Harley and Me
by Allerun on Jan.21, 2012, under Uncategorized
I have a new ride.
I’ve been obsessing over the H-D Night Rod for the past few weeks now, and yesterday I finally decided to tempt fate and go looking for one.
Fate won.
I’ve been looking at dealerships in the panhandle area for a while now to see if they had any in stock. I had seen numerous photos and reviews online, and I wanted to get a look for myself. Nobody had any new Night Rods listed. Ever. I dropped by the local dealer once and they were fresh out. They had one on order, but it was already spoken for. That was about a month or two ago.
Yesterday I decide to head back to Tripp’s and see if they had anything similar that I could look at. The Night Rod is one of the H-D V-Rod series that includes the V-Rod (anniversary edition this year), V-Rod Muscle, and the Night Rod Special. I was hoping they would have one of the other models in, and while it wouldn’t be a direct comparison, it would be close.
I head in and was greeted soon by Rick, a nice guy that I had actually spoken with the last time I was there. I told him what I wanted and he ushered me to the back where, to my surprise, they had just gotten one in. It hadn’t even been on the showroom floor yet, he said, and they had just prepped and checked it.
I was thinking, surely it’s not the color I want. The Night Rod Special comes in three colors, Sedona Orange (it’s actually not bad, I saw one of those on the showroom floor later), Vivid Black and Black Denim.
I wanted the Black Denim.
They had the Black Denim.
There is only so much you can draw from pictures and videos. Seeing the real thing sealed the deal. I sat on it – it fit. Visions of me riding it flashed in my head. I was hooked.
Rick offered to let me take it out for a spin. I declined. Momentarily. If I had taken it out, I would have been all in. At this point I wanted an illusion of free will to decide if I really wanted to make this deal. I asked about how much I could get for my trade-in. We went to his office so we could talk numbers.
The numbers he came back with were good.
Fate was kicking my ass.
At this point, I needed to gather my thoughts and run through everything once more in my head. I told Rick I wanted to get my Shadow and bring it up, and then I would take the Night Rod out for a test run. I made plans to be back up there after lunch.
Over Thai food with a friend, I mulled everything over in my head. I was getting a great price for my trade in, it fit in the budget, it was the bike I wanted and ready to go. I had gotten the Shadow for this express purpose, to get me to the point where I could ride a motorcycle like this. After a talk with my wife and her endorsement in my pocket, I grabbed the Shadow and headed north.
It was windy yesterday. The Shadow is a light bike. Wind and the Shadow and a highway are not fun. Add to that the Shadow only has a 600cc engine and four gears, it’s not a highway bike.
This was probably the final nail in the coffin.
I get to Tripp’s and find Rick. He checks over the bike, verifies the VIN and we head inside. He takes me to the back and starts the engine on the Night Rod. He gives me the basics on the controls (still getting accustomed to Harley turn signals) and says “Have fun.”
I take it out for a ride. It’s phenomenal. I have ridden only one other Harley, that being my father-in-law’s anniversary edition softail deuce. If I’m not mistaken, it has the same engine (the Revolution). That was an incredible ride.
This was much the same.
The power I had when I wanted it was a welcome change. The ride was smooth, the saddle kept me in place well. I never had the feeling of slipping back when I hit the throttle. I suspect this is from the model’s dragging roots.
The ride bought me a Harley. I got back and we did all the paperwork and Rick handed me the keys. Everyone at Tripp’s was exceptional, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. The ride home was great. The wind was still blowing, but it wasn’t shoving me around. This is a solid bike.
I rode it more that day, and it was great. I’m going to enjoy riding it, especially to work, which I wasn’t able to do with my Shadow. It was just too far.
Of course, I don’t believe in fate, it was just fortuitous that I happened into Tripp’s when they had the ride I wanted. I was pretty much decided on my course of action before that, having obsessed over it for the past few weeks proves that.
Oh, and now I’m a HOG member. I have no idea what that means, but they made me one. Suckers.
Here are the requested pictures. I’m sure there will be more posted in the future.
First Time’s the Charm
by Allerun on Jan.14, 2012, under Uncategorized
Wow, my app made it in first time through.
If you recall, I submitted an app a few days ago to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, and it was awaiting their code review process. Many get thrown back due to technical errors, some violation of their app policies (the app does something it’s not supposed to or doesn’t do some it should), or because it just doesn’t work. Mine made it through first time in. I am now officially published and, if you have a Windows Phone 7 smart phone, you can download the app with the handy link at the bottom. Oh, and you’ll need a buck.
My next task is to make an ad supported version so I can offer it free. Then onto my next app project.
Any app suggestions are welcome, so send them this way.
SFB Ship Tracker
My Mobile Software Empire Begins
by Allerun on Jan.11, 2012, under Uncategorized
Well, maybe empire is a slight exaggeration. Last night I submitted my first app to the Microsoft app hub for Windows Phone 7. Hopefully I’ve double checked everything and it passes verification, and if so I will soon have a published app in the Windows Marketplace. It’s an app for a niche market, but it was a good test bed for future apps.
Cross your fingers.
This Will Be Boring, I Promise
by Allerun on Dec.18, 2011, under Brain Drain
I’m writing a Windows Phone 7 app and I wanted to implement a basic number chooser, but in the style of the date picker or time picker. For those familiar with the Metro UI, it’s basically like a slot machine dial that spins vertically with the available choices. An example can be found here.
So I found a reference to the toolkit that I needed and installed it. Still didn’t have an option to use the control that I wanted (the loopingselector control).
Turns out I hadn’t opened up Visual Studio since Mango came out, and it wasn’t updated to use the 7.1 SDK. Okay, so I get that updated and convert my solution to 7.1. Now I can actually access the control.
However it requires some work to create the data source to use for the number range. There are several examples online of how to create the data source. That’s great, but they are all in C#.
I’m writing this in VB.net.
My C# skills are rusty at best. I do manage to translate everything over and now have a working looping selector that I can specify the range using the control’s xmls parameters. My code example is below:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 | Public Class NumbersDataSource Implements ILoopingSelectorDataSource Private minimum As Integer = 1 Private maximum As Integer = 32 Private userSelectedItem As Integer = 1 Public Function GetNext(relativeTo As Object) As Object Implements Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Primitives.ILoopingSelectorDataSource.GetNext Dim nextValue = CInt(relativeTo) + 1 Return If(nextValue <= MaximumNumber, nextValue, MinimumNumber) End Function Public Function GetPrevious(relativeTo As Object) As Object Implements Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Primitives.ILoopingSelectorDataSource.GetPrevious Dim previousValue = CInt(relativeTo) - 1 Return If(previousValue >= MinimumNumber, previousValue, MaximumNumber) End Function Public Property SelectedItem As Object Implements Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Primitives.ILoopingSelectorDataSource.SelectedItem Get Return userSelectedItem End Get Set(value As Object) Dim oldValue = userSelectedItem Dim newValue = CInt(value) If (oldValue = newValue) Then Return End If userSelectedItem = newValue RaiseEvent SelectionChanged(Me, New SelectionChangedEventArgs({oldValue}, {newValue})) End Set End Property Public Property MinimumNumber As Integer Get Return minimum End Get Set(value As Integer) minimum = value If (userSelectedItem < minimum) Then SelectedItem = value End If End Set End Property Public Property MaximumNumber As Integer Get Return maximum End Get Set(value As Integer) maximum = value If (userSelectedItem > maximum) Then SelectedItem = value End If End Set End Property Public Event SelectionChanged(sender As Object, e As System.Windows.Controls.SelectionChangedEventArgs) Implements Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Primitives.ILoopingSelectorDataSource.SelectionChanged End Class |
So, as I promised, pretty boring stuff. But now I have it here in case I need it again, and it might help some other poor soul looking for a vb.net implementation of the looping selector data source.
An Observation
by Allerun on Dec.16, 2011, under Gripes
The city, state or whoever really needs to rethink and fix the on-ramp to southbound traffic from 27th to I-27. Its a well known fact that merge is a four letter word in the panhandle and trying to get up to speed and enter traffic on that little on-ramp with no ditch shoulder while trying to guess if the doorknob in the right hand lane is going to slam on their brakes when they see you is an act in futility.
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