oh, how i miss you in the winter...

This time of year I tend to go into a goofy kind of depression. All because I miss riding my motorcycle. The real depressing part is going into my garage to stare at the bike... and then grab my shovel to clear the snow from my driveway.

Six years ago I became a motorcycle enthusiast. I'd just gotten back from a sandy year long vacation in the middle east, and buying myself a motorcycle was on my "what I'm gonna do when I get back home" list.

It helped that I had a partner in crime for this. My friend Chris also wanted to buy a motorcycle. So we bought our bikes. Chris had purchased a 2005 Honda VLX Deluxe, and I  a 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan 800. Our plan was to get our learners permits, get used to our bikes and then test at the end of the month. But there was a small problem...

Every car I'd ever driven was an automatic. The only time I'd driven a manual was just before I went off to basic training, and my father attempted to teach me to drive stick with a little suzuki SUV.  This did not go well. There was much arguing and issues starting in first gear. Maybe if wasn't about to go to basic training and actually practiced a few more times with the stick, but anyway...

So Chris and I had our motorcycles delivered to his father's house in Dummer. Chris and I were roommates  and had no garage for ourselves to put our bikes in (first clue to our brilliance!)  There we were staring at our beautiful new machines. Chris attempted to start his bike... no luck. For about ten minutes we pondered what was going wrong. Couldn't figure it out.  Mine started up beautifully!  So to not completely ruin our moment, Chris suggested I ride mine down to Milan airport while he follows in his father's truck.

Full helmet, gloves, uber-cool leather jacket. I was the man! So I start up the bike, slowly roll down the dirt driveway to the road. Now to put that reading about how to shift to good use. NO PROBLEM! Down the road I went, going very well, shifting like a dream, and Chris following behind.

So after my first exhilarating ride we stop in the parking lot at the Milan airport. All's good. Then I turned myself around to leave the parking lot and head back to Dummer. Stall.... and then another stall. Couple more times of trying to start from first gear.

Ok, I'll try it one more time... and I'm off like a rocket across the road, hanging on for dear life, and then plowing my bike to the left across the road into the dirt, with a rooster tail of dirt spitting up into the air!  Ouch. Landed on my Left side. My ribs kinda hurt, but not sure if it was bad.  I groaned, mostly my pride was hurt. Chris ran over, white as a ghost. "Dude, you ok?"

I dusted myself off, we picked up the bike, and amazingly I got it into first gear and gently road down the road back toward Dummer. And all was good again... until the driveway in Dummer... that dirt driveway. I overstear, and fall now on my right side. At this point I'm fed up, really sore physically and mentally. At least I got "it" out of the way. They say that every motorcycle rider dumps there bike at least once.

Decided right then  and there I was gonna wait to take the Motorcycle Rider Safety course. Chris finally got to ride a bike that day, although just up the driveway to the garage... where my bike waited until a few months later after the safety course where I got my license.

 That safety course was worth it. I felt completely confident getting back on the motorcycle again. Confident enough that I traded in the 800cc Vulcan for a 2005 Honda VTX 1300s. Big beautiful cruiser. Still have that bike, still runs beautifully. Had some excellent rides on it. Good memories. Best part of all being that I've never dropped it.

Well, only a few more months to go... then I can open the garage to hop on the bike instead of reaching to grab a shovel.

so this is blogging

I'm new to this whole blogging thing. Granted I've done this by myspace and facebook, but do those really count? To me this is a strange and somewhat egotistical concept on the past habit of keeping a journal. I honestly wonder who's gonna read this. Are my thoughts anywhere near as insightful or thought provoking as some of the blogs I occasionally check out? I don't think so. But sometimes I'm asked by certain people what I'm thinking about, probably just from the strange look on my face as I stare off into space.

Anyway, I'll be sharing occasional thoughts on a bunch of topics that are near and dear to me. Here's the short list:
Cooking
Motorcycles
Ambulance stuff
Music
Martial Arts
Movies
TV
... and attempting to enjoy some outdoor activities.

I'll be posting soon, so until then, good vibes to all...