Drew for 20 minutes. Continuing on the outline of the Hayabusa. Drawing the wheels are particularly hard for me as I can see the inaccuracy of the circles so well.

Meditate - Did 20 minutes of deep meditation. I went pretty deep by the end, and the watch alarm startled me out of it. Lots of thoughts were flowing and had a hard time focusing on the mantra in the beginning.

Workout - Worked out alone doing legs. Made them burn for the upcoming ski season.

Day 3

Drawing – Drew for 20 minutes. Started work on an African Luna Moth.

Meditate -Did 20 minutes of deep meditation. Interestingly I was feeling very sexual during the meditation. One of the strange side affects I have heard about.

Workout – New Years Eve, but I still made it into the gym for an hour between work and heading out to dinner and the night. Flew through back, shoulders, and biceps. Feeling a tiny bit of a sore throat, not sure why though.

Day 4

Drawing - I have previously been drawing in the morning after getting up, but today being a holiday I had no schedule and didn’t get around to it until the evening. I continued on the African Luna Moth drawing for 20 minutes.

Meditate - Did 20 minutes of meditation right after drawing. No effects to report.

Workout - Went alone and worked on chest and triceps. My body is feeling pretty tired after 4 days straight but it will get used to it.

Day 5

Drawing - 20 minutes of drawing in the morning, again on the Moth. Here is how it currently looks.

Current State of the Drawing

Meditate - 20 minutes of meditation. I felt some different energy pulses through my body today. One was in my left thumb as it was touching my leg… when I raised it up off my leg it went away and came back when I lowered it again. Then I felt a deeper core of energy for a minute or so which went away.

Workout - Legs again at the Valley gym during lunch. Didn’t feel strong or much like being there, but I made it in.

Contemplation

Although I don’t do the standard “New Years Resolution” each year, I have been doing something similar but much more limited in scope and more often. It’s called the “30 day trial.” I’ve been doing this “30 day trial” for a couple of years now off and on.

This has included tons of various improvements in an attempt to either start a new good habit, or break an old bad one. Examples of ones I’ve already tried are vegetarianism for 2 months, writing daily in a journal, recording my dreams, morning exercise, getting up early, flossing, no alcohol, and more.

I’ve had some success and some were not so successful. Most of the unsuccessful ones were because I didn’t stick to the full thirty days and gave up. To help alleviate that, I am going to take the next step forward and publicly post my progress on my trials to hold myself accountable and keep a log of how well I did.

My list of published trials: (To be expanded as I do them)

• January 2008 – 20 minutes of deep meditation, 20 minutes of drawing, 40 minutes of workout
  • Days 1 to 5
  • Days 6 to 10
  • Days 11 to 15
  • Days 16 to 20
  • Days 21 to 25
  • Days 26 to 30
• February 2008

Possible future trials:

• Talk to a new person every day