about a year ago, i got my first bike, something at the time that i thought would be the best thing to learn on, and something to help me find my way in the motorcycle world. oh, find my way it did. i learned how to ride, took a few spills (mostly out of stupidity), and overall... became a rider.

the road empowers me, it makes me feel free. i try to think of anything that i've experienced before, and nothing comes close to the feeling of freedom, of control, and a healthy dose of fear. the exhilaration calls me, beckons me, entices me with the thrill of the ride, the wind enveloping me, the freedom. the freedom is not that of being free of something... there is nothing to run from; is the freedom of being rid of everything. anything that bothers me, any worry, any cause for concern. the day to day worries of life... are stripped away by the wind, for those short moments that you are on the road, where there is nothing to worry about but the next corner, or how soon to stop for gas.



over the past year, the draw of the road has dwindled, not so much that the desire has worn off, but that the sense of adventure has grabbed me, and is pulling me off of the road into the dirt. i want to explore not just the roadways that get you from point a to b, but the dirt roads, canyons, and trails that get you to c, d, and e; those that are off the beaten path, and without traffic.

not that advrider.com being open on every browser of every computer i own helps; it probably makes that draw towards the dirt worse than it should be. i know i've talked about the effect that the adv community has on me before, no need to belabor the subject... it's a part of my life now, and it's going to stay that way.



a few weekends ago, i scheduled a little jaunt down the coast with darknrgy, looking for some relaxation, and relief from a predicted record high temperature in san jose. the coast was predicted to be quite a bit cooler, so before it warmed up, we were already on the road, headed to the pacific coast highway (PCH or Rt1 for short). pch proved to be a bit more of a temperature difference that we were hoping for, as there was a bank of fog coming off the ocean, obscuring views as well as keeping the weather quite chilly.





we had high hopes for the day, both of us had gone to the trouble to bring our DSLRs to take photos. but the fog enveloping the coastline, and at times the road (visibility dropped to under a hundred feet the closer we got to the water), caused a bit of a damper in out spirits. we continued down to BigSur, where we stopped for breakfast, hoping the fog would lift. as we ate a quick brunch the temperatures rose, but it was short lived and localized to the inland areas... as soon as we got back out to the coast the fog was still there. the gloom we felt came right back.



further down the coast we stopped a few times for photos, eventually losing hope of the lifting, and heading back up the coast towards home. the last stop we made on pch was right near the bridge above. we both took off our major gear, walking around the little pull out for 15-20 min, just taking photos. it seemed that we had accepted the fog, deciding to make the best of the day. looking back, i shot more photos in that twenty minute break than i had shot all day.




across from our photo-break spot, lay our next adventure; a dirt road marked "travel is stupid when raining". the decision was made in short order to try it out, street bike be damned. the road wove up and down through the valley, getting us into the first sunlight, and warmth of the day. the road passed a few homesteads, and quite a few warning signs, most of which telling people that the road wasn't maintained, and to turn around now... we didn't.



it was the most exciting 20 min of riding we'd both had all day. as we came out into the blazing heat of the open space atop the hills, we contemplated continuing our exploration, or heading back. the fact that we didn't know where we were going, an impending time to get back, and the fact that it was our first foray into the dirt made the decision easy for us, and we gingerly turned around to head back to paved surfaces, and eventually home.



the way down was just as much fun as the way up... until i found myself going a little bit too fast into a corner, and hit the brakes. of course, being on a streetbike, with no dirt experience, i started skidding, weaving, locking the front wheel... everything you're not supposed to do. i almost recovered, and was about to make the corner when the front locked again and slid away on me, and i went down, going about 5mph at this point. as usual (each time i've dropped the bike or fallen) the brake levers (one or both, both this time) broke off, to an unrepairable state.

i picked the bike up, took a photo and assessed the situation. we were about 2 miles from a hwy 1, mostly downhill on a dirt road, and i had almost no brakes. no front brake to speak of (the lever snapped at the pivot point) and just the arm of the rear brake... and i was laughing about it. i didn't care, i was having such a good time in the dirt that i had almost expected to fall, and now that i did, i could get on with things. i knew, right at that moment that i needed a bike to handle this kind of terrain.

the ride back was uneventful, with us taking it real slow on the way back to the road, a 2+ hour ride back directly to the moto-shop where i picked up a new front-brake lever. it didn't matter, i had my mind still on that dirt road, almost envisioning where it went, and when i would go back to explore it, properly equipped the next time.

...

the next phase hasn't been decided, but i felt at the end of that day that a path had been set, and it was turning me away from the traffic clogged paved highways of the cities, towards the dirt roads of rural america. there's so much to explore...

all i can think of is getting out and exploring it.

Labels: adv, explore, moto, photo

... and it's all ara's fault. maybe fault is a bit strong of a word, but i can't think of anything better. i've been catching up on a backlog (of my own doing) of ara's journal: theoasisofmysoul.com, and due to the nature of the way he writes, i've gotten a bit contemplative. so, this post is for / spawned from the adventures of, ara & spirit.



there's something about the way ara writes, the way he seamlessly weaves his photography into his stories, into his life makes me... jealous, i guess. he has two of the things that, lately, i don't have. time, and freedom. time to take the beautiful pictures, and weave the narrative, and the freedom from the normal confines (read: work) that allow him to experience... just to experience.



in some ways, i not only love to dream... but i hate it. i spend a large portion of my time online reading, looking, watching others have their adventures, and dream of my own. i dream of something i can't have, of something that i sometimes feel is beyond my grasp, something unobtainable.



i get saddened by those days, when the "unobtainable" outweighs the "obtainable".

the worst part for me is that it's all about material possessions, which i hate. i hate being controlled by them, having the insatiable desire for something that i want, i hope will change my life in a way that i think i need... but not being able to have it, forcing myself to put it out of my mind. instead i force myself to focus on the things in life that are tangible, that are for the future, which, in it's own way is just another set of material possessions that have the only difference being that they're required, depending on how you look at it.



when i get on the track of material possessions, i take the time to remember that i already have much more than others in my same position. i attempt to take pride, solitude, ... what's the word i'm looking for... i feel gratitude for the things i have, the places i've seen, the people i've met along the way. those things fill my soul with a strength that is immeasurable, yet easy to forget.



the past two weekends, i've been riding just to ride. i don't take many photos, even though the camera is right there at my hand. when i do, the photos feel like copies of the same photos i've taken over and over in the past months. nothing seems new, except the new tires on the bike. i'll ride the same roads, hoping to see something new, but it doesn't happen. photos like the one above, where i see the shot before i stop to take it are few and far between. i don't know if it's me, or the surroundings... but i'm not "stopping to smell the roses" so to say, not taking the time to experience things the way people like ara do.



it's probably the time pressure that i feel is constantly hovering over me. when i do get the "time" to get out to ride, it's usually between other things, and i end up trying to do too much in a short amount of time... causing me to be constantly rushing. maybe someday i'll put / get myself into the mindset of the traveler, and experience more than i do now. see something new, go somewhere that's not in my safety zone. when i do, i'll have to make sure i take the time to stop, and see what i'm not seeing.



thanks for the words & photos, ara... helping me, and ( hopefully someday ) the world understand that it's beneficial to your soul to stop and smell the roses... or at least take a few pictures of them.




on a different note, i hit 30k on the bike today, 8k+ of them mine. my first big milestone on a bike. of course, it happened while commuting home from work, on a exit ramp no less... but i pulled over anyways, and snapped the required photo. yay for me, or something.

Labels: adv, moto, photo

whenever i see people i haven't seen in a while, they always ask... what have you been up to? i always answer: "busy with work, house hunting, you know..." it's kind of a catch-all wrapper around my life that seems to answer the question. most people seem to understand. some ask for clarification.

but it's not the whole picture.

the whole picture takes a bit longer to explain, and what better format than this blog? so, here we go.

work is work. just that, work. in the past it was alot more for me; sometime around when the last time i wrote in this journal, work was everything. i was working 7 days a week, not doing much else. work all day, get home really late, sleep, work again. it went on for too long.

it wasn't acutally work's fault, it was part of the job. for anyone who knows me from gaia, they understand just by looking at the dates i was talking about. for those who don't understand, let me summarize: gaia, and the team that i was working on took on the projects of all projects... a flash based MMO. we were in final phases of alpha testing last august, and finally released right around halloween. the closer to release it got, the longer the hours got. the hours turned into weekends, the weekends turned into every weekend. and it kept going like that until after the first of the year.

the whole team was worn out, but at least we were finally able to get our weekends back. since then, we've been working our buts off fixing things that came up, and in general, improving the game that we released. compared to what we originally released in November, it's amazing what we've done in such a short amount of time. the slight downside of the continuous work is just that, it's continuous. every week. i'm proud of what we've accomplished and what we're accomplishing.

to add to all the stress at work, we've been heavily (since the beginning of the year) looking for a house. my wife and i are tired of all the rent / apartment hassles, and are looking to purchase a house in the bay area. to start with, it's a crazy idea that we're going to be spending almost a half million dollars on a house. that's just crazy to think about from someone who's never really looked at the prices of houses. to make things harder, the housing market in san jose is... interesting. most of the older houses are "nice" but really small, when you look at the raw bedrooms/bath size that we're looking for. the rooms all seem like kids rooms, and everything seems... cramped.

so we've changed our search criteria to newer construction, but all of those are "short sale" and have all kinds of loops to jump through to even look at them, much less bid on them. the family is being really helpful (my mother-in-law, and aunt-in-law are both realtors), but it's still a stressful situation. we've missed out on two great houses so far, just because we were too slow in submitting the offers.

ugh.

about a two months ago, when the rain started to let up, and the sun started to come out on a regular basis, all the pressure, and tiredness hit me, and i felt like i needed a reset. luckily, the motorcycle was waiting, and the open road was there to rejuvinate me.



then i got sick, with one of those annoying colds were you feel sick for a few days, and then you are coughing up your lungs for two weeks. it sucked. the worst part is that it was getting nicer and nicer out every day, and i couldn't function. i'm here trying to get better, get happier, reset things in my life and i come down with some stupid cold that would not go away!

at some point, i just said fcuk it, and threw the big ass SLR & some cough drops into the tank bag, and went riding anyways. i was already out of work for the day, the sun was snining, and it had snowed waaaay up in the hills, so i set out to see if i could get some pictures of it.

instead of re-writing the whole day, i'll direct you to the ride report over on pashnit.com - Mt. Hamilton Recharge Ride. it was a fun little trip, and i paid for it when i got home, coughing the rest of the day.

that night, i find out that i've got the following weekend entirely free, my wife was going to be out of town with friends. no responsibilities other than feeding the cats, and attend a birthday cookout on saturday. all i could think of... a whole weekend to ride, and that's what i did.

saturday morning, i set out for SanFrancisco with a basic plan of checking out the marin headlands north of the Golden Gate Bridge. zoom zoom i went on the freeway north from san jose, or "slab"-ing it as us bikers like to say. (hehe. i can say "us bikers" now.)



once i got over the bridge, i headed up to the typical tourist vistas, took some typical touristy shots. i just recently discovered autostitch so i was shooting panoramics with that software in mind. i know they suck this small... i'll link them eventually to bigger versions. i also kinda like them in the un-cropped format, and you don't, too bad.







i spent most of the morning on the marin headlands taking photos, exporing the goaty roads up there. i ended up taking lots of photos, and i'll eventually link to a ride report on pashnit.com with all the photos and details of the ride.

once i was about an hour out from when the party was supposed to start, i started to head back to san jose. the traffic heading back through sanfran was insane, lane splitting was the only option; i ended up splitting side by side with someone on a green KLR 650 for at least 10 lights. before i even got out of the city i was tired of the traffic. i ended up bailing off of the highway on the way home, cruising the santa cruz hills along skyline drive, showing up to the party over an hour late.



sunday was more of the same, riding up in the santa cruz hills for the entire day with my good friend ray. we tried out a bunch of new roads we'd never been on, re-experienced some of our faves, and generally had a really good time. we even stopped at one point to take a bunch of action shots.



by the end of the weekend, i had put over 500 miles on the bike, almost entirely on twisty back roads. epic.




...

the weekend proved again how much the motorcycle has changed things for me. i feel such freedom, such calm while being out on the road. any anger, any stress, any drama is gone. i just cruise along, rocking out, and just enjoying myself.

the moto is my zen.

Labels: adv, house, moto, photo, work