One of the problems with motorcycle boots — particularly if you ride year ’round and have waterproof boots like my Sidi OnRoads — is that your feet get hot in a hurry. Even if it is cold while riding, walking around generates a lot of heat. And then you hop back on the bike and your feet get supercooled thanks to your foot perspiration. Summertime is a bit of the opposite problem: I don’t have to worry about getting cold, but regulating my foot temperature goes a long way in my overall comfort. I don’t even need to mention what a drag sopping wet cotton socks are when you’re caught in the rain.

My sock research pushed me to wool socks. They regulate heat and moisture better than cotton socks, but I was concerned about itching. When you’re riding mid-distance like I do, little things like an itch deep in a boot can really wear on you. I found a pair of midweight, calf-height socks by SmartWool, which features a blend of soft merino wool and other synthetic fibers. I wound up buying six of their snowboard socks at $6.95 each from Sierra Trading Post, and love them to pieces. Almost literally.
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My buddy Jumbotron sent this to me at work: the Real Age Virtual Age quiz on sonnyradio.com. It’s Flash-based quiz that asks up to 34 questions to determine your “virtual” age and your life expectancy. Your virtual age is how old your body and mind are based on diet, exercise, lifestyle, and family history.

Unfortunately I initially took this test at work, and had my information architecture and usability hat on. I bitched about the poor question phrasing and goofy slider the whole time. For example, the race question is flawed. There’s a radio button that makes you select one race. There needs to be at least a “Mixed” option, but a multiple select would be even better. I imagine the scoring algorithm isn’t complex enough to handle multiple racial vectors.

The answer options are mostly on a scale, and sometimes the scale doesn’t make sense. For example, on the “Male conditions” question answers range from “average” to “bald and stocky.” I’m bald, but not stocky. So where do I put this slider?

Another stupid question was about marital status. “Cheating” is at the bottom, and “Happily married” is at the top. “Married” is one down from “Happily married,” but what if you’re in a happy committed relationship? According to answer slider, being happily committed is less healthy than being not-so-happily married. Weird.

I don’t put too much stock into the results. It’s hard to agree with my virtual age of 23.6 when my right knee is bothering me from over-training with kettlebells. My life expectancy is also really high at 84.4 years. No one in my immediate family has made it past 74. Although I don’t drink or smoke and am not overweight, there are a lot of genetics that have to be overcome.

My final results were:
Virtual Age: 23.6
Your Life Expectancy: 84.4

Give the test a run and report back if you feel like it.

I love board games. Love love love them. I grew up playing Parcheesi, backgammon, chess, and the “usual” family games at my house growing up. It was a big deal in my life when I beat my father at chess for the first time.

I have tried to keep gaming since, and I always have a soft spot for board games. There is something special about sitting around a table with your buddies and rolling some dice and moving tiny pieces around. The amount of smack talk that occurs always makes me laugh. I never knew so much about Stilt’s mother until we started playing board games together (love you buddy).

So, I was anxious to try out Smallworld, a board game designed by Philippe Keyaerts and published by Days of Wonder. Days of Wonder makes a lot of bad ass games board games, I am particularly fond of their game Ticket to Ride. The premise of the game is simple: control up to two races at a time (usually) to take over as much territory of Smallworld as possible. You earn one coin (usually) for every territory you hold at the end of a turn. Whomever has the most coins wins. The game combats staleness and default strategies by pairing race cards (humans, orcs, ratmen) with special abilities (merchant, flying, stout). The game designer Keyaerts seems to have put a lot of thought into play balance. True, there are some races and abilities that are more useful than others. Dragonmaster Ratmen are a brutal pair, for example. Hard to take “wealthy dwarves” over a ton of angry rodents and a pet dragon.
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Just a quick update on Rosie, my four year old dog who was diagnosed with epilepsy last month.

I took her in last week to have her liver and kidney functions tested. Rosie was fantastic as normal at the vet. She had a 10% increase in body weight (40 pounds, up from 37), which was expected given one of the side effects of phenobarbital. They drew two vials of blood — one for in-house testing and one for tests that needed to be done at a dedicated lab facility. We sat on the floor together and talked while we waited for the in-house results to come back.

Luckily her tests came back with acceptable ranges. Last Friday the vet called with her second set of results. Her phenobarbital levels are lower than expected, but since she isn’t having any seizures they didn’t want to adjust her dosage. The higher the dosage the better her phenobarbital levels would be, but that also meant a higher likelihood of damage to her body. As long as she doesn’t “get the spirit” I’m going to keep her at her current dose.

Thanks to everyone who has emailed, called, texted, or sent smoke signals. I love my dogs very much, and this has been a great reminder to stop what you’re doing every now and then and kiss your loved ones.

I mounted some engine crash bars made by Racing 905 on my FJR1300A not too long ago. They took forever to process my order, misled me about shipping dates, and the bars were built with such a tight tolerance I had to adjust the bolts down two turns at a time. However, once they were on they looked nice and seemed sturdy. I was happy-ish with them, even if I wasn’t happy with the company.

Fast forward to last Tuesday. I was riding home a little early to take Rosie to the vet, and was able to take a highway onramp at a higher speed than normal. I’ve dragged the right footpeg on the FJR before, and had an idea where my lean angle limits were.

I set my entry speed, leaned the bike, and tilted my head so that the horizon was level. I started my turn, and everything was going great. No traffic, road was clear and smooth, and I was well balanced on the bike. Seemed great.

I heard a scraping sound and the bike started to twitch. I stayed even on the throttle and kept off of the brakes. I figured my foot peg was scratching, but the sound and “feel” didn’t seem like I remembered. I slowly righted the bike and I heard the scratching noise again. This time the rear tire of the bike started to waver. I straightened up a little more and exited the onramp. I continued home and checked the foot peg as soon as I got the bike settled and the dogs loose.
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I purchased my first motorcycle, a 2005 Yamaha FZ6, four years ago this October. Aside from a motorcycle safety course and a not-so-much-fun experience as a passenger, I’d never ridden on a motorcycle before. I had researched the FZ6 meticulously and purchased it due to its price-to-performance ratio, dealer support, seating position / ergonomics, and its reputation as a jack of all trades machine. I’m kind of a jack of all trades machine myself at work, so I thought the 600cc sport standard from Yamaha would be a great fit. 22,000 miles later, I was totally right, and “Cylon” led me on many adventures and a love for motorcycling I could have never anticipated.
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I ride almost fifty miles round trip on my motorcycle every day for work. As I motor alongside cars, trucks, bikes, pedestrians, and other road trash I often think about putting together a “how to not crash in traffic” series of posts. The problem is filming my trips and then being “lucky” enough to have something noteworthy happen. I do have a remote lipstick-style camera for my camcorder but it can only mount in one direction unless I ruin a helmet by sticking it on with adhesive. I would miss capturing lane intrusions, the most prevalent thing I run into.

Anyway, I was excited to take a two-part safety test put on by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. The first part is a ten question US road sign quiz. On medium speed, a road sign flashed up for about a second. You are given three possible answers and asked to identify the sign. You can guess twice for each question, losing one point per incorrect guess.

The second part of the test is a ten question “safety perception” quiz. You are shown a photograph of a traffic situation for five seconds. Like the traffic sign test, you are given three possible answers. The problem is that you don’t know what they will ask ahead of time.
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Happy birthday to my little quaker — who is four years old today.

She has been back to her old self lately; no staring absently at the floor, and certainly no seizures. I am taking her in to see the vet tomorrow and hopefully her kidney and liver functions will be within acceptable ranges.

In the meantime, there are plenty of adventures to be had in the backyard:

Happy birthday, sweetheart. Many more.

If you know me at all, you know I buy a lot of stuff. Most of the stuff I buy comes in plastic packaging or cardboard boxes. I make short work out of the boxes with any number of blades, like the Gerber EAB pocket knife or X-Blades razor blade utility knife.

However, that damn clam shell, “blister” plastic packaging is another matter entirely. I have tried scissors, blades, and even the Open-X cutting tool, which is sort of like a pissed off Pac-Man knife with a razor blade in the “mouth.” Unfortunately none of these tools are perfect. Scissors torque and dull. Blades are unwieldy and dangerous on some blister packages. The Open-X is, well, a trip to the emergency room waiting to happen.

Stilts (who tried to kill me with the Open-X in the first place) provided a peace offering with the Zipit Opener. Powered by two AA batteries, the Zipit is an electric cutting instrument that is specially made to open blister / clam shell style packaging.

Would it be enough to redeem the Open-X debacle, or would I use the Zipit’s tiny tiny cutting discs to cut my 6′ 8″ friend down to size?
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There was a time that I drank a lot of tea. I drank green tea, white tea, black tea, and herbal tea. Different types of tea taste best when brewed at certain temperatures. White tea is the most delicate, and needs to be steeped the least amount of time at the lowest temperature. Black and herbal teas don’t mind if you bring it on, and taste better when brewed at higher temperatures for a longer period of time. I also drink coffee made from my Aerobie Aeropress at least twice a day, and that requires the hottest water I can make.

The problem with using a traditional stove-top kettle is that you have to monitor the water temperature somehow. You need to get the water at the right temperature, but not too hot. I had the same problem when microwaving water, you can’t accurately tell what the temp is unless you interrupt the heating process. Plus using a stove-top kettle takes forever. I started looking at variable temperature electric water kettles.
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