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I passed the Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider’s course. Everyone who travels the highways can now breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that I am a safer, saner motorcyclist.

Take thirteen men, two woman and some of the toughest motorcycles on the planet, everything from the mighty KLR 650 to the monstrous BMW 1200 GS Adventure (add a Suzuki V-strom and a Honda 250 for good measure) and turn them loose on the twisty backroads and dusty fire trails of Ventura County. To keep…

Last night Maureen and I watched The Bucket List. This is not a modern classic, but it is not as bad as the TV trailers led me to believe. It’s a better-than-average film for a “nothing on TV” evening. The premise of the movie is that two geezers, dying of cancer, decide to seize the day…

After my terrifying ride home from RPM Cycles I stashed the BMW R 1200 GS in the garage and hid from it for a few days. Over Labor Day weekend I found the nerve to saddle up and do some turns in the foothills. I spent ten minutes in a cul-de-sac doing figure eights. I’m…

The BMW GS series bikes (Gelände/Straße, or “off-road”/”road”) are known by their owners as “pigs.”  The term seems to be most often used to describe the R1150 GS, which is aggressively ugly with its bulbous gas tank. Nevertheless R1200 GS is ugly in its own special Transformers sort of way. When you see the bike on the…

Five guys, five days, a whole lot of poop. The trip was Two Harbors on Santa Catalina, just a lazy week of island living. Subject matter was “a life in exile” from the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. Excellent teacher and guardian of decorum was Miz Nataroonie. 

Where does one go for enlightenment? The Dude Abides Blog of course.

With the floor open and some critical wiring exposed it was natural to detour our plans and re-wire the ceiling fan in the room below. When that sub-project was done it was time to button up the floor with a fresh sheet of 5/8″ plywood. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to leave some hidden treasure…in…

                Looking at this photo of migrating Golden Rays published in the Telegraph, I can’t help but feel that there is more driving our planet than random happenstance.

Once you commit yourself to a certain level of perfection in a project you find yourself captive to forces beyond your control. This is what happened when I pulled up the carpet in Norah’s room. There was a soft spot between two sheets of plywood. It looked as if someone had dropped an 18 lb.…

I want to be at 24,000 words today with my shitty first draft But of course I have to finish the flooring, molding, touch-up spackle and painting of the writer’s lair. But since we have the dumpster only until Monday morning, what I really need to be doing is pulling up carpet in the entire upper…

How is the novel coming? Thanks for asking. IT SUCKS. Of course the most important part of any good writing is the writer’s lair. Which means that I have to install laminate flooring. On the entire upper floor…because once you’ve done one room you really kind of have to do all the rest of the…

Because there is not enough pain and suffering in my life, I’ve decided to write a novel.  It’s turning into a big yak-shaving project. As one might expect. More than anything what I need right now is a set of flat washers. So that I can shim the latch-strike on Norah’s door. I know, I…

Thanks to a freak storm, the Habitat Works Memorial Day Weekend Tamarisk Extirpation Pack & Die trip has been canceled. And I bought an expensive new sweater from Patagonia for the occasion.  Then Doug called and asked if I wanted to climb some real rock up near Wheeler Gorge. Sure! Why not? First time for…