Harley and the Boss

That would be Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and the Boss is none other than rocker Bruce Springsteen, who headlined the Motor Company's 105th anniversary celebration in Milwaukee over the weekend. Good ol' rock & roll from an American artist... and arriving a bit late by five years.

When Harley-Davidson hosted their big bash in 2003 to mark 100 years of their motorcycles, they decided to treat the attendees to a different kind of performance. They proudly introduced Sir Elton John! Say wha? A British, openly gay pop musician seemed to be the antithesis of the Harley-Davidson image/lifestyle. What were the Harley suits thinking? Let's say they were right and that well-to-do yuppies are their biggest customers (who love Elton John's music)... these riders would be loathe to admit this publicly. It's all about that image remember?

There was no turning back the hands of time (it was the 100 year anniversary ferchrissakes!), but this is a nice consolation for the less significant 105th. Harley-Davidson... born in the USA!

New Orleans

Gustav arrives... shades of Katrina 2005! The entire gulf coast seems to be vulnerable to hurricanes, and often big ones at that, so why do people stay and rebuild? No matter. I'm more curious as to why these areas do not build with hurricanes in mind (or perhaps they have, or there's an explanation with which I am unaware).

Dating back to my studies in high school, I learned of Richard Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome. Homes based on the geodesic dome have greater structural integrity compared to the traditional house, but unless you have entire communities on board with the concept, they are anything but conventional.

So, buck tradition and convention and maybe you will be the only kid on the block to still have a house standing. Interested? Check this site out for more information.

Pay-As-You-Drive

State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said the plan will give drivers the option of paying for their automobile insurance based in part on how many miles they drive.

It is possible CA will join 34 other states in offering automobile insurance that charge by the number of miles driven. Woohoo! I am averaging 2600 miles per year on my pickup truck and paying about 25 cents per mile in premiums... and betting that this plan will save me a few bucks. We'll see.

Leno on Bush

I got the folowing in the email from a friend:


Subject: Jay Leno on President Bush (Surprising)

The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right? The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and wants a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, "what are we so unhappy about?"

A. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?

B. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?

C. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

E. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?

F. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?

G. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.

H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

I. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.

J. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.

K. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

L. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

M. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?

Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.

Fact is we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad?

Think about it... are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the "Media" told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day. Make no mistake about it.

The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a "general" discharge, an "other than honorable" discharge or, worst case scenario, a "dishonorable" discharge after a few days in the brig. So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?

Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by "justifying" them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way... Insane!

Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative. With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?

Jay Leno

In Brief...

Time magazine is online (duh, like who isn't these days?) and I came across this article entitled "Haiku Nation". Here is the opening excerpt:

Short is in. Online Americans, fed up with e-mail overload and blogorrhea, are retreating into micro-writing. Six-word memoirs. Four-word film reviews. Twelve-word novels. Mini-lit is thriving.

So many (insert your favorite guilty pleasure here), so little time. We live in a society at an age where life is passing us by at a blistering clip; people have become less tolerant of bloated online content. Me? My patience falls somewhere inbetween, and yes, I did sign up for a Twitter account.

This was inevitable, as can be witnessed by a history of Reader's Digest and CliffsNotes.

Women's Beach Volleyball

I haven't followed the Olympics that closely, but tonight I am tuned in to the women's beach volleyball finals. U.S.'s May-Treanor/Walsh versus China's Tian/Wang, and it is raining as they play. I know... it's not live, really.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh took the gold, having defended their title from the 2004 Athens Olympics. Congrats!

KFC and Area51

I have been meaning to post this tidbit (referring to a photo on this blogsite of the Colonel Sanders logo... see below). Coming home from my mid-June visit to Flagstaff, AZ, I decided not to ride through Rachel, NV as originally planned. Before embarking on that ride to Northern Arizona, I did a little research and discovered that the 80,000+ square foot logo was removed in April 2007.

I was looking forward to getting an up-close and personal view of this marvel (check out the satellite view in Google Maps while it's still there!). Bummer.

Dog Meat

In the interest of catering to the Westerners attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China decided to remove dog meat from the menu. Could be that they're now calling it some kinda special chicken dish, such as moo goo gow pan?

Spitz by a Split

Yo, Mark Spitz! Olympics swimming champion Michael Phelps just snagged his 7th gold medal in Beijing to tie Spitz' 1972 record. This was accomplished in the 100-meter butterfly by just a split-second over 2nd place Serbia (0.01 seconds... that's one-hundredth of a second folks)!

Could be what a difference a moustache makes.

$8 Billion for Inmates

That's $8,000,000,000 for prisoner health care in California. At a $15 billion dollar budget deficit, the Schwarzenegger Administration is already imposing state worker cuts to the tune of layoffs and reduction of wages (a federal minimum of $6.55/hr and $11.38/hr for management).

Maybe Arnold can cover the additional eight bil by laying off all supervisors and managers, or cutting theirs to federal minimum wages as well.

As a CA taxpayer, it kinda makes you wanna think "gas 'em... gas 'em all" (the incarcerated, that is).

TV Soundtrack Volume

I'm posting a pissy rant here. Ever watch a TV show that has a soundtrack (especially music) inserted for additional emphasis during a dynamic scene? This seems to be a popular cinematic formula for fast-action cop dramas, such as "NUMB3RS" (which is on the boob toob as I type) and the "CSI" triumverate.

My beef is the volume imbalance between the script's dialogue and the music. I assume it's the producers to blame, but why must they crank up the decibels for the music to an irritating level? Maybe my TV system isn't sophisticated enough to have some sort of adjustment that automatically regulates these volume changes; I just find it inconvenient to have to manually adjust the volume for these passages.

Am I the only one sensitive to the loudness?

Jamie Elvidge

Jamie Elvidge is perhaps the most widely recognized female in motorcycle journalism, well qualified for this profession having ridden motorcycles for over half her life. From what I understand, she left her post as chief editor of Motorcycle Cruiser magazine to pursue a freelance career (I just ran across her recent review of the BMW F800GS in an online publication by the American Motorcyclist Association). She was once married to Perry King, actor and avid motorcyclist himself (the role that comes to my mind was in an '80s TV show called "Riptide"), with whom she had their teenage daughter, Hannah. I believe Jamie still splits her time between Los Angeles and here in Northern Caifornia.

I first met Jamie at Copper Mountain, Colorado on a Motorcyle Cruiser sponsored "readers' ride", where the magazine hosted the event for the first 10 readers to respond. That was late August, 2004. I rode with her, another editor and several other riders over Independence Pass in the Rockies, through Aspen, lunch, Vail and back to Copper Mountain.

Well guess what? Today I happened to be window shopping at one of my favorite department stores and recognized Jamie (who was with Hannah), so I got her attention and we chatted a bit. She remembers meeting me in Colorado and the few emails we've exchanged back then. This store is close to home for me, but I think Jamie lives outside Sacramento toward the foothills. But I could be mistaken since Hannah's shirt identified her school as being one that is nearby. My guess: back-to-school shopping.

All I'm saying is, "how cool is that?".

Bandwidth

A couple of days ago I decided to check my internet bandwidth using a free online service. It has been nearly two weeks since I had last done this, and was surprised to find a drop in my download speeds. I checked several times with similar results. Same last night, and ditto earlier this evening. About 10 minutes ago I decided to recycle my network equipment: modem, switch and WiFi router.

All is good again. I'd recommend performing routine tests to establish a pattern that you can use to spot anomalies to keep your system up-to-snuff. My favorite is at www.speedtest.net, and someday I will get their app installed on my website.

Local Politics

Our local politicians proposed a tax for Sacramento County to put 50-60 new police officers on the payroll to deal with gang activity. Got shot down. A later proposal sought to accomplish this within the city of Sacramento, hiking only the city tax and not the county tax. Strike two.

Yesterday, our officers have been tasked to begin cracking down on jaywalkers in South Sacramento. Hmm, how 'bout we create an anti-gang unit from these existing officers who are all too eager to protect and serve?