CBBaron

Vstrom 650 - 50mpg city commuting, 55mpg rural roads, ~45mpg freeway. Ninja 250 - 65-70mpg Craig

This is exactly why I always add the extra unnecessary parens to my code, just so I clear to myself and anyone else who reads the code what the order of operations is. Craig

Yea I've heard that critters will not bite or claw at steel wool. So it makes a good way to prevent them from entering small crevices. Craig

Squirels are acrobats, I dont think its possible to prevent them from climbing a house. You need to close the opening they are using. Craig

Been riding to work for the last 3 weeks (minus a couple days of snow) This was easily the nicest day. I took a little longer route into work for the first time this season Will probably take an even longer route home. Craig

Anybody have experience with these? http://www.winthropholsters.com/ They look nice and are local, but I know nothing about holsters. Just got my CHL. Craig

My only question is why did you just start them. It was a beautiful day for a ride. Craig

Probably more like 400 calories. A "preimum" light lager like High Life has about 200 cal. Good strong beer can be much higher. Craig

Ive got Android phones and an Ipad. The Ipad is a easier device to use and the app support is still better that the Droid, especially for the Tablets. However the lack of flash can prevent you from accessing some websites and Apples insistence that the Ipad does not have "files" is very annoying. The lack of flash means for some things I have to use my phone or computer. Especially active sites like my daughters math homework website and some banking sites. There are now work arounds for most "file" issues but for some one who grew up on DOS and has been using Linux for years the lack of access to your files can be difficult. You cant really use a Ipad to store content it does not understand. Which means you cant use it to say upload a file from an external flash card to a website. Or download an unrecognized file and email it or put it in a DropBox account. For my choice I'd get a Samsung or Moto tablet. However my wife is the primary user of the Ipad and the school where she works uses Ipads a teaching aids so for her an Ipad is a better choice. If you have a desktop then a tablet is a nice choice for a secondary device. They are more portable and more useable when you dont have a desk. There are apps to handle PDF, Word and Excel. They arn't MS so there may be occasional glitches in the viewing but they are pretty good these days. Craig

Not kidding. This is ~5 miles from where I grew up. Neighboring school district Craig

Your signs are wrong but otherwise precisely. Craig

F = m*a Thats all you need.

I'll repeat what someone else said "Do you want to be the one that opens the door on an armed fugitive" A person can be hiding on the floorboards of a car and the only way to confirm that would be to approach the car and shine a light directly in. If someone is in there and does not want to be captured then that is good way to get a face full of lead. Were they too cautious? In hind sight yes. Was it embarrassing? Better that than dead. I would not want to be in the officers shoes. Craig

Thats what they did. Then broke windows to get entry to be sure. Atleast thats what I read. Craig

No surprise the number of Cuyahoga county mayors on the list, especially in the east side suburbs. A very liberal area of the state. I may complain to our mayor but greatly doubt it would help as I am in a very small minority in the area. If you look at the agenda of the group they don't have any positions that are "anti-gun" but nearly every position is about whittling away 2nd amendment rights. Craig

Ummm, from the article 49% of our oil is produced domestically. So we are heavily using local oil. It is a BIG stretch to say based on information in the article that we could produce enough to satisfy domestic demand. I'm not saying we cant but that article gave nothing to indicate that we could. We wont run out of oil in the near future. However that does not mean that it wont continue to get more and more difficult (read expensive) to extract additional oil. Yep in the 70s some predicted oil would become scarce in the near future. Then technologies improved finding oil and extracting oil and allow accessing oil in places that was previously unaccessible. Can that happen again? Maybe. I'm betting that it will get more and more expensive to find and extract that next barrel of oil. I'm not sure it will reach some kind of crisis point in the near future but I expect that its only going to get more expensive to buy a gallon of gas. Craig

My understanding is that electric subs in shallow/confined waters is a much more difficult target than Nuc subs in the open ocean. They are quieter because they dont have moving parts in the engine plant and the sea floor provides additional cover. Not saying he wasn't hoping for action but it could have been a dangerous task. Craig

kamikaze boats can be a problem in a harbor or narrow passages but in open water I would expect they would just be target practice for Navy guns or missiles. Current ship defenses are designed to defend against surface hugging missiles at near super-sonic speeds. Any surface ship would be an easy target. Electric mini-subs and shore launched surface to surface missiles are much more of a threat in an open combat. Craig

There was some magazine articles recently that had an interview with the founder. He was saying his initial intentions were to have an all American made bike but he had a very difficult time getting the American parts manufacturers to build him parts. China manufacturers were much more willing to work with a small company to build the parts he needed. Ofcourse with a motorcycle many of the parts are unique to the machine or brand. Someone who primary market is GM or HD may not be able to easy fit a small manufacturers parts into the lines. But a Chinese company making parts for 10 different domestic brands and 3 more international brands with cheap labor is probably more set up for what a company like CCW needs. Craig

+1 Why access our somewhat difficult to access oil with minor profits now when other are willing to provide it much cheaper. When it starts getting really expensive, then you invest in higher levels of extraction. Craig

Not sure where you got this information from the article. It may be true but was stated in the article. We do get most of our oil from the Americas (North and South) because it costs less to ship it from closer sources. However the price paid is heavily influenced by the Middle East because they have a significant chunk of the production and reserves of oil. If prices of Middleeast oil goes up Europe and Asia starts buying from our American suppliers driving up the cost here. Nothing surprising in the article if you think about it. Even if you buy a product made in China I'm betting a good amount of the cost is going to American sources. Distribution and retail both add markups that are domestic. Things are blown out of proportion but it is small differences that can throw the economy out of whack. Just look at some of the cascade effects from the loss of a couple refineries in a hurricane, or the bankruptcy of an modest sized bank in recent years. China is a concern because all those numbers are growing fairly quickly and China has a much higher level of central gov control than other significant economies and a gov that has been at odds with the US. Craig

Check out any credit unions you can be a member of. Most have much fewer fees than the banks. Ofcourse you need to look at availability of ATMs and branches as there are also many CUs that are very small. I still use the CU I joined while working in the Boston area. It is a large CU with many branches in that area. But they also have good support for online banking and reimburse for some ATM fees so its not really a hardship to work remotely with them. Craig

I think it more that Honda is not targeting the rider who really wants to take it off road like you. They are targeting the majority of Vstrom and Versys buyers as well as bikes like the 650R. Most riders never even take their Vstrom on a dirt road let alone "off-road". They want the higher more upright seating position at a reasonable price. And some(many?) are interested in a easy to ride economic city bike that can take the freeway without feeling tapped out. I think this loks like a good bike for many people. However you may be correct that it wont sell well because it is not serious enough. So the enthusiasts wont be interested which will mean it gets poor press and reviews. We will see. My biggest concern is that this will take sales away from the more hardcore bikes which means they will be updated less often, the less expensive bikes will tend towards this more road oriented design, and there will be less serious used bikes on the market. Craig

+1 Isnt that why they have o-ring chains. I put some chain lube on it occasionally so that the outside doesnt appear rusty but otherwise do nothing special. Just replace it a little more often. I'm too lazy to put that much effort into it when chains are cheap and easy to replace. Learned that from commuting on a bicycle in all weather. Craig

Thats possible but a temp license limits you from riding on freeway or after dark. I would expect a long trip may involve some of both. Nothing prevents one from renewing their temp license indefinitely. You just have to take the written test and pay for a new license each year. And follow the restrictions. Craig