{"id":7380,"date":"2018-03-27T23:44:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T23:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/?p=7380"},"modified":"2018-03-27T23:44:40","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T23:44:40","slug":"life-this-is-a-blog-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2018\/03\/27\/life-this-is-a-blog-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Life: This is a blog post"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:2225,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/adamjackson\\\/41014635182&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20190118033557\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/adamjackson\\\/41014635182\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-03 23:12:53&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-03 23:12:53&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Hello from damp and dreary WNC (Western North Carolina) for those of you out of the know. I\u2019m 2 hours or 80 miles northwest of Asheville and just 10 miles from the Tennessee border. I\u2019m here for a week with over 20 Quebecois folks that make up the most vivacious members of the BMW Motorcycle Club Quebec. Annually, 2 dozen of them leave snowy and below 0C Canada with their bikes on trailers and come here for 7 days of on and off-roading. I feel honored to have been invited along for the ride (literally)<\/p>\n<p>&lt;ah crap, there goes my carpal tunnel. Going to try a few different positions to get the pain to go away&gt;<\/p>\n<p>The only thing around me right now is a small squeaky ceiling fan and the whir from an old inefficient fridge compressor that comes on way too much for 55F ambient temperatures in this hunting camp lodge with satellite Internet and no cell service. We\u2019re up here riding and last night, I left the group for a solo evening in Asheville. I promised to be back in time this morning to ford a river with the group but emailed them at 7AM saying I wouldn\u2019t make it. After 5 days with them, I needed a day off. I\u2019m not anti-social but my social cup has become full and needed to be emptied. I took my time getting back here and arrived at 12:30 to unload and finally go to the grocery store since I\u2019ve been surviving on fig newtons since Saturday. I see an email an hour prior that they were having lunch in TN, an hour ride away. They likely had left by then so I replied that I\u2019d see them tonight and went to the store.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&lt;this extended arm position is helping&gt;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not that I didn\u2019t want to ride with them today but I needed a night alone. I went to a hotel alone, rode around asheville alone, dined alone at a restaurant called Home Grown and their fried catfish was truly sublime! Then I went to 3 breweries to rate beers alone and this morning, breakfast at Biscuit Head, Coffee at Ultra Coffee Bar and quick stop at Eurosport Asheville to discuss some suspension issues I was having with my bike..no charge and that was my only human contact in 24 hours. It was really amazing.<\/p>\n<p>After getting back from the store at 3:30, it\u2019s been 4 hours. No one is back from riding yet. I read through 120 blog posts via my RSS REEDER application, processed and uploaded photos, achieved Inbox Ten from 30 unread emails that mattered since Sunday..10 more to go that really require being back in the office a week from today. Unfortunately, this aging Late-2013 MacBook Pro can\u2019t handle the 4K footage from my video recordings and the dozen videos shot on iPhone aren\u2019t syncing up to iCloud Photos and for some reason Image Capture via USB no longer works so for some odd reason these days you have to wait to send your data to Apple via a device you have on you only to download it from apple with a device a foot away to import into Final Cut Pro to edit. Why Apple broke Image Capture iPhone to MacBook over USB is a complete mystery to me. it\u2019s a new world we live in..but it\u2019s no matter, this aging computer couldn\u2019t handle the video anyway. it\u2019d take a full 20 days to transcode the 3 days of footage I\u2019ve shot so far.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, here\u2019s a photo of me from yesterday;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View &#039;Me &amp; R1200GS @ Tail of The Dragon&#039; on Flickr.com\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adamjackson\/41014635182\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img  loading=\"lazy\"  decoding=\"async\"  style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"  src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"  alt=\"Me  R1200GS  Tail of The Dragon\"  width=\"500\"  height=\"333\"  border=\"0\"  class=\" pk-lazyload\"  data-pk-sizes=\"auto\"  data-pk-src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/866\/41014635182_914edee38f.jpg\" ><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The bike looks fantastic! I need to send this to AltRider. They asked if they could feature my bike and my riding story in an upcoming blog post. \u2026<\/p>\n<p>You know, that\u2019s the sort of stuff I used to share here, back when I had the physical ability to write out posts every single day and wasn\u2019t pre-occupied with living my life outside of this blog. I used to talk about things that may not happen but were exciting, like this partnership with AltRider. They\u2019re making great products. I tell them about that and they ask me for product feedback now. That\u2019s pretty cool! I wish more companies did that with really committed customers.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m definitely thankful to finally have this downtime. I\u2019m also in a sort of mood that 3 days of riding is good. I\u2019m ready to go home although I have 4 more days. The riding here\u2026it\u2019s not like a road-trip where every day is a different scenery. The mix of on and off road riding with a ton of windy roads, it\u2019s fun, challenging, a full body workout but I don\u2019t speak French and the scenery isn\u2019t changing. I\u2019m definitely one who likes to explore new foods, menus, places, photograph cool things and being stuck in one area for a week doesn\u2019t feel new and amazing after a few days. I need to be on the move and the fact that the only restaurant here in town serves carnival food, I\u2019m feeling like this isn\u2019t a vacation. The day in Asheville was certainly great. Maybe tomorrow if the rain holds off, I go deep into Tennessee for some culture that side of the border\u2026.unless the Canadians are doing river-crossings then sign me up!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a short Winter in my opinion. I worked extra hard at my day job, took up some new business opportunities that I\u2019ll talk about over the Summer..everything is moving so fast that I want to keep it all between me. But, I was happy to have received a small bonus this year and used it to pay off things I had bought for the house\u2026just because something is 0% for 24 months doesn\u2019t mean you pay it off at month 24 :P and with things like that, my personal metric of success \u201cMonthly Cost of Living Churn\u201d is reduced. This is something I established a year ago. What is the dollar value of living my life without any expenditures (hobbies, dining out, travel, clothes) month to month. A year ago, I realized that I could drop a lot of online services and bring that all in house. Self host Dropbox for example and a few other things. I also realized that lines of credit I opened when getting my home setup that were interest free were, if I lost my job, \u2018churn\u2019 in my opinion so I set to eliminate these ASAP starting with any line of credit with an interest rate attached to it starting higher interest first. I excluded my auto loan and mortgage for obvious reasons. I now just have a Best Buy card for which we bought an oven hood, fridge and a few other things with that will be paid off by August but every other credit account I had is now at $0 except my car loan, bike and solar panels all of which are an interest rate below inflation. I\u2019ll continue paying double on my motorcycle though to continue another thing I started about 3 years ago<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNever being underwater on anything you don\u2019t own outright\u201d. Motorcycles depreciate very fast. For the first 2 years of ownership, I have to make double payments on this bike to keep from getting underwater which is a situation where, again if I lose my job, I can liquidate the bike to pay the remaining of the loan without owing additional money to the bank. My car, is worth $34,000 and I owe $18K I\u2019m in a very good place. My bike is currently worth $18K which is a HUGE drop from the $24K it was worth in August when I bought it for which I paid $20,500 but I\u2019m still ahead of depreciation on it. I\u2019ll have to continue double payments for at least a couple of years to stay ahead of the curve considering I put 10K miles a year on it. The solar panels are a different story. 2% interest on a 10 year loan which is less than I ever paid in electricity to a power company and the solar panels have an added home value which the town assess me on BUT doesn\u2019t tax me on so they assess the panels at around $10K in increase value but I don\u2019t pay taxes on that added value due to a green energy program. I see this loan is a risk item if I\u2019m unemployed however it\u2019s just like a fixed electricity payment and one that wont\u2019 increase over 10 years as electricity prices go up per kilowatt.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I cut a check for $1,000 to Sears and $14,000 to a portion of the solar energy loan out of savings and I paid off a high interest card and am continuing to aggressively work toward financial independence from banks and such at least until I want to buy another car. Maybe this is TMI? I don\u2019t know but I find the personal pride here in getting finances under control (not that they were out of control but buying a home, a car, a bike and financing solar panels in a 24 month span was crazy but manageable from a budget standpoint but getting all of that paid off is work and needs to be done) so I am happy and proud to share these things with my readers (for which there are probably only 2 of you these days).<\/p>\n<p>&lt;\u2026ah, the Canadians are back from riding. I may have to cut things short\u2026&gt;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>I continue to make good progress on my planning for the Trans-Labrador trip this July, which is such a reminder that I am doing a terrible job of blogging. As I sit here thinking of the dozens of things I can talk about and remember that I haven\u2019t blogged in a more free-form way. Maybe once a day, I devote 10 minutes to sharing exactly what I\u2019m thinking and planning. It\u2019d make this blog more fluid, fun and exciting but then I\u2019d for sure have those comments of \u201cshit or get off the pot\u201d that showed up on my blog back in the day. All too common when I spent a lot of time talking about ideas but less time executing. It\u2019s shifted a bit lately for me and while professionally, this is good it does mean blog posts like this will inevitably posts like this get a few dozen page-views from Facebook for some reason. I have no idea who out there is sharing this post with Facebook or why. The really personal posts get shared there and my self-esteem tells me that these are \u2018haters\u2019 who enjoy making fun of me for opening up. It causes me to doubt the why when it come to this blog and go back into hermit mode for 6 months sharing \u2018link-posts\u2019 which do help you all understand where I am with reading and thoughts, it does paint a sort of photo around what I\u2019m interested in but doesn\u2019t really reveal anything personal that I\u2019m doing with my life.<\/p>\n<p>Oh well, my burden to bear or is it bare? I\u2019m not going to Google that to figure it out.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>The route for the trip is about 3700 miles. I start in Vermont and head North to Quebec City. From there, north until the road ends and starts going east all of the way to Goose-Bay. From there, south to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and it\u2019s 3 Ferries total until I\u2019m back in Portland Oregon for the ride home. Some local friends are doing an opposite 4 day trip only to PEI but I want to do the whole thing\u202614 days of on \/ off road\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I think it\u2019s going to be a fantastic time. I tested out some of the things I need for the trip this week, mostly technical things, storage, luggage, spare fuel mounts and other things. The fueling stations are 250 miles a part which is fine for my bike but it\u2019s good to be prepared in the event a place is out of gas. I have some dry luggage that was good to test and I\u2019m not set on the tires I\u2019m running now so it\u2019s good to confirm that with the off-roading we did this week. I also have new suspension coming for my weight and luggage that arrives next week.<\/p>\n<p>Lots of motorcycle events this Summer. Too many to list. I\u2019ll try to remember to put photos here as they come up.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>I think we\u2019ll call this one good for now. I\u2019m happy at what came of it and am happy to be able to share it all with you. Thank you for reading. This has been a blog post. Not proof-read though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello from damp and dreary WNC (Western North Carolina) for those of you out of the know. I\u2019m&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-03-27T23:44:46Z","apple_news_api_id":"6d750f44-bd1b-4859-b2f4-af78fa2be42a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-03-27T23:44:48Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AbXUPRL0bSFmy9K94-ivkKg","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-1V2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6869,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/05\/23\/life-stranded\/","url_meta":{"origin":7380,"position":0},"title":"Life: Stranded","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was my final day at work as I embark on my first trip to Belgium in 2 years. I\u2019ll have to return to work in a week but for today, I\u2019m free of emails and Skype and phone calls for a bit. It\u2019s going to be a nice trip.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8470,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2021\/03\/04\/my-car-my-2015-ford-escape-is-for-sale\/","url_meta":{"origin":7380,"position":1},"title":"My Car: My 2015 Ford Escape is For Sale","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This for sale ad is posted on a 3rd party site but for posterity, I\u2019m sharing it here for my readers. 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I realize the last few posts about the west coast would leave some of you to think I\u2019m going back to California or maybe even home to Florida. My sister is graduating from high school\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lake Mascoma","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/13521711444_2b7522a0fa_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/13521711444_2b7522a0fa_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/13521711444_2b7522a0fa_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":682,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/12\/08\/accomplishments-versus-life-expectancy\/","url_meta":{"origin":7380,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 Accomplishments versus Life Expectancy","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Side Note: As with all of my blog posts, they\u2019re written by a guy who is writing based on his experiences. This is why most advice and teachings are bullshit anyway because fact is still one guy\u2019s idea and is long as enough people believe him, it becomes \u201ctruth\u201d (think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Motivational&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Motivational","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/motivational\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Taken January 2007 at Macworld (Photo: Chuck of MacVoices)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/154\/358939029_327a7cd5cf.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3735,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/05\/14\/the-hitchhiker\/","url_meta":{"origin":7380,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 The Hitchhiker","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Sometimes, I see people walking on the road I take to work each day. Not the highway but the road with no markers, signs or road lines. It's a road that goes for a few miles before turning into a dirt road and it's the road that carries me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Motivational&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Motivational","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/motivational\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Long Road","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5024\/5746945207_34518f97af_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5024\/5746945207_34518f97af_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5024\/5746945207_34518f97af_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4038,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/03\/17\/life-simpler-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":7380,"position":5},"title":"Life: Simpler Times","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was great. I\u2019m trying not to make this one of those blog posts where I ramble on and on until I lose 80% of my readership. That happens far too often. I was with an old friend yesterday. Someone I\u2019ve known since 2004 \/ 2005 era back when I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}