1987 Honda Elite SE50P

Hello all,

I know that I've been a little behind on the posts lately, so I hope that this explains what I've been up to the last couple weeks...

- so -

A year or so ago I bought a beat up, piece of junk scooter from my friend Mario. And although the price seemed a little high at the time - especially for a scooter that had definitely seen better days - it was the novelty and potential of the machine that attracted me, and I couldn't help but go forward with the purchase. Since then, however, the scooter has been rusting away in the garage... leaned up against my dusty drum set; alongside my home-made didgeridoo; within reach of my corroded climbing gear; and just in sight of my crusty keyboard...

But earlier this spring, and just as the weather was getting better, something called out to me, motivating me to work on the scooter. Maybe it was the desire to delve into mechanics a little... to get some grease on my hands... or maybe it was my eco-consciousness reminding me of the 90-100mpg rating of the engine... or maybe it was the groaning of the mini van over those potholes that led me to work towards a better way.

...or maybe I just wanted to look cooler and feel the wind through my hair on the way to work...

Regardless, the project began.

After getting the Title/License & Insurance stuff out of the way, I took the scooter to work a couple times. The thing still ran pretty well, especially considering it had old oil and not super new gas in it. Yea! Then it snowed and got cold again, so I had to wait a couple weeks before I did any riding or tinkering. Boo. In the meantime, however, I was able to learn a lot about Honda scooters from "the Internet" and plan my course of action.* Yea!

The body was in really bad shape. Cracked and broken plastics, missing lights and lenses... Some new parts were definitely needed. And this is where things got a little out of hand.




Soooo [re]addicted! I still spend a good chunk of time at work each day searching "honda scooter" "honda elite" "honda se50" and so on, and so on. Good news is, I found a lot of what I was looking for. (Not everything though! If somebody had a right side fairing for an '87 Elite I'd probably promise to name my first son after them for it.)

Like I said, a couple weeks went by and I started accumulating parts, and knowledge. And the first Saturday it was supposed to be above 40* I was out in the garage at 7:30am working on my ride.






So with a LOT of sanding, painting, screwing, cranking, tapping, cleaning, grunting - a couple trips to HondaTown on Lake St. - and another couple weeks later, this is where I'm at:





And I'm pretty happy.


*Something I did try to remedy, but unsuccessfully, was the top speed of the scooter. Right now I can do 27 mph (according to the on-board speedometer) while going on a flat or down-hill slope. Apparently there are 2 models of the '87 Elite: the S and the P. I have the P, which stands for 'Ped, or moped, which accounts for the restricted speed. Some scooters can be easily brought back up to speed by taking off clutch restrictor plates and/or washers in the muffler - unfortunately mine has neither, so the restriction is built into how the machine runs as opposed to being added on the way out of the factory... I'm not interested in soupin' up the scooter and negatively effecting its longevity, gas mileage, etc, so I'll just have to live with the top speed.
Until I get another scooter. :)

The Way Of The Swayze

Friends, especially Jay, I thought you'd like this article (and Zach definitely would if someone forwarded it to him).

The Way Of The Swayze: How To Be A Thoughtful Hunk

Happy reading.

And have a scary Friday the 13th.

Lynch Weekend

"Spend an amazing weekend with filmmaker David Lynch and quantum physicist John Hagelin (“The Secret” and “What the Bleep Do We Know?”) May 25-27."

http://lynchweekend.org/

Wow. That could be pretty amazing. Unfortunately it will be right in the middle of tryouts... if someone (Davin? Jay?) was super psyched about this and was going anyway I could see myself taging along...

Hmmm.

SNL

Too lazy to go out and do anything Saturday night after a movie, Jay, Davin and I found ourselves in front of the TV. *Flick* Charlie's Angels? *Flick* Man vs. Wild? *Flick* History Channel? Each were given their chance to impress us, and each were passed by... I guess we were looking for something truly special this night. And on the way back around, back through the network stations, we found our entertainment in an unexpected place.

It's 11:30pm, and we arrive on channel 22. NBC, that is, on Comcast basic cable. Saturday Night Live is on... Huh... And if you're like me, there's good reason to be skeptical of what SNL has to offer these days. Many nights I wouldn't have taken a second look. More commonly I'd make it through half a skit before moving on - shaking my head - once - twice - three times - partly out of pity, remembering what was; and partly to clear my head of their brand of comedic rubbish.

Expectations low - maybe getting desperate(?) - we settled in for whatever this (largely 'unknown' to me) SNL cast could deliever. And, well, we made it through one skit... and we were laughing?! I thought, "Was that a fluke? Could it last?" But then there came another, and yet another, actually funny skit! At one point I remember saying, "This is the funniest SNL I've seen in 10 years," conveniently forgetting some of the great skits by Farrel et al, but being truly enthusiastic about a show that I'd basically left for dead.

AFI was the musical act, and their poor performances brought us down a little by the end of the show... also, the last skit was definitely the worst of the bunch, so that was another unfortunate downside... But overall (and with some time to reflect) I'd say that I'm ready to try out SNL again.

AFI really does suck though.

The Conclusion of the Spring Break Saga

Where I last left off, Änna was still holding that tarantula... Sorry to leave you in that situation, honey. But from the jungle (it was really sticky in the Pavilion) to the snow covered mountains - our story continues at the Eldora Nordic Center.

What I really found incredible about Boulder was how quickly we could go from walking down Pearl St. or The Hill (in a t-shirt and shorts, temps in the 70s), to clamoring up the side of a mountain, or even to skiing on well maintained, completely covered cross country trails. We did something like this every day, and because it never took more than a couple of hours to hike a nearby mountain, or to ski at Eldora, we would get back and still have half a day to go find something else to do.

Tuesday afternoon's skiing was excellent. And even though our skis weren't waxed quite right (hard to do for 40-50º weather and 30-40º snow...) it was still pretty amazing to be skiing in only tshirts with views of the mountains all around us. I could get used to that. Oh, and a crazy side-note... Änna and I were heading back to the car when who do we run into on the trail? Laura Hannah! Laura was a friend of mine from high school who I'd recently heard was living in Boulder and dating one of the Johnny Bravo guys...
I introduce my wife... "Wife?!" says Laura... and then she asks, "Do you know a guy named Pokey?" To which we both laugh and explain our connection to Katy and Pokey (Dan).
It's a small, small world.

The rest of the week, in brief:
Dinner Tuesday gave Änna her first Fondue, and we either met up with Katy and Dan for pool, or went over to their place to hang out... my nights are getting confused now. Hot tubbing happened one of these nights as well... Wednesday started with a relaxing morning, followed by a run that turned into a hike (we ran a mile and found ourselves at the foot of a mountain, so we went up), finished by a dramatic dinner at the Tea House (made dramatic by the frat boy and sorority girl who drunkenly broke up, and even more drunkenly got back together, all in the first 45 minutes of our dinner...). I also had a first, sending back my very well done ribs for a fresher rack. Thursday we almost didn't go back to Eldora (the plan was to ski) because it was raining in town, only to drive up and find a sunny mountain top waiting for us. How nice! My wallet was accidentally stolen by some geezer skiers who took home the wrong shoes (?!) and there was a couple of hours where we didn't know how easy it would be for me to buy drinks (or anything), let alone fly home in 2 days (although it turns out that wouldn't have been a problem either... I'll explain later.) Thursday night we postponed our dinner until 10pm to take part in Hapa Sushi's happy hour. I think we got the most sushi I've ever seen a table of five get... and we finished all of what could have been 100+ pieces. (FYI - Dan can really put away the sushi after a workout! Dang.) Friday turned into much the same kind of day as Wednesday, more chillin' and more hiking (this hike was cooler than Wednesday's, although we had to drive a whole 5 minutes to get to the base...). We finished the day with a nice Mediterranean dinner, and we said our goodbyes back at our hotel after trying to watch Running with Scissors on pay per view... I should say right now, things started to get weird at the end of our trip... maybe just a sign that it was time to go home....

For instance:
1. Thursday - The wallet/shoe dilemma.
2. Friday - We couldn't figure out the bill at the restaurant.
3. Friday - The $13 pay-per-view movie's sound was all messed up.
4. Saturday - We wake up with 2 messages. The first is that, although our waitress said it was IMPOSSIBLE, we have been double charged for our meal Friday.
5. Saturday - The other message says that our flight that was supposed to take off in 3 hours has been canceled due to weather out east and we will not be able to leave until Monday afternoon...

Saturday - we rent a car (our hotel lobby happens to house a Budget car rental desk - furthermore, the guy tells us that a car came in from Montana that we will be allowed to take one-way to Minnesota) and drive home.

In spite of the inconveniences at the end of or trip (and even those were fairly entertaining), we had an awesome time. Who knows, in 2 years maybe Änna will land some job at a firm out west and we'll have to move out there... I wouldn't be complaining very loudly. :)

1000 Visitors! + Blogging Thoughts.

I thought I'd take a quick detour from chronicling my Spring Break to celebrate my blog's 1000th visitor who came yesterday (March 17th - St. Patrick's Day) at 12:16:22pm.

Thank you, friends, for helping me out with my self-worth... I don't plan on quiting the blog anytime soon.

---

While writing at a coffee shop this weekend I was asked the question, "Why do you have a blog?"

My initial response was a silence that became pregnant with the awkward supposition [by my inquisitor] that I was [silently/awkwardly] coming to the realization that this "blogging" that I so enjoy doing is mostly a pointless waste of time - a cry out for attention from a want-to-be writer, with less talent than ambition, or less ambition than talent - a desperate stab at stardom, scrawled upon the vast bathroom-stall-door that is the internet blogsphere...

"To let friends know what I'm up to," I recovered, finally realizing that my friend's question wasn't meant to be the pseudo-psychological probe that I let it become.

---

There's a lot of The Dream wrapped up in blog culture. The Dream of Being Read. The Dream of Being Recognized. The Dream of Being Appreciated. The Dream of Affecting Someone's Thoughts and Life.

---


Maybe that's dipping a bit too far under the surface for something so mainstream right now - and I doubt the majority of bloggers would agree with me some points - especially considering how darn functional blogging can also be.... For travel and news sites it's great. Writers can post from anywhere with an internet connection and need only basic word processing skills. Reading about my friends' trips abroad, in Rich Text, with pictures, has been great and exciting. And maybe it's just because this technology is new and hot right now, but blogs seem to be a format that people [both writers and readers] want to return to. On a couple occasions that's happened right here - unlike the bathroom-stall-door, blogs have the potential to [conveniently] cultivate dialogs, and I feel privileged to have some documented in my archives.

So like I said, for now, I'll keep blogging. And then later I'll decide what was a waste of time and what wasn't.

Again, thanks for reading.

Spring Break pt. 2

Tuesday morning our plan was to head out to the Butterfly Pavilion, located just 10 minutes South of Boulder. Anna had heard about this educational and scientific center in a Boulder travel magazine and even the guys at our hotel's front desk were pretty enthusiastic about the place when we asked for directions.


And although my camera was barely functioning (LOW BATTERY!) I still got a couple neat pictures.








I do have to admit that I wasn't as excited for the butterflies as Anna was, but it turned out to be a pretty cool addition to our trip. It was almost other-worldly to be surrounded by 100s of those delicate, beautiful bugs. (The 100s of 5-15 year old kids I could go either way on... haha.)

Aside from the butterflies at the Pavilion, there were a number of other creatures on exhibit: leaf bugs; stick bugs; spiders... And if you know anything about Anna, you know that she has a very real fear of spiders... So you might be a little surprised when you hear that she made it a personal goal for herself to hold Rosie, the Pavilion's tarantula. (Ok, you're probably not surprised that Anna made a personal goal... but she seriously, if not stubbornly, faced her biggest phobia. It was a proud moment.)

I guess uploading those pictures wore me out. Still coming up: Eldora Nordic Ski Center, more good eats, and hiking.

Spring Break, pt. 1

Just because I'm not in college anymore doesn't mean I don't get a Spring Break, right?

(Even though I already took a week off to go to Mexico in January this year... but, uh... that was for our Honeymoon, kind of. Haha.)

Ok. I'm spoiled, so what?! I wasn't about to let Anna's Spring Break go to waste.

And you're thinking, "What a guy."

But Colorado has been awesome. Right now we're taking our first real break from traveling and hitting all the hot spots around CO to chill and study - and to update blogs, of course!

Our trip so far...

We flew in Friday night, late. I think we landed at about 10:50pm, but didn't get out of the airport until midnight. Longest-baggage-claim-ever. My dad, coincidently, had planned a ski trip with some friends that just happened to overlap with the weekend that we were coming to visit, so on top of being able to see Karin (my sister, a senior at Boulder) and Katy & Dan (friends who now live in Boulder), we'd be able to ski and hang out with my Dad too. He and Karin picked us up from the airport. Our trip from Denver to Boulder was uneventful and we got to Karin's apartment at around 1am. We got the bed, my Dad got the couch (Sorry, Old Man!).

Saturday morning we got up early to head out to Breckenridge. Neither Anna or I are very experienced downhill skiers, so skiing with my Dad (who recently got back from skiing at Alta) and Karin (who basically lives part-time on the ski hill) was a challenge, to say the least. I think we both impressed ourselves though, me more so on the first day, Anna more so on the second. It was a blast, really, and I wish that I had a camera that I wouldn't mind carrying up on the mountain because the views were absolutely breath-taking. And the place we were staying wasn't too shabby either. We were upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite with a fireplace which was nice to come back to after shredding those black diamonds. Oh, and the outdoor hot tub was more than OK...

Our plan was to come back Monday so Karin could make it to class. This was a very hard thing to do waking up Monday morning in the mountains, but we had a lot more to see in Boulder, and our legs would benefit from a couple days' rest before we hit the slopes again, so we (however remorsefully) headed back.

Monday Anna and I cruised around Pearl St. after quickly dropping off Karin for school and checking into our hotel. Probably the biggest surprise of the trip so far has been the weather. Monday and Tuesday the highs were flirting with 80(!), and we soon realized that we'd over or under packed - depending how you look at it. Shopping for shorts and flip-flops became a priority. :) In the afternoon we met Katy for some hiking and throwing in the park. Then more cruising-around and back to the hotel to change for dinner. Which was awesome. We met Katty and Dan at an Ethiopian restaurant not too far from our hotel (nothing is really too far away here, it seems) and had a pretty un-top-able meal. If you've never had Ethiopian (we hadn't before Monday) wait until we get back and we'll go with you!

...

That's all for now. On my next installment: Butterflies, the Eldora Nordic Center and more good eating, of course.

Two things.

I was searching the web for "open source video editing" and came across two programs that might actually handle some serious video work... The first, and apparently more supported of the two is called Jahshaka. (It has a cooler-looking website, that's for sure.) The second is LiVES. Better or worse than (the also free) iMovie or Windows MovieMaker? I don't know. (I doubt they can be as sophisticated and stable as Premiere, Final Cut, Vegas, etc... :) Please, prove me wrong!) But for now I figure these are worth checking out.

Also, Louis found this place, Open Studio, from MIT (again - these guys seem to be on the cutting edge of open-things). I joined and played around a little bit. Good for a diversion from work if nothing else.

Memory Lane.

My lunch today: 1 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, potato chips, and a glass of milk; with a nice Girl Scout cookie finish.

Our cupboards have been slowly accumulating these ingredients over the winter months (the peanut butter, jelly, potato chips, and Girl Scout cookies are not exactly mainstays in the Hagstrom household) to finally present themselves in the form of this throwback meal from the days of babysitters and weekend lunches at my friends' houses. Occasionally, my own mother would concoct a dish as specifically remarkable as this, but more often my siblings and I would have to thwart off offerings of mustard and mayo on turkey or ham... with lettuce.

Yuck.

Our sal-i-vation would only come when we could escape away to other, ordinary families' houses where they appreciated the comestible advances of white bread, JIF and skim milk.

In the past 15 years or so my cravings for the PB&J have subsided, with only a brief cravings-spike during the time that I spent in Australia (where my roommates and I discovered the full range of abilities of our sandwich griller/maker)... that is, until lately.

In recent times when I have wanted a sandwich, not surprisingly, I've made for myself the sandwich that my mother would have liked to make me. Usually turkey, provolone, lettuce or spinach, and a smidgen of mustard and/or mayo on whole grain bread. But not today. Today was different. Today, I had an escape back to my childhood - served up with a side of potato chips - and I fulfilled an ancient craving that has been building up since my adolescence. And at a time in my life where I could go out and get whatever I wanted for lunch, I found it was nice to have what I really wanted from a time when I couldn't do anything about it.

Is this funny?

I don't know...

Hey Joe, BTW I still think Tivo is a huge scam.

I got in a mild argument with a friend while watching the Super Bowl a couple weeks back about the incredibly useful, but decidedly deceiving Tivo DVR system.

Joe's argument: "I love the Tiiiivvvo!"
My argument: "I cannot believe that Tivo is getting away with charging a for their devices as if they were providing a monthly service... for what is basically a glorified harddrive!"

Tivo: "You had me in your home another month, give me more money. *cough* [Shut up, Bjorn] *cough*"

What services are we charged for monthly? Telephones/Cell phones, cable/dish, Internet... And why do these services require periodic charges? Because they all stream their users information. These services, as overly-expensive as they can be, are still at least services. We pay for bandwidth, satellites, towers, maintenance, etc. every month, and sometimes nothing for the hardware.

Tivo knowingly has it backwards, somehow they've fooled everybody, and they must be making a killing. I bet Steve Jobs is wishing that he included a monthly service charge on all iPods for the, uh, service of storing TV shows, movies and music, just like the Tivo...

Here's the kicker. You can make your own DVR! Make Magazine has an article explaining how to do it here.

Unfortunately making your own DVR isn't exactly easy, or cheap. You actually have to be pretty resourceful mod an old PC to work like a Tivo. So whereas, NO, I don't think that people are stupid for just buying a Tivo over making their own; YES, I do think it sucks that Tivo has set this standard for DVR technology so that no competitor (who would easily have the resources to cheaply put together the described components in the Make article and mass market them) would ever come out with a piece of DVR hardware that required no monthly charge... In fact, I'm still shocked that this hasn't happened already, so I assume that there's some kind of bullshit licencing on DVR technology.

Anyone have an PC they want to get rid of?

Another first.

Well, I had my first Water Cooler Discussion today. One of those things that you think of as "classic workplace," although [like me, previously] you've never had a WCD, witnessed a WCD, or even heard of anyone having a WCD, outside of TV and movies.

Well now you have.



We talked about work.

Clean Plate Club, Follow Up.

I love when you're thinking, writing, or talking about something and it later pops up on the news, in a book/show/movie, or in another conversation... It feels like a validation of universally worthwhile thought...

Anna was listening to MPR last Friday and during their Mid-Morning program they had on Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Dr. Wansink has been doing research on the way we Americans eat and has conducted some pretty interesting experiments (and has gotten some even more interesting results!) . I listened to the show during a bye at an indoor Ultimate tournament this weekend and thought I'd pass along the link.

Bon Appetit!

Boston Bomb Scare

Major highways, bridges and tunnels in the Boston area were shut down last week after someone reported seeing what they thought could be a bomb attached to an overpass...

I'm sure all of you heard about this, and if you haven't, Google "Boston Bomb Scare" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Turns out the "sophisticated electronic devices," as I heard one news-caster describe them, were no more than ["guerrilla"] publicity devices for the Cartoon Network/Adult Swim tv show Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

When I heard about the incident I at once felt both sorry for the cops who had no choice but to respond seriously to a potential bomb sighting, but at the same time surprised at how long this 'scare' apparently went on and how much I had to hear about it as national breaking news... especially considering the following:
*38 of these devices were placed in Boston, WEEKS before last Wednesday's 'scare'...
*The ad campaign has been installed in 11 major cities. The 'perpetrators' were said to be mostly confused about why this happened in Boston, and why now?!
*And here are pictures of the 'suspicious' devices.



Wouldn't the cops have found the first one and been like, "Oh, that's not a bomb," and played it off like any other bomb threat that turns out to be nothing? I don't know. I can see both sides of this one, but Turner seems to have been made into a big target just because they'll be able to shell out to the city [ies?] for this mishap. And the Boston city officials are really playing the victim - not even accepting the public apology from TBS. That's low. (Poor Turner Broadcasting, I know.) But what would happen if it was just me, putting up Brite-Lites that said "BJORN!" all over Minneapolis?

I don't think it's worth trying...

Kool-Earth, Man!

Give me that peace sign!

"...will only get you so far..."

This is something that was pissing off both Anna and I, and hopefully most of the ESPN audience, as we watched Serena Williams advance to Quarters the other night at the Australian Open....

There are a lot of stupid things said by sportscasters. But Mary Carillo's comments of Serena (and in the past with Venus, I hear) bordered on personal hatred. And, OK, we get it, Serena could be in better shape. You've made your point Mary.

But then you bring it up again, and again...

[I'll paraphrase]

Mary: "If she was in better fitness she could endure in this heat."
After a 30+ stroke volley, Serena wins the point.

Mary: "Maybe this will motivate her to get back in the gym."
Serena gets her 9th ace to her opponent's zero.

Mary: "Without top fitness you can only get so far."
Serena advances, yet again, in one of the top tennis tournaments in the world.

And this is where they really loose me, because where, like Mary I can only wonder what Serena's fitness potential really is, but unlike her I take a step back and look at where and who Serena is... Serena has the fitness of a professional athlete because she is a professional athlete, and not only that, she's proven herself to be one of the best in the world, just as she is now.

So get the hell out of Serena's grill! She has an impressive physique, although unconventional(?), and a will to win that cannot be matched. Repeatedly calling her fat on national TV makes you seem jealious and stupid, getting proved wrong so consistently. (Not to mention what it says to the Athlete girls/women of America who are Serena's size [not fat] and already have a hard time justifying their muscle weight.)

I hardly want to watch anymore because when Serena finally does lose out all these announcers be able to say is "Well, _x_th place... Hmmm, just think how well she would have done if she was in any kind of shape."

Sorry for the rant.

Bandwidth Meter

This is kind of fun.

Let's you know how fast you're going on the information super highway...

Did you know that our "High Speed" connections are many times slower and more expensive than in Europe, Asia? There was a great program on MPR about this that I couldn't find, but I did come across this CNN article that goes over much of the same stuff.

Clean Plate Club

How many of you were members?

How many of you still are?

After a conversation I had the other week, I realized that to this day I cannot leave food on my plate at the end of a meal. So even although I haven't received any documentation, I think I must be close to an appointment within the cabinet of this Club's president...

The Club's President.

Ok, but what are the real benefits of being in the Club, or why was this Club imposed upon us?

I do believe that our parents and their parents before them had good intentions in their promotion of this Club. Among them there were two major camps that arose from the depression and pre- depression eras, each supporting the Club's ideals. First there was the health conscious, eco-friendly group, Fortunate to Eat Vegetables Everyday, Really. (F.E.V.E.R.) Then came the more popular, moral front, There Are Starving Kids of Foriegn Origin that Really Cannot Eat. (T.A.S.K.F.O.R.C.E.) I was lucky enough to grow up in a bi-partisan household that allowed for both of these views to flourish - subsequently leaving me as I am now. Aside from never leaving food on my plate, I eat FAST, and I eat TOO MUCH! I feel like much of my generation stands in these shoes (cross trainers, with extra support). And for those out there who either have a poor metabolism, a thicker DNA helix, or an aversion to athletics, hmm... good luck finding clothes that fit if the Club was as ingrained in you as it was/is in me!

As parents across this country pat themselves on the back with one hand while they do the already-mostly-clean dishes with the other, what is more prominent in the minds of their children as they finish their dinner? Not taking so much food next time? Proper diet? Children in Africa?

Or is it, simply, eat that food!

What I'm asking is that parents reinvestigate their motives on this matter. Wasting food might still be a problem, but by blindly following our parents' stratagems - without looking at their results (this generation's gastronomy) - I think we'll end up wasting a lot more.