I bought my motorcycle in July from a guy up near Columbus Ohio.  When I bought it we met at his bank and a lady at the bank notarized the transaction by signing the title.  She also filled out a couple of the fields on the title such as the mileage on the bike.  The problem is neither the guy who sold it or I noticed that she wrote the mileage wrong.

We both told her 9,600 miles.

The space for putting down the mileage has a box for each digit.  She started in one box too far to the left so when she got to the end and needed to finish she just put in an extra zero.  96000 miles.  That's 96,000 - oops!

In her defense I have the same problem with getting those boxes aligned whenever I deposit a check at the bank. The deposit slip doesn't have a good indication of where each digit aligns and I often start off one box misaligned and have to get a new deposit slip shortly after.

The difficulty here is I didn't notice the problem right away so I can't just get a new title from the guy in Ohio with the right mileage on it.  Instead, I have to take a special form back up to the Columbus area, meet the guy at the bank again, go in and have the notary notarize this new form with the correct mileage.  Of course, since I bought the bike I don't just have 9,600 miles on it - I have over 10,800.

I doubt I really need to ride the bike back up there; the guy I bought it from would believe me that there are 10,800 and happily sign the form for the notary to validate.  But I have to go up there anyway; maybe stop off at Iron Pony and buy a new helmet while I'm there.

Until I get up there and get this new form filled out, signed, and notarized I can't register the bike in WV. Because I can't get it registered I can't get it inspected.  Because I can't get either of those two done I can't ride it much longer.  The license plate and sticker on it currently expire this month.  Let this be a lesson to you - pay close attention when you do a transaction like this - even a single misplaced zero can cause you grief.

#legal #motorcycle #paperwork

This past Friday I took a day off work so I could go on a motorcycle ride with my friend Jeff.  Jeff has had a bike, a big Kawasaki 1500 cruiser, for a long time and he occasionally likes to meet up with his brother, Chuck, who rides into the state from Washington DC on his BMW R 1100.  After a brief discussion on meeting in Elkins, WV the two brothers decided, instead, on going getting together in Helvetia, WV.

The road to Helvetia is not exactly straight, wide open, or well travelled.  We basically followed the highway system from Huntington to Sutton before jumping on some smaller back roads.  These roads were full of tight twisting turns including some snaking hairpins that were so tight and dippy that you couldn't really take them at a speed above 10mph.  The roads were generously sprinkled with gravel and scree so the going was a bit dangerous but plenty interesting.  Fortunately, we didn't see more than a handful of cars once we hit the hidden roads and one of those was an ATV.

Once we reached Hacker Valley we turned East just south of Holly River State Park on Hacker Valley Road.  We thought this road would be similar to the rest of the small roads we'd already traveled but, it turns out, it was a bit more rustic. The first half mile or so was okay though the road was a broken here and there.  However, the breaks quickly escalated in intensity until the hardtop no longer existed and the road was nothing more than a heavy gravel fire access road.  Fortunately, it was only about 12 miles long - but that 12 miles took us about 40 minutes to navigate.  It was wonderfully peaceful.  Amazingly we did encounter two pedestrians on this track as well as a parked truck with some people hanging out in it.  On the most desolate part of our Journey we saw the most people.

After escaping the shaded gravel road we were just a few miles from Helvetia and it was at this point that I made my first of three technical mistakes on the trip.  We had been travelling so slowly for so long that once we were on a more substantial road and we had to speed up I didn't compensate properly going into the first turn.  I was going too fast and briefly crossed the double-yellow in the curve.  While the traffic was non-existent that is a scary feeling.  I did it once more much later in the day but after that I was given some tips by Chuck and my skills in the curves improved dramatically.

A small creek running through Helvetia

Helvetia is a tiny little town that is the remains of a Swiss settlement founded in 1869.  I don't think the village has grown much in the ensuing 150 years.  It's a quaint little place with a shop/post office, a honey shop, a wood shop, and a cheese haus.  There is also a restaurant/inn, The Hütte, with a couple rooms that can be rented.  According to the sign outside The Hütte "you've arrived" just be warned that you've also just about left as soon as you get there.  Don't let the small size of the place fool you though - it's worth stopping in and having some lunch and  a brief walk.

You've Arrived in Helvetia

The Hütte has a limited but tasty menu.  It's all food that fits with the central European heritage of the town.  I started the meal with a small cup of Helvetia Cheese Soup - the Cheese Haus makes a pretty tasty swiss and the soup is made from that cheese.  Chuck, who showed up in town almost at the same moment we did, had a cup of split pea soup that he thought was quite good.  For my entree I had a cold roast beef sandwich on fresh home made bread.  The bread was tasty!  They put a dollop of spicy mustard on the sandwich by request.  The mustard should come by default and more liberally.  Finally, for desert I had a bit of peach cobbler with fresh cream.  The cobbler was just okay but the creme was delicious - I could have just had a bowl of that.

The inside of the Hütte  is pretty neat. It's filled with antique odds and ends.  The main dining room features an interesting stove that provides heat in the winter.  While our one table dining room had a cool old telephone switchboard.  It was a pretty neat place and I wouldn't have minded spending a bit more time looking around.  But, we had a long ride ahead of us still and only so much daylight to work with.

 

 

 

 

 

As we were preparing to leave Helvetia another group of riders arrived at the Hütte for a late lunch.  It is obviously a place worth riding to if you are in that region.  

 

  

Once we were back in the saddle we headed north; this time with Chuck leading instead of Jeff.  We first rode to Buckhannon, then onto Clarksburg, before heading to New Martinsville.  Our plan, was to go to New Martinsville and then ride a touch northwest on State Route 256 and then riding southwest through the forest along the curving State Route 26 into Marietta OH.  However, by the time we got to New Martinsville it was getting late and dusk was fast approaching.  We changed plans and opted to take the safer State Route 7 along the Ohio River down to Marietta.

 

Once we arrived in Marietta we stopped off at a gas station and picked up a case of Old Milwaukee.  24 cans for $13.  I don't drink much American Lager and the beer I typically buy costs a premium so it was pretty funny to be paying about $0.50/can for beer.  I can't buy 12 ounces of water that cheaply.  After leaving the gas station we just had a 1 mile ride to the "campground."

 

As we pulled out of the gas station parking lot we suddenly picked up a forth biker.  In similarly perfect timing to our synchronous arrival in Helvetia Chuck's fried Keith arrived in Marietta at the same time we did.  He was riding a Suzuki Bandit 1200.  The four of us rolled into the campground together where I discovered the campground is really just a huge field in the middle of a neighborhood where you pay $35 to claim whatever chunk of the grass your group wants.   To be fair there are some RV spots and there is a clean bathroom but it isn't a campground I'd really pick if I ws taking my family camping.

 

Once we got to the campsite it was dark out so I had to setup the tent by the light of my cellphone flash.  I hadn't set this tent up in a few years but it was still pretty easy.  I really like that tent.  While setting up Chuck ordered some pizza to be delivered and then we ate some greasy pepperoni pizza and drank our cheap beer until two more riders arrived; Tim and Dave.  They weren't camping with us but were staying at the red roof inn down the road.  Tim (Honda SL 1300) is an old college roommate of Chucks from grad school and Dave (Yamaha FJR 1300) is a friend of Tim's from Cleveland.

 

Remains of the night the next morning

 

We hung out and chatted until about 1am before I decided to get some sleep.  Sadly, I didn't sleep well though - it turns out greasy pizza and cheap beer adds up to heartburn if I try to sleep on my side.  Plus, there was a high chance of rain that night so I kept the tent closed up.  Unfortunately, it was pretty muggy so the inside of the tent was uncomfortable to say the least.  I got up around 6:30 and took a walk up to the gas station for some water, heart burn medicine, and to kill time while the rest of the group slept.

The grey tent on the right is mine.

 

We broke camp around 9 and cruised around the area for a bit - the five of us, before heading south to Ravenswood WV.  On the way to Ravenswood the differences between a 650 and an 1100+ bike became very evident.  The four guys on the larger sportier bikes decided to open their throttles on a stretch and almost instantly it seemed they were a half mile ahead of Jeff on his cruiser and I.  Even when I accellerated to catch up with Jeff's spot in the line after they all disappeared ahead I made no ground on them at all.  In fact, I probably still lost some and I was going pretty fast. 

 

All six bikes lined up in Ravenswood

 

 

Once in Ravenswood we split up into two groups of three.  Jeff, Chuck, and I rode south along WV Route 2 to Huntington while Tim, Dave, and Keith headed back north to their various destinations. Overall it was a fun two days of riding where I put approximately 450 miles in the saddle.  I learned a lot about myself and the bike and, even more importantly, how to ride it in various conditions and at various speeds.  I'm looking forward to the next trip whenever that is.

 

I've already put a few things on my motorcycle gear wishlist thanks to this trip.

 

1. A new helmet.  My helmet is fine for getting around town but it is really uncomfortable on a long haul.  My forehead was tender for a couple days after the ride.
2. A taller windscreen - It was noisy noisy noisy.  I bought some ear plugs which help some but it was still really loud on the bike.  The wind noise was insane.  I wasn't being buffetted around by the wind but when I put my head down behind the screen it was incredibly peaceful.
3. Slighly larger side bags.  I had just enough room to pack for a one night trip. If I wanted to pack for a longer trek I'd need a bit more space.
4. A real top case.  My toolbox is good for most purposes but a full top case would be nice.  It can store a helmet (2 actually) and is lockable.  I don't like the look of any top cases but I also don't like the look of the toolbox.

I also discovered there a couple other things I should pack for trips like this:

1. Bug spray.  I got eaten up at the campground even using someone else's spray
2. Water bottle - I spent too much money buying drinks at various stops.  I should pack my own water.
3. Snacks - I was hungry all the time and could really have used some food without having to wait for a stop at a gas station.
4. Flashlight

 

#roadtrip #touring #motorcycle

When I was a kid I did a lot of stupid, crazy, and shitty things.  I'm not talking about when I was a teen but rather when I was pretty small; between the ages of 6-10.  A lot of the times I was fully aware of what I was doing and didn't really care about the consequences. Other times I thought I understood what I was doing but I really didn't comprehend the full burden I was putting on my parents.

This story describes an event that falls in the later category.

When I was about seven or eight my best friend (I'm hiding his name intentionally) and I were home alone and we were looking for something fun to do.  We went into my garage and, within, we found some cans of black, blue, and red spray paint.  It didn't take us long to decide these cans would provide us with hours of fun.  We started off spraying a few spots here and there in the garage; on my dad's workbench or on the inner wall.  Shortly afterwards we expanded our canvas to include the exterior wall of the garage.  We had, prior to that day, a white garage with black trim.  Once my friend and I were done we had a far more colorful garage thanks to the many dark splotches of spray paint we left everywhere we could reach.

Neither of us really understood one critical component about spray paint - you don't want to have the nozzle too close to the surface.  We held the cans close and push the buttons hard which resulted in thick pools of paint forming on the wall each pool trailing a tail to the ground as the pain and gravity intermingled.

After briefly admiring our handiwork on the garage we moseyed into the driveway where my dad had two blue pickup trucks.  At least one had a camper top on it.  In short order they had matching paint schemes with the garage.  Just as quickly we turned around and gave the same treatment to the side of my house.  It was as if we had moved into a world where everything would pass for a skittles wrapper.  There were blue, red, and black dots everywhere we could reach.

Amazingly we still had paint left and my friend lived right next door.  His house was a red brick that was just begging for a little sprucing up.  We ran over to his house and repeated the process.  Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot.. Everywhere we could.  We probably laughed about it until we ran out of paint.

Then we tossed out the paint cans and went about our merry way thinking nothing of the destruction we had left behind.

I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall the night after the painting; listening to my parents discuss what they were going to do with me.  Hopefully the absurdity of it brought them a few laughs.

Every once in  while this story pops into conversation with one of my parents and we chuckle looking back on it.  I know it caused them both a lot of inconvenience - they did have to repaint the entire house and garage.  I'm not sure what my dad did about the trucks.

Today I found a story about another kid causing his parents a lot of pain and it reminded me of the painting day. In this story a four year old used his fathers passport as a coloring book which has left the boy and his father stuck in South Korea.  I think my polka dots were better art - but I did have about four years of extra practice.

#childhood #spray-paint #paint #graffiti #biography

Last Wednesday I started going to the Y to workout in the mornings and do some yoga. 

My knees kind of suck, mostly because my legs are weak and I'm not very flexible. Thus joining the Y, where I could address both issues, seemed like a no-brainer. 

So far I've been to three morning classes of sculpt fusion which is sort of a low weight cross training. They've been exhausting and they really wear our my core and cardio. Plus they've left a few different muscle groups with a pleasant level of soreness. I'm really glad I started with that class. 

I've also been to two afternoon kettlebell classes. One was a rotating station type of thing and then yesterday's was a series of exercises in a step down count. 50 squats, 40 of a squatting lift type of thing, 30 one arm bell swings, 20 burpees, 10 squat 180 jumps, and 10 Turkish get ups. Followed by a short 1/20 of a mile jog.  2 sets.

I've been to two yogas. The First,  last Friday morning, was pretty chill. The second was last night after the killer kettlebell class. It was not as chill. My legs were pretty jelly already and some of the poses were exhausting. I'm glad I did both though. 

I had my third sculpt fusion class this morning.  My legs were already pretty tired from last night but I pushed through.  It was a great workout and now my arms/shoulders and legs are all equally tired.  I'll bet my legs are sore tomorrow!  A nice part of working out in these classes is that there is a dedicated stretch time at the end.  I need as much stretching as possible so I'm glad I've sort of forced myself into a scenario where that happens.

I imagine all of this exercise will help my running as well.  Strong legs can only be good for my runs and helping my knees will just make me happier all around.  Another nice part of the classes is you push yourself as hard as you feel comfortable going and the weights are all so low that it is pretty low impact.  It is funny how heavy an eight pound dumbbell can feel after you've repeatedly used it a bunch of times.

The only downside to all this new activity is that I stay hungry now. It's like I'm 20 in terms of appetite 

#exercise #ymca

This past weekend my friends and I participated in the Tough Mudder event in Maysville, KY.  We ran on Sunday which, as it turns out, was the much nicer day to go at it.  On Saturday the weather stayed in the 40's and it rained the whole time.  Approximately 50% of the participants did not finish on Saturday.  I'm not sure what the rate of failure was on Sunday but I'm certain it was far less than 50%.

I woke up at 5:30 on Sunday in order to be ready and to meet with the other five for the 2 hour drive.  I donned my race attire which consisted of under armour winter "infrared" pants, a long sleeve cold weather under armor shirt, my vibram five finger KSO shoes, and my team "Hillbilly Homewrecker" shirt.  The rest of the gear I would need for the day, along with a clean set of clothes, were stashed inside a garbage bag in my backpack.  I had some toasted pb&j sandwiches for breakfast - the toaster is about the only kitchen appliance I have available since we are in the middle of the redoing our kitchen.  Then, at 6:25 Mike showed up and we headed for the meetup point at Ritter Park.

A Tactical Mistake - My Shoes

We arrived at the park right at 6:30 and the other cars were all pulling in along with us except Sean who was already there.  We split up into two cars; myself, Mike, and Sean in one car and Mark, Ed, and Gilbert in the other.

We arrived in Maysville a bit early so we decided to stop for breakfast at the local Bob Evans.  While there we met a bunch of people who had run the previous day.  One guy had a broken wrist from a fall he had taken on an early downhill.  It seemed like everyone, even the guy with the broken wrist, thought it was fun and that we would enjoy ourselves.  We weren't entirely convinced.

Our stop at Bob Evans took longer than expected and we ended up getting to the site of the event a little late; our start time was scheduled for 10:00am but we ended joining the 10:20 start group once we were done registering, doing the bag drop, and getting our bib numbers written on various parts of our bodies.  It was about 42F out when we started.  Cold but not miserable.

The run starts with an obstacle just to get to the starting line.  There is a 7-8 foot tall wall you have to cross.  Mike's bib did not survive the scaling of the wall.  My first effort at grabbing the wall top was a failure so I had to try twice but I got over unassisted on my second attempt.  Sean scraped a nipple which was a minor irritant the rest of the day.  Overall, the first obstacle was a success and did not hinder any of us.

After you get over the wall the MC of the event talks for a bit about what the Tough Mudder is and then asks everyone to kneel.  I'm not a big fan of kneeling.  When I was in the Army one of the first lessons I was taught was to kneel for no man.  I did not kneel when the guy asked us all to take a knee.

As he chatted he got to a point where he said something about how we were all a team and that there were no individuals and .. blah blah blah blah.  I was conspicously not kneeling still so I took a knee.  Damn the man.  About ten seconds later he asked for all who had served in the military to stand up to be recognized.  I stood back up.  Normally I don't like being recognized for military service.  I'm not ashamed I just don't feel comfortable with the praise.  But, not kneeling won out so I stood up.  Eventually everyone stood up and the MC announced that to date the Tough Mudder events had raised over $6 million for the Wounded Warrior program and then he started us off.

The first mile or so is just a light jog.  We took it pretty easy and everything was going along nicely.  It was pretty muddy at parts but you could jog on the edge of the road/path and get enough traction to not be too slowed down.  However, it was becoming rapidly apparent that the mud I'd be facing that day wasn't deep - but it was super slick.
The soil in this part of the country is hard packed clay for the most part.  The mud that formed was about an inch thick and very wet.  This mud just slid over the clay (as you might imagine) and my shoes basically became nothing more than a unweildy surfboard.  Look at that photo above of my shoes.  You'll notice there isn't much tread.  I had been counting on being able to use my toes to help dig into deep mud.  Instead I just slipped and skidded around whenever there was a muddy section of the course.  Whenever there wasn't a muddy section it was because the course was incredibly rocky in those areas.  Look at those shoes again - there is no padding on them.  Thus, I was either sliding or battering the soles of my feet.

Eventually that first mile ended and we reached the first obstacle.

Glory Blades

The Arctic Enema

The Electric Eel

The Cage Crawl

Just the Tip

Warrior Carry

Log Jammin

Hold Your Wood

Dirty Ballerina

Boa Constrictor

The Berlin Walls

The Mud Mile

Devils' Beard

Funky Monkey

Walk the Plank

Everest

Electric Shock Therapy

Here is the moment of the big reveal for Emily and her bedroom.  She was super exhausted when she came home from summer camp but she managed to slowly build up some energy as she discovered each new feature of the room.

A little over a month ago I subscribed to the dollar shave club using their most common option which is a cartridge with four blades.  It costs $6 per shipment (they typically ship on a monthly cycle) and you get four cartridges per shipment.

I now know why they send you four per shipment - they aren't very sharp and they dull really quickly.  I could get, at most, 2-3 decent shaves with one cartridge and I typically use a Mach III Turbo for about a month (10+ shaves) before I notice any dulling.  However, the quality of the blade wasn't my only problem.

The cartridge on the four blade is just too damn big for me to get a good shave around my nose and mouth. The bezel gets in the way and prevents my getting within the last couple millimeters of my nose so I end up having to use one of my older Mach III Turbo's to finish the job.  Really, the only thing the dollar shave club has going for it is the price - but the blade is worthless to me if I can't actually shave my entire face.

Thus I've switched to a different subscription plan that will give me exactly the cartridge I like on the schedule I like.  Amazon.com offers a subscription on all sorts of products and I've setup a recurring subscription for Mach III turbo cartridges every five months.  I'm actually getting 10 sent every five months as I hope to shave my head a little more regularly.  You can order them without a subscription or customize the frequency from 1-6 months.

With the dollar shave club I would have spent $30 for five months of cartridges and with the Amazon option I'm spending $28.97.  Sure I'm getting half as many cartridges but they last twice as long and they do a better job of shaving even when dull than the dollar shave club blade did while sharp.

#dollar-shave-club #shopping #mach-iii-turbo #amazon #shaving #razors

I often did things as a little kid that opened me to ridicule.  I was a scrawny little kid with reddish hair and freckles and I had a big mouth.  It really wasn't the greatest combination for avoiding the wrath of kids on the playground or in the class room.  Sometimes, however, I got singled out due to plain old bad luck.

In the fall of third grade we were going to have a party in our class and different groups of kids were tasked with bringing different things to school for the party.  I was in the group chosen to bring hot cocoa.  When I got home I told my mom and she looked in the cupboard and found a brand new box of swiss miss envelopes.  I put aside to take with me for the party and didn't worry about my responsibility any longer.

On the day of the party I remembered to bring the box (a huge win for me) and delivered it to the teacher.  As the party progressed she made the hot cocoa and handed out the snacks to the kids.  You never knew which hot cocoa recipe you'd get but I was pretty hopeful to get the one I brought in (I'm not sure why).

Eventually I got my cup of cocoa and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the stuff I brought in was hot cocoa with marshmallows!  I hadn't noticed that on the box I had thought it was just hot cocoa.  I greedily began drinking my cocoa but noticed the marshmallows weren't really melting they were just tiny.

A couple other kids noticed the same thing and then someone was watching our teacher make the next cup and he realized that they weren't marshmallows at all - the cocoa box I had brought from home was older than we realized and it was laced with meal worms.  I had just drank a bunch of worms with my cocoa and so had  a few other kids.

WORMS!

It turns out third graders aren't real keen on drinking worms.  Instantly I was accused of bringing the wormy cocoa in on purpose and in an attempt to trick the other kids.  Granted, I was not a very well behaved kid but I was pretty disappointed that I was accused of such treachery.  Plus, nobody seemed to care that I too was infected with the meal worms.

Eventually the teacher convinced the other students that I hadn't brought in the worm cocoa on purpose - they were sealed envelopes.  In fact, I still don't understand how the worms got in there.  However, the other kids still didn't appreciate the fact that I had fed them worms so they mocked me for not being able to afford good quality hot cocoa even though it was Swiss Miss.  Swiss Miss has always been a big brand in the world of Hot Cocoa to me - I had been proud of bringing in such a respectable brand for the party instead of no-name hot coca (which is what I had expected to be bringing when I first learned I'd be providing something).

No longer was I the scrawny red-headed freckle faced kid with the big mouth.  I was the poor scrawny red-headed freckled faced worm-eating kid with the big mouth.

To this day I am pretty careful about hot cocoa.

Back in December I started playing a new game called Ingress.  It's a little different than other games because it is a video game that requires that you interact with the outside world.  Basically, the goal is to go out to various real-world physical locations and then use the game application on your smart phone to claim those locations for your team (blue or green).  In the game the locations are called portals.

You can also use in game weapons to destroy the portals that appear in the app but, again, you have to actually be at the real-world physical location to attack a portal.  Thus, you are routinely going around to various public locations, standing around for a bit looking at your phone, and then moving on.  I imagine to some non-players this looks really dumb and to others it looks suspicious.

The game came with some pre-defined portals using public data.  They are generally Post Offices, Libraries, Fire Departments, Historic Landmarks, and some notable public displays of art.  There is a whole conspiracy theory backstory that goes with the game but it isn't really relevant to the episode I'm going to describe.

I always feel a little strange interacting with portals at fire departments even though they are technically on public property.  I'd feel just as strange playing the game at a police department.  But the rest of the items on the list all seem like pretty fair game plus, because of the game, I've discovered some cool historic sites fairly close (within one hour) of my house.

As you might guess, from the title of this post, however, not everything is peaceful in the land of Ingress.

One night, maybe two months ago, I decided to drive to a group of four portals that are about half a mile from my house.  One is a historic building, one is a library, and then two are post offices - I think, technically, there is only one post office building there - but the game lists two separate post offices next door to each other.  I went over to the historic building and library and "recharged" the portals and then headed over to the post offices.  They are on the main street in a very small neighboring town of the city I live in.  In fact the post offices are about 100 feet into the town right next to a flood wall.

I pulled up onto the street in front of the westernmost of the two buildings so that both were in range of the application on my smartphone.  It uses GPS and google maps to pin point you and you get a small circle drawn on the map that represents your area of effect.  The post offices were held by the enemy team so I decided I'd sit in my Jeep and attack the portals.

Each portal has eight points on it which "power" it.  These points are called resonators and they can get weakened over time via negligence decay or if they are attacked.  The team that owns the portal can recharge the resonators and this is the one thing you can do in game without actually being at the physical location.  Once all of the resonators on a portal lose their energy the portal is destroyed and the other team can convert it into a portal for their team by putting their own resonators on it to charge it.

When you are attacking a portal you're really attacking the resonators.  The closer you are to any particular resonator the more damage you can do to it on each attack.  However, I didn't really want to walk around the post office buildings in the evening (due to winter daylight hours it was already fairly dark at 5:30pm).  So I decided to just use more powerful weapons and to try and destroy the resonators from the main road.

While I was doing this a large white truck pulled up behind me.  The driver didn't get out and he left his lights on so I paused my attack.  I thought it was possibly the other team there coming to recharge their resonators.  While you can recharge remotely it is more effective to do it on site.  So I waited a couple minutes to see if he was recharging.  If he was present there was little to no chance I'd be able to complete my destruction so I didn't want to waste weapons.  I waited.  Nothing in game happened but the guy in the truck didn't get out and he didn't turn off his lights.

Above one of the two post offices are some apartments so I then figured he was just there to pick up someone who was taking their time coming outside.  I resumed my attack but slowly as I was still a little concerned about the truck behind me.

I destroyed all but two resonators from my Jeeps location but I couldn't really do any damage to those last two from that location so I decided to drive around the block and come up the alley between the two post offices and finish the last two resonators off from there.  I started up the Jeep and began the drive. The truck started to follow me.  I thought, perhaps, I was being paranoid at first but when I took a right down the alley by the floodwall and he turned with me I was pretty sure he was following.   The flood wall alley leads way past the building because there is a huge dirt parking lot behind it.  It then turns right onto a small dirt road behind the parking lot.  I followed the dirt road until I got past the lot and turned right into the alley between the two post offices.   I drove up to the alley exit where it met with the road I used to be on and I stopped.

The truck stopped right behind me and left his lights on.  I sat there for a minute and watched through my rear-view mirror and he got out.  He was a middle aged (maybe fifty) guy, kind of stocky, with a beard.  He walked up to my driver side window and gave the universal "roll down your window" gesture.

I rolled it down preparing for him to say or do something foolish so I was in gear and ready to drive away if I needed.  I wasn't mentally prepared for him to point a gun into the Jeep.  He didn't point it at me, more towards the windshield, but it was still held there as a threat.  As he revealed the gun he also very quickly flashed something badge-like in his left hand.  He flashed it far too quickly for me to make it out especially with my attention focused on the gun. I laughed and said, "Seriously, you're pulling a gun on me?"

Sadly, this isn't the first time I've had some random person point a gun in my general direction.

After I questioned him about the gun he lowered it out of sight (but still in his hand, just behind the door).  He then asked me what I was doing?  I responded "Is there some problem with my driving on public roads?"  I wasn't particularly in the mood to answer his questions after the gun.

He said "No, but we've had a lot of drug activity around here lately."  I chuckled a little and said, "Well, I can guarantee you I have nothing to do with drug activity." I had hoped that would end the situation but he then asked me "What are you doing around here then?" - his aggressive tone never softening.

I said, "None of your damn business."  At this point I had lost my patience with the guy.  I was pretty pissed about the gun.  I had broken no laws by sitting in my Jeep on a public street and I was 99% certain this guy wasn't a cop - he was neighborhood watch type guy who was feeling like a bad-ass.

He then growled, "I'll make it my business" and he went to the back of the Jeep and got my license plate number.  He then got in his truck and, I suppose, called the police about me (but maybe not if he was concerned I'd let them know about the gun).

With the drama done I went back into the game and spent about five minutes destroying the resonators and deploying my own before driving home.   All the while the white truck sat behind me.

Some people will think my interaction with the guy was foolish.  Some will think I'm just making shit up.  But honestly, it was how my mind operated at the time.  There is a chance I could have gotten shot but I didn't think it was a large chance so long as I didn't start to get threatening with the guy.  I'm pretty much never in the mood to be bullied.  However, I'm also not particularly violent.  I have a concealed carry permit but I rarely actually carry.

As I drove away I wondered how other people who do carry might have responded to the situation.  I like to think most people would have done their best to defuse the situation.  However, some people, as soon as the guy started to approach their truck, would have had their own gun at the ready and some of those people would have shot the guy in the truck as soon as he presented his weapon.

I'm a neighborhood watch guy myself.  I patrol my couple blocks every night as I walk my dogs.  However, I do it with my smart phone.  I jot down license plate numbers of strange cars parked in unusual places with people just sitting around and then I call the police and let them deal with the situation if they want.  My job, on the neighborhood watch, is to watch - it isn't to intimidate or threaten people.  Plus, I really have no desire to walk up on the car that contains the guy with the gun who is willing to shoot me.  If I wanted to add that to my daily routine I'd have signed up to be a cop a long time ago.

#guns #video-games #neighborhood-watch #ingress #gps #google #concealed-carry