After days and days of dreary grey skies, today the sun was shining. I rode to Berkeley just delighted to see the bright sky, even if it was a little hazy.

As I was leaving the dojo, Ames told me gently that I had a parking ticket on my bike. Hell. I've been parking on the sidewalk in front of the dojo and a Spanish foods store for over a year. The sidewalk is unusually wide, my bike does not interfere with foot traffic. By not parking in the street, the space stays open for the store's customers' cars. The real reason I park there is that the bike is visible all the time by the clerks in the store. The store likes the dojo people, we sweep our common doorfront area and the sidewalk every day. And just to be sure, I checked, the store didn't call the police. The parking enforcement person must have been low on her quota. I'll pay the ticket and park on the street from now on. Sigh.

Coming home, some fellow on a Kawasaki sport bike pulled up next to me in the fast lane, and did some elaborate body language for, "Hi there, wanna tear in and out of traffic with me?" I replied with the polite and friendly "peace sign", but didn't take him up on his offer. Was he flirting? I don't know. Peter tells me that it isn't immediately obvious that I'm a female rider, but if you watch me, he says, there are subtle clues that give me away.

Anyway, Mr. Kawasaki-man isn't the first fellow to make such an offer, the last one pulled next to me one lane to the right, made the "engine revving" motion with his left hand, and looked at me expectantly. It took me a moment to figure out what the hell he meant, and then all I could do was laugh. How could I tell him that I don't approve of, nor think it safe to go diving in between cars and lanes of traffic. I shook my head "no, thanks" and he pulled away.

My Washington friend Bryan has been riding his only form of transportation, a V-Strom, in Seattle despite the snow on the road. I suggested that he might be better off with a KTM outfitted with flame throwers. Either way, people look at him as if he is nuts - no one rides in Seattle when it is snowing. But Bryan is a unique and pragmatic guy; if all you have is a motorcycle, how else are you going to get from the zendo to the dojo and home again?

First time at Sears Point / Infineon is only a month away.