The commute was the most interesting part of the day

Today I tried the PG to Menlo Park commute on Neil's NT 650. I don't think I'll be doing that again. Well, I'll be doing it once more, I guess, but that thing is just not a commuting dream for anyone over six feet tall. I get the attraction- it's a really nimble bike, and I'm not immune to the antisocial charms of the Kerker exhaust Neil's running. But right around Moss Landing the "cafe"-style mirrors started unscrewing themselves from the grips so that I had to lever them up with the meat of my palm. That put me in an even more punishing posture. And the cockpit , what would be the top tube of a bicycle, is really short. I just... didn't love it.

Which is funny. I really thought the Hawk was going to be this awesome traffic weapon, at least compared to my K100RS. The KRS is just not a glamourous bike, and I have these dreams of riding something within a decade of its fabrication... The K100's are big, and really top heavy. Somehow BMW was able to make a really heavy bike, and locate the center of gravity above the actual bike. It's like the soul, floating constantly a foot above the tank. But that bike just fits me. I can commute 100 miles each way on that thing, and still be in a good mood when I get home. Way better than when I'm in a car, and that's the point of motorcycles, I think. If you're not comfortable, the whole motorcyling experience is wearing. (well, too wearing). Still wicked fun for an afternoon, where you can pull off you helmet and get a beer, but if you've got to pull off your helmet, and get to work, it kind of sucks. Now, on the commute home, maybe I can take Pescadero, and make this twitchy little bastard work WITH me.

Oh, in uglier motorcycle commute news, I pulled over next to a guy who was stopped on the side of Highway 17 this morning with his shiny BMW R1100RS. Two of the four lugnuts holding his rear wheel on had gone walkabout. He said it felt like a flat. He only had 2 mile left till his exit, so he was going to crank 'em down and go slow... but Hwy 17? I peed a little just talking to him. I've heard of getting the back wheel loose, but good God! Not what we like to see.

Chamber Day

Most of this morning was Chamber cleanup day for PGOR. Once a year we do our housekeeping at the Hyperbaric chamber. A lot of Brasso, and lot of mopping, and we dissassemble pretty much all the pressure fittings, and sterilize the interior. Good fun, that. It went really fast this year, and we were done just in time to miss Sweden's World cup opener. Ah, well. This is the price we pay, I guess.

After the Chamber cleaning, we had a picnic with the ocean rescue folks. One of the rescue folks fixed T a virgin strawberry daquarie, and she spent about a hour glued to that. Then she studiously filled the dog's water dish with pebbles. I call that good employment.

Cleaner, Faster, Better than Before!

Getting closer... I should be working on my talk for the International Temperate Reefs conference, or at least polishing up on of my manuscripts, but instead I'm puttering with this. But- this may not be all bad. I have high hopes for using this blog to keep up with my far flung family and these damned friends of mine who keep moving away.

This, this moving away is one of the larger problems with being a graduate student. The constant shared stress makes for intense friendships, and this community of people I've been living in for the past... um... eight-plus years is incredibly wonderful. Incredibly wonderful and inherently temporary. It's a dandelion community, and now we'rdefending, and people are taking to the wind. Dammit. However, it's also a community with a heroin-like attatchment to the internet. So... maybe the weblog is a good thing...

In other news, it's finally spring on the central coast, and I've been able to bundle up the bairn and the pooch and do some hiking to check out the bloom. That's never bad. The picture above is from Sobranes, just North of Big Sur.

Oops, the bairn awakes...

Ping

The first test. Sitting at home on a foggy day while the baby sleeps.