In The Beginning...

During the summer of 2007, I visited the Glen Curtiss Museum in Hamondsport, New York, where they had a rare and very interesting display of antique motorcycles from the beginning of the last century.

Glen Curtiss is probably best known for his work in aviation, and I'd be willing to bet that not many people are aware of Glen's passion for the combination of motorcycles and speed. The pictures above give a glimpse into Curtiss' gift for designing and building motorcycles and engines.

I've put together an Album of a few of the motorcycles that were on display last year, and you can see them all right here: http://picasaweb.google.com/TheBMWrider/CURTISSMUSEUM?authkey=4uJ5vpkB8Lo# Click on the "Slide Show" tab just above and left of the pictures.

Enjoy!

.....Worth A Thousand Words

As I mentioned before, I just bought a new Nikon D300 digital camera to take on next years motorcycle trip to southern South America. This camera is like the Rolls Royce of cameras. Now that I've had a little time to play with it, I thought I'd let you see what it can do. You need a PHD to learn all its capabilities. This camera is a true professional digital SLR. That's my cats eye in the top picture and my house at the bottom. This camera has so many features and menus that I'm sure I will never use them all, but the camera can also be used in the "Auto" mode and it does a spectacular job of taking great pictures. This is truly a "Smart Camera". A new feature that has not been seen on this type of camera before is something they call "Live View". Up 'til now it has only been used on consumer cameras. This is where you look thru the screen on the rear of the camera to frame your live shot. This camera has a very large three inch, high definition screen on the back, with no less than 920 thousand pixels, and since the camera has 12.3 Mega Pixels, the large screen makes it easy to see if your picture is in perfect focus. I can't wait to take pictures with this camera in southern Chile and Argentina's Tierra Del Fuego next year.