Category: Life News

My friend Andy sent a link to me that you might find interesting. It it written by a Ukranian girl who regularly rides her Ninja through the “dead-zone” of the Chernobyl disaster. Her father is aparently a nuclear scientist at work near the area so she has special permission to ride through. She took many pictures of the site of the disaster and talks about what happened then and what’s happening now. You may find it interesting, even if the pictures show a somewhat somber schene. To read this, click here.

I don’t know that I’d want to take that ride, but I am practicing on my own dangerous course: the back streets of Houston. No radiation lingering, but polution, stress, and driver stupidity could harm or kill anyone out there on the road. Here I was thinking: “This girl is crazy! I’d never ride somewhere that dangerous…” Yet, what do I do when I take that bike out every day? Maybe she’s not the crazy one…

[Update: 4/29/04 – It looks as if this girl’s site has gone down, so I’ve removed the link for it from this entry. I hope you got to look at it while it was up. – JP]

To all: Have a Happy Easter!

Wonderful biking weather out today. Good thing I have the bike close by! Laura and I will go run a couple of errands on the bike today – one of those things we can do to become more and more familiar with riding. So far, we haven’t gotten on a freeway and I don’t intend to for a while. I love riding up and down Memoral Drive – beautiful trees, winding road, low speed limit. Great for cruising.

I have just taken my longest motorcycle ride yet. Laura and I went over to my parents’ house and swapped out the truck for the bike. We then rode on small roads back to our house on the bike… it was quite a long ride, over 30 miles, but very nice. It was supposed to rain today, but it seems to have burned off. In fact, it was quite warm while riding the bike today. It took a long time to drive that 30+ miles… It took over an hour to get home, but that’s because we went slow – always good to go slow on a bike.

Now, the garage looks roomy – quite spacious, actually. The truck took up a lot of space…

No bike riding today. If you’re not in Houston right now, a major storm blew through here this afternoon eliminating the possibility that I would ride home. I will try another day…

On the way to pick up may dad’s bike from his house for a couple of weeks, I ran into some rain. Yikes! So, I’m sitting at my parents’ house waiting for a while while the rain passes over and hoping the sun comes out soon to dry the pavement. Otherwise, I’ll have to put this off for another day. I guess I’ll wait a bit more and see if things clear up.

Now we’ve done it. We’ve gone and gotten licensed. Both Laura and I have passed all of our tests; fulfilled all of our requirements. We’re now fully-licensed motorcycle drivers. Class CM. It’s cool. It rocks. I think that in a couple of days, I’m going to go trade in the truck for the bike. [For those who don’t know, I’m keeping my dad’s truck while he’s in Russia – now, I’ll keep his bike around instead!] Of coruse, I will have to take the bike back when I have to go to the airport – can’t carry much luggage on a bike!

Both Laura and I have successfully passed our Motorcycle Safety Training Course. That means we will both be soon licensed to drive the bike on public roads. Watch out! If you see a Honda Shadow Sabre with an orange flame tank out on the roads, please be nice!

I will say that the course has magnified my riding skills at least 10-fold. All that low speed maneuvering practice comes in real handy. Not to mention those bikes, though smaller, were harder to operate than my dad’s machine. So, when I tried it out after only a half day’s worth of practice, it felt so much easier to control. Didn’t quite feel like the huge beast I thought it was. I highly recommend this course to anyone who hasn’t taken it – whether they have a bike or not!

Next, we go to get our licenses! Stay tuned for more news…

Today dawns the day when Laura and I expand our vehicular repertoire – to motorcyles. We are both taking the Motorcycle Safety course and will be getting our licenses next week. Soon, we will be able to legally drive the bike. Maybe we’ll go on some short road trips – visit friends in Austin or other nearby cities.

It’s odd: this is really the first item of news posted here in a long time that doesn’t have to do with my job or this web site’s technical dificulties. I guess that evil project [Yeah! I’m done!] stressed me out so much that it was all that I could really think about.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that I’m hoping I’ll have one maybe two weeks of bench time so that I can do some of the long-neglected tasks around the house that I have piling up, as well as doing some studying after this class is done to pass the associated test. Then, who knows where I’ll be? Not me! [as usual]