Somebody get me some crylenol

So for anyone who doesn't know I'm on the first day of a four day solo
motorcycle trip. More specifically I'm finishing up the first day of
said trip waiting for my dinner and finding a campsite courtesy of the
magic that is the iPhone.

Ostensibly the reason for my trip is that I want to spend four days
riding my motorcycle through the mountains, and I do. However I've
learned over the years that I do some of my best thinking while
touring on a motorcycle and after the last year and a half of my life
I need to do some serious thinking.

Over my life I've played many roles, some good and some not so much
and over the last year it's been more in the "not so much" end of the
spectrum. Over the last year I've been battling depression off and on,
and I've done a number of things, and acted in a number of ways, I
wish I hadn't. Now the easy way out would be to blame the depression
but to be honest I'm not sure that puts the cause and effect in the
right order. In part I think the depression might actually be due to
my awareness of the gap between the person I want to be and the person
I've become.

So no more!

There are a number of specific steps I need to take and I have some of
them outlined in my head. Hopefully when I post tomorrow I'll have
more of them in place and I'll be able to present something that looks
kind of like an action plan.

The one thing I will do now however is apologise. There are a number
of people my actions have hurt and you know who you are. You're people
I took for granted or treated as a convenience or simply ignored you
when it was inconvenient to do anything else and I'm very sorry for
that. You deserve to be treated better and I didn't, this isn't me
asking forgiveness it's simply me saying I'm sorry.

Till next we meet....

It's a long way to the ground

It was a little before midnight on July 13, 2007 and I was headed home for the night. It was hot, which was my excuse for throwing my leather in a saddlebag instead of across my shoulders where it belonged, I even did the same for my gloves.

I was heading up to an intersection that I'd been through a hundred times, knew the lights like I know the tick of my alarm clock and when I watched them I could tell they were going green before I got there. So I moved over into an empty lane so I could just flow through without needing to brake, the only other vehicle there was a fellow on a nice Harley, I can't recall the model but I remember it was maroon. I was distracted that night, not that it's any wonder, when one's mother dies and you're on your way home from viewing the body distracting is one of the milder mental states that you're flashing through. A sensible person would have taken a cab, asked for a ride, anything other than hopped on a motorcycle. . . not that it was a surprise to anyone who knows me that I chose the latter option.

As I got up to the intersection I glanced up at the lights again and to my surprise they were red, I snapped my fingers out for the front brake, watching the light go green as I did so. Too late, the message was sent, the fingers were moving, unfortunately they were doing so without the finesse and control they usually have with the front brake. . .

I remember the sound the front tire made as the brake locked and somewhere between that noise and the ground I remembered thinking "you're in a t-shirt dumb-ass, you can't afford to slide you have to roll!" So as I hit on my left side I snapped the left hand out and slammed the back of it into the ground to start myself rolling. All in all it was a good choice, cost me a fingernail but probably saved me from some skin grafts, and I was a little pre-occupied to notice the fingernail making it's exit so it didn't really bother me.

I tumbled a few times, all those years of Judo and Gymnastics helped, it was a pretty smooth set of rolls and a smoother transition back to my feet when I got down around 15km/h. After all, I didn't know where traffic was and I sure as hell wasn't laying in the middle of the road to find out. I got to my feet at a dead run and hung a sharp right, something wasn't right in my left ankle but the boot held it all together and I figured if I could run on it it wasn't that bad, when I felt it transition to grass instead of pavement I stopped and took a seat figuring at least I was safe from traffic.

The guy on the Harley was pretty stunned, he came over to help and when I asked for an ambulance he sheepishly told me he didn't own a cell phone, probably the only guy in the city without one. I sauntered over to my bike and picked her up off her side, I did my best not to look at the damage, that was for tomorrow. I took my cell out of the saddlebag on the left and gave it to him, a few minutes later an ambulance arrived. Nice guy, I appreciated his help.

That one cost me a little over a square meter of skin and had the doc threatening me with skin grafts, the lost fingernail was just a bonus.

The next day while swaddled in bandages and before I headed off to DJ my friend's wedding I hopped online and ordered a mesh jacket. After all, I might be crazy but I'm not stupid. . . twice.

 

Till next we meet. . .

 

Why is it okay for you?

So tonight I had a conversation with someone that I've had before, not with this individual per se but with quite a number of people over the years and I'm starting to wonder. . . why is it okay for you?

The fellow I was talking to today was asking me why i don't do more with my life. He wanted to know why I'm "wasting" my life working as a bouncer rather than doing something meaningful, rather than accomplishing something, rather than being remember, changing the world etc.

Because I don't want to.

Part of being happy in life is knowing your place in the world, it's knowing what it is the universe wants from you and accepting that and working toward that rather than fighting it because I'll tell you. . .the universe always wins.

I know my place, I'm not supposed to be rich, or famous, or loved. I'm not supposed to change the world, or make a difference, or be remembered. I'm not supposed to do anything great, or have a family, or be anyone in particular.

My life is supposed to be as one of the nameless masses. I'm supposed to live quietly, alone, without fanfare, joy, or hope and to die alone.

And I'm okay with that.

It doesn't bother me that no-one will remember my name in years to come, or that nobody will cry when I pass along. I'm fine with that. As long as I have food in my belly and a roof over my head I have no particular desire to accomplish anything, or change anything, or do anything.

The part I don't get is why this is acceptable for the vast majority of the population but everyone keeps getting on my case for it? Why is it okay for everyone else to move through the world without leaving a mark but not for me?

Seriously, mind your own damn business people.

Some people are wanted for who they are, others for what they can do.

Nobody gives two shits about me for who I am and I don't blame them. I'm a lot of things and most of them aren't particularly nice. Rather people like having me around for what I can do for them specifically the fact that I'm big and strong and take a punch well.

And I'm okay with that.

Anyway, I'll end the late night rant with that.

Till next we meet. . .

Gym and back again

Well it's been a while since I posted about the changes Im hoping to
make stick in 2010 and thus far things are going pretty well.

In terms of working out I've made every workout I've scheduled for the
last three and a half weeks so that's pretty good. I'm following Dave
Tate's 9 week basic training program that you can find over on elitefts.com
.

It's not that I can't make my own program but I thought it might be
good to do something I wouldn't normally do and this program
definitely has me doing some stuff I wouldn't typically include on my
own.

I'm still a far cry from that 1000lbs squat that I'm chasing but it
gets a little closer with every workout.

Most importantly I'm really quite enjoying working out again which
means I'll be sticking with it.

So...

Till next we meet...

Gonna Party Like It's. . . oh wait. . .

It's 2010! That means it's New Years Resolution time, I however hate NYR. After all, if something is important enough to want to change in your life why the heck are you waiting for an arbitrary day to start? Start now?

So rather than calling these resolutions I'm going to address some of the goals and changes I would like to make for an in my life for 2010. I'm just going to touch on them here and fill in details a little more in upcomming posts. . . which hopefully I'll remember to make.

Financial
Generally I suck with money, I made great strides in fixing this issue in 2009 and now hope to continue with that and build on those for 2010

Fitness
I'm powerlifting again. I tried a lot of other stuff that just didn't work for me so now it's back to something I love. Will I compete again? Well there is still that 1000lbs squat calling my name. . .

Work
In general I quite like my job, I like the places I work and the people I work with however I need to get off my ass and back into business for myself. I have a potentially lucritive one ready to go if I ever get off my butt and get it going.

That's it for now short I know but hopefully there will be more next time.

Till next we meet. . .

Four Rules

So this past weekend I was able to participate in my first NAIT motorcycle course and it was certainly an interesting experience, one which I very much enjoyed. While there were a great many things to take away from the experience I'm going to relate two of them and I hope you enjoy them.

The Four Rules of Motorcycling

1) Always look good
2) Where you look is where you go
3) If you look down you go down
4) No one looks good under a motorcycle, so being there puts you in violation of Rule 1

The Story

It was the first day of class and we were performing a braking exercise with the students, basically you would ride at the instructor who would then put a hand up indicating to you to stop and you would do so in a controlled fashion.

Ideally.

One of the fellows in class was a little enthusiasic and got a hold of too much front brake. On some bikes this wouldn't matter but he happened to be on a CBR 125 and while the bikes are small they're very agile. . . and the brakes work very well. As a result this fellow ended up coming in on his front wheel with the back wheel well up in the air. Now, had he followed Rule 2 and kept his eyes up he might well have ridden in in safety. . . if not control. However he looked down and this put him at the mercy of Rule 3 and it chose to make him it's bitch.

As a result he went down and the motorcycle not only came down on top of him but chose to whack him in the face in the process. Fortunately he was relatively uninjured in the whole process and after getting cleaned up was right back on the bike. I have to admit some admiration for a man who, his first time on a motorcycle, not only crashes but does so in a spectacular manner and gets right back on the bike.

Now I've had to drill those rules into my head as they're something I'm expected to be able to spout off to students and to reference easily and quickly so the time I took to memorize them also got me thinking about them and how they apply to life.

How many people in life actually make an effort to look where they want to go? How many people spend their lives looking down, or in so many cases backwards, rather than ahead to what's coming up?

When you ride a motorcycle the road happens fast and you damn well better be looking nice and far ahead if you want to be able to react to it. I'm thinking life is the same way and at some point I need to stop looking down (at the present) and start getting a better view of where I'd like to be and what I'd like to be doing.

Well there's my thoughts for the day.

Till next we meet. . .

Ride on

Well another riding season is upon us, if we ignore today's snowfall,
and that of course means that it's spring. With spring comes rebirth,
regrowth, and change and I appear to be a part if that.

What's happening?

Well it appears that this summer I'm going to be teaching motorcycling
for NAIT which will be a fun filled adventure. I like teaching and I
like motorcycling so I can really only see those going well together.
Plus of course I'm sure I'll find myself with a plethora of funny new
stories to tell you.

I also recently ended a two year relationship to a great girl, seems
to be a recurring thing in my world doesn't it? That has caused me to
start doing some thinking about how I handle the whole relationship
thing. Right now all I have are questions but hopefully one of these
days I'll figure out some answers to go with them.

Perhaps later I'll post some of those questions and see if any of you
can help me out.

Till next we meet...