From one 2 stroke to the next
Jun 29th
If you haven’t really talked to me in the past couple days, you probably won’t know that I’ve turned a new page in my competitive whatever you wanna call it. I’ve decided that it’s time to get my head into racing mr. KTM 300. The little GasGas has gone to help fund a few goodies for the KTM, and will help offset some of the traveling costs, fresh tires, and things of that nature. But anywho, I am feeling it is time that I check out these Enduro type races. I know that there has been everyone and their brother who has probably raced one, but, well I haven’t. HA. I figure the KTM is a perfect lil scoot for the job.
Right now I’m a little unsure of where else to go with my thoughts on this one, but what yah gonna do? I’ll also be competing in some Harescrambles along the way with good ol Jam0. Looking forward to just being out at events again this year!
Andrew
ps…not sure why I chose this picture, cause I’m on Jamo’s 540 and not my 300. I knew something looked weird. haha
Wedding May 29th 2010
Jun 27th
Howdy everyone! The dust is finally settling after the wedding of grandeur this past May. Well I’m here to let everyone know that we have gotten all the pictures in. Between my brother Josh, our good friend Jay, and the photographer John Wagner, we have quite the slew of incredible photos. Well I’m posting here to share them with everyone.
First of all we have pictures from the photographer. They are on a site called SmugMug. You can follow this link to get to the wedding photos. Wedding Photo Link. There is a whole slew of pictures from the reception, ceremony, and all that good stuff. If you are looking to order up prints of pictures off of the SmugMug pictures and aren’t quite sure how, follow this link: How to Buy Prints off SmugMug.
Next up we have the pics that Josh took. Keep in mind that he took these on some of that weird stuff called Film. They look awesome. You can find the pictures here Josh Gores Flickr Pictures. I’m not sure what the scoop is on ordering anything from there, but at least you can check them out.
Last but not least, we have the pictures from Mr. Jay Jenison. Jay has some great pictures at his Flickr account as well. Check them out at Jay Jenisons Flickr Pictures. Again, I’m not 100% what the scoop is on ordering any prints from that site, so I’ll check into it.
So thats kind of it for the pictures for right now. There are oodles of them for everyone to enjoy. If anyone has any questions, feel free to email me or Kim and we’d be more than happy to assist. Thanks again to everyone who made our wedding possible. It was amazing!
Thanks,
Andrew & Kim
Forest Island Trails
Jun 22nd
Just creating a quick post here for anyone interested in the Forest Island Trails just over the UP border in Michigan. I don’t have detailed images, but I’ve got an image, and some gpx file….so that should do the trick if someone wants to eye it up. Enjoy
Forest Island GPX (Right Click and Save As)
I apologize for the tracks not being completely complete. I’ll work on sorting that out the next time I’m up there. Enjoy!
Andrew
Brain relief
Apr 6th
My brains been filled as of late with rehabing the house I just bought and my ever fast approaching wedding (6 month engagement goes by mighty quick ). I felt a little ride tonight was in order to clear my head. Had dinner with my family for my grandpa’s 70something birthday and off I went. Not much, but enough to clear the head a bit, and a definite relief from the more intense off-roading I’ve been doing as of late. All I got to show though is really 1 pic. Just off Rte 50 in Lake Geneva, WI. My little getaway spot. Sitting on the benches feeling the lake breeze roll in is good therapy.
Andrew
Uuhhh like 92 days to go
Feb 23rd
Ok, so Kim and I have around 92 days before the wedding to go. I think I’ve got a list a mile long to get done. I should really buckle down as the next 3 months are going to be more hectic than I can shake a stick at (does that make sense?). Anyways, here’s a quick rundown of my “need to get it freaking done” list:
Groomsman Tux Fitted.
Pick out shoes for tuxes.
Finalize song choice with Jay.
Finalize song choices for Church and Reception type stuffs.
Print out directions for invitations
Order Cabo Plane tickets – $$ lol
Talk to Jay* about a time to get together to chat.
Projector for some sort of slideshow thing
Send Gordo Moneys$$
Meet with CLCBC wedding coordinator March 11th
Finalize wedding photography stuffs between Josh\Jay\Mike\anyone else?
Get pictures taken of Kim & I for picture frames @ reception hall
Cut out vinyl for Vases: Love Joy Faith Peace (some sort of block lettering)
Wedding bands (buy some titanium for me? i’m cheap and can machine it 
haha)
I’ll do a nice cool strike-through on these items as I knock them off the list. On the upside I have a visual reminder that I need to get this crap done ASAP.
That’s it for now,
Andrew
*Jay Fast. Added for clarification purposes. Carry On.
Use it………or Lose it.
Feb 1st
As of late I have been pondering my Hare Scramble race last May. I thought back to how poorly I did. Only being able to complete 45\90 minutes of the race. Pathetic if you ask me. Sure I was on a heavier machine than I should have been. Sure I hadn’t paced myself properly. Sure I had never raced something like that before. But should any of that really have mattered? NO. I can’t blame machine. I blame only man, and that man is myself. At the time only 23 and while not overweight, I sure as heck wasn’t (am not) in proper physical and mental shape.
Now what does that have to do with anything? Scoop is this. On top of competing in Trials events, I know that I can win in Hare Scrambles. There are a few “local” races for me to compete in before my Trials season gets underway, but I’ve needed motivation and more-so a reason to get into this. Reason: I need to be in better shape. No two ways about it.
So where does this put me now? Well for one I’ve hated what I’ve done to my BMW bike. Sure it rides great, but I’ve come to a realization of what I should have done (hindsight 20/20). I’m left at a place where I want-need a proper competition off-road motorcycle. Problem is that that doesn’t solve my non race winning streak. A better, more fitting machine will most definitely make things easier on myself, but that’s not the entire equation.
I need to address the other aspects of the race. Most of which drop down to my past and present physical condition. Now 24, I have realized I am greatly out of shape. It was depressing seeing for myself that my laptimes in the race were better than most other competitors, but due to my poor mental condition and my even worse physical condition, I couldn’t make it the full race. Down right depressing. I know I am a better rider. That didn’t matter. Slower riders ended up in better positions than me not because they were better riders, but because they could make it. I couldn’t.
And that right there is why I sucked it up and joined a gym with Kim. I finally have another form of motivation. I have other motivation, but this one has more or less pushed me over the edge. I will win at least A (1) race. I will NOT feel like total crap after. I realize that this is going to be more or less a serious change in pace of life. All for the better. So now I sit here with blisters and cuts on my feet after running more than I have in my entire life; legs not wanting to move, and arms that when attempting to bend straight, shoot pain through them like I’m being stabbed. No doubt in my mind, it WILL be worth it.
Andrew
I’m terrible: Forgetting the most important news of this site.
Jan 27th
I should be ashamed I suppose, but I have failed to make mention of the single greatest thing that had happened in 2009. On said date, I dropped the ultimate question, and proposed to (my now fiancé) Kimberly. November Friday the 13th, 2009 was the date it all went down. This has led Kim and I down a path of intense high speed planning to make a May 29th, 2010 wedding date. One might say that is too little time for an engagement. To which Kim and I give a hearty laugh. Tough, but definitely doable.
I realize this is not the greatest of updates, but hey, we’re chugging along here and actually making progress on our so called planning. We’ve got invitations (as of last night haha). Yes, it’s all actually going along smoothly. I’ll update as I get battier as the wedding date approaches.
Andrew
Purchasing a home. Thoughts at the end of a day.
Jan 21st
I have found myself in a position where I am purchasing a home. My fiancee and I have calculated that it will be approximately the same price to buy this home as it would be for us to rent a home. I never understood why people talked about this process being long and drawn out. I understood that there would be paperwork, signing things, scheduling inspections, tests, you name it. I knew all these things had to take place, but again, didn’t understand the magnitude of all of them.
Now I would tend to ask myself; “Why would you go through all this hassle?” I ask myself this over and over. Nevermind the fact that I hate cold weather, or the fact that the Midwest has got to be one of the worst places in the world for enjoying motorcycles. I’m just overall not in the mood to deal with things like this. Not sure if that should be classified as a fault, or what, but it is what it is. I guess there had to be something attracting me to actually buckling down and purchasing a house. I think something that spoke to me was this:
Now I know that all the property in the back won’t be mine, but I gotta say that it is quite rad seeing a river (ok a creek) flowing in the background, and the sunset falling across the tree line was surreal. On top of that (and less spectacular looking), the place has a very large garage . Finally a place to store my motorcycles and still fit my car (and in the future Kim’s). But here I go forgetting about the insanity that is known as purchasing a house.
. Finally a place to store my motorcycles and still fit my car (and in the future Kim’s). But here I go forgetting about the insanity that is known as purchasing a house.I’ll spell it out quick and simple. If you can and really want to. Buy a house 100% cash. I say this because I’m not doing that. Want to keep your sanity? Buy a house cash. Cut out all the middle men. Get rid of all the people trying to get their money out of buying a house. I mean no discredit to the people working all these different institutions. However, it is so insanely transparent that there are 50 hands grabbing into the money pot you are selling out, that it will drive you mad.
Oh what’s this I see. Oh I have to pay for someone to tell me what the house is worth? Interesting. I can tell you what I’m paying for it. That right there is how much it’s worth. You don’t need to look into it any further. Done and done. I need an attorney? I’m buying a house, not trying to get myself out of jail. 50 dollars here, that’ll be another 300 dollars here….Don’t worry I only charge 85 dollars. Where the crap does all this come from? Like I said, everyone wants their piece of the pie and when the economy is in the crapper…they’re gonna do all they can to get every last drop out of you. Have no fear, you won’t pay a dime for it now. ”We’ll add that to your closing costs.” haha you gotta be kidding me. Closing costs. What a joke. Closing costs = thousands of dollars for paperwork. I wish I were joking, but I’m not.
So now you are probably thinking I want to go out and shank anyone who is involved with this home buying process. I don’t. I can’t say enough good about my real estate agent Jim Starwalt, or all the individuals he has helped me with making sure that all of this process has gone as smooth as possible. They understand the insanity of all this, and have left me comfortable (but yes a bit stressed) about the entire process. I can’t say enough positive about them. (Hopefully those reading will read the entire thing 
)
)And with that, I am off and on my way to look into costs for doing floors, walls, etc. I’ll leave you with a picture of the toilet
Andrew
Insert hands on face……………….here
Jan 21st
Ok, so I think I have things sorted out with WordPress and SmugMug. I believe it all came down to me not having lightbox plugin installed. Go figure. Let us all rejoice, and enjoy my random images in the sidebar, and my poor looking Image page. haha. Enjoy!
Andrew
Shaping up…..or shipping out.
Jan 20th
Slowly but surely shaping up the site. I need to fix some of the colors (I know, they’re quite festive and all…..), and take care of my Images section. I am backing up all my nextgen galleries and will be upping those to my SmugMug account. After that I should be tying all that together into one seamless rig here. This should allow a much greater pleasure from viewing the site, and also help me with updating. It’s like riding a motorcycle that is all crappy looking, you just don’t care as much. But when that bike is looking all fine, you just want to do your best with it. Keep in touch…..
Andrew
