Moto Insanity!

Kids, do NOT try this at home!

Adults, you probably shouldn't try it either, or at least not with your kids watching.

You should probably buy a cellphone charging cooking pot instead. Wait, what? Imagine what inventions get turned away at the Japanese patent office. Bloggable content provided by Juan Douglas.

Ahh the wilderness

Yep, we did it. Laura and I took off on the bike after work on Friday and ventured forth into the Great Beyond, which, in this case, turns out to be the backwoods of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. As you can see in the map below, we cruised from Burlington up through Jeffersonville and over Smuggler's Notch to Stowe, grabbed some dinner at Pie in the Sky, and pressed on until dark, finally establishing residence in a campground on the shores of Lake Eden.

The campsite was nice and secluded, even included its own roadsign, though we were the only campsite there. We made a semi-pitiful attempt at a campfire and smores and then the skies opened up and it started raining. Hard. I have to say, the tent I got at the Outdoor Gear Exchange was incredible. Zero leakage, drippage, wetness etc. Woke up dry and refreshed despite the torential downpoor that lasted most of the night.

Scooted up through Newport, the NEK, Northern New Hampshire, and across into Maine. I've not spent much (if any) time in the backwoods of Maine. Let me provide you a small snapshot of what you may expect this summer:

1. Black flies: Roughly the size of your head and nearly as abundant as....
2. Mosquitos: Roughly the size of a small domesticated animal, but with the voracity of a pack of Raptors and the cunning to penetrate the most stalwart of defenses. Clever girl....
3. MOOSE: Roughly the size of a tractor and probably about as fun to run into. Saw two lady moose on the side of the road and it really takes a moment for the size of the animal to sink in when you are on a very small and very vulnerable motorcycle.
3. Rough roads: Miles and miles and miles of them. Almost ran out of gas on the Triumph, that would have not been so pleasant, but neither was the jarring on what appeared to be a slightly improved version of the Oregon Trail.
4. Sunshine!*


(*Sunshine may also include, but is not limited to: light rain, regular rain, heavy rain, thunder, lightning, hail, apocalypse, and misery.)

There are some more adventures to relate from 603 and 207, but duty calls...

Weekend?

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This is the plan, let's see how close I come...

I took my skoolin on the interweb

Who needs fancy colleges and classes to learn advanced problem solving techniques when you have the SOAK (Source Of All Knowledge) at your fingertips? Drew provided this gem to show just how you assess a mechanical issue and then quickly arrive at the appropriate repair procedure. Problem Solved!

Apologies

I haven't posted anything to the blog in a long long time and, well, I'm sure my faithful reading base (all inclusive of housemates, parents, grandparents, and 3 random randys) so I figured I would share some thoughts from the LoB (Life of Ben) as appropriate.

Google Fastflip: Very cool way to scan through a bunch of interesting articles without actually having to go anywhere. See something you like? Continue reading.

I got a GoPro HD Camera and have started filming some activities. Basically this is a great way to show what I was doing right before things went horribly horribly wrong. But what could go wrong!? I took the camera out while riding around on the dirtbikes Saturday, pretty fun being able to take it in the woods/rain/mud without fear of breaking it. A bit strange having something other than a helmet attached to your head. I happened to walk into a tree and got myself stuck. How could this happen you ask? Well, just wait for the video. I'll upload them as soon as I take the time to edit out the 99% of footage that no one cares about. So look forward to more video content on the blog including: Racing motorcycles, Dirtbikes, Snowboard, Wakeboards, etc. Maybe check this out if you are looking for a preview of what is to come, HA! <Check this out!>

I have been in Vermont the entire month of June so far, which is sort of strange. I did take a quick motorcycle ride down to Boston and Cape Cod to test drive a new vehicle for when the truck dies, but other than that I've kept it 100% homegrown. It's been pretty nice, after my winter/spring of nearly constant travel, but the weather hasn't quite been cooperating. Haven't been able to get out on the boat or the bike very much at all. A shame.

In sad local news, The Blue Ribbon, Greg's 1984 American Skier has been passed along to someone who will have more time to enjoy it and energy to fix it. Here is a memorial picture to make everyone say "Well those were the days..."

Perhaps some of you have heard of the new HBO series "Game of Thrones" and some of you may even be following it faithfully. Well, I started reading the series upon which the television series is based and let me tell you, it is a time commitment. George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" series is a medieval soap opera of exquisite detail spread out over approximately 1,000,000 pages that is, well, exhausting. I recently finished the third book in the quadology (please do not attempt to use that word in the Words with Friends) and had to take a real deep breath before plunging in for the finale. 

Speaking of Words with Friends, the Scrabble-ish app for your mobile phone, I would like to see who decided exactly what constitues a word and what does not. One of these days I'll start writing down the words that are played (against me) for absurd points when they are obviously not words. Likewise, I'll record all of the non-words that I so fabulously play and are rejected by the system. Mibvel I say! Absolute Rubnish! I'll shaket my fistum for theere unappropriatenessity!

So again, I'm sorry for not updating the blog more often, I'll do my best to not let you all down in the future. Of course the quality is exactly proportional to my salary as a blogger....