welcome, kathleen!
Paul and Carla have a baby girl! Born yesterday at 12:15pm, Kathleen is 20 3/4" and 8.6 lbs. According to Paul, she "came into the world screaming like a cat fight". Sounds like she'll fit right in. ;)

• Began thinking about prescription sunglasses so that I can actually see while I'm riding.
• Looking at custom-fit earplugs that I could plug into the iPod. I like the idea, but am suspicious that ear buds will make my ears hurt after a full day of riding.
• Ordered a replacement battery for my digital camera, since the old one could take about five pictures before dying.
• Re$erved the hotel room at The Pre$cott Re$ort. The $malle$t room that they had i$ a King Deluxe, which mean$ that I gue$$ I'll be throwing the partie$. [The Prescott Resort's recorded "hold" message pronounced Prescott as "Preskit". It was a little disconcerting. It also claimed that the resort can make your wedding a "memorable and complete success", a phrase which somewhat frightens me.]

the final product.
I realized that I never actually linked to the picture of my bike with its pretty new chain.

Isn't that a nice pretty gold chain? Bling bling!

The other exciting thing about the maintenance this weekend was that one of the air vents on my helmet randomly fell off. Naturally, I was riding when this happened, so I had to order a new vent ($5/pair). Grumble. So now there's a stylish piece of duct tape over the hole in my helmet.

impending ride.
This Sunday is the Sport-Touring.Net ride up to Lake Berryessa, which was the site of the Zodiac Killer's fifth murder. Just a little bit of local color, there. Napa, of course, would rather you remember the lake's other fine qualities.

It'll be a fun ride. A bunch of us South Bay folk are meeting at a local Starbucks, and then are assumedly riding up to Concord to meet up with Ed, who's leading the ride. At my last count, we had me, Mark ("Sprintrider"; '01 Triumph Sprint ST), Steve ("Dogboy"; Kawasaki ZRX1200), Stefan (real name unknown, but guessable; '02 Honda VFR800), Stephen ("redcliffs"; '97 Honda VFR750), Tanya (I don't remember what she rides...), Ted ("Taliskar"; a new '02 Aprilia RSV Mille-R), hopefully Terry ("Grizzelda"; Yamaha FZR 600), Carl ("cws"; '01 Honda CBR600F4i), and Ed ("Goldylocks303"; '02 Yamaha YZF600R).

Here's the trip page for San Simeon, if you need a refresher about what happened the last time we all got together.

request.
Can anyone confirm/deny whether the Superhawk's bars are 7/8"? I'm too lazy to ride down to Peter's house and measure.