It kicked my ass from here to Sunday. I'm just glad I finished at all!

I'm going to have to do a few more before I get the hang of it. :p The Arr is a magnificent bike; I just need to get more worthy of it.

( Pictures courtesy of boy. )

First of all, many, many thanks for participating in this exchange!

I know that a lot of Yuletide is about shipping, and I dig that mightily. But it isn't of first and foremost importance to me; the biggest thing I like is in-character writing and good plot. I love a good filling in of gaps in canon, of exploring the bits that were glossed over or weren't shown.

I'm not squicked by pretty much anything, as long as it's in-character and consistent with the themes of the original. :D

Feel free to write what you like best/know best/etc. I like to be surprised by something I hadn't thought of. Above are the only things I feel strongly about, so aside from that, go nuts!

(I like a little angst/UST/etc., actually, if you're into that.)

I was there once before - in 1998, I think? It's a famous place for the biologically inclined to get together, because of this.

The food is lousy, the scenery is spectacular, the science is excellent. It was three days of full-on immersion.

( Pictures of one of the most beautiful places I've lived. )

Yes, that's haze. No avoiding it - we love our cars too much.






( Today, though, it's back to fog. )

After the FZ8 proved unreliable in the movie-taking department - losing the vid of me riding behind Neal through Australian twisties, and John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett singing together - I got a new camera - a Kodak Z1015 IS. I did look at the 26x optical zoom Olympus, which had crap picture quality, and a few 20x zoom cameras that took AA batteries (in this day and age?). The Kodak has 15x optical zoom, 10megapixel resolution, and a nice Schneider lens.

The subjet of my first use - the Drizzlet. So called because Neal's DR-Z400S is a Drizzle or Drizz, so my DR-Z250 must needs be smaller. It ran OK stock, if a little weak and tractor-y. It runs like a dream now, with a 300cc big bore, TM33 pumper carb, and rejetted by G-Force up in Marin. He did my 150R, too, and did a lovely job.

While I was waiting for the big bore clusterfuckery to be sorted (Thumper Racing screwed the pooch big time), I painted it nailpolish red and put on a TrailTech X2 headlight - one of the few aftermarket headlights that's actually brighter than stock lighting. I also added an EBC 320mm brake conversion and a fork brace, as well as the TrailTech Vapor dash (the Drizz comes with a crappy little dirt service meter that turns over at 999 miles, and the Vapor gives it a real odometer, a tripmeter, a tach, outside temp gauge, clock, hour meter, etc.)

We had a free couch for a while.

It's nice to have one for free, but this one was a) old, b) ugly, c) skanky, and d) allergenic.

I therefore pressured slydrite into at least going to that bastion of northern European affectation, Ikea, and sitting on some couches. We found a rather nice one that we both liked. I was initially into a squishier one, but Neal rightly prevailed with recommending a firmer one.

Step One was getting rid of our behemouth. It had been given away far too many times, and needed to be retired. So we put it, with some effort, into the van. The van is ginormous and doesn't get the best mileage, but when you need it - there's no substitute.

We took it to the transfer station. The transfer station back up in Renton was just a big pit, and we threw things into it. Here in CA, however, they do it a little differently. They had all of the trash in a giant concrete warehouse; the smell doesn't travel as far, but it's concentrated inside. I felt a little ill as we drove inside. Then, when we sloshed through some truly vile water in order to get the couch out and toss it, I felt a little more so. We re-entered the van through the back, in order to get as much of the skank off of our shoes and onto the rubber mat as possible, and I was feeling very definitely ill as we left. I thought, thank goodness for the people who work here, because someone has to do it. It's a terrible job.

We made our way with very little drama to Ikea, and got the new couch. Thank goodness for being wrapped in plastic, because we had to put the thing right on top of the now-skanky rubber mat.

But the bringing-home and reassembly went smoothly, and we're very pleased with the couch. It's beige, which lightens the room more than the old dark green monstrosity, and it's smaller - the right size for the room. We were able to bring the end table in a bit, which allowed us to move the other seat over, which allowed us to put in a coatrack for our moto gear.

I mopped the skank out the van, and took the opportunity to vacuum the front carpets and clean the glass. It's good to have things cleaned up.

Then, we worked on getting the rollbar into the Miata... :p

I put on a goofy windscreen - it helps a lot with the wind blast at speed.

I also fixed the rear brake a little more and painted it black. A lot of things on this bike are covered with a nasty thick Germanic paint, and it looks better scraped off and covered with black high-temp instead. This includes the wheels. The paint on the body, on the other hand, is a beautiful deep metallic black.

I have an exhaust and jet kit to install. Also, a better front master cylinder. It's off of a GSX-R, so I'm waiting for this to come in before I install it, so I retain my mirror.



( Two more pictures. )

Last week, slydrite and I took a little time to use our CAS tickets to see the place in the daylight. We saw the Planetarium show and the Living Roof, and saw the magnificent aquarium again.

( Pictures of roof, lizards, and two giants of singing/songwriting. )

I got myself the DVD set of Cosmos for a birthday prezzie; I loved that show when I was a little girl. :)

I did, however, read somewhere recently that Hugo Weaving used Carl Sagan's manner of speech as the inspiration for Agent Smith. Who knows if it's the case, but you know - I can see it.