Confession time. I’ve been distracted for the past week. Call it writer’s block. Call it lack of skill. Call it whatever you want but I’m having a difficult time creating content right now. Even as I type away on the first draft of this post, I’m watching some guy on YouTube make homemade ice cream flavored with ginger and oregano. SPOILER ALERT: It doesn’t turn out great.

SNOW

Aside from normal work distractions, the greatest barrier to focus right now is the record (don’t fact-check me) snowfall in the San Bernardino Mountains. It started a week ago Wednesday. It does snow occasionally in my little corner of Southern California and we expected some accumulation. No one expected 7.5 feet. Plows on surface streets were nonexistent after last Friday night. Efforts have been concentrated on keeping the main arteries open. As of publishing, my street is still not passable.

Some have been calling it Snowmageddon. I prefer SNOVID-23 because it has forced us all into quarantine.

The weather was nice(r) on Sunday. I took advantage of it and began the process of digging out from the five feet of snow that had already fallen. After a full day, I barely reached the roof of my truck. It did provide an opportunity for photos, though.

I undertook an expedition to the post office and grocery store on Tuesday. USPS was closed. They had restocked the grocery store via 18-wheeler escorted by California Highway Patrol and CalTrans, requiring tow straps in places. Goodwin’s Market, the store I had just visited and the only grocery in our town, closed on Wednesday. The structure couldn’t handle two feet of additional accumulation overnight and the roof collapsed. News of the collapse broke my spirit. The next closest grocery may as well be on the Moon since most vehicles are currently useless.

Roofs of several other buildings have also collapsed. Residential gas meters, not designed for this type of weather, are buried and have begun to explode (at least two so far).

My snowblower threw a track two days ago. Nothing kills motivation like dragging a heavy, immobilized snowblower back up a steep driveway into the garage and my already broken spirit couldn’t take it. I suppose I should feel lucky that 1) I have a snowblower and 2) it didn’t happen sooner. The novelty of this weather has worn off.

San Bernardino County says all roads won’t be accessible for another week. Some more remote roads will take even longer to clear. Their plows and road graders cannot clear them due to extreme snow depth. They are attacking the accumulation with loaders. The governor declared a state of emergency Wednesday evening. The National Guard arrived yesterday afternoon. Not sure it will do much good.

My four-wheeled vehicles remain buried and the target for being able to use them is when streets are passable again. Motorcycles are safe in the garage. Snow has trapped them all for the foreseeable future just like me. Be prepared, folks. When fecal matter contacts the rotary impeller, no one is coming to help.

All this doom and gloom is getting me down. Let’s talk about something motorcycle-related. This is a motorcycle blog, after all.

ANDROID AUTO

I alluded to the frustration of Android Auto in last week’s post. I’m going to expand on that topic today as it was also distracting. I debated whether to post this in the Review section but chose here because this isn’t so much of a review as a rant.

The idea of Android Auto on a motorcycle is very appealing. The IDEA. Google designed Android Auto to be used with a touchscreen user interface. Buttons and controls on a Honda Goldwing do not adequately take a touchscreen’s place. The dash is too far away. It couldn’t safely be a touchscreen, anyway.

Some of what happened on my ride was my fault. I had not ridden the Goldwing since November. I also recently upgraded my phone from a Pixel6 Pro to a 7 Pro because Pixels are not robust enough to withstand being dropped over 500 times on concrete. Sometime between November and this trip, Google pushed an AA update. I hadn’t tested how the new phone, updated AA and the Crimson Couch got along before heading off on an 8-hour ride.

It wasn’t all my fault, though.

AA functionality has suffered in the last update. Split-screen is great for seeing your maps and music in your car. Toggling between the two applications is a pain point on a bike. I couldn’t figure out how to manipulate my chosen streaming service (Amazon Music) without the playlist starting over. It shouldn’t be that complicated. Can I revert to the last version, please?

I have struggled with connectivity between the bike and the phone. Ordinary USB cables reliably show AA on the dash but won’t charge the phone. ‘Good’ cables charge the Pixel but lose connection. Internet forums indicate you need special USB cables for it to do both. I purchased USB cables from EC (Electrical Connection), a well-known motorcycle accessory shop. Success! Or so I thought. 45 minutes into the ride, the problem with the 7 really began.

What is more distracting than riding a motorcycle and having your maps and/or music continuously disconnecting? AA lost and regained connection approximately 100 times in a three-hour span.

Maybe the USB-A part was loose. I bought some duct tape at a gas station that thought duct tape made more sense to stock than electrical tape. I secured the female end (bike) of the USB to the male end (cable) tightly with the duct tape. It didn’t help.

Maybe the cable had gone bad. I swapped the EC cable with another EC cable and another. None of them were successful in fixing the problem. Ultimately, I tossed the EC solution and went back to using a cheap USB cable. For the entire trip home, there were no connection issues. The cable did not, however, charge the phone. I expected that. 60% was left in the Pixel’s battery when I pulled into the garage.

If cheap cables don’t work and EC cables don’t work, what will? After returning home, I thought about this very question. You can buy USB cables directly from Google. I did that. Google is very proud of their cables. One stylish white USB cable will run you $20. I don’t have the cable yet. My town is cut off from the rest of the world and nothing is getting delivered.

I hope that a Google-made Pixel connected to a Google-made cable trying to run a Google-made application will work correctly and fix my AA connection issues. Riding a motorcycle is dangerous. Abrupt and unpredictable changes on a motorcycle dash display is an unnecessary distraction. If a Google cable doesn’t fix this, I’m going to have to join the phone-on-the-handlebar club and quit AA. The other option is to try Apple CarPlay. I’d rather not.

I had other topics to discuss today such as Honda announcing the XR150L is coming stateside for under $3k. Unfortunately, the snow is stealing all my current focus, just as AA was an intrusive and unwelcome distraction while riding the Goldwing.

There is always next week.