Today marks our 9th year in the UK. Wow!
Archive for July, 2008
9 years in-country
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008Torque dirty to me
Monday, July 28th, 2008The voices in my head have gone all psychotic on me. It’s a little sad really, because I used to enjoy their company so much, but these days all I really seem to get out of them is ‘ohmygodohmygodohmygod slowdownSlowDownSLOWDOWN!!!’ – that’s not the stuff of stimulating conversation, it must be said.
Part of this might be my fault. All I really did was replaced the F in the bike model name with an R, but this seems to have had some impact. At around 11,000 rpm the engine finds a second wind causing it to launch agressively towards the future which makes you feel like you’re superman, hanging onto something for dear life with your legs trailing out behind you. It’s a fun feeling for some values of fun.
Where it really gets scary is in the corners. It behaves a little differently to the CBF and the front end feels light as a helium filled feather – that’s pretty light! I’m sure I’ll work it all out in the next couple of weeks, but for now I’m still wandering around like a grinning idiot or sitting at work just waiting for the clock to hit 15:00 so I can get back out into London traffic. Yeah, I’m looking forward to London traffic – you can go ahead and call them men in white coats.
Without further ado, here’s the new beast – I’m still trying to work out what’s name is, but I reckon it’s probably going to be ‘Bird Flew’, what with an HN52 plate.
Glory days
Sunday, July 13th, 2008I’ve been away for a while, but now I’ve hobbled back to the machine and I’m ready to right again. Ish. You’ll get over it (if you’re even still out there)
We were driving somewhere recently (the where doesn’t matter for this tale, and I forgot anyway) and the iPod offered up Bruce Springsteen – Glory Days for our listening pleasure.
It’s actually quite a sad song about the peak of people’s lives and the lives they have to live when that passes, and for the most part it focuses on youth. It kinda hit me then, that I’m 32 and these are my glory days.
Sure, things aren’t perfect and there is a lot that I’d change if I could, but things like a bigger house, a faster bike and a job with no weekend work will come in time. But right here, right now, these are my glory days. Seeing the world, jumping out of things, going fast, taking painkillers… wait, not the last one – that’s just a consequence of the other stuff. How many people will ever have the things I have right now, will ever do the things I do right now?
It’s easy to sprout my favourite aphorisms about how “we take these risks not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us” when you’re hale and hearty. It’s a little harder to do while you’re hobbling because of taking said risks. But the plus side is that it lets you take a more objective view of things. And you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world.
I get all my best wisdom in life from my old man or from t-shirts. And like the t-shirt said, “Everyone dies. Not everyone lives” – I’m a large, thanks 