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September 30 Back from the tripI'll have more to write once I get a good night's sleep and take some advil for my sore muscles, but I'm home safe and sound now from a very interesting trip. LOTS of back woods forest service roads, incredible weather and beautiful scenery. I'm working on the pictures now so they'll be coming up soon. 1453 total miles, total ride time 28:35, moving ave speed of 50 mph, ave economy of 40 mpg, top speed of 115 mph. Here's a couple of samples from the images that are here. Next to the Deschutes River on Hwy 216 Typical forest service road... with half our group missing  Crater Lake - pics don't do it justice September 25 Off to Crater LakeI'm leaving early tomorrow morning for a 4 day ride through Oregon with the goal of circling Crater Lake Sunday and returning home Monday. The ST3s is all packed and ready to go, all my clothes are in just one sidebag! This will be the first long distance test for ST3s, my new Sargent seat arrived today a day early so I'm very excited about the added comfort that should provide, and my new lenses came in today as well so I can see clearly again. No more scratched lenses, Yea!
I'm not taking a laptop on this trip so I wont be journelling or updating this space until I return, crazy, I know, maybe next time. But I wanted to pack super light and enjoy the ride. My camera crapoped out so I'm borring Mike's for this trip. It should work out well, but a new one will be on my xmas list for sure. I will have the Spot tracker and I'll be uploading to my SmugMug site via SmugShot on the iPhone. I'll try to remember to geotag each image so you can see where they're at.
Off to bed now, I have an early start tomorrow. September 14 North Cascades LoopI finally rode the North Cascades Loop today. I’ve been talking about doing this since I got back into riding a few years ago and now I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner. What a great day. The weather was just perfect. Sunny, clear and warm once the morning fog burned off around 9:00. I rode The ST3s solo today and it couldn't have gone better, mostly pretty fast, no tickets, light traffic. There were periods when I had the road totally to myself and others where I was stuck behind the usual campers and old farts driving 5 under the speed limit. It was some great to be able to ride at MY speed and not try to keep up with others or holding others back behind me. A few pics from the ride are here. Overall stats from the ZUMO, 10:47 total time, 8:14 riding time, 431.4 miles, max speed – well, never mind September 13 Finally got the ST3s back from the shopThe ST3s had an unexpectedly extended stay at the suspension shop the last 3-1/2 weeks followed by nearly a week at DucSea for a performance exhaust and tune upgrade. I finally got her back late today, man I've missed this bike. It growls like a Ducati should now and the powerband is much smoother with the new Ducati Performance programmable ECU. I've yet to take this bike on long ride - tomorrow that changes. September 12 crap, I'm addicted to Heroes againWhile fooling around with the new iTunes I went into the tv shows section of the iTunes store and found both Heroes seasons 1 & 2. The opening episode to season 2 is free, so I downloaded it and watched it tonight. Damnit, now I'll have to pay for the rest of the season so I can watch the rest before Season 3 starts in 9 days. September 08 Some days I miss being a Dadboth my kids are grown or gone and Michelle and I have been living the empty nest life the last year or so. some days I really miss being needed by the little ones, either through little league or soccer or rides to the park or the mall or homework or even calls from the principle's office for my ideal students. labor day was last weekend so the kids are now lining up for the school buses again (the little monsters ;-) , youth sports are in full swing now, and will soon be culminating in the perpetual tournements in the rain and the cold as October pushes into November and we plan for family get togethers for Thanksgiving and the inevitable deluge of Christmas ads starting any day now. for all the headaches, all the stress, all the hassle and occasionally all the glory of being the guy who hauled everyone around - at least I knew what my role was in life.
Mike and I still have good conversations occasionally about work, motorcycles and sometimes life, but he's a young man now and living his own life. Of course I'm still his father, but it's rare I feel like a Dad, the guy who's needed by his kids. I feel like I'm in the middle verse of Harry Chapin's Cats in the Cradle. And of course today is a dark day remembering my little Pete who will never get past the first verse of that song. Times like these I really miss my little Petey.......
......what would Petey say now? September 04 Back to Windows LiveWell I left Windows Live only two short months ago to go work in the Zune Mobile group. But as a result of a Lemony Snicket series of unfortunate events, I ended up as a free agent again. After a few conversations with my former director and evaluating other available options, I’ve chosen to return home so to speak to the product space I’ve spent so much time in and really love. Starting Monday I’m officially back in Windows Live, this time in the Social Networking team who is responsible for Spaces, Writer and a few other cool things you will all find out about later this year. September 03 Well, she gives a good speech…….too bad it’s all crap. The same old scare tactics from the last four years, the same old nonsense that paints a world at war for the next million years. ugh, I hate republican politics. you can almost see Karl Rove, Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney behind the curtain pulling her strings. It was in the news this morning the former Bush aids are “tutoring” her. September 02 SPOT satellite tracker
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let’s just say the ST3s has no trouble passing. 
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