The waiting is the hardest part...

The anticipation of a major trip with a totally unknown outcome is torture. I've got myself into a major league weather-dependent time schedule to get the bike out of the desert southwest and back to Rochester befor the end of the MLK weekend. I find myself looking at the forecast maps. This one is awesome, even though what I see on it today has absolutely no bearing on what it will look like a week and a half from now.

Screw it, time for bed...

A touching story...with motorcycles

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/22/magazine/the-lives-they-lived.html#view=uneasy_rider

The die is cast...

After much consideration the Dakar is getting a stablemate. I give you the 2011 R1200RT. My rather extensive travels in the American West in 2009 and 2011 convinced me that the two-bike solution was the way to go. Picking it up at Sandia BMW in Albuquerque in early January. If I get a weather window, I'm riding it home to Rochester. If not, it's staying in Scottsdale at my folks place until I can fly/ride. Weather is going to have to look pretty crappy to convince me not to ride. I've got heated gear and it's an amazingly comfortable bike. If the roads are free of ice and snow, it can be ridden...

Gentlemen of the jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it the most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

Gentleman of the jury: A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.

Born Parris Island 1962 (Marine Corps Dad)
College State Univ. of New York at Cortland BA Psychology 1984
Full time trainer for a large Law Enforcement agency.
Married, one kid.

Why *not* blog?

All the cool kids are doing it....

Plan is to post occasionally and link to stuff of interest to me. I've never been much of a 'sit down and write' kind of person and am horrible with deadlines so don't expect much. I'll stop back later tonite with a short biography.