Frigid but short ride today

Well, today my mom & wife have gone shopping, leaving me without a car. I didn't think I'd want to go anywhere, but I decided to go to CVS Pharmacy to finally upload the pix for printing from our trip to Europe last year.

That is the thing with digital photography: It is so easy to take lots of photos, that one takes hundreds of them, then either doesn't bother to filter them or takes forever to do it. So I took forever to do it and only now, 9 months later am I getting around to printing them.

So, it was either walk or take a bike. I figured this was a good opportunity to get Burgertime out and keep his battery charged up. So I went for probably a 5 mile jaunt, and ended up at CVS. Went in there, did my thing, then went to the credit union to withdraw some cash.

Seeing as how it was 27°F, (-3°C) I was pretty cold by the time I got home. Just had some chamomile tea, which helped, but my knees are still cold about an hour later.

No regrets though. Spring cannot come to Chicago soon enough. It was good to be out on two wheels again. Maybe another month of this jazz, then we'll be into the 40s pretty often..?

First rides of the season

As any midwestern motorcyclist/scooterist will know, yesterday was the first "nice" day of the season. It was 55 and sunny. There was a ton of melting snow, which made for dirty bikes, but not enough to dissuade me!

I wound up taking Burgertime out for a good ride, with my doglet Floyd in my jacket. He loves it. It was probably 20 miles. I even surprised my wife when I went to pick her up from the health club on it!

Then, I took the FJR in to have some recall work done: faulty throttle position sensor. They actually finished the work the same day. Impressive! It idles more smoothly now. I asked Kate if she wanted to come for a ride, and she said no, she doesn't like being cold. Oh well. So I went by myself for probably 40 minutes. The roads here are all jacked up from the extreme cold we've been having. Big frost heaves everywhere make for a bumpy ride. I keep the tire pressure in the FJR set for two-up riding, so it was a back-breaker of a ride. I cut it a little short.

I also changed oil in our car, a Toyota Matrix. I'm happy to have discovered Amsoil, as it means fewer oil changes are necessary. (only every 10,000 miles, with a filter change every 20,000) It also gets better fuel economy.

We were going to meet some friends at a club for some 80s dancing, but the power was out, so we came home, had some rum 'n cokes, and watched part of a bonus CD from The Sound of Music. Came to bed, played some Age of Empires on my Game Boy DS, and wound up going to bed at 1. Yikes. It was a good day.

Today, I need to clean guns and load ammo for this week's league day.