Beside Myself

With glee.

It's been a very productive weekend!

Let's see:

• Adjusted the clutch on the motorcycle
• Changed the oil & filter.
• Mowed the lawn.
• Rode 15 miles & burned 900 calories in the process
• Speaking of bicycles: I weighed myself and I've burned off 19 pounds since June 22!
  
• Ordered my SP4VP bumper sticker... *bounce*bounce*bounce*

Heck with that old wishy-washy stick McCain. He's soft on jsut about everything but foreign policy and deterence.

What would REALLY make my day would be to see him commit to bringing his VP into a strong role in the daily governance of the country. Yes, I know it's not the way things are done now. How about some Real damn Change, eh?

Good old Joe Biden, aka Prince of the Beltway, sure doesn't represent that.

I'm so excited about Palin that my resting heartrate is running about 75!

Woot!

Iron Pigs affiliated Seattle PD officer Indicted

How ironic. Crooked cop indicted for aggravated assault, perjury, and concealed weapon while under the influence of alcohol. (Note: I won't even get into this guy's crooked cop past. Its the juicy stuff at the bottom of the article.)

Seattle PD officers indicted for carrying a concealed weapon illegally when their own political masters want to strip the public of that same right.

Seattle PD officer indicted for shooting a man during what obviously started out as a fistfight. Coward.

Seattle P-I

A Grand jury indicted a Seattle police detective and a Hells Angels member whom the detective shot and wounded in a bar fight at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

The detective, Ron Smith, 43, was charged with aggravated assault, perjury and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. The Hells Angel, Joseph McGuire, 33, of Imperial Beach, Calif., was charged with aggravated assault, the Meade County state's attorney reported Thursday.

In addition, four other members of a law enforcement-oriented motorcycle club -- a second Seattle police officer, two U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, and a U.S. Defense Department firefighter -- were charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, a misdemeanor, according to (South Dakota) State's Attorney Jesse Sondreal.

And get this, he's being charged with perjury for lying on the stand during the indictment phase. And this guy's a police officer? Hah. You sure won't see Nickels doing anything to get rid of him though.

The South Dakota grand jury met Wednesday to hear from 10 more witnesses before the indictments were issued. It was the grand jury's second hearing since 25 witnesses, including Smith and other officers, appeared on Aug. 10.

Smith's testimony is apparently the basis for the perjury charge.

No court date had been set.

Either warrants or summonses would be "issued and served as appropriate," according to the state's attorney.

Smith and McGuire could face up to 15 years' imprisonment if convicted of aggravated assault. The grand jury also indicted on an alternative charge of misdemeanor assault, which would give a jury the choice of a lesser crime.

And this "Iron Pigs" Motorcycle Club just slays me.

I happened to end up behind one of these guys today on my way into work.

Let's run down the list.

• Crappy, poorly tuned "chopper". Belching smoke whenever he gets on the gas. That would've got me pulled over by the WSP...


• Poor skills. He was doing 15mph through a 25mph curve that I can take at 45mph on such warm, dry roads as today.


• Total riding gear seems to be his protest helmet (a cop?), his Ass-less chaps, and his 3-piece outlaw M/C patch and bars.

Sure as hell didn't impress me. I had to trail my rear brakes and slightly feather my front while at full lean to keep from running up the back of this yahoo.

Sure was good in a straight line though. Hit 75mph in a 60 zone so fast that he scared the crap out of the RV he cut off. Everybody sure noticed him and his prodigious cloud of oily blue smoke though. And that IS what choppers are about after all.

Drinking, riding, and getting noticed.

And in the case of Officer Smith, it's apparently also about attempted murder and perjury.

One Truly Sick Bugger

Man charged with leaving scene of wreck has history of fleeing cops
Citizen Patriot
A Jackson (Michigan) man charged with crashing his motorcycle Saturday night and leaving his dying fiancee on the pavement has a history of criminal flight and violence.

Richard D. Pickett was arraigned Monday on a charge of leaving the scene of a fatal crash that killed 50-year-old Bonnie Lynn Arnett. It is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Pickett remained in jail Monday on a $100,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for Friday.

Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer said before the arraignment that he was to seek a large bond, citing Pickett's extensive criminal past and the presumption Pickett fled to avoid police rather than assist his mortally injured mate.

Jackson County sheriff's investigators and prosecutors allege Pickett might have been drinking Saturday night before crashing his 1982 Yamaha Virago on the exit ramp from southbound U.S. 127 to McDevitt Avenue.

Words cannot begin to describe how truly low this schmuck is.

You crash your bike and leave your PILLION to die? It's bad enough that the irresponsible cagers will boot your off your bike and then run, but the the rider to do that? Give that bugger the chair...

Another Bridgestone Tire Recall

Yet another tire recall...

Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire has announced U.S. recalls of light truck/SUV motorcycle tires.
In both cases, the recalls are because of incorrect sidewall markings, and BFNAT said that no “structural or performance safety issues” exist with either product.

[snip]

The tires and sizes under recall are Accolade in sizes 4.00-18, 3.50-19 and 3.50-18, Battlax in sizes 90/90-10 and 3.50-10, the RS10 in size 2.50-17 and the SP Universal in size 3.50-8. (Tire Review/Akron)

Looks like someone over in the Quality Assurance Dept. is going to be standing in the soup kitchen line soon.

The Battlax tire is rather popular on large adventure-style dual-sports. Thankfully it's not the TrailWing style, or they'd really be taking a bath

Olympic Peninsula

Lake Crescent

Idaho Route 97

Back in August I did a week-long trip on my way to GPNDG 2008. One of the roads that I did along the way is Idaho Route 97.

Very scenic. Very twisty. Very busy.

I was rather shocked at the urban sprawl along that road. And since it's certainly in the shadow of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.

Wall to wall boats and trophy houses on the lake, it was.

Gather Reminiscing

On my trip to GPNDG 2008, I'd opted to take the long way around Washington.

One of the more memorable episodes was my evening at Lake Pearrygin State Park outside Winthrop, Washington. A VERY popular destination of campers with boats, it is very busy during the summer season. I think I probably got the last campsite reservation available for my weekend when I reserved it 6 weeks out.

The road in to the campground is a rather nice sweeper-ish kind of farm road, but one with rather steep slopes on one side.

And it obviously bit one cage driver in the ass.

A white SUV that may have been towing a trailer missed the turn down into the campground and followed up with the Typical Seattle Driver reaction. Swerve hard to make the corner.

Yep. Right down the embankment about 20 feet. Just minutes later there were 2 cops on site and 2 towtrucks, and within 20 minutes, quite a group of spectators began to gather as well.

Beer in hand, natch.

Camping this Weekend

It might as well be backyard camping it's so close, but it's good to get the kids and the adults out of the house for awhile.

Not enough room in the Subaru for 4 people and all their shtuff, so I *cough* have to ride the motorcycle there. Oh poor me.

Heh.

Books

My latest haul from the local county library

• Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace


• Beautiful Code by Oram & Wilson


• The annotated Flatland by Edwin Abbott


• The visual Display of Quantitative Data by Edward Tufte


• Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C. S. Forester


• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley


• Don't make me think!: A common-sense approach to web usability by Steve Krug


• Microserfs by David Coupland

And last of all, the copy of Encyclopedia of Handheld Weapons by Warthington that my sister-in-law bought me.

Should keep me busy for a few hours at least.

Continental Road Attacks

For the ever so short summer that we had this year, I had bought a set of really nice sport tires: Continental Road Attacks.

Very good grip and excellent turn-in for my top-heavy Strom. Obviously not an expected choice for a bike that has gravel road pretensions, but make for very nice road manners as long as you keep the flat spot shoulder at bay.

One Drop...

...is all it takes.

It astounds and amazes me every year that the local drivers can't seem to drive in the rain. It rains here pretty much 300 days per year. It's not like people aren't expecting it to rain.

Yet time and again if we go even one day without rain, the local drivers forget how to drive in it and turn the freeways into a rather dangerous bumper car ride.

Case in point #1:

Making Left hand turn where the sidestreet has to stop. I'm already entering the intersection when an SUV rolls up, stops and looks left (but not right!), and hits the grass with his head still cranked around to the left.

I, of course, Laid into the horn on my little Suzuki. Typical Cager spun his head back around and stared at me with utter shock and surprise on his face.

Problem: Inattentive local drivers. And when they're attentive they're still rather miserable at estimating closure speeds and distance.

Case in point #2:

Lake Washington Blvd. up into Kirkland. A very busy street coming down out of downtown Bellevue and into Kirkland. Drivers get going really fast on the steep downhill and sometimes let their attention wander once through the last stoplight of the 520 interchange.

Result:

A little compact car smashed into the back of somebody else. Car parts scattered all over several lanes and traffic threaded through the smashed glass and plastic very slowly.

Duh. Eyes FORWARD. Not focused on the vanity mirror in your visor on down at your newspaper or mobile phone. On the road, 5 seconds ahead.

Vandalism

A few weeks back, I was the recipient of a prank doorbell ringing at 3:30am. This morning, I woke up to my neighbor's car having been shaving-creamed.

I'm not terribly amused. I've lived here for 7 years and there was one incidence of this kind of crap during these preceding 7 years. There's been several just this summer.

Obviously, this town isn't exactly rural anymore. The 200+ houses that have gone into the subdivisions near me probably have a lot to do with it too. Not that those houses are doing anything for my own house's value right now either. Half of them are standing empty.

Damn Punk-ass kids.

Mary, Mary. Quite contrary

Columbia River from the shadow of the Maryhill Stonehenge at Maryhill, Washington.

Rowena Crest

On the south side of the Columbia just east of the Cascade Range is one of the sweetest little pieces of road this side of heaven.

Rowena Crest

Hyper-Milers

At least I think this particular cager was a hyper-miler.

He exhibited all the usual tendencies. Sitting in the far left lane as traffic backs up behind him (carpool lane, in this case). Driving a Sub-compact with a teeny little engine. Motoring along at 10% under the speed limit, getting passed by even the tractor-trailers. Drafting vehicles in neighboring lanes when they're not passing him. Agitated response when the traffic stuck behind him motions for him to move to the right.

I not sure what the hell he was on about though. You see, he was hyper-miling his tiny little Ford Focus up the freeway with this MASSIVE cargo topbox and ski rack.

You remember that Monty Python skit where the elderly pall-bearers are hauling a coffin off the cemetary? They kept dying as they were walking the coffin and would stuff the freshly-dead guy into the coffin each time one keeled over?

I swear, you could've fit 2 or 3 bodies into that thing.

It stuck up another 2-3 feet above the top of what is usually a rather aerodynamic and fuel-efficient car. The thing might as well have been hauling a drogue chute behind it as he was driving.

I wonder if it ever occurred to him that the topbox might be the cause for his car swerving to the right every time a gust of crosswind blew though.

Short of divine intervention, some things are probably a bit too much to ask for though.

My Mighty and Dependable Steed, July 2008

For all the abuse that it's taken, it's in great shape. Runs like a swiss watch, as the old guys say back home.

Recovery

As many of my moto-commuters friends and acquaintances are aware, I had a bit of a nasty biff back in December.

Commuting home in the dark, cold Seattle evening, some stupid sod in a lowered pick-em-up stood on his brakes because the ijit in front of him did too. I hadn't brought my A-game to the commute that day. All my fault, of course, regardless of whether Big Blue's 12-hour days and mind-numbind meetings wear down a person's soul or not.

End result: One slightly-damaged but now salvage-titled V-Strom 650 that even today runs fine with its wee bit of road rash on the ABS plastic and....

One nastily shattered right radius. Right down at the end by the wrist. Ended up with a beautiful little surgical steel T-plate in there and a little bit of range of motion loss.

Still riding tough. And just this morning I rolled 9,750 miles since I got the cast off January 31st, 2008. 10,000 miles should roll around next Friday, I'm thinking.

Kimberly Elizabeth Graham

Just in case a Google Search isn't good enough to find this vehicular mass-murderer:

http://iic.tulsacounty.org/InmateDetails.aspx?Id=1180097

http://newsok.com/article/3168171/

http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/articles/2007/11/21/news/state/news877.txt

The TulsaNow forum gave me one of my favorite phrase for this murderer: "THE poster girl for ALL drunken, RECKLESS, outta-control MOTORISTS."

A Case for DUI in our own Backyard

If there one thing that I cannot abide, it's drunk drivers. I have absolutely no use for anybody who habitually places the public at large in harms way by getting soused and then getting behind the wheel or handlebar.

Sadly, it appears that John Calkins, the Police Chief of Pacific Washington, (a small city near Seattle), may just be one of those DUI offender. Sad, really.

An officer sworn to uphold the law, refusing to subject himself to a field sobriety test. Mind you, refusing such a test is grounds for immediate suspension of driver's license in Washington. Yet somehow he's not only free to drive around after pleading innocent, he's actually still on the job enforcing the law in Pacific.

I find that truly funny. This man admitted at the time of the traffic stop to have been drinking and to have imbibed a total of 2 entire pitchers of beer, yet now he claims that not only was he not intoxicated at the time he was stopped but that the weaving reported by the 911 caller isn't grounds for pulling him over. I highly doubt the same story would work if he was the one pulling me over.

Perhaps I'm a teensy bit off reservation, but I think that's called hypocrisy.

Arrest for DUI. Arraignment. Back on the Job. You'd think this was Chicago or Detroit. Not even a day of mandatory administrative leave for the police chief (he took 4 personal vacation days).

Perhaps it's time for Pacific to revisit whether their current administration is the "law and order" type they claim to be.

Back in Green, Moss Green, that is.

Yep. Time for some more Seattle moto-commuter snark.

It's been too long and I've suffered far too much at the hand of the local cagers. It's time for a little show and tell once again.

Mind you, there'll be nothing truly juicy like in the bad old days before the Big Blue monster bought out my little company, but hopefully I'll be able to toss a few gems your way without getting busted by the powers-that-be. And more importantly, I'll be able to keep you all up to date on the important stories like the ongoing saga of the quintuple murder-by-SUV committed by Kimberly Graham in November 2007.

And remember folks (and you lawyer types), as always, this too is a RoadsNW.com production.

And what the inside of my head looks like...