Sunday Drive

Here are some pics from the drive I took today. I started out wanting to hike up a little mountain just about a mile South of here. When I got over to where I wanted to park it was all blocked off and had signs stating that no one was allowed past that point. They are doing road construction nearby and a lot of the machinery and equipment was being stored there. Pioneer Village was really close by so I went over there and looked around some.

From there I decided to drive out to Carefree. It's not very far, probably about 10 miles. It's a fun little town. There are lots of restaurants and shops that sell Southwestern style items. This weekend they were having an Arts and Crafts Festival. I stopped and looked around, there was some pretty nice stuff. I sat down outside for a long time and just watched all the people, cars, and motorcycles cruise by. The sun was out and it felt good to just relax and enjoy the day.

Here are some more photos I took while I was out and about today.

The Weekend

I had a good Saturday, although it flew by. I wasted a lot of time trying to get a new drivers license with the motorcycle endorsement. I drove 30 minutes to the DMV, I got there then stood in line outside for an hour. In that hour I only got half way up to the entrance where you go in and get a number then wait and wait and wait. It was one of only a few offices open today. I waited exactly one hour then left. I'll drive in to work one day next week and go to the DMV office downtown.

I wanted to have my license in case I saw a motorcycle I wanted to test drive this weekend. Ryan called and told me that he was taking Bella to the movies and invited me to come along. I met up with them and we saw Madagascar. After the movie and video games they asked me if I wanted to come over to the house. I did but we stopped by a motorcycle shop on the way. I wanted to look at a specific bike, the Yamaha V Star 250. I wanted to check it out and see how it looked and felt compared to the larger bikes there. The guy told me exactly what my instructor from the riders course said, and what another guy in the class told me last weekend. That a 250cc is great for beginners but after 3 - 6 months I'll be bored and want something with more engine power. Something that will get me up and down the freeway and out on the highways without being ridden at full throttle for most of the trip. I was thinking that I just wanted something nice that would be fun and easy to cruise around the streets of Anthem on. I'm going to want to venture out further as I get more comfortable riding. Maybe I should get a bigger bike, not the biggest, but something like the 650cc V Star Classic I saw today. Another factor to consider of course is the price. I have enough cash set aside to get the 250 bike and decided that I was comfortable with spending that much. The bigger bikes have bigger price tags. I think I should start looking at used 500 - 650cc bikes and see if there's anything I like within the current budget. Or wait a month while I add more numbers to the budget and buy new like I want. Decisions, decisions.

2008 Yamaha V Star Classic 649cc

After motorcycle shopping I went over to Ryan's house to see Sochilt and Christina, and to spend some more time with Bella. Christina made a nice dinner and a great cake that we had for dessert. It was nice of them to invite me to stay and eat.

After Work

These are my East and West views from where I catch the bus after work. You can kind of see the baseball park through the trees. The bus takes me up the Park and Ride, which is just about half way between my office and home. The bus route I take is called a Rapid. It's not like a regular bus that makes stops every couple of blocks. The Rapids have a few stops to pick up and drop people off, but the majority of the ride is on the freeway. We get to cruise in the carpool lane past all the other cars just crawling along. I really like using the bus to get to and from work. It would be such a pain if I had to drive in everyday. Not to mention I don't have to pay for my bus card or for parking. I have a friend that I see in the mornings of my flex week (she's married dang it). We sit together and visit, but most of the time I read, and sometimes I just listen to my iPod and stare out the window. Sometimes I even take a little nap.

At the Park and Ride. It's only 6:30, where is everyone?

I saw this cat the other day at my bus stop. I took the picture to show Rouba because she has stray cats at her bus stop that she feeds and takes care of daily. I probably shouldn't have said anything to her about this one. I haven't seen him since that day so I'm sure he has a home and is well fed. Right Rouba?

.

Here's a City bus on fire that I saw about 3 weeks ago on my way home. When I drove by, the traffic on my side was going slow enough that I was able to take this picture. It was kind of exciting to see.

.

Can you see the flames on the balloon? You see the balloons out quite a bit going for sunrise and sunset rides. I want to do it.

Training Course - Final Day

Today was the the 3rd and final day of my motorcycle training course. I passed with a pretty low final score. We did another 5 hours of riding and learning all kinds of different skills and techniques to deal with situations that will come up out on the road. As I typed the word skills just now my mind immediately went to Napoleon Dynamite. Anyway, I learned a lot more motorcycle handling skills today. The first thing today the instructors told us that we were going to be stepping things up a noch or two, and the evaluations were going to begin. We were given points for mistakes and if you got so many points then you wouldn't pass. The first thing we did was the emergency stopping procedure that I was having some trouble with at the end of class yesterday. We were given one practice run then the next one was scored. There were cones marking where to begin the stop, and painted marks 6" apart that were used for measuring. They looked at the approach speed, did we start the braking at the cones, did we shift back down to 1st gear, did the tires lock up, and how far down the hash marks we ended up. Both instructors took down notes or whatever on the clipboards and that was it. It was the next persons turn, there was no feedback as to how we did like yesterday. I felt good though. It was the beginning of the day and I was feeling fresh and excited and ready to get it on. All throughout the day they were evaluating us. Sometimes they would tell us that for this particular maneuver we would be scored, and other times we would be running through the exercise then all of the sudden you see them with the clipboards and they'd be writing something as you passed by. We did some things that were kind of difficult for a beginner rider but the only way I would learn it on my own would be learning it the hard way. They kept telling us that someone was going to drop a bike and maybe even have a bit of a spill. They expect it and rarely go a weekend session without it happening at least once. We heard that someone from the morning class fell twice on the first day. Today a girl did have a little wreck and it damaged the bike. She was mostly embarrassed and felt bad about the bike. They were really cool about it and kept saying that we needed to test ourselves here, and make the mistakes here, not on our own, with our own bikes. My favorite part I think was the cone weaves. At one point we had to be in 2nd or 3rd gear and all 10 riders just kept going round and round the course doing these weaves. It was so fun to have the speed up and to feel the lean as you go through the weaves. I took a quick picture of the bikes all lined up before the class began but I didn't get any other pics. I wanted one with me on the bike wearing my helmet and gloves, but I felt too funny asking someone to take it for me.

Super Bowl XLIII

First of all, the Cards won! Super Bowl XLIII here we come. I couldn't watch the game because I was at my training class. One guy there was calling his wife and getting score updates for us. I got the news that they did it from a text message from Scott, who was at the game, and a voicemail from Mindy. That's so awesome. I have a couple of friends who are season ticket holders and were at the game today. I can't imagine how exciting it was to be there in person. I wonder if Em and the boys are waving their terrible towels and cheering on the Steelers right now. I'm watching that game and they're winning.

Training Course - Day 2

I made it through day 2 of my riders training course. It was all hands on riding, I did pretty good I think. I had fun and liked doing all the exercises we did except the last one. The last thing we did before wrapping it for the day was emergency braking. The exercise was to take off, shift into 2nd gear, get it up to 18-20 mph then stop the bike using both brakes and downshifting at the same time. During the field test tomorrow we have to correctly do this emergency stop. We ran through it about 10 times, half the time we accelerated up to a box then stopped. We also did the same thing only we weren't looking for the box, the instructors would raise their hand up which meant stop now. Then they would tell you how that run was and want to see if you went back down to 1st during the stop. I was getting pretty tired and I think that's part of the reason I didn't feel as confident with that maneuver. We were out there for almost 5 hours. It got up to 76* today, and for the last 45 minutes or so I was feeling pretty drained and ready to wrap things up. Plus having the helmet on for that long was getting to me.

The bike I rode today was a black Honda Nighthawk. Here's a picture of one. I'll try to take a few pics of my own tomorrow.

They required us to wear boots. The only boots I had were my Doc Martins. They are heavy and have steel toes. It was sort of a pain to use the gear shifter, I kept looking down because with the steel toes I couldn't feel if I was under it to do the upshifting. They called me out for looking down several times. Tonight I went and bought some hiking boots. They are much lighter and the top and toe area have much thinner material. I'm hoping I'll be able to feel the gear lever without having to look down. We'll see how it goes.

Motorcycle Riders Training

Today was day 1 of my 3 day riders training course. It was about 5 hours of classroom work with a 50 question exam at the end. I scored a 98%. I have been studying the manual I printed off the DMV website so I was ready for an exam. It's a good thing I prepared myself before the class because the way it was done wasn't that great for my learning style. There were 20 students sitting at 3 large tables. We were broken in to 6 groups. The instructor would assign a topic from the training booklet to the groups, the groups would read and discuss it with eachother, then a member of each group would teach the rest of the class about their section. The instructor would then add his comments or sometimes we just moved on to the next group or a short video. People were nervous about the test but I think he said you could miss 12 and still pass. Also if you didn't pass it tonight, you could study the material on your own and retake it tomorrow or Sunday.

Good Weekend

The weekend flew by, it's already Sunday evening and the sun is just about to go down. I just got home from being out most of the day. I saw that the Eagles beat the Giants which means the Eagles will be coming to town to face the Cardinals for the NFC Championship. I just saw a headline saying the tickets to that game sold out in 6 minutes. The winners of that game Sunday go on to the Superbowl. How exciting is that? I'm catching the end of the Steelers game, Emily, it looks freezing there.

Yesterday I met up with Ryan and Bella. We did some shopping and went to the movies. We saw Bedtime Stories. It was pretty funny, Adam Sandler cracks me up. Bella really got big laughs whenever they showed Bugsy the guinea pig.

Today I picked up a friend and we went down to Tempe Town Lake and spent the day soaking up the 70* weather. I brought my bike and rode all over the place. I was also scoping it out trying to see if it would be a good place to bring my canoe. There were lots of kayaks, sailboats and a couple of those crew boats, or whatever they're called. It was cool to see the new light rail in action. It crosses over the lake and makes a stop on Mill Ave. You can catch it just one block away from my office. This guy from work was saying that he took it out to Mill Ave for lunch and was back to work in just over an hour. I want to try it out. It's free for us to use because we already have the Metro cards that we use for the buses. We were thinking about riding it today but we drove by the Light Rail station on Mill and it looked packed. There didn't seem to be anywhere to park either.

Work

Views looking in, sitting, and standing.

Today there was either a rally or protest going on outside. It lasted for over 2 hours. Chanting, cheering, cars honking, somebody on a megaphone. Kind of annoying but I guess it goes with the territory. I was busy and didn't think to take a picture of it until about 5:00. There were a few still out there.

Today everyone was pumped up about the Cardinals. The City Manager sent something out yesterday saying everyone should wear their Arizona Cardinals clothing in to work today to show support for our team making it to the playoffs. I have 2 hats but I didn't have a shirt to wear. I stopped by Dicks Sporting Goods on my way home last night to look for a shirt. They had some stuff but it was kind of expensive. They did have t-shirts for $20 but they looked all faded and like they had been sitting in a warehouse for the past 10 years. A lot of people dressed in their gear. Pretty cool. Our division head came by to tell me something and he had a jersey and a hat on. I wish I would have known we could wear hats, that would have really made my day, to be able to wear my hat into work, man. Well they play tomorrow at 6, hopefully they can do it.

Rocky Point Fever

Today Michael showed me pics from the Rocky Point trip he took over New Years. It sounded so laid back and relaxing. He stayed at a beach house out away from town where they had the whole beach to themselves. I've been down there before and I'm thinking it's time for another trip. Things I remember about Rocky Point are: the Playa Bonita hotel, playing in the water, the tide pool area, renting ATV's, shopping in town, eating street tacos, getting Thrifty's ice cream across the street from the church, hiring a guy to take us out fishing. It was a lot of fun. I'm ready to go back.

One of his photos.

Flex Day

Today's my flex day. I went to Safeway this morning, it's not raining today but it was kind of cold. I got some groceries and looked at the movies at the Red Box but didn't see anything I wanted. I cooked up some breakfast burritos, I always make way more than I want so I'll have leftovers. That's what I had for dinner tonight. It was a pretty uneventful kicked back day. Robby's birthday is on Friday so I spent some time doing online shopping. I found 3 items I wanted to get him. I got them from Amazon which means all 3 things will be shipped out separately. Kind of annoying, I would rather him get everything together and have the package arrive on or before his birthday. That's not going to happen. It looked like one should arrive on time.

The sun came out and it started to warm up so I went out for a bike ride. I just rode around the park and over to the community center to see how busy it was. The last time I was out riding, I had a flat and had to walk the bike all the way back home. Ryan replaced the rubber tube for me the other day so I was good to go. I'm so lucky to live so close to that amazing park. My neighborhood is just across the street from it.

.

I haven't done it in awhile but I used to go fishing over there all the time. Michael and Brian have been up several times and fished with me. Most of those times we've gone at night. There are 4 different fishing lakes and I think the only time we've been and not caught anything was the day Darin came up with his kids. They'll have come back and give it another shot.

A couple of weeks ago I enrolled in a motorcycle riders training course that starts in a couple weeks. It's a 3 day course. The Friday night session is classroom training, then you go back Sat and Sunday for the hands on riding. They provide the motorcycle, helmet, and gloves. At the end you have to pass a series of tests including a written test. When you complete the course you'll receive a certificate that the DMV will honor. They won't require that you take their tests. Just pass the eye exam and pay the fee. It's also great because at the DMV you would have to do the test course with your own bike. My motorcycle experience is pretty limited. When I was a teenager I went out and rode Kevin's dirt bike with him. Then Mike Booth had a motorcycle that I would go for rides on. I never drove it but I remember how exciting and fun it was. I think after going through the course I'll know if I want to buy a bike and get into it or not. I need to see how my hip feels too. I've been doing some looking around and researching the all the different choices out there. I really hope it's something that works out, the more I look and think about it, the more I want to get one and start riding. Here's a picture of the Yamaha I'm thinking about.

New Toys

A few months ago I had a tire blow out on my Rodeo while I was driving on the freeway. I was heading down to the park n ride where I catch the bus to work. It was during morning traffic so the cars weren't moving too fast, but changing a tire on the side of the freeway is not fun at all. Plus I got all dirty and had to go back home and change. I decided to call Rouba and take the whole day off. I would have missed the last bus downtown, and would've had to drive in. That would have made me pretty late for work, but I was also a worried about the other 3 tires. They all had the same tread wear as the one that just blew, I needed to replace all 4, and the sooner the better. That morning at home I looked around on the internet for new tires. Too expensive, I didn't want to put anymore money into the Rodeo. I was planning on getting something new but hadn't gotten serious about it yet. I started looking at some dealer websites. I wanted to get an Xterra, Durango, or maybe a FJ-Cruiser. I spent a few hours looking online and saw these 2 Xterras, both at the same place that looked really good. I did an online application, a salesperson called me and made an appointment for that evening to come in and see them. I decided on one and traded in the Rodeo for the Xterra. I'm really happy with it, it's newer, bigger, more powerful, has better stereo system, blah blah blah, everything I wanted.

The next thing on my want list was a canoe. I shopped around and decided to get a single person canoe. I needed to make sure that I didn't have rely on someone helping me load it up every time I wanted to use it. I can load it on top or inside by myself. It's really easy if I put all the seats down and carry it inside. I got it in October and have taken it out to the Lake probably 8 or 9 times now. It's great. I have been going to either Lake Pleasant (25 minutes away), or Bartlett Lake (an hour away). I want to try out Tempe Town Lake. This Spring and Summer I'm going to check out the lakes around Prescott and Flagstaff. I haven't tried fishing in it yet. One day I was out and the water was so calm and fish were jumping all around me. That was pretty exciting. My heart was definitely beating fast, I love it.

Rainy Day

During the week I get up at either 4:30 or 5:30 depending on whether it's my flex week or not. Morgan is used to that schedule, he doesn't get when it's a weekend or a day off. He wants me up and awake that early so we can get on with our morning routine. The routine is first going to the hall bathroom and turning on the tub so he can get a drink of water from the drips. I go to the bathroom in my bedroom and use it, then stumble around getting my clothes out and checking for wrinkles and all that. By now he's done with his drink and wants his food. He always has plenty in his food dish but he likes me to poor in some fresh before he starts to eat any of it. If I'm taking too much time getting to it, he lets me know by meowing, rubbing against my legs, and has even jumped in the laundry basket where I'm trying to get my clothes from. I tell him he's only slowing me down but he must think it speeds me up. Yeah so patience isn't always his thing. But I've had him since 2002 and we've probably done the morning routine since then. Today is my day off from work, I don't want or have to get up that early but Morgan insists that I do. To wake me up he will nudge me with his head, purr directly in my ear, lay down right on my head or neck, and sometimes even uses his claws to get my attention. I can get up, turn on the tub, put some food down for him, and be back in bed in 30 seconds. Now we're both happy again. Sometimes it's pretty annoying but I think about Ryan and Soch with the triplets coming. I can handle my little Morgan issues, no problem.

I wanted to take the mountain bike out for a ride this morning but it's raining. I might go out for a ride this afternoon if and when it warms up some. At Thanksgiving time we went on a hike in the Cave Creek Recreation Area. It's not too far from here and the trails look like they would be fun to try on the bike. I want to go out there again and do some more exploring. We hiked \ walked to the Clay Mine. It was closed off with chain linked fence but I read that the park services sometimes does a mine tour there. That could be fun. In my office I pulled in some mine data for the State into my GIS system and saw the Clay Mine, but I also saw another mine not too far from there. The database I have has all kinds of information including the GPS coordinates of these sites. I think it would be fun to take our handheld GPS units and go on bikes and see if we can find this other mine. Kind of a geocaching adventure. That day we saw a coyote and a Desert Tortoise. It was cool, I've never seen one before.

.