Matthew Supert

For the past couple of weeks at work, we have had a discussion ongoing about the greatest films of all time. Now, one of the best courses I ever took at college was a film course my very last semester at U of I. It was am amazing course that opened up my eyes to a whole bunch of films I had never seen or even heard of. What's more is that the university had an actual theater to use so all of the films were viewed in their original film format. It was an amazing experience. 

So back to our discussion at work, a few of us have set out to list our top ten list of films. After getting into the discussion a bit we decided to make a top ten films list and also a top ten movies list. We felt the films list was for the films that made technical or thematic impacts in film making or the industry, while movies are the sort of thing that may be wonderfully fun, but may not technically be a defining element in culture or the industry. Of course when you really sit down to think about it, limiting your list to just ten films is insanely difficult. So I also have listed my notables that didn't make my top ten, but certainly could have.

Top 10 Films

1. Blade Runner
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3. North By Northwest
4. Ghost in the Shell
5. The Lord of the Rings
6. The Godfather
7. Kagemusha
8. Once Upon A Time In The West
9. Metropolis (1927)
10. 12 Angry Men

Notable Films

• Unforgiven
• We Were Soldiers
• Rashomon
• Akira
• 2001 Space Odyssey
• Waltz With Bashir
• Bram Stoker's Dracula

Top 10 Movies

1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
2. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
3. Enter The Dragon
4. Dr. Strangelove
5. Tampopo
6. Space Balls
7. The Princess Bride
8. The Fifth Element
9. Evil Dead II
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas 

Notable Movies

• Meet Me In St. Louis
• The Little Mermaid
• Dark City
• Ong Bak
• Metropolis (2002)
• Young Guns
• Terminator 2

I have come to realize as a motorcycle owner that part of this experience is lusting after more and more motorcycles. It really is too bad that there isn't more opportunities to rent motorcycles for a day or two. I also of course feel I need a larger garage for all of these lusts. A two car garage just doesn't cut it unfortunately. 

All right, so here is my new list of wanted motorcycles. 

1. Ryca CS-1 (aka Suzuki Savage Conversion)
2. Ural (Orange!!!)
3. Harley Davidson XR1200 (best looking HD no one bought)
4. Royal Enfield Classic 350
5. 197X Honda GL 1000 Goldwing (Strip it down to cruiser)
6. Honda VFR400 (Love the ugly headlights)
7. Triumph Street Triple (2012 Purple)
8. Yamaha TW200 (Dat ass.....I mean tires)
9. Honda NC 700x (Ultimate Commuter)
10. KTM Duke 690

2013 is here!!!  So last year I had a whole bunch of goals from last year . Did I complete most of the ones I set out to do?  Let's find out and givet hem a quick review. Let's cross of what I think I succssfully accomplished. 

1. One Song a Month 
2. Learn about Buddhism 
3. Skydive
4. Finish furnishing house
5. Personalize office
6. Donate at least $100 a month to charity  
7. Learn to rock climb
8. Cross country ski
9. Be a better husband
10. Zen
11. Go on a date once a month with wife
12. Go see a musical  
13. Pickup model building again 
14. Goto a concert 
15. U of I football game 
16. Ride more motorcycle
17. Don't look back in anger 
18. Replace valves in other 2 toilets 
19. Build a workbench
20. Take more quiet time
21. Expand my musical repitoire
22. Be patient

OK......So not too bad. I missed some of the big items, but some of the smaller more interpersonal items I definitely accomplished. This year has been very busy though with Megan getting into the full groove with her new job. I think one thing Megan and I need to focus on this year is more personal time together. But I will save that to a post next week for my 2013 goals. 

So Guns………… So I was initially going to prepare a whole long discussion on the whole aftermath of the shooting, but instead of espousing a lot of text, I am just going to bullet point my thoughts.

• Children Died.
• It was horrible and I cried.
• Journalists interviewing the children are in poor taste.
• Journalists still have every right to do it.
• The parents need to say no.
• Let’s stop pretending journalists are some sort of bastion of integrity. Journalism has always been a slimy business in America.
• Your prayers aren’t doing shit to help anyone. Take real action.
• Don’t treat children like idiots. Talk to them and let them process this event. Don’t hide it from them.
• God and schools have nothing to do with anything.
• The gun was the mechanism, not the cause of this problem.
• Don’t erode civil liberties in the name of protection.  
• Mental Health is ONE OF the root problems.
• Assault rifles are not what the media is telling you they are, and they are not what you think they are.
• Stricter gun control does need to happen in this country.
• That said people should be able to own any gun they want for whatever reason they want.
• Self-defense for gun ownership is mostly bull shit in my opinion.No one I have ever known or talked to has known anyone who has ever been involved in an incident needing a gun for self-defense.
• Stop with the hyperbole.
• People are upset and want answers.
• Don’t let emotions rule your judgment.
• Sometimes there are no answers.
• Sometimes there is no solution.
• Sometimes there is nothing that could possibly have been done to prevent something.
• This is the real world and bad stuff happens all the time. Face it. Accept it. Learn from it. Grow from it.

About a week ago my wife bought me a GoPro for my birthday. So with some luck the weather was nice yesterday and I decided to ride my motorcycle up to my parent's house for breakfast to test it out. I tried the timelapse feature on the bike. I have to say I am impressed, ignoring the fact that my windshield on my bike is covered in bugs. I am sooooo stoked to use this thing next season on rides. 

So, despite my initial misgivings, my 30th birthday turned out to be pretty awesome.

Friday night was sushi with Megan and the Crystal Castles at the Congress theatre.

Saturday was dinner at Brauhaus for some kitsch and German food.

Sunday was the Hot Chocolate 5K.

Above is a picture of some gifts and other things from this weekend. Overall quite and good time.

So one of the first things that I have noticed since getting my R 1200R is that almost all of the bolts on the motorcycle are Torx screws. That means all of my metric tools that I own will not work and I unfortunatley need to pick up some torx tools. As with most motorcycles, the bike did come with a basic tool kit, but to be honest it is something to be desired. It just does not inspire confidence for something that I would want to rely on when broken on the side of the road. So over the past couple of weeks I have been doing some research to try to find some tool rolls or kits that I can add to my bike. Unfortunately the pickings do not seem to be all that good and one of the only pre-made kits i have found is from Cruz Tools. Now, the kit looks fine, but it is not exactly what i am looking for. 

So I have decided to build my own tool roll. A quick search online for what other people are using lead me to some nice R 1200GS links. These are of course not my bike, but the bikes are close enough that everything should work. Here are the links. 

http://www.r1200gs.info/misc/toolkit.html

http://micapeak.com/checklists/R12tools.html

I am going to use these for the basis to build my kit over the next couple of months. Now, I personally am going to be buying Craftsman tools. I know that Craftsman sort of gets some flak these days, but in my opinion they are still the best hand tools around. I just have no frame of reference online for a lot of the other "no-name" brands and I always read about problems when pieces break or don't fit right and strip a screw from cheap branded stuff. I'll pay a bit more for the Craftsman stuff, but it will last forever and I know it will work properly when I need it. The last thing I want to happen is to strip a screw head in the middle of nowhere when I really need my tools to work. The extra $20 now could save me a ton of headache later. 

So far I have picked up just an adjustable 3/8" rachet with an adjustable head and a torx head set T-15 through T-50. I believe I need a T-55 or T-60 as well, but this should probably get me through 80% of the bolts on my bike right now. 

Additional items that I need to pick up will be some allen wrenchs, and appropriately sized wrenches for stuff like the oil filter, etc. Now I have been reading online that some people have picked up some open/closed end wrenchs. I am curious if these are really needed or if I can get by with just getting some equivalent metric sockets. It could save me some space.

Anyways, I will see how this builds out.

So yesterday I was supposed to do another group ride up to C9Y in Iowa. Unfortunately that ride was canceled due to scheduling conflicts. I opted instead to do a long ride myself to checkout the Illinois River Road Scenic Byway. 

I knew from the outset that this was going to be a long ride, and it was. It was probably 500 miles. So instead of getting a nice start on Saturday morning, I ended up sleeping in until about 11:00 am. I didn'tget out the door until noon. I was determined to get his ride in so out I went. Overall I have to say the ride was just "so-so". There were nice bursts of some scenic areas, but I was surprised at how much of the road didn't follow the river and was just on farmland back roads. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice Peoria was by the river though. I want a nice little residential road up above the town on a ridge that offered a good photo. Now, I don't take a lot of photos on my rides, and I really should probably take more. You can see from the photo above however, that my photo obviously did not turn out. When I took the photo my phone said "processing" and I had thought it taken the picture. Clearly it looks like it took the photo after I lowered my camera down. Not a bad shot of the asphalt though, if I do say so myself. 

So as I was traveling down I made it to the southern most point in about four hours. Remember I left at noon, so that means that I wasn't going to get back until 8:00 that night. Yesterday's high temperature was about 53 degrees as well. So after getting lost a little bit I was trying to make a high tail back north to get on the highway before dark hit. Of course, to add to my woe, I got pulled over for speeding and received a ticket. 

Ultimately I did not get home until about 8:15 last night. I was freezing and tired and apparently I do not know how to take a photo. I did learn however that the seat on my new BMW is comfortable enough to go all day in. I road basically eight hours straight and did not have a sore butt.