Seeping Matter

This is a very painful and sad post, so by definition it should be hilarious.

It looks like my 1998 Kawasaki KX 250 will belong to someone else tomorrow.  I bought that bike, worn and beaten, six years ago.  I brought it into my garage, took it apart, cleaned it, painted it, put new graphics and a new seat cover on it, gave it a new rear race tire, had the forks rebuilt by Pro-Action, and gave it a new Renthal rear sprocket.

This, my friends, is how you show your motorcycle just how much you love it.

I’ve loved every minute I’ve ridden it.  I love that rush of adrenaline I feel when you kick the engine to life and you feel the motor revving beneath you.  I love the awesome power as you launch off the line and the pull you feel in your arms as you climb through the gears and that amazing 250cc two-stroke powerband.  I love that feeling of soaring high above the ground (where “high” means “a multitude of inches”).  I even forgive my bike for that time I was trying to learn to double-jump and instead I broke my collarbone.

If any girls read my blog they probably think this is so dumb.  And to that, I say this:  I had a fair number of girlfriends when I was single, but when I found one that I felt this strongly about, I married her.  And if that doesn’t show you up, well, I don’t even know what I meant by that.

Seriously, I really wish I could keep it.  Maybe someday, when my career doesn’t require every spare minute of my time and investments of large sums of money in laptops, maybe then I can have another one.

Until then, there’s a part of me that will be dead.  There’s a part of me that will ache every time I watch motocross or supercross racing live or on TV.  There’s a part of me that will feel like I sold my soul in order to try to move my career forward, and that part will let me know how disappointed it is with me for the rest of my life, especially if I fail.

It will definitely be a bittersweet memory.  Like the CRX, I’ll love it forever.  And I don’t care if you think that is stupid.

So, for posterity’s sake, here’s some pictures to remember my baby by:

Catching tons of air at Bunker Hill Raceway in Delta, 2004-ish.

I love this picture.

matt Hobbies, Sports Career, CRX, Hobbies, Motocross

Planters calls this stuff “NUT•rition”.  We bought a can to try it out.  My response was, “Mmm.”  And, “Expensive.”  And, “I think I could make this myself.”

So I did.  And it is awesome.  No — it is Freakin’ Awesome.  So, without further delay, I present instructions to make Matt’s Freakin’ Awesome Trail Mix, mostly so I don’t forget.

You need:

• A BIG container, at least two quarts (bigger is better)
• About 1 pound of granola, with or without raisins
  • I just buy a 28 oz. box of Quaker’s granola, use just over half of it and then eat the rest for breakfast deliciousness
• In the snack section:
  • About 1 pound of salted cashews
  • One 6-8 ounce package of shelled, salted pistachios
    • You can get these at Wal-Mart, I could not find them at Albertson’s though
• Get the following in the baking section, not the snack section:
  • One 6-ounce package of RAW pecans or pecan halves
  • One 6-ounce package of RAW almonds
  • Three 5-6 ounce packages of dried fruit
    • Choose whatever fruit you like, but I think fruits with stronger flavors taste better.  I like mixes that include dried cherries, cranberries, and blueberries.

Pour it all into the container and mix.  You don’t need salt – the salt that comes with the cashews and pistachios is just enough.  Just mix it well in your container and enjoy.  This will cost you about $30 to make, but it will last you a good month or so, if you don’t let your kids eat it that is.

Here’s some nutritional facts about this trail mix.  Each one-cup serving has:

• No grams of fat
• No cholesterol
• No calories
• No sodium
• 750 grams of fiber
• 400 grams of protein
• 200% of your daily recommended allowance of every essential vitamin and mineral

Okay, those are nutritional opinions, not facts.  But it is a most excellent snack nonetheless.  And definitely better for you than a candy bar.

matt Hobbies Interesting, Shameless Self-Promotion

It’s been almost two years since Guitar Hero II came out for the XBox 360.  I know this because that is pretty much why I bought one.  That, plus I was working at Novell at the time, and our project had just been cancelled again, so I was kinda bummed, and I needed to blow a lot of money to feel better about myself.

Amber said yes, and I was pretty stoked.  So I bought myself and XBox 360 from BestBuy.  I’d heard about the now-famous Red Ring Of Death, so uncharacteristically I decided to pay for the extended warranty.

Unsurprisingly, our XBox 360 eventually decided to sport the Red Ring Of Death – a fate, much like real death, that is unavoidable for older XBoxen.  What is pretty amazing about this experience is that ours chose to manifest the Red Ring Of Death about one month before the warranty expired.

Really.  That is pretty incredible.  That’s how I know it has been almost two years since Guitar Hero II came out.

Microsoft, I hear, has been pretty cool about handling this Red Ring Of Death thing, and since my machine was less than two years old I figured I could get Microsoft to replace it.  But then I remembered having purchased the extended warranty.  So I took it in to BestBuy today to see if they would replace it.

(By the way, can you guess what the customer service associate typed into the “Reason for Return” field on the return form when I brought back my XBox 360?  ”Red Ring Of Death.”  I don’t know if that is funny or embarrassing.)

So here’s what happened:

• On April 6, 2007, I purchased my XBox 360 from BestBuy for $399.
• Some time ago, Sadie gave one of my XBox 360 controllers a drink of orange juice.  It got heartburn and never recovered.  After that, we let Oakley play with it since it was completely non-functional.
• Last night I packaged up the XBox 360, with all the accessories and the non-functional controller, to take back to BestBuy.
• Today they gave me a brand new one, which means:
  • My new XBox 360 has a 60 GB hard drive instead of a 10 GB hard drive.
  • My new XBox 360 has an HDMI output where the other did not.
  • My new XBox 360 came with two new video games where the other did not.
  • My new XBox 360 comes with a brand new manufacturer’s warranty – clock reset.
  • My new XBox 360 only costs $299. So I got also got a sweet BestBuy gift card for the difference, which I am thinking might be well used to buy something like Fable II.

Yeah, this Red Ring Of Death thing ended up being pretty sweet.  I completely upgraded my XBox 360, got some new games, a new controller, and reset the factory warranty for, uh, negative $40?  Sweet.

Only bad thing:  I lost all my old saved games, because I can’t figure out how to save them to a memory stick.  Am I a doofus, or is it just not doable on the XBox 360?  It seems like a software engineer should be able to figure that out.

Oh well.  It is a small price to pay for such a sweet deal.  I’m looking forward to 23 months from now, when hopefully my XBox 360 will Red Ring Of Death again.

matt Hobbies, Technology Gaming, XBox

Sugar.

Therapy.

matt Hobbies, Sports Motocross

1. 14mm BMX axles do not fit in 3/8″ dropouts.
2. Chromoly steel is really hard.
3. Grinders are freaking awesome.

matt Hobbies

Here’s a picture of me on my motorcycle. My bike is a 1998 Kawasaki KX 250. I picked this bike up for under $1500 and then spent another $500-$600 fixing it up. So yeah, it isn’t new or anything, but considering what I spent it is a pretty awesome bike, if I do say so myself.

This picture was taken at a local track. This track is a fairly easy track, with nice big berms and easy jumps. No whoops anywhere on this track. Hey, I’m not a professional racer or anything. I just want to go ride and have fun. This track is plenty challenging for me.

I haven’t ridden my bike for a few months now. Last time I went riding, we went to a different track than the one in the picture. This track is a lot more difficult, with whoops, rhythm sections, and double jumps.

It was bad timing cause I’d just come home from the US Open of Supercross in Las Vegas the weekend before. I’d spent all this time watching guys, even little kids, jumping these double jumps like it was nothing. I was thinking, “These little 8-year-old kids can do these doubles on a 50cc – I should be able to do this on my 250 no problem!”

Well, I’ll admit it – they are much better riders than I am. After clipping the front tire on the top of the second jump, I almost rode it out before I lost control and went over the top of the berm. All I really know is that I landed really hard on the back of my left shoulder, and when I got up I had a huge bump on my collarbone where there shouldn’t be one (see above). I now have a metal plate on my collarbone. Hey, sometimes it hurts to be a half bad boy.

Oh, and by the way, if you ever break your collarbone and the doctor says they can’t do anything about it, don’t believe it. That’s what my doctor said also. Then I referred myself to an orthopedic surgeon who told me they do this all the time. If I had listened to my first doctor I would have been crippled in my shoulder for life. No kidding.

matt Hobbies, Sports Hobbies, Motocross