Dream Sweeper Today I up and decided it would be a good day for a longer ride on my new motorcycle. As I have mentioned, the new bike is a BMW RNineT, which is a stripped-down version of the classic BMW boxer twin. It’s a lot of engine, 115 horsepower, on a very basic frame and accoutrement. There is nothing fancy about the bike, but rather, it stands out in its plain simplicity. Compared to…
Forced to Fly I find myself in a most unusual place. Two years ago, when planning a motorcycle ride to Spain, I had the brilliant idea of buying business class seats through a specialized third-party vendor who promoted being able to offer business and first class seats far cheaper than otherwise available. That was appealing to me because when we fly internationally, we pretty much insist on going business class (our size being a significant…
Too Old For Adventure Something came over me in the past week and I don’t know that I can explain it. I got an email from the local BMW motorcycle dealership saying that on September 18 they were having a special event to celebrate the new BMW R18. This is a massive new transverse twin with 1,800 ccs of displacement. That means each cylinder has about 900 cc’s (almost a full liter) of displacement between…
The Circle of Life One of my friends who reads this blog regularly just emailed me that while he enjoyed the story of the day and found lots of new and interesting references, he was not uplifted by the story because its theme was one of the reality of the human condition. We all have our mood swings and I guess I express my through my writing. I have been accused many times in life…
Coping It is a foggy morning on the hilltop today. My mind is geared to my garden and I enjoy a misty or foggy morning for the benefit of the moisture it brings to the plants. I also know by now that it is just a matter of a few hours before it will burn off and it will once again be a sunny and glorious day. It is Sunday and I have the pleasure…
See You in September The Happening was a 1960s cover band that actually had a great deal of success playing and recording music from other bands, but injecting their brand of harmonizing and more upbeat tempos to make the song more their own. They did this with many big hits ofthe 60s including Go Away Little Girl, I Got Rhythm, Why Do Fools Fall in Love and Make Your Own Kind of Music, just to…
Going to Hospital Today will be my second day visiting Kim in the Scripps Hospital in LaJolla, arguably one of the best hospital complexes in the world. Those visits and wandering those largely cavernous and vacant halls set me to thinking about what goes on in hospitals. I suspect that now, during this continued Pandemic, most of us are doing our best to stay as far away from hospitals as we can. That is far…
Aiming for 2060 Today marks the 105th birthday of my mother, Dr. Ludmilla Ann Uher Prosdocimi Marin Jenkins. If she had not died at age 100 four and a half years ago, my mother would have turned 105 today….or maybe Thursday. It seems that in 1916 it took two days in Lansing, Nëw York for a birth to be properly registered, so while born on September 14th, her official life commenced on September 16th. That…
Apollo 13 Last night I watched for the umpeenth time, this Ron Howard film about the troubled flight to the moon manned by Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert (last minute replacement for Ken Mattingly) and Fred Haise. The roles were played by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon (Gary Sinise) and Bill Paxton. Ed Harris plays Gene Kranz, the Flight Director at Mission Control in Houston. Every time I rewatch a movie I see new things or think…
Handy Rich Ever since we came back from our summer cross-country trip, Handy Brad and I have modified our arrangement. I think this was a combination of Brad getting some other work in his neighborhood for an older woman (i.e. someone who was not so penny-pinching as some of his other retiree neighbors) and me running low on new projects. Now, if I need Handy Brad for something, I call him and we agree on…