jeffpollard.net

Major Seat Time

So, I've been getting some major "seat time" on the new motorcycle. Truth is, I can't get enough time riding it. Most days I rush home from work so I can pull the cover off the bike and take it out for a ride, even if only a short one.

Mike and I went out for a our first long ride on Saturday. We rode out Rt. 33 West from our house all the way out to the mountains where we cought Skyline Drive and rode down to I-64 at Waynesboro. At this point, the Blue Ridge Parkway begins. We continued south on there until it meets up with Rt. 60. Then, we rode Rt. 60 all the way back to Richmond. Man, Virginia is such a beautiful place and it was a PERFECT day to ride.

All in all, we did right at 300 miles and our butts were absolutely hurting by the time we got back to Richmond. But it was a great trip. I can't wait until the next one.

Check out the photos I took in my gallery.

TV's Off-Season

With most of our favorite evening shows in the "off-season", Olivia and I have been enjoying some different TV. Here are a few of our favorites:

Nascar Drivers: 360
This is season two of this incredible look behind the scenes of what NASCAR drivers do when they're not racing. It's really given us a greater appreciation for the drivers and it's neat to see another side of them. FX - 10pm Fridays (other times, too)


30 Days with Morgan Spurlock

You might rememeber that guy (Morgan Spurlock) from the recent documentary movie SuperSize Me. FX now has him doing a series of shorter documentaries about 30 days of doing other things. We watched the first show the other night where he and his fiance' lived for 30 days on only minimum wage jobs. It was really eye-opening and VERY interesting. FX - 10pm Wednesdays


Modern Marvels

This is a History Channel show that gives viewers a closer look at a variety of topics ranging from the building of famous bridges (Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel), how technical things work (Racetrack Tech), and other interesting topics like "Engineering Disasters", a series of shows dedicated to examining why events in the past have failed due to engineering failures. Very interesting. The History Channel - various times.


So there you have it. Those are just a couple shows we've gotten hooked on. Check em' out!

"I'm free, I'm free!"

It's official. I've lost all faith in the United States justice system.

If you have enough money, you can do whatever you want and not get in trouble. O.J did it. And now Michael has done it.

The story about the bike

Sorry about the ambiguity of my previous post with the image of the motorcycle. I really wanted to throw a pic of the bike up there to show a few people, but kept not making time to write something to go along with it. Some of that time I was busy out getting some "seat-time" on the bike.

So yeh, I bought a motorcycle. Like many other young male americans, I have drooled over motorcycles for years. I've been envious of various friends that have had them and have even had the opportunity to ride a few. I've always thought having a bike would be fun, but money was always an issue as well as some other factors.

But ever since Mike got his bike, I've been thinking more and more about getting one. Taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's safety course a couple weekends ago didn't help, either.

So for the past few weeks Mike's been trying to sell me on buying his '04 Honda CBR F4i. It's an absolutely beutiful bike. And I've riden it and it's incredible. So, as I began thinking harder about ACTUALLY buying it, I began looking around online to find out what people thought about the bike and about a fairly inexperienced rider riding that bike. I came across a "newbie rider" forum on Sportbikes.net. This forum had lots of good suggestions for new riders, but the most predominant being the suggestion that inexperienced riders should NOT start out on a 600cc motorcycle. Their argument was that the 600cc bikes these days are incredibly fast, sensitive, and unforgiving to rider error. Instead they recommended that these newbies buy a lower-powered bike, like a Kawasaki Ninja 250 or 500. Amazingly, the community over on SportBikes.net is incredibly unified in their voice on this matter. It was at this point that I began to wonder if it was probably a better (and safer) thing to begin looking for a better bike for my skill level. So I did.

On Saturday Mike and I went down to Burcham Cycles in Colonial Heights to check out a used 2005 Ninja 500 they had for sale. As we walked up to the store, the bike was sitting right out front. It was black and grey and beautiful. I had checked out a couple of other Ninja 500s in previous days, but they had all been grey or navy blue. The black immediately appealed to me more than any other bike I had looked at.

A closer inspection revealed that this bike was basically brand new. It turns out that the previous owner had purchased the bike, put 138 miles on it, and then sold it because of some health problems with his legs.

After about 2 hours of pacing the showroom floor trying to talk the salesman down on his price, and trying to squeeze the very best deal out of buying the motorcycle, I finally signed on the dotted line for the bike.

By the time I walked out of there I had purchased a motorcycle, a helmet, a mesh jacket, a waterproof cover, and gloves. I was in shock.

Mike rode the bike back to his house so I could get accustomed to it riding around his neighborhood before taking it out on the streets.

After putzing around the residential streets for a while, we finally ventured out onto the back roads around their neighborhood. It was a little intimidating at first riding with traffic, but it definitely got better the longer we rode.

All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase. I think many guys would probably have trouble putting their pride aside and buying the "lesser" of the two motorcycles, but I really feel like it was the best choice. The Ninja 500 still has PLENTY enough get-up-and-go to make it a blast to ride, but it's forgiving enough to allow some mistakes without dumping me.

There it is

Airwolf: Season One

I can't belive it took them this long to release Season One of the my absolute favorite TV show from my childhood. Moreover, I can't believe it was released 7 days ago and I'm just now ordering it. I should have had the entire thing watched by now.

So, yes, Airwolf Season One is now out on DVD. And now I get to patiently (or not-so-patiently) visit Amazon.com 23 times a day to find out if my order has shipped yet. And then I'll visit UPS.com 23 times a day to find out where my precious DVD is. Soon it will be mine. I just hope it's not all cheesy now that I'm old.

On a different note, the rest of this week should be fun. I'm taking off the afternoon tomorrow to go test our Enduro car down at Southside Speedway. We've rented out the entire track for the afternoon in an effort to help Johnj not crash the car every lap. I hope it works.

And then on Friday I'm taking the day off to go ride go karts with the Enduro team at G-Force Go Karts. They agreed to give us some time on their track if we put their logo on our beat-up Enduro car.

And then Friday is the big Enduro race - the first time our car has been around others since it caught on fire at the last race. Jeez, I hope John (our driver) is safe out there. It's possible that I may not even get to see the entire race, I'm taking a motorcycle safety course Friday and Saturday. It's mostly a peer-pressure enduced move, but should be a good excuse to get outside and ride a motorcycle for a while - and be able to easily get my license, if I want.