The 1972 Honda CL-70

I mentioned in a previous post that my parents bought a Honda CL-70 motorcycle for me in the summer of 1972, when I was thirteen years old. Here's a photo of the cover of the brochure that Honda published that year for that particular model. I remember that I wanted an SL-70, but when we went to the dealer (the old "Wheel World" Honda dealership down on Carlisle north of Menaul), it was too small for me, as I was already about 5'10" even at that tender age. Therefore, the salesman suggested either the CL-70 or the SL-100, which would have to be de-tuned to 5 horsepower to qualify as a "motor scooter" under then-existing New Mexico law. If I'd been possessed of any patience at all, I'd have gone with the SL-100, which was better-suited not only to my body frame but also to the off-road riding I wanted to do; however, it cost $502, in contrast with the CL-70's $363 price tag, and my mother said she'd have to wait and save a little more. No way was I going home empty-handed, so I immediately warmed to the CL-70. (I guess I did go home empty-handed in a literal sense, given that the dealer didn't actually deliver the bike to our house until a couple of days later.)

The CL-70 wasn't exactly Honda's finest engineering achievement -- it had wiring issues and burned through points and condensers on an annoyingly regular basis -- but it would be nice to have something similarly fuel-efficient to ride to work these days. (It got something like 150 miles per gallon and generally could stay up with normal in-town traffic, although it probably wouldn't do so with today's 215-lb. version of me sitting on it.) Inasmuch as gasoline in those days cost $.25/gallon, I often found sufficient gas money in one of the living-room sofas!

As much as I loved to ride my CL-70 as a young teenager, I've never really felt the desire to own a motorcycle as an adult; I haven't stopped and thought about why, but I'm sure it's primarily a matter of safety. But man, was it exhilarating to ride all around the "mesa" (undeveloped, and generally unrestricted, open space) that used to exist east of Tramway Road!

Our Home

This photo shows our home in northeast Albuquerque, near the intersection of Indian School Road and Chelwood Park Boulevard. We've lived here since buying the home in 1991; it was our first home and we didn't plan on living here forever, but that's the way it's worked out. The house (which was built in 1967 and thus is over forty years old) wasn't really big enough for our family, having only three bedrooms, and the need for additional space became even more acute after we had Kiley in 1992 and Kristy had Nicole in 1995; however, somehow we survived the years of living on top of each other. (It's ironic that the home seemed very spacious after we lived for six years in a 900 sq. ft. apartment at the Greenbriar co-op on Nakomis Street and Constitution Avenue; it didn't take long for that illusion to be dispelled, however.) We only have one child living at home now, so needless to say we're in better shape at present.

The trend these days is to build 3,000 sq. ft. houses on 1/5-acre lots -- the complete antithesis of our home, which is 1,700 sq. ft. on something close to 1/2 acre. (We have a lot bigger back yard than I wish to care for, which explains why it always looks like heck.) It would be lovely in some ways to have a newer, bigger home, but at least we've done a lot to our house over the years to make it more liveable. A lot remains to be done, especially to the exterior, but it will probably have to wait until we pay off our mortgage in three years. (My dream is to add on to the back and have a pool table and spa.) In these days of young LDS couples tending to buy more house than they can easily afford, sometimes I feel like we're the only ones following the prophet's counsel regarding debt and frugality!

[Update 11/24/11: Here's a Google Earth view of our house.] 

 

(R)efined F(a)tness

This photo shows me at my home away from home, our gym Defined Fitness on Juan Tabo Boulevard north of Candelaria Road in Albuquerque. Inasmuch as I never have more than an hour to spend at the gym on any given day (and given that I generally only go there four times a week), I stick to doing that which gives me the most rigorous workout -- running on a treadmill. My usual regimen is three miles a pop, but occasionally, if Dorine and I are behind schedule, I'll do two miles at a faster pace. I like to run at 8:30/mile pace, at least, if I'm doing three miles, and at 8:00/mile pace if I'm doing two miles.

(That statement is somewhat misleading, since I generally run downhill, setting the treadmill I'm on at a 2.0% decline. It's a long story, but Defined Fitness used to have treadmills that felt comfortable to me at 8:30/mile pace on a "level" setting, whereas the ones it has now feel like they're going uphill on "level." I'm not so self-deluded as to believe I could run three successive 8:30 miles on, say, an outdoor track -- I know the machines the gym has now probably are level at "0.0%" -- but my morale was going to take a beating if I had to slow down; therefore, I made a deal with myself, deciding to continue running at 8:30/mile pace and setting the machine's cant as required to enable myself to do that. I realize it's a wussy thing to do, but no one seeing me drenched with sweat after a run could say I didn't have a good workout.)

I don't call running a "hobby" or "recreation," since it hurts too much to fall in those categories for me; I've always had a below-average oxygen-transfer system, something I first discovered when I was a schoolboy half-miler and continually barfed my guts out after races. However, I'm sort of addicted to running, anyway, as it's one of a mere handful of pursuits in my life that weigh on the side of producing a sense of well-being and self-esteem. I've been going to Defined Fitness (or "Refined Fatness," as my brother-in-law once referred to it) for over eight years now, and I've literally run thousands of miles there in that time. The gym is currently oversold and under-outfitted with cardio equipment (an expansion is planned but has been postponed at least twice), but, given my sleep disorder and other health concerns, I don't know where I'd be without it.

Nicole's Adoption Hearing

Here's a photo that Dorine took on Tuesday, March 18, at the hearing in Bernalillo County Children's Court to rule on our son-in-law Chris F______'s petition to adopt our granddaughter Nicole. Nicole's biological father first contested the adoption, leading to a lot of otherwise-unnecessary expense; however, at some point he experienced a change of heart and elected to relinquish his parental rights. Therefore, what was originally scheduled to be an evidentiary hearing turned into an informal gathering affording the judge an opportunity to sign off on the adoption, much to our great relief and delight. Now Nicole is officially a F______ and their family is complete, barring one more step: Nicole's being sealed to Kristy and Chris in the temple. (Front, L-R: Alexis, Zach, Nicole, Chris, and Chris's attorney Judith Holbrook-Farrell; Back, L-R: Heidi and Gloria Finnemore.)

More on the Twins - and Nicole

I got to see Kristy and Chris's new babies Maddison and Hailee last night when Dorine and I went to the hospital. Both are extremely cute babies and are doing well. As reported, they look very different from each other, Maddy being blond, fair-complected, and (probably) blue-eyed, and Hailee having dark hair, dark eyes, and a darker complexion. This picture shows Dorine with Hailee (left) and Maddy (right). We're happy that all went according to Kristy and Chris's fondest wishes: Kristy got her doctor for the delivery, and both babies (Maddy coming first, head-first but face-up, and Hailee coming second, feet-first) were delivered normally with no complications whatsoever.

Moreover, a hearing was held this morning in Children's Court in which the judge entered a judgment of adoption, making Chris Nicole's father -- and on her thirteenth birthday, no less. So now she is officially Nicole F_____ and we can look forward to another sealing in the temple, hopefully in a few weeks. I don't know if Chris ever contemplated gaining three children in the space of less than 36 hours, but he and Kristy are the parents of five now!

Hailee and Maddison Have Arrived!

At long last, Kristy and Chris's twins, Hailee and Maddison, were born early on the morning of March 17, 2008 (which is also Devery's birthday). They each weighed close to 6 lbs., so Kristy was carting around almost 12 lbs. of baby; as you can tell from the first photo (taken on Saturday, March 15), she looked it. (Poor woman!) Hailee and Maddison are fraternal twins and each reportedly looks quite different from the other; Maddison (left) has lighter hair and looks more like her father, and Hailee (right) has darker hair and looks more like her mother. We were all concerned about the fact that the first baby (Maddison) was head-down and the other (Hailee) was breech, but everything went well and no c-section was required. Kristy won't be able to attend the court hearing tomorrow concerning Chris's petition to adopt Nicole (which we anticipate will result in a judgment of adoption), but at least we know now that Chris can be there.

Trip to Utah - March 2008

Wow, I really haven't written in a while! It's mostly due to my having to make this blog "private"; somehow I'm less-motivated to write when I know my audience is limited and I'm not addressing "the world." Anyway, I wanted to write about my trip to Utah with my mother over the long "weekend" of March 6-9, 2008. The trip had multiple purposes, the first of which was simply to fulfill my intense desire to get out of town and out on the road somewhere. The second was to see my daughter Devery H_____ and her husband Easton, who will still be attending BYU in Provo for some time yet. The third was to spend an extended amount of time with my mother. And the fourth was to enable my mother to see her other four sons (Roger, Robin, Jeff, and Kelly), all of whom live and/or work in Utah Valley. (Dorine and I would almost certainly have gone to Utah during the Albuquerque Public Schools' spring break [March 24-28, 2008] -- as we have done for each of the last three years -- except that our daughter Kristy F_____ is about to give birth to twin girls and Dorine needs to be at hand when that happens.)

Mom and I traveled in my Toyota Tacoma, which unfortunately is the most roadworthy vehicle Dorine and I own at present. We left town on Thursday the 6th before 8:00 am and stopped off in Farmington to visit with Mom's brother Wayne before heading on; we took the "standard" route through Shiprock, Cortez, Monticello, Moab, and Price. Weather is always a concern this time of year, but it stayed nice for the entire trip. We got to Provo too late to go see Devery and Easton's co-ed intramural soccer game, but we did take them out for pizza after we checked into our hotel, the Cottontree Inn on University Parkway by the Provo River. (The Cottontree Inn is a decent hotel with a nice continental breakfast and an indoor pool and spa.)

On Friday morning, the 7th, Mom and I drove up to DME Health Services, my brother Jeff's home medical supply company that he runs in Pleasant Grove with my other brothers Roger and Robin. We visited with them for a while before going with Roger on a few of his "rounds." Later, Mom and I went back to the hotel, where I "checked out" a pass to Gold's Gym in Orem and went and ran three miles on a treadmill -- a heck of a lot nicer machine than I'm accustomed to using at Defined Fitness in Albuquerque! -- before coming back to the hotel for a short swim. Mom and I then drove down to Devery and Easton's apartment in south Provo, where they cooked dinner for us. (I was pleased to find that their apartment -- see the bottom photo above -- is actually fairly decent as BYU "married" housing goes.) Finally, Mom, Devery, and I drove up to Robin and his wife Karolyn's house in Pleasant Grove to see their daughter Meredith and her six-month-old twins, Aidan and Alexander (see top photo above).

On Saturday, the 8th, Mom and I went up with Roger to the big Cabela's store in Lehi to shop for a while. I wanted to buy something for Mike Prairie, who, in addition to being a great guy, is the senior manager at Sandia National Labs to whose group I provide financial and admin support. (Mike, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for a brain tumor, is a big-time hunter and outdoorsman, and from previous conversations I knew that he liked to shop at Cabela's; I ended up getting him a ballcap and a fleece-lined jacket, which he seemed very pleased with when I gave them to him this week.) Later, Mom and I went with Roger to his home in Pleasant Grove, where we visited with him and his wife Lynnea for a few hours; Roger and I watched old rock 'n' roll video clips on Youtube before all of us watched The R.M. on DVD. Still later, Devery and Easton came to the hotel for a swim before we piled into Devery's car to drive up to Jeff and his wife Marlyn's house in North Salt Lake for an extended-family get-together, where we finally got to see my brother Kelly and his wife Kit, in addition to various nieces and nephews and their families.

We lost an hour on Saturday night due to the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, so Mom and I got away fairly late on Sunday morning to come back to Albuquerque. However, aside from my cruise control's turning itself off periodically (it would only come back on when I restarted the engine) and some yokel's almost pulling out in front of me on U.S. 491 east of Monticello (which caused me to brake hard and dump my drink all over the floor of my truck), the trip passed without incident. (On the return trip, we took the "scenic" route through Mancos, Hesperus, and La Plata, bypassing Shiprock and the Navajo reservation.) I enjoyed having a chance to talk to my mother for a few hours coming and going, so the trip filled all of the above-referenced purposes, although I'm still going to miss going up during spring break. (Hopefully I'll have news to tell about Kristy's babies here in a week or so.)