Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

Archives for May 2011

Farewell to Bacon

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Last Wednesday evening, my view of the emergency room, wondering if I had a heart attack or stroke.  I was polite and kept my boots off the hospital bed.  I’m not really that tall.

My daughter told me this morning while I was walking Junior that she wasn’t surprised that I ended up there considering my diet based on the four food groups — hot dogs, potato chips, pretzels with extra salt, and bacon.  From my point of view it wasn’t so bad considering I didn’t smoke, drink, and had given up chocolate donuts a long time ago.

Arriving home from work that day I was tired enough to take a nap for about an hour.  Kim was on the phone talking to someone about antique bricks when I sat down to have a sandwich and my second bag of potato chips for the day.  I noticed my left arm was aching but thought it was probably a result of the two tons of bricks I had moved the previous couple days.  Tired, aching arm, a headache beginning and I start to feel a little wobbly even though I am seated at the computer reading Twisted Roads.  A recently purchased blood pressure monitor was sitting nearby and I wondered if my blood pressure changes when I don’t feel well.

Normally I’m 117/72.

Strap on the monitor, press the button, listen to the thing pump up and feel my heart pounding in the cuff.

197/109.

“Shit that’s high.” I say to myself.  Can’t be right.  Wait five minutes and check it again.

227/117.

Now I’m worried.  I have been monitoring Kim’s blood pressure for awhile and knew what constituted a crisis event.  My arm’s aching and I am having a little trouble drawing a deep breath.

Kim was standing in the living room talking on the phone when I touched her shoulder and said, “Hang up.”

Normally, she might give me a look that says, “Who the hell do you think you are?”  but she hangs up immediately and later tells me the look on my face told her something serious was afoot.  I tell her she needs to drive me to the hospital now and I head towards the door.

I need to interject two things here.  First, Kim is a good driver.  Second, I am a terrible passenger.  I almost never allow anyone to drive me anywhere.  Kim says I am somewhere between cautious and paranoid.  We get in the car and she wants to get me to the hospital fast.  I’m pushing the invisible brake pedal and ask her to slow down.  No wonder I ride a Vespa.

I still can’t figure out how Charlie6 of Redleg’s Rides got me in the sidecar of his Ural on the freeway at night.  He must be some sort of Ride Whisperer.

The ER is waiting for me.  I begin wondering if our $29.95 blood pressure monitor was giving faulty readings and I am about to be revealed as a fraud and wimp as they wrap a professional BP cuff around my arm. Two nurses begin to ask me questions that Kim wants to answer.  I already know they are trying to assess if my brain is working and ask me my birthday over and over again. For an instance I consider pulling their leg but decide against that course of action because I really want to go home.

Vindication — my pressure is 187/108.

Laying in the hospital bed I’m considering what all of this means.  One of the first thoughts is no more hearty breakfasts.  Somehow oatmeal doesn’t have the same romantic lure of bacon, eggs and potatoes.  I’ll have to survive on the fruit and parsley.  

Over the next for hours I find out the following:

1.  Did not have a heart attack.
2.  Did not have a stroke.
3.  EKG normal.
4.  Blood enzymes and chemistry normal.
5.  Chest X-ray shows no enlarging of the heart.
6.  I have high blood pressure, take these pills, see my family doctor, change my diet, exercise, grow up .

I know there are a variety of things that will have to be assessed (I see a stress test in my future) but for now I am good to go.

By the time they send me home the pressure has dropped, thanks to some medicine I can’t remember, to 125/80.  Still feeling tired but maybe that’s just my laziness coming out or the 4000 pounds of bricks.  It was kind of nice napping in the ER and listening to all the chaos.  Kim wasn’t having the same good time.

The next morning my BP was 117/72.  I was miraculously cured.  Didn’t last as the numbers climbed all day even though I was eating a healthy diet.  By the evening I was close to the levels of the previous evening for a short time before watching them drop.

Did I say I didn’t take the medication they prescribed?

Same thing today.  Start normal and slowly work up through the day though nowhere near the crisis level.

*Sigh*

I guess I have entered Stage I Hypertension.  Downloaded a nifty app for the iPhone to record and chart my BP, mean arterial pressure, pulse, weight, and time of day.  By the time I see my doctor next week I will have a great set of charts he can use to lecture me about the importance of diet, exercise, and stress reduction.

I would really like to say this blindsided me but I knew something like this was coming.  I have been eating like a cartoon character for 50 years.  Something was going to happen.  I let my boyish figure deceive me into thinking things were AOK.

Thankfully I like riding enough that I want to keep doing it for awhile and will make the shift away from fat, sugar and salt.

Farewill bacon.  Goodbye chocolate Tastycakes.  Ciao pizza. No more two cheese hot dogs for 99 cents.  It’s going to be a sad culinary life.


I think I need a motorcycle to help manage this transition.

Doubt, Foreboding and the Solitary Adventurer

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Yesterday evening I took a little ride around the valley inspecting the landscape after a thunderstorm had rolled through.  Hardly an adventure compared to those souls who venture forth on long journeys lasting days and weeks through unknown places.

A recent post on Shreve Stockton’s (author of The Daily Coyote and Honeyrock Dawn) Vespa Vagabond blog discussed the challenges for riders who announce plans for adventures to friends and family and the ensuing resistance, doubt and anxiety it can arouse.  Her post titled An Interview of Sorts answers questions from a woman planning a trip across the United States on her Vespa.  It’s worth reading, especially for riders who’ve not ridden alone or gone on longer trips.

Stockton writes of her own solo cross country journey on her Vespa ET4, details, route planning, Vespa performance and such.  The most interesting part for me was when she described how those plans were received by the people you hope will support you in life.  She touches on fear of the unknown and the perceived danger that lies over the next hill.  Stockton responds to real concerns about personal safety and disaster in the following manner: “As for the true, valid, compassionate concern ~ my answer to this (to others and to myself) is that “the bad things” could happen anywhere.”

I think there is some freedom in those words for everyone worried about what might happen if they venture beyond their own backyard.

It’s an I wish I could speak from a place of vast experience crisscrossing the country on my Vespa about how I put aside misgivings and apprehensions about venturing forth alone on the road.  Unfortunately such is not the case.  My solitary adventuring has all taken place within a 200 mile radius of home and within a 24 hour period.

Perhaps someday time and circumstance will allow me my own big adventure.

Sunday Morning Ride: Roll 521

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I meet Gordon almost every Sunday morning at Saint’s Café to review our respective photographic lives for the week, to cajole or shame each other into further work, and to keep alive the dream of a creative life we heard rumored in graduate school. The 3 Prints Project (two rolls of film and three prints every week) began almost three years ago and has continued ever since with a few detours into digital and plenty of excuses for showing up without work.

On Friday I got an iPad2. Minutes after turning it on a strong desire to shoot film washed over me. The iPad may have been the digital straw that broke my analog back.

To be fair I like he iPad and acquired it to evaluate, test and monitor the release of the magazine I edit as an iPad edition. The measure of digital continues to grow in my life.

Friday afternoon the Leica is hanging around my neck, an extra roll of film in my pocket, and the world is revolving at a bit slower pace. Such seems to be the effect of shooting film.

Roll 521. I have to thank Matt Alofs of the 1PT4 photography blog for the idea of numbering by rolls. I have a mess of negatives and I have gone through many schemes of keeping track of them. Following his Flickr site I saw that he assigns roll numbers to sets of pictures. While I have no idea the meaning behind his numbers I thought it was a marvelously simple way for me to have a system that I could track.

The number 521 comes from the month and day I started using it. After that everything will just be sequential. I’m working on 522 now.

Matt has an amazing volume of black and white work that I have no idea how he finds time to produce. He documents the things he sees in life including ongoing portraits Kate (wife, partner, girlfriend, significant other?) in a manner that most partners would find withering. To shoot so much film is pretty amazing.  If I find out he is not scanning negatives I’ll be really depressed.

Gordon arrived with digital prints of images made with his camera phone and a couple others made with a digital SLR during his drive to work. I’d arrived with a single print and contact sheet from the one roll of film I managed to shoot.

We’ve sustained a level of output over the years generating a steady stream of personal work, questioning process and intent, criticizing, supporting and tending the fragile flame of creative expression amidst the daily grind of earning a living.

 
Morning. Mount Nittany in the fog. My camera has pointed this way many times. Photographing the same subject over and over reveals something about the subject and the photographer. For me, this is home.

The iPhone and Camera+ app continues to impress me. This shot was made using the Clarity effect.

Last night I developed a single roll of black and white film. A familiar ritual repeated thousands of times over the last 20 years in this particular darkroom. The iPhone is always handy and this time makes a recording of the path less traveled in photography.

Looking at the contact sheet I realize I see the world differently with the Leica. Different than I do using a digital camera. Not better or worse, just different.

The ride into town was quiet with almost no traffic on US 322. Sporadic fog continually changed the landscape allowing me to ride from magical place to illusion and beyond.

I have a great capacity to be sloppy, something that does not incur many benefits in a darkroom. Rushed to make this proof print of Junior so I would have something to show at Saint’s Café. Flat, lifeless, drab. No digital effects to save me, mask the deficiencies of the image. And strangely, I am enjoying the process.

Again.

My printing skills and general late night sloth betray the magic a silver print can possess. Maybe next time I’ll work harder.

 On towards town and a brief stop to exchange stories with a small herd of Penn State quarter horses.

On through the fields, fog beginning to lift and reveal a gray day with threats of rain. The Vespa is indifferent and moves on and on and on.

After Gordon and I exhausted comments and ideas we parted company and I headed home on a slightly longer route. Climbing to the top of a hill along the road I was offered the opportunity to photograph these two motorcycles speeding in the opposite direction. Everything looks insignificant from this altitude. A reminder of how careful I need to be on the road.

At Café Lemont, a spur of the moment stop for tea and a Neiman Marcus cookie (love these things), I pull up next to a 2002 BMW R1200 GS. If the Vespa is ready to riding in and around town the BMW looks ready to ride in and around North America. Inside the owner pretty much confirms that assessment.

His name is Mark and he tells me he’s getting ready to ride to Nova Scotia and then on to Labrador. I ask if he’s ridden in Alaska (he has) and he tells me that he and his wife have ridden in Europe a couple times through Edelweiss Tours.

I mask any jealously and envy.

We talk for awhile, shake hands and go our separate ways. On the way home I think about what it might be like to ride for weeks on end or travel to some exotic location. Rounding a bend covered with gravel my attention returns to the road and I grow satisfied with the adventures I create within a 200-mile radius of State College. It’s what I can manage now with work and family. And I love the riding.

Not far from home I pass a barn with a horse gazing out the window. I went past and continued on for several hundred yards before I couldn’t get the image out of my head and made a quick U-turn to make a picture. Would never have done it on that big BMW K1600 GTL. Just saying.

And I’m still working on those reviews.

For now I’m just glad to get out and ride a little, make a few pictures, and spend some more time in the darkroom.

Vespa in the Rain

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Sunday morning in a slow rain, meandering over familiar roads on my way to meet a friend in town.  I’ve stopped in this same place many times to gaze towards Mount Nittany, watch the landscape swallow up the road in an easy turn.  Twisting my boots into the pavement checking the traction, evaluating how much oil and scum was washed off through the night, gauge how far I could push the Vespa while riding though I never push very far.  Still, it’s comforting to know what to expect.

Made this image with the iPhone camera using the Camera+ app.  Processed the image in the HDR mode.  I continue to be pleasantly surprised at the technical and creative range of these devices.  Feel bad now that I dropped in on the pavement.  No damage save for another scuff mark.  Saw a student in town last week busily texting on an iPhone with a shattered front.  Didn’t seem to slow them down.

The rain slowed to a mist as I threaded my way through the alleys and streets of State College, my destination arriving too soon, the ride ending before I was ready.  Humes Alley is a favorite backdrop, old brick, hand lettered signs.  About as close as I come to an urban environment on any regular basis.

Prime parking for Saint’s Cafe — just twenty yards to the front door and never any charge.  At least not until the Borough decides to give me a ticket.  Or tow the scooter away.  So far Kelly Alley is my first parking choice.

Rainy days are for laying in bed or on the couch, reading a book, watching television, or indulging in some other sort of horizontal enterprise.  On the way home while making this picture I decided to pursue the bed despite how much I love the light on this kind of day. 

One last picture before home.  The monochrome nature of things in the rain almost prods me on to ride farther. 

Almost.  But there are naps to take and other things to do. 

That’s how to make good use of a rainy Sunday.

Short Reflection on the BMW K1600 GTL Experience (More to Come)

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I made an error in the previous post indicating I would be reviewing the BMW K1600 GT.  The bike I actually departed Kissell Motorsports with was the GTL version.  More features, more luxury, more of everything.  And this motorcycle was probably the most dramatic change from my Vespa GTS 250ie ever.  And again, in almost every respect.

The past couple days I’ve been looking over notes scribbled on 3×5 index cards, on my iPhone, and examining memories triggered by the numerous photos I made.  Still searching for the story of this motorcycle, what it’s like to ride, what it did to me.  Yes, I think it did something to me but can’t quite put my finger on it.  Perhaps I’ve not put enough miles on it and should plead a case to Craig Kissell to borrow it for a few more days.  After all, the typical K1600 rider will be thinking in terms of thousands of miles.

It was a beautiful couple days of riding.  Photography and riding are always at odds and the K1600 GTL wants to go and not dilly dally on the way.  By force of will I would transcend whatever magic the BMW was trying to spin on me and bring the motorcycle to a halt to pursue other interests.  I swear I cannot pass a lone tree in a field.  And we have a lot of them here in Pennsylvania.  Big trees in the middle of a field were there to give a team of horses or oxen a shady place to rest at lunch time. 

With gas prices so high some farmers are returning to draft animals. I don’t except John Deere to be shutting its doors anytime soon though.

Weird.  I’m talking about the most modern BMW motorcycle, draft animals and John Deere tractors.  Just what the marketing group was hoping for. 

To complete the bucolic rural picture I present the BMW K1600 GTL with a passing manure truck.  Thank god the motorcycle has traction control.  Liquid manure on the road is a real hazard.
I’ve been jotting down notes in my Moleskine journal and trying to piece together what to say about this machine.  As a diehard Vespa rider I can say it was, well, amazing.  The challenge ahead is to define amazing.