Ridelog: 2018-05-19


I have been delinquent in posting my rides this year. I haven't even tracked everything. I need to get better about that. Anyways, here is to making up on some of that. 


This was a quick ride up with a couple of friends to Wisconsin for lunch. Two of the riders in our group were doing the Tour of Honor ride challenge, which is a brilliant idea. Here is a description of what that is from their site: 

The Tour of Honor Motorcycle Ride is a great reason to hit the open road, honor our nation's heroes, and contribute to a few good charities. The event is a season-long, self-directed ride to memorials and monuments around the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii. Beginning April 1, visit as many sites as you want, with any route you choose. Finishers Certificates are awarded to those who visit any seven sites.

I wish I had found out about it sooner, but it is definitely something I will be signing up for next year. 

Sometimes it all goes to shit....and the DM just smiles

Last week we had what was arguably a great or a terrible D&D session, depending upon where you were sitting around the table. Our adventurers found their airship crashed and in disrepair in the middle of grasslands, just west of the city of Longsaddle. 

Having successfully defeating attacking pirates, our group discovered, while going through the wreckage of that airship (also crashed), twelve slaves who were chained in the lower hold, forced to power the airship with their labor. 

Our group decided to free the slaves, but they now had to deal with the additional mouths to feed and bodies to take care of. Weak from their tireless labor and malnourishment, the slaves were all but helpless. Our adventurers had also lost three of their eight crew members during their crash and their ship would take four days to repair it. 

That evening we had a new player joid our group to play and I slipped them in as one of the freed slaves. Our evening seemed to start off to a good start, until I decided to roll for a random encounter. In front of me was a d100 table that had a large number of random encounters that varied depending upon the terrain in which our party found itself. Most of the time when I roll from this table, the encounter is innocuous. Sometimes some bandits, sometimes a weather event, more often than not, nothing at all. This evening though I rolled a 66. Looking through my table and checking the  terrain for grasslands I found that the encounter was 1d4 frost giants. 

"Ohh," I thought to myself. "This should be interesting". I rolled the 1d4 and up comes a 3. Three frost giants then emerge from the edge of the woods. Seeing the two ships crash in the night and the explosion of the fire elemental, their interest is piqued.

My party freaks out!!! 

At first they think that the frost giants might not be threatening. After all, they worked with a frost giant called Harshnag only a few months earlier. Well, our party's assumption cost them dearly. When the giant's arrived, seeing the disrepair of the ship and the condition of our party, they ordered the adventurers to turn over all of their weapons, armor and valuables, which included three precious relics . This was all promptly thrown into a giant bag of holding. Our giants then turned and marched back into the forest, leaving our party with nothing, and 17 mouths to feed. 

One party member, who is rather reckless, decided to charge into the woods after the giants to track them. He promptly failed his wilderness saving throw and got lost. The rest of our group spent the remaining three days repairing their ship and limped back to the city of Yartar.

Beaten and with their heads down they found that two of the slaves whom they rescued were nobles and upon returning them our party was paid handsomely, which allowed them to at least re-equipment themselves a bit. Things once again turned sour however. Our party was invited to stay in one of the noble's house as a thank you. Our new companion however got into a fight with another party member in the guest house, blew out a window and had the party promptly thrown out of the house.   

Our other member (barbarian) who ran into the woods did thankfully have ten days of rations on him. He was able to stumbled to the city of Triboar and now needs to either work or find some way to get himself to Yartar. And that is where we left our party that evening. 

I came away rather amused with myself, quite pleased with how defeated the party was. My players? Well, they walked away rather upset, perhaps arguing to me that I shouldn't have gone with what the dice rolled from the random encounter table. The best part is that several members were not in attendance last Friday and they are going to show up this week and find that they have lost everything in the matter of a week, 

We'll just see how everything plays out. 


Music Listening: ALAC/Vinyl - Cigarettes After Sex - Cigarettes After Sex

https://cigarettesaftersex.bandcamp.com

Keeping in the theme of music, my latest jam comes from a random album from Amazon Music. Cigarettes After Sex is a sort of downtempo, ambient rock group? Yeah, I think so. I like to think that this is the perfect sound for a rainy day. It just so happened to be a rainy March afternoon in the office when I put this on and the mood could not have been more perfect. 


The album's opening song "K", immediately brings you into an almost dreamlike state. Is it possible to have a feeling of "happy" depression, because that is what I get when listening to this album. The guitar sounds share a lot in common with "Tycho", but where Tycho is pure pop bliss, Sex After Cigarettes is the immediate counter point. 

The album does get a bit "same" sounding throughout, but that melancholy vibe does satisfy. 

Music Listening: AAC - Diet Cig

I have been listening pretty hard to a band I just discovered called "Diet Cig". They are a alt-punk sort of duo that I heard about a couple of weeks ago. I actually found them completely randomly over at AV Club. While reading an unrelated article the video (below) of the Diet Cig video was posted at the bottom of the page. The song immediately caught my attention and then I found several more of their videos over on Youtube. 

You'll quickly find that they have been featured on everything from KEXP to NPR's Tiny Desk. The song "Harvard" is infectious and evokes and immediate sense of my years in high school. I dunno if it is the sound or what, but I am immediately taken back to summer of being seventeen and listening to Blink 182. I mean, damn, is this not a great summer jam right here? 

I immediately had to go and download everything they have. Go to their Bandcamp and download the music there. https://dietcig.bandcamp.com

All four of their EP's only total to about 38 minutes of music, but damn if it isn't a great 38 minutes. 

Synthstrom Audible Deluge: First Thoughts

I was lucky enough to strike a Synthstrom Audible Deluge a couple of weeks ago off of Reverb.com. The Deluge is a groove box, all in work music production workstation. Most of the music I create is with groove boxes. My E-MU Command Station and Korg EMX are also considered groove boxes. They have a sequencer combined with a synth engine that has multiple voices. 

Since the move in January I have been pairing down some of my gear. I sold off a number of pieces of gear and my core setup is now just the Command Station and EMX. Some consideration of those two have made me come to realize that I was able to accomplish just about all of the sounds and sequencing I needed with those. 

I also wanted to to begin building another music setup. If you recall, last fall I purchased the Novation Circuit and Mono Station. I found out that the Circuit was not a good fit for me, something which I go into detail about over on Youtube

I have had my eye on a Deluge for almost a year now. It is a boutique synth, so rather hard to come by and the initial shipment of units sold out quickly. 

The Deluge has flat out blown me away in these first two weeks, so much so that I am changing how I am putting together some of my music gear. It truly is a standalone groove box. The minimalist grid based interface is remarkably intuitive and there is no hard limit on the number of notes, the length of the sequences or the number of tracks it can produce. I have been often so frustrated with many other synths and their limitation of 64 steps in their sequencing. It also has a built in sequencer and two synthesis types. 

Now, the weakest link right now is probably the synthesis engine on the unit. It is pretty basic right now, but I hope that can be improved with some future software updates. One of the coolest things on the box though his that it is battery powered. It is also very small, about the length and width dimensions of a piece of paper. That means it is extremely portable. I can see myself taking this with me on planes or other long distance travel routes to get some music created on a pair of headphones. 

It is with that in mind that I really want to keep it as just a stand alone, portable box for creating on. 

My Command Station and EMX will continue to exist as they have much deeper sound palettes. The question though is what do I do with the Monostation? Do I keep it? Do I build a modular synth to go with it?   

The Decline of Harley-Davidson

If you have read the news in the motorcycling world lately you will have seen the headlines about the declining state of Harley-Davidson. Articles have been popping up everywhere for months about the company's poor financial outlook. There is a measure of angst going around as some people are using this as a measure of the health of motorcycling in the United States. It may be true that HD is the largest US seller of motorcycles, but their declining sales may not be a measure of motorcycling as it once used to me. 

The HD condition, as I will call it, it largely a product of their own making. I would not call myself a fan of HD, but I am not a hater either. I can respect the sort of "mechanical" nature of their motorcycles. I personally am not a huge fan of bikes with tons of gadgets on them, electronics, and all that. With the exception of their top of the line bikes, HD has remained true to that image. However, their image overall is precisely what I think their largest problem is. They have spent decades cultivating a cultural identity and biker image. Up until recently that has largely been a boon for them, creating a "fraternity" of sorts for motorcyclists to rally behind. With that fraternity though has also been the creation of a mentality that "you're one of us or you aren't". 

One of HD's (and motorcycling in the US') biggest problems is the age demographics of riders. HD riders are old, as are the riders across the country in general. Those individuals tend to be able to buy a $15000+ motorcycle, but in order for the industry to stay healthy you need to get younger riders into the market. 

The new batch of millennials coming into the market don't appear to embrace the current image that HD has cultivated. Many are turning to sports bikes or adventure touring bikes. Another large sector seeing a resurgence is the café racer, "hipster", city rider. Brands like Roland Sands, Icon, and others are tapping into a new style for younger riders. Just about every manufacturer from Kawasaki, to Yamaha, are now releasing "vintage" styled bikes that appeal to a younger crowd. 

Coupled with increased pressure from a "new" US brand in Indian Motorcycles, it makes you have to wonder how HD is going to respond and if HD can respond. The market now has more options and more sub-groupings of biking identity then it ever had before. No longer are biking communities split largely between sports bike riders and cruisers and with that growing division comes a smaller slice of the pie for HD.

They have spent such a long time cultivating the image that they have, I am not entirely sure they can attract a different audience with women, younger riders and a different demographic without alienating those individuals who have been with them for decades and spent tens of thousands of dollars with them. HD may finally find itself in a position where it has to cede its dominate market presence over the coming decade.

  

2018 International Motorcycle Show

This weekend was the IMS in Chicago. I go to this show almost every single year. This year I was terribly sick with a head cold, and I probably should not have gone, but I was looking forward to attending for weeks, so I had to go despite the sickness. Sorry, I was so out of it that I didn't get any photos of the show, but I'll try and post what I liked below. 


Royal Enfield Himalayan 

This was by far my most anticipated bike to see at the show. I have had a fascination with Royal Enfield long before I got my motorcycle license. The look of their bikes invokes something "classic" and despite the issues with the build quality, something about their "old fashioned", mechanical nature is appealing from a motorcycling perspective. Single engine, carb'd bikes on steel frames. 

The Himalayan has been discussed for a couple of years now. The Himalayan is a 400cc single cylinder adventure bike. Not quite a a dual sport and not quite a full on adventure bike. The ADV touring segment is huge at the moment and BMW arguably dominates this world. Their bikes also cost >$20,000 most of the time. The Himalayan comes in at $4500 list. 

What immediately made me think this could be a great bike is a memory from watching the "Long Way Round" documentary a few years ago. In that show Ewean McGregor and Charley Boorman took BMW's across Russia (and the world). At one point in their adventure their camera operator's bike broke down and he ended up getting a small motorcycle to use across the countryside. While the two BMW's got slogged down in the mud, this small, light and simple little bike took to the terrain effortlessly. 

A quote from Cycleworld summed up what I thought was perfect. 

"Where are the bikes that are perfect for once-a-week adventures, not once-in-a-lifetime ones?"

Sitting on it at the show immediately caught me. It felt great, and at $4500, almost comes in at an impulse buy (at least as far as motorcycles go).

Honda Goldwing

First off, I am not a Goldwing rider. Heck, I am not even a touring bike type of rider, but the new Goldwing has been getting rave reviews from every news outlet out there. It even has Apple CarPlay and airbags. Did it look good at the show? Sure, especially that brown color. You know who I saw standing around it though? A bunch of old guys. 

Not the type of bike for me. 


Kawasaki H2 SX Touring

Another bike I have heard a lot of good things about. The H2 SX looks to be an insane engine, packed into a sport tourer. The primary requirements for a my type of motorcycling is I want a machine that I can "load up" with luggage for touring and then also "strip down" for one day rides on twisty roads. I don't want to see luggage permanently grafted onto the bike, or tons of "stuff" that adds all sorts of weight. The HS SX would fit my criteria almost exactly, except for all of the plastic fairings. But, as you can see from the photo. It looks great "stripped down". 

When sitting on it, I liked how it felt, but I did feel like I was leaning forward a bit for 10+ hours of riding straight. I suppose I would like to actually test ride this one in the real world though. It is a sharp looking bike, but also comes in at about $23,000. Yikes. 


Other Things at the Show

I was in the market for some new boots, but I unfortunately didn't see much at the show this year. I'm not sure if the vendors didn't seem as prevalent or if it was because I was very sick, but I didn't see much boots for sale at all. Just patches and "Harley" leather.