After much time and angst I finally pulled the trigger on purchasing my first motorcycle. I got a bit scattered in what kind of bike I should get but finally decided that a ‘dual sport’ was the best choice as it satisfied both my desire to go off-roading and my desire to putt around on the street and occasionally ride it in to work. Along the spectrum of great for dirt to great for road, this definitely hedges toward the former. In fact, it’s basically a dirt bike but with a headlight, mirrors and turn signals so it can be ridden on road.

Part of my purchasing decision was influenced by a desire to ride with my 8 year old son. I’ve long had a desire to go dirt biking, and he has been (more than slightly) obsessed with the idea for a couple years now. I got him an electric motorcycle for Christmas last year and he’s ridden it to death. I had to even upgrade it to a couple sizes up to keep him challenged. So when it came time to get my motorcycle, I actually took a harebrained plunge and got two.

I picked them up at Renton Motorcycle on October 19th. It was an exciting day. And the bikes looked so pristine…

I was anxious to dirty them up, so the following Wednesday I took Judson after school/work to Pacific Raceway and let him ride the dirt track. He took to it quickly and had a blast…

And last weekend we went to Reiter Pit and really worked them out in the dirt and mud. Judson was a little reluctant at first. There were many rocks that make balance and traction a bit tricky. Here we are all geared up and ready to go…

He finally got the hang of it though. I too got to feel a lot more comfortable, and by the end of the day we got our bikes thoroughly broken in. Here I am taking a break…

And here is how our bikes looked at the end of the day (strapped on to the trailer)…

I feel good about the purchase decision. I can already tell though that another motorcycle is in my future. I can’t help but to eye the BMW F 800 GS. I saw one on the road the other day and threw and envious stare. Who knows though what the future has in store. Meanwhile, I look forward to many more fun times in the dirt with my son. :-)

I’ve been thinking for a couple years now about how great it would be to have a motorcycle that I could use to putt around with in the dirt and on trails. It’s an appealing idea to take off with the family to go camping and do some off-roading. I have visions of a little caravan of dirt bikes and atvs skimming through the water and mud like goslings following (father?) goose.

My vision has meandered a bit though. The idea of spending a bunch of money on something that I would use once every couple months is being challenged by a more practical point of view. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get something that could be ridden more often? Something that could even be used for commuting a bit more often? Especially with today’s gas prices it makes some sense. Getting 70mpg vs. my car’s 17mpg could actually add up to some real dollars.

Now I have a dilemma. Here are my options:

• Stick with the original plan and get some (relatively cheap) little dirt bike. Something more of a toy than a vehicle.
• Get a ‘dual-sport’ bike that would be great off-road but is also street legal so it could be used for the occasional commute.
• Get a ‘trail bike’ bike that is great on the road, but is also capable of going off road (well, really just on ‘trails’).
• Get an off-road bike for playing off road and a road bike for commuting.
• Go completely insane and severely in to debt and by all three types of motorcycles, a dirt bike, a trail bike and a road bike.
• Do nothing

Yamaha WR250R Dual Sport

For the dual-sport option, something like the Yamaha would make a lot of sense. It snappy, light, durable and reliable. It’s very capable in the dirt and it’s street legal. My only reservation really is that if I ever want to go on a road ride for more than half an hour or so or if I need to get somewhere on the freeway, this bike won’t do. So I’m worried I’ll grow out of it quickly and will want something else. Something like the BMW…

BMW F 800 GS

The BMW F 800 is an awesome bike. It’s cool looking, capable off road and great on road, even for long rides. The big problem with this is the price. ~12K once you accessorize and get it out the door. And this isn't the kind of big I would take to Reiter Pit. It's too heavy to get agro off road, and I'd be afraid to damage it. I love this bike though.

Some say “if you get a motorcycle, you have to get a Harley”. Well, somehow I just don’t feel like a Harley is ‘me’. I like them. I appreciate them. But I can’t picture myself on one. Well, except for maybe one particular Harley…

Harley-Davidson V-Rod

I love the V-Rod. From an Industrial Design standpoint they are really beautiful. Plus they’re super powerful and I’m sure they’d be a blast to ride. Unfortunately they cost as much as a decent full size car, so I don’t think that’ll be a realistic option any time soon.

An option akin to Harley is Beull, like this one...

Beull Ulysses XB12X

Beull is a subsidiary of Harley-Davidson, so maybe it's more acceptable to those cool Harley riders on the road. I wonder if I'd even get the super cool Harley biker wave, or if I'd still have to settle for the standard wave.

Anyway, obviously I'm undecided and meandering all over the place. If history holds true, I will end up going with the last option, and do nothing. But, I will keep researching and looking. Perhaps something divine will happen that parts the clouds and beams light on the right choice.

I love this video. Natalie Portman seems so innocent, and this video completely breaks character. The only thing good about SNL now days is the shorts that they do. They really pull off some hilarious things.

Hulu is my new favorite commercial video site. The UI is clean, the navigation is clear, the cross threading of content is smart, and the video quality is top notch.

I've had a mac for several months now and have basked in the Halo. That is, the aura of computing coolness and software design delight. I envy how Apple's marketing has convinced consumers that the Mac is far more user friendly, robust and secure than it's Windows counterpart. However, for me, the Halo has begun to tarnish. I've had as many issues with the Mac as I have with any PC I've ever had. And I must admit, I am a little happy about it.

To name a few:

System Crash: oh yes, they happen. I can't attribute it to anything specific. It appears Macs have some of the same voodoo Windows PCs have. It too likes to play a little Russian roulette.

Broken software: iMovie has a very clear directive to drag and drop items in to the movie's story board. However when I tried to do this it completely failed to work. The items appeared there, but they would not play as part of the movie. Hitting 'play' showed only the items in the 'event library'. Publishing a movie to .Mac was simple, but it totally broke when I made some edits and tried 'update' the movie. The gallery page said it was 'unavailable'.

Stupid bugs: iTunes library won't update when new items are added to it's directory. How lame is that? You have to go to the directory and play the song first, then iTunes will acknowledge its existence. This seems like a pretty grouse flaw in the file system.

The built-in iSight camera suddenly stopped working. No apparent reason... it was working one day, broken the next.

Oh, and Apple isn't really the panacea of software design. I'll concede that they've done a great job and have upped the ante, but their (genius) marketing has convinced everyone that their software is easier than it really is. People have the perception that it's easy, so effectively it is... until they run in to a problem. Then they think it must be them... that they're stupid or they're doing something wrong.

For example, I spent an hour in iMovie trying to figure out how to bring photo stills in to it. It's apparent how to bring in video assuming you imported it through iMovie, but if you want to bring in anything else from the system good luck. And eventually when you do find the Easter egg, unless your photos are in the one or two locations iMovie predetermined, you still won't find them. They have to be where iMovie says they have to be.

Ah, the infallible Apple has a worm.

This is a promising mashup. It combines two of my most favorite things on the Net... Last.FM and YouTube.

Rush’s similar artists channel | Last.fm + YouTube = music tv goodness

Someone was actually preaching this mantra from their bumper... "I see. I like. I want. I whine. I get."
Consumerism at its finest.

I came upon one of these the other day and it occurred to me... that has to be one of the ugliest cars ever made. Granted I'm not in the stylists' target demographic (was it designed for blind people?), I think most cars in the category are passable (though I'd never buy one).

There is something so awkward about the rear fender cut and the angle going in to the C pillar. Then there is the gross and heavy rear light treatment. The whole thing makes me think my grandfather's polyester suit closet threw up on the tarmac.

I visited the Apple store at University Village today. I don't know why I put myself through this. It's masochism. Every time, I come out depressed, thinking how severely Microsoft's ass is getting kicked in the consumer space. The stores are always jam packed with people cooing, awing and buying beautiful Apple products.

I went in to the nearby Sony store as well. The Sony store is probably the closest thing to the Apple store the PC ecosystem has. The store is nice looking and thoughtfully laid out. Compared to a Best Buy or CompUSA the PC laptop presentation and desktops looks pretty good... for the most part. The first laptop I went up to had a bubble tip saying something like 'there are multiple security issues with this computer'. This is Microsoft's fault, not Sony's, and you would never see that in the Apple Store. The Sony store was full of sales people swarming the few potential buyers. Sales people at the Apple store looked overwhelmed with potential buyers. Point being, the Apple purchasing experience blows away any PC equivalent.

I don't subscribe to the complacent attitude that Apple is just a niche market and their OS isn't a threat to Windows' dominance. You can see their market share rising. You can see masses of iPod owners becoming iPhone owners becoming iMac owners. It's what their kids want, it's what their friends have... the network effect is powerful.

We hear a lot that IWs are Consumers too, and that they want those facets of their lives to be linked in relevant ways. So what direction do you think someone would go who's using Windows at work and a Mac at home? Would they trade in their home Mac for a Windows machine? If we concede that Apple is winning in the consumer space, then the logical conclusion is that they'd prefer to trade in the Windows machine at work for a Mac. Of course this overlooks many practical matters like software dependencies. This isn't an audit of all the variables, merely a glimmer of direction.

With every visit comes a swell of questions as to why Microsoft doesn't open a chain of retail stores. There are good reasons why shouldn't, like complicating or comprising current retail, IHV, ISV and OEM relationships. The right answer may be a partnership to make the PC and PC peripheral buying experience better. But then we get back to the circular predicament of too many chefs and too many interests leading to too many compromises and resulting mediocrity.

Yep, Apple is on a roll. They are executing extremely well. They are a great competitor. They're raising the bar on User Experience in technology. The industry will rise with them. It'll be interesting to see how long they can lead the way, and to what extent the wake washes in to the PC ecosystem.

Yes, that's right. My Xbox 360 died... again. I guess you could chalk it up to bad luck, or you could aknowledge the insane % of units that fail and that my chances of getting two failed units actually isn't that remote.

"While the normal console return rate is between 3% and 5%, online news site DailyTech on July 2 said it surveyed retailers and found that the Xbox 360 had a staggeringly high return rate of 33%."

This problem has led to Microsoft's Billion-Dollar Fix. A billion dollar charge. Wow. I'd be suprised if some heads don't roll for this. An engineering problem this severe is not excusable. This isn't some little "Oops, my bad" mistake. How could such a flaw not have shown up in quality control testing? Perhaps they did all the testing in some frosty lab that kept the device at a constant, cool temperatures. Whatever it was, you wonder if it mimicked real world conditions.

"In the face of staggering customer returns of the Xbox 360 console, the software maker announces a charge of at least $1.05 billion to address the problem."

A billion dollar mistake. This has to go down as one of the worst consumer product design/engineering blunders in history. I wonder what else is in that list. A quick Google search wasn't very fruitful, but I did find a different type of blunder list. I found one PR blunder fairly ironic and something that hit close to home.

You know how sometimes you don't know how good something is until its gone? Well that's the case with Comcast. You hear a lot of complaining about Comcast, but when compared to Millennium Cable, Comcast is a god send.

I had Comcast for a few years (after they bought Charter) at my previous residence. When I moved, Comcast was not available, it was Millennium Cable. I'd heard Millennium sucked, so I tried my best to use an alternative. Unfortunately I didn't have line-of-site for satellite, so I'm stuck with cable.

So how does Millennium suck? Let me count the ways:

1. Millennium is expensive. For the digital 'Millennium Connection', basic cable plus movie channels, it's ~$150 (once you add all the fees, set-top rentals and taxes). The Comcast equivalent cost less, and included a lot more.

2. Millennium's program offering is weak. With Comcast I got a bunch more HD channels, including HD HBO, HD Showtime and other movies channels, plus the on-demand services. The on-demand service is awesome. You can watch a huge number of network and premium programming whenever you want, including a large number of HD programs.

3. Millennium is unreliable. I can count on one hand the number of times I lost service with Comcast. In six months I've had Millennium, and can't even remember how many times. It goes out for some period of time every couple weeks.

4. Millennium's channel lineup makes no sense. With Comcast, similar channels were adjacent to one another. All the kids channels were in line, the news channels, sports, learning, etc.. Millennium on the other hand puts stuff all over the place. Disney, for example, is on 46; Nick, 81. The whacked lineup makes it a lot harder to skim through a genre, a seemingly important scenario.

5. Millennium's UI sucks. The set-top-box interface makes things harder than it should be, and the mapping of remote buttons doesn't help. Just getting to your list of recorded programs can take 5 clicks and the menu taxonomy obfuscates common tasks. The Comcast UI wasn't exactly great either, but I definitely preferred it.

6. Millennium's set-top-boxes don't communicate with one another. Why is it that you can't pull and watch a recorded show from the DVR in another room? The boxes are completely unaware of each other. Wouldn't it be great to use the aggregate of every boxes recording capacity? I don't really need to do that, but I can see it's usefulness. My scenario is more about not having to worry about which show was recorded on which box. You could go in to any room and pull up the show, regardless of where it was recorded. Comcast didn't do this either. I heard one of the satellite companies offers this... not sure which one. Glad someone's doing it.