On Saturday, August 12, Joseph and I went on our first motorcycle ride together. I rode my Kawasaki Ninja 250R (see previous post) and he rode his Yamaha FZ6. It is called the Swiss Army knife of Yamaha sport bikes. It is a very versatile bike that can go fast, tour, or just ride around town with no problem. You can see more about his motorcycle at this link:
http://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/products/modelhome/273/0/home.aspx. The blue one on their website is exactly like his. Anyway, it was a cold 69 degrees (relative to our recent 95+ temps). It was also rainy. That isn't a good mix on motorcycles but we still had an hour or so of riding fun. We rode out to Pleasant Ridge State Park lake and then we rode to Jones Gap State Park. The ride to Pleasant Ridge is straight so we got to test our motorcycle speed performance. Needless to say, it was exhilarating. The ride to Jones Gap was more a test of our handling. The road is very twisted, but it was exciting to lean in and feel the G's. Overall it was a good ride, but I can only imagine how fun it will be to go for a group ride in nicer weather.
On a side note, I got to check my mileage for the first time. I rode for two weeks before I had to switch to the reserve tank. I put 233 city miles on it since I have to ride from the East side of Greenville to the West side, where I work. I only had to put 3.5 gallons in the 4.9 gallon capacity tank. That works out to around 67 mpg!! I was VERY glad to see that. Anyway, I'll keep this site up to date on future rides, but for most part I'll be just riding it back and forth to work.
These are our two cats: Sophie and Nixon. The names are a little different, I know. Sophie was the name Heather's grandmother suggested and it stuck right away. We went for about two weeks and still didn't have a name for her brother. During that time, it was big news that Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's man inside the Nixon administration who brought the Watergate scandal to public attention, had been unmasked after nearly 30 years of hiding his identity. Well, I wasn't going to name him Throat! Anyway, Sophie is the girl and Nixon is the boy (just to clear that up). Three photos are from the first day we got them. Thy are actually sitting in a little dish pan that we used for a litter box. They were so small when we got them. One picture is of Nixon on my shoulder. One is of them sleeping together. They never sleep together like that now. The last picture is of them now as full grown cats. Sophie is a little more full grown than Nixon, if you know what I mean (she's overweight for those of you who didn't know what I meant). 
This is the same pic as the one below, but I've manipulated it in Picasa. It is really cool software and it makes blogging so convenient! 
This is my new Kawasaki Ninja 250R. It is a commuter sportbike that gets approximately 75 miles per gallon!! I've been riding it around and having fun. I'll be using it as much as possible to ride back and forth to work. Both of my boss men have Honda Magna cruisers. The Ninja is used and has a few dings, but it is a 2002 and only had 850 miles on it when I got it. It also had a hole in the gas tank, but I fixed that yesterday. Overall it is a good bike that rides comfortably and will help buffer the cost of gas. 
