Daisy May

I'm pretty sure Jax has already mentioned that we are calling the TU250X "Daisy May" instead of referring to it as "The TU" or "The Bike." She is fond of naming our vehicles as it sort of gives them a bit of personality above and beyond their engineered traits. Daisy has been pretty good to us so far. In the two weeks we've had her I have gone through four (4) full tanks of gas and one oil change.

On the very first full tank of gas, which we spent probably a third of the gas bimbling around our neighborhood (lots of hills) two-up (never good for gas mileage, especially when starting off on hills) we got 70 miles per gallon of gas. On the next one I got 75 miles per gallon of refined dead dinosaur. The third tank yielded 77 miles per gallon of black gold. The third tank also included the first oil change. It just so happens that I have a few liters (~quarts) of Repsol fully synthetic four-stroke racing oil left over from the R6, so I went ahead and put some of the best motorbike oil in the world into Daisy May. While it seemed a bit silly at first, it really smoothed out the shifting a lot more than I expected, due to the fact that most motorbikes use the motor oil to lubricate the transmission and clutch as well as the motor. I hesitate to refer to the shifting prior to the oil change as "clunky" or "agricultural," but it is smooth as butter now.

Anyway, on to the most recent tank of gas! This one is a little misleading since at least one of the miles on the odometer was accumulated by me pushing Daisy May. Yeah. I ran out of gas. Again. You might think I would start paying attention to the shiny, yellow light on the dash that indicates the fact that I am nearly out of gas. In my defense, it came on during the day, and it is very hard to see in direct sunlight, so I didn't know when it came on. At night I can barely read the trip odometer because it is so bright, but during the day the light just looks like a bit more glare unless you are looking at it specifically to check it. On the plus side, Daisy May is a lot easier to push along the road than the R6 ever could be. On the even bigger plus side, pushing Daisy May up a hill really isn't that hard since she weighs something like 100 pounds less than the R6. On the minus side, a lot of the gas stations in Little Rock close before midnight. I counted 6 closed gas stations before I found one that was still open.

Eventually Daisy May restarted and I was able to ride the last couple of miles to the open station, but it was still not much fun. And to top it all off, I only got 71 miles per gallon again, which I attribute to me leaving late and having to take the interstate a few times on this tank. Daisy can get up to interstate speeds, but it's pretty close to her absolute top speed. If I don't have someone to follow/draft behind then Daisy has to be her own wind-break, which doesn't work terribly well at 70 miles per hour. I guess I'll just have to get out of bed on time from now on... Dang it!

Obese Trucks and Fat Guys at Racetracks

Warning. The first part of this post will be closer to entertaining. The second part will be wildly boring for the vast majority of people. Consider yourself warned. Now, on with the show!

Since acquiring our wee little Nissan a couple of months ago I can't help but notice that a Japanese full size 1995 pickup truck does not really compare in size to a current-generation American full size pickup truck, as seen here:



Granted, the Ford is an F-250, but the Chevy is just the regular-sized behemoth. The only thing I know of about it that is in any way larger than "standard" is that it is the quad-cab, which as we all know means that the guy wanted a truck but someone more clear-headed insisted on a station wagon. I think we can all agree on the inherent supremacy of the station wagon: it can carry just as much stuff inside as the trucks pictured above when it needs to, but it gets small-car gas mileage all the time. You can even add a hitch for those days when you need to get your motorbike to the racetrack (picture coming some day).

One day I happened to need a tailgate on the truck. As I believe I might have mentioned previously Edith did not come with one. It usually isn't a problem, other than the slightly lower gas mileage achieved by trucks without a tailgate. However, when it's time to move, after you have gotten all of the couches, beds, washers, dryers, pianos, tables, and other big stuff out of the old place, eventually you get to the stuff that is just too big for a box but not really big enough that you trust it to stay put while skidding around corners on the way to the new place. So I had to improvise:
Why, yes. That is an appropriately-sized corrugated box bungee-corded in where the tailgate is supposed to go. I have even tested it on the interstate a couple of times, just for fun. And yes, I did write "NISSAN" in permanent marker on the box. It seemed inappropriate at the time.

And now for the less-generally-entertaining part.

For Labor Day Jax and I went to Jennings, OK (just outside of Tulsa) for a track weekend at Hallett Motor Racing Circuit, www.hallettracing.com for those of you who care. It had been 2 1/2 years since my last trackday and 3 1/2 years since my last trackday at this particular track. I had a lot of street habits that I spent most of the morning of the first day fighting. However, since I have over 21,000 miles on the current bike, plus probably another 1,000 on the last bike of nothing but street miles, I wasn't terribly surprised by that.

But, I still had a lot of fun. Anyway, one of my friends managed to get some video of me on track so everyone can see how slow I look while I ride around in a big, convoluted circle. Maybe the video will even embed properly so you won't have to go to youtube to find it!



Just in case, here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUVrhY-5fR4

He catches up to me (fat guy on a blue bike with yellow trim and yellow leather suit) at about the 2:40 mark and follows me for the rest of the video. I think it was nice of him to stay behind me to try and make me look like I'm faster than he is. In reality though, he is significantly faster than me when he wants to be.

Anyway, I guess that's enough rambling for now. You may now resume your regularly scheduled life.

Thanks

It may be a bit late, but I want to thank my super MIL for coming up and keeping my meltdown from getting worse. It's SO nice to have company and I couldn't have gotten any of it done without her!

I just checked, and I can see the photo from Adam's friend's iPhone. Very weird. I know I promised you all photos of him from the other weekend, but I just haven't had any time to put them up. I don't know how excited you'd all be anyway, so it's not the end of the world.

This past weekend, we got half our apartment packed up, so now there are random stacks of boxes everywhere and the place is TOTAL chaos instead of controlled chaos. Bummer. It's really bad timing too. I have at least three projects due this week, which also just happens to be the week my manager decided to give me 10 extra hours. Ugh, it's all been kicking my butt. But I gave away a few of my hours and I'm keeping my head above water. It will work out in the end--whether for good or for bad, who knows.

Also, yesterday my little brother received the Melchizedek priesthood! My Dad has waited for this day for years and he was so excited; WOW, I haven't seen him that excited in a long time. There were about 10 boys Mark's age who all got it at the same time. Mark even got to participate in giving it to one of his friends. That was really cool. He's so grown up now, I just can't believe he's still my "little" brother sometimes!

I put that poll up just for kicks. I've been debating switching my major and minor. I'll give you more details after it ends. I love feedback (this should come as no surprise to any of my readers!)

Anyway, it's been a long and busy day, and tomorrow is going to be even longer and busier!

¡Hasta luego, diego!

Worth It

Dumb Weather

This daggum weather is just plain frustrating. Annoying, too.

So Monday I had to take a vacation day from the Conway job. It was an old one I had lying around, and it had reached "Use it or lose it" status, so I decided to use it Monday. Someone else had already requested last Friday off, and only one of us on the crew can take a vacation day at a time. Anyway, as the weather prognostications kept involving obscene amounts of liquid sunshine for Monday, I figured I had picked a good day to sit around the apartment and maybe do some cleaning. I even briefly considered going on a motorbike ride, just for the fun of it. Not going to work, not going in for a service, not going to the grocery store with it; just going for a fun, relaxing ride out in the country. However, the previously mentioned prognostics swayed me far far away from that idea.

Then it didn't rain. At all. Not a drop in Little Rock. It rained quite strongly in Conway, but not a drop in Little Rock. Jax and I took Grandma to Conway to use one of her Christmas presents, which was a gift card to a Chinese restaurant. Not long after we got inside it started raining pretty hard. It rained pretty hard the entire time we were eating. On a side note, it turns out that even though the restaurant we went to has the same name as the one on the gift card, they are owned by different people and they don't share gift cards with each other. Oopsy!

For fun, I didn't sleep at all Monday night. Seriously, I got to sleep sometime after 6 am on Tuesday morning. I felt like dookie. I went ahead and went to my morning job, which was pretty busy. But I decided that two hours of sleep probably wasn't enough to safely run a machine that could easily rip my arm off without any trouble, let alone ride home on a motorbike that doesn't offer much protection if I were to fall asleep while riding. So I called in and took an extra day off. I know it will kind of stink when I get my paycheck in two weeks, but I don't get paid enough to risk life and limb...

Anyway, the forecast was something obscene like 70% chance of rain Monday and 80% chance of rain Tuesday. It didn't rain either day in Little Rock. Then today, the day I worked both jobs and had to commute from Little Rock to Conway and back, it rained. A lot. Everywhere along my route, anyway. It could have rained Monday and Tuesday and it wouldn't have bothered me one bit. Instead it rained on the day that I decided to go to work.

I guess I learned my lesson. Don't go to work!

May 16, 2009

Is there anyone in the world who is not doing something on May 16 this year? On the plus side, we have plenty of options for things to do.

1. Our ward is taking the primary and youth on a temple trip to Memphis that morning.

2. One of Jax's friends from her home ward is getting hitched in the Oklahoma City temple that morning.

3. Jax's younger brother has his high school graduation that night in Alma.

4. My favorite local motorbike store is having their "Super Saturday Sale" that day in Little Rock, which just happens to include a fabulous price on a set of tires, which I will be about due for in mid-May.

5. One of my motorcycle gangs has been invited to a motorbike rally in Missouri.

There's even more, but I can't remember it all since we already know which things we are going to be able to do and which things we are just going to have to skip. Is this what it's like to have a social life, only every day? Geez!

Success!

This weekend Jax and I went down to Dallas, where we were married a little over two years ago. We left Friday at about noon and got to my sister's apartment eventually. I would just like to say that having to deal with mindless road work in places where you already don't know your way around just isn't much fun. My parents were also there visiting with my sister, but they had to leave to go find a hotel before her hubby got home from work.

The next morning when we left for the temple, they left for Utah to go skiing. We ended up spending a good 6-7 hours in our favorite place on Earth. It was glorious.

After dinner, we got ourselves pretty well lost. Getting back from the temple to the apartment proved to be a bigger challenge than either of us could handle that late at night after eating massive quantities of food. I finally had a chance to eat at Fuddruckers, and it was pretty good. Not only was the burger just about the right size (1 pound of meat) but it was also pretty tasty. Anyway, we ended up going through the airport and paying the toll because we got lost enough that we didn't even know which way Arlington was anymore. Fortunately the guy working in the toll booth knew how to get us back on track. Also Jax was on the phone with Sis, so between her and the toll booth guy, we made it back so we could try to get some sleep.

After that, we embarked on a trial run for a new adventure. In August, we will be going to Indianapolis, Indiana to watch a motorbike race. This will not be just any motorbike race, but the premier racing class in the world: Moto GP. Anyway, since we're cheap we have been planning on making special arrangements for sleeping while we are there. We had a trial run over the weekend. We had a chance to iron out a few wrinkles from the original plan and also try to think of other ways to make it generally better at the end of August. I will let Jax tell you exactly what we did, since she took the pictures, but I feel pretty good about our plan.

Hitting Things on the Road

So I never had a chance to tell my side of the story from my ride home from work on the ice. It really wasn't all that bad, for the most part. For example, I discovered that my cold weather riding gear keeps me fairly warm and toasty as long as I keep my speed down to about 45 mph or lower. I also gained some confidence in my tires.

On the minus side it took me almost an hour to get home from work, and it was a somewhat eventful hour. When I first got onto the interstate I wasn't concerned about much. I knew there was a chance the bridges would be icy, but I didn't think they would be bad yet, since it had only been dark for a couple of hours. But, just to be safe, I kept my speed down to about 60. Then I went over the first bridge. A the bike slid and slithered its way across the bridge, I realized that I probably needed to slow down for the next one. So I slowed down to about 45 for the second bridge. As the bike slid and slithered its way across that bridge I decided to slow down even more. By the time I had gone 13 miles I was down to 14 miles per hour when going across bridges. At least the bike wasn't slipping and sliding any more, though it required some special precautions when approaching bridges. For example, I wasn't overly keen on being right beside anyone in a car when crossing the icy patches, so I occasionally had to start slowing down even earlier to make sure that if something unfortunate were to happen I wouldn't have to worry about being run over while sliding down the interstate on my chest. I'm a weenie like that.

Anyway, as I bimbled down the road at a mind-numbing pace, eventually something unfortunate did happen. As I was approaching one of the biggest bridges on the way, I slowed down to allow a truck to get past me in my normal fashion. When he was about a quarter of the way over the bridge, he did something wrong. I don't know what he did exactly, other than trusting his four-wheel-drive pickup truck way too much for the conditions, but he ended up sliding his way into the cement divider and bouncing along that for a moment before finally coming to a complete stop. As I motored on past on my motorbike, I couldn't help but consider the irony of the situation. The big, burly man in his big, burly truck couldn't make it across the bridge without wrecking while I, the dumb moron riding a motorbike in conditions which motorbikes (especially mine) were never meant to handle, made it across without even a hint of a slide. Anyway, on the other side of the bridge I saw two other cars that hadn't made it across without incident, one on each side of the road, one of which was so far into the grass that I don't think he was going anywhere for a good long time. The first question that popped into my mind as I motored past them at 14 mph in 4th gear was "How long ago did these two guys pass me?" The next two questions were, "What was the hurry? Was it worth it?" But I couldn't think about their problems for long because I had my most daunting challenge ahead - I still had to cross the river bridge, which is one mile long. Fortunately I crossed that bridge without incident, though it took me about 3 minutes to get all the way across. Anyway, you can read about the way the rest of the night went in previous posts. But, if you're not keen I can summarize: Jax was extremely happy to finally see me make it home safely. The inability to talk to anyone on the phone while riding a motorbike is usually a blessing, though it is occassioanlly less than ideal.

So that covers hitting the ice with the motorbike. But those who are paying attention will note that I set the title of this post "Hitting Things..." which is traditionally plural. Friday night, on my way home form work I saw a white bag on the road between a couple of cars. I reckoned it had something in it, which handily explained the fact that it didn't seem to be moving or blowing aorund in the wind. It was in roughly the right tire track of the lane, which is where I usually ride when I'm in the passing lane. I swerved slightly toward the center line to avoid the bag. Then it moved. It moved slowly but deliberately. It moved just like an armadillo. This can mostly be explained by the fact that the white bag was, in fact, a white armadillo that was crossing the road. Naturally, it moved right into my new path of travel. Since it was dark and I was on the interstate I didn't have a lot of time to react, but I swerved the other way to do my best to avoid it. I don't know if that armadillo made it across the road, but if he did I know he'll be tender for a few days at least, because I hit hit right at the base of his tail with my front wheel and probably my back wheel too. So now I can brag to all of my biker buddies that I have hit an armadillo with my motorbike. Don't you wish you were that lucky?

The Difference Half an Hour Makes

We've had really bad weather here since yesterday, surprisingly. I didn't think it'd be that bad. Yesterday afternoon, I was in the language lab, when a friend's husband called to say his car was iced over.

When I showed up for class a few minutes early, there was a small group of people waiting. The teacher never did show up, and after ten minutes of waiting, we decided to leave, since they lived as far away as Cabot and Benton. I zipped over to Grandma's, just like normal, and goofed off on the internet. At 10:30, I figured Adam would be home, teasing me about being late. So, I zipped back home, still driving like normal; I didn't look at the interstate to see that those on it were driving slower than I was on Rodney Parham. I sat in my car and listened to the end of a song before I realized Adam wasn't home yet. No big deal, it was only 10:35.

And then, all of a sudden, it became a big deal. I went inside, took my shoes off and went to the bathroom, expecting him to be home any moment. I came back out to the living room and at 10:42 and he still wasn't home. I kept the radio on, talked to Ninja, and then started feeling guilty, because we'd had a minor tiff that morning. I'd also had a conversation with Mom Pearce about how much she doesn't like motorcycles.

A million things started racing through my mind and by 10:50, I was crying hard. I finally called a friend, and told her what was happening. We were only on the phone a few minutes, with her telling me about feeling the exact same way once (funny story, ironically), when I saw the bike in the parking lot. I told her he was there and that I had to go.

He came inside, took off his icy riding gear, and hugged me harder than I remember being hugged in a long time. We talked while eating red velvet cake (that he'd gotten me, because that's what we had at our wedding) and then made our way to bed because I was exhausted from worrying so hard. Before I drifted off to sleep, I told him I'd promised God that I would both love him this much and still argue with him for the next 50 years, if God would keep him around that long. Then it dawned on me that it was Grandma and Grandpa's 59th wedding anniversary and I hadn't told her happy anniversary.

I think I learned my lesson. I can't think of what you say when something like this happens, other than I am grateful Adam is home and safe and hopefully sticking around for the next 50 years!

About Adam

Two different women did this on their blogs, so I thought I would copy. I have about three bajillion posts to make, but I thought this would be cute :)

1. He's sitting in front of the tv. What's on the screen?
MotoGP or almost any other motorcycle race.

2. You are out to eat. What dressing does he get on his salad?
I'm not sure, really, but I know he does NOT like Ranch.

3. What's one food he doesn't like?
coconut

4. You go out to a bar. What does he drink first?
He's a heavy drinker. :) He goes straight for the milk jug, every time :)

5. Where did he go to high school?
White Hall High School

6. If he were to collect anything, what would it be?
motorbikes, if he had the money :)

7. What shoe size does he wear?
yikes! A 9 or 10 or 11? Gosh, I thought I knew and now I'm not sure!

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich?
a meaty one :)

9. What would he eat every day if he could?
MEAT! Beef, chicken, pork, he's a carnivore, hehe

10. What would he never wear?
a speedo

11. What is his favorite sports team?
He really likes Nicky Hayden, who's not a team, but he's Adam's favorite MotoGP racer

12. What is something you do that he wishes you didn't do so much?
Worry about every. single. thing.

13. How many states has he lived in?
Arkansas and California. Bolivia isn't a state, but he spent 2 years there

14. What is his heritage?
European-American

15. You bake him a cake for his birthday. What kind of cake would it be?
maybe pistachio pudding cake?

16. Did he play sports in high school?
No, but he was in band :-D

17. What could he spend hours doing?
riding his motorbike

What a Way to Start the New Work Year

Warning. This post is going to be contain a whiny section. Just so you know...

On Monday, 5 Jan 2009, I officially started working on 2nd shift again. In and of itself, it's not so bad other than having to learn to share the bed again. Jax and I have been married for over two years, but since I have worked 3rd shift most of the time, we have only actually slept in the same place at the same time for a total of maybe 5 months, including weekends. And now we have to fix some bad habits that we both have. For example, it's a lot more comfortable to sleep right in the middle of the bed, but that doesn't work out so well when there are two people there.

:::WARNING! WHINY PART COMING!:::

However, Monday itself had lots of unfortunate things happen all within the space of an hour. First off, it rained all day. Since Jax works until 2 and I have to leave for work by 1:30 (1:20 is better) and we are down to one car (seen below) no matter what the weather is like, I have to ride the motorbike. I like motorbikes. I like them a lot more than most people consider to be natural or healthy. I have ridden them in weather that most people consider to be downright stupid and unsuited to motorbike riding. Monday was one of those days. The temperature never really got above freezing, and it was raining all day. Those of you with experience in such things will soon figure out what that means.

Yeah, it was freezing rain. We live in Little Rock and I work in Conway, which is about 30 miles away. The roads weren't slick due to the temperature being about 70 two days earlier, but they were soaking wet, due to the previously mentioned rain that happened to be freezing. So I already knew it would be an unpleasant ride, but I packed a change of clothes for when I got to work and figured that would be that. Sadly, that would not be that.

As usual, I was running a little late when I left for work. I was leaving right at about 1:30, which is enough time for a normal day, but not always enough for account for weather. But there was another problem: I was low on gas. The bike has a low fuel light that illuminates when I have about a gallon left, or enough for about 35 miles. When I had parked it last, it had already been lit for 7 miles. As mentioned previously, I work about 30 miles from home. I figured I would have just enough time to stop along the way and get enough gas to get me to work. But my plan was thwarted by idiot drivers. I attempted to make good time, but was thwarted time and again by people who feel they have the right to drive 55 in the passing lane just because it's raining. Some even attempted to help me realize that it was cold and raining by gesturing in ways which I could only interpret at meaning "It is slick. You are going to die for riding a motorbike in this weather." I responded by passing them. But by the time I was at the last stopping point for gas before getting to Conway, it was too late to stop. I was really hoping that I would make it. I was hoping that just this one time I might make it just a little farther on the last few drops of gas.

As I passed the "Conway 1 Mile" sign on the interstate, the bike sputtered and died. I managed to coast along another quarter mile or so before I was really and truly stuck. As my options were somewhat limited, I hopped off and started pushing.

The manufacturers of these sport bikes make all sorts of claims about how lightweight their bikes are, and they really are. Mine only weighs about 400-425 pounds. But the handlebars are so low that pushing them really isn't very comfortable, especially if you are 6'1". HOwever, since I have already had two motorbikes stolen, I wasn't very keen on leaving it sitting by the highway while I walked to get gas. It seemed unlikely that anyone would steal it that day, but I am kind of a wuss when it comes to keeping my motorbikes in my possession now. In fact, our little joke when we get back from a trip to anywhere, even the grocery store, is to say, "Still there!" in reference to the bike still being parked at home on the patio with the locked gate.

After pushing the bike only about 3/4 mile, someone stopped who happened to have a little bit of two stroke gas, which I gratefully accepted. Two stroke gas has oil mixed in, due to the nature of two stroke engines requiring it. It is not ideal to run it in a regular four stroke engine, like those found in cars and most motorbikes, mine included. But it beat the poo out of pushing that daggum thing any farther. So I got about half a pint of this gas, which was enough to get me to the gas station half a mile away, where I filled up the tank. The bike smoked a little bit, but otherwise it ran just fine and has continued to do so since then.

When I finally got to work, I was about 30 minutes late. I suppose the moral of this story is to go ahead and risk being 2 minutes late by getting gas rather than ending up being 30 minutes late because you ran out. It also really helps me appreciate how much nicer it is to ride the motorbike on a clear, sunny, warm day. When I got to work, I could barely see through the visor on my helmet because it was iced over. My jacket was also covered in ice. I had to scrape some ice off the ignition to be able to put the key in, and I couldn't use my mirrors at all that day due their being covered with ice. I didn't even bother breaking the icicles off the bike because I figured they'd just be back later anyway. But at least it stopped raining and the roads were almost dry when I came home that night.

The ice finally melted Tuesday.

Happy (early) Halloween!

I am just not feeling creative AT ALL. On Tuesday I didn't even go to work, because I got some twenty-four hour virus (well, I'm not entirely over it, but the worst of it was within twenty-four hours). I have done nothing but go to work and read books. I thought I was doing fantastic at about 35 for the year, until I saw my friend's blog, when she said she had finished her 55th book on Sunday. So, that killed that. But, I didn't start my serious book reading until the summer, so I'm not doing so bad.

Adam wants to get a me a motorcycle for my birthday, but we haven't heard from the guy. It's the perfect learner bike and it's only $250!! If we waited til Saturday, then that would be two Novembers in a row that we bought a motorcycle :) Silly Pearces, November is cold!!

Tomorrow is Senior Night at the Alma High School football game. Mark is going to be all over it and I hope I really get to see him! It kinda doesn't look like it's going to happen, so just in case, go Mark!!

Exactly one year ago today, at about this time, Adam and I sat down together and did our very first, very serious budget. Yeah, we'd already been married for ten months, but I had just finished Dave Ramsey's book, The Total Money Makeover so we got down to business. Adam's three jobs was based in this, and that's how we got our headstart :) Not counting the student loans, we'll be (consumer) debt free in about a year, less if the job situation changes. Two years to be COMPLETELY debt free and a year or two more for a huge down payment on a house, so rock on!

Adam and I have pretty much nothing to dress up as for Halloween, so I hope to see lots of pictures from all you, my more creative fan base :) Be safe and have a blast!! Can't wait!!

**No worries, the motorcycle was sold. Guess we won't have to be cold or anything :(

More Growth Opportunities

Someone we know refers to trials and challenges as "growth opportunities." That seems like an appropriate title for this little blog post, as I have had plenty of opportunities to grow over the past few days.

Monday morning just as I was about to put the bike away I apparently picked up a rather large screw in my rear tire. By rather large, I mean that the shaft was a little over 1/4" thick, with very big, coarse threads, a 12mm head and was about 1 1/2 inches long. It was big enough that I had to use a ratchet with a socket to get it out of the tire. Those of you who are familiar with this sort of thing know what this sort of silliness leads too...

Anyway, I never felt the rear tire losing pressure on the ride home form work, so I reckon I must have hit the screw just before getting home, possibly within the parking lot of the apartment complex. At 6:30 when I was parking the bike it was fine. At 7:30, when I was going for some pre-employment testing the back tire was completely flat. As usual I was running just slightly late before discovering this fun little fact, so by the time I got back inside and got the bike stuff taken off and got DW out of bed, we were running slightly later.

When I got out of the previously mentioned testing, DW was at work, and I was pretty well stranded across town. I finished and was ready to go home at about 11:30, but Jacalyn wouldn't get off work until 2, and I had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep Sunday evening, with my last real batch of sleep being Sunday morning. I was slightly sleepy by this time. With no way home. So I got to try out another new adventure. I called a cab. This may not seem like much of an adventure, but it was my first ride in a taxi in the United States that I can remember.

Anyway, I got home and tried to get some sleep. Eventually DW got home and told me she was working an extra shift that night. When I got up, I discovered that she had bought me some stuff to try to plug the tire. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I needed, mostly due to the size of the hole, so I went for a walk to the store and bought what I thought was the right stuff to plug the tire and hopefully be able to keep using it.

When I got home, I plugged it and all seemed to be well. I went to work without any trouble. But Tuesday morning I had a flat tire again. I had enough air to ride to the gas station and buy a bigger plug to try again. It was also sprinkling Tuesday morning, but I was more annoyed at the tire than the rain. Anyway, the plug was holding just fine Tuesday, so I quit worrying about that.

Wednesday night, when I got to Grandma's house for dinner, I learned that the plug was once again not holding air. This time I just grabbed my bicycle pump to be able to make it to work and back. It takes a while to fill up a motorcycle tire with a bicycle pump, just so you know. Also Wednesday night it started to actually rain. It rained all night. When I got off work in the morning it was raining even harder. If you ever have a chance to ride a motorbike in the rain with a slowly deflating rear tire, I suggest you take it. That way you'll really appreciate how much fun riding on a nice, bright, sunny day with good tires really is. Luckily I have done a trackday in the rain before, so I knew that my tries would have plenty of grip. It was just a matter of getting home and then getting dry.

I guess this whole post has been a long way of saying that we got to buy a fancy, shiny, new tire for the motorbike.

The Joys of Batteries

There are all sorts of things we tend to take for granted in life. We often just flip the switch and expect the lights to come on. We turn the key and the car just starts. We hit the button and the radio comes on. In fact, if one of these things doesn't happen as expected, we will often continue doing the appropriate action just hoping that the thing not working the first time was just a fluke of some sort. When Jacalyn's car's starter went out for the last time (about a year ago, I think), I can't even count how many times I turned the key, hoping that it would start just one more time.

Then there are the things we know we need to keep charged up, but sometimes forget to charge. Things like iPods and cellphones. I had three (3) batteries go out on me Tuesday night. My first gen iPod nano has been having trouble making a charge last for the past few months. When it was new it would last about 14 hours on a charge. Now it will only last about 6 hours, and that's if I can keep it warm, which is tricky since I keep it in my pocket while riding to work. I usually have a USB charger in my backpack so I can charge it at work, but I forgot to take it with me, so I was stuck with a dead iPod early in the night.

Next up was my cellphone battery. I knew the battery was getting low already, but it died on me while I was talking to Jacalyn on break that night. She thought I had hung up on her, but fortunately I was in the office so I could use their phone to finish talking.

Finally, on my last break of the night, while I was heading for the break area, I realized that I had left my grip heaters turned on. I have them wired directly to the battery because it was easier to do it that way. On the downside, if I forget to turn them off they drain the battery. This was the second time I have done it. I did it once back in February or March, back when I first got them, and now again, one of the first times I have used them since last winter... Oops. When I put the key in and turned it, instead of the dash lighting up and the fuel pump priming, I was greeted by nothing. Absolutely nothing. I killed it so dead that the speedometer and odometers all reset to kilometers. Fortunately we have a battery charger at work, so I just pulled the bike inside and hooked it up for the last two hours of the night. I also know how to get everything back into miles now, since I had to do that back in February/March...

Anyway, that was my brief experience with excitement Tuesday night. I hope my next brush with excitement is less problematic.

It's a Novel!

I just haven't felt like updating, so I've let it slide. I guess that's not the best way to take it on, but I've been using my optimistic energy elsewhere in my life (and it's working!) so this place kinda got left out of the mix.

Since our last update, Adam had interview at a plant in North Little Rock; they told us we would hear back from their boss the next week (last week) because they couldn't make the decision to hire him or not. All of that optimistic energy has kept me from slipping into more depression, since this place contacted him and seemed extremely interested. After all of our work and waiting, we were sure this was the one. The longer we don't know anything, the less I think it's going to happen, so I guess we're just going to have to pick up again and keep looking. We've been doing it for over a year, so we know the routine.

Since our last update, we made it up to Alma for the last time for who knows how long. Dad Neely got a 2006 Ford Escape Limited. I'm not really sure why, other than he can, and it's the first vehicle that is mainly for him, that he doesn't have to haul kids around or anything like that. He has worked long and hard his entire life, so it's awesome that he gets to have something nice. My little brother is a senior this year! :-o I remember when he was small enough to be bathed in the kitchen sink (!!) and he's going to graduate high school in a few short months!! Yay for the Alma Class of 2009!

Since our last update, we went to White Hall for Labor Day. It's our tradition now; we first went together in 2006 when we were engaged, in 2007 for our first married Labor Day and this year, just because we can. Mom Pearce was wonderful and setup our bed before we got there. Even though it was still on the floor, we got to sleep on a real bed!!! How stinkin exciting!! She told us all about her plans for her new kitchen--she is so wildly excited, it's great :) We experimented with a new recipe she found (can you tell i'm just miserable being her guinea pig??) We went to the P.B. Ward's pancake breakfast, and it was good. I'm still not an early morning person, but it was worth it. Instead of going straight back home, they gave me a guided tour of Pine Bluff and White Hall, because I mentioned something about the Pines Mall. Haha! It was cool listening to them talk about stuff from way back when; espcially the part about Sylvie ramping that car at that railroad crossing. :)

Since our last update, I've done some of my community service at the Humane Society; I'm about five minutes over half-way. The animals are so sad! In the cages, not able to do much, some of them just cry the whole time. I love animals, but I hate seeing them in there; at least they are getting care while they're in there, instead of being put to sleep or anything, so it's not a completely horrible situation, just sad. I also did the Primary Activity Day, because the nursery toys desperately needed to be cleaned and organized. Now, I'm the offical Nursery Leader! Hooray for running around with 2 and 3 year olds on Sundays! I love it so much!! Some people say Nursery is the best form of birth control, but I think it's the opposite for me. Maybe I'm just twisted, but a room full of toddlers is fun for me (unless I haven't gotten enough sleep, in which case nothing is fun). I look forward to them every week! Our little chatter boxes and our quiet ones, I love them all :D

Since our last update, Adam has ridden with his motorcycle buddies two weekends in a row. Last weekend, he went by himself (I was at the aforementioned nursery activity) and had a blast. He came back sore and tired, but with so many more miles on his bike and much more comfortable with it. This (now past) weekend, he wanted me to come with him. Some of his friends in Batesville offered us a place to stay, so we could come up Friday night instead of leaving at the buttcrack of dawn from LR. Their son (who goes to school at Harding) met us in Searcy and took us on some back roads the rest of the way to Batesville. It was fun! They had food waiting for us when we got there (tacos!) and we watched the movie Elf, since Adam and I hadn't seen it. We had a great time with them. Saturday morning, we were up early (they had pancakes for us! yummy!) and on the road by a little after 8:00. The original plan was to meet a group in Mountain View and play on all their favorite twisty highways and end up in a little town in the middle of nowhere (somewhere outside of Fayetteville) to each lunch and make our way back to Batesville and on home. After once up and back on their most favorite twisty, I was nautious. I also had this sore throat; I thought it was because the friends' house was so cold and that it would go away, but it never did. It started getting worse. Not to mention, this new motorcycle, the R6S, is O% passenger friendly (not that it's designed to be, but neither was the GSX-R and I had no problems on it) and I was aching after a few short hours. Somewhere in there, we all changed our minds to head to Jonesboro, for a big event at a dealership (free food and a DINO, a thing that tests your motorcycle's RPMs, I think; ask Adam to be sure) . I was in pain by this point, even after trading bikes for a slightly more passenger friendly one (the guy originally on this bike wanted to really play anyway, and Adam was the only one carrying a passenger, so it was the perfect situation). Every muscle in my body was aching and my throat was hurting the longer we kept going. A few miles outside of Jonesboro, I was in tears. I can say that I didn't wimp out, but from now on, I definitely will! To top it all off? The big event at the dealer was over by the time we got there! Story of my life! We all went out to Chili's (not so free, but definitely worth it) and afterwards, when everyone else left for Batesville, we got a hotel (yay for Comfort Inn! It's the best). I slept for ten hours straight. My throat was worse, but I wasn't as sore. I ate half a bagel for breakfast, and took a two hour nap before we had to check out. The only way home was on the motorcycle (the uncomfortable one) and it was excruciating! We stopped often and got plenty of fluid and I survived. We got home at 3:30 and I went straight to sleep. I've only been up a few times to go to the bathroom, and of course, type my little heart out here.

There you have it! All of it! I'm now exhausted, so I'm going to get some more Russian Delight and head back to bed! I've been up for over an hour! If I sleep for twenty more hours, hopefully I'll be over all this and back to my normal self. Guess we'll see!

Happy Birthday Adam!

Today is my beloved's 30th birthday. Thirty years ago at about this time, he was all of a few hours old! He already told you a little bit about his party Saturday, and that was all that I planned. I didn't really have much in mind for him for today, his actual birth day because I was so worried about Saturday. But Grandma took us out to eat at New China (yay grandma!) and then she and I went grocery shopping while Adam went to check something out at Cycle Gear. I promised him we would go get him a toy moto just like the one on his birthday cake, but we didn't make it in time! :( I'm really sorry Adam! But, we will get it later. Grandma also reminded me about a present I bought him months ago, that she hid for me. So he got the soundtrack to Firefly a short lived TV show that he really likes and a cute little wood block puzzle from our neighbors across the street, Don and Jamie. Unfortunately, it's supposed to rain tonight, so although he got to ride his motorbike to work last night, he didn't get to tonight. But, lucky for him, he has a horrible wife who forces it to rid it quite regularly! ;-)

Also, for those of you on the job watch, we'll (*crosses fingers--hopefully) have an update about the results of his aptitude testing/possible interview. This may be the one!! Everyone dig up your extra prayers for us, we need them!!!

Pre-Birthday Fun

Work has done something odd which has been kind of entertaining lately. This month we have only been working 4 days per week. There simply isn't enough work for us to do due to all sorts of politics (national and within the company itself). But since we're only working 4 days per week, we have usually had Fridays off. For the last two weeks we have had Mondays off instead, which is just as nice from my point of view. Mostly because it allows me to go to job interviews on Mondays when I'm theoretically more awake and alert due to sleeping more during the weekend than I normally can during the work week. This is especially convenient this week because I have a job interview tomorrow for a job that both of us are both pretty excited about. Hopefully it will go well. Anyone with some spare prayers should feel free to share with us. We both want it for various reasons, including (but not limited to) the work schedule would be days instead of nights, higher pay, better working conditions, a much shorter commute, and some other stuff that I can't think of right now.

But back to the fun stuff! Jacalyn set up a surprise birthday party for me! Yes, I actually was very surprised. I had no idea whatsoever what was going to happen. She arranged a kiddie pool and lots of water balloons and such for a nice water fight to go along with a custom-made cake with a motorbike on it. It really was sweet and I had a wonderful time splashing in the water with the kids that came over. I'm turning 30 on Tuesday but I got to splash around with 2-year-olds like a kid too. The best thing was a toy that one of our friends brought. It's basically a water-powered rocket launcher that you hook up to the hose. It comes with a "throttle" that allows you to control the amount of water that shoots out of the end to lift a plastic rocket into the air. You can blast it as high as it will go, or you can make it hover and then land again. I think it was called a Rocket Sprinkler, and I think I could probably play with it for hours on end if the kids would have let me. We went to Walgreens to look for one but we couldn't find one. We still have Wal Mart if we get really desperate... I might get desperate. That thing was serious fun!

I also went for a motorbike ride yesterday morning. That went well also. I went for a "spirited" ride about a month ago and I just never felt comfortable during the ride, like I was fighting the bike the entire time. I went last week and it felt better, but still not quite right. This weekend was the first time I really "clicked" or "gelled" with the bike and it did exactly what I wanted it to do when I wanted it to do it. I even got my knee down for the first time since November, which was exciting for me, even though that's a skill that doesn't really need to be used on the street... Oopsy. But I am still glad that I finally felt confident enough to have a little fun with the bike. On a side note, I rode the bike all winter long and never even got a cold. I have been driving the cars a lot more since the spring and I have gotten sick twice so far this summer. Clearly this means that riding a motorbike in the winter is better for your health than driving a car in the spring and summer.

The Weekend Plans

Apparently I have a blogging disorder, as when I went to create this blog post, I typed one word, accidentally hit enter, which posted it and then realized I was still signed in on Adam's account, because this is his computer.

But, we got it all sorted out now, so we will continue with the regularly scheduled blog! :)

Adam and I started our weekend of date nights on Thursday night by borrowing a few more movies from the library and then by having an argument at the mall. From now on, I guess I will have to save the shopping for myself! But we gave it up, went back home and got the moto and rode out to Pinnacle Mountain. For those who may not know, Pinnacle Mountain is where he proposed and we started this whole mess ;-) We did not get to go there this year, since this year is Alma's rotation. It was a little bit weird seeing Pinnacle not on the 4th of July and we didn't hike it since it was so late, but it was so refreshing. After we left Pinnacle Mountain, we meandered our way back to Cheeburger-Cheeburger for our favorite shakes. This time, Adam got a grape flavored shake and a sprite and I got chocolate covered banana-cookie dough (I've been craving cookie dough all week long for a few certain reasons). There was the cutest little family there and we really liked playing with the two kids across the restaurant. The Mom was very, very pregnant, poor woman, and the Dad looked extremely young. It's so much fun to just sit and muse and people watch--especially since they were all staring at us, because we had all of our motorcycle gear. Then we came home and fell asleep watching John Cleese's How to Irritate People.

Today, we slept in like nobody's business (well, I woke up at 7:15, like I normally do, and was really irritated when I couldn't go back to sleep like I wanted) and it was glorious! Grandma made fried bread and Doug actually showed up! Amazing! Mom Pearce talked about her new kitchen all afternoon and we went shopping with her, while she's getting ideas of what she wants. It was kind of fun. We found a wedding present for some of Adam's friends (Loaded Questions!! Heck yeah!!) and then came back to the house for a bit before leaving again. We decided to go to the Big Dam Bridge and walk around. We felt rain drops and had talked about going somewhere else, so we didn't go all the way across, but instead we sat in the middle on the little park benches they have there. We talked about so many things and it was wonderful, until I spotted a huge (okay, it was huge to me anyway) arachnid and that kind of killed things. So we headed back, since we were feeling more rain drops (but not seeing any rain clouds or anything) but decided to go play at the "beach" part instead of leaving. It was awesome! The water was warm and we wrote in the sand with sticks. A man a little bit down from us caught a fish and let me watch him take it off and almost throw it back in the river (he said it was the wrong kind for him, but some other people asked him if they could have it). It was definitely cool! Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures, because Adam forgot the camera in the car...Oops!

Before this novel gets any longer, I will stop for now. I have a surprise for Adam (he doesn't have any idea what it is, and unfortunately I can't tell any of you either, since he'd see it, hehe) so soon we will have a much larger, more exciting post. But it's wonderfully relaxing to spend the weekend with your best friend with no plans in mind.

Go Figure

Adam is sick! :( This is the second time this summer he's gotten a cold. We can't really figure it out; he bought the motorcycle in November and rode it all winter in the freezing weather and he never once got so much as a runny nose. We fixed the car in May (I think) and now he's sick again! But he's slept for about 12 hours so far and doesn't have to get up for another hour, so hopefully he'll feel better soon. Guess we gotta get him back on the bike :)

We seemed to have kicked the job hunt into high gear, and I still feel like we're getting nowhere. Some days it bothers me more than others, so that must mean I'm learning patience! Yay for growth opportunities! If he applies for enough, there will surely be one that will come along, and he's applying for everything he can find.

That Gershwin CD we picked up at the library has this unfortunate tick, but I still adore Gershwin's music, so I haven't let it bother me. Having Rhapsody in Blue stuck in my head the past few days has been splendid! Having the library card has been useful too. We've watched two DVD's listened to one CD and I'm about to finish off my second book in five days. Unfortunately, every time we go, I get more, so I'm not really getting anywhere! It's okay, I love it. Too bad I can't get paid to read, we'd be very well off ;-)

Grandma and I are watching the Cubs play at the moment, so that's all for now!