If only I find the person…

… who stole my KLR from the train station.

Nothing quite like the sinking feeling you get when you don’t see the motorcycle where you left it.

On 6/14/2010, around 6 pm somebody stole my Green 2008 Kawasaki KLR 650 from the train station by simply loading it into a U-Haul truck and driving away (as reported by a person who witnessed it and called the police)
I showed up after 10 pm, and spent about 5 minutes going through my morning routine, not sure if my tired brain was playing jokes on me.

Together with the bike gone are the following mods (yes, the KLR riders love to outfit their bikes):

  • SW-motech crashbars – they saved my ass twice – once in a slow speed fall and once in an encounter with a deer.
  • SW-motech sideracks – awesome quick-snap racks to mount the cases I made out of Pelican cases
  • GPS mount for my TomTom Rider 2
  • DIY break-lights repeater/modulator
  • Nolan N102 NCOM helmet
  • Black Alpinestars Spinner Jacket

Total damage in accessories is about $1,300!!!!

Already put in a claim with Progressive, we’ll see what comes out of it. I’m still hoping they will find it, and hopefully with minimum damage. This is my first bike, afterall, and there is some sentimental value.

This sucks!!!!

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West Wing

I got hooked on The West Wing – queued up a few seasons on my netflix already. Yesterday, I was watching one of the earliest episodes (Mr. Willis of Ohio) and one of the phrases caught my ear:

Mandy: Two million dollars for a volcano monitor in Alaska to warn passing airplanes
about ash?


Still relevant, don’t you think?

My beloved Kawi KLR, aka KiLleR, aka The Swamp Thing, aka The Tractor

Went riding on Saturday. It was awesome. I love motorocycling, even in a middle of the winter. Once again saw how simple and reliable Kawasaki KLR is.
It’s been sitting in unheated garage since the fall (and I have to say, I didn’t do a very good job winterizing it. Ok, fine – I didn’t do anything to winterize it). Rolled it out of the garage – tried to start it. Sure enough, the battery didnt last long. So, I squeeze the clutch, start rolling it (w/o getting off it, just by walking) press the ignition and release the clutch. Guess what? It started! after a 6 foot roll on a horizontal surface, not even down the hill. I love this thing! I think I’m going to keep it, just because it’s so simple.

Descriptive comments

When you write code, you need to comment it so that when you or somebody else comes back to this code few years/months/days/hours from now, they will be able to figure out what the code does. Here is the comment I saw one of my interns write:

// This function divides Numerator by Denominator

Really? I thought numerators and denominators are usually multiplied!