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Springtime on Foot
I love the early warm days of springtime with temperatures in the mid-70s and green hills all throughout the landscape. Today’s blog post is more about aggregating snapshots rather than telling a particular journey’s narrative. Some of the best hiking happens after the sun goes down. The vibrant colors of the city lights twinkling below… Read more
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The Wintery Spring Fling
One of the things I appreciate most about living in the Bay Area is the extensive and diverse motorcycling community that thrives here. Driven by good weather and fantastic topography, riding a bike in California is like no other place on Earth. Not surprisingly, our two-wheeled community has many annual traditions that make this place… Read more
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Easter: Our Season Opener
This is one of my favorite rides in #BayAreaMotoCulture. If this post doesn’t convince you to get up early to join us in 2025, take a look at former years! April 21, 2019Sunrise on Mount Tam April 1, 2018Easter Sunrise April 8, 2012Easter Sunrise: A Bay Area Motorcycle Tradition March 23, 2008The Oh Dark Thirty… Read more
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Electrify America: SF Flagship Charging Station
Growing up, I vividly remember vacations in the family car in Florida. As soon as we crossed the state line, I could see my father’s smile widen as we entered his happy place. We were clearly a gulf coast vacationing family. However, we once took a trip to Disney World, a rite of passage for… Read more
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Lane Control & Countersteering
A few weeks ago, I put new tires on the motorcycle. A new set of tires changes the skill and agility of the motorcycle – in some ways, it rides new again. It is perfectly balanced and easily falls into turns with smooth, rounded tires. Old tires have a flat spot in the middle due… Read more
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Fort Bragg: Easy Overnight or Tough Lunch Run
We are fortunate to ride twelve months of the year in Northern California. Sure, it’s chilly and wet in the winter, but conditions are never bad enough for a motorcyclist to not be able to ride at least once per month. Wintertime riding typically means a few extra layers of clothes, a heated vest, some… Read more
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Exploring the Glory Hole
Expanding on the ride from yesterday, I’ve also been kicking tires with the Northern California BMW Club. They put on pretty epic weekends like Range Of Light every Labor Day weekend. It’s a ride that you have no idea where you’re going. The club gives you a ride packet at the start of every day… Read more
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New Roads; New Communities
I’m in a season of change within my riding community. In my 20s, I very much enjoyed the local community around South Bay Riders. We were all clustered around Silicon Valley, so finding people to ride with on any given weekend was easy. Plus, the forum gathered all local rides in one easy-to-consume feed. Once… Read more
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The Real Man Ride
A good buddy and I regularly grab coffee at the neighborhood Starbucks. This morning, however, was particularly reflective of our winter: cold and damp. My buddy texted, “Do you want to go to the warm Starbucks and have coffee inside, or meet at our usual spot and be a Real Mantm and have coffee outside?”… Read more
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Capturing Fire
Working for a large, global company means coordinating across time zones near and far. I work with people and teams across the United States and many countries in Europe, Australia, and the Far East. If I’m lucky, 7 or 8 a.m. covers Europe, and 2-4 p.m. often covers Australia. However, I’m often not lucky, which… Read more
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Dragon on Apple Silicon works!
I’ve dreaded the eventual move to Apple Silicon. I am a long-time Dragon NaturallySpeaking user to dictate content into my computer. Many blogs here have been “written” by voice. The dictation software runs on Microsoft Windows powered by Intel architeture. When Apple decided to move to the ARM architecture, Windows applications built for Intel chips… Read more
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Re-Diggin’ This
Flashback: Read about my first dig at: Diggin it at Dig This Vegas Every year my employer hosts a large user conference in Las Vegas. Thousands of people gather to learn about the latest releases and where the company is going. It’s a fantastic event that I do enjoy each year. When I train new… Read more
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The Magic of Flight
I was just out of high school. My grandfather and I went to the new IMAX theater on the other side of town to watch the new film The Magic of Flight on the circular, silver screen. He was a World War II pilot. I was a kid just out of high school. My mother thought it… Read more
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A year in Truckee
I remember sitting in college on the sofa in the fraternity house watching the movie City of Angels. The movie starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan in a romance drama where he has to fall from grace to fall in love with her. Near the end of the movie, there was one scene where the… Read more
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Yuba: Up And Over
Saturday was all about group riding with Homoto doing the Queer Invasion of Death Valley. Sunday, I had a north towards Lake Tahoe to soak in a bit more of the fall color as this was the only weekend in October I was going to be up here with my motorcycle. Autumn is one of… Read more
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Lake Sabrina and South Lake
In all of motorcycling, there are two dead-end roads I absolutely love to ride. They couldn’t be more different, yet they are located just miles from each other with no connecting path. To the west is Highway 180 to the bottom of Kings Canyon. It’s 50 miles of twisty goodness up and over the western… Read more
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Queer Invasion of Sierra Nevada
Hurricane Hillary dumped immense amounts of rain on Death Valley National Park. Thus, for this year’s ride the park was entirely closed. We made alternate plans this year rather than cancel. I last did the Queer Invasion of Death Valley in 2019. I rode the bike too hard on the last day of Interstate 5.… Read more
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Enter Gutenberg: Modernizing WordPress
For those who don’t know, my blog runs on WordPress – an open-source platform to create websites. It’s estimated that 43% of the Internet runs on WordPress. Every couple of years my blog needs to jump over some technical hurdle. In 2008, I chose to make the move from Serendipity over to WordPress due to… Read more
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2023 Ride for Kids
I must’ve been 15 when I saw my first “Ride for Kids” roll by. There were hundreds of motorcycles rolling down the road, two by two. I’d soon come to learn that motorcyclists are a highly philanthropic bunch. What I did know at the time was that I wanted to do that ride for one… Read more
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The Tahoe Return
I knew this was going to be a short trip. It was about burning fuel and exercising all of the systems in the motorcycle, as a moving motorcycle is a happy motorcycle. I got in at about 9 o’clock last night after a pretty intense evening ride. I slept hard that night and woke up… Read more
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Moses, the Sun, and I-80
I’m taking a small break from blogging about my time in the Pacific Northwest to focus on some events in the current day. I know, I know – These are small problems but I sometimes worry about my motorcycle sitting too long. Motorcycles are happiest when they are ridden. My motorcycle has been sitting for… Read more
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Parrotheads & Motorcycles
No other musician has influenced my life more than Jimmy Buffett. As such, I’m taking a break from travel blogging to reflect on and share a bit of his influence in my life. My parents and many in the extended family were all parrot heads. Even from an early age, Jimmy Buffett’s music was always… Read more
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Coming Home
I was surprised at how quickly a month passed. It was finally time to come home. Part of me was ready to be in my own bed. Part of me wanted to keep traveling. At some point, I needed to return home. I’d rather end on a high note while I’m still enjoying my time… Read more
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Doing Brrrrrrrrrap!
I enjoyed the ride yesterday amongst the Sawtooth Mountains. Today is a different adventure. While yesterday was riding a bike I knew, today was a bike I’ve always wanted to ride but never got the opportunity (or courage) to ride the big red beast. It was also on the short list of motorcycles to replace… Read more
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Into the Storm
Yesterday was fantastic. There is no other way to describe traveling through this beautiful part of the country. Today’s ride is around the northern and western side of the Sawtooth Mountains along Idaho 21. When I turned onto the highway, I instantly wanted to stop to capture these beautiful, rocky mountains. I’m equally impressed how… Read more
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Sawing Teeth
As a young kid, I would flip through my parent’s Atlas and Gazetteer for hours looking at all kinds of places. I often looked at Idaho, envisioning it as a mountain paradise filled with mountains all around the state. Moreover, I remember being in college, thinking I was going to graduate with a computer science… Read more
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Boise by Foot
Sarah was right. It was too long since I’d seen Andy. The past few days have been wonderful seeing him, his wife, and his now nearly grown children. Great friendships can pick up right where they left off. Andy is one of those people in my life. I am super thankful for him and his… Read more
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537 miles for Potatoes
Today would be a different kind of driving I had not yet done on this trip. The main goal of today is distance. I wanted to get from Olympia, Washington, to Boise, Idaho. It’s about 540 miles of driving, wholly composed of high-speed freeway. The all-out freeway is not an electric car’s best path to… Read more
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Serendipitous Olympia
I rolled into town right about dinnertime last night and met Atom for the first time face-to-face. We’d known each other in the Bay Area in somewhat distant circles but never connected face-to-face in the big metropolis. We’d exchange hellos online every few months to years, but we never met up for whatever reason. Simply… Read more
