My good friend and ex-colleague Kieran Downes drove all the way down from Boston to visit us last weekend, which delighted all members of the family. Kieran had just completed motorcycle safety school, and so we got a chance to go for a couple of motorcycle rides [save file and open in GEarth]. Kieran rode Kate’s Honda CB360T, which is a great bike but kind of cantankerous. Like a skittish pony, it has to be driven firmly and at high RPMs, which is not the “ol’ paint” experience a beginner wants. But Kieran did great, and (despite the lessons taught to us by years of television) did not go zooming off on his very first ride, up off a tilted flatbed ramp and into a truck full of chickens. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Kieran also distinguished himself by bringing homemade chocolate chip cookie dough, which he baked during the Guerilla Drive-In showing of “The Great Escape” on Saturday night, and passed out precisely at the time when Steve McQueen, James Garner, and the other guy give out the moonshine on the fourth of July. Which was pretty damn awesome, with no risk of gin blindness.

The AM Transmitter worked better than I had hoped: we managed to broadcast reasonably clear — and loud — audio through seven or eight radios scattered around the yard, and the surround sound really upped the ante. All we need now is some kind of gas-powered popcorn machine and a way to mount the whole shebang in the sidecar, and we’ll be 100% in business.

Kate has been enjoying the sidecar, and this weekend we’re gonna go buy a new helmet for her. Motorcycle helmets sitting in the garage either develop a kind of pervasive mustiness, or (as is the case with my old Shoei), a sort of Pungent Fratboy Baseball Hat, about which the less said the better. So: new stylish helmets all around!