Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tanner Update
He failed his vet check. Slightly off on left front flexion test. X-rays taken on Monday and he has more arthritic changes then the vet would like to see for a horse his age that was going to do barrels/speed events. He should be OK for WP or EP riding. Woman is going to look at him on Thursday. At this point, his price just went down a lot or free to good home. The alternative is not something I want to contemplate. I need him out of training and not paying board on him. It will save $600 a month plus shoes and vet bills and we're going to need that this November. In the mean time, starting in July, I'll have to ride him again.
New Addition to the Family
We have a new addition as of June 13th. Lisa brought home a lost Mini-Pin. The vet says he's about 3 years old. Very skinny, smart, wants to please, seems OK, with kids. He has his cojones so that needs to be taken care of. He either bounces around or crashes. Likes to be on furniture. Not something I like. Only moderate issue with toys and treats. We'll work on that. They named him Spike.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Dillon is Gone
Well, the day finally came when Dillon's fear caused him to lose his home with us. A friend of Ana was visiting us today and she was instructed how to react around dogs and so on. Everything seemed to be fine. Apparently, she was petting Dillon later on in the day and he snapped at her. I wasn't there and don't know exactly what happened. Unfortunately, he did get her nose with a pin-point scratch from a tooth. Lisa had no choice but to call Kit and find out if she would take him back. She did come for him this afternoon and he will be taken to an animal behaviorist for evaluation. He will not be brought back to us however since we cannot take the chance of him doing something else. Kit will try and find him a home more suited to his liking. It's too bad. This dog had a very sweet disposition but he had some issues that he did not seem to be able to get over. I, personally, did not have much of an attachment to him but I feel terrible all the same. Lisa and Ana however are a different story. They were very much attached to him. It's killing them but Lisa did the right thing. The alternatives were not something we wanted to contemplate.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Back Update
2008.06.13
Much better. Still stiff and sore at times but off of anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxants. May need them for this weekend's part two of motorcycle training class.
2008.06.07
I went to the clinic on Saturday. Sprained back is the diagnosis. Gee, I could have told them that. They gave me a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory which is what I figured I needed. They also told me to soak in warm or cold water, use sports pads or creams like icy/hot and see my chiropractor. Old news to me since I've been working on horse soft tissue injuries for 22 years. I just needed something to calm the spasms down since I need my back to be in reasonable shape for next Saturday.
Much better. Still stiff and sore at times but off of anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxants. May need them for this weekend's part two of motorcycle training class.
2008.06.07
I went to the clinic on Saturday. Sprained back is the diagnosis. Gee, I could have told them that. They gave me a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory which is what I figured I needed. They also told me to soak in warm or cold water, use sports pads or creams like icy/hot and see my chiropractor. Old news to me since I've been working on horse soft tissue injuries for 22 years. I just needed something to calm the spasms down since I need my back to be in reasonable shape for next Saturday.
Friday, June 6, 2008
My Back is Killing Me!
I have a feeling that my back was not ready for 45-50 minutes of steady 65+ mph riding in gusty winds. My back is killing me. I think I aggravated an old injury I got when I came off a young green horse four years ago. It took me 6 months of acupuncture and chiropractic sessions plus another 6 months to get me back to almost normal from that ordeal. I had severely bruised, strained or damaged all my core muscles, came close to tearing my left psoas and displaced my hip. I think between bracing for the winds, nerves, bike vibration at higher speeds and balance fatigue from (3) higher speed forty mile trips in 2 days did me in. I'm on ibuprofen, doing cold showers on my lower back, Olbas oil rubs and a little bit of stretching to help. This means I will be staying off the bike except for small street rides until I can heal up. My class is next weekend and I don't want to have to deal with a screwed up back while taking the class. Too much too soon and I paid the price. I need to get up and walk a little now. If I sit for too long I stiffen up and getting up is painful. This sucks big time.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Horse Update
Well, it's official. Tanner is in training, which reminds me, I need to pay the trainer for this month. He's for sale for $8,500 but that price is negotiable. He was doing fine until some bell boots turned the backs of his fetlock joints into raw meat. He'll be fine but it's a training setback. A young girl is interested in buying him. I'm not holding my breath. Paladin is fine and so is Indy. I rode Paladin on Saturday and my inner thighs paid the price.
Motocycle Update
It's been a month now since I got the motorcycle. I'm definitely loving it. I've put several hundred miles on it between practicing my slow maneuvers, neighborhood street riding and commuting to work a few times. Today was my 4th time riding to work. I'll be taking a motorcycle safety course on June 12th, 14th and 15th from the folks at www.2wheelsafety.com they'll get me started on the right track for learning how to ride properly, how to ride safely, equipment choices and riding strategies. If I complete the course successfully, I will be able to waive the DMV skill test and just have to take the written test.
Each time I get on the bike, I get a little better and more confident. I'm trying to avoid being cocky since this will just get me into trouble. Every ride has a little gotcha that needs me to work on. It might be better start offs where I don't paddle my feet, over rev the engine or stall out the bike when I release the clutch. It might be that slow u-turn that I can't quite make without almost coming to a stop or coming to a stop too short or far from the stop line. Little things like that. The big one I need to watch out for is taking a curve too fast and wide. That one can land me in a ditch or into another lane. The rule is slow down! Since I'm taking the bike to work once in a while, I get lot's of practice on 40 one way miles of commute. I also found out I needed to get some different equipment.
First of all, I changed helmets. The salesperson started me off with an open face helmet. That's what he wore. Closed faced helmets make him claustrophobic. I wear glasses and full face helmets can be a pain. It was OK when I was only riding up and down my street. The first time I commuted with it, I knew that the helmet was not going to work out well at 5:30 am with sub 50 temperatures. Also, it was a little big, noisy, not as safe as I wanted and oh, did I mention I froze my face off? I immediately got a face shield. That was better but not good enough. I ended up getting a very well made closed faced helmet from Shoei. It solved all my problems except one. It fogs up when you're not moving but then so do my glasses. I have a potential fix for the face shield and I need to look into something for my glasses. My gloves were too thin and not windproof. I got some better gloves but they were not lined. Frozen fingers. I got some new gloves that are much better. Problem solved but I may need a size larger. I have one pair for the morning and one for the afternoon.
The bike is in excellent shape equipment wise. I'm learning how to fill the gas tank properly and trying to remember it has a fuel shutoff valve I need to turn back on when I start up. I've gone down the road a few times and had the engine almost quit on me before remembering I didn't turn it on. It's also good to know how to switch it over to reserve when your main tank it out. I got 55MPG on the last tank of gas but I suspect that was too high. I'm not sure if I filled it right. I have to avoid filling it too much or I can damage the evaporative fuel system. It does need a few things for my own safety concerns. One thing is passing lights and mounts. The better people can see me the safer I will be. I still have to ride like other drivers never see me. I'm "invisible" to them. That's one of the riding strategies I have to adapt. The other piece of equipment is new tires. I have stock Bridgestone D707/D703 on the bike and I'm switching them to Pirelli MT66 tires. I feel that the original tires while not having many miles on them might have been sitting around too long and don't have the performance characteristics I would like to see. The most important piece of equipment on the bike is your tires. Don't ever skimp on them or settle for poor performance. The next item is cosmetic. I want chrome tips on the fenders. OK, that's cosmetic but they look cool and they will hide the two scrapes on the bike. One on the rear fender that was there before I bought it, somebody was sitting on it and backed it into a concrete retaining wall. The second scrape is on the front fender where I had to lay the bike down in a sand patch the very first time I rode it. This was right after I stalled it out right in the driveway. Talk about embarrassing! Oh well, lesson learned. Did I say they were cool looking? The last item is chrome light covers. OK, they are just cool. I can't justify them any other way.
Other than that for equipment, I where jeans, a thick cowhide leather jacket that has zipper vents and places for armor inserts, the aforementioned gloves and helmet and finally some sturdy, no slip, rubber soled, cowboy boots to give me support and protect my ankles. For added protection and warmth I can always wear my cowhide leather horse riding chaps. I'll smell like a horse but I'll have some protection!
Now back to riding. I've gotten to the point where I can put my daughter on the back and give her a ride up and down a parking lot. She needs a better helmet though. I can ride on a highway since I can comfortably do 65 mph. Legally, I need to wait until I have my license before I actually get on one. We have a few high speed roads around here that are not highways. My riding restrictions are no passengers, no highways and no riding at night. I'll be glad when that is over. It'll still be a while before I'll give full rides to my wife and daughter. I'm getting much better but I still have a lot of newbie issues and I'll probably will for a long time. Like I said, the big one is slow down enough for a curve! Oh, and proper start offs. More practice. I went down to the DMV parking lot on a Sunday to see if I could do the skill test when nobody was around. It took some work but I finally was able to do it right a few times. It's really hard putting a 650lb 1100cc bike into a really tight circle to the left and right. That's why the put you on 250cc bikes during the training classes. I was able to get on a parkway a few times with 55mph speed limits on the way to work. I wasn't sure it was technically a freeway until I found out the recent construction completed last year did turn it into a freeway for part of the way so, I guess that rules that out for now. When is my class done and I get my certificate so I can get my license? I figure by the end of this month I'll have git'er done. I can't wait. In the mean time. Practice, practice, practice and save up some money to get my lights, tips and covers. Safety and looking cool. I can live with that. I can also live with the 50+ MPG if that holds up.
Each time I get on the bike, I get a little better and more confident. I'm trying to avoid being cocky since this will just get me into trouble. Every ride has a little gotcha that needs me to work on. It might be better start offs where I don't paddle my feet, over rev the engine or stall out the bike when I release the clutch. It might be that slow u-turn that I can't quite make without almost coming to a stop or coming to a stop too short or far from the stop line. Little things like that. The big one I need to watch out for is taking a curve too fast and wide. That one can land me in a ditch or into another lane. The rule is slow down! Since I'm taking the bike to work once in a while, I get lot's of practice on 40 one way miles of commute. I also found out I needed to get some different equipment.
First of all, I changed helmets. The salesperson started me off with an open face helmet. That's what he wore. Closed faced helmets make him claustrophobic. I wear glasses and full face helmets can be a pain. It was OK when I was only riding up and down my street. The first time I commuted with it, I knew that the helmet was not going to work out well at 5:30 am with sub 50 temperatures. Also, it was a little big, noisy, not as safe as I wanted and oh, did I mention I froze my face off? I immediately got a face shield. That was better but not good enough. I ended up getting a very well made closed faced helmet from Shoei. It solved all my problems except one. It fogs up when you're not moving but then so do my glasses. I have a potential fix for the face shield and I need to look into something for my glasses. My gloves were too thin and not windproof. I got some better gloves but they were not lined. Frozen fingers. I got some new gloves that are much better. Problem solved but I may need a size larger. I have one pair for the morning and one for the afternoon.
The bike is in excellent shape equipment wise. I'm learning how to fill the gas tank properly and trying to remember it has a fuel shutoff valve I need to turn back on when I start up. I've gone down the road a few times and had the engine almost quit on me before remembering I didn't turn it on. It's also good to know how to switch it over to reserve when your main tank it out. I got 55MPG on the last tank of gas but I suspect that was too high. I'm not sure if I filled it right. I have to avoid filling it too much or I can damage the evaporative fuel system. It does need a few things for my own safety concerns. One thing is passing lights and mounts. The better people can see me the safer I will be. I still have to ride like other drivers never see me. I'm "invisible" to them. That's one of the riding strategies I have to adapt. The other piece of equipment is new tires. I have stock Bridgestone D707/D703 on the bike and I'm switching them to Pirelli MT66 tires. I feel that the original tires while not having many miles on them might have been sitting around too long and don't have the performance characteristics I would like to see. The most important piece of equipment on the bike is your tires. Don't ever skimp on them or settle for poor performance. The next item is cosmetic. I want chrome tips on the fenders. OK, that's cosmetic but they look cool and they will hide the two scrapes on the bike. One on the rear fender that was there before I bought it, somebody was sitting on it and backed it into a concrete retaining wall. The second scrape is on the front fender where I had to lay the bike down in a sand patch the very first time I rode it. This was right after I stalled it out right in the driveway. Talk about embarrassing! Oh well, lesson learned. Did I say they were cool looking? The last item is chrome light covers. OK, they are just cool. I can't justify them any other way.
Other than that for equipment, I where jeans, a thick cowhide leather jacket that has zipper vents and places for armor inserts, the aforementioned gloves and helmet and finally some sturdy, no slip, rubber soled, cowboy boots to give me support and protect my ankles. For added protection and warmth I can always wear my cowhide leather horse riding chaps. I'll smell like a horse but I'll have some protection!
Now back to riding. I've gotten to the point where I can put my daughter on the back and give her a ride up and down a parking lot. She needs a better helmet though. I can ride on a highway since I can comfortably do 65 mph. Legally, I need to wait until I have my license before I actually get on one. We have a few high speed roads around here that are not highways. My riding restrictions are no passengers, no highways and no riding at night. I'll be glad when that is over. It'll still be a while before I'll give full rides to my wife and daughter. I'm getting much better but I still have a lot of newbie issues and I'll probably will for a long time. Like I said, the big one is slow down enough for a curve! Oh, and proper start offs. More practice. I went down to the DMV parking lot on a Sunday to see if I could do the skill test when nobody was around. It took some work but I finally was able to do it right a few times. It's really hard putting a 650lb 1100cc bike into a really tight circle to the left and right. That's why the put you on 250cc bikes during the training classes. I was able to get on a parkway a few times with 55mph speed limits on the way to work. I wasn't sure it was technically a freeway until I found out the recent construction completed last year did turn it into a freeway for part of the way so, I guess that rules that out for now. When is my class done and I get my certificate so I can get my license? I figure by the end of this month I'll have git'er done. I can't wait. In the mean time. Practice, practice, practice and save up some money to get my lights, tips and covers. Safety and looking cool. I can live with that. I can also live with the 50+ MPG if that holds up.
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