Beware!! The Vampire Duck!!!

I always kind of wondered if anyone ever noticed the URL to this blog, at least one person did. A couple of weeks ago, Fasthair had wondered in a post, how I came up with the name “the vampire duck” for my blog site. I wish that I had an interesting story to tell here, but I don’t. Anyways, here’s the story.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was thumbing through a box full of my old notebooks that dated back to when he and I were in High School. They were filled with random entries and thoughts that I had written down over the years, basically my own version of journaling, if you want to call it that.

Some of the entries were just one line sentences while others were fairly long essays, some were a little poetic, and some were total nonsense, and then there were a few others that I kind of found myself a little impressed that such thoughts ever tripped out of my head and fell onto a piece of paper.

At some point he suggested that I should try blogging.
I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about so naturally, I googled it. That’s how I came across “blogger.com.”

It was during the registration process while I was creating my blog that I had to come up with an original domain name for my site. What I thought were original names, all turned out to be taken by someone more original than me. A little annoyed with this, I thought, “what interests me that most people wouldn’t have a clue about.” Vampire ducks of course! “Blogger.com” seemed to agree with my request and the domain name was accepted. So what in the world is a vampire duck? In a nutshell “Duckula”. Okay, so what in the world is a Duckula?

Duckula
photo taken from Wikipedia

Duckula was a wonderful (to me at least) adult humor British cartoon that aired back in the late 80’s. I never got too offended when some folks confessed to not understanding the humor, for me, I thought that it was brilliant and to this day it ranks right up there with “The Big Lebowski” for its ability to make me giggle like stoner from beginning to end (You don’t have to be a stoner to giggle like one, you'll just have to trust me on this).

I have to admit that I have tendency to play out in right field a little too deep; most folks don’t always quite “get me”........ I’m okay with that.

When I originally created this blog, I didn’t know really what I wanted to do with it, so I spent about a year looking at other blogsites and found that I really enjoyed visiting the motorcycle blogs, all of them, from the scooter sites to the ones that focused on the big American Iron. That’s when I decided to focus this site, “thevampireduck” on motorcycles and my own personal experiences and changed the name to “Two Wheels and an Engine”.

Since then, I have created another site, kind of a ghost site at the moment. Currently it is used as an experimental place where I can try different things, a learning tool of sorts that if I totally screw things up, I can always start over and try something else. Kind of like a parts car that I brainstorm with. Not surprisingly, I named that site “Duckspotting”; can you see a trend here?

I’ve been considering opening that site up and using it as a conduit to some of my other interests, things like my recent curiosity in photography and for some of my non-motorcycle related posts (I journal about all sorts of things, that tends to happen when you play deep right field). Well see, I’ll keep you posted.

So you see, in a nutshell, “the vampire duck” has nothing to do with motorcycles and more to do with a glimpse of one the peculiar interests of a motorcyclist who likes to play the outfield a little deeper than most might be used to.

Ride Well

E.T.

Wild Geese that fly with the moon on their wings

In the April 2009 issue of Rider magazine, nine staffers revealed their favorite goodies that they just couldn’t do without when they rode. I thought that it was interesting their differences of preference. This morning, for some reason or another, I woke up thinking about my favorite things. Here’s a list of them.

Heated gear- When I moved out here from the East Coast to the Inland Northwest almost twenty years ago, I thought that heated clothing was for the older and somewhat retired set of riders who just couldn’t handle a little bit of a chill from time to time.

It was on a midnight ride in the middle of June while riding from Spokane Washington to Bozeman Montana that I had an epiphany. It can get really cold out here in this neck of the woods even in the middle of summer. The temperature on the truck stop sign confirmed this, 36˚ in the middle of June!

Out here on the Palouse, it is not uncommon for the temperatures to linger somewhere in the 40’s all summer long during my early morning commute. Heated gear makes all the difference. My electric vest only takes up a fraction of the space in my bags compared to the clothing that I would need to otherwise stow when I wasn’t trying to stay warm.

My personal choice is the Tourmaster Synergy vest with the heated collar. I prefer this over my old Eclipse because I have a choice of temperature settings. When the temperature is in the 40’s, I keep it on the lowest setting, but if the ride is long or drops lower than that, I can always turn up the heat.

Turtle Fur- This is nothing more than a tube of fleece about six or seven inches in width that protects the exposed portion of my neck between my jacket and helmet, it cost less than $10 at Cycle Gear and has been well worth the investment. I always make sure that this simple little piece of fabric is in my bags before I go anywhere. If you don’t have one of these things, I recommend trying one out. For only $10, trust me, you’ll get your money’s worth. You’d be surprised the difference a warm neck makes.

Storage- My bike is one of my main sources of transportation (if I lived in a warmer climate, I wouldn’t be too surprised if it were my only source). Because of this, I need storage and quite a bit of it.

Recently, I discarded my old KLR soft saddle bags and Charlie and I installed a new pair of Aluminum touring boxes from www.klr650.com. Now I have a secure place to stow my belongings without having to worry about any dismal creature that possesses the ability to manipulate a zipper to rifle through my stuff whenever I am away from the bike.

Storage makes all the difference on a daily rider.

G.P.S/Delorme charts- My riding takes me to some pretty remote places and 9/10’s of the time I don’t know exactly where I’m at, and I prefer that. When I need to find my way out, even the most basic G.P.S. when used with one of my Delorme charts will tell me exactly where I am. I’ve given a lot of thought about buying something with an on screen map, but for my type of riding in the wilderness, the limited information that I would receive wouldn’t be sufficient.

All I really need are Coordinates and a chart, with my background in aviation, I am very comfortable with Pilotage and Dead Reckoning, I don’t need arrows telling me to turn left or right and in the wilderness I don’t think they would work well anyways.

I’ve been lost in a lot of big cities before; in that case a product like a Garmin Zumo would be a perfect tool. But most of the places I ride, I am not limited to paved roads and right angles and to quote Martha, “that’s a good thing.”

Tire Repair Kit- I never go into the wilderness without one of these; it’s a long walk out, enough said. It should be noted that one should know how to use one of these as well.

So there you have it, my list of Favorite things. I’m curious now, what are some of your favorite things.

Ride Well

E.T.

Call me Ishmael

I’m still here.

January has been an exercise in trying to remain occupied with various tasks around the house. Tasks that take my mind off of the inevitable fact that it is still winter, as a result, this is one of the first times that I’ve approached my computer since my last post.

There have been changes that Charlie and I have made to my KLR, changes that I’ll post in the future. Most of my time for the past month, my two wheeled activities have involved planning things that I would like to do this year on the bike.

Here are some of the things that I have been scheming.

1. Never been to Moab, I’d like to say that I have.........we’ll see.
2.More camping this year, considering that I didn’t do any last year.
I live at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, it shouldn’t be that hard. Anywhere from Priest lake to the Seven devils will do just fine.
3.After writing my previous post, I think that a trip back to the Jefferson valley and a very special time in my childhood is in order. I feel that I will fail to describe in words what is like there, pictures are in order.
4.Aftermarket pipe, possibly. Nothing too loud though.

I’ve been stealing away on the occasional weekend ride here and there. The weather has been too dramatic to brave commuting to work just yet. Weekend rides help, but honestly, they are not enough. I’m getting moody.

The other night, I was reading some Herman Melville before bed, I read this passage that I felt accurately reflected my mood, I’d like to share it here; perhaps it’ll strike a chord with you as well.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago-never mind how long precisely-having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people’s hats off, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Lines from Moby Dick.

I think that pretty much sums it up for me............hold onto your hats when you see me approaching; you’ve been warned.

The other evening, on my commute home, I noticed a lone bare spot in a wheat field that was predominately covered with snow, in that spot, was a patch of green. The first evidence of the approach of spring! The next morning on my return to work, I searched for this small patch of early wheat, but found it covered with a dusting of snow that had fallen over night. That’s alright, I can’t see it, but I know it's there.

Riding season 2009 is getting near. I can almost taste it!

For those of you who have been able to cast off from the depressing “Shores of winter” and return to the sea, Ride Well, I envy you.

As for me, my ship is just about ready to raise her sails once again!

E.T.