In my last post, I alluded to the fact that I felt strangely about yesterday. After doing so, I simply talked about how I hadn’t slept and completely left you, the reader, in the dark as to what made yesterday so different than all of the other days. Now, I’ll try to get to the story.

Tuesday was a fairly normal day. I did get to bed much later than usual on Monday night, which lead to a sleepy start to the day. I went to work, did the work things, spent the evening doing laundry, and then heading to the building’s hall council meeting.

Throughout the evening, I had been doing a little reading, and then a little thinking. I started to really think about things in my life in a way that I had not in a long time. I spent time thinking about work and my career: it’s current state, possible future directions, the idea of beginning work on a doctoral degree in the next few years, and other things of the like.

I thought about how I had been writing very rarely since I moved to Pittsburgh. Before I moved, I’d write a lot more, and share my thoughts and observations with others more frequently. In the last couple of years, though, when I’ve written, it’s been more summary-based. I’m a poor reporter phoning in sub-par stories to a really boring and lame newspaper.

I also started thinking about how I’ve grown apart from a number of close friends, and how I’m spending less time interacting with people outside of work than I used to.

I picked up my paper journal, which had been untouched since February, and leafed through it a bit. I took some time and jotted down various ideas about things I’d like to revisit in writing later. There were ideas swirling all around my head. This time, though, I wasn’t going to let them be forgotten.

I realize that a lot of this may sound as if I’m unsatisfied with my job or life or whatever. That’s not really the case. I have a good job. I have good people around me. I’m proud of where I am. It’s just that I really think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve not been putting as much effort into things as they deserve.

What will all of this translate into? Well, hopefully I’ll refocus and put myself back into my job… try to recapture some of the enthusiasm that I think may have slipped away. I think it’s time to really update the site design here. Make it cleaner and lighter. With a newly spruced up theme, I hope to more easily motivate myself to do some actual writing, as opposed to simply “Hey look at this new crap I bought for my really cool motorcycle. OMG things are so cool!”

But then again, I’m a fickle sort of guy. I’ll get really amped up about something, only to loose interest a few days later. Things that require real effort rarely last long in my world.

Sit tight, readers. I’m not sure what’s down the road ahead.

It’s 6:30 AM. I’m in my office. I’ve never seen Tower B so quiet. The lobby is empty, and the elevators are still. Right now, this place feels emptier than it was over the summer.

You might be asking yourself, “Why are you up so early, Mike?”

To which I would be forced to reply, “Up early? No, sir. I’m up late!”

See, yesterday (though it does still feel like today from my perspective) was an interesting day for me. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, its just that my head turned into a really interesting place. I’ll talk more about this later. No, I’m not on drugs.

I don’t know exactly what to pin tonight’s insomnia on, exactly. Maybe it’s the things going on in my head, which I’ll talk about shortly. Maybe it was the soda I drank with my slightly later-than-usual dinner. Maybe it’s just that there was no room for me in the land of the sleeping folks. I don’t know.

I was tired last night. I had slept poorly on Monday night, and getting up on Tuesday was no treat. I decided an early trip to bed would be a good thing. So, after my work obligations were done, I played around on the internet for a short while, and then headed to bed around 11:15 – 11:20 or so. I know that doesn’t sound like an “early to bed” night for some of you, but for me, going to sleep during the PM hours is a rare occurrence.

I dozed off quickly, but was awoken by a phone call around 11:45. 11:45 is normally an entirely reasonable time to call me. Knowing this, I should have just turned off my phone, but I did not. Anyway, after I spoke rather incoherently with the caller for about a minute, I hung up the phone, ready to head back to sleepytown.

There was no more room on the bus to sleepytown.

I tried to fall asleep for a couple of hours. Around 2, I gave up and read a bit, and tried to find sleep again at 3. After wasting 45 minutes or so laying around, I read again. At about 4:30 a very odd idea occurred to me: I should cook breakfast and start my day.

And that’s what I did. I took some time, made a real breakfast with things like eggs and toast and tea and whatnot. I read a little bit. I cleaned up the kitchen, showered, and came down here.

Normally, I would just adjust my alarm clock back and hour or two, and try to go back to sleep. I probably would have eventually succeeded. Instead, I’ll try going for today with out having logged any happy bed hours. How will this work out? Who knows? I honestly can’t remember the last time I tried something like this, but I’m pretty sure it’s been over 5 years.

I haven’t yet shared the funniest part. I’ll do that now. Wednesdays are my super long Reslife days, where I usually end up working all day until 11 PM.

If I start hallucinating, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Late last week, my new saddlebags arrived. However, my saddlebag supports (that keep the bags away from the tire and other things) had not yet arrived. I was going to wait for them to come in before I tried to fit the bags to the bike, but I decided to go ahead and see how the bags looked on the Shadow.

I’m glad I did. While my Ranger Super Slant bags were very very pretty, and probably my favorite of all of the bag designs I’ve seen, they are too tall to fit on my bike; the right hand bag cannot be mounted without hitting the exhaust. No good! Furthermore, Wille & Max do not make the Ranger bag in any smaller size…

On Friday I called the company, and they said there would be no problem with a return. I’ll take a $25 hit on shipping (18 here, and 7 back) but they’ll credit my card for the purchase price of the bags. After looking around, I ordered another set of bags from them that are smaller. Later this week, my Compact Slant Braided bags should be arriving. They’re not just going to be shorter, they will not be as wide (which is unfortunate) nor as deep. The right bag should, however, clear the exhaust. If these prove to be to big, I will totally flip out and kill.

The Compact Slant bags:

Last week I also brought the bike in for its first oil change. It needed one at 600 miles on account of it being new and the break in and all of that. The service cost me $54 which kinda bothered me considering I only pay about $29 to get my car’s oil changed, and they use almost double the oil, and it takes about the same time, too. The good news is that it’s likely I’ll no longer be living on the Pitt campus the next time it’s due for a change… at 4,000 miles. Right now, she’s got 700 miles on her, and all but 5.4 of them are from me.

There’s other stuff in my life besides the motorcycle, I swear. There’s work. There’s also Poker. There are all sorts of things. I’ll write about them someday. Just you wait. You’ll see.

As I previously mentioned I wanted to find some new saddlebags for my bike, as my old Bike Master bags didn’t quite fit the bill for the Shadow. They looked ok on the dumpy old XS400, but really look bad on the new bike, as well as being slightly too large given the high exhaust on the right side of the bike.
Bike Master Bags:

After much searching around, I found the bags that I wanted to go with. They are the Willie and Max Ranger Super Slant Bags. Their dimensions are right for the bike, and I think they’ll look good.

Ranger Bags:

The next bike accessory will probaby be either freeway bars, a windshield, a tail light conversion kit , or a light bar of some sort (haven’t narrowed down manufacturers/models yet). Some of the more complicated installs, like the tail light conversion or a light bar might be best left to the off-season after I have the bike winterized and hibernating, though.

This past weekend Angela and I participated in the 2nd Annual Ride 4 Peace organized by a company called Team Neva. The basic idea was for bikers of all types to come together and ride through some of the more troubled neighborhoods in the city as a statement against violence. The funds raised were being distributed to charities that help children in Pittsburgh.

I found out about the ride a few weeks ago entirely by accident. I did a websearch on Pittsburgh motorcycle trips, trying to find some information on good places to go for rides around the area. In the search I came across this article which talks about last year’s Ride 4 Peace and some of the motorcycle clubs in Pittsburgh. I then searched and found out that the ride was happening again this year.

The ride started at West Park, right near the CCAC campus on the Northside. As riders showed up the staging area began to take up the better part of the road. Drivers were getting a little annoyed at times, and a few seemed to want to get aggressive since we were taking up the lane and not moving. They were usally shut up as soon as they saw the police there on their police motorcycles too.

Here’s my best shot of the staging area:

As we were waiting to start I met several neat people. My bike turned a few heads because it was so shiny and new, and I met a couple of other Shadow Spirit owners. I can’t remeber their names because, well, I’m terrible with names, but I do know that they had 1988 and 1990 Shadows. In all of that time, there haven’t been huge changes to the Spirit. I could make a list here, but you don’t care.

This is Angela, with my bike, the 2 other Shadow owners, and another woman who was riding her bike:

Once the ride got started, there were about 200 participants, and at least 150 (if not more) bikes. We were lead by the three cops on their cop-bikes and the Maximalist Sport Bike Riders club was at the front so it’s members could block off intersections as we passed. The ride continued as one big multi-biked organism, sticking together through the whole ride. Most of the drivers that were forced to wait at the intersections seemed to be interested or amused by the ride, rather than angry about the delay. It was quite the sight as there was just about every kind of bike imaginable in the group.

The ride proceeded from West Park up onto 28 and over the Highland Park bridge, through Homewood and Wilkensburg, down through East Liberty and Garfield, over to the Hill District and through Downtown, and ending in front of PNC Park, on the blocked off approach to the Clemente Bridge.

Here are some shots of the bikes parked outside of PNC Park:

A short while after we parked our bikes, we were told that the bleachers were sold out for the day, and that our vouchers were only good for those bleacher seats. However, we could use the vouchers to upgrade to other seats at the ticket window. Since Angela and I wanted to see the game, we went for the upgrade option. Instead of getting $6 off per ticket using the vouchers like we were supposed to, the ticket dudes refused to give us more than $3 off per ticket. Bastards.

Right before the game started they did an on-field recognition for the presidents of the motorcycle clubs that particpated in the ride, and Daryl, the owner of Team Neva was interviewed to talk about the ride. The crowd was mostly confused by the whole thing, but it was nice to see the ride acknowledged.

The presidents:

The game itself was great. The Pirates were coming off their win in the series opener against the Mets the previous evening, and the game was tight the whole way down. The score was tied in the bottom of the ninth inning. There were two outs, one runner on base. Paulino hit a double to drive home the guy on base and win the game.

We were sitting right in front of some Mets fans who had driven down from NY that day just “to see the Mets clinch it” as they said. These dudes were dissapointed. They said they’d stay in town to see the Sunday game so they could watch the Mets clinch the NL East then. I bet those guys were really dissapointed on Sunday when the Mets failed to win again. I was at that game, too, as Alan had called me and said he had an extra ticket.

The Pirates need to hire me. They’re on their 12th straight losing season, however they are 4-0 with me in attendance. Man, I should write a letter…`

On Monday I got out on two wheels again. However, this time I was using the two-wheeled transportation for which I used to be more well known, rather than the two-wheeled transportation powered by 1099cc of pure steel and sex appeal.

Thanks to Angela, Jeremy and I were able to attend this Monday’s Pirates game versus the Brewers. Jeremy and I decided to ride our bicycles down to the game. I’m glad did the bike thing, as I had not ridden for over two months. Yes, I know. What a waste of the summertime.
Apparently, the tickets were purchased for some big Americorps outing that was cancelled, so the seats were just given away to intersted people in the Americorps program. Angela had work to do, so Jeremy and I went… we were just about the only ones in our entire section, so I’m guessing no one else took those extra tickets. The game was very sparsely attended over all. The scoreboard claimed that the attendence was about 13,200 (out of a 38,496 capacity), but there’s really not a chance that the park was 1/3 full. I’m guessing that they count all of the tickets sold for the game, even if they’re not used. At any rate, the Pirates won, even if there were very few people on hand to see the game.

Here’s a view of the final score:

On Tuesday, I made a return to online poker, after a while away from the vitual tables. I played in the wilwheatondotnet tourney, and man did I play terribly. Seriously. There’s no excuse for such poor performace. It’s no surprise that I was out in 54th place out of 60.

I still owe all of you folks an account of my trip back up to CT over Labor Day weekend. I’ll probably get to it on Thursday or Friday. If I don’t by then, well.. it’s probably not going to happen.

Hey look, I’m writing! It’s been a bit crazy around these parts, so I’ve not taken the time to even think about writing much lately. But hey, I’ve got some time now, so I’ll give this a shot.

It’s been a good, but busy, week or so. One of the highlights is probably a trip Angela and I took to Ohiopyle state park this past weekend for a picnic dinner. Part of why it was neat is that we rode the good ol’ Shadow down to the park. It was a pretty good route for the bike, and just the right distance too. When we got there we had our picnic and did some exploring around in the woods. The weather could have been better (it was overcast, with occasional light rain), but it was still a good trip. Below, you can see the view from our chosen dinner location:

Afterwards, we went to the cheap theater to see a movie. We saw Nacho Libre, which was a entirely terrible movie. Seriously. It was probably the worst thing I’ve seen this year, or maybe in the last 2 years. If you’re going to go see a movie with Angela, don’t let her pick. She won’t even believe you when you tell her ahead of time that the movie she wants to see is terrible. At least she agreed that it was terrible after watching it though. I mean, man, that movie was bad.

Luckily, the movie portion of my weekend was redeemed when I saw Click with Aimee. This film was much better than I thought it had any right to be, given the previews. Both Aimee and I agreed that it would have been a better film had they ended it about 10 minutes sooner, but this mistake is forgivable.

I had a pretty good trip up to Connecticut this past weekend. That’s not what this post is about, though. I’ll write about CT later. This post is about my motorcycle.
When I arrived back in Pittsburgh from my trip, I discovered that my order from Cruiser Customizing had arrived. In the package was an indoor bike cover that I’ll use in the garage here, as well as the previously mentioned turn signal relocation bracket. Of course, one of my first orders of business this week was to get those turn signals moved.
Below you can see where the rear turn signals were located on the bike originally:

You may notice that their placement is right where most saddlebags would go.
Here are pictures of the bike after I moved the signals along with my saddlebags mounted:



I like the new location of the signals, though I’m not sure I’m digging on those saddlebags for this bike. In addition to the aesthetics not seeming quite right, the right bag is only a few inches off the top exhaust pipe. After test riding around today, the bag/pipe issue doesn’t seem to be a problem, though the bag was only lightly loaded.
I think I may look around the web at other bags I could get for the bike.
As for now, though, it’s time to watch some football. Go Stillerz!

Tomorrow evening, I’ll be heading back up to CT for the weekend. Book your Anti-Time now folks! I definitely need to escape campus after this last month. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to see some of the folks I missed on my trip up there earlier this summer.

Also on the plan will be to hit up the tables at Foxwoods a couple of times. I think I’m heading out there with my Dad on Friday, and I want to get in on their Monday morning NLHE tournament. It should be a big one due to the holiday. I’ll have to get up really early, but hopefully I can transfer some of my online tourney success to success at the live event. Last time I was there, I did take down first in an $80 Sit and Go, but that’s different than a full on real tournament.

I had hoped to travel on the bike for the trip, but that won’t be feasible this time around. I haven’t gotten the turn signal bracket in yet, so no saddlebags. Also, the bike is still in its break in period, so it’s not good to keep a steady RPM for long periods of time… making such a long trip not the best option. Also, it’d probably be better to get a windshield on the bike for longer trips like that to make things a bit more comfortable.

When I get back, it will be time to settle into some sort of routine for the semester… and hopefully time to finally start the redesign of this site.

More specifically, this post is about the 2006 Honda Shadow Spirit (VT1100C):

As you can see, this is a very attractive machine. It’s great look and feel, a powerful 1099cc engine, and man, look at that blue. I’ve had many friends that have had Shadows in the past, and it seems that they’re very well made bikes.

So, of course you can understand why it is that I just bought one of these bad boys.

See, look! Here’s ME on MY Honda Shadow Spirit (VT1100C), the Anti-Bike Mark II:

Many thanks go out to Angela, who took me to the dealership this morning to pick it up. Due to RA Training today, I wasn’t able to get much riding in. I did go for a little cruise around the area, and there also was the ride back to campus from the dealership. Angela and I also headed out to grab dinner, but just as we were finishing eating, it started to rain so we headed back to the garage. Right after we got indoors, it started pouring out.

As for the handling…. man, this thing feels nice. It’s just nice and smooth and my biggest worry before I got it, the weight of the thing (556 lbs, vs the 375 or so of the Anti-Bike Mark I), is a total non-issue. The riding position feels perfect and all of the controls are in easy reach. It has a lot of power, but is also very happy going about at reasonable speeds.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about this here. I can pretty much guarantee it. For now, though, the take away message is this: Look at how fucking cool my new bike is.