What's Up

Good morning everyone!

I'm going to take a short break this week from the series I was running on the various adventures I discovered at The Outdoor Adventure Show.  There are just a few things I'd like to cover this week, so today's post will be a little less focused.  There are just a few discussions I wanted to have, so I'm lumping them all in here.  Consider this kind of my own personal State of the Union Address.

First, and certainly the most exciting, most of you probably already know this but Graydyn and Susan leave for a three-week trip through Europe this Thursday evening.  It's something they've wanted to do for years now, and a lot of research and planning have gone in to its execution.  Actually, I should ask Gray to do a post for us sometime just on the work that went into getting this trip organized.  Which comes to the point I wanted to make; I've set Gray up with rights to post to this blog.  My fine site is no longer under single authorship!  I did this so that Gray and Susan could, if they so desire, tell us all how their trip is going while they're on the road.  Most of you probably haven't noticed, but it lists the author of every post down at the bottom of the posting.  We haven't tested it out yet, but in theory you should be able to look and see which posts were written by Gray and/or Susan while they are away.

They've actually said that they are unlikely to have the time or inclination to make regular posts, but that they'd do their best to keep us in the loop about where they are.  As for my own contributions to this blog, I intend to play that by ear.  What will likely happen is that starting next Tuesday I'll pick back up with my discussion on the various adventures I'd like to be going on, and we may see some status updates popping up here and there from our European Correspondents.  However, if they find that they are enjoying having the blog at their disposal and are making frequent updates I will put my own posts on hiatus so as to not interrupt the narrative.

The second point I wanted to bring up is in regards to last week's posting about the "Nudge" fitness program.  I'd mentioned that I would report back on any feedback I received from the team at Nudge regarding their Toronto programs.  Well they got back to me, and it seems that the situation outside of their main facility in Mississauga is entirely a customized affair.  While it sounds like they are running regular fitness programs out of their facility, anything in Toronto is done for a group with a specific agenda at a location of their choosing.  So, if you had a team of people who all wanted to go climb a particular mountain somewhere you could arrange for an area to train and then have the people in Nudge come in and help you with your training requirements for that specific trip.  It's a pretty interesting service, but I'm looking for just a more generalized fitness routine and unfortunately Mississauga is a bit out of the way.

My last bit of travel news is just around my desire to be travelling via motorcycle.  I've been reading a really interesting book called Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon.  Mr. Simon set out from Britain in the early 70s to travel the world on his motorcycle.  I'm sure you can all see why literature this appeals to me.  It's got me itching for my own bike to be back on the road.  The fantastic weather we had last week didn't help ease my pining any either.  With the long-range forecast calling for the warm weather to hold for another couple weeks I made an appointment to get my bike back out of storage.  Yoshi is coming home this Saturday!  Of course now the forecast has changed it's mind and is calling for snow and cold.  Great.

Of course my only fault with that otherwise fantastic bike is that it really isn't good for long-distance travel.  It's decidedly uncomfortable on the highway, and isn't terribly pleasant to be sitting on for more than a couple hours.  That said I've long been considering upgrading to a larger machine, but I've been having trouble finding something that wouldn't be a ridiculous jump in power... or cost.  I may actually have found the ideal machine when I was at GP Bikes this past weekend.  They've got a used 2006 Suzuki GS500F on their floor which was very appealing to me.  Not many manufacturers make anything in the 400-500cc range, but I think that would be the perfect power level for me to be operating at.  The fairing are quite scuffed up, apparently the previous owner dropped the bike at one point in its life, which is a concern.  It does help bring the price down though.  With less than 7,000 km on the odo this bike is only going for $3,700.  The guys at GP Bikes said they'd give me $1,400 for my old bike, which would bring the total cost down to $2,300.  (Probably more like $2650 by the time I'm done with taxes).  It's a risk because it's been dropped, and I'm also feeling a bit financially strained at the moment due to my change in jobs playing havoc with my pay schedule, and so I just walked away from the bike.  Still, it's been on my mind ever since then.  Jay made a very astute point when we were discussing this via Facebook; I've got a lot less vacation time to work with in my new job, and that makes my hobbies at home a lot more valuable.  Having a bike that I could comfortably take out for a day trip would be a phenomenal thing.  I'm still weighing the pros and cons of the situation... hopefully someone else doesn't scoop up that bike while I'm weighing my options.

Well, I really do need to be heading in to the office now.  I apologize for the rambling and disjointed nature of today's post, but I was starting to get a build-up of thoughts that I wanted to share with everyone.  Let's all wish Gray and Susan a happy trip, and hopefully we'll all be hearing from them soon via this very blog.  Until then, happy travels everyone, and I'll talk to you soon.