Ryan J. Allen » nascar

Family Reunion and Windshield Performance

Ryan J. Allen — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:53:08 +0000

I was in Kingston this long weekend for a family reunion. It was fun, and nice to see many family members I hadn’t seen in a while all in one place. It was organized by my aunt and she did a great job of keeping it entertaining. There were a few moments where I thought “can he/she say that?”, but in the end I figured it was all fine since we’re all family.

I organized a few of “my” generation to have breakfast one morning. It was nice. I hope we can do it again. I wanted something a step-up from greasy-spoon but not quite top-tier so I decided on Windmills, which fit the bill perfectly.

The ride to and from Kingston was the first long-distance ride with the windshield. It performed well. I removed the windshield for my time in Kingston but re-installed it for the ride home. On the ride home I decided to try 401+416. The windshield made the ride so comfortable that I rode at highway speeds and exhausted my primary fuel before I reached Ottawa. It wasn’t that much faster than if I had taken highway 10 or 15 but I did it not for time savings but rather so that I would be familiar with the windshield’s performance for the same ride that I would do in two weeks.

In two weeks (well, one week now) I will be riding down to Watkins Glen for the NASCAR race. AdamJ and I are going and I am pretty, pretty, pretty excited. I can’t help but think that Adam is more excited, though!

The week following will be a trip, hopefully by motorcycle, to Toronto. I can’t help but think it’s time for a new bike with a few of these longer rides. To be honest, when I took the windshield and bags off of my motorcycle on Wednesday morning my bike felt small. I have been on the lookout for what I might want next but haven’t come to any conclusions.

Man Up

Ryan J. Allen — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:11:20 +0000

I was talking to someone within the past year who was surprised to learn about the term “man up”. I may be wrong, but I believe the validity of the phrase was doubted, regardless of how agreeable its use is. Today I happened to be reading an article on NASCAR.com when I came across an article about workingfor Kyle Busch; the title of the article includes the action to “man up”.

The Collection

Ryan J. Allen — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:34:01 +0000

Inexplicably, I am feeling very tired this morning.

Completely explicably, I have nothing for breakfast and I have to drive to work this morning (versus taking the tram). I have something like 6 Euros in my wallet and my tram pass has expired. Said pass is €44.50 monthly for the “zwei waben” pass that I buy.

Tomorrow I am travelling to München so I will delay buying said pass until Wednesday. It’s a there-and-back trip tomorrow, which should be exhausting and will mean for an early morning start.

It is exciting to me to think that perhaps by the time my next tram pass expires I may be able to comfortably bicycle to work. Certainly I will be approaching the time when I would get the motorcycle out were I in Canada.

I watched the Daytona 500 last night and it was awesome. Jeff Gordon’s car had a camber issue which prevented him from taking the win, but it didn’t stop him from trying. Kenseth won; good for him.

Each work day I look forward to my friends joining me online at approximately 3 p.m. local time as they start arriving to work. Today is Family Day in Ontario, which should affect that schedule, and their continued availability. I am sure I will get through the day just fine, though it is truly something for me to look forward to.

I am quite pleased still to have the debts from my Canadian visit taken care of, though I am slightly anxious about the costs that I have already incurred for the upcoming European tour with Katy. Even though the costs are extremely reasonable. For about $265 I have: a flight to London, high-speed train to Paris, high-speed train to Karlsruhe, and 2.5 nights in a hostel(!) paid for. In all, I think this is quite amazing but the slight anxiety I have about it is evidence as to why I don’t travel much.

I watched 3.5 movies this weekend and will likely finish the .5 (Choke) tonight. The three I completed included a funny-enough comedy that turned into a bit of a love-story that may or may not have had a very sweet ending.

I attended a Wii party this weekend where I sang along to some Rock Band songs. I scored 100% singing Blink 182′s “All the Small Things” because of my natural talents. Attendees included both a goth and a ginger amongst the rest of us normals.

I ate some “frikadellen” this weekend.

“Say it ain’t so, I will not go, turn the lights off, carry me home.”