“Will you just shut up, man?”

Throw the entire crooked GOP to the curb. I never thought I'd say this, but I wish we could have the old Republican party back. I may not have liked their policies more often than not, but at least they still showed a modicum of integrity. https://www.newsweek.com/over-860000-americans-have-already-voted-compared-fewer-10000-this-point-2016-1534452

tipping point

I'm dusting off the cobwebs in this old blog in order to reduce my FaceBook postings to only be cross-links to content that I actually have editorial control over. Later folks!

running (from) the numbers

Overall, I thought that How to Understand a Trillion Dollar Deficit was a pretty good article. The fundamental notion of decomposing a quantity of that magnitude into analogies that have meaning to you in order to be able to visualize it is a rather good mental technique.

Unfortunately, the author went in completely the wrong direction at the end, with his point that the amount of the current economic bailout per person in the U.S. Instead of translating from $45/week to $6/day to a quarter per minute to a half penny per second, I suspect that most people would more naturally consider this amount in terms of $180/month, since that's kind of the basic fundamental time frame that we all have to think about budgeting on given that most major bills are monthly.

Thinking about it that way, $180/month starts to become an amount that many are going to have to scramble to figure out what they could do without in order to pay. Further, if you start thinking about this in terms of a family of four, it becomes $720/month, which is no longer an amount that you can even ask the question whether the average American family is "willing" to pay but whether or not they are "capable" of paying, even if every other budgetary item were reduced to an absolute minimum.

Suddenly, the notion rather flippantly presented of everyone ignoring a penny every other second becomes the rather sobering thought about whether or not your family could possibly afford a second rent payment every month (see here for a reference regarding average U.S. rent)...in order "to have a functioning financial system". My guess is that only a relatively small percentage of the population would be able to say yes, regardless of how they restructured their monthly budgets.

first car drive in over a week

I felt under the weather yesterday (Monday) morning and therefore drove rather than rode to work. I couldn't help but note how much slower highway speeds feel inside the armored walls of my little Subaru compared to flying along perched on the back of the Ducati.

quick lunch loop

The combination of Stevens Canyon Rd, Mt Eden Rd, and Pierce Rd look like they could form the basis for a good quick lunchtime ride in southwest Silicon Valley.

boot camp concludes

Felt tired and sore on Saturday and therefore took the day off from motorcycle boot camp. Shame on me, since that meant I ended Sunday's ride just shy of 800 miles rather than the 1K I'd intended. Oh well.

Anyway, yesterday's ride had a plan and a map; however, in the end I simply followed where the roads and turns led. First, Hwy 82 took me to Hwy 85. Then, a wrong turn led me onto US 101 rather than to Hwy 17 as I'd intended.

So, I got off 101 at Gilroy and took Hecker Pass Hwy across the mountains into Watsonville, along Freedom Blvd to reach Hwy 1. This took me through Santa Cruz and then up around the peninsular coast. The waves were slammin', and the surfers were out in droves.

Left the highway, then, for Pescadero Creek Rd, another nice twisty motorcycle road up into the mountains. Found Alpine Rd and decided to take it. This was a very narrow and occasionally single lane road that had me running well under 30 mph most of the way.

At one point, a much braver and obviously more experienced rider on a Hypermotard zoomed up behind me, so I pulled aside to let him pass and watched in amazement as he zipped up those scary narrow turns faster than I thought they could be taken.

Still having fun and undeterred from riding that road within my comfort level, I continued puttering up it until I reached Skyline. I considered taking it toward Sky Londa to finally check out Alice's Restaurant and get some food.

The waning daylight and my desire to not drive the mountains on a weekend after dark made me turn the other way, however, and head for Big Basin Way down into Saratoga. Skyline is an amazing ride, beautiful, curvy, and easily taken fast most of the way.

In the coming weeks, I expect to be riding that stretch of road quite a bit, since the start of Big Basin Way in Saratoga is just a few miles from work. I'm thinking that a quick sandwich and a loop through the mountains sounds like a perfect lunch.

fast curves...and back again

Today I headed South out of San Jose, first on Monterey Hwy and then on US 101, to reach Hwy 25, which I chased down until I found its tail end and then rewound my path back home again.

While taking a break before turning around, I was passed by a flock of a couple dozen Goldwings, and I subsequently played leapfrog with them on the way back North toward Hollister.

Hwy 25 was great for practicing correct execution of leaned turns at highway speeds, including numerous S-turns where the bike needed to be rapidly leaned from one side to the other.

The odometer shows that I've traveled 600 miles over the last seven days; my goal of having a thousand miles of experience by the end of boot camp is still well within reach.

you can get anything you want

Today's ride took me down through Saratoga into the Santa Cruz mountains in order to loop through Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

Then, I lost my race with sundown along Skyline Blvd to Alice's Restaurant. I'll have to visit there sometime when it's open and filled to the brim with other motorcyclists.

Finally, I descended Woodside Rd and bravely ran I-280 back home keeping brisk pace with traffic at 75 mph or so. What a hoot!