Solo Wing 2700mi

View Rochester - Austin TX in a larger map

In the years I rode my CX500 back in the early '80s and on occasion during my 24yr hiatus from riding, I tended to think of the "big ride" and what kind of daily distances were doable / enjoyable on a Gold Wing.

I've got my answer. 820 mi Rochester - OK City in coolish temps wasn't too bad, but clearly at my limits for that day. Leg and shoulder stiffness are the items that start to make it unpleasant for me after about that amount of time on the bike ... 12 hours, 7:30AM to 7:30PM.

The next day, to Bertram TX was only 450, but with 102-105 heat most of the way, it took more out of me physically and took from 9am-8pm to accomplish with many hydration stops. Oh, and also an EXCELLENT BBQ stop at "Hard Eight" in Stephenville TX http://www.hardeightbbq.com/

Wed brought zero time on the bike, but good TX Hill Country views, some successful shopping for hot weather motorcycle apparel, and and excellent lunch at Chuys in Austin along with enjoyable time spent seeing some old friends from IBM days.

Thursday AM saw a 6:30 launch with a great 600+ mi ride from Bertram to Beebe AR,  just north of Little Rock. Both East TX and AR are areas that I want to return to. Very much like the upper midwest terrain and greenery look, although I realize with a lot more heat in the summer -- but much less winter to deal with as well. A houseboat on one of the big impoundments?

Friday I spent a little too much time wrestling with the GPS on the bike for my liking ... "Shortest Time vs Distance" became an issue. The Wing seems to like routing through "fun motorcycle roads" which is fine, but when interspersed with a constant penchant to go all the way over to I-35 to make time, it can cause an on-bike tiff. Much like dealing with a wife, we worked it out by doing it the Wings way ... I hit I-35 just N of KC. Excitement of the day was a life flight chopper landing on US 13 right ahead of me and having to turn around and make my own "detour".

The biggest disappointment of the trip was pulling off at Albert Lea, less than 100mi from home as it was solid dark and I decided that the risk of tagging a deer the wrong way on that section of highway was just too great after 14 hours in the saddle. So I stayed the night and chipped it at 9AM Sat.

Lots of time to think of "why am I doing this?" and stuff on especially the interstate.

Some thoughts:

* an over 40  rider is 20x as likely to die riding a bike than in a car
* by not drinking when riding I cut that risk in half ... 10x
* by wearing a helmet, hi viz gear and taking a cycle safety class I cut the risk close to in half again ... 5x
* so since I drive about 20k mi a year and ride < 10k, I'm "only" about 2.5x as likely to die on my bike

Which is called RATIONALIZATION!

There is something irreplaceable about the experience of a trip like that. The danger is part of the thrill. Lots of guys are out there with no helmets, ape hangers, and riding "care free". They have a more fatalistic attitude ... But it is the same principle, just a matter of degree. Same with driving our cars and a lot of life activity. A safe life isn't a life. A risk free economy isn't an economy, it is a gulag.

It is a huge blessing to have made it to 55 with good health. The only way to be alive is some level of risk... One person's "reasonable risk" is completely insane for another, but be sure to embrace SOME risk that makes you less than fully comfortable. Lest you fail to have lived while alive.

I'm An Extremeist

Are You an Extremist? - Bill O'Reilly - Page 1

Worth a read. Wanting your nation  to live within it's means and limiting taxation on people to something less than 50% of their income is now "extreme" ... along with being a Christian (but not a Muslim), honoring marriage between  a man and a woman as it has always been, supporting the right to beat arms as enumerated in the Constitution and a bost of other things.

It has never been easier to be an "extremist" in America, and I have to say I'm proud to count myself in that group!

A $222 Trillion US Vision Gap

Great news: The US fiscal gap just jumped $11 trillion … to $222 trillion « Hot Air:

Something over 50% of Americans get to age 50 and throw up their hands realizing that their net worth is negative and they have no time for investment growth to build enough for their retirement even if they DID finally start saving. They "waited for tomorrow" for 3 decades and now it is too late.

They have a lot of company. Something over 90% of americans have no clue about the net present value of the future obligations of the US government which include caring for that 50% that neglected to care for themselves.

Much like worn out tires, siding, roofing, disease, death, etc, the future is most likely to happen. True, we could have a giant earth shattering disaster of the meteor, plague, super volcano sort that would wipe out 100's of millions and essentially cancel the future, but one doesn't really like to focus on such as a "solution".

So we blithely keep rolling up future obligations at a rate that is 10x our actual yearly deficit with over 90% of the population that is supposed to be self-governing being completely unaware.

90% of people need to have the individual responsibility to cover their own retirement with assets left at the end to pass on. We need a complete re-make / return to what we were founded to be -- a nation of FREE PEOPLE, which includes freedom from individual and public debt.

Right now we are a nation of fools where a bloated government hobbles our productivity while promising us "security" as it saddles us with debt to destroy our future.


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BO Recovery Worst Since WWII

GDP Data Show Obama's 'Recovery' Has Been Worse Than Any Postwar President's - Investors.com:

Don't expect to see this make the news much ... but it would be helpful to the ability of americans to govern themselves if it did.

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Democrats and Media Protect Pedophile

Reid puts GOP in a bind over Romney's taxes - CNN.com:

Gee CNN is really worried about the Pedophile Majority Leader "putting Republicans in a bind".

Oh, you didn't hear that Harry Reid is a Pedophile?? Well, I have it FROM A VERY GOOD SOURCE that I'm not able to share at this time that the charge is 100% true!

Oh, you don't think that is "fair"? Hmm, then why is there a story on Reid's unsubstantiated accusations "causing Republicans problems" vs a story on how his fellow democrats, media, liberal organizations are ALL demanding he immediately cease and desist from this calumny and apologize, or be removed from his post???

Unbelievably, Pedo Harry is Senate Majority Leader -- not talk radio, not Fox News, not Huffpo, not even some first term back bencher in the House.

Is ANYONE going to deny that the MSM would be raising holy hell if the source of this was from the right and the target was on the left??

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Wingvana

Haven't been doing nearly enough posting on my motorcycle. Here it is, pretty much the way I purchased it.

Wing as purchased

Had I not added the Kury pegs, http://wingstuff.com/products/27625-switchblade-highway-peg-w-mini-arms?from_search=1  I would have never been able to make the 1800 miles out to the Black Hills and Gillette WY and back (I'm  6'4" tall).

Here are some pictures from the trip ... a really good ride. http://www.flickr.com/photos/67173429@N00/sets/72157630412159566/

The trip convinced me that I needed to do something more, so I added Kury boards including the wide brake pedal ... BIG improvement! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/yTBRzM0cQyYAyambcxwpsaEu3piSopWgtluch9Wsgbo?feat=directlink

Why Honda doesn't make floorboards standard on the Wing is beyond me. Lots of tweaking and setting to get them just right, but once I got it done, it is hard to imagine how I rode without them.

On the trip I also was bothered by a lot of wind buffeting. In general it was windy, there were a lot of trucks and since I am tall and wear a helmet, a lot of the time my helmet was up in the turbulent air. I did a lot of web / Gold Wing forum searches and decided that the Laminar Lip was the way to go https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VNXxOGhqXfsiu6aF7SeIi6Eu3piSopWgtluch9Wsgbo?feat=directlink at least to start. I've put a couple hundred miles on the bike since installation, and so far I'm VERY impressed. It produces a very quiet pocket of air behind the windshield that seems to be exactly what I was looking for.

After reading a number of the forums I decided that a real fork brace was something that I ought to add, so I added the Kury Gen II, WOW ... huge low speed "wander" improvement, but more solid at all speeds. Very hard to understand why Honda doesn't put a solid brace on from the factory.

Christ Muslims Gays Double Standards

Radical imam OK but not Chick-fil-A - BostonHerald.com

There is only one true radical, the risen savior, Christ Jesus. All questions ultimately come down to Christ.

Case in point. Boston Mayor Tom Menino had no trouble assisting a Muslim in development of a mosque as well as speaking at its ribbon cutting, even though the official position of Islam, stated by one of the leaders of that mosque is that Gays must be put to death.

We all know of his comments on Chick-fil-A, and the comments of many on the left about a Christian owned business that clearly practices what it preaches by being closed on Sunday, yet is the highest profit per store fast food outlet.

WHY is this true and what does it mean???

1. It is strong evidence of the primacy and radical effect of Jesus and Christian teachings / life. What the Gays, atheists and left hate is not "religion", or even "radical violent fundamentalist religion". What they really hate is CHRIST and CHRISTIANS!! The left's willingness to "forgive and forget" Muslim violence, doctrine and treatment of women is limitless. The swiftness and vehemence of their anger and intolerance to any display of Christian belief or doctrine is a strong proof of the primacy of Christ. 
2. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Many of the left mostly secretly mourned the loss of the USSR. They WANT the power of US to be "counter balanced" and reduced, at least to extent that the US is seen as "a Christian Nation". Todays counter balances are Islam and China, but China is less loved by the left than most communist nations as it has embraced a lot of capitalism and competition. Capitalism and competition mean individual initiative and differential outcomes. The left demands that individual lives be meaningless and only the "state collective" matter. Christ, capitalism, competition and the Constitution ALL celebrate the dignity and meaning of the life of the individual. This is anathema to left-statist-collective thought.
3. "Liberalism - Progressivism" are of course both lies. "Liberal" is in fact a label of the RIGHT, which is LIBERTARIAN. "Progressive" is allusion to the  myth that "newer is better / modern is smarter / old is bad / etc".  The USSR, Nazi Germany and Maoist China ought to have been enough to bury these foolish thoughts forever, but "false hope springs eternal". The left thinks that we are "better / smarter" than what has gone before and that there is an "arrow of evolution" that is "upward / better". Some tiny creature that just consumes organic matter, breeds prodigiously, is resistant to extermination and consumes the entire biosphere leaving only a "gray goo" would be the ultimate, but species costly "we told you so" rebuttal. If evolution means that we are just getting better, how did we end up with Obama/Carter/Franken/Pelosi/etc ... or for the lefties Bush/Reagan/Bachmann/Palin ... Seems like we ought to be able to easily determine the fallacy of the progress myth very easily without exterminating ourselves ... but maybe not. 

I could go on, but the REAL issue here is that a "christian / conservative / true liberal / libertarian / fact based / transcendent / etc" world view is not actually able to understand the inconsistencies of a "statist / atheist / progressive / vision based / materialist" world view. And of course, vice-versa!!

Which means that we generally CAN'T just "all get along" unless we actually decide that facts are more important than visions, or liberty is more important than "fairness", etc.

But if liberals were going to make those changes, then they would no longer be "liberals". Or conservatives would just have to decide that God is dead and facts don't matter.

Two things are "hopeful" -- aging tends to move people to the right, as do massive disasters -- natural, political, financial. "Reality has a way of creeping up on you", or "liberalism only seems to work until you run out of other peoples money" to say it even more simply.

More Democrats! Or Voter ID?

Democrats' Ideal Voter: Illegal Alien, Single Mother, Convicted Felon - Ann Coulter - Page 1

Sometimes Ann gets one right. This one is worth the read.

Dangerous Data

Revenge of the Sociologists | The Weekly Standard

Nial tends to be wordy, basically this the old news story of "don't mess with the shibboleths of the the dominant culture". Gay has been decided to be good, gays raising kids was summarily judged to be good, maybe even better than "traditional families". End of story, woe unto all that would dare to question that "settled science".

For those of us of a certain age, we well recall when "divorce had no negative impact on children, and may even be positive because of the reduction of tensions". Much like the requirement to delay an hour after swimming to avoid cramps, this view has been "reassessed".  Naturally the reassessment came well after any chance of deciding to "make do" or "work it out for the kids" was far from as stupid as we were told in the 60's and 70's. I'm still sore about the swimming I missed.

In the '70s, the energy crisis was caused by the FACT that we were OUT of oil -- today, the reserves are many times larger than they were then. The climate was cooling in the '70s ... well known, but not as "settled" as the warming, er,  "change" today. Change would seem to cover it.

In the '70s when EO Wilson questioned the Blank Slate, he was a bigot, a neanderthal, a zealot. Today, the Blank Slate is considered absurd -- nature seems to have the strange idea that success breeds more than failure, and carrying along a few tendencies that turn out to be adaptive in the DNA is beneficial.

I'm not so concerned about "content" here -- it seems likely to me that when two sexes are required for procreation, and the idea of a "family" being one man and one woman having been by far the norm for at least a couple thousand years,  the outcomes for children MIGHT be better in that situation, but I certainly can't prove it.  I'm sure we will see much more evidence on at least the opposite view, with maybe some on the "common sense side" depending on the ability of the dominant culture to suppress pro man/woman family results vs Man-Man, Woman-Woman, etc. But that isn't the point here.

The point is the danger of massive politicization of research, science and common sense,  and the sort of environment that is engendered by that course. When the price of having and stating beliefs, hypothesis,  data, statistics, results, etc that are in disagreement with "the dominant elite culture position" becomes too high, many people shut up, claim to believe what they don't, or even just throw up their hands and actually switch sides. I seem to be one of the very few that actually enjoys being stupid.

If you are aligned with the dominant culture view, your response to this thought is likely "good, I don't really care how the fools that disagree with us get on board, but they have to!".

All well and good, but just try to recall the discomfort you may have had after 9-11 when 80-90% of the population was in support of attacks on terrorist bases in Afghanistan, and nearly the same numbers were behind the removal of Saddam Hussein under the suspicion of WMDs. When radio stations were told by their listeners to stop playing the "Dixie Chicks" after they disparaged the president overseas. When Tim Robbins didn't get some invite to a forum after one of his anti-Bush screeds. Remember how quickly the spectre of Nazi Germany and Hitler was raised by the left elites at that point?

Please realize that the real problem in Nazi Germany was UNlimited Government -- the kind that you get when you allow the government to say, force you to buy a product -- say, insurance. The kind you get when THE GOVERNMENT tells you that certain kinds of speech are "hate speech", or that certain kinds of religion are "not our values" indicating that you ought not hold those religions views (Rahm Emanuel , Chicago, Chick-Fil-a). The kind that you get when you are penalized for what you DON'T do ... today, "buy insurance', then "Heil Hitler". The kind where the government tries to remove you from your tenured university position because they don't like what your research shows. You know, the kind of government our Constitution was supposed to guard against.

What was being called "Fascism" in '02-'08 was private citizens making decisions on who they listened to on the radio or invited to some event. It wasn't the government or government officials. In a free country, people used to be allowed to hold even very unpopular views. The idea was that freedom of thought and speech went together and needed to be heavily protected.  ESPECIALLY unpopular speech!

That was the law, but more importantly it was part of the shared mores of a free country. Tolerance of free thinking may have even been the American "Prime Directive" for you Trekkers. Oh, POPULAR speech sometimes needs to be controlled according to the left as well -- if it looks like a Republican might win, then the amount of speech (money) they are allowed must be curtailed.

It was once expected, even considered honorable that your brother, your dad, your neighbor, your boss, the guy at work or down the street would have some crackpot and maybe even really bad ideas ... racism against Blacks, Jews, Irish, Italians, Orientals, Polish, etc.  Lots of folks thought that Communism was "inevitable" (pretty much up to '89 MANY DID, some still do), Socialism was clearly the answer -- right up to when "National Socialism" took a very bad turn in Germany under Hitler. Eugenics suffered a similar fate -- it was a really good idea for the left elite (Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood for example), and then, uh, not so much.

Wouldn't it be great if we could "educate" everyone to be a BO Democrat, or maybe a Christian ... or a Buddhist, or a Capitalist, or a Minimalist ... or ??

Why don't we just ostracize, marginalize, harangue the people that don't line up with our view of "correct"? Oh wait, I guess many DO do that now ... but we didn't used to do it as much. It was considered to be against our shared values as Americans. Even when the subject was ACTUAL sympathy and working with a foreign sworn enemy with nuclear weapons pointed at us, pushing to hard on that was considered a "dark period in American history" ("McCarthyism). My how far we have come with Chick-Fil-a and the whole Gay Marriage issue!

or is it just the ever present problem of it VERY much depends on whose Ox is being gored?

Understanding Leviathan

George Will: Blowing the whistle on Leviathan - The Washington Post

Good column by George. I've read "2 Felonies a Day", a very good and sobering book.

The statutes are already in place for the government to declare you a felon any day they want. Without even having a thought in your head of committing a crime, you have run afoul of some statute ... maybe a claim on your taxes, maybe some chemical that you use ... for cleaning, for crafts, for lawn care. Maybe your religious views somehow crossed the line to "hate speech" ... or somebody is willing to testify that they did. Maybe you transported the wrong thing ... or person across state lines. The list is endless.

The list is way too long and getting longer every day. For now, the government can only TAX you for not buying the proper type of heath insurance. But the slope is greased -- the path to criminalizing what you DON'T do is well established.

Face it, get on the wrong side of the wrong people and you are CURRENTLY a criminal.

Oh, you trust the government? What if the "other side" wins ... do you trust Mittens? Do you trust  Boehner? Michelle Bachmann?  No?? As you applaud the adding of  more and more government power,  remember you have NO guarantee of what idiot will wield it.

That is why our founders specified LIMITED government. They thought that EVERYONE could see the dangers in UNLIMITED government and that limiting government would be a bipartisan AMERICAN issue.

 But we don't understand that, do we??

Why Guns?

Fear drives opposition to gun control - CNN.com

Frum seems really certain that it is fear.

In the last 10 years motorcycle sales have skyrocketed http://www.bts.gov/publications/special_reports_and_issue_briefs/special_report/2009_05_14/html/entire.html

The biggest growth area is riders over 50. Since I've bought both an assault rifle and a motorcycle in the last 10 years, and Frum points out that this group is also the biggest gun purchasers, perhaps he is missing a factor or two?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that people over 50 are aware that motorcycles are dangerous. Even the many that ride without a helmet are aware that motorcycles are dangerous.

Somewhere around 50 it becomes clear that one is not going to live forever, and in fact, your time to do things you might like to do in life is far more limited than mere age of death demographics would suggest. As parents and others age and pass on, it becomes very clear that your quality of life for the last decade or two of your potential life span is likely to be much less than you are used to and might have hoped for.

Guns go bang. Some of them go bang a lot of times. Being able to keep them on a target at all can be challenging -- when it gets less challenging just add  more targets, time the firing, put the targets farther away, make them smaller ... you get the idea.

Guns are male jewelry. Especially handguns. They are a combination of beauty and power, yes, with some danger mixed in. (See motorcycles). Guys like Frum and a lot of others that "know better" don't like them and want them banned. There are a lot of folks that have a lot of similar ideas about motorcycles.

Sauce for the goose. You may or may not have had some rebellious tendencies when you were a teen, but by the time you are 50 the idea of some supposedly brilliant somebody having power over your choices is completely different. When you are 20, you are likely to do something just because someone says you can't ... or even just because someone else (eg your parents) does or doesn't.

After 50 years, you have no doubt spent a lot of time making or being forced to make choices on the basis of things like "gotta raise the kids", "gotta keep a job",  "wife won't let me" (maybe for some of those reasons), "no time, too much work, kid raising, etc... ". Some of those very real considerations start to lift in the 50s and you realize you can reasonably make some different choices ... and that the time when you can is not likely to last a whole lot longer.

You have also seen the clay feet of the "elite". Like all people, while they are telling you what to do, it turns out they have their own problems --- wine, women, weight, gambling, smoking, drugs, ... the list is long. Likely you yourself have wrestled with one or more tendencies,  maybe you still are and always will be. "The brilliance of man" often tends to fade somewhat as age advances. Turns out that none of us are nearly as smart as we once thought we were.

Twist the throttle, pull the trigger -- as long as you are still breathing, life can go on, and guys like Frum? Well, they can still get their jollies still being certain that they have the world all figured out.

Liberation

Random Thoughts - Thomas Sowell - [page]

Good column, but the last paragraph is priceless.

There seems to be something "liberating" about ignorance -- especially when you don't even know enough to realize how little you know. Thus an administration loaded with people who have never run any business is gung-ho to tell businesses what to do, as well as gung-ho to tell the medical profession what to do, lenders whom to lend to, and the military how to fight wars.

The Overwhelming Femaleness of Quilters

The overwhelming maleness of mass homicide - CNN.com

or macrame fans, lovers of too many pillows to see the bed, romance novels, etc. etc.

Damn, sex differences still exist! The obvious solution? Let's see if we can fully feminize men, that ought to make us one big frilly, chatty, giggly fun bunch a sistahs!

Ah yes, the "Martians" ("Men are from Mars, Women from Venus"). News at 11, there is a "downside" to maleness. Who better to pick it up than a woman.

We keep trying to get boys to behave as girls, but they just don't seem to get it. Guess we will have to work harder ... or maybe there is some sort of backlash to the "maleness is bad" approach?

Nah, can't be ...

Facts on Gun Control and Violence

News Versus Propaganda - Thomas Sowell - Page 1

Sowell hits one out of the park as he so often does. Any person that reads this and doesn't at least have a basic understanding of why we have such a wide divide in world view in this country has simply been brainwashed.

There is ALWAYS another side to the story, and often the other side is quite difficult or even impossible to refute. Many views "have a point" --- it may not be the right point or the optimum point, but it is often "a reasonable point".

If you can't argue the opposite side of your position well enough so the average guy in the street would be convinced that you hold that view, then you don't know the issue well enough.

Biased "Secrets"

Mitt Romney's other tax secret - Jul. 23, 2012

In 2008 the media was remarkably incurious over policy relative to BO. "Hope and Change" was his platform and to even consider a "detail" like what kind of things might be in a BOnomics or BOcare plan was completely unnecessary. He was going to close the evil Gitmo and fix the economy in 3 years or be a one term president. What more did people need to know?

Release any information about BO's past? Take a detailed look at where he went to church for 20 years, or who his close associates and helpers were (eg. Tony Rezko ... sweetheart land deal for BO's house among many other political money "favors. Rezko is in prison). There was just no critical interest in "the one" -- the job of the media was to add a brighter lustre to whatever spewed from his massive campaign juggernaut.

Now the media is fantastically interested -- in Mittens, but strangely only in items that they can call "questionable".

In Al Gore's tax returns from when he was VP, his charitable giving was $350 on $300K of income one year ... wide open info, one would have thought it was a state secret relative to media. There are millions of deductions for charity in Mitts taxes ... lots to the church, but he has also done a lot of other pretty amazing charitable giving / work.

For some reason, I'm not expecting CNN to be doing any stories on that.