Twist-Throttle.com

Over the last few days, I’ve been kind of searching for a direction to go with my site. Obviously not much new has even been posted over the last couple of months. I have various ideas to do things with it, various ways for it to look or to present my content. With pretty much all of it I wish that I was better & more skilled… for example, I wish that I was better with creating images, graphics & original concepts. Also, I need to start creating or coding my own apps so I can start to learn Ruby on Rails… I’ve been kind of just messing around with updating Typo & now setting up a Subversion Repository on my server… but it’s time that I start coding! But I also want to change up the way that my site is designed, laid out & all that… but I need to learn to focus on one thing at a time…

Otherwise… I’ve been slowing working on my bike for the upcoming riding season. Currently I have the bike completely tore down. The motor is out of the frame waiting to install the new top-end, as well as a new clutch basket & clutch plates. Also, I have the swingarm out of the bare frame & the whole front end of the bike off in pieces as well. So pretty much the bike has disappeared… there are just pieces of it scattered in the garage & the basement. So I’m just slowly getting in there & cleaning all of the dirt & grime off of every piece, re-greasing the bearings & repairing/replacing parts as needed to bring it back to 100% mechanically solid. Later this spring I’ll start to consider replacing some of the plastic or buying new graphics for it… the cosmetic stuff can wait. So my plans for this coming summer… of course I’m totally pumped to be riding again. Realistically, I see myself entering about 4 or 5 races this year… pretty casual. Things such as money, commitment, time, desire and money & time again see me racing about 1 race a month average. I really do hope to do some more trail riding this year then I have as well as riding in a few more locations then I have over the last couple of years (well I didn’t ride at all last year). Down here in southern WI, there sure isn’t much for actual “trail systems” like I had back up in the northern half of WI. I miss that… I need to make sure I get off my ass this summer & drive up north some to go riding, instead of just talking about it. With Brandy not having her bike anymore & Marty & Colton only having one bike, I will need to figure something out that’s fair for me alone to get away on some weekends with my buddies.

Otherwise… it’s been 2 weeks now that Brandy & I have been doing The Wisconsin Governors Challenge. My last post talked about this�?� it’s an 8 week program where we need to spend at least 30 minutes per day exercising… doing this for at least 5 a week. Depending on the type of exercise & the length of time doing it, we receive points that accumulate for a total per week. At the beginning of the program through the YMCA, they measured our body fat & then will measure it again when we finish. We have also improved our diets as well… Brandy typically doesn’t eat too bad… but I eat pretty crappy food always. So instead of McDonalds & Taco Bell for every lunch, I now buy food from the grocery store & prepare (microwave) it at home every day except for Fridays… my dept at works goes out for Mexican every Friday… man do I always look forward to that. But anyways… yep, I’m motivated to not be a fat-ass any more… to feel confident when I take off my shirt this summer… instead of my usual case of dicki’do.

Lets see… what else… Oh, here’s another thing that’s been on my mind a little as of lately. Man, I really love living in WI! One of the things that set it off was when I saw the video footage of the f’n New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin!! He’s going off in a speech talking about making New Orleans chocolate! How the Black people need to unite & rebuild New Orleans to be chocolate. I just can’t believe how a mayor can openly give a racist speech like that. What happened over this last century with this little thing being thrown around called Civil Rights? Then there are all of the terrorist threats & fears, land use battles in California… Man I love WI! Of course nowhere is perfect, but I feel fairly secluded from all the crap that’s on the news… granted I still don�??t watch the news much or follow politics much either. I tend to just put myself in a little bubble & life seems less stressful that way.

Well I guess I’m run about dry at the moment & I don’t have a reserve on this tank… so that’s it for now. Hope to see you “on the gas” out in the woods up here in WI… possibly the best place on Earth?? OK, that might be a bit much…

The lyrics from the song “Suburbia” by one of my favorite artists Butch Walker sums it up pretty well. “Well remember the guy who was a football star. He had it made with the ladies, but he never got far. Five years past, now he’s gotten kind of fat. Working 8 days a week at a laundrymat with his momma and daddy breathing down his neck, about everything he does so much it makes him sick. So he sits home alone, with the game on TV, as the crowd goes wild he says, “That coulda been me.”

You’ve all heard and seen “that guy”. Always bragging up what he used to do, what he has achieved in the past… living off of his past, yet going nowhere now. His cousin is the other “that guy”. He’s always bragging up his cousin & what he used to do, what he has achieved in the past… living off of his cousin’s achievements, yet going nowhere himself.

I try to not let myself fall into the dreaded category of being “that guy”. It’s reality check time when I catch myself talking too much about the things I’ve done in the past and not enough about what I hope to achieve. I do put at least a marginal effort into not living in the past. Sure, I still enjoy my 80’s hair metal from my high school days, but I more enjoy current rock on a day-to-day basis. I don’t complain about wishing it were still my years past, thinking that nothing will ever compare to those days. I know that I had hung on to my mullet way to long… but now I try to my keep hairstyles in the current generation. I like my pants baggy, well actually I’m a little nervous that these will fade out of style while I’m still clinging onto them… which would of course put me back into the “out of trend wearing dork” all over again. Or am I to late already?

Well back to my point. Whenever you can, try not to become “that guy”. Always bragging up some story about their past or their cousin. After a short bit of nostalgia, I really don’t care or get too impressed by your past that you are still riding the tails of. Tell me what you are doing now, what you are working towards achieving. Or just forget about me… do it for yourself, move ahead. Here’s another lyric for you from the song “All That You Are” by Mudvayne, “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

OK, about the cops being called for riding our mini bike in our own yard… That’s still bothering me. I just got off the phone with the city police department. I still don’t have the official verbiage, but they did confirm it is illegal to ride a mini bike on your own property anywhere in the city of Janesville. How gay is that? I’ve gotten some conflicting information about warming up the engine to change the oil, but not actually riding the bike… that seems to be in a little bit of a grey area. My guess is that this comes down to more of a Socially Acceptable thing… because you can ride your old crapped out no-muffler riding-lawn mower in the city… well I didn’t actually verify that… I understand if it’s being done at poor times of the day or for hours on end or even with multiple bikes… but to just flat out make a law or ordinance that says you can not do it??? The way I see it, is that for the most part, things like this just get ignored by most people. But once in awhile you’ll find a neighbor that thinks they need to save the world & make it a better place, or that they really need a hobby to take up some of their spare time… How is the bike that offensive to this lady? I understand that it is a little bit of noise (no louder then a lawn mower), but the bike has never been ridden for any length of time over I’d say about 20 minutes. I suppose this is one of those things where I need to just let it go, be quiet & of course never give this neighbor any kind of an evil glare…

Wow… we have a neighbour that frowns on us. We just had a city cop stop by our house & talk to Brandy… somebody called the cops on us because we were riding one of our mini bikes in the back yard for realistically about 5 minutes! Brandy was riding it at first, did a couple of circles around the yard, then I started riding it a little and did a few wheelies. So now, about 25 minutes later, the cop is at the door. He was totally cool about it. He did say that we can’t ride a mini bike in the city, but since he didn’t hear anything, he wasn’t going to do anything & would just put that in his report. So yea, this was at 7:10 pm on a Thursday night that we were riding it. Boy, we’re pretty much riff-raff in the neighborhood, that’s for sure… we’re trouble! Nice… I’m sure curious which neighbor it is… I have a guess, but don’t know. Not curious so we can start things with them, even though that’s tempting… but mainly just so we know who to watch out for, who’s the “problem neighbour”… Oh wait… maybe we’re the “problem neighbour”!!

OK, I must be getting old now. I just don’t really get the whole freestyle thing. As a kid, I grew up dreaming of being a racer, dreaming of being a racing champion. Now all the kids get all excited over people just doing tricks, over & over… Doing tricks. Obviously there is freestyle with motocross, but over the last few years freestyle is now being done with sportbikes… I’m sure they have some fancy name for it other then freestyle. I’ll admit, what they do does take skills. There’s even a local group of sportbike guys getting paid to do shows in my area. They are called Vertical Mischief. From what I have gathered, pretty much all of the sportbike riders in Janesville just do tricks. Granted, there isn’t much for twisty roads down in this part of the state. But we do have a race track 25 miles south of town. Oh, another thing… yes, they are called Sportbikes, not Crotch Rockets.

I know it’s a good time to pull some wheelies & a stoppie, but to specialize in tricks, I don’t get it. To me, motorcycles are about laying that thing over in a corner. These Freestyle guys now are even putting bumpers on their bikes at the rear for wheelie tricks & also bumpers on the sides because they are on the ground so often. That blows me away, I always thought that ground clearance for cornering was a concern. Finally, they are denting down the top of their gas tanks to make them flat for standing on. Their lack of concern for the condition of their bikes is mind numbing. apparently they are not too concerned of how most non-motorcyclists must view all these tricks on the street as reasons to hate motorcycles & start making stricter laws against motorcycles. Damn, have I gotten old, I sound just like an adult now.