Mornin' Folks

Not much been happening in my little motorcycle world. Reading about my daily morning commute would get very monotonous, as well as possibly freak out my parents. Not that I ride dangerously, mind you, but I do have a tendency to lane split, and that freaks out my parents, especially my grandma.

So I will not remind them of that on a daily bases. I guess I could regale you with tales of my weekend (always a good fall-back plan!). This weekend was a holiday weekend *Yipee* so a lot of riding was accomplished. I spent the better part of cloudy Saturday cleaning my bike of all the awful grime that had accumulated when I road it briefly in the rain on Monday. I even went as far as taking off my saddlebags to clean the fender underneath, and gave my chain a good clean and lube.

Which brings me to a temporary rant. I hate chain drives! I hate them! It is such a pain to have to clean that blasted chain. You have to get down on all fours to reach all the nooks and crannies, stand up and slowly walk your bike forward a few steps, then get back on your knees and do it all over again.

Hate it!

The chain may very well end up being a reason for not keeping Alexia for very long. Not to say I will be getting rid of her anytime soon, she hasn't even hit 10k miles yet! I also do not have the funds to get another bike at the moment. However, should the opportunity arise, I may very well be tempted to move up to a 1100 of some other bike. I may even try out a sports bike for a short time. Hmmmm...

This may also be the fact I got beat by a corvette the other day. I got off the line first, but I was struggling to get the bike up into 5th gear when the 'vet zoomed ahead of me with a gear or two to spare.

Oops, mom and dad, don't read the part above.

Sunday was spent just riding and walking around the coast. First I went over to Laguna Beach. While I have cruised LB via PCH many a time, I have never actually walked around LB. So Sunday I did. There was a small artisans craft fair going on, a pro marijuana protest in progress, and a ton of people just there to hang on the beach. I found a great little bead shop, so now I won't have to order as much of my stuff.

I left LB around 3:00 and headed up PCH to Huntington Beach. HB also has a craft fair every weekend from dawn till about 4:00 pm. I found the Knucklehead Industries booth and bought a bracelet from him (www.knucklehead.biz), and also found a really fun shirt booth (www.alanscottdesign.com) that had some bleached out designs on short and long sleeved shirts, and some really nice hoodies. I normally hate hoodies, but did like these. They were similar to my Dragonfly hoodie (www.dragonflyclothing.com).

After HB I cruised around Balboa and then headed home, slightly tired and very satisfied.

"Time, is on your side. Yes it is."

As I attempt to spread myself even thinner and dive into more and more online motorcycle related stuff (the perfect marriage of at least two of my passions) I came across this website:

http://www.mbiweb.org/

Go and check it out and tell me that is not a perfect wedding gift for the marriage of my passion for computer stuff and motorcycle stuff. Go on, tell me!

Nice relaxing weekend, NOT

So I was asked by my Grandma J to come up to Bakersfield for the weekend to celebrate Mothers Day. Sure, put a damper on my birthday weekend! This is why I hate having my birthday on this date. It always falls around M-day weekend, and I have to set aside my entitled ond day of selfishness to accommodate the loving and caring maternal figures in my life. This will be continued on www.angipants.blogdrive.com.


So I road up to Bakersfield with Uncle T. Uncle S. was to have joined us, but alas his brilliant idea of riding up with us while his girlfriend follows behind in his truck with their two dogs was shot down faster than Michael Johnson running a 10 meter dash. (For those of you not in the know, that's fast.)

Now some of you who have blog hopped among my different blogs may remember mention of an accident T and I came across on one of our trips up. Well, now you get to hear about another.

We had stopped at the Magic Mountain exit to fuel up and eat, and jumped back on the road at about 1:00 PM. A little ways up we picked up a stray biker who decided to stick with us on our way. I would say we were 50 out from MM when as we were coming around a curve, a driver in the van ahead of us started to do the "slow-down" gesture. At first I was just surprised a car was giving a bike that signal, but then old brainy kicked in and I started to ease on the brakes. Traffic started stopping fast in front of me, so I changed into the the #1 lane, while T and the stray moved their bikes over to the #4 lane. I had a bunch of debris in front of me, and did a beautiful weave maneuver to avoid all the obstacles. I then realized that T and the stray were over in the #4 lane, so I cut across (safely, as traffic had stopped behind me) and passed a truck (dodge ram type) and trailer that had been overturned. I realized that everyone had stopped for that.

I pulled my bike off to the left shoulder, turned it off, and ran over to the truck. T was already on top of it, holding a woman by her arm throught the busted out window. I climbed up and looked in. There was a woman in the passenger seat, still buckled in, and hanging down from her seatbelt. A man was in the driver seat, and it looked like he was sitting on the ground, where his side window used to be. There was also a dog (golden retriever?) sitting in the back seat area, trembling.

Stray guy was standing by the back window, and T told him to kick out the window. He kicked in the bottom panel, and then someone handed him a towel, and he just pulled out the rest of the panes. After some maneuvering, two guys by the back window were able to get the dog out. A woman grabbed his leash and then sat with the dog by the divider, trying to calm it down. Thank (insert deity here) and all that is good that the dog was in the truck, and not in the bed of the truck.

With the dog out, the man could now twist around and crawl out the back window. That left the woman, still stuck hanging in her seat by her seat belt. A guy dropped through the passenger side window and then stuck his arms under her to cradle her. A box cutter was produced and T and I worked on the seatbelt straps to cut her out. Once she was free, the guy holding her pushed her up through the window and handed her up to us. A guy who said he is a nurse showed up and began checking out the guy, and then the woman once we got her out and sitting on the ground. CHP then showed up and said thanks for all the help, but if you didn't witness the accident, you need to leave. T and I took that as our cue. We got some bottles of water to wash the blood off of our hands, and then walked over to our bikes. Stray guy followed us over, and without a word, we all got on our bikes and continued heading north.

Stray guy took off on a different route after another 20 miles or so, and T and I made it to Bakersfield without any other drama. I never even found out the stray guys name, but I thought it so cool that he stopped with us to help out. Thank you stray guy!