Posts
New WordPress Themes
Published November 28, 2009 | 
Once again, I’ve whipped up some new WordPress themes for motorcycle blogs. As always, these themes are free, though I would ask that you not remove the backlink to my business website way down on the bottom. This time, the themes are all model specific. As always, simply click on the screenshot image to download the zip file containing the theme.
Fireblade WordPress Theme
This theme’s colors are predominantly red and gray, with a stylized pic of a CBR1000RR as the header image.
Big Green Screenshot
Kawasaki’s traditional color is green. A very bright, irritating green. But some people seem to like it so here it is, with the ZX-10R as the header.
R1 Screenshot
This one is very blue. It’s headed by a detail shot of a Yamaha R1.
All of the other wordpress themes I’ve created can be seen here.
More Alaska Video
Published September 23, 2009 | Here’s some more Video I shot in Alaska.
I really wish the weather had been better.
My Alaska Travelogue
Published September 23, 2009 | Below the fold is my day-by-day observations about my Alaska Cruise, complete with pictures. It’s stuck below the fold so it won’t take up the whole front page, and you can skip over it easily.
I’m Baaaaack!
Published September 21, 2009 | I‘ve been to Alaska, and seen the glaciers, bears, eagles, whales, and about 30 inches of rain. But, now I’m back, and regular blogging about motorcycle goodness will begin in due course.
In the meantime, I leave you with this little video I slapped together earlier this evening.
Vacation!
Published September 9, 2009 |
Well, I don’t doubt that I’ll miss a lot of motorcycle riding and motorcycle writing, but I have to put the blog on hiatus for a few weeks. I’m off to Alaska on a long cruise. Regular blogging will resume on 21 or 22 September after I return from the Great White North.
See you then!
I Got a Ticket?!
Published September 5, 2009 |
Some times, the day just starts out wrong. Today was one of those days. When Chris came back in with the mail this morning, she handed me a letter from the 91 Express Lanes, the agency that runs the toll portion of State Route 91 between Riverside and Orange counties. Inside was a notice that I had been cited for riding my motorcycle in the express lanes last Saturday night, just before 10 PM.
Now, to my certain knowledge, I haven’t been on State Route 91 at any time since I moved to San Diego county in 1999. And even if I had, motorcycles get to travel free in the 3+ express lanes at all times except the eastbound side during the afternoon drive time on weekdays.
Not that it matters. Last Saturday night, my chick and I were watching Season 2 of Lost on my XBox through Netflix. I didn’t even take my bike out of the garage on Saturday.
So, now, I have to write a letter and mail it to them, requesting a review. And if they still say I owe them for the violation, I have to pay the ticket and a deposit to get a second administrative review. And if that still comes out against me, I have to file an appeal in Superior Court–along with another deposit–and get a court date.
How does a motorcycle even get a ticket for using the express lanes at 10PM on a saturday? It’s toll-free for motorcycles!
So now I have to deal with these idiots for the next two months.
More Free WordPress Themes
Published August 8, 2009 |
I‘ve whipped up more free Motorcycle themes for WordPress. They’re free for anyone who wants them. To download the theme, just click the screenshot.
I call the first one “Monochrome”. It’s done completely in grayscale–no color at all.
Monochrome: A Free WordPress Theme
The next one is called “Kneeslider” because of the header image. It’s all done in Buff and Blue. I think It’s a classy theme. At the moment, a variant of this theme is what you’re seeing on the blog now.
Kneeslider: A free WordPress theme
Decisions, Decisions…
Published August 2, 2009 | With the money from my insurance settlement coming, I really am trying to figure out what to do. I know I’ll pay off my FJR, but beyond that, I’m not sure which direction to go.
I rode the R1200RT, and absolutely loved it. But I’d have to trade in my FJR to buy it outright. I’m also really interested in a Buell 1125r, and I can get an ’09 white/blue one for a pretty good deal. Good enough so that I can keep the FJR, and buy an 1125r outright. I have a test ride scheduled for next Saturday on the 1125r.
Assuming I like the power and handling of the 1125r, I’m really in a quandary about which way to jump. The Buell is the only sportbike that has ergos comfy enough for me to ride regularly, but, on the other hand, the BMW has all those cool amenities like cruise control, ASC, ESA, etc. that I miss on the FJR.
This may be my only chance to get a new bike with someone else’s money, and it’s a very hard decision to make.
Boy, Am I Glad Today Is Over…
Published July 28, 2009 | So, it’s about 6:45 this morning when I go out to get the bike out of the garage and head off to work. I put on all my gear, threw a leg over, turned the ignition key, and for a brief moment, while the key was turning between the off and start positions the dashboard of the FJR lit up. Then, when the key clicked into the start position, everything went dead.
The dreaded FJR ignition problem strikes again.
This happened once before, and stranded me in the middle of the road on my way to work. Fortunately, this time, it was in the garage. But, I was still pissed.
I stripped off all my gear, went out to the truck, threw my tank bag in the passenger seat, and started her up. As I pulled away from the house, knowing there’s no way I’m gonna make it to work in time driving my diesel truck, I notice that the fuel tank is almost at the empty mark. So, now I’m gonna be later.
Well, I thought, as I was putting 35 gallons of oil in the tank at the gas station, I guess I’d better call and let someone at work know I’m running late. That was when I noticed that my cell phone was dead.
It was not a happy morning.
Fortunately, when I got to work, my insurance’s raod-side assitance line was ready to help me, and North County House of Motorcycles could fit my bike in. Not only that, but they had the ignition switch for the FJR in stock.
As it turns out, my FJR had never had the recall fix for the ignition switch done. for some reason, I thought that the new ignition switch I got last year when this happened had taken care of that. Turns out, it didn’t. It was one of the pre-recall ignition switches.
So, in addition to free towing, I got a free ignition switch repair.
As I was on my way home from work, I got a call on my freshly recharged cell phone saying that the bike was ready. I called Chris to tell her we needed to go pick it up. When I got home, I loaded Chris, our dogs, the grand-daughter who’s spending the summer with us, and her dog all into the truck. I tossed my riding gear in the bed, and, at 4:30Pm we were off on the 16-mile trip to the dealership, up CA-78.
And, about 1.5 miles up the 78, traffic came to a dead stop. All lanes.
Unfortunately, because there are some inconvenient mountains and lakes in our area, there are very few ways–and no direct ones–from Escondido to Vista except the 78. And it was shut down.
So, we had to go to the GPS, get off the highway at the next exit, and take the most tortuous route of surface streets you can imagine. And, because 78 was jammed, the surface streets were jammed, too. It took us an hour to go the last 10 miles.
Happily, we arrived at NCHM at about 5:40, and I was able to pick up the bike before they closed.
The east-bound side of the 78 was pretty clear so I took that back home, and saw that the traffic problem on the eastbound side was that a fire had started by the freeway, so the fire department and CHP had essentially shut the highway down, except for allowing cars to trickle through one at a time on the shoulder.
I’m glad this day is over, let me tell you.
Motorcycle Sales
Published July 27, 2009 | In case you haven’t been keeping up with current events, things are slow in the economy. We went to the local mall Friday night to see about getting a part for our dishwasher, and the place was a ghost town. After finishing up at the mall, we also went to a popular local eatery. We were one of three parties in the place. All the rest of the tables were empty.
This afternoon, I went to Escondido Cycle Center, and North County Yamaha. I was the only customer in NCY–another customer was leaving as I arrived–and one of two customers as ECC. Dead, dead, dead.
Interestingly, the sales guy at NCC couldn’t have been less interested in trying to sell me a bike. Since I have an insurance settlement coming from my accident last December, I am looking at possibilities for a second bike. Something small and hooligan-like, but without the cramped riding position of the Gixxer or CBR. I went to NCY because they have Triumphs there, and wanted to look into a Speed Triple 1050. I told the sales guy what I was after, and he said, “I don’t know mcuh about it. It has a good torque range. Broad. why not go sit on it and see if you like it.” He then turned on his heel and left me to my own devices. Apparently, trying to sell a motorcycle didn’t fit into his schedule this afternoon.
And, keep in mind that this is their chief sales guy, and as far as I could tell, the only sales rep there. I’ve seen him there before, and his whole vibe was that I was being a pain in the ass for trying to engage him.
Wierd.
The sales guy at ECC, on the other hand, was knowledgeable, and showed me not only the sportbikes, but an array of standard bikes that have same sportbike engines, but more comfy ergos. Totally different sales experience.
Sometimes the guys at NCY are helpful, and sometimes they act like they’d rather you just didnt show up at their door at all. When sales are as bad as they are currently, you’d think they would deep-six the latter attitude.
All is right with the world
Published April 9, 2009 | Last night, my final replacement racing stripes came in from Premier Cycle. I put them on, so this morning I finally got to ride my fully restored FJR to work. Actually, I’ve been riding it every day since my last post, but without all the stripes. Now they’re all back on.
Back to 100%+
And, I even added a farkle, for good measure, You can’t really see it in the cell phone pic here, but I went all out and got the heavy-weight, matte black and decoratively milled silver Throttlemeister, and installed that, too.
So, the FJR is now better than it ever was.
I’m almost back to 100% physically, too. I’m still having a little problem with tendon synovitis–whatever that is–in my right wrist, which is still causing me a little pain. So, I’m still in physical therapy once a week for that. Happily, the orthopedist gave me a prescription for a patch that uses a medicine called Flector, and that seems to be fixing things up, too. So, I should be given a clean bill of health in the next few weeks.
All that remains after that is settling up with the insurance company for my personal injury claim. I don’t know what the claim will actually end up being, but I have missed a couple of days work over this, and ended up with a bit less than $1,000 in out of pocket medical bills over and above my insurance. What with all the time spent once or twice a week in physical therapy, MRIs, nerve conduction tests, and what-not, I bet it’s not going to be cheap, though.
I suspect I’ll probably end up being able to pay off a number of bills for other things.
I’m also hoping to get a corbin seat, and replace the rear seat and backreast with a Corbin Smuggler trunk.
I’m comfortable with riding again, although I notice that I really take a long hard look at all cross traffic now.
Gone From My Garage
Published January 17, 2009 | The insurance adjuster finally came by today, and looked at the bike. he said he’d wait on making an estimate until he heard what the repair shop had to say. So, I called for a tow, and the FJR is now at North County House of Motorcycles.
I’ll have to go in first thing Monday and talk to my service writer about the damage, and the things that I know have to be repaired that aren’t obvious.
I’m still irked that it’s been six weeks since the accident, and I’m only just now getting the bike into a repair shop. But, at least it’s there now, so finally I can see exactly what damage has been done, and if it’s fixable.
Style Evolves
Published January 4, 2009 | As you can see, I’ve ditched the old theme I was using on the blog, and switched to one of the free WordPress motorcycle themes I designed last week. I’ve tweaked that design a little bit, and done some monkeying around with the CSS stylesheet to change some things, but in general it’s the same theme I designed previously.
I liked the old theme, but it was a commercial theme that required I maintain some links in the footer for marketing sites that I didn’t really want to sponsor. There’s still a marketing link, but now it goes to my company, which, of course, I don’t mind at all.
I designed this theme with a new tool called Artisteer, which is supposed to be a design tool for not only WordPress themes, but regular HTML web sites as well, with future support for designing Joomla and Drupal themes.
The software is in Version 1.0, so obviously it’s got a ways to go to get to where I can use it professionally. For a first release though, Artisteer really does take a lot of the headaches out of designing themes, and web site templates.
Except that you really can’t use it to design web site templates. Artisteer has some growing up to do before it’s ready for that. But for slapping together a decent WordPress theme, there really isn’t much out there that’s better.
Still, it could use some improvement. Because I do web development for a living, I would love a tool that would allow me to slap together a great template in a very short time, using a simple but powerful WYSIWYG interface. Unfortunately, Artisteer is not that tool. Not yet, at least.
First, it combines the formatting for both posts and sidebar into the same section, and formats them the same. This is a bad idea, because the content column, and the sidebar column do completely different things. They are completely separate entities, and should be treated as such. Artisteer formats them both in fell swoop.
Second, when you aren’t exporting a WordPress template, Artisteer still uses the insanely unecessary WordPress DIV tag setup. It’s so complicated that, when you open up your exported HTML file in Dreamweaver, it takes two or three minutes for Dreamweaver to render all of the insanely nested DIV tags into the preview screen. Sure, WordPress is complicated, because it’s a full-scale CMS system. But designing a web page should result in a lot less complicated output. As a result, the tool is useless to me for web template design, despite having purchased the “Standard” rather than the “Home” version.
Maybe, as this product evolves, it will become more useful over time.
The State of Things
Published January 3, 2009 | I am a little perturbed. The lack of progress of any sort in clearing up the aftermath of my motorcycle accident is bothering me. I still haven’t been contacted, after a month, by the insurer of the livery company that employed the driver who ran the stop sign and hit me. My motorcycle still sits, broken, in my garage.
My lawyer is difficult to get hold of, and seems too busy with other cases to tend to mind with any regularity. Which I don’t understand at all. A professional driver for a commercial livery company negligently ran a stop sign and struck my vehicle, broke my toe, sprained my knee, and badly hurt my leg and wrist. I spent two weeks on crutches and a cane. and, being a commercial livery company, they are required to have $1,000,000 in liability coverage. You’d think a lawyer would be on that like gangbusters, but apparently not. I had to call this week and light a fire under them to get on it.
As for my health, I am recovering, finally, from the accident. I’m not 100% even yet, though. My wrist is still pretty painful, and I have a line of pain that runs right up my shin to my knee. My broken toe is still tender, too, which is to be expected, but last week I was able to start wearing regular shoes again. So, I finally got to ditch the wierd, orthopedic, open shoe with the hard sole.
I have an appointment with an orthopedist on Tuesday, and he’ll look at my banged-up bits, to be sure everything is coming along OK.
After calling my lawyer this week, and now that the holidays are over, I’m hoping that the adjuster from the other insurance company will get in contact with me, and we can see if my FJR is reparable…or if it’s gonna get sent to the breakers.
Merry Christmas
Published December 25, 2008 | I hope that you and yours have a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.