The Home Front

I have been working on things other than my usual gig of writing about and photographing garages, motorcycles, and other guy-stuff (which is what an editor I met with at the ASJA conference dubbed my niche, "Oh," she said as her eyes glazed over disappointedly, "You write about guy stuff").

Right now, the task in front of me is getting my little home in Oakdale up to snuff. So I'm painting, landscaping, and doing all the other things you tell yourself you are going to do when you buy a house and never do until you are thinking about selling the place.

So I'm chronicling that with what I'm calling my Home Improvement Photojournal. I'll be posting progress on the house regularly throughout the process, and you can even subscribe via RSS feed if you go here. And, yes, this also means that friends, family, and neighbors can take this as a good reason to avoid visits (as they are likely as not to end helping me move, paint, or build something) OR they can take into the account the fact that I have about three cases of beer chilling in my garage fridge that I'll happily part with in exchange for a few minutes of labor.

This process began when I bought this little 1953-built house in 2000, thinking I would remodel the house in order to take advantage of a beautiful lot. I did some work over eight years, painting a couple of rooms, adding some new flooring, and doing some remodeling that I thought was lovely but was in fact, well, NOT. And time slipped away, as I have a way of finding better things to do than remodel, like foreign travel assignments, riding motorcycles, building a garage BIGGER than my house, rambling blogs, racquetball matches, nights out on the town with friends, or (when things get really desperate) watching episode after episode of Firefly or old Sanford and Son reruns. So now I'm busting my butt on the place. Such is life!

Kelowna, British Columbia

I just returned from a trip out west that culminated in a shoot for my upcoming book, Motorcycle Dream Garages. I found the garage on my friend Sam Martin's Manspace book blog, and discovered an amazing garage as well as a gorgeous corner of the world.


The garage is the creation of Geby Wager, the developer behind Woodland Hills who also happens to be a gearhead and all-around regular guy. His homes feature incredible views, amazing outdoor spaces, and optional gearhead garages that are out of this world.

Geby and his homes are in Kelowna, British Columbia, which is Canada’s premier wine country. Think of it as Napa Valley combined with Lake Tahoe. The area has hundreds of wineries located on the 92-mile-long Lake Okanagon, about 3 hours north and east of Vancouver. The lake has terrific beaches, and the mountains above the lake have great skiing in the winter and incredible mountain biking, hiking and fishing in the summer.


One of Kelowna’s residents happens to be custom motorcycle builder Roger Goldhammer, and he brought out a couple of his stunning creations for the shoot. Goldhammer’s bikes are a rare combination of function and style, and his latest creation just returned from winning the world championships. The supercharged, fuel-injected bike also set a land speed record at Bonneville last fall. Roger couldn't have been more gracious and modest, by the way.

In addition to the Goldhammer bikes, a number of other local riders brought customs and sport bikes out as well. Everyone pitched in to help move bikes, set up the garage, and arrange lighting for the shoot. Honestly, I couldn't have made the images without a ton of help, and thanks are due to everyone who showed up. Extra kudos go to the guys who hauled in bikes, and to Stefanie Giddens and Patti Cook from Woodland Hills, as well as my lighting assistant, Kathrine Gountas.

Oh, and Geby also runs Creative Motorsports, a company that builds custom-built trucks that are $100,000 independently-suspended engineering marvels capable of hard-core rock climbing as well as getting the groceries. And (of course) the first one of these Geby built won Four-Wheeler magazine's Top Truck Challenge in 1997.

Visiting Kelowna was an entirely surreal experience, as I simply didn't know much about the area and found a stunningly beautiful place populated by modest people doing incredible things.

I'll be back!

Coffee and Radio Daze

It's been a while since I posted, so I'm taking a few minutes to write. I'm working at my favorite coffee shop in St. Paul, The Black Dog Café. It’s a funky contrast to the younger, hipper Spyhouse Coffee shop I was in yesterday.

As I sat down today, I was happily struck by the fact that it takes very little for my business to come with me these days. Wireless, a power outlet, and coffee do the trick. Add a chocolate and macadamia nut cookie and you have found freelancer Nirvana.

But I digress.

The point is an update. What’s happening with me? Well, I’m working like a dog on my house. A lot is happening there, mainly because my neighbor, Jake, is a hard-working kid looking to make a buck to keep his hot-rod Civic on the road. The Klancher pad is looking up!

On the wrting front, things are happening as well. I’ve been doing radio interviews for How To Build Your Dream Garage, and had a good time talking garages with Joe Prin at 580am in Idaho and Bob Long at Motor Trend Radio. You can find the Motor Trend Radio podcast on iTunes, by the way. The episode before mine features a friend of mine, Hollywood car builder and inventor Eddie Paul. Check it out if you get a chance.

I have an interview with Bob Strong aka Handyman Bob on his show Around the House coming up on Saturday, July 26 at 1:00 p.m. PST.

I have a short (VERY short) piece and a small photo that ran in Men’s Journal this month. Check out page 34. Working with them was a pleasure—they are professional, hard-working and pay well and promptly.

On a fun note, my friend Stephen Regenold (The Gear Junkie) did a piece entitled, The World’s Scariest Roads for Travel and Leisure.com, and wrote about my adventures riding the Wilderness Road in the Bolivian Amazon and Brazil's Graciosa Trail.