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h marc lewis (click for more photos)

My life

[08/16/10] — In July/August I took a long solo motorcycle ride to the Far North. The start page has some maps of my route, links to each of the 17 days' adventure with thumbnails of the photos for that day and some other stuff. Hope you like it.

[05/25/10] — I rode the bike to the center of the Idaho Panhandle to visit a Giant Cedar, one of the largest individual trees in North America.

[05/14/10] — Signing up for Medicare this week. Yet another sign that I'm getting old. The Dalai Lama says we shouldn't focus on aging as it is a natural part of life, and impermanence is the nature of all things. I'm working on that...

[04/15/10] — Got an iPad (16gb, no 3G) the day they came out, and I like it quite a bit. It's a gorgeous eBook reader, but not actually a very good one because it's way too heavy, and because battery life is way too short. I could go on a 2 month vacation and do it all without needing to recharge the Kindle2, with the iPad I would be charge-less by the 2nd day. But it is great for grabbing to do a quick email check, or look up something on IMDB.com, or visiting a Website I just heard about on the teevee. I loaded a bunch of free apps, and a few for-pay ones (mostly racing games for the kids). My favorites are: BBC News, WeatherBug, Speedtext X HD, NPR for iPad and PDF Reader Pro (where I have manuals for my motorcycles and tech gadgets easily at hand).

[02/05/10] — I bought a "garage queen" (i.e. barely used with 432 miles on the odometer) 2009 BMW F800GS Adventure Touring bike, and sold the Aprilia (I didn't want to, but Wanda was right, you can only ride one bike at a time). It's about the 76^th motorcycle I've owned, and so far I think it may be my very favorite. Though I've probably said that before...

For Fun...

In 1995 I put my own server on the 'net and named it MicaPeak.com (the real Mica Peak is a 5200' peak visible from our front yard). It blends my interest in programming, doing Webpage development, writing, communication and motorcycles (which is the focus of micapeak.com). I have my own LLC ( Software Ingenuity) — which includes a Website where I provide some of the simple software tools I've developed which you might find useful if you write your own HTML & CSS.

Another favorite activity (in the physical realm) is motorcycling, and I have another web page devoted to that. I recently trimmed my motorcycle stable, and a BMW F800GS is the one I now ride the most. In January of '06 I bought a Honda XR650L from a friend in Oregon which I've hacked on enough that it's now quite a good dirt-oriented dual sport. Even handles the pavement okay on knobbies.

My family bought me an iPod for my birthday in '06. I've discovered podcasts and spend most of my iPod time listening to them, mostly when driving somewhere in my truck. My favorite is Buzz Out Loud (a tech-news podcast of indeterminate length). I hardly even listen to the XM radio anymore. I'm definitely going to be an early adopter of the iPad, and may have one by the time you're reading this...

In early 2009 I replaced my netbook (a Lenovo S10) with a MacBook Pro 13" — what a sweet little laptop. Highly recommended. I'm running Parallels and have Windows 7 installed too, though I never use it.

Perhaps my very favorite thing to do these days is babysit our grandkids. We have six, four boys and two girls, with ages from 1 to 9, with a 7th on the way (due in August, 2010). They are the most fun thing there is. And the boys seem to be interested in motorcycles, too. Being a grampa rocks!

Family

My wife Wanda is a 5th grade school teacher in Spokane Valley. She loves her kids and grandkids, computers, Mexican food and motorcycles. In 2003 she decided she prefers dirtbiking to street riding and for awhile rode a slightly modified Yamaha TT-R125L. In 2010 she got a killer deal on an '08 TW200 with 302 miles on the odometer. The TW200 is a dual-sport, and has a license and is insured. She's ridden it on the street and in the dirt (though only in the Winter so far) and prefers the dirt.

Wanda and I have five wonderful children, each of whom makes us incredibly proud. My extended family includes a bunch of wild and crazy cyberspace bikers over on WetLeather. Damn, but I love those people!

My Web sites

I've done quite a few Websites over the years, and recently have been doing some post-retirement consulting. I favor 'vi' and hand-coding the style sheet and the HTML by hand, or maybe with a little perl or PHP perhaps mixed in with some database stuff. Here are some I've done recently:

Sites I visit frequently...

Other stuff

In 1995 I discovered a family diary which was written in 1882 during a wagon train trip from Kansas to Washington Territory.  If you have any McDowells in your family tree you might want to check it out! I've gotten a fair bit of email from distant relatives as a result of having this diary online, including a message from the woman who now has the original!

I like a lot of different things — talking with friends over dinner or via email, motorcycles, movies, reading, bird watching, ethnic resturants, net surfing and working on new stuff for my various Websites. Here are some links to stuff I've written about some of my favorite things:

Slide Shows & Photo Essays

1997:	My friend Phil documented our motorcycle ride to Bella Coola, BC
2001:	A motorcycle vacation in the Alps
2002:	My first long ride on the FJR1300
2003:	I'm sure I went somewhere, and took some photos, but maybe I didn't. I was working pretty hard during this period...
2004:	A trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico A motorcycle trip to Baja, Mexico A motorcycle trip to Sheepranch, California A trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
2005:	A motorcycle trip to Yellowknife, NWT, Canada A motorcycle trip to the US MotoGP race, in Monterey, CA A motorcycle trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado A motorcycle trip to the Canyon Country of the southwestern USA Riding Moab's famous Slickrock Trail
2006:	A trip to Arizona, with photos. Riding the Apache Trail, in Arizona. Riding the Oregon Outback on dual-sport bikes. Riding to Ely, NV for the White Pine Fever rally. Documenting the 5-day Spank Rally organized by my friend George Zelenz.
2007:	The 3rd annual Dirt Gather, near Winthrop, WA (a motorcycle camping trip). Riding some single-track trails near Wallace, Idaho.
2008:	My 2nd motorcycle trip into Baja, this time via dirtbikes, with two friends. A non-motorcycle trip to Washington, D.C. to visit Jennie.
2009:	A trip to southern British Columbia, on my new Aprilia with my friend Phil. Another version of The Dirt Gather, an extended weekend of dual-sporting & camping. A non-motorcycle trip to Bogota, Colombia, with Jennie. Lots of Flowers from the Colombia trip. The Mongui part of the Colombia trip.
2010:	A motorcycle ride to visit one of the Largest trees in North America. A long solo motorcycle ride to Canada's Yukon and the Alaska border.

Misc. stuff

Here's my Grandmother's Welsh Cookie recipie

HMarc
16-Aug-2010