Yay!! I've finally found a free moment to get myself on this here blogger site and update. I get excited and/or inspired to write about things from time to time, but my brain goes so fast that as fast as the thoughts come, they go. It would almost be beneficial to carry around a small digital recorder to catch my random thoughts haha. Anywho, here I am. La la la.
Disney World Vacation Blog Update
SooOoOooOoo I know I've promised a Walt Disney World vacation blog with pictures, but my pictures are on my home desktop and I'm not on that computer right now and I'd rather not write about the whole story without having pictures to go along with it, so I promise it will come soon. I'm excited to write about it and make a few scrapbook pages as well. Yeah, I caught the scrapbooking bug a few years ago. It's fun :). Tanaya had this ingenious idea of making our own wedding invitations via scrapbook style. I like it. Much more personal, and probably cost effective in the end. Not that I'm getting married anytime soon, just sayin.
Awesome Dual Sport Ride
Last sunday, August 2nd, Jake's phone rang at like 9am waking us up rather early considering we didn't get to bed until late. It was his brother calling to see if we wanted to go on a dual sport ride with his friend Brian. Heck yeah! The plan was to head up HWY2, thru Leavenworth, Cashmere, and head south on 97 to find some great forest service roads and trails. Well, we did! One trail was rather short but we ran through it about 3 times because there were awesome "jumps" that would give you air. It was awesome.
Then we went on another fire service road all through the east side of hwy 97, winding around through the small "town" of Liberty. There was a rather rough trail leading up to one of the mountains so we took that. It was very steep, loose dirt, tons of tree roots, and a narrow trail. My TW200 performed flawlessly, though! That back tire bites in and goes!! The other guys were able to make it up, but they were slippin and slidin all over the place from time to time. One advantage of my bike :)
A big disadvantage of my TW200, though, is that even though the cylinder is bored out and the front sprocket is +1, going over the passes limited me to about 45mph at full open throttle in 5th (high) gear. Yeah. The 650's definitely showed me up in that arena. Jake stayed back with me, though. I'm surprised my bike made it up both Stevens pass and Snoqualmie pass...
Anywho, so after we rode the trail to the top of that mountain, we rested for a while because it was a pretty extreme, long trail. The view was amazing, too. It would make a nice camping spot up there, very remote from civilization since cars/trucks aren't able to get up there. We decided to take a different trail back down the mountain and then we saw a sign "Ellensburg 27 miles". So we followed the windy trail through the woods and about an hour later, sure thing, we were in Ellensburg! It was getting pretty late so we started our trek back home on hwy90. That's a pretty crazy, long ride if you look at a map! It was so fun, though. Those rough trails were exciting and I've finally completely fallen in love with dual sporting. My confidence is up and I feel like I have a good base of experience on slippery surfaces such as gravel, sand, and lose dirt. It's way fun :)
Pending Ninja Ride
In addition to riding my dual sport, I've been riding my Ninja a ton more. In fact, it's in the shop right now for its first servicing and to get a new lock kit put in. The rear "trunk" doesn't open so they had to put in a new lock, which means they'll have to replace the gas cap and the ignition as well, so I only have to have one key instead of two. Which is nice. All completely covered by the warranty. Well, the first servicing isn't, but it's not going to be too expensive since I asked them not to do the oil and filter change since I do that myself (they charge up the butt for labor charges). I'll get it back sometime later today. :D
The plan was to go on a long ride to Forks/La Push tomorrow, but something came up and we've postponed it. I'm really looking forward to this trip; looking at the roads over there it should be a very fun and beautiful ride!!
Going back and forth between my TW200 and Ninja has been strange...the braking, handling, position are all completely different. The TW has old drum brakes, and the front ones aren't even effective in the least. I'm still able to stop in traffic and on the trails just fine, though, mainly using the rear brake. I've gotten VERY used to that bike and I know its limitations and when the rear tire will lock up when braking so I know how much stopping distance I need at a minimum. The Ninja, with its greater braking abilities (two wheel disk brakes), is a little crazy from time to time. I'm not completely used to it, yet, and I've locked up the brakes on two occasions because the stopping power is insanely powerful. This is because I'm used to braking with mainly the rear brake (because of my TW) and this locks up very quickly on the Ninja when the weight of the bike is going forward (because I'm stopping), thus lifting up the back wheel's pressure & taking away its down force on the road which decreases the braking ability of the rear brake. This also INCREASES the braking ability of the front brake since more down force is on that tire when slowing/braking. So I need to use my front brake a whole lot more on my Ninja.
Luckily, I'm confident with my riding maneuverability on both bikes, so even when I lost traction when braking on my Ninja, I was upright and maintained control of the bike. It's an easy fix, just let up on the brakes haha. I think it helps to have learned to ride on a dirt bike because riding on trails teaches you to be very aware of how the bike is handling and to know the limitations on your bike and what you can and can't do in certain situations.
One of the things I can't control is traffic, so that is an ever present danger-for all motorcyclists young & old, experienced & new. I seriously get super paranoid at certain times, especially at certain intersections or roads.
My Career & School Plans
Perhaps these should be two separate topics, but I'll smoosh them together. My job is going great, I really like what I'm doing! It's not the same thing every day- it's a very dynamic position, working with different people all the time and there's always something new to learn. I'm trying my best to become a "subject matter expert" for one of our software programs that we manage; it supports mannnnnnny processes and people plus those fringe processes that people have created by deviating from the written process, but I won't get into that.
The economy has been up and down lately, so I'm not sure what the plans are for more layoffs, but I'm still holding my ground that 2010 brings a lot of risk for me. So I'm saving, saving, saving. And keeping my eye out for new job openings within the company. There's actually one that REALLY catches my eye, and would use my economics degree! It's very exciting, more pay, and located in Everett. HMmMmm. I really, really, really like my current job though, so I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
As far as school goes, I'm holding off to start my masters program because I want to get into a good program. My manager was a history major in college and spent a lot of time doing research at a database. One of his research projects included studying what types of degrees (and from where) senior executives held. His findings saw that 100% of them held advanced degrees from the reputable "national" colleges- the Ivy Leagues of sort. It's a short list. But he said that if I get a degree from UW or SU, that's a sort of mid-way degree that would get me up into management, and if I wanted to get into the senior executive slot, they would put me through another advanced degree program. But basically his message was to not waste my time on a degree from a less than fully accredited, reputable university such as the U of Phoenix. UoP was attractive because I could finish my MBA (with an emphasis on technology management) in 1.5 years, taking one class at a time, and all on-line. Feedback from alumni said the courses were just as rigorous as other competitive programs they've participated in, but they're not accredited by the main business accreditation agency....and my manager said that yeah it's a masters, but it wouldn't increase my salary and it would probably be a waste of my time.
So I'm holding off until I have completed the requirements to get into a competitive & reputable program. This means that I will need 1 more year of full-time business experience for SU's program, or 2 more for UW's program. UW's program is rated higher, but it's MUCH more involved and would require a lot more time in my evenings than the SU program. So I need to figure out what the management perception of the two degrees are. It sounds like my manager views them as comparable, in which case I would go for the SU route.
Good bye for now!
Perhaps tonight I will get to the WDW update. We took some great photos and I'm excited to share them as well as our adventurous story. :)
♥Sara
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