Joe Gresh

ExNotes Product Review: Waymo Self-Driving Cars

By Joe Gresh

There is a megacity out in the Arizona desert. It runs for miles and miles, ever expanding into the scrublands. Phoenix, Chandler, Tempe, Scottsdale and other towns have merged into one, giant, golf course subdivision splattered with Wal-Marts, drug stores and tilt-up warehouse mattress vendors. It’s hot, dry and thirsty. I don’t understand why so many people willingly bake in the sun. Waymo, the self-driving taxicab company has found a way to eliminate a few of those people.

ExNotes tested the Waymo’s plying the streets of downtown Tempe. Laid out in a grid pattern with tall buildings blocking radio signals Tempe would be a tough test for Waymo. How the system works is you download an app and enter your information. Next you order a car telling Waymo where you are and where you want to go. How long you wait for a car depends on traffic or rider loads. CT and I took Waymo rides three times and the usual wait was 5 or 10 minutes. The Waymo cars we rode in at Tempe are made by Jaguar and look like any generic, white SUV-ish car, except the Waymo’s bristle with cameras and sensors on all four corners and the roof.

Let me cut to the chase and tell you the actual driverless-car part worked great. You can sit in the front seat or rear seat, once inside with your seatbelt on you push the start field on the dash display. The Waymo will watch for traffic and pull out onto the street just like a person is driving. The car still has a steering wheel that spins around as the car makes corners. The Waymo doesn’t pussyfoot around, either. It accelerates right up to speed and takes curves with a bit of hustle. It stopped at stop signs, circled roundabouts and waited patiently at traffic lights.

I felt totally comfortable sitting in the passenger seat letting the computer drive. I suspect that’s because I’ve been installing autopilots in boats for 50 years. From the first Metal Marine Pilot to the latest digital units tied into GPS and radars. I’m used to sitting at the helm with the boat steering on its own. Of course there are a lot less things to run into on the water compared to downtown city streets, but I saw the Waymo as just a fancier version of electronic stuff I’ve dealt with for years.

As there is no driver, there is no need to tip. The short Waymo rides we took cost around $4 each and the money is charged through the app. You get in, arrive at your destination and get out. Oddly enough, the technology of the self-driving car wasn’t where Waymo fell down on the job.

Our problems came during the pick up process. Waymo’s app will tell you to walk 700 feet this way or head 350 feet south on Fifth Street feet while you’re waiting for the car. You can watch the car’s progress on the app and judge arrival time. After following the apps instructions we found it best to ignore the app and stay in one spot and wait until we could see the Waymo, and then walk towards it. Pick up was usually fairly close but one time the car waited for us about a block and a half away.

We were walking all over trying to find the thing. Waymo’s app has a toot horn feature and we used this to echolocate the car. Upon our arrival the car decided it had waited long enough and drove off. We were 15 feet away. It’s kind of dumb because Waymo knows your location via the phone app. It knows how far away you are and can see you moving towards the car. Also, Waymo needs a “Pick me up where you dropped me off” feature to cut down on walking time. As the software is configured now Waymo might drop you at the front door of your destination but when you call for a pickup the car might be down by the river.

Long time ExNotes readers will know I’m not the sort of guy known for embracing the future. But being a motorcyclist I can see the advantages of ever-vigilant computers replacing the brain-dead car drivers that kill us so often. I’d rather ride in a megacity full of Waymos than the usual collection of phone texters, blind drunks and road ragers.

It’s still early times in the self-driving car business and the road driving part is already amazingly good. I could tell no difference between the Waymo and a human driver. The weather was perfect in Tempe so I can’t speak to how the car would perform in a snowstorm or on icy roads. Maybe it defaults to park? I can see personal self-driving cars becoming popular if we can figure out all the legal ramifications and who gets the blame in an accident. But it’s not like we don’t have accidents now. I say bring on the future.

ExNotes Product Review: Harbor Freight Double Cut Saw

By Joe Gresh

Harbor Freight’s economy brand, Chicago Electric, has been much improved over the years. Back in the 1990s you were lucky to get a few months use out of a CE tool before it burned up. Of course, what did you expect from a 10-inch circular saw that cost 15 dollars? They were sort of one-use tools, bought for a particular job then tossed in the trash after the job was done. This early crappiness has tainted the Chicago Electric brand and there might still be a few dud CE products out there.

I’ve had pretty good luck with more recent Chicago Electric stuff. Their paddle-switch 4-inch grinder has lasted 10 years for me and is still going strong. I have a Chicago Electric sawsall that is pretty old and it has held up well. You no longer get smoke pouring out of a Chicago Electric tool the first time you plug it in.

This Chicago Electric Double Cut saw is marked down on clearance at 44 dollars. In Harbor Freight land a clearance item usually means the tool is being discontinued and when they are out they are out. I had to get my local HF technician go into the back of the store and rummage around to find one. You may have to visit several stores to find one. Clearance tools are usually superseded by a similar tool with a possible upgrade in quality or just bold new graphics so if you can’t find a Double Cut saw just wait a bit and another one with a different part number will appear. Although, it won’t be $44.

I’m impressed with the improved quality of the CE Double Cut saw. The castings, both metal and plastic look well made and finished nicely. This saw has a bit of heft so at least there is some copper and steel in the thing. The saw comes mostly assembled, you only need to put the grab handle on and feed a lube stick into the nifty feed hole provided. Like most CE power tools the cord is stiff and plasticky I guess it’s better than the SO type of cord with the easily damaged jacket. The saw comes with a nice little wrench for changing the two (included, carbide-tipped) blades.

Ergonomically, The saw has some issues for me. The power switch is an odd, push down and forward, deal that takes some getting used to. You have to hold the switch on, this puts your hand close to the front of the saw and your other hand is holding the grip nearby. I would move the switch aft on the tool to give better hand separation and thus more steering control. By necessity, the saw blades are almost completely shielded which makes seeing your cut line impossible. There is a V- notch in the front of the blade housing that gives an Idea of where the cut will be. If you want a precision cut you’ll need to rig up a fence. By the way, don’t even think of removing the shields as the Double Cut puts out metal particles when it plows through steel. Wear safety goggles!

What makes the Double Cut somewhat unique is the two, counter-rotating blades. This arraignment cancels out any kickback or climbing out of the cut. Cutting round stock is a breeze, as the material doesn’t try to spin when the blade makes contact. The saw feels wonderfully neutral in action and not the least bit scary cutting steel. The saw is useable on most any material: steel, aluminum, and wood. There is a blade lube feature for use on stickier metals like aluminum or sappy woods. I bought the saw for metal.

I’ve used the saw on 1/8” mild steel and it cut like a hot knife through I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. Again, there’s a fine mist of metal particles generated while cutting so wear those goggles. The finished cut is clean with no sharp flashing like with a 4-inch abrasive cut off wheel. On sheet metal roofing the saw cuts as fast as you can push leaving a clean, square edge to slice your finger on when you hoist the panel onto the roof. If you do metal roofs you need this saw.

I probably should take the saw apart and grease the internals but the thing might fly apart on disassembly so I’ll use it as is for the foreseeable future. The depth of cut is only 1-1/4’ but really, if you tried cutting steel that thick you’d probably burn up the saw. Blade depth adjustment is in your hands as there is no hinged foot to set the blade. I don’t know how long the blades will last cutting steel and if the saw is truly discontinued you might want to stock up on replacement blades available at your local Harbor Freight store.

The verdict is in and I pronounce the Double Cut a fine deal at only 44 dollars. If you work with thin-ish metals, say 1/8” to sheet metal this could be your saw. For complex cuts I still use the 4” grinder with an abrasive, metal cutting blade because the line of sight is better, you can see exactly where the blade is. Harbor Freight isn’t the only company that makes this type of saw. Other brands are available, here’s one online at Amazon and the saw looks about the same.

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ExNotes Book Review: Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto

By Joe Gresh

If you’re looking for the rare children’s book that features a motorcycle as the prime mover, Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto is the book for you. Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto is made of sturdy paper and the covers are thick cardboard so the thing should hold up well to repeated reading by destructive little hands.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto is written by Isabel Quintero in Spanish so your target child will learn a few Spanish words along the way, unless they already speak Spanish. Who knows, maybe reading Mi Papi will generate a life-long interest of languages in your spawn. With my very basic Spanish skills I was able to figure out most of the text and any words I didn’t know I looked up on the Internet. Even if you don’t understand a single syllable of Spanish the beautiful illustrations by Zeke Pena tell the story in an exciting and colorful way.

The book begins with a young girl’s father coming home from his job as a carpenter and the two go for an afternoon motorcycle ride. During the ride the have various little adventures. They visit folks picking lemons; they are chased by dogs; Papi stops and chats with some fellow workers. There’s even a fantasy sequence involving old style racecars on a circuit through town (maybe it wasn’t fantasy, my Spanish comprehension is not so good).

These micro adventures really remind me of why I like to ride a motorcycle. Simple acts seem more vital: making a turn, waving to a bored kid staring out a car window or just feeling the breeze. Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto’s motorcycle trip ends like all of them should: at the snow cone vendor for a sweet treat.

If you’re an ATGATT Nazi you probably shouldn’t get Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto. They wear helmets but the hot weather finds them in shorts and light clothing. Spare me the clichés: “Dress for the slide not the ride.” “Gear is cheaper than skin grafts.” You make your choices and the riders in Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto made theirs.

I’ve only shown a few of Zeke Pena’s fabulous artworks in the book and just looking at the stuff made me want to go for a ride. It’s that exciting. Amazon has the book in hard cover for $17 and that’s the only way you should buy the thing. You need to feel the solid way the cover opens and the smooth, cool pages. Kids get enough content with their phones, give them a real world, tactile experience that will create a lifetime memory. I think there is an English version but reading Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto in the original Spanish makes it seem more like a secret world that only your kid can access. At least I felt special decoding the thing page by page.

Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto reminds us that we don’t need to do heroic, epic rides every time we swing a leg over our motorcycles. We don’t need the latest electronic buffoonery to enjoy the simple act of riding and interacting with our environs. I highly recommend Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto for both kids and adults who are not yet dead inside.

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Evans Brasfield

By Joe Gresh

I have conflicting emotions writing about Evans Brasfield. He was killed on a motorcycle recently and he was my editor for a brief time at the website Motorcycle.com. The thing that bothers me as a writer is: Am I doing this out of respect or will people think I’m somehow using Evans’ death to fill space in this web site? If you write a lot of stories like we do here on ExhaustNotes.us there is an endless search for topics. I hope I’m not doing that but Evans would totally understand my quandary and I hope approve. Lots of people knew Brasfield much better than I did. I should probably shut up and let them tell his story. Still, I want to write about this man I never met in person and only emailed with or spoke on the phone.

After I was booted from the paper motorcycle magazine I was writing for I tried a few other venues to publish my stuff. The pay was ridiculously low compared to the magazine and I stopped writing altogether as it didn’t seem worth my time. Most writers are a mix of hubris and insecurity; you need to think highly of yourself to suppose someone would want to read what you write. At the same time, deep down inside you need to be told you don’t suck at the job.

After a hiatus I pitched a story to Evans and he liked it. He told me he liked it, which was like crack cocaine to me. I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t washed up. I followed up the first story with several others. The pay wasn’t horrible and Brasfield made big of my efforts, swelling my ego to no end. In the comment section after my oddball stories Brasfield would write how fortunate he was that I submitted stories. When Brasfield said you were good enough you were damn well good enough. The guy was an absolute sweetheart and I felt like valued contributor.

Covid hit revenue for all businesses and overnight the economy collapsed like the house of cards it was. The Internet motorcycle websites were no different than the rest of the world. Brasfield told me in an email that they were dropping freelancers and going with mostly staff-written content. I didn’t like the news but at least he told me where I stood and we parted friends.

Hearing that Evans was killed in a motorcycle accident shocked me more than usual because he was such a vital presence online. I followed his Facebook page and we frequently exchanged comments. He was like a real life friend in that way. Everything I’ve read about Brasfield was positive and his own postings were typically positive. He loved his beautiful family and life must have been damn near perfect for him.

Motorcyclists live in denial. If we ever thought about what we were doing, putting a fragile bag of water atop a speeding, two-wheeled machine with next to nothing for protection, we wouldn’t do it. My feelings of “It could never happen to me” are gone now. If a good man and skilled rider like Brasfield can die in a motorcycle accident, any of us can. Hug your loved ones and enjoy the moment. Feel the warm sun and the cold rain. Look out at nature and marvel in your sentience. There are no promises in life and I wish I had known Evans Brasfield better.

Wayback Machine: British Motorcycle Gear Adventure Pants

By Joe Gresh

As any loyal reader of ExhaustNotes.us knows, I recently got all new riding gear from British Motorcycle Gear. In this blog we tackle BMG’s Adventure pants, a lighter weight alternative to BMG’s Pioneer pants. When I say lighter weight I don’t want to mislead you; the Adventure pants are still heavier than denim jeans.

The Adventures have two zippered vents on the front side that let in a lot of air when you stand up on the pegs like a real adventure rider is prone to doing whenever there is a camera around. Sitting down like a lazy chopper rider, the vent flow is less powerful but you can still feel it. There is a mesh liner that combined with the 500 denier shell gives a good compromise between protection and sweating.

One feature that stands out for me is the heat resistant, Nomex inner-calf panels. The high-mount, left-side Husqvarna exhaust system has burned a hole through several of my rain pants and street slacks. So far I haven’t been able to melt the Adventure pants.

Another feature I like on the Adventure pants are the three belt loops. I’d like to have a few more loops but three loops beat none because I wear a belt. You’d have to have a misshapen body like mine to appreciate the extra security a belt gives you in big-air situations. There’s nothing more embarrassing than getting pantsed by gravity.

On the sides of the Adventure pants are waist adjusters. These are handy for postprandial riding when your belly is bloated from too many carbohydrates. My odd combination of fat waist and short legs make finding motorcycle pants to fit a real challenge. I’ve been riding motorcycles for 50 years and the BMG Adventure pants come the closest to fitting in all those years. The 29-inch legs could be a 1/2 –inch shorter but as long as I have my belt it’s not a problem.

My Adventure pants came without armor, which is fine with me. I also have the much heavier-duty, armored BMG Pioneer pants to test but that will have to wait for cooler weather. The Adventures have long leg zippers but I didn’t need them to enter or egress the pant. If you are a weirdo who puts their boots on first, then your pants you will find the zippers handy. There is a short piece of zipper on the backside that can connect to BMG’s line of jackets. I never use those back zippers but I bet they stop drafts pretty well. The back zipper will also keep your jacket from riding up in a crash and possibly save a few square feet of road rash. Hmmm…maybe I should start using that zipper!

I’ve worn the Adventure pants down to 40 degrees with only a thin thermal underwear layer and was warm and comfortable. For my personal thermostat 40 to 80 degrees F was right in the Adventure pant wheelhouse. Above 90 and into the 100’s the Adventure pants are a bit too warm for my taste. Really, for motorcycle riding above 100 degrees shorts and flip-flops are the only way to go. Just kidding.

For New Mexico use the BMG Adventure pants are a great 3-season bit of riding kit. If you live where it rarely gets to 90 degrees or above then you can call them 4-season pants. I feel safer wearing them on a motorcycle than I do in plain old dungarees. The retail price is not out of this world when you consider the price of Levis jeans or cigarettes. Just punch in the code BMGJOES when checking out, and you’ll get an 11% discount on everything (except gear that’s already on sale, and Halcyon mirrors and goggles). Check out the British Motorcycle Gear website; I know you’ll enjoy it.

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ExNotes Product Review: Yamaha RD350 Kveldwulf Top End Replacement Set

By Joe Gresh

Parts for Yamaha’s RD350 are fairly easy to get but that didn’t stop me from hoarding a new top end set from eBay for the low, low price of $190. For that paltry sum you get two brand new cylinders, two brand new pistons, two brand new ring sets and two brand new wristpins with keepers. My buddy Bodden tried to warn me off the kit saying that the Teutonic name was a ruse and that Yamaha parts are far superior and I believe him. Still, $190 for an entire new top end? I had to bite.

First, there’s nothing wrong with my RD350; it runs great. I bought the Kveldwulf kit more as a spare and hedge against future scarcity. The kit is made in China; you know how international relations are going. We could be cut off at any moment. Unlike many people I don’t have a kneejerk reaction to Chinese products. I give them a chance to see if they are any good. In retrospect I probably should have bought an American made replacement RD350 top end kit (and I will if a company in the USA ever decides to manufacture one).

This particular top end kit has its problems. The biggest problem is that the right side piston won’t actually fit through the right side bore. The piston slides in about halfway and stops. Of course I could force it but the bike would only run a few minutes before it seized up. The left side is better but still feels a bit tight to me. What this means is I’ll have to have the cylinders bored to suit the piston size, a process that will probably cost more than the whole Kveldwulf kit.

The ports on the kit cylinders are sharp edged and dirty looking. I think I’ll need to chamfer the port edges before using the cylinders or the thing will probably snag a ring. It wouldn’t hurt to run a burr through the ports to knock down some of the roughness either. When I unpacked the box there were quite a few loose bits of aluminum sprinkled throughout. A thorough cleaning is in order before bolting these parts onto my RD350. So the kit is not at a plug and play type deal.

The Kveldwulf pistons come with a Teflon-looking coating. I usually don’t like any of these new-fangled coatings and prefer plain old aluminum. I don’t have my RD350 apart so I can’t check the cut-away skirt and windows to see if the stock piston is the same. I’d also like to compare the ports to a stock cylinder to see how close the new stuff comes to original.

My best translation of Kveldwulf is “night wolf” and the prospects are indeed dim for this dog of an RD350 top end kit. I haven’t decided if I’m going to send it back and put up with that hassle or keep the kit and spend the time and money to remedy all its faults. I suppose if you had a RD350 that was missing its top end or it was severely corroded with broken fins the Kveldwulf kit would move you closer to the goal of a running motorcycle. You’ll have some sweat equity in the thing for sure.

If you have a stock RD350 and want to experiment with altering the ports but don’t want to mess up the original stuff this kit would be a cheap way to learn about two-stroke power bands without risking a ton of money. Then again, maybe I just got a dud. I’ll try to contact the eBay seller; they might take this top end set back and send me another one that is machined correctly. As delivered, I would only use the Kveldwulf kit as a last resort if my top end were totally wiped out, which is a hard thing to do with all the oversize pistons available. I’ll keep you updated whatever happens.

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The Long Haul: Riding a Motorcycle All The Way

By Joe Gresh

In these Covid-aware times being a long hauler means suffering from the effects of contracting the virus that caused so many problems a few years ago. But “long hauler” used to have a different meaning in the motorcycle community. It meant a rider that rode long distances over relatively short periods of time. The Iron Butt group sprang up to create a framework of recognition and certification for the tough riders that did 1000 miles in 24 hours and the challenges escalated from there.

I’ve never felt the desire to ride 1000 miles in 24 hours although I would have loved to run that pace the time I raced the Baja 1000. No, I usually go a few hundred miles if I’m bopping around near the ranch on a day ride. If I’m traveling long distances I’ll shoot for 400 miles a day or a little more depending on the time of year. On motorcycle trips I try to take it easy and enjoy the countryside. I’ll stop often to read historical markers or pull off the road to sip a little piping hot Dancing Goats coffee from my Thermos. I might see a stream and wander over to look for gold nuggets or stick my feet in the cold water. To me, motorcycle rides should be fun, not an endurance test.

Sometimes I end up pushing it a bit like on the ride to Laguna Seca. I clocked 590 miles from Grand Junction, Colorado, to Tonopah, Nevada. I was riding the ZRX1100, it was hot, and I had plenty of daylight, so I just kept riding. I wasn’t in any great pain and there aren’t many places to get a motel room in the wilds of Nevada. That 590-mile run may not seem like much to an Iron Butt rider but I’ve done some other long distance rides on much less capable motorcycles.

The longest single-day ride I did on my 1971 Yamaha RT1-B, 360cc Enduro was from Cross City, Florida to Big Pine Key, Florida, a distance of 530 miles. The old two-stroke, single-cylinder dirt bike is a fairly comfortable place to sit and it will happily cruise along at 60-65 miles per hour so it’s not like I was doing something all that special. At the time a hurricane had blown through Big Pine and our house was a mess, so I was hustling to get back home and start cleaning up.

Another long day in the saddle was back in the 1970s riding my 1973 BMW R75/5. I was returning from a 41-state tour around America and the last leg was Cashiers, North Carolina to Miami, Florida. I racked up 750 miles in one, national-55-mph speed limited day. Back then you had to keep your eyes glued to the speedometer because it was nearly impossible to ride a 750cc motorcycle on a wide-open highway at 55 mph. You tended to creep up and all of a sudden you’re doing 70. The 55 mph speed limits stuck around a long time because it was a huge moneymaker for the Highway Patrol and local police forces.

I rode my Husqvarna 510cc Super Motard 500 miles from Window Rock, Arizona to Caliente, Nevada in one agonizing stint. This run was the most physically demanding and it demanded it all from my butt. The Husky’s seat is narrow for ease of mobility in the dirt. It has almost zero padding towards the rear and the front area was no wider than a pack of cigarettes. I did a lot of stand up riding and crossed leg riding that day.

The closest I got to an Iron butt ride was on a 1968 Sportster. This motorcycle is another poor choice for long distance riding. At least the seat wasn’t 4 inches wide on the Sporty. I started out from Van Horn, Texas. It was late March, so it was still pretty chilly in the pre-dawn hours. I rode all the way to Point Loma, California and it took around 18 hours. Of course, with an old Harley all that time wasn’t spent riding. You have to twirl wrenches a bit.

The Sportster’s charging system failed because the mechanical, coil and point type voltage regulator shook itself to pieces. Running a total loss ignition system I had to stop at gas statins and charge the battery every so often, kind of like a modern EV car. As the voltage would drop the bike would start missing due to the plugs whiskering.

Motorcycle plug whiskering isn’t common with today’s high powered ignitions and alternators but back then it was not out of the realm of possible failure modes. It happened when the plug shorted out from a tiny piece of metal stuck between the electrode and the body of the plug. The remedy was fairly easy: you had to remove the plug and clear off the bit of metal that was causing the short, then put the plug back in. Don’t ask me where the tiny pieces of metal came from; it’s best not to think about it.

At some point on the ride, I found a voltage regulator wire broken from vibration and figured out how to make the old, brush-type Harley-Davidson generator charge its battery. I made the last 200 miles at night without having to stop for a charge. All in, I rode the Sportster 854 miles and man, were my arms tired. It’s kind of funny that the long haul effects of Covid (foggy brain, tired feeling and dizziness) were the same symptoms I felt after riding that Sportster 854 miles.

I don’t think I’ll ever do a thousand miles in 24 hours. It’s just not important to me and defeats the purpose of riding a motorcycle in the first place. I guess if it was an emergency and I had to do it I could ride the Kawasaki ZRX a thousand miles in a day, but honestly, if that situation arose, I’d rather take the Toyota truck.

What about you? Are you a long hauler? How far have you ridden in a day? Does racking up mileage for mileage’s sake mean anything to you?

Another mileage story? You bet!

GRIN Times In Datil, New Mexico

By Joe Gresh

Among the many crazy conspiracy theories masquerading as knowledge today are the Walmart tunnels. These tunnels supposedly crisscross the nation for the usual nefarious reasons: FEMA camps, New World Order population control and extraterrestrial alien smuggling (to steal your jobs and women). When you stop to think about it, this whole insane, Walmart-tunnel thing is no wackier for Datil than the nearby Very Large Array radio-astronomy telescope.

The VLA was used in a movie about the search for alien radio transmissions. Or was it just a movie? If that doesn’t fire up our odd American mix of gullible/skeptical idiocy nothing will. Like all good conspiracy theories there is a grain of truth to the Walmart-tunnel thing that feeds the plot. New Mexico is full of old mining tunnels so if you look hard enough you’ll find one. Just not the ones owned by Walmart. Those ones are top secret.

Naturally with all the weirdness going on near Datil, GRIN chose to hold its Guzzi motorcycle rally directly over a tunnel leading to Lake Como in Italy. I could hear the water rushing through the tunnels if I put my ear to a Quattro valvole rocker cover.

Finding Moto Guzzis in New Mexico is much harder than finding Walmart tunnels. I can’t recall seeing one on the road or parked up at a Starbucks. My buddy Robert rode his 850 Guzzi out to New Mexico one time but that doesn’t count. Guzzis aren’t super popular anywhere so a rally with 25-ish bikes is something to see. I forgot to add that GRIN stands for Guzzi Riders In New Mexico, the club that put on the show and rally.

Datil consists of an expensive gas station, a motel, a campground and a pretty good restaurant. I’m not sure you could call it a town, it’s more of a traveler’s rest. Behind the motel and gas station you’ll find the campground, and this is where the wrong-way, Italian V-Twins were situated.

The gang of Gizzard riders was an easygoing bunch. It took no time at all before I felt like one of the boys and damned if I didn’t start wanting one of these goofy motorcycles. An unusually high number of rally attendees told me that they had once owned a Kawasaki ZRX like the one I rode to the event. I did 410 miles round trip but there were riders from Texas and Colorado who had traveled much further.

I’m a sucker for high pipes on a street bike so this Scrambler was my favorite of the bunch. Later in the day we went to the Datil restaurant and had a good lunch that totally blew my diet. I had the southwest turkey sandwich and it was smothered in Hatch green chili.

GRIN hosted several dinners for the 3-day rally and there was a Guzzi bike show. Attendees judged the bikes in a people’s choice sort of deal. It was kind of hard to see the entry numbers that were on tiny round stickers applied the Guzzi headlight glass. I didn’t get to vote because I wasn’t actually a member of GRIN. I feel this should invalidate the whole election process and make GRIN a dictatorship.

Late in the afternoon I had to head back to the ranch as I don’t like riding at night. My night vision is much improved since I had cataract surgery but an elk running across the road in front of your 70mph motorcycle takes a lot of seeing.

The seasons are slowly changing here in New Mexico, so it wasn’t unbearably hot on the ride home. Cool, dry air on top of the higher passes made me worry less as the sun set behind me. I pulled into the ranch in full darkness with the ZRX running on all four cylinders. It was like riding in a tunnel.

ExNotes Movie Review: Oppenheimer

By Joe Gresh

I don’t go to the movies very often because it seems like superhero stuff is all that plays at our local cineplex, so it’s unusual that I’ve gone to the talkies twice in the last couple weeks. After seeing the big movie of the summer, Barbie, CT and I decided to go to the second big movie of the summer: Oppenheimer. I’ll be dropping a few spoilers so click out of this blog if you plan on going to Oppenheimer.

I became interested in the United States atomic program about 15 years ago. It may seem gruesome to some, but the mechanics of the Manhattan Project intrigued me. Those old-timey scientists did some amazing stuff way back in the 1940s. Everything they were attempting to do was based on theory and done for the first time.

I went to New Mexico’s Los Alamos to tour that once forbidden city and visited Trinity Site, where the world’s first atomic bomb was exploded. For an insider’s perspective of the super-secret project the book, Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman has a lot of Manhattan Project stuff along with other excitement from the anything-is-possible era. I liked the landforms in New Mexico so much we ended up moving here.

As it turns out I really didn’t know all that much about the dawn of the atomic age. Oppenheimer the movie is mostly about the adversarial relationship between Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss, a man that I never saw name-checked in the information I had read. This kind of smoke-filled-room stuff doesn’t interest me although Strauss caused a lot of trouble for Oppenheimer after the war.

From my limited research I thought Oppenheimer was sort of a figurehead for the Manhattan Project but the movie portrays him as critical to the project’s success. Luckily for New Mexico (or unluckily if you were downwind of the blast) he loved the state and picked a site west of Santa Fe for the new atomic age.

CT and I drove down to El Paso, Texas, to see the movie in large format Imax. An old-style mall, set 25 feet lower in elevation than El Paso’s Montana Avenue, was the closest place we could find. The mall was interesting in that the entire commons area was filled with a flea market. You could find hand-made crucifixes or plastic crucifixes made in China. There were places to get your car key battery replaced and a bar of colorful, homemade soap. We had an hour or so before our show started so we went into a madhouse called Dave and Buster’s. Dave and Buster’s is a huge, chain gaming center with a restaurant attached. The place looked mostly like a Las Vegas casino except it’s ok for kids to go because you can only lose.

The restaurant was not too bad. CT and I split a turkey club sandwich. The racket was so loud I needed a gin and soda to calm my nerves. I can see a parent at the end of their rope taking the kids to Dave and Buster’s and turning them loose while mom or dad get plastered at the bar. Really a great business model if you think about it.

I don’t know if it’s due to the lack of employees or matinees are so sparsely populated that there is no need for employees, but we waltzed past the unmanned snack bar into the Imax theater unmolested. The Imax had very steep steps leading to steep seats with plenty of space for mid-aisle stragglers to wander in front of the punctual people. No need to worry about a lady with a fruit basket on her head sitting in front; you’ll be able to see the screen.

My ears were still smarting from Dave and Buster’s when the movie started with an ear-splitting explosion followed by thousands of random lights racing towards a center point roughly 3 feet in front of my head. The room thundered and shook. I thought the place was coming down but this was just the Imax theater showing us what it was capable of doing and had nothing to do with the Oppenheimer movie. I began to see the reason there were no ticket takers. The usual series of advertisements you see in a theater were not shown, maybe because there are so few Imax theaters it’s not worth shooting the ads in their large format.

Oppenheimer’s story is told out of sequence with scenes jumping forward and backward in time. Maybe this is a nod to quantum physics and the impossibility of knowing the true state of matter at any particular time? The jump scenes are mixed in with fantasy sequences that represent Oppenheimer daydreaming. The film switches between color and black and white. All this jumping to and fro, along with the deafening audio levels and rattling chairs, kept me disoriented. I’m mostly deaf in my left ear and still it was actually painful at times. CT wanted to stick wadded up tissue paper in my ears. I should have done it.

Actors playing famous physicists make cameo appearances throughout the movie. You never know who will pop up at a dinner party. Matt Damon plays a loud General Leslie Groves with a comical Jackie Gleason style. Robert Downey is Oppenheimer’s antagonist. He does a good job for most of the film even if he did fall into a paranoid Captain Queeg riff near the end.

The early, red-scare communists were the beautiful people in the movie and their party meetings were more like cocktail socials. Even though it appears he went to the meetings solely to pick up chicks, this dabbling in communism would prove to be a problem for Oppenheimer later in his career.

I like 40-foot tall ta-tas as much as the next guy, but the nude scenes in Oppenheimer seemed to be there to bump the rating and didn’t really contribute to the story in any meaningful way. Which is exactly what you want from gratuitous sex scenes. I feel the director went a little light in this area. There should have been 15 or 20 more. During the kangaroo court to take away Oppenheimer’s security clearance there was a creepy fantasy sequence with Oppenheimer’s dead lover staring at Oppenheimer’s wife while straddling him naked on the witness chair. She wasn’t decomposing with her nose falling off or anything, but it did seem weird.

The director had a tough job making Oppenheimer exciting enough for our 2-second attention span populace. It’s a story that wants to be told slowly and with great detail. I fear that movie will never be made and if it was would not earn much money for the studio. Instead, we get clip after clip that somehow are supposed to make sense at the end. Those Superhero movies have ruined us.

Oppenheimer was sort of a let down. I was expecting a more nuts and bolts experience, like I would be able to build my own small thermonuclear weapon after seeing the movie. Don’t let that deter you from seeing the film; it’s probably just me. I had a hard time following the story and it took 75% of the run time before I began to connect all the disjointed scenes. I think in a regular theater I would have done better. The Imax experience was too overwhelming for me. The constant shaking of seats and booming audio put me in a fight or flight mode. Picture reading a good book, and every few minutes a guy walks up, shakes your shoulders, and shouts “You’re reading a book!” in your ear. It’s that kind of annoying. Imax never lets you forget that you’re in a movie theater.

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Sponsors: A Call To Arms

By Joe Gresh

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