hope this helps.
I've been playing around with the pictures on my site, and have found a way to keep each picture size under 200k without degrading the picture quality too terribly. I hope that this makes viewing the site easier for most of you. I've gone back and re-done most of the pictures back until May, not including the ones from the Redding trip (those are next; I just got bored with re-saving pictures!). Anyway, let me know if this is a Really Good Thing, or if you think the picture quality sucks now, or whatever. Thanks!

I had such an incredibly good time at the skills workshop on Saturday morning. I still can't believe how much I improved my mental outlook, if nothing else, in just two hours. When I got to the parking lot, I was still somewhat thinking that maybe my problem with U-turns etc. was the height of the bike, or maybe the handlebar position, or something else that would be fixable but would require major modifications. When I left the workshop, I knew that I could do all of it; I just needed to keep working on it a little bit. In fact, after the workshop, I went to lunch with some of the women, and afterwards, I had to do a U-turn to get back towards the freeway. Rather than freak out, I thought, "oh, this is just like the circles we just did," and if I didn't do the U-turn perfectly, it was at least halfway decent, and I didn't get an anxiety attack from it. So that's that. Very exciting! I ended up doing a write-up of the event for the Wind Dancers newsletter, so I'll post a link to it when the newletter is up on their website.

Here are the pictures I took at the skills practice, though. :)

A bunch of GoldWings line up for our first drill -- a tight S-curve cone weave.

The trike going through the S-curve drill.

A GoldWing going through the second drill -- going through those tennis balls as slow as possible.

Me in line for the second drill.

Me going through the second drill.

Bob shouting encouragement in the second drill.

Loitering around during the break.

Me during the break.

The riders at the workshop.

One of the coolest things about the workshop was meeting Stacey, who also has a SV650S (we had the two sportsbikes at the workshop). It turns out that she and her husband had lowered her SVS by cutting off part of the stock rear shock -- the shock is a large spring, and there's a vertical piece of metal, about 3" long, that comes down from the spring and bolts onto the dogbones at the bottom. Stacey and her husband trimmed that vertical piece of metal by about an inch and a half, and drilled a new bolt hole in the part that remained. She's also on a local SV mailing list with me, and we're getting a spare stock shock to cut down and swap with my shock, to see if I'd like the modification. If so, we'll trim my shock as well, which would solve my lowering problem, and for free. Sounds good to me!

So anyway, I'm so thrilled about the workshop. I actually spent some time in the Apple parking lot on Sunday practicing counterclockwise circles, and I managed to do a couple of U-turns without hyperventilating too terribly (there's one that give me a twitch of trouble, but I still maintain that it's just a tricky and narrow turn for anyone). That's so exciting! I'd been getting frustrated that there was something still as "basic" as a U-turn that was keeping me from enjoying riding, so it really means a lot to me that I'm starting to overcome that. Huzzah! Hopefully I can get some of the girls to go to a parking lot with me this weekend and practice some more circles (it's always easier -- and less boring! -- when there are other people around to chat with and shout encouragement).

[Note: Here's a link to my article for the newletter. added 9-22-01]