Anyone Got Their Ears On?

Update since last time:
-I'm working with Specialized Factory Racing--primarily the new tri program--and a little for ITU's awesome sport development program. I get to fly and drive all over the country and world and play with bikes. Flying still sucks, but at the end of the day I love my job and get to work with cool people. Part of the Specialized gig involves getting a class A driving license so I can drive the team truck. One of the unspoken requirements for the class A in America is a CB handle. Got to admit, I'm stumped. Any suggestions?
-Portland is cool. I eat slightly too much good food and drink slightly too much good beer. But I do it in great company. There is also gardening, duck raising, and sweet, sweet moto riding...
Stuff's going pretty good so far.
Cheerio

Not Your Granddad's Rubber Cow

Well, it happened. I replaced my burned-down motorbike. It was a sad process, as I went to the shop and said my goodbyes to the little beemer that could. It had delivered me coast-to-coast and through tens of thousands of spirited miles. I'll miss its simplicity, exhaust note, dignified presence, elegant lines, and talking to people about it.
I wanted to keep it and rebuild it, but as the last installment in the SC-vs-Jeff Middle Finger Contest went, the SC DMV wouldn't issue me a salvage title for the bike since I was no longer there. Nevermind everything else is perfectly in order... So, it was hauled up onto a flatbed truck and carted off to a scrapyard.
But... My insurance company must have felt bad, so they gave me some moolah. With it I bought a new flat twin--the R1100S. Though grief stricken, I made the right choice. It was not a mistake.

The motorcycles are different in so many ways, I'll spare you the numbers and stats. Perhaps the most expressive and honest difference, I'll call "The 9X mph comparison."
At 9X miles per hour, the little toaster felt primitive--like I had suddenly strapped on a Mercury capsule. The fire in its belly was deafening through wind-blast, helmet, earplugs. My eyes rattled around in their sockets. It is as if the toaster was yelling, "OMFG, WE'RE GOING FREAKING 9X MILES PER HOUR!!! CAN YOU FREAKING BELIEVE THIS‽‽‽"
The 1100S sounds more like this: "zzzzzz, wha?" Seriously. I tea-cup sipped the throttle (pinky finger out) on my first interstate ramp roll-on and I was going 8X mph before the white line dashed. 9X miles per hour honestly happened on accident and so comfortably that I'm sure the challenge now will not be based in parameters of physics, but in parameters of legality.
I cannot afford a traffic ticket so I'll tone it down (...) but damn.
The new bike's pedigree is obviously refined as its predecessor, the toaster, would demonstrate. It is dignified, comfortable, and well mannered. But as they called the old Beemers "Rubber Cows" for the wiggly-ness of their handling characteristics, it seems that the new generation has learned a thing or two. Namely, throttle, braking and steering. When they say, "it corners like it's on rails," this is what they mean.
Enjoying as many seconds as possible. And now on a machine that might be better at keeping up with the girlfriend's Ducati. Which is due out of the shop right about... Now. Gotta go.

Begin with a Sin

Gluttony to be specific.

Why is it that our holidays revolve around stuffing ourselves senseless with foods that we only eat once or twice a year? Thanksgiving may be the poster-child of disgusting overeating, wallowing somewhere in between the pain of stomach lining splitting and euphoric, momentary bliss in the sensation that one may actually never have to eat again. New Year's Eve is an all-out hedonistic bender, but New Year's day? Yep. New Year's Day, too.

Why did I eat two entire cans of blackeyed peas and a ream of collards today? Tradition. Because I'm supposed to on New Year's day. Because I'm superstitious that, after missing 2009's New Year's face-stuffing, if I miss 2010's, my prospects for any degree of luck (peas) or money (collards) will lillipute itself right off the map. My dad told me this afternoon something to the effect that no one needs the luck of the blackeyed pea more than I do. I think he's right, but as I slowly worked my way to the bottom of the bowl, forkful by forkful, I began questioning this hocus-pocus.

And by the bottom of the bowl, as my stomach stretched in bean-weight measure and I realized I was a little grouchy at having to partake, I thought: This is nothing more than voo-doo. I might as well throw the beans over my left shoulder or draw my adversary's face on the collard leaf to stick pins through it. In this dyspeptic revelation, I think how ridiculous it is to rely on a tradition like this uncomfortable and soon-to-be explosive gorging for a year's worth of good fortune. Why can't I make my own good fortune from pure intentions and effort?

As the end of 2009 showed me, that just doesn't work sometimes...

So, then again, flatulence and over-regularity seems a small price to pay for the assurance of a good year. Eat up. Gurgle gurgle.

Happy New Year!