weeks later, my parents are arguing in a hot kitchen
Tuscany was a complete success. It went, regrettably, much too fast. But only in the sense of time passing – the speed on the road was exactly perfect for me: slow on the first day, fast on the others. Great food, great accomodations, and nice to see kev too. It did rain, but not enough to ruin any of the days.
Now i’m in dundas, sitting at my parents place listening to lighthearted arguing — nothing has changed. Actually they are on fine form at the moment 
We’ve visited friends, seen Matt & Jen tie the knot, and survived 4 days of heatwave (peaked at 36C apparently. not fun). I miss my bike, but i’m excited to get the new shocks on it… and we’ve been spending time on my new bluetooth idea….
… because I ordered a new helmet, the Vemar CKQI bluetooth. Apparently (according to WebBikeWorld) it will fit my head very well. Which is more than my current helmet, and every other bloody one i’ve tried. Anyways, the goal is to be connected to the autocom (what we use to talk to each other on the bike) without wires. But apparently, bluetooth on helmets is designed only for cellphones. You read that right: to use a cellphone not just in a moving vehicle while driving, but one that requires as much attention as a motorcycle does. Brilliant, right? No wonder BT helmets are not taking off! Enter the Guruplug (new version of the sheevaplug) – 1.2ghz ARM cpu for $99, but most importantly, with bluetooth. So the idea is to stick a USB soundcard in there, connect the autocom to that, and then make the guruplug relay the sound to the helmet from the autocom. Of course the voltages from the USB-soundcard to/from the autocom are different, so dad & I have been designing a circuit to deal with this. Fun!
Of course the helmet is the one I was supposed to try on in Italy. Never mind going past tens of “dealers” from Vemar’s official dealer list (pdf on their website) — we were even just 1h30 north of the Vemar headquarters & factory itself when we were in Tuscany (it is in Grosseto). Even given all this: I could not try on the helmet in Italy. The “dealers” didn’t even know what Vemar was (!), and the factory doesn’t take customers. When we called the factory and told them that the dealers weren’t dealers, the customer rep said “oh well can’t help you”.
Italians.
Anyways. I ordered it… we’ll see if it fits. Gotta pay $45 restocking + shipping if it doesn’t 
Sunday, off to Seattle. But I am missing my bike a lot right now, in this nice weather!