Posted by jerry on March 14th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Motorcycling, Travel
What an exhilirating ride! Just popping out for a pie – 130km to Batehaven on the coast with the friendly folk from Action Motorcycles – the first of what they hope to be a monthly ride. They’re a good mob, and they accepted the antique Bol d’Or with good grace. There’s nothing quite like the howl that comes out of that four into one exhaust when it comes on song 😉
And there were some good corners to be had heading down the Clide Mountain – they’ve cleaned up the road a lot in the last couple of years. Pity that the bear seems to have disappeared from Pooh corner.
You can just see the antique trying to blend in among the modern bikes 😉
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on March 14th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Travel
Every year Canberra has a Balloon Fiesta at this time of year. So yesterday (Saturday 13 March), we got up early and headed into the city to see the balloons being launched in front of our Parliament House. There must have been about thirty of them! Most were the usual shapes, but there were some unusual ones, like: the house, the frog, the bunch of balloons, and above all, Van Gogh! It was too much of a temptation when van gogh headed over the Australian National University’s Canberra School of Art:
The image was taken by my partner, Sharon Boggon who lectures at the Art School.
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on March 13th, 2004 — Posted in Motorcycling
so much to blog… so little time 😉
Last weekend was a total blast! Not only did I abruptly get a year older, but work paid for me to do advanced motorcycle training – and it was just the best!
Run by the ‘Stay Upright’ folks the course is basically about improving safety and survivability on the motorbike – better braking skills, better cornering – that sort of thing.
The theory part was good – lots of stuff on breaking distances and discussion on how to deal with tailgaters (grrrrr) and building buffer zones between you and the sardine tins… And then there’s the track day 🙂
These guys have built a track that incorporates all the stuff you don’t want to encounter on the road – corners that tighten up, adverse cambers, blind hills, humps just before corners – the works! It was a great opportunity to encounter all that kind of stuff – but under supervision and above all with no b@stard coming the other way… I could tell that my confidence was increasing when I started scraping bits of the bike and not worrying – and I was amazed at how quickly my antique Honda Bol d’Or (1981 CB900F) could stop. I also never thought I’d get the old beast airborne – but there was this hump you see…
Anyhow – noone fell off and we all had a great time! – An excellent course – highly recommended if you happen to live in Canberra, Australia – are there equivalent courses elsewhere? Have any of you done them?
Cheers & keep the rubber side down!
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on March 13th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Writing
Yeah it’s been a little while – and I’ve got a few things to write up on the blog. But first: A fun quiz! What kind of postmodernist are you? Here’s the result I got 🙂 “You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the postmodernists, you collect avant-garde Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal articles for breakfast. You positively live for theory. It really doesn’t matter what kind, as long as the words are big and the paragraph breaks few and far between.” Sprung!
Cheers Jerry
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Posted by jerry on February 19th, 2004 — Posted in Journal
It has come to this! As my focal length began to extend noticeably further than was comfortable for reading I have taken the plunge and for the first time have begun wearing spectacles.
It is wierd! Jerry as cyborg – with artificially enhanced sight. The upsides are that the specs are light and comfortable – and they improve my close vision immensely. The downside is not having enough shirt pockets to carry sunglasses as well as reading glasses and the usual assortment of pens etc. And I am learning not to move my head too much when reading or I get motion sick from my view of the world moving at a different rate than my brain expects. But these are small prices to pay for improved vision 🙂
Cheers Jerry
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