Since last time

Got my tools to get the swingarm off today, Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to me!

Today, I mostly hung around the house baking cookies and playing goofing off. Tomorrow, I'm going to take the front end off and get the rear end off.

More pictures soon!

Getting started on the airhead

It's been too long since I last posted here, but I've finally settled with the insurance company. I've started disassembly and will do my best to put this bike right and rideable again. Right now, I've got parts coming in, bodywork out for paint and a big box full of pieces to clean and refurbish.

Someone was reading this blog and sent me a note, having known Greg. I'm sorry I didn't respond. I had a drive crash last summer and lost a ton of email.

Drop me a note if you'd like.

Here's where we stand, as of last Saturday.

Surveying the Landscape

OK, it's been too long since I last posted, but life is busy. I've been launched into a new role at work as Director of Training and Implementation. Suffice to say, as we launch our software product and start to get clients, I'm in charge of getting them trained. I am, at this point, as busy as a school teacher at the end of August. Lesson plans, tests, the dreaded PowerPoint slide show.

It's all there. But at least I'm having fun doing it.



Closer to home, we're finally moving forward with landscaping. I'm too lazy to type the whole thing into this place, but I'm happy to provide a link to a motorcycle forum, of all places. There, I've posted plans, photos of the before, plant listings, general thoughts on design and enough blather to keep you, dear reader, entertained for a while. Check back as we start to work on the project for updates.

Check here for all the scoop.

The R100CS

Dizave asked about the history of the bike I managed to prang, so here goes.

When I lived in New England, I met a guy named Greg McQuide. He was a great guy. He aspired to be a moto journalist, but was teaching English at Northeastern University. We were both clubmates in the Yankee Beemers, so we got to know each other pretty well. I saw him riding his R100CS Last Edition all over New England and up and down the east coast. He usually hung out with his buddy Jim O'Connor who had an R65. We just called them both "The FNGs". Great guys, both of them.

Greg managed to snag a job with Motorcyclist, working for Mitch Boehm in LA. He packed up all his stuff, including his bike, and headed west. Tina and I moved out here about a year after him and probably 6 months after Jim. They were down in LA and we were up here in SF, so we had some difficulty getting together. Steve Hancock, another YB, was out here in the spring of 2000 and we arranged a camping trip for the FNGs and us in Morro Bay. Greg couldn't come because he was in Spain testing tires. We said we hated him, but we were all envious.

At the 2000 Honda Hoot, Greg was riding a Triumph back to his hotel and was run off the road and killed on the interstate in North Carolina. Such a shame. We lost a big happy puppy of a man and a good friend. This was right at the end of June, so we flew back to NY state for his funeral over the 4th. I met Mitch there, who had purchased Greg's bike from Greg's parents.

For a few years, I'd drop Mitch a note periodically, checking on the bike. Mitch always said he was going to restore it, and he didn't want to sell it and so forth, but a couple years ago, he finally let it go.

After the poor thing languishing in the basement of Motorcyclist's building for years, I got it back to a regular runner and have been riding it on nice weekends. Until the 4th of January this year, that is.

I'd always been a bit confused by any restoration effort. Do I leave it as is, scruffy, warts and all? Or do I take it apart and make it look new? I think the choice was made for me, so I'm going to take it all apart and make it look beautiful again.

That bike's been through a lot in the time I've known it. It deserves it.

A long week

Sorry for the delay since the last post.

I've been in NYC for a big piece of the week for the LegalTech show, which is the largest show in the litigation support industry. It's quite a deal. I'd bet there were at minimum several thousand people there, all networking attending seminars, buying, selling services and goods and, of course, doing some networking.

Networking was really the prime focus of my visit there, though I had significant booth duty and conversations.

New York's always fun, and this year was no exception. In my other life, my motorcycle life, I attend an annual BMW rally that has several thousand attendees and is much like LegalTech. In many ways they're the same. There's a group of folks that share a common interest, have, in some cases, known each other for years and years and are more than happy to cut loose and have some fun in the evening. Much like the riders, stories are told of disasters, near misses, witty retorts and personalities that somehow seem larger than life.

Along the way, I managed to get some kind of nasty viral thing that's given me the voice of Lou Rawls and a cough that sounds like old plumbing. A trip to flash gordon, m.d. this morning yielded a prescription for antibiotics.

The orthopedist tells me I won't have to have surgery, but will get some PT and should be at "85 - 98%" when I get done in a month or two.

Sounds good to me.

Now where's my Ricola?

Languishing in the midwinter doldrums

The astute reader will note that I managed to get knocked off my bike, leaving both it and I a bit creaky and damaged. I'm getting my shoulder looked at by my orthopedist next week after I return from NYC.

I'm somewhat distressed that I haven't mustered one iota of enthusiasm for putting the airhead back together, though. I'm not sure what it is. Midwinter doldrums? General lack of enthusiasm to do virtually anything physical while my shoulder feels like it has rocks in it? I'm really surprised at myself. I love that airhead and I cringe a bit when I see it out there with a big gash over its eyeball.

One thing at a time I guess. My job is in flux, I'm getting ready to do some traveling, I've got MOA responsibilities to tend to that have gone too long without attention.

One thing at a time.

Good thing Tina's here to prop me up and help me deal with it.

When it rains, it pours

I'll say it right up front. I'm a sales person. Account Executive, if you prefer. I show people things they can use to help manage their litigation document collections. Sometimes, they buy. More often, though, they don't. It's not personal, it's business.

I'm at a company that sells some nifty processing that's an add on to more basic processing. Business has been, in a word, tough. I still do OK, but one can't help but wonder whether the company is going to make it. So, I've been idly casting about for a job elsewhere in the industry. This week, I've been talking with a company I respect about an AE position. They're pretty large and do some pretty neat stuff. Strangely, I was referred to them by the president of my company. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Am I getting the bum's rush?

Anyway, a recruiter I know, also a rider, called this morning with a Sales Engineering position opportunity. It sounds neat and I'd get to work with some folks I already know and respect.

So, decisions, decisions, decisions.

We've got company coming tonight, so the hard core husband/wife decisions will probably have to wait a day.

MRI Day with an open MRI

Today, I went for an MRI on my shoulder. I've had them before and they were sort of like slowly being fed through a sausage stuffer or something.

This time, I had an "open MRI". Instead of the ring arrangement, the "open MRI" has a pair of parallel planes that you lay between. It wasn't bad. It's got the usual accompaniment of drum sounds, but it's not nearly as claustrophobic.

I walked out with a set of "X Rays" that show various slices of my shoulder, all with a handy orientation guide in the upper left. The guide shows exactly where each "slice" was positioned. It's kind of creepy to look at them and see all the big parts in my shoulder, even if I don't have a clue about what anything is.

Come to think of it, that's probably why it's creepy.

Off to the orthopedic guy, hopefully next week. I'm headed to NYC in another week and will gone most of the week, so I'm hoping I won't have to wait two weeks to get some progress going.

Speaking of other fallout of the events a couple weeks ago, it seems that Schuberth Helmets aren't being distributed in this country anymore. The folks with the distribution rights seem to have found something else to do with their time and/or money, so us folks that like them are out of luck.

Fortunately, I found them on line, so I'm still able to replace it. It's just that I'd rather have been able to support my local dealer, Marin BMW.

Fell off my motorcycle

A bit more than a week ago, I managed to get knocked off my R100CS by a guy making a Uturn. He did the typical pull to the right like he was going to park, then, as I got closer, he pulled out and hit me. I wound up flying through the air, landing right on my face.

You really want to wear a full face helmet.

My gear kept from getting any bit of road rash or other damage, though my right shoulder continues to hurt. Nonetheless, I took a trip to the emergency room at Marin General and they checked me out, pronouncing my injuries as a sprained neck and shoulder.

Tomorrow, it's off for an MRI.

I've reached a settlement with the insurance company, who will be buying me a new helmet. They're also going to give me some money to fix the fairing, which is busted beyond all belief. This is kind of a rare bike, with a history (more on that at a later date), so I think I'm going to try and make the bike prettier than it is now.

Both of us need a little help, I think.

Frozen

The neighbor's lemon tree is frozen, the bougainvillea is dead. It's 27F in San Rafael.

Miraculously, the shrub that block my view out of my office is still living as is their rat haven rose bush.

Well, then

Ah, the blog. The electronic version of "dear diary".

The wonderment and terror of the empty page, now occuring almost every day, right here on my desk. Tag along, gentle reader, as I attempt to bore you with page after page of my interpretation of the world.