digitalMoto.net

Cresting a rise west of where 217 connects to 26, I had a “moment” this morning. 

I was humming along as usual, in the left lane, on the right side next to the dotted white line.  The car in front of me slammed on his brakes.  I followed suit, locking the rear wheel in the process.  The rear wheel starts to slide to my left as I grab more front brake further unloading the rear end. 

At this point I have no idea why the car in front of my is slamming on it’s brakes when it had been doing 65.  But the idea of rear ending him doesn’t exactly appeal to me, so I follow suit.

Then I hear the impact.  The guy in front of me just hit something.  A flash of gray as a milk crate bounces off the concrete barrier to my left.  You know the kind.  With the metal reinforcement ring at the top. 

Amazing what the brain can catalog when focused.

A split second and it was over.  I’m back on the throttle to escape panic stops in my rear view.  Gone.  After I see more fresh debris against the median, I move over into the center lane until the concrete median transitions to open grass. 

Hmm…  I need to work on my panic braking skills. 

The FJR has ABS and linked brakes so I can hammer both ends with confidence.  The SuperDuke isn’t as advanced on the techno scale.  Must practice that one.     

I had a great vacation. Now it’s back to work and I’m really grumpy. I didn’t sleep much the last two nights out and I didn’t sleep very much last night either, even though I was back in my own bed. So… I’m grumpy. Read more…

I’ve noticed this (One of ‘those’ days…) is a very popular page. Today I re-read it. I saw a couple more typo’s and places where I wasn’t very clear. But more than anything else it was frustrating and disappointing to revisit that moment.

I know the guy had a life before all of this. He made a bad choice, but his choices had consequences far beyond his limited world. I had multiple conversations with the insurance companies. I learned his name, Mason Andrews. I learned that the driver he hit was terrified to get back in a car and was vowing to never ride again. I know that it took me almost a year to stop thinking about what I saw when I got back on a bike. Maybe that is why I still feel that tightness in my chest when I think about it. It was a brutal moment. Exceptionally fast and infinitely slow.

Spilt blood, bent steel, torn carbon, shattered glass, falling tears, and bare feet.

I still ride, obviously. The SuperDuke is in the same class as the S4R. And I have been seduced by carbon, ti, and steering dampers. But I try not to make those kinds of mistakes. I know what I don’t know. I don’t know the KTM well enough yet to really push it. I do know that you don’t push in rush hour traffic, at least not like that. Sure I break the laws and occassionally lane split when it suits my purposes. I use the power of that v-twin to scoot past the cages that would block my progress. But I also know what happens if I make a mistake…

Live. Ride. Breathe. Feel every moment. And understand that one choice will cause those ripples to move away from you and impact other’s in ways that you never imagined.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I worked in the garage until after 23:30, then spent time installing new parts on the master bathroom shower. It was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed. Then I couldn’t sleep. I read for a while, which didn’t help. I learned about the “Query Pattern” and that got me thinking about some development I’ve been working on for the last couple weeks. I laid in bed ‘thinking’ until about 02 when I got up to play Peggle until 03:30. Read more…

It’s raining… again.

The temps are starting to climb. Spring is on the way. It was 50 degrees on my way home from the Yamaha dealership a few minutes ago. It rained really hard on me when I was driving home from work. Just now I got home with only a few sprinkles.

That is one of the quirks to Oregon that I have not gotten used to. It can be raining AND sunny. It can be pouring in one place and perfectly dry just a few miles away. We’ve got the Gorge, the Coastal and Cascade Ranges, the Willamette and Columbia rivers, plus a rather large ocean less than 100 miles away. So there are a lot of different inputs on the local micro climates. Back in misery, I mean Missouri, the weather was regional. It was hot (or cold) for hundreds of miles. Rain would cover a 4 state area. Snow from Canada down to Tulsa. Tornado bearing storms would cut through hundreds of miles of open plain without minimal damage. Different place.

It will be a while before the mountain snow melts and then the real fun begins. This summer I am going to spend some time in those mountains buring fuel.

Still, it is strange only having one bike. I sold my DL last summer which dropped me down to one moto. I’m still thinking about the SuperDuke. Thinking, thinking, thinking…

Sixx: AM
Courtesy Call
The Heroin Diaries

*Dialtone, knocking, Mexican TV*
Female voice: Housekeeping…
*Knocking*
Female: Hello, housekeeping?
*Tries, door, knocking*
Female: Hello?

Well you found me, but I don’t know
Why you wanna save me…
Well, God is great and God is good
But God didn’t help me when he could
And life dances so lonely by.
Read more…

I woke up yesterday (Monday) in pain.

The ear infection I have been fighting was ramping up. No big deal, I’ll just call my Doc and get some meds. Same Ol’, Same Ol’. Everything was going along fine. I talked to my doctor and he called in the minimum medication, which is simply drops to treat the infection directly. I felt OK when I talked to him. A few hours passed and it was time for lunch. That’s when things started to slide. Chinese with the boys was torture. I was somewhere between starving because I haven’t felt like eating in days and hurling, which is why I haven’t felt like eating… You get the point. I survived lunch, but I didn’t really enjoy it. When I got back to the office I sat down to look at some SQL code. Everything kept getting blurry. I couldn’t focus on the screen or mentally focus enough to write anything. After wasting an hour, I left. Stop by Costco to score my drops, then home and straight to bed.

Read more…