Random sightings..

This is the first cell phone I've had with a camera on it... and it takes pretty decent images at 1.2 megapixels. Perfect for blogs and sending over email. It's come in handy to snap pics of interesting things I see anytime I'm out and about.

Today I post a couple of things I've seen in the past week that make me say to myself - "what the hell were these people thinking??"

First is this guy here.

It was a little cool this morning on my way to work - probably about 6:30am. I give anyone props for suiting up and taking their motorcycle, especially when I didn't feel like riding mine (such as this morning). I'd like to say that a lot of people ride their motorcycles because it's fun, it saves gas during their commute, and they think it makes them look cool.

What's cooler than a Honda VTX1800 motorcycle? It's a pretty big, bad-ass ride that is intimidating to many because of it's sheer size. Cool bike - check.

Ride a cool bike, you need some leather. This guy is wearing a black leather jacket - check.

This guy was on the right track until I saw his head. Hmm... he's too cool to wear a helmet... but what is that? It's a freaking PURPLE headband. First off, you're a turd for wearing any headband on a bike. Scratch that, unless you're jogging in the early 80s no guy should be wearing a headband (man law anyone???). Then all of his cool points are immediately revoked... because it's PURPLE. Did this guy borrow it from his wife?? It gets better...

Then I notice he's wearing dress loafers with thin dress socks - his dress slacks have ridden up about 6-8 inches above his ankle.

QUICK - someone confiscate this motorcycle and get him a friggin moped.

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I had to run an errand the other day and parked next to this older Honda Civic 3 door. Something was weird with both doors. Upon further inspection I notice they did some less than half-assed body work.



On the stock vehicle there is a black moulding that runs along the door. When this trim is removed, there is a recess in the sheet metal. Apparently they were going after a smoothed look on the door - it would have been a nice detail if they didn't use BONDO. Bondo is a plastic body filler used to smooth out lightly damaged metal. It can be sanded and then painted on so shallow dents can't be felt or seen. I think Bondo is only supposed to be used to fill recesses of 1/8" or less. The proper way to do this modification would be to cut out a section of metal and weld it into the recess so that it was about level with the rest of the door. This is what you get when you take shortcuts. Chunks of the filler have fallen off and it left behind unpainted, rusted sheetmetal. Sure looks trick now! Friggin morons...

A most Excellent Adventure

Last weekend's bike trip to Southern Indiana was a blast. My ride report would pale in comparison to Sean's so I won't waste your time here. Check out Sean's blog for the pics and the day by day commentary.

Short ride on Sunday

I had to take care of some work in the morning and the day was turning out to be pretty nice. I couldn't let it pass by without pulling out the bike. Rich stopped by and after shooting the shit we hit the road. We made our way up north via Rte 12, headed towards Johnsburg, Bull Valley and stopped in Wonderlake for a snack.

On our way out from getting our drinks, Rich bumped into someone he knew. I didn't know this guy so I wasn't paying attention to the conversation. While I was standing there I saw something I've never seen before. I quickly pulled out the camera phone and snapped a shot.

I know it's hard to see, but this guy drove his riding lawn tractor to the gas station (bare foot too) to fill it up with gas.

Jeff Foxworthy and his series of "you might be a redneck" jokes immediately came to mind.

Another thing worth noting - the gas prices were the lowest I've seen at this place in the past week or two. $3.25!!! <-- saying this is inexpensive makes me want to vomit.

We headed back through McHenry and Lakemoor and split off at Rte 120/12. Came home and cooked up some brats for dinner. Mmmmm... brats.

Triumph Demo Ride

My buddy Rich got a postcard in the mail from the Triumph dealer in Villa Park to demo ride any one of the 2007 Triumph motorcycles and invited me along... me say no to that? Pfft!

We got there right at 9:30am to sign up for the bikes we wanted to ride... but already the slots were filled up and the soonest ride we could do was 11am! We later found out people registered for bikes the evening before.. bastids! Rich didn't get his first choice which was the 675 and I wanted to ride the Speed Triple. I let him take the Triple and I ended up on the Tiger. After the ride was said and done, I'm glad I took this bike.

All new 2007 Triumph Tiger

It was a bit tall and when I came to a stop, only the tip toes of my boot could touch the ground on either side. Once underway, the bike was very well balanced and had power at all RPM ranges. This bike has a 1050cc inline three cylinder engine. It's kind of the best of both worlds - plenty of torque, and pretty smooth. This Tiger was all new for 2007 and they did away with it's off road ability but it still has that tall stance of a dual sport kind of like the Suzuki V-Strom and the BMW GS. All I can say is that I walked away with a grin ear to ear... if funds were available I wouldn't hesitate to buy this bike. It was super comfortable and I had no wind buffeting with the stock screen when at highway speeds. One of the Triumph reps said they offer a shorter seat which would solve my only gripe. Oh yeah, this bike retails for $10,500 - so it won't be in the cards anytime soon.

Below is a pic of the bike Rich ended up riding - the no nonsense, get-your-ass-in-trouble, F U bike - the Speed Triple. He goosed the throttle a little and the front wheel had no problems coming up. Nice.

2007 Triumph Speed Triple