We noticed a large, white-breasted hawk perched in a tree in the woods just outside our yard this morning.
He sat there for maybe 20 minutes, waiting for something tasty to come along.
But by the time I got my camera set up with a memory card and 200mm lens, he had flown.
So I photographed this – the first dandelion of the spring (in our yard, at least).
Spring is less than 15 hours away, but it will be a week from Thursday before the temperature rises above 60 degrees.
And winter is dealing a late cheap shot of snow to the northeast.
This winter was maybe slightly more severe for the Mid-South, but mild by Indiana standards. We had a “blizzard” that would only qualify as a routine 5” snowstorm in north central Indiana where I grew up.
As far as I know, none of my Indiana BMW friends made it to Daytona because a snow storm buried them. The only exceptions were Indianapolis BMW Club members now living in Florida. My ride to and from Daytona was cold, but the days were sunny and snow-free.
You may recall that I had to leave my Gerbings heated jacket liner at home after it blew the accessory fuse on my bike. I asked the BMW MOA forum if I could replace the stock 7.5 amp fuse with a 10 or 20 amp fuse to handle the load of heated gear and a GPS. I was rewarded with an even better solution – connect the heated gear directly to the battery with the stock Gerbings wiring. I had the connecting wiring at one time, but a search of the garage late last week failed to turn it up. Grass Roots BMW Motorcycles, where I have my bikes serviced, is a Gerbings dealer, so I’ll just have them do the wiring next time I’m up in Cape Girardeau for service.
I’m about halfway through figuring our income taxes and expect to have that onerous task completed by the end of the week unless procrastination intervenes.
I remember my dad doing his tax returns at the kitchen table with a big yellow legal pad and the big clunky mechanical adding machine he brought home from his office for the task. Coffee, a few sharpened pencils and a pack of cigarettes complete the tableau. The tax code was much simpler in those days. I think he would be impressed with the H&R Block tax software I use now.
My stepdaughter Morgan was on TV this evening in a feature about the local library’s programs for kids during spring break. She was applying nail polish to little girls’ fingers.
Son Steve posted this photo of granddaughter Lisa (the blonde) onstage in something called “The Directioners.” No more information given.
Sam’s Club stocks pressure washers about this time every year, so I drove down and bought one.
Some assembly is required, but not much and I had it together in about 30 minutes. I filled the oil reservoir, but am waiting until tomorrow or whenever I plan to use it to put in the gasoline.
A photographer shot a couple of frames of me last Monday as I rode over to Flagler Beach. I’m debating whether to buy a print or two.
Total time, Stopped time, and Overall average speed are meaningless because I turned off the GPS most of the times I stopped.
My Garmin Zumo 550 paid for itself on this trip because the Traffic feature warned me of a closed road and rerouted me to avoid it and the Detour feature gave me great alternate routes.
Also, thanks to the SiriusXM feature, I was able to listen to the announcement of Pope Francis and his first Papal words to the faithful while threading my way through Memphis traffic.
I dined last night with new friends at High Tides at Snack Jack, a popular oceanside bar and grill on A1A just south of Flagler Beach. Despite the signage, it seemed like a nice little family restaurant.
Riding back from collecting my National Parks Passport stamp at Fort Matanzas, I got caught in a huge traffic jam on southbound I-95 just south of the truck weigh station between the Palm Coast and Flagler Beach exits. By the time I got to the apparent scene of the accident, all I could see 
I made a run to the Publix supermarket just across the interstate from the campground yesterday afternoon and ended up parking next to a gorgeous ivory colored BMW K1100RS ridden by a guy named Rick from New Jersey. Rick bought a six pack of Blue Moon and hunkered down on the parking lot curb and drank one while we chatted.
He and his brother Tommy, a Triumph rider from Sarasota, and David, an RT rider from Pennsylvania invited me to join them for dinner along with a couple of guys from north of Toronto, Ontario. The food was good and the company was great.
Back at the campground, I stopped at the now-closed clubhouse and used one of the electric outlets on the porch to charge my iPhone for a few minutes and checked in with Maria, then rode back to my campsite, put the cover on my bike, crawled into the tent and went to bed.
Charlie and Tom and I rode down to the Daytona International Speedway yesterday morning to survey the vendor offerings.
As expected, we didn’t see anything we needed, but it was amusing nonetheless.
Here are some photos from our morning:
No biker event is complete without a sprinkling of bimbos to draw guys into vendor areas and this was no exception.
Tom and Charlie were keen to go downtown and walk Main Street after the Speedway tour, but I was ready for a break, so we parted company. I hit a McDonald’s and gas station just off of I-95, then discovered a huge traffic jam of bikes and cars waiting to get back onto the interstate. I hit the “Detour” button on my GPS and found myself on a delightful two-lane through the jungle that took me back to the campground without the hassle of interstate traffic and wind noise. I realized that I’ve ridden a segment of that road in years past, but it was a delightful surprise to see it again.
That’s my blue tent on the left and my bike over my left shoulder.
We sat around in the dark swapping bike stories until about 10 p.m., then retired to our sleeping bags.
I was up at dawn, as were Charlie, Tom, and Harry. They joined me for breakfast, then left for home. Charlie has to deal with a massive storm system (dubbed Triton by the NWS) en route and I’m choosing to wait it out before packing and leaving.
Unfortunately, he ran into difficulty owing to the fact that his hands (and ours too) are too big to manipulate the parts in the tiny space where the headlight bulb lives.
There was nothing to do but ride down to BMW Motorcycles of Daytona where the service department installed the bulb and charged him a modest $19 and change.
They wanted to go look at biker stuff in Daytona and I fancied a ride up to Flagler Beach, so we split up.
Now I’m back at the campground clubhouse to use Wifi and recharge my iPhone. I’ll send Charlie a text message shortly to see what he wants to do with the rest of the day.
I just finished breakfast at the campground restaurant and, based on the observed ages of the locals and the bikers, it looks like a senior citizens center in here. I have a good Wifi connection, a good night’s rest and a full stomach, so I’m a happy camper.
Two impressions from yesterday’s ride:
Once we got clear of the heavy traffic, I led us to the last fuel stop of the trip where we topped off and rode another 30 miles to the campground.
We arrived at sunset and, by the time we registered and found a suitable campsite near a port-o-let, it was dark. I figured we’d have to set up our tents by flashlight, so it was no surprise. There was a cloudless sky, so the temperature dropped quickly while we dined on pizza at a little gas station restaurant near the campgrounds.
I could see my breath by the time I crawled into my tent, happy to have a warm sleeping bag.
I awoke about 6:30, just before sunrise, and checked the Weather Channel app on my phone for the local temperature. It was a brisk 37 degrees. My watch has a thermometer function and it showed it was 45 degrees inside the tent.
I was the first of our group up and out of the tent. I told Charlie I was heading for the restaurant and he joined me about an hour later while I loaded up on coffee and recharged my iPhone.
I have no idea what we’re doing today, but I suspect it involves Flagler Beach, Daytona, and/or seafood.
I took delivery of my 2003 BMW K1200GT ten years ago today at Revard BMW Motorcycles in Indianapolis.
Since then, it’s carried me to eight BMW MOA rallies from Burlington, Vt., to Spokane, Wash. We’ve ridden the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur a few times, been to the Colorado Rocky Mountains several times, Daytona Beach Bike Week once, and lots of places in between – about 67,000 miles in all.
The bike remains pretty much as I bought it with the addition of MotoLights, which I upgraded from halogen to LEDs last July, and an extra power outlet on the dashboard.
I retired the original Marsee tankbag last fall and replaced it with a Nelson Rigg bag that has a solar panel for charging iPhones and the like. I’ve also added a Garmin Zumo 550 GPS with XM Sirius satellite radio.
I had an aftermarket footpad for the rather pointy sidestand, but it sheared off while navigating the campground at the Return to Shiloh Rally a few years ago and I haven’t gotten around to re-attaching it.
I added a bracket to the underside of the luggage rack to attach a passenger backrest, but I can’t remember the last time I used it, since Maria hasn’t ridden pillion with me in years.
I also bought a pair of oversized saddlebags for longer rides, but packed tightly enough for the last couple of rallies that I was able to go with the color-matched stock bags.
The GT has been a splendid motorcycle, but it has never felt as comfortable as my old 1991 K100RS or Maria’s ‘94 K75S. That said, I look forward to many more miles in the saddle before I contemplate a new ride.
The bike is packed and loaded and ready for a frosty 8:30 a.m. departure.
I’m meeting Charlie and Tom at a gas station in Jonesboro where we’ll top off our tanks and hit the road for Daytona Beach Bike Week.
I don’t relish riding out of here in the low 30s and if I had my druthers, I’d wait a couple of days and leave in the 50s, but we have a schedule to keep, so I’ll dial up the Gerbings heated jacket liner and gloves, switch on my heated seat and just deal with it.
We expect to make it to Birmingham or Montgomery, Ala. by tomorrow evening and ride on to Daytona – Bunnell, actually – Thursday.
In the meantime, Maria has company staying with her, is heavily armed and protected by a particularly powerful and fierce bulldog.
St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of things that are lost. I have found that an appeal to St. Anthony to help me find some lost or misplaced article pretty much never fails.
It happened again this afternoon when I was in the process of tearing apart my dresser drawers for a couple of items.
I asked St. Anthony for a little help and less than a minute later the items turned up in a place I was sure they couldn’t be.
I’d still be looking if I’d stayed a Presbyterian.
Every kitchen I’ve ever seen has a “junk drawer,” a drawer where odds and ends accumulate, usually in a jumble that makes it a challenge to find any particular item and a hassle to put big things – like rolls of aluminum foil – back in so you can close the drawer.
The results are impressive – to me, at least. A place for everything and everything in its place.
How long we can maintain this order before things descend into chaos remains to be seen, but we really like the way it looks and Maria wants to try the same treatment on the miscellaneous kitchen tool drawer – the one that houses ladles, whisks, spatulas, meat thermometers, cap snafflers, the famous Spouto, ice cream scoops, and myriad other gadgets.
I can’t imagine that stuff getting organized, but I’m prepared to be surprised.
I was chief of the Metro North Bureau, covering Boone and Hamilton counties from a circulation office in Carmel.
Jerry Graff covered Johnson and Shelby counties and Mike Ellis covered Hendricks and Morgan counties. For some now-forgotten reason, the decision was made to omit Hancock County to the east of Indianapolis from the Metro project.
The three of us had been working in our new bureaus for a month, building a backlog of feature stories and getting the lay of the land since early February.
We were equipped with Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computers – the first practical laptops in the history of computing.
The Model 100 had a built-in 300 baud modem that could transmit over telephone lines. The eight-line LCD screen made writing and editing a bit of a challenge. Incredible as it seems by today’s memory standards, the 24K of RAM was plenty for our day-to-day writing needs. You could also connect a cassette tape recorder to the Model 100 and transfer files to the tape for later retrieval. The Model 100 ran on four AA batteries with an optional AC converter power source.
As primitive as it was, the Model 100 intimidated the hell out of reporters from smaller papers who were still stuck taking notes with pen and notebook. I loved it because I could get quotes down with greater accuracy and speed.
(I still have my Model 100. A friend rescued it from the dumpster when the office was being cleaned out after my retirement.)
I volunteered for a bureau job because inept management had poisoned the atmosphere at The News City Room in downtown Indianapolis and I was eager to have 15 miles between me and the craziness.
Managing Editor Frank Caperton conceived the plan for zoned suburban editions, but he worried we might have trouble filling the space allotted to us. One of his solutions was to publish school lunch menus. I thought it was a desperately stupid idea when there was an abundance of real news to be reported and so did my colleagues. We never ran a single school lunch menu.
But even with the new product, The News remained the unwanted, neglected sibling of the morning paper, The Indianapolis Star.
In an effort to introduce the new zoned editions, it was decided to sample the paper for a couple of weeks – deliver it to homes of non-subscribers to give them a chance to see our coverage of their areas.
The obvious way to accomplish this would have been to give News carriers extra copies with instructions to deliver them to homes of non-subscribers along their routes.
But there apparently was concern on The Star side of the building that we might take some of their subscribers, so the company went to the extra expense of creating a master list of people who didn’t subscribe to either paper as targets for sampling.
And rather than use News carriers, the geniuses in circulation chose to hire temporary carriers to deliver the sample papers.
But the unmotivated minimum wage temps had trouble getting the papers where they were supposed to go.
I realized this when I found several bundles of News sample papers in the dumpster outside my Carmel office.
I reported it, but nothing came of it and the sampling campaign was a failure.
I was still startling people in Boone and Hamilton counties 10 years later with the revelation that The News had a special edition just for their counties.
Despite the lack of support from circulation, running a suburban bureau was great fun, especially after I built up a cadre of stringers – part time correspondents who helped to cover governmental meetings and wrote the occasional feature story.
I ran the Metro North Bureau until October, 1995 when The News was merged with The Star and I got folded into a larger bureau covering Boone, Hamilton and Madison counties from Carmel.
And the fun began in earnest 28 years ago today.
Here’s my longtime BMW friend and newly minted BMW MOA Ambassador Wayne Garrison at a gas stop along I-70 a few miles east of Topeka, Kans.
We rode from Breckenridge, Colo. to Independence, Mo. that day (and night) in 1995. We left the BMW Club chalet in Breckenridge around mid-morning because it takes awhile for the sun to warm things up at that altitude and we still made it a 700-mile day.
We made it home the next day – a relatively easy 500-mile ride.
Ken Campbell, sheriff of Boone County, Indiana, demonstrates why the ban on high-capacity magazines does nothing to compromise the firepower of bad guys and dispels the fantasy that bystanders can jump a shooter when he stops firing to reload.
Maria and I took Ken’s excellent pistol course when we lived in Indiana. Ken is also an instructor at Gunsite Academy, the premiere combat pistol training facility, in Paulden, Ariz.
The Carmel (Calif.) Pine Cone weekly newspaper carries a police log with a twist – comics illustrating one of the police reports.
You can read this week’s issue of the Pine Cone here and you can see previous police log comics at policelogcomics.com
