I was *supposed* to be heading down to California starting today, on a five day trip to Chester, CA with a group of fellow sport-touring riders. Personal commitments caused me to have to cancel that and I figured the weekend was a complete wash. Then my local riding buddy Jim started talking about a short trip out to the coast. Hmm, I have to be here Sunday and Monday, but Friday and Saturday are free!

So we’re heading out to Sequim this afternoon to spend the night at his dad’s place.  Then we’ll ride out to Neah Bay tomorrow, visit Hurricane Ridge and overnight at Lake Crescent Lodge. The weather is a little spotty but I think we’ll have a good time.  A little light rain isn’t an issue as long as it doesn’t pour down all day!

Because this was kind of a last minute deal, I’m rushing around today getting things ready to go. The bike hasn’t really been touched since I got back from my last trip, my bags are in disarray.  I’m having to switch all my gear over to the cold/wet weather configuration which means trying to match up liners with the right jacket and overpants, dig out my glove liners, find my rain shell… woof… lots of work to get ready!

The rest of you have a good weekend, I’ll have photos and video when I return!

The new blog has officially launched! If you expressed an interest or were a regular commenter I’ve already sent you an e-mail with the details. If you didn’t recieve one and are interested, please leave a comment and I’ll be happy to send you the URL.

This blog will continue to operate, but will be focusing exclusively on motorcycling and motorcycle-related content. I’ll probably be going back through the archive at some point and retiring posts that are no longer relevant to that specific focus.

As I mentioned previously, I dragged Marianna out for a photo tour of West Seattle this past Saturday. I thought she needed to be reminded of some of the things she was excited about when she first started planning her move to Seattle. I offered to show her some of my favorite photo spots in the south end.

The day was a little cloudy and gray, but the sun was threatening to break through and clouds often provide a little drama in the sky, so we headed off for Alki. Our first stop was at the boat launch across Elliott Bay from downtown Seattle.  From here you get fantastic views of the city and the Port of Seattle. Hopping back in the car, we then headed further west around the point, through Alki Beach proper finally winding up at Me-Kwa-Mooks Park with it’s fantastic views across the Puget Sound. A quick jaunt through downtown West Seattle and we were back near our first stop, but now up on the hill at the Hamilton Viewpoint Park.

Then we decided to head further south in search of a route to Lincoln Park. I had visited this park in the past but via a convoluted path from the south. Marianna offered to use her GPS but I kind of like just navigating with the compass built-in to my car. I tend to find things that are interesting when I just wind my way around in the general direction I want to go. Sure enough, we managed to find it with no major problems. Finding parking took a few minutes as the place was packed with Seattleites looking for a last gasp of Summer.

The park here is a great blend of forest, fields and shoreline. Something for everyone! You also get views of the ferry traffic coming and going from the Fauntleroy Terminal. We hiked down to the beach and spent time taking it all in. We headed north along the shore taking photos as we went, then opted to head back to the car. This began the “death march” portion of our outing, as we discovered that the direct route back was a trail that climbed nearly straight up the bluff, several hundred feet of elevation gain I’d guess. We were both huffing and puffing by the time we hit the top, but it did give us an appetite for lunch, which was next on the agenda.

For that, we headed to my favorite little neighborhood, Burien. I’ve lived in and around this area for quite a few years, and its where many of my favorite restaurants are. Today we visited the Elliott Bay Brewpub for their fantastic beer-battered fish and chips. It was a great end to a morning spent peering through the view finder at some of the stunning sights that the Seattle-area has on tap for avid photographers!

More photos on Flickr…

I kidnapped Marianna this morning and dragged her around to some of my favorite photo spots in West Seattle. I felt she needed a reminder of some of the *good* things about living in Seattle.

I also let her buy me fish and chips for lunch at one of my favorite local pubs in Burien… never let it be said that I am not a kind and generous soul.

This is just a quick peak at a photo from Lincoln Park in West Seattle. Plenty more photos and the full story later this weekend.

I’m starting my own meme, just because I was thinking about something I did tonight and it occurred to me that I might be a little strange. So here’s the deal, list as many things as you care to that others might find quirky about you.  Could be habits that you have or behaviors you’ve noticed in yourself.  If you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged!

1. One of my indulgences is ice. No, not the kind you make yourself with an ice tray and tap water.  I buy a bag of ice when I go grocery shopping and keep it in my freezer.  I like ice in my drinks, and I don’t like big, chunky, cubes.
2. The stereo in my car has a numerical scale for the volume, so when you turn the knob the display shows a number that represents how loud it is.  In my car, it has to be an even number, no odd numbers for volume.
3. I don’t like to wear jeans in the house. When I get home from somewhere that I’ve been wearing long pants, I generally head straight to the bedroom to put on shorts. If I’m wearing a button-down shirt, that normally get’s hung up or put in the laundry and a t-shirt goes on. I like to wear leisure clothes around the house I guess and obviously, I don’t entertain much!
4. I’m obsessive about e-mail. I check it constantly.  I just checked it before writing this entry in the list, right in the middle of typing this blog post.  All I had was a MySpace friend request spam.
5. I like to read movie credits.  I’m annoyed when the audience gets up and leaves at the end of a movie while the credits are rolling, often blocking my view. I don’t read every name, but I do scan the list and occasionally see interesting entries. I also like to see which songs are on the soundtrack. And occasionally you’re pleasantly surprised when the film has a bonus scene after the credits. 

I love it when a favorite band releases a new album and it’s even better than I hoped. Pinback’s new album Autumn of the Seraphs is now available and its fantastic… I’ve been listening to it off and on all day!

Pinback is a hard band to describe to the uninitiated. Their sound is somewhat unique. Technically they’re an “indie rock band” but that label really fails to adequately capture them. Over the course of four full-length albums they’ve developed a smooth and silky sound that combines elements of rock, pop and jazz into a blend all their own.

Whatever it is, it works for me! The album was good enough I immediately bought tickets to their October concert in Seattle. Can’t wait to see them live!

“Devil You Know” by Pinback

Not much going on at the moment. The kids spent the weekend over, our biggest accomplishment was going shopping for pants, school pants.

My daughter found three pairs she liked almost immediately, no muss, no fuss. My son spent what seemed like hours trying on jeans, looking for the perfect combination of sag, bagginess and cuff droop. He finally found it in what must have been the most expensive pair of jeans the store carried. We bought two of them.

I spent my free time torturing Kiko with the camera. I think he’s starting to get used to it. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not.

The new blog is still a work in progress, I hope to launch it later this week. I have things I want to write about.  I just don’t want to write about them here…

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the Washington Park Arboretum with Leesa and Marianna. There are so many hiking opportunities you could literally spend several days visiting and still not see everything.  We opted to do the shoreline hike this trip. All of us had cameras, several of us had more than one. Photography happened. There was also sarcasm. Lots and lots of sarcasm.

More photos…

I *meant* to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Failure in this goal should be obvious as I’m writing this at nearly 3am… *sigh*

It all started around 11pm Monday when I *did* actually go to bed. And decided to listen to music. My Zune is normally by my bed when I’m not using it in the car. I plugged in the earphones, set it to shuffle and started listening while hoping to drift off to sleep. Nothing really satisfied though, but an Eve 6 tune finally popped up and it hit the spot. So I switched over to shuffling just Eve 6 songs. And noticed I only had one Eve 6 album on the Zune. I knew I had another one in iTunes (Yeah I’m bi… iPod and Zune living together under one roof) so I decided to go ahead and throw it on the Zune too. But then I got to thinking that they had a third album that I didn’t have. Mind you, we’re closing in on 1am by this time.

One of the great things about the Internet and the advent of digital music is that you can get your music fix at any time of the day. I found a place I could purchase the one Eve 6 album I didn’t have and loaded everything on the Zune and went back to bed. Then a specific Eve 6 track came on and something clicked that had been bugging me for a while.

Let me backtrack for a second. I’ve been unhappy with my blog for a while. I think I’m mixing too many things here and it’s been bothering me a little. I enjoy posting about motorcycles and riding, but there are a lot of other topics I’d like to write about that don’t really fit here. And I already post a lot of things (like this) that have nothing to do with riding. I was thinking about categorizing things different but honestly, it’d be easier just to start a second blog.

Back to Eve 6. A particular song came on that contained a phrase I really liked and it planted an idea for a new blog name. Of course, I had to get up *again* and see if it was available as a domain name. It was, so I registered it and setup the domain with my current blog host. I still need to setup Wordpress and come up with a template so it will be a few days before it’s all truly up and running.

I don’t plan to link directly to the new blog from here, though it won’t be private or anything like that. I just don’t want to have the two related in any way. I’ll be posting under my nickname on the new blog. If you’re one of my small group of regular readers and would like the new address, just leave me a comment and be sure to fill out your e-mail address so I can send it to you.

So now you see why I tend to get so little sleep… *sigh*

“Bring The Night On” by Eve 6

Which isn’t the song that inspired the new blog…

I haven’t had the energy or interest to post much lately, sorry! Things have just been, I dunno, “blah” lately. I spent the first part of the week sick, dealing with several days of throbbing headache. That was followed by several days (nights?) of insomnia. I get that way sometimes. I lay in bed but my mind refuses to turn off. Normally it’s not that I’m worried about anything, I just can’t get my thoughts to slow down, whatever they are. I often wind up plugging in head phones and drowning out the thoughts with music. Most of the time that works.

On the plus side, my sister is coming to town next week! We haven’t seen each other for many, many years. It’s just two days and she’s here on business, but we’ll have most of a day to hang out. I plan to show her a few sights and then we’re getting together with my aunt and uncle and cousin for dinner. That should be fun. It will be nice catching up. We really haven’t been very close as we more or less grew up apart. I lived with dad, she lived with mom for a lot of years. It’s hard rebuilding a relationship when you live on opposite coasts, but we try to keep in touch. The ‘net helps. This is her first trip outside of Georgia I think. It will either expand her horizons or scare her to death. Hopefully the former!

And now, I gotta get it in gear to go help Marianna the “Microchickie” move into her new place. I think John and Deb are going to be there too, wish us luck… that girl has a bunch of stuff to move and rumor has it that stair are involved. Oh boy… I need high energy music I think… queue the “Na na na’s” maestro!

“The City’s Summer” by The Honorary Title