I’ve kept roughly the same book count as last year, mid thirties, while continuing my other reading. Every week C and I read the New York Time on the weekends, and Time and New Yorker magazines. I also read a half dozen monthly magazines, mostly motorcycle related, and the occasional magazine I pick up in an airport. And I spend too much time reading blogs and other web content. Mid summer I spent a lot of time reading the PMBOK® Guide to study for a project management certification, and lately I’ve been reading some ham radio manuals. I make all of this possible by hardly ever watching TV; at least four or five evenings a week are wholly spent reading.

Several months ago I bought myself a Kindle, mostly for the purpose of reading while traveling and while on airplanes where carrying multiple books (I’m usually reading three or four at any one time) is impractical. I previously had a Nook but was terribly disappointed with its slow performance and selection of books; the later Kindle has worked out quite well. But I always have to make the decision of whether to buy a physical copy or an electronic copy of a new book. My rule has evolved into buying an e-book for just plain ol’ reading, and physical copies for books I intend to read again later — or especially one that requires referencing or a lot of flipping back and forth or underlining. I had started one book (White’s History, below) in electronic form, and tried using the highlighting function, but after making just a few notes, and attempting to go back to check something previously read, I decided that this was a book that demanded a physical copy.

Since I’ve been lusting after an Apple iPad for the past couple of years my wonderful wife C bought me one for Christmas last week. And of course there’a a Kindle app I can use to read my Kindle books on this device. So while I still have the same rule for whether to buy an e-book or a p-book, I now have the additional decision of which device to carry with me. It’s undoubtedly going to be the iPad, as there’s lots of other things that it can do, and while the Kindle e-ink screen is a bit easier on the eyes I haven’t been bothered by the hundreds of pages that I’ve read on the iPad so far. So I may have an extra, unused Kindle gathering dust soon.

As was the case last year I’ve read a lot of Hitchens (RIP, Christopher; I will miss you), and I started the year by reading quite a bit of Neal Gaiman. A business trip to Florence and a visit to the Galileo Museum has inspired me to read some works by the great scientist as well as accounts of the conflict of church and science, and I’ve recently been reading some Waugh, which while I don’t read a lot of novels I’m greatly enjoying.

As far as my favourites for the year, I’ll select The Information by James Gleick, Arguably by Hitchens, History of the Warfare of Science and Theology by White, and finally two by Gaiman, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett and featuring the unforgettable image of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse now riding motorcycles) and American Gods (I know that Mr. Wednesday was supposed to be Scandinavian, but throughout the book I pictured him as Morgan Freeman).

And finally (drum roll, please) on to the list:

• Good Omens – Gaiman, Pratchett
• Packing for Mars – Roach
• American Gods – Gaiman
• Diary of Samuel Pepys (Modern Library Abridgement)
• Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self – Tomalin
• Anansi Boys – Gaiman
• Moby Dick – Melville
• Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch – Miller
• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy – Irvine
• Neverwhere – Gaiman
• Fragile Things – Gaiman
• The Information – Gleick
• Diary of Samuel Pepys (unabridged), vol.1 1660
• Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia – Korda
• The Infinities of Lists – Eco
• Guns, Germs, and Steel – Diamond
• The Friar and the Cipher – Goldstone
• The Quotable Hitchens – Hitchens
• The Color of Magic – Pratchett
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Twain
• Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide (5 novels) – Adams
• The Believing Brain – Shermer
• Mrs. Fry’s Diary – Fry
• This is Not the End of the Book – Eco, Carriere
• Driven to Distraction – Clarkson
• Arguably – Hitchens
• Moab is My Washpot – Fry
• History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom (vol 1) – White
• Scoop – Waugh
• Collected Writings of Galileo
• Jeeves Collection – Wodehouse
• Brideshead Revisited – Waugh
• Complete Stories – Waugh

Happy reading for 2012!!

Just off the top of my head:

• The Arab Spring revolts toppled a number of dictators, with more to come, and other revolts and protests occurred worldwide as ordinary people started to express their displeasure at the way things are going, whether politically or economically. In the weeks before Time magazine named their Person of the Year I had already decided that the protester should be so honored, and apparently the magazine’s editors agreed.
• In the United States the protests are centered around the increasing division between rich and poor. The Occupy Wall Street protesters are complaining about this inequality and the political power of the 1%. The deregulation of the banking industry, bought and paid for, allowed the banks to do whatever they pleased, privatizing profits while socializing risk. Yes, a certain amount of responsibility lies with people who borrowed more for housing than they could afford, but they were trusting the banks who were willing to give them the money.
• The partisan divide in Congress gets worse and worse. The far right has prevented any sort of progress in dealing with the nation’s problems, saying no to any action, especially anything that would raise taxes on the rich. Let the poor pay for it.
• I see a continued diminishing of our civil liberties. The over reactive Patriot Act following 9/11 has been renewed, and additional measures continue to be added that deprive citizens of due process.
• There’s been an unusually large number of natural disasters this year. There was an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and then there were a huge number of weather-related events that could be blamed on global warming: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts. I’m beginning to see cracks in the arguments of the deniers, though; where previously they denied that the earth is warming they are starting to accept the facts — but are continuing to question causation.
• I don’t know if other people are noticing, but I see an increase in the battle between religion and secularism in our country. Non believers are increasingly coming out of the closet and making their voices heard, demanding the constitutionally granted separation of church and state, with the churches now pushing back and demanding their “rights” — as if they haven’t been in control for the past couple of thousand years. I have no problem with people having their personal beliefs, but please leave me out of it. Don’t preach your beliefs in public – especially in our schools, and don’t codify your beliefs into laws that I have to obey. The courts seem to be doing a pretty good job of enforcing the Establishment Clause, but somebody has to bring suit for each instance, and there’s a awful lot of them.
• The race for the GOP presidential nomination, now entering its third year, is a circus. A field of a dozen or so has been whittled down to half that number, with the last few months being a game of Whack A Mole, one candidate popping up and topping the polls only to be quickly exposed as a clown. There’s only two or three viable candidates at this point, and the good citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire are given the right to make the decision of who we get to vote for ten months from now.

As I look through this list I see a common theme: extremes. Extreme left and right in politics, extreme rich and poor. Extreme weather. What we need is a bit more moderation, a bit more effort to understand one another, a bit more tolerance. But hasn’t that been the case for thousands of years? I read a lot of history, and, as the saying goes, “the more things change the more they stay the same”. The details may differ but the basic theme is the same.

For example: I’ve been reading the book History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom by Andrew White, co-founder and first president of Cornell University. He details the development of science over the centuries and how the Christian church has continually fought it, a prime example being the silencing of Galileo. The church’s position over two millennia has been first, that there is no need to study the earth and skies because the end of the world is coming soon so that knowledge will come to naught and we should be focusing on saving our souls instead; and second, that all knowledge and wisdom is found in the Bible, so there is no need for independent investigation and experimentation. Using multiple examples, White shows the stages that the church has gone through, from demonizing and silencing the discoverer of new science, fighting the science, explaining away then gradually accepting the proofs, and then finally adopting the science and claiming it as their own once the evidence is shown irrefutable.

White’s book, published in 1896, demonstrates to us how little things have changed. Here we are 115 years later, seeing the same battles between science and religion. Creationism is being taught in public schools under the name of “intelligent design”. Faced with overwhelming evidence supporting evolution, believers have gone from denial to co-opting the science and putting a theological stamp on it.

On a personal note, much has happened this year as well. I got married to C, and we turned a business trip I had to Florence, Italy into a bit of a mini honeymoon. I was traveling a lot for business during the late summer and into the fall, some times for three weeks straight. My son came to live with us for the summer, and we had all of our children with us for Christmas. We’re still feeling the effects of the poor economy; we both lost our jobs a few years ago and while I’ve been working the past two years it’s at a salary equivalent to where I was 20 years ago, plus we’re having to start over on retirement savings at age 50+. But we have a cozy little home and enough food to eat, so we’re fortunate.

I’m continuing with too many hobbies but am hindered by restrictions on money and space. As I’ve done every year my books-read tally is pretty good: this year only 32, but some of them were pretty big. I ride my motorcycles as often as I can, though I haven’t had the time or money for any long trips; I’m hoping to ride cross country next year. C and I rode our bicycles a bit more than the previous year: we found a bike path that we enjoy, though it requires loading the bikes in the truck and driving twenty minutes. And, in search of a cold-weather hobby that doesn’t take up much space in the house I dug my ham radios out of the basement and set them up again; a new antenna should get me on the air again.

All in all, it’s been a strange year. I really hope that 2012 settles down a bit.

I noted on Facebook a few weeks ago how it’s an echo chamber, citing an article on Salon. The internet has enabled people to be selective about the opinions that they hear. Previous generations could do this only by selecting which newspaper to subscribe to, assuming that they lived in a big enough city to have more than one paper. But now, with thousands of blogs and online news sources you can fine tune the news that you read to match exactly what you want to hear. I suppose that I’m guilty of this as well to some extent; I don’t go out of my way to listen to Fox News. Listening to opinions on either extreme may get my blood pressure up, but my biggest objection is to those who won’t consider other opinions. I enjoy having discussions with people who are equally willing to consider other viewpoints, but discussing politics or social issues with someone who won’t consider any other points of view is painful. “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Who said that? So having a Facebook comment, expressing a dissenting opinion, deleted was a bit sad. (And why does Facebook only have a Like button? Why not a Dislike button as well?)

So, back to my reply to my brother’s post. What I really wanted to say was “What Would Jesus Do?” That’s a popular mantra among Christians, particularly the conservative kind. But is it just a mantra or do they really ask themselves that when faced with moral decisions? I tend to think that it’s the former. In an article at HuffPo a few months ago a professor of Sociology asks “what’s the deal?”

“Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one’s money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation’s poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism,” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.”

I suppose that one of the many ways to get lynched in the South would be to have a bumper sticker that reads “How many guns would Jesus own?”

I’m not a big bumper sticker fan; I’ve only displayed one bumper sticker in my life, one supporting the Obama campaign, but I suppose that a bumper sticker that I should display would be the one that says “Good Without God”. How many times have you heard it implied or even directly stated that atheists have no morals, or are inherently evil, communists, or, gasp, homosexuals and perverts? Obviously if there’s no expectation of a heavenly reward or eternal punishment then a person will immediately become a follower of Satan. Why is that? Why couldn’t a person, on his or her own without other influence, decide to be good? I certainly don’t feel that I need to be told, once a week, how to live my life. I can choose to be good on my own. Being good is its own reward. If I contribute my little bit to making the world a better place to live then I have my reward. I feel that, imperfect as I am, that I am just as good a person as any believer. I do my best to be honest at all times, to be fair and decent towards others, obey applicable laws and contribute to society, and give to charity when I can. I pay all of my bills on time, and help my children financially when I am able. I haven’t killed anyone, robbed or stolen, raped or assaulted. (I did get a speeding ticket a couple years back, though.) I stand up for the rights of the less fortunate. And yet I don’t believe in an eternal reward or punishment and I haven’t been to church in nearly twenty years. How is that possible?

Update 14 Nov: Here’s a great comic on picking and choosing your beliefs.

Civil rights? Yes. This is about the equal rights of a group of individuals living in our society. I see absolutely no difference between gays as a group and racial minorities as a group. Both groups have been and continue to be discriminated against. Laws protecting the civil rights of minority races were passed over decades in the late 20^th century, though true acceptance of racial minorities as equals in our society still has a ways to go.

Laws protecting the civil rights of persons of minority sexual orientation are in progress, state by state, but I expect that even after the entire country is covered in such equality laws, whether after state-by-state victories or by federal mandate, total social acceptance may still take a while. On the other hand, I see signs that this movement will be speedier than the movement for racial equality: if you count the start of the racial civil rights movement with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in the 1860’s, that’s been a long time. The Stonewall riots were 42 years ago.

I have high hopes for a younger generation who are more accepting of others and quicker to embrace change. An interesting note: a Republican NY senator asked his constituents for input on his vote (what a concept!!) and while snail mail and telephone responses were negative, email and Twitter responses were positive. Those who embrace new technology are, at least in this instance, more likely to embrace change and favour equality.

But who is not accepting of this change? The religious right, of course. The people who are stuck in a previous century – perhaps the last one, or the one before that, or perhaps two millennia ago when the myths they use for guidance were written. The only prohibition in the Bible to homosexual relations is included in the same guidance on day-to-day living for a wandering desert tribe such as prohibitions against eating shellfish, mixing fabrics, and mingling with menstrual women, while at the same time allowing slavery, treating wives and children as property, and stoning of unmarried daughters who get pregnant. The shrimp-eating, polyester-wearing right are happy to pick and choose which of these rules they want to apply to us 2500 years later. If they want to continue to follow the Old Testament, they should do so, but in its entirety: they should move to the middle eastern desert, live in tents, raise goats, and sell their daughters… but for those of us who want to live in the 21st century, please leave us alone.

I find it interesting that the most vocal opponent to the New York state law was the Catholic Archbishop, who wanted to lecture us all on the violation of natural law. Really? A representative of the world leader in protecting pedophiles lecturing us on what is right and wrong? If there was ever a more hypocritical stance I haven’t seen it. The Catholic hierarchy can’t even seem to follow their own scripture when it comes to the treatment of children (see Matt 18:6), and have most certainly forgotten the highest rule of all, to love one another (John 13:34-35, and many others).

And besides, aren’t we supposed to have separation of church and state in our country? Churches are happy to claim their protection against government regulation, but don’t see it as a two-way street. If a member of one of those churches wants to believe certain things I have no problem with that (as strange as some of those beliefs may seem). But those beliefs should not be imposed on others. It is not government’s job to enforce religious beliefs. If the only opposition to gay marriage is based on religious principles (and I have seen no other objections), and we are supposed to have separation of church and state, then there should be no objections. None. If a church doesn’t want to perform gay marriages, so be it, but do not prevent gay marriages from occurring outside of the church.

The negative comments I read on various news sites this morning are interesting but sad. Many are from people who seem to require something in their lives to hate and to rail against. People who cannot accept others for who and what they are. They write hate-filled expletives against people they do not know nor want to get to know. They make arguments without any backing or reason besides hate. They do not even understand their book of scripture upon which they think they’re basing their arguments.

It’s sad, really, that some people won’t take a minute to stop, think, reason, and figure out why they see things the way they do, why they don’t question what they’ve been told and start trying to think for themselves.

Why do I support gay marriage? Because I have the ability to be married myself to someone that I love, and I don’t see why I should have that right while others do not. I see no reason why gays should have fewer rights in our society. No reason at all.

[Update 4 July 2011] At least there’s one Christian minister who seems to think that “All are God’s Children”: Bishop Tutu.

… just a couple of days after the shootings in Tucson.

As reported in the NYTimes, the Tucson gun show was held as scheduled, but with a moment of silence for the victims. The NRA gave their condolences as well. But nobody thought to ask whether this might be a good opportunity to assess what went wrong — other than blaming this all on a mental health issue. Instead, the usual mantra was repeated over and over: Guns don’t kill people; people do.

Such a clever slogan. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?

But let’s think about it: people can kill other people an awful lot more efficiently when they have a gun in their hand. Guns make killers more efficient.

Without a gun, someone intent on killing, whether mentally competent or not, would probably have relied on a knife or a stick.  They wouldn’t have been able to harm more than a person or two before they were brought down by a bystander. But the Tucson shooter was able to kill six people and wound a dozen or so more in just a minute or so. He had a Glock with a 30-round clip. That’s 30 shots that he can get off before having to stop to reload. Of all the reasons that gun fans cite to justify their owning weapons — personal protection, sport, etc — not one justifies a weapon with the capability to get off so many shots in a short amount of time.

Further, if everyone was armed, as the NRA would like to see, then, the theory goes, someone in the crowd would have shot the shooter. Assumedly, this being Arizona where gun laws are pretty lax, someone in the crowd should have been armed. But what brought the gunman down? Somebody wielding a folding chair.

It wasn’t long after the shootings, just minutes, in fact, before fingers began pointing. The first blog post I read after the shooting included the now infamous Sarah Palin crosshairs graphic, with a reminder of her “reload” rhetoric. Others pointed to Glen Beck’s “take back our country” talk that stops just (barely) short of calling for armed revolt. The conservatives counterattacked quickly, preemptively accusing the left wing of using the shootings for political purposes. Then the President made a plea for more civil discourse in political discussion — which I’m sure that everyone will agree with, at least for a few weeks.

Within a couple of days, as more was learned about the shooter fingers were pointed at the college from which he was expelled for not having recognized and treated his mental health issues. Questions were and continue to be asked about how someone, obviously (in hindsight) deranged, had slipped through the cracks, was left untreated, and was allowed to purchase a handgun.

So, was it lax gun control, extreme political rhetoric, or a poor system of mental health identification and care? It’s all of the above, in my opinion. All need fixing. Fingers usually tend to point away from oneself; it’s time for certain parties to start accepting some of the blame and stepping back to see what needs to change.

Needless to say, I didn’t stay up ’til midnight on New Year’s Eve to watch the ball drop.

I earned my first Iron Butt Association certificate, 1000 miles in 24 hours, about five years ago. I’ve since ridden a few other rides of that length, but have never managed the next one up, the dreaded 1500 miles in 24 hours.

I’ve made lots of plans over the years to do this but obviously things always fell through — life gets in the way, you know. This year I promised myself that I’d do it, but throughout the year life kept getting in the way, again and again. Finally a month ago, with the continued warm weather here in the Philadelphia area I realized that the winter holiday break would be an ideal time to do the ride; I’ve got a week and a half off from work (my company has a “use it or lose it” vacation hours policy), so I’d have the time and be well rested. But would the weather hold up?

Obviously a southern route would be appropriate for this time of year. I initially planned a circular route starting in the west Philly suburbs where I live across the Penn Pike to Harrisburg, then south on I-81 to Chattanooga, then to Atlanta before turning north and back home via I-85 and I-95. That would give me 1600+ miles — an adequate margin of error that I could complete in just over 24 hours. But after driving the 95/85 route during the Turkey Day holiday to visit family in North Carolina I decided that wouldn’t be a great idea; just too much traffic though the DC area. But if I did out-and-back to Chattanooga, or more specifically a point just south of there across the Georgia border, I’d have 1514 miles. Close enough to the 1500 mile requirement, but no room for error. I checked on three different online maps just to make sure I got the mileage right; they all said the same thing.

I didn’t make the final decision to go until a couple days ago. The east coast Christmas blizzard, which the press was calling “Snowmageddon”, initially canceled my plans, but after the storm pulled out I saw that the snow had hit mostly along the coast, while my route would be inland, and as long as the roads were clear and the temperatures okay then I was set. The forecast looked good.

So on the day before New Year’s Eve I hit the road right after an early lunch. I had just barely started when I hit a problem: the gas station receipt used to certify the start of the ride had the wrong time; their clock was a half hour early. That meant that I would absolutely have to return to this same station on my return so I could compare start and end times. (But what if they fixed their clock in the meantime?) This shouldn’t be a problem, really, but just another restriction, and I had wanted to keep things as simple as possible.

Next problem: I hate I-81. Oh, the road itself is fine, it’s just the traffic on this mostly two-lane highway. Specifically the trucks. Way too many. And the huge number of cars with Florida plates slowly driven by, well, older people. In the left lane. And the trucks in the left lane. Taking forever to pass. And the numerous other members of the Left Lane Owners Club (LLOC). In the left lane. Refusing to budge. So, as the saying goes: “adopt, adapt, and improve” and start aggressively passing in the right lane where there are fewer vehicles.

I lost probably an hour to the traffic. Despite my keeping my every-200-miles gas stops short and quick, and with only one short meal stop, I didn’t arrive at my turnaround point just across the Georgia border until an hour after originally planned. There wasn’t any time to celebrate, and I look pretty stupid doing the happy dance anyway, so I just climbed on the bike and headed back north.

It had gotten dark at about 5:00pm, only halfway down Virginia, and it was now past eleven. And getting cold. In Tennessee the temperature wasn’t too bad; the overnight high in the mid 30′s was the same as the daily high elsewhere, and with wearing multiple layers including an electrically heated Gerbing jacket, and my R1150RT’s heated grips I was quite comfortable — so far. But once I started heading north I started to get cold. Lesson learned: next time get electric socks. My toes were starting to complain badly.

The ride was going smoothly. Past midnight the traffic started dying down, so I was able to increase speed to make up for some lost time. But the further north I went the colder I got. While the Gerbing jacket was previously capable of keeping me warm it was now starting to lag. Was something wrong with it? But when lifting my visor to push my glasses up I realized: It’s pretty damn cold out there! And it was getting worse. The temperature was in the high 20′s, but the wind chill was at a brisk highway speed. I was far from thinking about quitting, but I needed to keep an eye (or toes) on the situation; without enough heat I could be in trouble. I’ve experienced hypothermia before and know the signs, so promised myself that once I started shivering I was going to quit. It never got that bad, but was quite uncomfortable.

Late in the night, or rather early in the morning, the Mountain Dew from the previous gas stop was wearing off, and I needed the sunlight to keep me awake. I was thinking that the sun would come up by 6:30 or so, but it didn’t happen until almost 7:30 when I hit the northern border of Virginia. But here’s an alternative to caffeine to consider: adrenaline. Specifically, the adrenaline that results from a trucker very nearing running you off the road by swerving into your lane without signaling to pass another vehicle. You can bet that he got the finger — and I was now fully awake.

The last few hours were just endurance. The ride was pretty uneventful; just a lot of miles. Throughout the night with the traffic thinned out I could make good time. I just needed to survive the cold, the boredom, and the aching shoulders, neck, elbows, and the cramped right hand.

But I made it home, safe and sound. I finished the ride of over 1500 miles in 22.5 hours including stopping for gas, food, and restrooms. I can check it off my list and have something to brag about when I go back to work on Monday. I’ve earned a certificate from the Iron Butt Association, the everlasting admiration of all of my fans, and questions about my sanity from my detractors — you know who you are.

Christmas itself as a celebrated, public, and Christian holiday doesn’t really go back very far — just to Victorian times, really. Of course Christians have observed the anniversary of their god’s birth in human form before then, but as a public celebration and holiday it’s not very old. And of all of the aspects of the pubic celebration that we have today — the tree, holly, yule log, egg nog, Santa Claus with elves and reindeer — only the nativity scene, really, is Christian. Everything else was co-opted by the Christian missionaries from the northern European pagans they were trying to convert. The winter solstice celebration is common to nearly all cultures, worldwide, but with different names. However it came about, people celebrate this time of year for different reasons and in different ways.

However you prefer to celebrate I send to you my appropriate best wishes. Whether you are the “keep Christ in Christmas” type or prefer “keep the Druids in the winter solstice celebration”, whether you go with the more modern pop culture Festivus (… for the rest of us) or prefer to just blow the whole thing off all together, I wish you the best of whatever it is that you want to celebrate. Remember your families and loved ones, remember to be decent towards your fellow humans (and animals), and strive to make the world a little bit better for everyone.

But then there are inevitably a few warm days in the middle of the winter that would be perfect for riding, but I don’t want to get the bike out because I’d have to re-do all of the winterizing again. So a few winters ago I decided that instead of winterizing the bike I would treat it as if I were riding regularly. A regularly ridden bike doesn’t need to be prepped for storage, as a warm engine burns off any accumulated moisture, the battery is charged, and aging gas is used up. Admittedly those sunny riding days are few and far between during the winter, so when I can’t ride I go out to the garage and run the engine for twenty minutes every week or so. That’s probably not a perfect solution, but certainly better than letting the bike sit.

The better solution, of course, is to ride the bike. Admittedly this is a bit foolish when there’s snow or ice on the road, but for how many days during the winter is this actually the case?

An issue, of course, is the salt and sand that are spread on the roads for every storm. These can be incredibly dangerous in corners, so in addition to waiting for snow and ice to melt I also have to wait a few days longer for the salt and sand to clear. And just like with a car the salt is bad for the bike, so after a longish ride where salt has accumulated on the bike a trip to the car wash is in order.

The biggest obstacle, for some people at least, is the cold.

Here’s where a little preparation solves the problem. My bike, a BMW R1150RT, has good wind protection and heated grips. I know of some riders who have added a heated seat as well. I have an electrically heated jacket liner that does a great job, but some cold-blooded people might also want the electric pants, gloves, and socks that are available. A couple layers of clothing under my riding pants, some thick socks under my boots, and some layers (including the electric) under my jacket and I’m good to go. My head never gets cold – have you noticed that the Styrofoam liner in a helmet makes it insulated just like an ice chest? – but a scarf is a good idea when it gets below freezing. I’m pretty warm blooded, though, so don’t need to bundle up much in the cold.

I’ve ridden in temperatures as low as 20 degrees F, and was perfectly comfortable other than feeling a bit immobilized by the Michelin Man worthy layers. I suppose that I could go colder than that; perhaps I’ll give it a try this winter just to say so.

Update [2 January 2011]: I forgot to mention some amusing incidents from previous years:

I went out to the garage to run the motorcycle like I do every week or so. After running them for a few minutes I noticed a bunch of acorns on the floor that I hadn’t noticed before, so swept them outside. Then a couple minutes there were a few more. WTF!? Am I senile already? So I kicked those out the door too. Then I happened to be looking back as I revved up the BMW, and saw a shower of acorns flying through the air. Mice had filled the muffler with acorns!

Something similar had happened the year before when I had a bunch of dried corn stored in the garage to supplement the wood pellets in the pellet stove. When I took the bike in for service in the spring the mechanic told me that the airbox was filled with corn. Mice hoard winter food by hiding it in crevices and other tiny dark places, and the motorcycle had a bunch of places perfect for hiding winter supplies.

And finally, later in the spring when firing up the bike a mama mouse, with three or four babies hanging from her teats, dropped out of the bike and scurried off. The bike is just full of hiding places!

I should refer, of course, to Art Gunfunkel of “Simon and…” fame who has been doing this for over 40 years, and has published his list on the web. His list is impressive mostly because he’s been keeping his list for so long, but the breadth of his reading is pretty impressive as well.

If I had kept every book that I’d ever read (I don’t borrow from libraries; I buy them) they’d be stacked everywhere. Instead, every few years I thin them down. When I moved to Ithaca a few years ago I immediately dropped off a couple hundred at the local book sale, which led to my volunteering at the sale for the five years I lived there. Every time I move I dread boxing up the books, carrying the heavy boxes, and reshelving later, but it seems that more often than not shortly after I get rid of a book I’m looking for it again; there’s more than a few books that I’ve bought multiple copies of because of this. I haven’t counted lately, but I think that I have somewhere over a thousand books on my shelves.

Some years I read more than others, but generally when I’ve made these lists there’s been around 40 to 50 books for the year. This has been going on for a very long time; I remember that in sixth grade I won a reading contest sponsored by the school librarian by reading something like 350 books during the school year. Of course those books were a bit thinner than the ones I read now, but reading two books a day for the entire school year is pretty good.

Every once in a while I get into reading fiction for a while, but most of the books in my library are non fiction. I read a lot of history, some literature, science, travel, essays and biographies. It’s fun to see, on these annual lists, what topics were interesting to me during the year. This year, I think, I’ve overdosed on humanism/skepticism. Next year it will turn into something else. We’ll just have to see how it develops.

So, roughly in the order of reading, here’s my list for 2010:

• Death from the Skies: The Science Behind the End of the World — Plait
• Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed — Plait
• Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare — Shapiro
• Moon Fire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11 — Mailer
• Labels — Waugh
• Fad and Fallacies in the Name of Science — Gardner
• Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World — Fraunfelder
• On Writing — Borges
• On Mysticism — Borges
• On Argentina — Borges
• Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe — Epstein
• Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World — Cahill
• Complete Sherlock Holmes (2 Vol) — Doyle
• The Demon-Haunted World — Sagan
• The Varieties of Scientific Experience — Sagan
• Remote People — Waugh
• The Odyssey — Homer, trans. Fagles (Note: As my favourite book I tend to read this every year in one or another translation)
• The Imperfectionists — Rachman
• Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory — Macintyre
• Bluebeard — Vonnegut
• Hocus Pocus — Vonnegut
• The Lost Books of the Odyssey — Mason
• God is Not Great — Hitchens
• Breaking the Spell — Dennett
• Ninety-Two Days — Waugh
• Hitch 22 — Hitchens
• Love, Poverty, and War — Hitchens
• When You Were Engulfed in Flames — Sedaris
• Thomas Jefferson — Hitchens
• God: The Failed Hypothesis — Stenger
• Galapagos — Vonnegut
• God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater — Vonnegut
• The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas — Harvie, Meyers
• The Greatest Show on Earth — Dawkins
• The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non Believer — Hitchens

Then, of course, I also read Time magazine and the New Yorker every week, and a couple of motorcycle magazines every month. The New York Times whenever C. buys a copy. Magazines on airplanes. Papers and journal articles for my job. Plus of course the books I started but got bored with  and set aside, or will have to take a bit more time to complete. That’s a lot of reading for the year.

But why shouldn’t a company choose whether or not to do business with a another company? If the company decides that they don’t want to participate in or cooperate with a particular activity, for whatever reason, they have a right to end the relationship. That’s their right. Some of these companies have quoted various company policies related to illegal activities or unauthorized use of content, etc. but in the end it’s a simple business decision: they don’t want to support a particular activity by providing it with business services.

And for this the hackers are upset. “How dare they not support an activity that I feel strongly about. I’m going to retaliate.” Taking down a company’s web site is pretty much the equivalent, as one person quoted in an CNN article suggests, of protesting in front of a business building not allowing employees to enter.

It’s a bit arrogant to suggest that every business must do things *my way* and support *my* favorite activity. But to do it anonymously while all the while proclaiming that you want “freedom of any and all information” is the height of hypocrisy. As quoted in CNN:

Anonymous Operations members told CNN Thursday their goal was “freedom of information. Any and all information.”

This should win the prize for quote of the year. Can you see what’s wrong here?

[Update: Apparently xkcd agrees with me.]