PCH1

Day 1: Got the bikes on the trailer, the gear in the Jeep, and heading to Tucson to get Scott!

Finally found Itchy

Back in the late 70s (1978?), I received a Kenner "Stretch Monster" for Christmas. I named him Itchy (no idea why), and loved the stuffing outta him. Literally... skin started to split, and the corn syrup was leaking out.

If it feels smaller than the one I had when I was 7, it's because this one is only 9" instead of 12".

But it's still him!

Northward Bound

Thursday, July 2nd:

Started at 8 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. like I planned, which meant I hit Denver right at the beginning of rush hour. By the time the sun was beginning to set, I had reached Wheaton Wyoming, where I discovered that despite TMobile's coverage map assuring me that I had service through the first half of Canada, I really didn't.

Found an open WiFi, and messaged my wife on Facebook that everything was fine, and found a campsite. Setup camp, ate dinner, and went to bed.

Friday, July 3rd:

Woke up at 5 a.m., packed up my gear and was ready to ride by 6 a.m. but there wasn't anybody at the campsite office to pay for my stay. Took a picture of the contact list on the door so I could send them the payment.

Rode until I got to Casper, where I cound a Walmart and bought a sim card for Verizon after verifying that it would work with my Galaxy S5... only it didn't, and I spent 3 hours finding that out. So now I have a prepaid Verizon phone that lets me call and text, but no internet!

Made my way to Great Falls Montana, where I stayed in a Days Inn so I could take a shower and wash my clothes before crossing over into Canada - the ride had been very hot, and I wanted to be presentable when I convinced the border guard that I wasn't a bum :)

While Great Falls wasn't a small town, you wouldn't have guessed it by the number of restaurants that were closed by 10 p.m. So I bought some groceries at Albertsons, and headed to the hotel to use their laundry... which had closed while I was out. At least I was clean.

Saturday, July 4th:

Got up at 6 a.m., and went downstairs to wash my clothes. Ate breakfast and loaded my gear while I waited, and got on the road by 8 a.m. and was at the border by 10:30 or so. The crossing was simple... talked to the agent at a drive through window, and just had to answer a few questions.

Crossing the border, I realized my speedometer didn't have any km/hr labels, so had to rely on my GPS program know how fast I was going. It was kinda fun to see a speed limit of 110 at first :)

The biggest change, however, was having to choose the amount of gas - the difference in currency, the use of liters instead of gallons, and the fact that my bike gas neither a gas guage or consistent gas mileage meant that I didn't have the foggiest idea of how to prepay at the pump.

I like how Canada has the chip reader in all of their credit card machines - I'll miss that when I return to the states.

Leaving Calgary, I hit a rain storm - pretty hard, too. Unlike Montana, Canada was already pretty cool, and the moisture was definitely not welcome. Stopped at a diner to get warmed up, and get some food.

Back on the road, I was back in sunshine about an hour or two later, and got mostly dried out. Found a campsite before the sun set, and setup camp. However, I'm far enough north that I didn't have to worry... the sky was still lit around midnight.

Renovation of my '81 KZ440 LTD

Replaced the rear shocks with shocks from an '05 Sportster, and replaced the stock turn signals with generic mini turn signals.
Before:

After:

Can hardly wait to replace the tail light with a side-mount, but I think the new bike-port on the side of the house should come next.  Got the fork seals in the mail, and I'd like a clean spot to work on them.

Handling runnables

2+ years coding for Android, and I never knew that "handler.post(runnable)" was being executed on the main thread.

Now I do. Whoops.

"Exported receiver does not require permission"

What does that mean? The English language is such a squirrelly mode of communication at times.

Does it mean "You've supplied a permission, but the receiver doesn't require it (you dolt)"?

Or does it mean "Your receiver should be demanding permission, but you're allowing every Tom, Dick, and Harry to abuse it!"

For those of you interested in Android programming, it's the second.

You know your life is pathetic...

...when you jaywalk for the thrill.