Yes, yes, I’ve been remiss with the ole blog. I think we all know how hard it is to keep one up to date if you’re not a blogger by nature or….spend most of your time trying to make a bit of money by doing a real job. The latter would be the case for me; I don’t have a problem writing, but it’s really all about finding the time. Besides, who’s really reading this thing anyway? For all I know, I’ve spent the last few years on this blog just talking to myself….which isn’t too far from how things go in real life I suppose. But, as evidenced by this very posting, I don’t seem to care too much one way or the other if anyone’s out there, lol.

A couple of things have happened over the past few months. First, I’ve pretty much abandoned Facebook and turned to Google+ for most things. Facebook has just turned into too much of a “funny photo posting” kind of place and there’s only so much one can take of pet photos or even the less interesting religious “inspiration” stuff. Google+ has many of the same elements, but there’s less of that sort of thing and the conversations that come and go there just seem to be a bit more “real” and a little less juvenile in many respects. I still have my Facebook account of course, but it’s pretty much turned into an observation post that occasionally spills out a reply to someone’s comment.

The second thing that’s happened over the past few months is an increased push on building WordPress websites at work. In the past, SEO was the dominant mission and that soaked up pretty much all of my time and energy, but it seems many of our clients have started to realize that a design that looked great 5-6 years ago simply isn’t cutting it in today’s internet. On top of that, many of those folks had sites that still employed SEO-killing frames…a technology that’s long since passed on, thankfully. Since the beginning of the year, it’s been WordPress site builds non-stop. This new design push is a refreshing change and a challenge at the same time, something I’m relishing! I’d say this is probably the biggest reason why my little ole blog gets light action these days, lol.

Anyway, life rolls on…

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If you can’t pull yourself away from your Facebook farm or whatever you have going on over there, then I suppose this post isn’t for you, but if you’re interested in great conversations and following interesting people, then you need to check out Google+! In many ways, Google+ is similar to Facebook, but there’s a different air to it…I can’t exactly put my finger on what it is about it, but Google+ just feels more open, easier to work with, and it’s a bit less creepy than Facebook (privacy issues). If you have any sort of Google account like Gmail or Picasa, that’s all you need, so there’s no excuse to not at least have a look.

Yes, you can follow family and all of that, but more importantly, you can easily find folks relevant to what you do and what you’re interested in, follow them, and easily interact with them. It’s a lot harder to get this done in Facebook. Additionally, Google+’s circling method (the way you organize who you follow) is very easy to work with, plus it’s not quite as obtrusive as Facebook’s invite system. Really, Google+ is like Twitter, but without the 140 character posting limit and a few more options.

I’ve been involved with Google+ since it was a private “invite only” thing. During that time, I sent out invites to various friends and family. The most common complaint I heard during that process was, “there’s no one here”. Well, if you’re not proactive about it, yes, there’s no one there…for you. You have to take action, search for people based on your interests…and then PUT THEM IN A CIRCLE TO FOLLOW THEM; that gets the ball rolling. The people are there…MILLIONS of them; they aren’t going to come to you on a silver platter, so get busy! I used to worry that my family members weren’t on Google+, but not anymore. Sure, it’d be nice if they were there and active, but they’re not…and it doesn’t matter. You need to get over it; they’ll come over sometime because Google’s got a finger in everything and will guide them to it eventually, but for now, spread your wings a bit and explore beyond the blue-wrapped cocoon of ads, creepy timelines, funny pet photos, and time sink games Facebook seems to be filled with these days. Here’s a start, circle ME.

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If you’re a WordPress user, WordPress just released their 3.3 “Sonny” update, which I just put into use here…so far, nothing’s blown up, so I guess it’s all good. Other than than, things are pretty quiet around here. The weather’s getting colder, the wife’s wanting a divorce because life in Eastern NC sucks, and I’ve yet to do any Christmas shopping…what more could a guy ask for right?

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The Shoei RF-1100

So last week I faced a dilemma. The annual FJR EOM event in Cumberland Falls, KY was coming up at the end of the week (I’ll post later on that) and I was into my gear preparations. My good ole Shoei X-11′s liner needed a wash in a really bad way, so I removed the liner, filled the sink with some warm water mixed with shampoo, and dunked the liner in….it literally came apart in my hands! Well, that wasn’t good…it was only 2 days until kickstand up time and I wasn’t about to do a 500+ mile trip in a helmet with a deteriorated liner. The reality was that my X-11 was nearly 7 years old, the furthest extent of the warranty, and it was probably not the safest helmet at that age. A liner could have probably been had from an online retailer with ultra-expensive overnight shipping, but it didn’t make much sense given the helmet’s age. So I decided to bite the bullet and get a new helmet.

I had originally been thinking about getting a Shoei Qwest, mainly due to the good reviews and glowing reports from fellow riders, but when I arrived at Cycle Gear the next night after wok, my choices were limited. I was intent on getting a Shoei since my head seems perfect for their shape, but they were out of any Qwest helmets in my XL size. That’s when the sales clerk suggested that I look at the RF-1100, a helmet that wasn’t that much more expensive than the $319 Qwest, but one that included a removable liner. I was rather impressed with the knowledge the sales person displayed when pointing out all of the differences between the Qwest and RF-1100…I was basically getting a lot more helmet…something I already knew, but it was nice to hear a salesperson with some real knowledge for once! The XL size fit me perfectly; very snug and comfortable with no readily apparent potential hot spot areas. After much deliberation, trying on, attempted rip-offs (pulling helmet off head while strapped on), and moaning and groaning about the expense (the RF-1100 retails over $400 at Cycle Gear), the sales guy cut me a great deal and found a single, unopened and untouched, XL solid red RF-1100 that “almost” matched the wineberry color of my FJR. The helmet had a beautiful luster to it; okay, no graphics, but that really wasn’t a concern in my mind. I walked out the door with the helmet having spent $376 total…yep, cheaper than many online places have it. Cycle Gear treated me right!

The Results

I’ll cut to the chase or else this mini-review will drone on endlessly, lol. In a nutshell, I’ve found the Shoei RF-1100 to be a fantastic helmet! I am basing my experience on nearly a week of riding with the helmet now, a week that includes a few 8-12 hour days of riding (EOM) and a lot of rain.

First off, the helmet has built-in plastic pockets designed for speakers. My Sena SMH-10 speakers, large as they are, fit perfectly using Sena’s velcro attachments. I couldn’t use the Sena in my X-11 without causing severe ear pain from the speakers after a few hours of them touching my ears, and in fact, my Sena set remained on the desk at home throughout the summer.

The clamp mount for the Sena works perfectly with the RF-1100

With the RF-1100, the thick Sena speakers do not touch my ears at all and the speaker cups appeared to be placed perfectly for optimum sound quality, even when I’m wearing my usual foamy ear plugs. At speed, I have absolutely no trouble hearing music. The clamp mount of the Sena worked out just fine; it sits just under the visor lock lever which can cause a bit of fumbling around until you get used to it.

Interior Comfort, Weight, & The View
The interior of the RF-1100 is plush! The material is very soft to the skin and non-irritating; I found it to be quite pleasant. It smells like a new car at the moment, but I’m sure with a few more hot days, that’ll change, lol. The cheek pads are firm and exert firm pressure on my cheeks, this is exactly how my X-11 was and how I prefer it. The pads are interchangeable with different sizes if you don’t like the fit, a handy feature! The chin strap is padded well and doesn’t irritate my neck in the slightest. The strap seems a bit longer than it was in my X-11, but the excess snaps up out of the way nicely.

The RF-1100 comes with a chin curtain and breath guard that you install yourself. I installed both in my helmet. I never used the chin curtain in my X-11 because it had a tendency to fall out or get in the way, but I haven’t found that to be the case with the RF-1100; it’s stayed in place and really doesn’t get in the way….plus it really helps cut the wind noise down. I suspect I’ll enjoy the chin curtain in the winter. The breath guard is ok and seem functional enough; however, I’ve never had much luck with them preventing fogging. In fact, the RF-1100 is VERY quick to fog if you leave the visor closed when stopping at a light. Luckily, the RF-1100 has a great visor closure system that has a very positive “fog vent” position that works very well. Of course, the drawback to the small sliver of venting is increased noise.

After a week of ownership and several very long rides, the helmet has been completely comfortable and shown no signs of hotspots or irritation of any kind. I’m very happy with it. The helmet’s weight seems to be much better than my already light X-11 and the view out of the helmet is excellent in my opinion. The viewport seems to be quite a bit bigger than that of my old X-11.

Noise and Flow
Speaking of noise, the RF-1100 is actually relatively quiet for me as compared to my old X-11. When you open the vents, which I’ll cover in a bit, or have the visor cracked open, it is pretty noisy, but not in a spectacular sense. I was still able to hear my music at speed without any problems. I suspect it’d be quite a bit noisier without the chin curtain, but I haven’t tested that. When the vents and visor are fully closed, it really is a quiet helmet. It was almost eery silence at times, depending on what position my windscreen was in. Pretty cool. Turning my head in the airstream caused no undue movements or pressure; it was rather sedate even with the Sena Bluetooth unit hanging off the side. With my adjustable windscreen, it’s quite easy to play around with the different heights and find a setting that’s super smooth and quiet.

You can just make out one of the Sena's speakers installed.

Venting
I’ve read a few reviews that weren’t particular impressed with the venting of the RF-1100; however, my experience has been quite different. I was completely impressed with the venting! I should qualify that in that I’m talking about the upper vents…the chin vent IS disappointing in performance, but that might have something to do with my windscreen. The upper vents, when open, let the air flow across the top of my head in a way that my X-11 never did…and that was a helmet that had good venting! When you slide open a front vent at speed, there is absolutely no missing the fact that air is spilling in…it’s that nice! The vents themselves are a bit fiddly and can be a guessing game when on the road, but once you get used to them, it’s ok. There’s 2 forward vents and 4 rear vents; no idea why there are 4 rear vents, but they work. When the vents are closed, the helmet’s noise levels are very low, but when the vents are open, the noise levels go up quite a bit. Additionally, the front vents are pretty much full circles open to the wind stream and there’s nothing shielding them from the occasional bug getting in. I learned this while rolling down the road with the vents open…I felt a creepy crawly on my scalp after passing through a cluster, lol. It’s annoying to have a bug crawling around up there, but I’d rather take that risk and have the excellent venting of the RF-1100! Going back to the chin vent for a moment; it has detents for each position, but I really noticed no difference one way or the other. I don’t feel any air from the chin vent unless I hold up my hand in front of the vent, blocking the air entrance.

Weather Ability
In the short week that I’ve had the Shoei RF-1100, I’ve traveled several thousand miles and was in a day-long deluge heading to EOM in Cumberland Falls, KY. During that deluge, or any of the rain storms in the following days, the RF-1100 didn’t leak a drop, even with the “city vent” visor setting. There is a very substantial angled gasket running around the viewpoint of the helmet and it apparently does an awesome job. The neat visor closure mechanism goes a long was towards helping with the visor’s seal. I was throughly impressed! The vents, when closed, did not leak a drop either. My old X-11 was pretty good with this too, but the viewport gasket was nowhere near as effective and generally leaked. I never had to touch the visor to clear rain from it as a turn of the head using did the trick.

The Final Word
Seeing as how I wore my X-11 for 6.9 years, I’m not a huge connoisseur of motorcycle headgear and I think many riders are like that; once you find a great fitting helmet, you stick with it. The Shoei RF-1100 has so far been up to the challenge of taking the old X-11′s spot in cradling my brain case. I’m very impressed with the helmet and happy to have it! If you have a Shoei head and are looking for a new helmet, my advice is to check out the RF-1100 before looking at anything else…I think you’ll be impressed.

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Earlier this week, I noticed some water stains showing up in the ceiling. We just went through Hurricane Irene here and the town was hit particularly hard, so I figured perhaps there was some damage that I had missed during my inspection a couple of weeks ago. Upon inspecting the attic and roof, I found no visible holes…I chalked it up to hurricane force winds forcing water into spots it doesn’t normally go.

Fast forward to last night, we had a rain storm. I decided that, to be sure, I’d go into the attic and see if there’s any visible leakage. The attic is like a cathedral, so walking around and inspecting things isn’t so hard; I found no leakage over or around the area where the water stains were (yes, I know water travels too). From there, I decided to inspect the entire roof from the attic, just to be sure there were no unnoticed problems. When I reached the front portion of the attic, it caught my eye….the steady stream of water pouring in as if someone had partially opened a faucet. Luckily, the leak looked like it was over the soffet area and didn’t pose an immediate risk; there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway since it was pouring rain outside.

Today, I decided to get up on the roof and find the source of the leak I saw last night. Our roof is VERY steeply pitched, so this is no small task. When I inspected the roof from the relative safety of a ladder, I noticed something peculiar…there was what looked like a small piece of copper tubing stuck into the roof in the area of the leak. I grabbed a pair of pliers and yanked it out. It was a BULLET!

It only damaged a roof, but imagine if it found something soft and squishy...

Heh, imagine that. Well, this is Rocky Mount and people do shoot their guns in the air. Luckily, the roof was just thick enough to stop it, but not before it managed to punch through just enough to let the water get in. From the look of it, it reminds me a lot of a 7.62 NATO round. Anyway, word to the wise, if you hear gun fire in your neighborhood, go stand under the thickest part of your roof!

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I’ve always been a MS Flight Simulator user, going all the way back to it’s beginnings when SubLogic owned the franchise and it ran on an Apple IIc. I’ve “played” it off and on throughout the years and currently run FSX, the latest version from around 2006. Last month, after what seemed like years in the making, PMDG released their 737NGX in the 800-900 variants, with and without winglets. Other variants will be released later on. They already had a 737 in the stable; however, it was for Flight Simulator 9; the NGX is a ground-up rebuild, with the help of Boeing, and it is one fantastic bird!

I should first point out that I’m NOT a pilot and I haven’t stayed at any Holiday Inn Express’ lately, but I’ve had a lifelong interest in aviation. I was fortunate to feed that interest during my years in the Marine Corps, when I was a plane captain for A-6E’s and F/A-18′s, but these days, I’m firmly on the ground and flying my bike, lol. The 737NGX from PMDG encompasses just about everything the real aircraft has to offer; every switch, knob, and dial is exactly as it is in the real jet and they all do what they’re supposed to do. This is not really a review as I don’t comprehensively cover any particular item, but it’s more my own personal thoughts about this remarkable aircraft; take it for what it is.

Dell XPS M1710 runs FSX with a MacBook running XP providing EFB and weather support.

The electrical, engine, pressurization, systems, and hydraulic performance is exactly like it is in the real thing (FSX does have limits the NGX pushes against). Those are bold statements and I can’t back them up with my non-flying experience; however, plenty of real pilots who fly the NGX, along with the real ones who helped develop PMDG’s model, say it’s so…that’s good enough for me. I look at it like this…PMDG supplies the real Boeing manuals with the NGX and, for the most part, the manuals apply directly to what you do and can do in the NGX in FSX, so it must be good. Yes, it’s that good…

Flying the NGX

You can’t exactly load up FSX, climb in the NGX, hit a few shortcut keys, and take off…no, you have to take a bit of time to get it configured for flight. If you’re hardcore, you’ll plow through the several thousand pages of included Boeing manuals to get started, but if you’re not, there’s a nice tutorial flight, detailed step-by-step, that you can follow to get off the ground.

Let me pause a moment and mention the sound….the sound is simply incredible with the NGX. PMDG went well above the norm and basically captured every sound the real 737 makes and put it into their NGX. FSX’s architecture limits them in some ways, but the overall impact of the sound environment in the NGX is awesome. For proof, you need only have the speakers (with a decent bass) or headphones turned up when you approach the top of descent; as the engines spool down for the descent, you’ll feel and hear the familiar rumble…it gave me the sense of actually being there. Yep, the sound is that good.

The cockpit is fully operational....and awesome.

Flying the NGX is really not all that different from any other advanced Boeing I’ve flown in FSX. It handles very well in manual flight and it’s automatic flight systems seem to be spot on with how they are described in the Boeing manuals. If you’ve been flying PMDG’s MD-11, as I had been before getting the NGX, forget what you learned in that jet as far as procedures are concerned; the NGX IS different. You’ll know what I mean if you try to takeoff with the NGX in a configuration similar to the MD-11.

One thing of note with the 800WL model, with winglets, is that it is an extremely slippery aircraft! If you expect to barrel up to your approach, deploy the speedbrake, and slow right down to approach speed, you’ll be in for a surprise. The NGX WL requires some energy management planning well ahead of your destination. There are some videos posted in PMDG’s forums, but suffice it to say, don’t be afraid to use the speedbrake and plan your descents carefully. In my experience, I’ve been too hot a few times, but after a few times, I’ve gotten much better at managing my speed in descent and making sure I hit the marks in the proper configuration.

Speaking of the models, the liveries available from PMDG (free, by the way), are spectacular! The detailing is very well done and the vast selection makes it easy to find your favorite airline. Of course, with the available paintkit, user-made liveries are starting to appear as well.

Operations with the NGX

I’ve had a few “errors” here and there, but they generally turn out to be an error on my part, in a weather file, or something in FSX’s own airport data. Perhaps the most common problem I’ve run into has to do with weather. For some reason, the NGX elicits the occasional bug in weather where the outside air temperature remains unnaturally high the higher you climb rather than dropping as it should. The problem is known to crop up with FSInn weather quite a bit and sometimes ASE weather, which I use. The typical scenario is seeing OAT’s of 30+ C at altitudes over 10k feet and gradually increasing the higher you climb. This behavior robs the engines of power; as in real life, hot air makes life difficult for jet engines and heavy loads. The fix is simple; clear and reload the weather.

Quite literally, a shot of the screen w/iPhone, lol. Beautiful plane...

PMDG has given us service-based failures in addition to the usual random or programmed failures that generally accompany any PMDG aircraft. With service-based failures, if a part wears out, it can fail. Yep, that’s right, there’s a “memory” to the system. Each NGX airframe in the hangar keeps track of it’s hours and, using Boeing’s mean time to failure data, can have components fail in a relatively realistic fashion if you don’t take care of things. Enabling service-based failures and not expecting anything to happen on your first flight with a particular airframe does NOT guarantee a trouble-free trip mind you, if you handle the airplane roughly, you may just create a failure on your own. Take a sharp turn on the taxiway too fast and you might knock the nosewheel out of balance. Jerk the flight controls too hard and you may find some critical autoflight components inop. And yes, an initial failure can cascade into other failures in a realistic fashion. It really makes things interesting! On a side note, it seems that the service-based failures and airframe hour tracking can lead to certain airframes developing their own quirks over time. On one particular airframe I’ve flown over 100 hours in, there are the occasional oddball system things that crop up for no real good reason…then they quietly go away (a button push that doesn’t light up the first time, an autopilot that needs coaxing to engage…that sort of thing). I don’t know if PMDG programmed that sort of thing into the NGX, but it sure seems like it.

Apart from the weather issue I mentioned earlier, there are a few other little bugs in this initial release (with all 3 PMDG hotfixes installed) that spring up from time to time. The PMDG 737NGX Avsim forums are full of reported “issues”, but many times, a quick read of the manual would easily solve the problem for the user. The introduction document for the PMDG covers a great deal of performance and quirks information about FSX and NGX. Servicing, or rather the inability to service, the hydraulics appears to be broken for the moment. Instead of using the built-in maintenance facility in NGX, you have to reload the panel state (haven’t even touched on all of the stuff to be found in the CDU menus!). Another “bug” occurs with the fuel temperature; at times, you’ll load up the NGX and find the fuel temperature at or above 40c, which leads to overheating of the electrically-driven hydraulic pumps (they use the fuel for cooling). There’s no way to fix the problem except with a panel reload. Apart from those items, I’ve found nothing else that impedes my ability to fly the NGX although other folks probably have a laundry list of things my non-real-life-flying-eye probably doesn’t see.

Options, Options, and more Options

The NGX does not add a bunch of stuff to the menu bar in FSX, instead, it places everything inside of the CDU (the FMC’s display). Changes made in those options are immediate and do not require reloading of the aircraft! Some of the items deal with performance options like whether or not the FO’s displays are operative or the target refresh rates for power hungry gauges. You can adjust the IRS alignment times, alter your passenger count, payload weights, and fueling within the CDU. A side bonus is that the fuel and weight information is just a right-click away when you’re on the FMC side and figuring out your initial performance weights for the flight.

The other aspect of the options within the CDU are aircraft options and there are pages and pages of them. Within the CDU, you configure exactly how your aircraft is equipped. Things like eyebrow windows, the HUGS system, short field packages, callouts, ETOPS packages, passenger floor layout, to name a few, plus instrument layout options. I’m telling you, it’s packed with stuff. Additionally, there are the different panel states you can load…things like cold & dark, long turnaround and short turnaround, plus you can create your own. The panel/option states can be airframe specific or you can apply a single panel/option package across an entire set of NGX airframes (winglet-equipped or not). All of these options make it easy to configure your NGX to fit just about any real life airline flying the NG. I should add that the options stick…if you set things up a certain way and quit FSX, the next time you load up the NGX, it’ll have your options in place.

All in all, the options that PMDG has provided in the NGX make it one of the comprehensive yet easy-to-work-with aircraft in FSX.

Performance

By all accounts, including my own, my XPS gaming laptop is far behind the times with the performance available from the PC’s of today. I bought it in 2006 and quickly replaced it with a Macbook the next year; however, it does excel at one thing…playing games. There are only two “games” on the XPS, FSX and SSM2007 (a space shuttle simulator). FSX is the 8 million pound gorilla on the system, taking up almost the entire 80gb hard drive. It’s a 32-bit Vista system, equipped with a Core2Duo 2.0 (or 2.2)ghz chip (I just can’t recall at the moment), plus it has 4GB of ram and a 512mb Nvidia Go 7950GTX video card. FSX has always run fairly well on the XPS laptop, although I do have to run with some of the sliders turned down (as does just about every other FSX user out there, lol).

The exterior detailing of the NGX is exquisite!

My FSX also runs with Ground Environment Extreme (GEX), X-Graphics, and Ultimate Traffic 2. Occasionally, I’ll also run Active Sky Evolution (ASE) on the same machine, but lately, I’ve run ASE along with EFB from Aivlasoft via Simconnect on my Macbook running Windows XP on a VM.

With my autogen and scenery settings running at “normal”, texture settings running at a 10m/7m setting, and UT2 running at 70%, I have a smooth FSX environment when flying the NGX. The NGX is a heavy duty aircraft, performance wise, and it can bring your system to its knees, but I found it was no worse than PMDG’s 747 (which I think performs worse than the MD-11). I had a single out of memory error (OOM) when I first tried the NGX, but once I used the BCEDIT trick to expand the available memory to the system/FSX, things have been fantastic and trouble-free. I DO have some chop when approaching big cities, but generally all I need to do is adjust my UT2 traffic settings with the in-sim controls and everything improves. Overall, I’m pleased with the NGX’s performance. That said, I might look at building an FSX-only machine in the future.

My $.02

If you’re an FSX fan and love heavy metal, you’re REALLY missing out if you don’t have the NGX yet. If you’ve read stories in the forum and have gotten scared, don’t be…the NGX is a fantastic airplane and one that you’ll be kicking yourself over if you don’t buy it. It is undoubtedly, the most complex, “real” aircraft available for Flight Simulator X today that’s as close to the real thing as you can get without shelling out millions for a real simulator or the real thing. If there is one piece of advice to share it is this; READ the manual, it contains a wealth of information, especially the introduction document. Service Pack 1, as well as more variants, is in the pipeline and will be hitting us shortly, so the fun will continue with the NGX for a very long time!

If you don’t agree with my assessment, feel free fret over it. The NGX works great for me and performs as expected.

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So there I was, working diligently on a client’s website, another WordPress site, when I needed to refer to my own site (this one) for a plugin I wanted to use…I noticed my site was horribly out of date (imagine that). Okay, the latest post I had was back in June, so yes, that was out of date, but really, it was the plugins on the site that were out of date. In WordPress, this is usually not a big deal…you just hit the update button and Presto! it’s all done. Then I noticed one new update popped up after the plugins…the theme (queue dramatic music). I HATE updating themes because the process usually ends up killing any custom things I did to the theme in the past. Anyway, I said “what the hell” and hit the update button….blammo…the site went kablooey. I kind of expected that. Long, well not so long, story short, there’s a few screwballey things I’m still working out. I kinda like the new updates…they almost make me want to invest more time here…no, really! Guess we’ll see if a mountain moves…

By the way, my website uses the Mystique theme, from Digitalnature.eu in case you were wondering. Oh, and look, the site’s posts are now up to date…heh.

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Yes, apparently I blew off putting up any May updates…no worries, I’m absolutely sure that no one died from the worry. The month of May was actually a bit of fun as it involved FJR camping on one weekend and a car trip down to Austin, TX the next. In both instances, I survived, although there were a few times were I pushed too hard during the camping trip and nearly saw someone about buying a farm…if you know what I mean. I guess that’s what happens when one tries experimenting with various cornering techniques on the twisty roads lacing the Smokey Mountains. Anyway, I managed to tally a bit over 1500 miles on that trip and completely wear out my front tire…a sign of a good time.

FJR Campout 2011 Photos

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Just added some new updates to my FJR1300 page if you’re interested. Just got done sticking antlers on it.

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Well, it figures. For the previous week and a half, we’ve enjoyed spring/summer type weather with temps in the 70′s and 80′s, but now it looks like the weather gods have decided that we need to revert back to late winter for a bit, lol. We’re currently saddled with temps in the 30′s and 40′s, rain, and some snow just north of us. On top of that, my phone just buzzed with a freeze warning tonight and possible snow! REALLY? REALLY?…wonderful! Guess it’ll be a cold week of commuting this week as things don’t look to be improving too much as the week wears on.

At least Formula 1 and Indy have provided some decent television for the weekend.

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