Advertising in theaters and on DVD

I don't know about you, but I'm sick to death of going to the theater and having to sit through 20 minutes of advertisements and previews. I long for the old days, like when I was a child, when instead we got newsreels and cartoons. It's pretty sad when you have to pay $8 or $9 to watch ads.

You can't even escape when you rent a DVD. I just rented Capote, and it had 17 previews. 17!!! And some DVDs don't let you go directly to the menu, so you're stuck watching all that crap. This is really starting to piss me off.

A cold, icky afternoon

I had hoped to do something outside today--go for a ride or work on my herb garden. But it's really nasty outside. On the cool side, windy, and raining. I spent the first part of the afternoon cooking and cleaning. Think I'll spend the rest in the garage, cleaning my bike and giving it a once-over--checking all the bolts, lubing the places that need it, cleaning it, and doing a little polishing of the chrome. I haven't really given it a good cleaning since last spring. I noticed when I was taking some close-up pictures for a friend of my saddlebag mounts that it's pretty dirty, especially down in the crevices.

Alan's home, and he's not going back to California next week. So I'm going to push him to clean up the mess he's made setting up the server and rebuilding his computer. There are computer parts and boxes all over the guest room (on the floor and covering the bed). We're having company soon, so I need to get that room ready. I took Julie's old twin bed out and brought in the queen-sized frame and box springs that she left in the garage. I'm going to buy a top mattress for it and get the room ready for the first batch of company. It will continue through the summer, as more and more friends come to visit (most of them friends who are coming to ride with us). It will be nice to have a second guest room upstairs, so we don't have to send people down to the basement, where they have to use Brian's bathroom. :-)

Montana in July

This July we'll participate in the second annual Beartooth Kawasaki Forum reunion in Red Lodge, Montana. We had a really great time last year. Got to meet quite a few people from the forum and made a lot of good friends. This year more people are going, along with almost everyone who went last year. So it should be even more fun.

We'll be leaving Fort Collins on a Wednesday morning with a group of fellow riders and will pick up more along the way. North of the Colorado border friends Deron and Norm from Holdrege, Nebraska, will join up with us. As we get further into Wyoming, friends from upstate New York and Illnois will join the group. I think we should have at least a dozen bikes by the time we pull into Red Lodge on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, we're riding into Yellowstone, then heading north to meet up with the large group of riders coming in from the Pacific Northwest. We'll ride with them back down into Red Lodge.

On Saturday, we're riding Beartooth Pass and Chief Joseph Highway.

http://www.yellowstoneparknet.com/roads_routes/beartooth_pass.php

http://www.yellowstoneparknet.com/roads_routes/chief_joseph_highway.php

We weren't able to ride Beartooth Pass last year because part of the road was closed due a rockslide. We're really looking forward to the ride this year, particularly because we'll have so many riders.

That night, Jim, the owner of Beartooth Kawasaki, is throwing a big party for us at the motel where we're all staying (the owner is a good friend of his). We'll be able to party into the night without disturbing anyone (because we've booked the entire motel) and not having to drive afterward.

Sunday, we'll have another group ride. Monday we head for home, and Wednesday it's back to work.

I can't wait. This is what I've been waiting all year for. Good friends, spectacular scenery, lots of motorcycles. What more can you ask for?

Riding the Poudre

We went for a great ride Sunday. Up over the Horsetooth dams, through Rist Canyon and Stove Prairie Road, to Poudre Canyon and on to Rustic, where we stopped for lunch, then headed back home. I had the most fun I've had in a long time. Just felt really relaxed and took the twisties a lot faster than I usually do.

I posted some video I took on YouTube. The quality is terrible, but there it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RJZwR2fxKs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHtDqxhxagk

The picture is one I took on Saturday when I rode down toward Boulder.

Silent birth

So Scientologists think women should be silent while they're giving birth, eh? Just one more example of men running roughshod over women in the name of religion. I'd like to see men be silent while giving birth. Hell, they can't even be silent while they're impregnating the little woman!

Sure, no woman wants to scream and carry on during labor, but some labors are extremely intense and painful, especially first births. I was in labor with my first child for 24 hours, and during the worst part of the labor I was in so much pain I was delirious. I don't think I screamed (although I probably wouldn't have known if I had), but I'm sure there was plenty of moaning. With the second birth, which went quickly and wasn't nearly as painful, I had a smile on my face the whole time. Each labor and delivery is different, and every woman reacts to it a different way.

I read the description of the silent birth on the Scientology site. They don't want the doctors or nurses to say anything out loud, not even to give encouragement or instructions to the mother. No music, either. And babies aren't supposed to be spoken to or given tests for the first seven days of their lives! That's nuts. Absolutely nuts. But we already knew these people were freaks. And Tom Cruise most certainly hasn't helped their cause with all of his ridiculous antics. I almost feel sorry for Katie Holmes. Almost, but not quite. She was dumb enough to get involved with that ego-maniac. The person I really feel sorry for is their poor kid.

Payback for pesky door-to-door salespeople

Great idea! I'd charge at least a quarter, though.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/13/antipest_device_char.html

I'm trying again

I've tried several blogs over the years, and I'm pathetically bad about writing in them. I haven't posted to other blog for about a year. :-) But I've been inspired by my friend Al, who posts to his on a regular basis. I never get tired of reading his blog. And, although his life is much more exciting than mine, maybe someone (like my family) might like to hear what's going on in my life, boring as it is.

The past couple of months have been completely nuts, and life is just now settling back to normal. My mom was critically ill; she came so close to dying that it's almost a miracle that she lived through it. It's a long story, which I won't post here, but I just want to let my friends who've repeatedly ask about how mom is doing know that she's doing fine. She's still very weak and will be for some time to come, but she's getting better every day. She's one tough lady. People half her age probably couldn't have lived through what she did. I'm really proud of her.

It's 80 degrees here today. I got out on my bike to run a lunch-time errand, which was better than nothing. I miss not being able to commute to work now that I work at home all the time. But I guess it doesn't make much sense to ride from the garage to the bedroom. :-) Now that I'm back home (after spending a lot of time away from home while mom was in the hospital) I'm really anxious to get out and do some riding. Last weekend we had a nice ride with a new friend from my Kawasaki forum and a couple we ride with regularly (Tom and Kathy). It's nice to be able to get up into the moutains now that winter is over. We're lucky to live within a couple of minutes of the foothills. We have some fabulous rides right at our doorstep.

Alan has been out of town on business for the past three weeks, and he has to go back again. I hadn't seen him for three weeks when I got home from staying with my parents, and he had to leave two days later for the first of his weekly trips. I've seen him on weekends, but that's about it. But he doesn't usually travel this often, so after this last week, I think he'll be home for quite a long time. I'd like to take a few overnight weekend trips on the bikes now that the weather is good. Our favorite overnight trip is to go up the Big Thompson River canyon to Rocky Mountain National Park and over Trail Ridge Road to Steamboat Springs, but Trail Ridge won't be open for another couple of months, most likely.

That's it for today. I wonder how long it will take me to post again... I'm so incredibly lazy.