Kalimat al-Mutafalsif

A *long* time ago I filed paperwork to become an official firearms collector in my state of residence. Paperwork finally came through few days back! Huzzah!

For those that aren't up with gun laws, regulated firearms can only be purchased once per 30-days. These are not the federally regulated firearms, such as short-barreled rifles, machine guns, or silencers, but the state ones, such as handguns.

Why should I (and/or you) care? Because parts of firearms that include serial numbers are treated as firearms themselves, and unless its something like a barrel that has it, are treated as handguns due to their size (under X" length). Of note here, is that AR-15 stripped lower receivers, which I'll need to purchase if I want to build another AR, are among those counted as handguns, even though they're literally a chunk of metal that could only hurt someone if you threw it at them.

I absolutely plan on building at least one more AR sometime in the (nearish, I hope) future, and when I put in the order for the lower receiver, I'll order a few, due to the time it takes to get them shipped (anywhere up to 6 months last I checked), and the fact that you never know when these guys are going to be made illegal again. As already purchased and assembled rifles will usually be grandfathered in, I want to have the serialized parts on hand.

So, in summary, I'm quite excited the paperwork finally came through, now I just have to watch my bank account to make sure I don't make too much use of this. *grin*.

My last post was about getting out on a dirt bike to do stuff I felt completely uncomfortable doing, for the sake of practice. It turns out this is more important than I thought.

Last night I went to a local shop that was having a seminar on tires and chains, and it was awesome. Now, I knew as I was leaving that I'd be hitting rain, but it didn't look like it'd get terribly nasty, and, hey, I have the gear for it! When I left I packed everything up (zip-lock bags for everything I care about, rain pants on over my jeans and pads, plastic bags inside my boots) in case I hit rain before getting to the shop. Only bit that I carried with without wearing was my rain jacket as it was HOT out (in all black leather). I learned all this on my trip back from Indiana, and how important staying dry is for maintaining your concentration. The last 5 miles or so of my trip to the shop was a mad dash through the rain, rather than putting my jacket on, as I was close enough that I didn't want to stop. However, I got there almost on time, and mostly dry.

The seminar was great, I learned a ton, but some people kept asking questions, and I saw the sky outside get darker, and darker. Finally we got to the end (checking out the bikes of the few people that road) and I got mine in second. After thanking everyone for putting it on (free of charge!) I geared up to roll out.

To set the stage, it was about 9:15, pitch black, and thunder storming, but I assumed that I was good to go. I had all my gear (except for rubber kitchen gloves under my leathers, as I felt I'd be done soon enough) on and had 240 miles of rainy riding at Interstate speeds with rain gear, and forced myself to experience riding without rain gear for about 10-15 miles in pouring rain just in case. I was fairly confident that if I just stayed off the major highways I'd be fine. That little instinct probably saved me a world of hurt.

As I pulled out onto the first road I flipped my face shield down to block out the rain, and was a bit annoyed at how dirty it was. I tried to wipe it off, but it didn't help. With rain on there, and probably all the bug guts and dirt from my Indiana trip, any ambient light washed out my vision completely. Cars coming towards me rendered my vision useless. I started to experiment with opening the face shield slightly over the next mile, but I simply couldn't see any signs well enough to read them, or judge distances in the best of circumstances, and couldn't even see my speedometer in the worst.

50 miles from home, that late at night, there's not too many options. I could have stopped, tried to clean my helmet (with what?), tried to figure out how to cut down on glare from cars (it has a built in sun visor), or kept riding and opened the shield. I kept riding and opened the shield.

From my experience coming home from Rolling Thunder I knew what rain felt like on bare skin, and hard rain through leathers, but I'd yet to be smacked in the face by it at speed. Its not fun without goggles, as every time you turn your head to check a cross street, look down to check your speedometer, or look up to read a sign rain blasts into your eyes, and of course you can't close them, you're moving at speed. In addition, simply looking forwards your face is getting smacked by rain... and water at 50mph stings.

After a few miles on the outskirts of the town this shop was in, it started to really suck. The street lights started disappearing, the street moved down to one lane, and my glasses were well and truly soaking wet. My vision was maybe at 100 feet, and for pot holes and debris in the road it was literally when I hit it, I'd know. I basically picked a mini-van, and stayed behind it, following their lights into the darkness. Then we got into tree-lined on both sides, and there was no ambient light, I actually preferred this, as with no cars coming I could actually see! However, with cars coming I was again unable to see anything but the car's headlights.

Around here, sucky turned worse. My engine started sputtering when I'd idle. So the first stop light I pulled up to, I saw my RPMs start dropping, the engine coughed, and she shut off. Not this again. This happened in the rain storm after Rolling Thunder, and the only solution was to keep RPMs up around 5-7k (idle is around 2k). As I'd rev, great spouts of steam would come flying out the front of my bike like a pissed off dragon coming awake (it'd be colored red from the car tail lights in front of me). Naturally this means that to stop I couldn't clutch in, drop to first gear, and brake. I had to clutch in, set my throttle quickly to about 50% and brake (using on the front brake in the water) while holding the throttle in the same hand. Cramp Buster saved my life... maybe literally. Oh, and fun fact, if your glasses' lenses are at the temperature of air moving at 30mph, and soaking wet, what happens when you stop at a light? That's right, completely fogged up. One hand on the clutch, one on the throttle/brake... there's no way to take them off and nothing to clean them with if you could.

So the rest of the 30 miles to home is a blur of adrenaline influenced memories of lighting cracking overhead, thunder rolling by (only at stop lights, couldn't hear it as I was moving), pot holes barely avoided and not avoided, shoulders ridden on, medians missed by inches, and me screaming the Dropkick Murphies' version of Amazing Grace into the night. I had two guys try to take me out, one caught himself, the other I had time to avoid.... I'm sure he saw me, simply didn't care. Ate water from a semi cab hitting a pot hole next to me, and nearly caught a deer (it crossed in front of the car behind me).

Most terrifying ride of my life.

But... I'd experienced riding in the rain, so that didn't scare me. I'd experienced what rain feels like on bare skin, so while it stung it didn't phase me past the first 5 minutes. I'd ridding at night and in thunder storms, so those weren't the bits that bugged me. What scared me was not knowing what was more than a second in front of me for more than 90% of that ride, and knowing that if something did come up I had no escape options. Thanks to the practice I forced on myself earlier in my riding career (and someone looking out for me), this situation turned out alright. I made it home within an hour and a half, I didn't hit a single object, and I think my bike isn't very messed up. When I arrived home, I got off the bike, looked up into the sky, and pulled a Shawshank Redemption, amazed and thankful that I was home, and in one piece.

So the next time you think "Gee, I could do X, but its a little not good for it right now" ask yourself if you might ever be caught in the same situation without experiencing it. Then go out and experience it so you can have some control over the circumstances, I'm so thankful I did.

I bought Tina a little less than a month ago, she's my Yamaha XT350 dual sport (also called an enduro) which is a dirt bike that can also be used on the street, depending on what tires you put on.I'm enjoying her aside from two small problems.

The first is she is kick start. Now, this shouldn't be a shock as she's older than I am, but its different than the electric start I'm used to. Meaning, I actually have to work. For those that have never had the honor of trying to kick start a bike, its all technique, and before you have it down, its all frustration. You sit there and crank, crank, crank, trying to figure out where top dead center is, where the start of the combustion cycle is, and how much gas to feed in.

The other issue is, well... I'm only comfortable on a nice smooth road, perfect riding conditions and not much traffic around. Which leads to at least a small bit of nervousness when you remove any of the above conditions and replace it with something a little worse. Say, rain.... or a poorly paved road... or a dirt track that's NOT a road. When I got my first bike, I had to force myself to get on it... I'd enjoy it when riding, but before hand the idea of cars around me, or learning to turn faster made me not want to ride. So to buy a dirt bike was a promise to myself to suck it up, and try more of riding that scares me.

Naturally with a bike that I have problems starting and not liking to ride on anything worse than, oh, Pennsylvania interstate roads, I decided to go hit up a local rock (too big to call them gravel) road to get some practice. That's the sane thing to do, right?

Rode down the "road" once, and found a nice paved road on the other side. Figured I might just take that road home, my practice complete. Then I realized that on the 65th anniversary of D-Day, heralding our entry into World War II, I was going to take the cheap and easy way out. After that I had a better idea, I'd ride back up the rock road, STOP (forcing myself to practice breaking on a poor surface), then turn the bike off to take pictures.

With that in mind, I rode back up the road, skirted some water, came to a stop, and flicked the kill switch. I have to say it felt good to know I wasn't going the easy way, and the silence was quite nice. I took 10 minutes to walk around, take some pictures, and enjoy the gorgeous afternoon. Finally I got back on, took a few stabs at starting the bike, got her going, and rolled on home.

Practice makes perfect, and I intend to practice as much as it takes to feel comfortable on the dirt and comfortable starting the bike, even if I'll all alone in the middle of no where.

I just threw the new theme on my website and was poking around making tweaks this afternoon. I wanted slightly different colors, wanted to make the picture look cooler, maybe edit the footer to change the whole "Made by" to me, and give credit for being based on the theme I based it on. However, upon opening the footer.php, I found a very weird comment:

 
/* V8 - WARNING: This file is protected by copyright law.
To reverse engineer or decode this file is strictly prohibited. */
 

Well that's weird, because in the style.css we read:

/*The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL*/

(Side note, if you don't know what we mean by GPL, check out their site.)

No, they don't say PHP in there, however I read that (because 'design' is included) as "This theme is GPL'd". Poking around their website, I see no mention that you're required to keep any part of the theme the same.

If we read past the warning about reverse engineering, we see why they included it, a nasty big base64 encoded blob, then an eval command. Pastebin paste is here.

This piqued my interest, as I can think of very few legitimate reasons to do such obfuscation, or why there should be so much (footer.php is 47kb!). My initial thought was that I'd opened a backdoor into my site, with lesser thoughts to them being able to push random stuff into my footer (the last way I was infected), and finally just trying to control the links on the bottom of the page so that even if I were to edit their theme (as is my right under the GPL) I couldn't take credit for it myself, they'd always have credit for it. None of those sat right with me, so I hit up the local IRC channel, and we started puzzling.

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First time in, oh, 4(?) years I've put up a new theme! Hacked on Sporty from Themespack.com to get something that looked good. I'll be tweaking more, but wanted something more bike oriented up. Let me know what you think!

(And those finding this on LiveJournal, come view it)

Weather forecast on Monday was rain all week, bleh. Needless to say when I stood up from my cube and saw the sunlight streaming through the window this afternoon I immediately thought of a ride. However, due to recent storms in the area I didn't really trust the roads (dirt washed into about half the intersections, sand into the other half, and still had some branches and stuff laying about from the trees that went down. Bummer... It being a cooler day due to the storms, I decided to get my roommate out to learn how to ride (ok, get a very beginner quick course) to see if he likes it.

I gave him a spare helmet, a nice leather jacket, my gauntlets (about the only non-expendable gear) and we took Tina out to a local parking lot that is used for the MSF course, so it had all the fun lines showing turns, braking lines, everything.

He did quite well, first we got used to the feel of the brakes by rolling forward and applying them. Then I had him feel the friction zone for the clutch by letting it out just until the wheel rolls forward the slightest bit. Then we did 'power walking': Letting the clutch out enough to roll forwards, giving it a tad of gas, and walking along with the bike. After that he wanted to pick his feet up so he did two 1st gear passes of the lot, staying upright. Finally we wanted to see 2nd gear, so I gave him the longest shot across the lot, and he managed to get up into it twice before we called it a day! Quite successful, with only two stalls and no drops.

But what struck me most was the memories it brought back. I did my course in the middle of summer (about 10 months ago) so it was a little hotter, but the smell was the same. There's something to the smell that a small 'thumper' engine gives off that just takes me back. The nervousness of dropping the bike, the joy that first time you pick your feet up onto the pegs, the realization that counter-steering actually works... all of it. It was nice being on the other side of the bike this time, and giving some one else that experience, although I have to say the nervousness of the bike going down is still there.

It was an afternoon well spent. I'd highly recommend everyone spend an afternoon like that learning how to ride. Even if you don't end up a rider, you may never touch a bike again. But you'll feel the wind in your face, and the bike responding to your input and you'll realize why people say "Live to Ride, Ride to Live".

Rolling Thunder is a motorcycle gathering/parade to publicize POW/MIA issues. "To educate the public that many American prisoners of war were left behind after all previous wars and to help correct the past and to protect future veterans from being left behind should they become prisoners of war-missing in action." The main portion of this event is a parade through downtown Washington, DC, from the Pentagon around the Mall, however many riders come from all over, and there's smaller groups that journey together from California every year which is just as much a part of 'Rolling Thunder'. All told, the bikes participating in the event is in the hundreds of thousands (now-a-days over a quarter million to 300 thousand), while the number of total bikers descending on the city is even greater (some like to ride in before the parade and park to see the memorials).

Ride route:

I've been attending this for the past 7 years, the first 6 as a spectator, and this year as a rider. It is an experience both ways.

As a spectator you get to enjoy DC, seeing the popular sights, and have the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of bikers rumbling past just a few feet a way. You can usually feel the parade up to a block away on some of the faster sections. In addition you can walk around, see the vendors there, listen to some good patriotic music, and witness people paying final respects to comrades from years ago. Its very powerful to see giants of men stepping off chromed out behemoth bikes and breaking down crying at the Wall.

As a rider you get to spend a lot of time waiting around, that's the route I went this year. Got down to the pentagon parking lots (staging grounds for the parade) around 10am.

I believe I was in lot 3 of 5, but no one knew for sure... all we knew was we could see a few thousand bikes in each direction.

Of course, its not *just* for bikes. There's some appropriately painted trikes, trucks, and cars.

Finally after 3 and a halfish hours, it was time to roll out! The excitement level shot way up at this point, and the noise was deafening with everyone revving their engines, good to go.

Sadly my timing got off and I thought the camera was on when it was off, and vice versa, but managed to get some footage of the parade. You'll notice my hands are bear... I always wear my gear, but for 10 miles an hour in 80ish degree weather, I was stripped down to just my helmet for protective gear. I wouldn't have had that on but I thought it was required.

I like this one as a shot at the Capital... I thought I was taking pictures, nope, video. Oh well.

You cans ee my confusion here... I "turn it off" twice (when my hand goes over the frame). I only include it to show the guy giving everyone high-fives (I obliged him) towards the end. His hand musta been HURTING.

And the last segment, ended by my pulling over on the off ramp to gear up and get gone.

It was a great experience. Met some cool people, heard some stories, saw some awesome bikes. Best of all I was able to show some support for those in the military now, and vets, something we don't do enough. I'll be back next year, you can bet on that.

Currently I have two bikes in my stables (sadly, simply a parking space out front with the bikes crammed into it).

1985 Yamaha XT 350 - "Tina"
This is a FUN little bike that I just got yesterday. It's 24 years young, and still running in near tip-top shape. It looks no worse than my 14 year old bike did, so she's got many years left in her.

This is a dual-sport with semi-knobby tires that I intend to use for some street putt-putting around for groceries and the like locally, then learning how to ride on dirt and off-road as well. In addition, I have a few friends who want to learn how to ride, and I'll show them a thing or two on here as I don't think it can be that hurt from one fall.

2001 Suzuki SV650 - "Qarina"
This is my main bike, and my main love right now. She's an '01 SV that was chopped up a bit to be a nice streetfighter. The front end was swapped out for an '07 GSXR 600 front, the handle bars were replaced with clip-ons, some good shocks are in there, and the pipe's an old one that's not made anymore that sounds beastly. Then everything was painted black. Gorgeous.

I use this bike for everything... from runs to the store to runs 5 states west. She's teaching me confidence in my tires, and how to go fast in turns, not just straights. I average about 200 miles a week on her, and its no where near enough.

For a little while now I've been pondering changing this blog from its current focus of (theoretically) computers and some Arabic grammar over to something else. At one point I was pondering 2nd Amendment law discourse, but I think then it would take any fun I had from updating this away as I just get riled up. More recently I'd been thinking about changing it to be about motorcycles but figured 'eh, why?'

This past weekend has been a brutal reminder of the preciousness of life, from a memorial ride for a fallen police officer on Saturday (and finding out just how many memorial rides I could be going on) to putting my childhood kitty, and friend, to sleep last night. I'm resolved to start living life even more than I am, and to help others (naturally by throwing them on a bike and forcing them to enjoy themselves).

So where I typically would go out on the bike, enjoy a great evening, and have the events live in my head, I hope to start posting ride reports here. I'll flesh the rest out later when I can think more.

This is for you, girl

I've been silent because I've been busy with a few things. Chief among these is exploring my passion for motorcycles. I've put darn close to 3000 miles on the bike I bought mid-February, 1448 of which were a trip to Indiana that last 8 days. It was a wonderful experience, everything looks better on a bike.

(Click for high-res version)