Been out of the loop for a couple of years. As I said in another thread, I got the ultimatum from SWMBO that I'm spending too much time on forums (and other stuff) and not enough time with her. Being the dutiful husband (and of course, SMBO), I cut my time down on line and had to drop some forum activity. I was spending time on five motorcycle forums (STN, CSC, AdvRider, Sportbikes, and SuzukiHayabusa) and had to pick one. I'd been on STN the longest and decided it would be the choice. Turns out it wasn't the best choice. It's a good site and all and I'm a sport-touring type of rider but there isn't much of a local scene. I found myself spending too much time in Off-Topic and not really participating in the bike related forums and bailed for a few months. I rejoined last year but that didn't last long as I found myself in the same situation. After a bit of riding, there isn't all that much that's new. And interestingly enough, after I got back and posted a few times, nothing was said. Where here, I've posted in one thread and created a new one and both times I got responses asking where I'd been (which is why I'm writing this now).
So what have I been doing?
In the summer of 2008 I took the 'busa up to Alaska intending on reaching the Arctic Circle. A wrong turn outside of Fairbanks had me in "Circle Alaska" and my return to Fairbanks to try the Arctic Circle again resulted in a flat (ran over something sticking up in the dirt) which resulted in an extended stay and much gnashing of teeth over the scumbag BMW/Harley/Honda shop in Fairbanks. I'll post further details in another thread (my pics aren't showing up on my site for some reason).
2009 I headed out to the big gaming convention (GenCon) and then further east to visit family and back. Lots of fricking rain in Wyoming and the Dakotas. A dropped 'busa and broken clutch lever had me stuck in ND waiting on a part. GenCon was great fun. I played in quite a few games and got some fun pics. Family was fun too of course. I've been riding with a little surging problem which I tried to fix while on the road so I spent a couple of hours trying to troubleshoot it (unsuccessfully) at my brother's house. I headed back and rode through Oklahoma through the tail end of a hurricane.
2010 I'd reconnected with long lost (actually I'm the "long lost") aunts, uncles, and cousins through Facebook so the trip was a roundabout run to Oklahoma for an aunt, south into Texas for an old friend, west to San Diego (and through 120 degrees in Yuma), north to visit my brother, then Monterey to a mini family reunion with cousins, aunts, uncles, etc, north along the coast to visit my daughter in Portland, then home Idaho and Lodo Pass.
And back in December, Rita pestered me about the poor Fender Telecaster I had sitting around. I should either sell it or start taking lessons. So I started taking lessons. I seem to be doing pretty well, at least technically and even had a little Telecaster forum jam session a couple of Sundays back.
In April we went to Prague on vacation. Lots of great stuff to see although there was entirely too much walking
And a few weeks back I sold the SV and bought a Fender Stratocaster guitar. I'm saving for a PA system right now so of course, I'm really getting into music.
So I made a decision. I can do sport-touring on my own with what I've already picked up, either from STN or experience but it's hard to explore Colorado without riding with others in the area. So I've selected several single subject forums to satisfy my hobby needs. CSC for motorcycling. rpg.net for gaming. tdpri for Telecaster/strat-talk for Stratocaster (I'll have to make a decision on which one though eventually). Most of the computer stuff is not something I want to follow on a forum so no forums for that.
Good to see the same folks are kicking around. Looking forward to some rides this summer. I'll post some pics here shortly.
Carl
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BTW...Welcome back.
Originally Posted by Dr. Joe Siphek
