Month: September 2012

The Great Pacific Motorcycle Tour of 2012, Days 3 & 4

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Obviously, it’s been more than a few days since there was an update and two days plus X days plus two more days don’t equal that many days.

Here are the highlights, though:

Day 3 was from Soap Lake, WA over to Everett then Whidbey Island via US2. Stevens Pass is a great ride this time of year.

I was planning on staying at either Fort Casey or Fort Ebey State Parks for a night, but they were both full. Ultimately, I made my way up to Deception Pass State Park and found that they were mostly the opposite of full.

I set up camp, enjoyed the sunset, had a warm dinner, then bedded down for the night… and just as I was dozing off, the phone rang. Work. Again. Fortunately, I’ve a wireless card for the laptop and it was a relatively minor issue.

It was an early morning to break camp and get all the gear packed back onto the Wee Star, then, a new, interesting rattle in the top end of the motor started.

Wonderful.

That goes nicely with the cold knock in the bottom end of the motor.

Joy.

Decided I’ll need to take her gently back over to Eastern Washington and will spend a few more days with the folks and the rest of the family; then will start limping toward home next Monday or Tuesday.

Fortunately, this also gives me an excuse to stay off of the interstates and at least explore some of the secondary highways on the way home.

As long as I don’t hand-grenade the motor along the way.

The Great Pacific Motorcycle Tour of 2012, Day 1 & 2

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Here’s the route I took on days 1 and 2 of the GPMT of 2012.

On the Wee-Star, in the city, I know I can get about 150 miles before I hit reserve. I also know that I get a solid 25 miles on reserve. After that, she gets stopped on the side of a road and I walk to a gas station. Which would be no fun at all.

I hit reserve twice on day 1.

The first time was when I was almost to Rawlins, WY. With only 120 miles on the tripmeter, just a moment of panic set in as my brain tried to figure out why the motor started sputtering. Switched her to reserve and she came back to life. Fortunately, I was just five miles or so from Rawlins and a tankful of Go Juice.

For the next five minutes, I had to think about why in the world I burned through that much more fuel than normal: more weight, more windshield, more drag on the back of the bike, a long climb, with a respectable headwind.

Note to self: plan fuel stops more carefully.

The second time was when I’d completely miscalculated the distance from one end of the park to the other and hit reserve near Lewis Lake in the park. Fortunately, there’s a gas station at the southwest edge of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake. Crisis averted.

Another note to self: seriously — plan fuel stops more carefully.

Standard sights in Yellowstone — including a herd of elk. Traffic was backed up for six miles just so the tourists could get a look at the herd. I realized I was in a passing zone and, not wanting to sit in stop and go traffic for who knows how long, I — and every other biker — started passing the line of cars. Holy mother of god, there were a bunch of angry cagers honking and screaming at us for simply getting away from them.

Overheard one of ’em say, “Never a cop when you need one…”

Funny you should say, that — just 100 yards ahead on the opposite shoulder was a cop. Parked. All the bikers waved at him as we rode by.

He smiled and waved back.

—

Addition: So the other highlights from day one were riding through the smoke and ash plume from the Alpine Lake Fire in Wyoming (info here) next to North Buffalo Fire (here). The ash was so bad under the Alpine Lake plume while riding up US-287 that at times it looked like it was snowing. I swear, every time I’ve been through Lander in the past 15 years, those mountains have been on fire.

More info later on the Washington fires turning the Ephrata/Soap Lake/Grand Coulee area into a smog and smoke-ridden hell.

Women and Guns, Part XY

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Just spotted this in my news feed from here.

Go read the highlighted portion. If you don’t wanna, it can be paraphrased as: women don’t buy .45s because that’s a man’s caliber.
Okay, fine. I remarked on these sexist morons previously and I also posted some remarks on compact 9mm carry options for smaller-framed adults. I’ll have to do a write-up on full-sized handguns in .45ACP, too.
After vacation, of course.

A Rant About Firearms Salesmen

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A few weeks ago, I had some remarks about the kind of nonsense that it seems so many women have to put up with when shopping for firearms. I was specifically annoyed with how so many salesmen direct women to revolvers.

It’s not just revolvers! In fact, there’s tell via The Firearm Blog of a woman’s attempt to purchase a suitably-equipped Mossberg 930 (likely similar to this) and the clerk, in my opinion, overreacted grossly and accused her of being a criminal. No doubt, the clerk assumed that because she’s a woman, she couldn’t possibly be buying it for herself.

Ignore for a moment that it would not, in fact, be the FBI who would be engaged if the clerk’s suspects the woman was straw-buying, it would be the BATFE.  It would, however, be within the jurisdiction of the FBI to investigate the clerk for gender discrimination as that would fall under a civil rights violation. But I digress.

So, this morning, we stopped by a local outdoor store to lay hands on a few Glock options. Actually, I went in for something else and figured while I was there, I’d fondle a few pistols. I had two specific models in mind, as I’m considering adding both.

“Morning.”

“Can I help you?”

“Sure,” as I approach the 9mm section, “I’d like to have a look at a Glock 26 and a 19, please.”

Clerk opens a cabinet, finds a 26, clears it and hands it to me.

I fondle the firearm as I’d done before and ponder adding it to the safe. The price was a bit higher than just a few months ago. I make a mental note to update my compact 9mm page.

I ignore the standard “How much are you looking to spend” and “What are you going to use it for” questions.

“I do like that — grip is a touch shorter than I recall. I might be back later to fill out the 4473… Oh, do you happen to have a G19 in?”

“I think you should consider the XD… it’s a better gun.” He pulls an XD from the cabinet and starts singing the praises of it. Grip safety, extended magazine options, interchangeable backstraps and frankly unimportant things that the XD comes with.

“Well, I would like to try the 19 on for size…” I trail off as I point to the G19 in the cabinet right next to where the 26 was.

Clerk reaches into the cabinet and withdraws a G17. “I don’t think we have a 19 in at the moment, but here’s a 17 — it’s a better gun than the 19 anyway… you’d be happier with this one… it’s a full-size…”

Oh, really? Somebody who knows me better than I know myself, eh?  This is getting entertaining.

“Well, let’s have a look then,” I say. As I’m trying the fit, he reaches into the cabinet a bit further down, “No, the 17 is entirely too large for my needs. How about the 19?”

He hands me an XD. Sigh. I do show enough courtesy to at least look it over, “Yeah, don’t like that at all — the stock sites are no better than my P11 — and far worse than those on several other pistols. It’s much wider than the Glock line — even their full-size options.” I hand it to my wife, whose hands are smaller than mine and ask her what she thinks of the much wider grips*. I continue, “It’s also a few hundred more. The 19, please?”

He relents, and finally hands me the G19.

Fits like a glove. And I’ll be buying one. Elsewhere. I didn’t tell him that part.

“Thanks for your time.”

—

The takeaway from this morning’s interaction, which really served to reinforce what I’ve known for a long time: don’t assume that just because the guy sells firearms that he has any clue about which product is best suited to you.

He’s not an expert. He’s a salesman. It isn’t his job to educate you or train you or teach you about firearms. It’s not his job to be expert in any aspect of the products behind or over the counter.

There are racks and racks of product in the back room that they need to sell. And if a salesman can use a bit of psychology to move the undesirable products to one demographic and the more expensive products to another demographic, they will.

The salesman’s priorities are pretty much in this order:

  1. sell the product
  2. up-sell when possible
  3. clear the shelves (see #1)

That’s it. They’re just salesmen.

—

*I don’t think she was impressed.