Blitz

I understand why you did what you did, made the call you made. And I know you have a tough job, and I don’t blame you. I just have a hard time placing all decision making on some percentages that are impossible to interpret, and are consistently completely wrong. Last weekend was a perfect example, at least in Central Ohio. Thunderstorms were called for all weekend with chances no less than 80-90%. And it didn’t rain a drop. It may rain all day tomorrow, and be beautiful Sunday. Hopefully it is. I just think radar is a better predictor than Vegas style odds, and would make the call later. All good though.

You do remember last weekend, when they called for 90% chance of rain both Saturday and Sunday and it was dry as a bone? You can't make rain out decisions more than 12 hours in advance, this time of year. You have to base it off of the existing radar. Just my 2 cents.

I'm in. Fast or Medium-Fast....whichever works best logistically.

What time are you headed out Justin? I still have a little to do on the FJR, but I can probably finish it off tomorrow evening after work. Maybe I could meet you in McConnelsville.

What’s the deal with the FJR rally? I have one of those things.

Finally have the bike ready for the season and as long as the weather holds, I plan to get out this weekend. Anyone want to join for a SEO ride? I'm figuring 78, 676 and Marietta could be involved. Flexible on times and meet spots. Post up if you're interested and we'll throw something together.

FJRs are a different animal, Tim. People put car mileage on them. I bought my 2013 with almost 30k miles and then promptly put 10k more on it. You don’t find them with sportbike mileage. And routinely find them with 200k miles still running like a top. This seems to be a good example.

You have room for me to tag along? I think I’m going to ride the FJR down and Shannon and Shana will trailer the Tuono. I think. She can’t leave until the 21st, and I’m wanting to get down there sooner. Plus, I rode the Snake in the dark, and in the rain last year. I’d like to ride it in a little more optimal weather.

I'm planning to ride the FJR down, and Shannon is driving the truck. If you need to offload some gear to be hauled with 4 wheels, we can probably arrange that. And I know they, and possibly I, plan to do some hiking.

Just confirmed our room. Shannon and her friend Shana, and I will be down. June 21-26.

I only have one track day under my belt. But, I did bump to Intermediate. So I will consider myself ineligible. Really this was just a shameless plug to mention getting bumped to I after only one session. Good luck to the winner! I intend to be there that day.

I wear earplugs when I ride. Can’t stand wind noise. I’ve always tried hard to protect my hearing. When I got my Sena, I noticed that I couldn’t get the speakers loud enough to be heard over the ear plugs. And I wasn’t willing to ride without them. So I picked up a pair of solid earbuds with the sound isolating foam that expands in the ear canal, and ran the headphone wiring inside the helmet to the attached Sena earphone jack. So the left earbud comes out of the helmet on the left side and vise versa. When I put the helmet on, I place it on top of my head, insert the earbuds in my ears, and then slide the helmet the rest of the way down. I never notice the wires. So now I get noise isolation and can hear the Sena perfectly. A decent, cheap earbud I can recommend is the JVC Marshmallows. And personally, I’d buy extra foam tips off of Amazon. I go through probably 10 pair of foam tips a riding season. To me, this is the best solution.

"In the state of Colorado of the United States of America there’s a special highway built in the late 1880's: the Million Dollar Highway, part of the San Juan Skyway. It's one of the nation’s most spectacular drives. You'll be on the "outside" for a while with a hell of a view to your right (let the passenger look. You'll want to watch the road) " http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/635-million-dollar-highway-usa.html

Looks pretty epic! All I can say is that the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado should not be missed. Shannon and I took our honeymoon on the FJR Summer before last and it's an absolutely stunning ride. We used Montrose, Co as home base for 3 days and rode to Silverton and also to Moab, as loops. I'd suggest going from Moab, UT to Ridgeway, CO then down the Million Dollar Highway to Silverton and then Durango. That's a really spectacular ride. Goes from desert red rock canyons to Aspen stands at 11k feet. It's really worth the detour. And the back roads outside of Moab that go into Colorado offer incredible views. CO-141 is awesome and twisty. CO-145 runs along a wide canyon then up and over a mountain range. Anyway....other then the fact that you are skipping Zion National Park and the Million Dollar Highway, I think this looks incredible! The Million Dollar Highway is close enough you could alter your route and fit it in. Zion, maybe not. But I think you'll find Moab to Durango is a much better ride than Moab to Cortez. Just my two cents. TFTI, BTW

Works for me, my friend. No hard feelings. And yes, the Old Testament has some strange stuff in it....no denying it. The New Testament makes up for it though, in my opinion.

Why this scientist believes in God By: Dr. Francis Collins http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html?eref=rss_tops

I didn't say I felt sorry for you. I apologized TO YOU because I felt I had to tell you that you weren't looking hard enough to see there is a designer behind our existence. Not sure why you ran off on a tangent about "feeling sorry for you". That's not what I said. For what it's worth, when people define believing in God as a character flaw of someone that is weak, that needs to believe in "imaginary friends"...I find it to be the absolute most offensive thing someone can say about religion. Especially when it comes from a friend....not some anonymous schmuck on the internet. And just so you understand, because it appears that you do not, not all Christian believe that non-believers will spend eternity in hell-fire and damnation. Not all Christians believe you're a bad person if you don't repent. Not all Christians believe that "everything" is a sin, and sin results in torture and punishment. So, as I've said to others, you may not want to generalize and throw all Christians into one category. The ones that act in this manner, are doing it wrong. The ones that return hate with love get sick of the hypocrisy of the ones that walking around judging everyone's souls. I'd appreciate it if you didn't describe all Christians by the characteristics of the worst Christians. I'll argue all day about intelligent design. You mention science. I believe in science just as much as you do. I work for a company that has products at CERN, NASA, JPL, SpaceX. I don't argue with science. Where scientific understanding fails, there's plenty that points to God. Plenty. And many scientists agree on that fact.

I find it very hard to believe that we, here on earth, happen to be the beneficiaries of enough happy coincidences to make us just extremely lucky to have conscious intelligence. Earth a little closer to the sun, too hot for life. Earth a little further away, too cold. Earth a little bigger, too much gravity. A little smaller, we go flying off into space. Amino acids in the primordial soup line up perfectly to create the first proteins at random? DNA comes together to instruct cells how to behave spontaneously? Evolution, in its perfectly effective simplicity...just came about by accident? Im sorry man, if you cannot see a beautiful intelligence in the creation of this world...you’re not looking hard enough.

Please give me the bible verse that says to kill anyone with a different language, hair, leader or philosophy.... I'll wait.... Mark 12: 30-31: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Luke 6 27-36: But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. You say organized religion is a brilliant form of government, but I say if people would put those two bible verses to good use the world would be a whole lot better place. No offense Andy, but your arguments are the typical anti-religion mutterings of someone that lacks a full understanding of the good a devoted believer can do in the world and for those around them. You're jaded by the actions of Christians in this country and their judgemental nature and hypocritical actions? Yeah well, join the club. So are many Christians. You cannot classify the effect of religion on broad swaths of millions of people by your generalizations. It's not possible. I'm not asking you to convert. I'm simply saying it's offensive and narrow minded to make these grand statements of the uselessness of religion when I see daily people that sacrifice money, time, love and self to care for, help, feed and inspire people around them....and they GAIN NOTHING FROM IT, other than the self satisfaction that they loved their neighbor...whether they deserved it or not. I see believers drop food off at people's homes they barely know, because they know they're sick. I see people walk up and down the street shoveling neighbors sidewalks because they know they're elderly. I see people give 10% and more of everything they earn to help those around them....not straight to the church. Straight to the homeless. Straight to the hungry. Anyway.... nobody is asking you to believe in your offensive spaghetti man. Let me know once you figure out how collagen can be formed at random...without an intelligent creator: "The building blocks of life might be the 20 elements of amino acids that combine in certain sequences to form the 700,000 kinds of proteins in our body. The number of proteins discovered is increasing and might be in the range of one million kinds. Hemoglobin is only a chain of 146 amino acids long, a runt by protein standards in length, and yet it offers 10 X 10190, of possible amino-acid combinations in order to have the exact sequence of the different kinds of amino acids. To make the protein called “collagen” you need to arrange 1,055 amino acids in precisely the right sequence which means you need 1,055 spinning wheels with 20 symbols in each wheel to coincide exactly for the jack pot! Thus, the odd that any protein was formed by hazard is nil."

Many, many millions of faithful, good people call themselves religious. Blanket statements declaring religion to be more bad than good, or to have caused more harm than good, or to have lead to more deaths than anything else are essentially useless and provide little in the way of a compelling argument. Any war or killing brought on by religion means those followers we're practicing their faith correctly....and were more influenced by money, power, fame, or love of self than that of God. Any criticism or judgement or shunning of the actions of others by those that are religious likewise means they're doing it wrong. In this season, I see many fellow Christians opening their hearts and wallets to help lift and to love those around them. And if they're doing it correctly, they should be doing it year round. I see very little else in this world that compels people to be good and decent and loving. I'm not saying any of you should be religious. But declaring it a useless cause of death and destruction is narrow minded.

How is he doing? Any new news?

Hey guys, I forgot I have a CCW class tomorrow. So...I can’t ride. I’m a little annoyed by that, but it’ll be nice to be able to protect myself from the hilljacks whose egos can’t handle being passed. Anyway....keep an eye out. Next nice day I’ll post another ride.

Sunday is shaping up to be an almost perfect motorcycling day. 71 and partly cloudy. Im thinking this ride will cap off my season. I’ll winterize them and get them in storage after Sunday. So who wants to join me for one more ride this year?! I’m thinking Otsego meet at 11-ish. May adjust time and place depending on group. Post up if you’re interested.

Good ride guys. I enjoyed that trip down 26 Dave. Damn, that was fun. And I think my buddy on the BMW was a little surprised to see you huck that Multi around that fast. Good stuff! I enjoyed it fellas. Here’s to hoping it’s not the last. I’ll be out of town next weekend, but the following I’ll be looking to ride as long as the weather holds into November. I won’t hold my breath...

Just talked to him. Pretty sure he changed plans and is joining us.