The Gamble Family (.Net)

An article in this week’s newspaper caught my eye. It stated that another motorcycle accident in the town where I live had claimed the life of young person. This accident was the 4th one during the month of July. Of those four, three resulted in a fatality.

What really caught my attention was the details of one of the crashes. At first glance, the cause of the accident was the same as we hear all too many times: “The driver did not see the motorcycle”. There’s more than meets the eye here. Read on.

The motorcyclist was riding a sport bike, and was in the process of popping a wheelie. Now, here’s the crazy part - the part that you probably would never consider. Most states have laws stating that the motorcycle must have a the headlight turned on anytime the motorcycle is on the road. Think about this for a second though, and here’s the part that caught my attention. If the rider is popping a wheelie, where is the headight pointed? In most wheelies, the front of the motorcycle is pointed skyward at least 50 degrees or more. This means that the headlight is not visible to oncoming traffic because it is obscured by the front and undercarriage of the motorcycle. Hmmmm… Solution - Keep that front wheel on the ground. It should seem simple and obvious to even the most casual observer that this type of riding behavior is dangerous. In other words, Stupid Hurts.

Every summer, hundreds of motorcyclists are involved in accidents. As riders, we can mitigate some of the risks that we are bound to encounter simply by practicing safe and defensive riding techniques. To survive, I treat everything that I encounter as hostile. Even in the best of situations, bad things often happen, though. So, why increase the risk by throwing in “the stupid factor”?

When we get stupid, we let our testosterone take over. The next thing we know, we’re trying something stupid. Yes, I’ve been guilty of riding beyond my limits at times. I’ve done things that weren’t safe on a motorcycle. I’ve done things that I’d classify as stupid every now and then. But, as I get older (and wiser), I find that I’m doing that less and less. I’ve made it a priority in my life to remove as much “stupid” as I possibly can.

The sport of motorcycling does not need this type of negative publicity. It simply adds fuel to an already raging fire, in which motorcyclists are considered “idiots for getting on those things in the first place”. We are perceived as careless, reckless, and rude. Accidents of the type mentioned in this article only serve to validate those claims. Motorcycle riders need to do all that we can to shift public opinion about our beloved interest. Aside from improved public relations, a better/safer image hopefully will help keep our insurance costs under control. So, please do your part to ride responsibly. Don’t make stupid a part of your riding habits.

For motorcycle owners, polishing chrome and aluminum is a fact of life. Most times, though, this is not a big deal. Any good polish usually works just fine. For Goldwing owners, however, this is not the case. Goldwings have aluminum wheels - bare aluminum - not clear-coated aluminum like on automobiles. Therein lies the rub - literally.

Goldwing owners have come to accept the fact that although we can easily polish the tupperware to a high gloss, when it come to the wheels, we usually settle on just wiping them down with a damp rag and live with the dullness. Oh sure, we can get some high-end aluminum polish like Mother’s Mag and Aluminum Polish, but if we do, we’re in for a long afternoon of hard rubbin’. With most aluminum polishes, you have to rub long and hard to bring back the luster and shine. The other problem is that brake dust on your unprotected aluminum wheels causes them to pit if you aren’t diligent with at least some minimal cleaning.

The Flitz Product Line

This is where Flitz comes in. I first heard of Flitz on one of those TV Informercials. I usually blow those off as “too good to be true”. But, after I heard some encouraging comments from a few other folks, I decided to give it a try. My bottle of Flitz and the Buffing Ball arrived a few short days after ordering it. I couldn’t wait to give it a try. Instead of going full-bore with the Buffing Ball, I simply put a small bit of the creamy liquid on a paper towel and gave it a spot test. I rubbed it onto a small 2″ area on the front wheel of the Goldwing, then wiped it off with a clean paper towel. Hmmm… Not bad. Pretty nice shine with only minimal “wax on - wax off” effort. So, I spent the next 10 (only TEN) minutes finishing off the front wheel of the Goldwing. Wowzers! Only 10 minutes and shiny wheels - using only a couple of paper towels.

The following weekend, I did it the right way. I put some liquid Flitz the wheels with a rag, then polished it with the Buffing Ball attached to my electic drill. Folks, this stuff really works. The polish is extremely bright and shiny, and the protective coating that remains helps protect the precious aluminum from brake dust. You don’t have to purchase the Buffing Ball. Using just a couple of rags, you can easily shine any aluminum or chrome in a matter of minutes, but the Buffing Ball allows you to take it to the next level, with very little effort at all.

Flitz works on just about any metal. I have used it on brass flower pots, brass door kickplates, steel knife blades, and of course, my Goldwing wheels. If you have stuff that needs polishing, give it a try. You won’t be dissappointed.

It has been over two years since I first started blogging.  At that time, I started with Blogger.com, then within two weeks switched to Movable Type, and then a couple of weeks later, discovered WordPress.  At that time, WordPress was on version 1.2.  Since then, WordPress has gone through some significant and grand enhancements.  So, this week, I took on the challenge of upgrading my v1.2 codebase to v 2.0

The upgrade involved two steps.  First, was the basic process of importing my existing post data.  I chose not to go through the WordPress upgrade process, but instead, simply installed a fresh new instance of WordPress in a different folder on my site.  I also used a different prefix on the database tables.  This strategy allowed me to get the new instance of WordPress up and running without affecting the existing site.  After the installation was complete, I simply copied the post and category data from the original tables to the new tables.  This entire process went very smoothly.  The only remaining thing to do next was to get the new site looking like I wanted.

Changing the look and feel was a little more challenging than the data migration.  The framework of WordPress underwent a significant change from v1.2 to v1.5 (which was the reason that I did not upgrade to 1.5 a couple of years back).  But, once I looked under the covers, I realized that this was not going to be as difficult as I had expected.   The deeper I looked, the more I realized that the core function calls that I was familiar with still existed.  All I had to do was get a handle on how the one main index.php page had been broken up into various areas of functionality, and all was well.  This, coupled with my understanding of css made the overall transition somewhat painless.  In fact, using the new template framework, I can totally revise the look and feel of my site by changing on the main css style sheet.  Way cool.

So there you have it - New WordPress version, new look and feel, all in just a few hours work.

The Gold Wing Road Riders Association (GWRRA) is having their 28th annual gathering this week right here in Music City, USA (Nashville, TN). Part of their initiative this year was to attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking the current world record for single-brand Honda motorcycles motorcycle parade. The current world record is 884, which was achieved by the Shadow Motorclub in Alkmaar, Netherlands. The parade was scheduled to take place the afternoon of July 4, from the Opryland Hotel to downtown Nashville, in preparation to watch the fireworks display later that evening.

Cheryl and I left home mid-day on the 4th for the short ride to the Opryland Hotel. We spent about 2 1/2 hours walking through the vendor setup, looking at the various goodies that abound for bikes. I searched and searched, but I just couldn’t find anything that I couldn’t live without.

Vendors at Wing Ding 2006

After walking around inside, we went to the staging area for the parade. When we got there, there were already at least 300 Goldwings lined up. So, we took our place on the large blacktop parking lot and headed for the shade.

Bikes Lining Up Prior to the Parade

Cheryl Cooling Off in the Shade

Once the ride organizers gave their final instructions, we all walked out to find our bikes and mount up. It should be easy right? Wrong! Think about it - Over 1,000 bikes, 99% of them Goldwings. Fortunately, I had parked near a telephone pole, and my bike has two blue ribbons on the antennas, so we didn’t have a hard time finding ours.

When the lead bike left the parking lot, it took about 5 minutes before all of the bikes ahead of us rolled out. Once we got moving, it was really cool to see all of the people lining the highways waving at us. Nashville Police had all of the roads blocked off for the parade, so we felt very priviledged as we rode along our own section of highway.

When we arrived at our destination downtown, we were informed that the parade had, in fact, set a new Guinness Book World Record. There were 1,488 total bikes in the parade, and 1,246 of them were Goldwings. This shattered the previous world record.

Later that evening, we had a grand view of the fireworks display. Nashville ranks as one of the top four fireworks displays in the country. This evening was nothing short of spectacular. The Nashville Symphony played as barrage after barrage of explosives lit up the sky. It was a great way to celebrate our Nation’s 230th birthday.

Fireworks