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I’ve worked at ESPN for eight years. I started as a summer intern in the Unix group three days after I graduated high school. Shortly after, I was offered a full time position, and I’ve been there ever since. Longer than any relationship I’ve ever been in, longer than any place I’ve ever lived, and way longer than any motorcycle I’ve ever owned. This past Friday, was my last day.

Many people we’re pretty confused as to why I was leaving (my boss especially). I wasn’t unhappy with the job, the money, or any of the people I worked with. However, I found myself feeling rather complacent with the job. With a medium-sized company like ESPN, jobs and skillsets are streamlined and tailored to specific categories. One group manages everything relating to the network, one group manages the web sites, one group manages the servers, and there is even one group responsible for placing fake coyote’s around the campus to discourage the families of geese that make the campus their home every year.

Monday I start with a small consulting company with big dreams, and bigger shoes. Run by three great guys who don’t have time to bicker at eachother over ego’s or step on eachother to climb up a ladder of rank. The only thing we have time to do is work hard. I’ll be working from my home office most of the time, coming into the office for meetings and so they remember what I look like. I’ll be working on just about every technology, and even some that don’t exist yet.

ESPN, so long and thanks for all the fish. Here’s to the next eight years.

My fondest memory of Reed was at a track day I attended last year. The weather was miserable, a light mist of a rain. It was my first time on the track with my Husqvarna SMR. We all would go out together and dice it up on the track in the rain. Big stupid grin on everyones face, followed by a mediocre meal with some really terrible service at a Ruby Tuesdays. It wasn’t anything terribly special, nothing that changed your life or your views. Just a really great day of riding that stays with you for the rest of your life. Sad to see him go so young.

Fatal motorcycle accident shuts down part of Route 6

A somber start to a new season.

Last weekend I vowed to myself while gazing through the window in the door to the garage, I will get in there and make something right next weekend. Saturday turned out to be that day, and I took the SS off the lift, and put the Monster up on the lift to see what I’ve been neglecting. I considered firing up the bike to let the oil warm up, but thought about the 50W sludge pumping around and decided to drain it as it was. Apparently it was a good call, as the garage mice are saboteurs. (time for a shop-cat?) I found this little stash of winged food inside the air-box. I doubt a sunflower seed could stand up to the power of a stainless steel valve, but I don’t believe that Fabio Taglioni designed his demo’s to run on birdseed.

Sunday was a cool forty-seven degrees and sunnier than any summer day. I left my driveway and was off. Up through Litchfield County into the backroads of Winstead and Colebrook. I shifted into high gear with a margin of throttle and just listened to the motor rhythmically propel me through the country at two-thousand revolutions per minute. Left, right, straight, who cares? I fully enjoyed being “lost” for an hour before the shadows of the trees got longer and my gloves weren’t feeling as warm as when I left.

I stopped by a friends house to beg for a cup of coffee, but nobody was home. On my way back, I noticed Walt’s truck at his shop, so I pulled a u-turn and stopped in. Turns out not only did he have a spare cup of coffee, but he had a few minutes to kick tires and trade lies over a few smokes. A light breeze reminded me that it was colder still, so I thanked Walt for the coffee and struck out for home.

It was really nice to get some helmet time in.

Cyndi handed me a box Saturday evening and cheered “Merry christmas!”. The box was small, yet surprisingly heavy. I could feel the smooth laminated cardboard through the wrapping paper. Electronics! I tore open the wrapping paper, and found a new, smaller, faster, better digital camera. My camera had developed its own personality of malfunction on Day 2 of this years Hatfield McCoy trip, and started drawing strange icicles coupled with a blueish hue on every photo. I was elated, and during the grins and shutter sound of my new toy, she said “Now you can take pictures of stuff and blog about it, right?”.

Last night I found myself thinking about that while I was standing in a very fancy looking datacenter, and had to pull out the camera. If anyone has been wondering what I’ve been doing for a solid two months? Your looking at the general theme. You’ll notice nowhere in the picture is there even a motorcycle! Sadly this photo speaks truths about that sector of life as well. The Italian hussies in the garage are likely crying oil onto carpets and floors in protest, while the tools freeze to eachother.

Why do I always think I’ll have all this beautiful free time in the winter, during the summer when I also think I’m busy?

Sunday Cyndi and I both piled on the Monster and rumbled off down the road to the local italian resturant named “Pags”. An hour later we we’re both clutching our stomaches groaning trying to figure out how we’d fit back on the small italian rocketship. I commeted that the Italians probably designed these machines to transport small-framed italian men and women from cafe to cafe, and not large americans filled to the brim with italian food. We rumbled back home with an extra five pounds of manicotti and chicken marsala preloading the suspension.

Cyndi would call it dinner. I call it a celebration of italian technology and culiniary perfection.

More on that “monster” soon.

Turned twenty-five today. Today is a Monday, so I’m at work. An added plus? The coffee machine is broken. Since my motto is “adapt, overcome, and prevail”, I switched to tea. Its not quite the same, but it gets the job done.

Unfortunately, there was no triumphant ride into work on my 900SS. With some serious cylinder mis-match going on, I have a good deal more work to do before its running in a road-worth condition. I’m ok with this, because my second motto in life is “expect the worst, and you’ll never be dissapointed”.

There was however, go-kart racing and a plethora of apple pies baked by Cyndi. This fits perfectly into my last and final motto “everything is always better with pie”.

So I sat in the garage this morning with a cup full of coffee and a large slice of apple pie looking at my motorcycles in various stages of disarray and thought “I sure feel better about my busted motorcycles with a peice of pie in my hand”

I hope my car insurance rates go down now.

I was sitting outside work last Friday on a smoke break, admiring the bright flashes of colors throughout the trees around our building. While I was gaping at the leaves (something I get furious at out-of-state drivers for, there’s a time and a place!) I heard the low whizzz of a motor. I looked up and saw someone pull into our visitors parking lot on a bright yellow Honda Goldwing. For a moment, my heart pounded fast when I heard the electric sounding goldwing motor into the entrance, but as quick as it came, it ended. Paul Rossi wouldn’t ride a yellow Goldwing. That wasn’t his style. He would pick something black, or silver. Something that blends in.

I met Paul Rossi a year after I started my current job. I was nineteen years old, in the middle of the corporate environment, and still pretty dazed with it all. Paul Rossi is a rather relaxed, laid back 56 year old italian from New York. He had curly salt and pepper hair with a moustache that flaired up slightly at the ends, and big round straight-bar glasses that sat at various stages on his nose throughout the day. I would see him outside smoking throughout the day, but being a rather introverted young lad, I’d simply sit somewhere else and study mountians of paperwork.

It was the start of summer in 2003 when I bought my 1999 Honda Nighthawk 750. I was just coming to terms with the differences between riding a 30 year old rust-bucket dirt bike, and a modern 750cc motorcycle. My knowledge of gear and protection didn’t go much beyond a helmet, some workout gloves and a dress leather jacket. One day I pulled into a parking spot at work on my CB750, shut off the ignition and started clawing for the release on my helmet strap. When I looked back down, I saw a rather large man swoop in on a volkswagon-bus of a motorcycle, complete with 5′ antennas, American flag hanging off a pole on the back. The helmet flipped up, and I saw Paul grinning. I shot him a grin back and fired lit a cigarette. I pointed to his Goldwing and said “Man, your driving the cadilliac of motorcycles!”. He flipped his lighter closed and took a drag, thought for a second and said “Yea, but your driving the Ferrari” as he exhaled.

From that day on, every time I’d go out for a smoke, I’d sit with Paul and talk about bikes. He’d tell me stories about riding in the late 60’s and 70’s. Road stories. Dis-assembling carbs on the side of the road in Arizona with a swiss army knife, making his own tools for a collection of old motorcycles out of turkey basters, gear oil and pepper shakers. The stories went on and on. Often times we’d talk for damn near an hour about everything from motorcycle maintenance, to good roads, good eats, or even our outlooks on life. When I started working on my own bike, Paul always had the answers to my bike problems, and he had the background theory for his answers.

But Paulie also has the italian temper. His job wore him ragged, as he wasn’t the type of person who dealt well in backstabbing corporate environments. Paulie lives on the practice that any man or woman is only as good as their word, and he found it increasingly more frustrating to work in a place where your word doesn’t count for much. When he was in foul moods, I’d give him distance. Once (while I was in a particularly low point in my personal and professional life) I mentioned to him that I was thinking about joining the army. Oh boy did I hear it from Paul. He never told me he was drafted, and I learned quickly it wasn’t a good subject.

But in the end, it all just brought us closer. One day I got a call at home, and heard Paulie on the other end. “Whatcha-doin buster?” a low voice grumbled. Nothing at the time, and he asked me if I’d like to come up and hang out in his garage for a bit. I rode my new 2003 SV1000S up to his house in Simsbury, and entered the holy-grail of raised-ranch garages. A CB400T, CBX (six-cylinder), Triumph 650 Bonnie, BSA’s, parts time forgot and a few more projects he was working on. We sat in his garage, smoke cigarettes end after end listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin while gazing at the bikes. It was dark and cold by the time he and his wife wished me well and I wheeled my bike out of his museum and thundered off down the road.

Over the next year we got together once or twice more at his place. He gave me a air compressor from the 30’s he had in his garage. I still have it, and use it on a daily basis. Despite all of our kicking tires at work, and our occasional get togethers at his garage, we never went for a ride together. We’d both come in Monday’s and tell eachother about our rides to Granville Mass. for their famous “room-temperature-cheese”, or to Adams Diner in Dutchess County for the best blueberry pancakes. Thinking back, I wonder if we just both enjoyed talking about our passions for the open road, but preferred to be alone while actually doing it.

That winter, Paulie quit his job, and decided to move out to PA. He and his wife had found the perfect house, and he had found the perfect job, right smack in the middle of motorcycling nirvana. A day before he was set to leave for PA and start his new job, I found myself sitting in his garage, now half-packed for the move, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee with Paulie. We talked for half the day, about friends, life, jobs, changes… As I left, Paulie and I hugged and shook hands and he said “I don’t like saying goodbye, so I’ll just say, see you later..” I grinned and said “Hopefully sooner, rather than later.”

A few weeks after Paulie moved to PA, I got an email from him. Paulie never liked computers much so the email was only a few lines. The most important ones we’re on the bottom. “Beautiful women, curvy roads, many greasy diners. Life is good, this is heaven“.

I hadn’t heard much from Paul in a good five months when I got the news. Paul had a extremely serious stroke which had Paralyzed the side of his face, and taken almost all of his memory with him. He would recover, and be able to walk, eat and dress himself again after years of therapy, but it was immediately clear that he’d never ride a motorcycle again. I talked with his wife, who sadly informed me that I was welcome to visit, but Paulie wouldn’t know who I was, or have any recollection of our weekends in his garage, or our hour talks outside the smoking bench at work.

Yesterday I found myself sitting outside in my driveway on my 900SS after a quick run up and down the street, gunning the throttle to keep the poorly adjusted carb running. I thought to myself “Paulie would know how to fix this”. For a moment a wave of sadness knowing the world has lost the mind of such a unique individual came over me. But as quickly as it came, it past. Paulie would have definitly given me an earful if he knew I was kicking cans feeling sorry for myself right after I got my twice rebuilt bike running. Yea, the best thing I can do for Paulie and me, is to get it running right, and get out there. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into an italian with curly hair on a Silver Goldwing.

Last night I was washing a pitcher from my fridge that time forgot. (You know the type, the container you forget you had until you discover it months later hidden behind everything else.) I usually handle these situations with a good rinsing from the hose out front, followed by sanitizing everything with some boiling water for good measure.

So, with a pot of boiling water on the stove, I add some soap, and then pour the water into the pitcher. I close the top, and start gently shaking the boiling soapy water around the inside. I stop and feel the container and think to myself: “Hmm, this container is bulging now. I wonder if the spout-latch is enough to hold it?”.
Just as I’m about to start shaking the container again, I hear a *pwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* noise from the spout on the pitcher.

“Shit!”

FA-TOOOOOOOM!

Boiling hot water erupted out of the pitcher with a enough velocity to completely coat the wall and three windows in my kitchen. I had to sit down I was laughing so hard. Now whenever I pick up the pitcher, Lola whines and goes into the other room.

Adrenaline. It runs in the family. Nice face Greg. I particularly liked the part where your dive-buddy stroked your mohawk.

Coffee is such a staple of my daily routine, a morning without it is enough to send me into a psychological tailspin of self-doubt, withdrawl headaches, and a general irritated feeling. Every now and then I’ll mis-judge my use, open up the bag of coffee only to find barely enough for two cups. No matter, I just make a point to pick up more.

But when you buy the Super Xtra Value! 5,000 count #4 cone filters at cosco, and for two years, never have to worry about buying coffee filters, they become a constant. And constants can be bad. Why? You forget about them. Yesterday morning I woke up on time, went to make coffee, reached for a filter… and nada. The reality that I was out of coffee filters, and that I had consumed at least 5,000 cups of coffee hit me at once. Since my generation is one that learns much from TV, I instinctively remembered the opening to “Reality Bytes” where Lelaina (played by everyones favorite coke-fiend Winona Ryder) is also out of coffee filters, and uses toilet paper instead. I rolled up a nice ball, and arranged it in the filter housing as best I could and pushed the button.

After getting the small pieces of paper and coffee grounds out of my teeth, I vowed that no coffee at all is much better than coffee strained through TP. But what about t-shirts, Cyndi’s bra, socks or even lightly-used underwear? Could they provide enough filtration to get my coffee brewed in the most dire of circumstances? Check back with me in two years.