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I’m poking around craigslist for a bicycle to ride in SF and take to the playa. After being out here 2 weeks and seeing the traffic and parking situation, I’m considering buying a motorcycle. The city heartily encourages motorcycles. In areas with parking meters, you can always find a spot designated for bikes. Where a car pays $0.25 for 10 minutes with a 1 hr limit, the bike meters are $0.10 an hour with a 10 hour limit. In areas with no meters, you can always find motorcycles parked on the sidewalk or tucked into tiny parking spaces… sans parking tickets. In addition, most of the major local streets have a bike lane. Of course those are supposed to be for human powered bicycles but they lend greatly toward getting a motorbike to the front of a lineup of cars at a red light.

So I’m definitely getting a bicycle… I need it for the playa. I wouldn’t dream of using an internal combustion engine in it’s stead on the playa.

Now there’s the question of a motorbike. I did a little browsing on craigslist for prices and such. I don’t know much (read: nuffum) about motorbikes. I found a couple used bikes and googled about them. Here was a 1994 Ninja for $1,800. Hey, I’ve heard of the Ninja. Google .

Oh . . . my . . . . god.

You expect certain things from the Ninja. Power. Quickness. Agility. Focus. Bravado. Attitude. Heavy on the attitude. Still, unless you catapult-launch F-18 Hornets or 6500-horsepower Top Fuel dragsters for a living, this Ninja is a revelation. Prepare yourself for the strongest literbike in the world. Understand that it’s lighter than most 600s. And while that’s sinking in, make a mental note to pack an extra Depends.

One hundred mph arrives before the 13,000-rpm redline in first gear. Shift into second at triple digits and a practiced throttle hand can lift the front Dunlop for obscene distances. The 10R covers a quarter-mile in less time than it takes to read this sentence, and it punishes incompetence, impudence and stupidity even more quickly. Too much throttle, almost anywhere, and it’ll stick you in the ground like a golf tee.

This Ninja doth not suffer fools. It eats them. Whole. Any sportbike commands respect and first-rate skills. Kawasaki’s all-new ZX-10R demands more of both than any motorcycle currently for sale, along with simply heroic willpower. Nothing in any showroom punts you forward with such pure, concentrated, brute force. Its predatory silhouette alone makes small children, domestic pets and impressionable girls hyperventilate. If it lived next door, the ZX-10R would bet heavily on the Oakland Raiders. It would own an overwrought Rottweiler named Cujo and play all 11 Metallica albums every weekend with the dial cranked up to 11. Your mother wouldn’t approve. Your black-sheep uncle doing time for armed robbery would advise against it. Twenty years after the first 900, Kawasaki’s latest literbike is entirely stunning and unmistakably a Ninja.

Wuw.

And this blows what’s left of my mind…

And here’s the kicker. Add that 433-pound wet weight to the 170-pound rider we use for spec-chart calculations, divide by 161.9 horsepower, and you have a weight/power ratio of 3.72 pounds per. It just doesn’t get any better than that, sports fans.

My model airplane brain goes off on this, thinking (this line of thinking isn’t technically accurate but phoey on you, it’s my blog!)…

1 hp=750 watts… so each pound get’s it’s own 200 watts to drag it along. My 1.5 lb model plane peaks at about 180 watts.. or about 120 watts per pound. So this bike offers almost twice the power per pound as my looping, rolling, 0-90mph in 5 seconds, nearly vertical performance model aircraft! If you put a propeller on this bike, it would perform dramatically more powerf^H^H^H^H^H^H dramati^H^H^H^H^H^H^H intens^H^H^H^H^H^H betterer than my plane.

This from the Federal Trade Commission: (page moved to here)

Your Access to Free Credit Reports

Soon you’ll be able to get your credit report for free. A recent amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months.
…

Q: How do I order my free report?

A: The three nationwide consumer reporting companies have set up one central website, toll-free telephone number, and mailing address through which you can order your free annual report. To order, click on www.annualcreditreport.com, call 877-322-8228, or complete the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. The form is on the back of this brochure; or you can print it from www.ftc.gov/credit. Do not contact the three nationwide consumer reporting companies individually. They are only providing free annual credit reports through www.annualcreditreport.com, 877-322-8228, and Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.

You may order your reports from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies at the same time, or you can order from only one or two. The law allows you to order one free copy from each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies every 12 months.

Read more about it.

I found 1 error on my Experian credit report… I had paid off a loan 3 years ago but they had it listed as being past due. It’ll take 1-2 months to fix. Better to do this kind of thing now than when I want to buy a house or something and time is more important.

update 8-8-05 Experian just got back to me and fixed the error. The loan is now “Paid, Closed”. That was easy. :-)

I blogged last year about my confusion with buying multi-vitamins. It comes down to knowing how much vitamins to take and how much is too much. I’ve found a good reference. Consumerlab.com is a free resource available to Oxford Healthcare members… of which I am.

I got the Puritan Mega Vita Min tablets today with my 10% Oxford discount. (hint: if you call them on the phone, they don’t verify your Oxford membership)By taking them, I hope to live forever. I’ll get back to you in a century or so to tell you if it works.

Here’s the Consumerlab research:
Continue reading ‘Vitamins’ »

I’ve signed up for welding classes at The Crucible and gotten some welding videos from Technical Video Rental.

I’ve always felt that I have a much harder time learning if I can’t find a practical (that’s practical to me) application for the subject matter. Well, here’s my chance!

I’ve just arranged to have all my stuff shipped from New Jersey to California via UPS. Let me tell you a little about my experience:

I’ve got 2 shipments… 150 lbs of computer equipment being shipped to my apartment. It’s going 2 day air because such packages are usually treated kinder in the UPS system. Cost: about $350. I’ve also got 1,100 lbs of stuff being shipped directly Ground to a storage space in San Francisco for about $700. Total cost: about $1,100.

I found that any other option would have cost two to four times as much. If you can find cheaper, please tell me! PODS would cost a cheap $200/month for the storage space but $3,000 to ship it cross country. Movers charge $0.50-$1.00 per mile…. * 3,200 miles is expensive. It would have been nice if a mobile storage unit company like PODS would work with a rail line to get the cost of a long haul shipment down.

Packing boxes for UPS is much different than packing boxes for moving. It takes quite a bit longer and is quite a pain in the neck. 50 boxes all carefully packed with cushioning and styrofoam peanuts. Ugh.

To accept the packages at the storage space, I’m going to have to sit there and wait all day for them. But it’s better than finding 1,200 lbs of stuff at the door of my second story apartment! Not all storage spaces will let UPS pull up to their loading dock.

Pyrophage has been kind enough to get me a Livejournal Syndication. So you can now view my blog inside your Livejournal Friends Page by using http://www.livejournal.com/users/gadlenblog/.

I believe I’m going to be helping to build a really big, really dangerous, really freaking heavy sculpture to be placed in a desert for all to enjoy.

I just got back from a Burning Man preview event:

The Crucible Hosts: Burning Man’s Desert Arts Preview: Free Admission
See and hear what some of this year’s Burning Man honorarium artists are creating for Black Rock City! You’ll also hear members of Burning Man’s Art Department give an overview and highlight of Burning Man’s theme and grant process.

The tagline of the Colossus project reads “30 tons of granite and steel spinning overhead. 70 feet tall. Radically radially interactive.”

Find out all about it.

I’ve got to contact Corbett in the morning but I think since they’ll need a welder, I’ll be taking welding lessons soon. Maybe I’ll rent a video on the subject too.

I’ve started a cell phone photo blog. I’m not sure I’ll be using it all that much but you can find it at http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/gadlen

If you’re all gaga over seeing the pix, you can subscribe to an email list on the above page. It’ll tell you when I’ve posted new photos without you having to check both of my blogs on a regular basis.

I’m building up a long list of restaurants, dining and the like to go to in SF. When I tell friends where I am, they wax poetic and start telling me where I -have- to go! It’s far less fun to go to such places alone so I look forward to friends buzzing me up and asking to go out with me [hint hint!]

After several days of homelessness in the Bay Area, I’ve found a temporary home, Hussah! I’m in the Mission District not far from Caesar Chavez (the road, not the person)

This is my first night here and so far the place is really good. The housemates are real, kind, and stimulating to talk with. I’m looking forward to this all.