Please take some time and give it a view. It's 4 minutes and 43 seconds of pure adrenaline and beauty. Well, I guess the beauty part is subjective, but it's what I think is beautiful about this area. In reality, this is what I set out to show you when I started making these videos. I think I will do more like this in the future, and get better of hitting the beat with the edits.
Before all that happened though, I went to the birthday of a 1 year old. My very good friends were honoring their 1 year old and they were on this side of the state, so I had to go. I wasn't going to miss it even if I did have to head over to St. Pete for it, but they were here. It was fun, I rode Saki there, because I wasn't passing up a clear sky evening. I don't know how it happened, but I ended up with the 1 yr old. I don't have kids, so I don't hold them very often at all, but there I was holding a tiny little kid. She was a good kid, she just sat there and smiled, it could have been gas from all the pizza she ate, but I like to think it was my charm, or at least I was funny looking. She started climbing and I had to get instructions on proper baby handling from dad. I succeeded and the baby was ok.
On my way home, I had a car pull out right in front of me. I thought about filming that night, but decided against it, since the party should be a private thing for family and friends, so I didn't get it on video. Here is the best part, as I had to slow down at a high rate of speed, and hit the horn. Admittedly probably a little too long, but hey, I get a little perturbed when someone nearly kills me. Here is what happened as I sat behind them. I didn't want to cut off the car to the left of me, even though they saw what was happening and they backed off to give me room to escape if needed. The passenger in the car, threw their cigarette out the window to try and hit me. Too bad I was on the driver side of the road, so it went wizzing by me. When I saw the car to my left fall back even more and then turn off, I cranked it and flew by the car that had cut me off. They tried to chase me, but there was no way they could keep up. I didn't do anything rude, I just wanted to get away from them, so I looked at them as I passed and that was it. It was the "I'm looking at you because you are a jerk" look. I guess that upset them. I got home safe without any harm to me or the other vehicle. They should consider themselves lucky. I've seen plenty of videos where riders have busted the mirrors of people that have done stuff half as bad as what they did.
The next day was Saturday, and that was film day. I had invited 3W to come along on the ride. I knew full well that he would bail on me, and sure enough he did. I give too many people the benefit of the doubt, but that is ending with him. This was my final invitation to do anything with him. He called off at the last minute because of the rain. As you saw in the video, I rode in that rain and even did something rather stupid going over a bridge in that windy rainy condition, but I needed footage like that for the video. He saw rain as a horror, and I saw it as a challenge. I won't get better as a rider if I don't push the envelope from time to time. You have to balance on that edge sometimes in order to get better. It's like anything in life. You can sit on the sidelines safe and sound, or you can take a small risk and push yourself beyond previous limits, and become something better. I refuse to sit on the sidelines.
When I got home from the ride, there was a package waiting for me. I had ordered a few things for Saki. Since I dropped Saki last week, I decided it was finally time to get a little protection against that. I ordered new bar ends, since one of them got damaged in the fall, and frame sliders that would definitely help out, if Saki ever fell over again.
I'm a sucker for good packaging, and the frame sliders and bar ends were nicely packaged. All of it was from a company called Puig. The bar ends were a carbon fiber looking material. They aren't real carbon fiber, but they have that appearance.
They are weighted differently than the stock bar ends, so there was a little vibration in the bars. It wasn't anything that would cause me any problems. Maybe on a long ride, I might get hand fatigue, but I have ways of dealing with that. Lessons you learn from riding. I chose the Puig Racing frame sliders, because they had a sleeker look than most frame sliders. The normal frame sliders, are just long hard rubber cylinders. They are more function than fashion, and I wanted both for Saki. These do the trick and look good as well.
In that last picture, you can see them sticking out about half way up. You can see how they will protect the fairings in the event of a fall, or even worse, if I go down riding. Nothing is perfect, but these will save me some damage. This was my first time taking the fairings completely off, and sadly I didn't think to get any pictures of Saki letting it all hang out. I did have the windscreen off for that last one though, and Saki looks pretty rad like that. I've since put it back on. I wouldn't go out riding like that anyway. I'm too worried about something getting messed up that normally wouldn't if that was on there.
I only had small difficulties with the fairings, but I moved passed it pretty easily. Plus it gave me a lot of confidence for when I do tear everything down and paint it. That is still far off in the future though. I think I already mentioned that I need to get all the equipment and then learn how to use it properly first. I'm going to practice like a madman before I even think about laying the first coat of paint on Saki. I have one last really cool picture of Saki for you. After everything was bolted back on, I wheeled Saki out of the garage and got a nighttime shot. It came out really cool.
Oh, Just noticed when I was grabbing that one, that I do have one more picture for you. It was also a nighttime shot, but in this one, you can see the damage and the repair from the fall. Like I said before, it looks better, but nowhere near perfect, and this shot you can see why.
Just look to the left of the R and you will see it. You will also notice the placement of the frame slider, and how if it was there, none of that damage would have happened. Once again, lesson learned. I put off getting the frame sliders because of price, but when you look at the bigger picture of the cost its going to cost to paint Saki, it is nothing. That is the main reason I'm going to do this myself. If I paid someone to do it, it would probably cost about the same amount, and I wound't learn anything from it. Same goes if I went the easy route and bought new OEM fairings. Those things are expensive. Just buying that one side fairing would cost about as much as it would to paint it. If I learn how to paint it, I can paint other things, and maybe make a little money back from people that want their bikes or what not painted. Its the whole give a man fish versus, teach a man to fish.
I was chatting with a friend while I was putting those frame sliders on, and she mentioned how much I seemed to love doing all these repairs and such. I really do love doing it. It's relaxing to me. She also mentioned something I hadn't thought about. She said that it was very artistic. I'd never thought of it that way, because I'm really just bolting things on, but there is an artistry in it, when you take a long look at it. I'm manipulating things to get Saki to look just as I want it too. If you look at day 1 versus now, there is a major difference, and there is still more to come. The artistry will really start when I start the painting. I have ideas, I ran them by her and she was excited for them. Sorry, still not going to tell you. It has to be a surprise when I finally reveal the new look.
Last thing for the night, and I don't have any pictures for you of it yet. My phone is about to die, and I don't want to plug it in until I go to sleep. Video would actually be better for this little thing anyway. I've been thinking about getting another Echo Dot for the lounge. The reason for this, oh wait, do you know what an Echo Dot is? Ok, quick rundown, the Echo Dot is a device from Amazon that connects to the internet and answers questions for you, plays music, orders things from you Amazon account, a few other things and most importantly for this, it can control lights and things. Phillips makes a advice called the HUE Bridge. When you use that with special lightbulbs and a little area light called the HUE Go, you can use Alexa, that is the name for the Echo, to turn on the lights. I can also turn them on from anywhere with my phone, since the HUE Bridge is hardwired to the ethernet. I can turn on or off my lights from pretty much anywhere that my phone has a signal. Pretty cool right. Here is the best part. the HUE Go is this cool little area light that is portable and changes colors. I'll get video of it doing it's thing for Tuesday.
I had a little trouble getting it all connected to Alexa. For a brief moment I thought I was going to have to get a whole other Echo system. The Dot is the smallest version of it, and it wasn't connecting to the Phillips HUE Bridge they way I thought it would. I looked online for some answers, and it was looking like I needed to get and Echo Plus. It is about 10 inches high, with a 3 inch diameter, maybe 4 inches. I wan't against getting one, but if I did, it was going to have to wait, the Echo Dot is $49.99 while the Echo Plus is $160. Quite a big difference. Waiting also meant that I couldn't use Alexa for the lights I put in in the kitchen and living room, and of course the HUE Go. No I have not let the fact that the HUE Go is really Hugo get by me. Anyway. I found one little box on the Echo Dot page that mentioned the Phillips HUE skill. Skills are like apps in Alexa. You have to download it so that it will work in conjunction with Alexa. Once I did that and got it all dialed in, Alexa had control of the lights. I now have Alexa in my living room and in the lounge. The lounge is really my own selfishness. I can use the Echo Dot to play music and ask things of Alexa while I'm out there working on Saki, and also for that HUE Go. I have big plans for that little light. It is going to be a fixture for what will be my new photo area. You've already seen a few pictures in the makeshift area. That light is going to add some real groovy ambiance for lighting of photos. I'll get pictures and video for Tuesday, but the HUE Go is bowl shaped, and can either sit flat like a bowl, or at an angle. I'll show you it all on Tuesday.
I got all of that done this weekend, and next weekend is going to be mostly about cleaning things out. I'm going to start getting a bunch of stuff out of the lounge that no longer belong in there. The lounge needs to be its own area, and weed killer and old paint buckets aren't going to cut it. I also need to clean out the rain gutters. It looks like another busy weekend, but one that I will enjoy when it is over. Peace in and goodnight.
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