failure weblog

mileage at the end of today: 535
yeah, yeah. i only put 25 miles on my bike today. but i bought a new answering machine and a virgin mobile cell phone. i also played around with and tested the throat mics. i think they’re going to work well. i went around looking for “earhooks”, which are plastic devices which wrap around the outside of the ear and hold the earbud suspended over the ear so you don’t get the uncomfort of having an earbud shoved in your ear for hours straight. i didn’t find any. i’m hoping i can get some here in houston instead of mail ordering, since i’m not sure they’d make it by saturday.

mileage at the end of today: 510
today i went out searching for mics to use with the motorola talkabouts tamara and i bought a year or two ago when we were taking the kia to brady to sell. i finally ended up at bass pro shops out at the katy mills mall. there i bought a couple of throat mics. i wonder how they’ll work? anyway, i can return them if i don’t like them. i was also looking at camelbak bags, sleeping bags, naglene bottles, tents, etc, but i didn’t make any purchases.
i got my new digital camera in the mail today. it’s a canon s410. i charged the battery and took one picture so far. the subject? my motorcycle, of course. 🙂
yesterday i called stubb’s and talked to the guy i bought my bike from. i’m hoping to get my real license plates before i leave. i also need those saddlebag mounts. i went ahead and set up an appointment with service for my 600 mile maintenance on wednesday.

mileage at the end of the day: 438
what a great way to hit the 400 mile mark. i was riding in to work, and as it rolled to 400 i was curving around mecom fountain looking at the statue of sam houston on his horse, a tree-lined road in front of me with the park and zoo ahead of me to my left and the tree and ivy-laden boundaries of rice to my right.
today was supposed to be partly cloudy and no rain. but i needed to buy rain gear for the upcoming trip, so after work i rode over to stubb’s on telephone road. got there about 15 minutes before they close, so i quickly tried on some rain gear and bought it. the clouds were somewhat dark and it had sprinkled on me a bit, so i kept them on when i left. lo and behold, on my ride from there to kaveh kanes it started to rain. pretty cool how the timing on that worked out…first time it rains on me on the bike and i just bought and was wearing rain gear. after kaveh kanes i went and ate (late) at doneraki’s on westheimer. my advice is to not eat a lot of mexican food really late at night and then go to bed.

mileage at the end of today: 384
i didn’t make up for the 10 miles under from yesterday, but i did manage to get 50 for today. which is good, considering when my alarm went off this morning it was pouring rain, and continued to do so for at least the next 30 minutes. in fact, my street was flooded up to my sidewalk and i had to wait an hour for the water to go down so i could drive my pickup to work. there was still a lot of standing water and people stranded and such, but i made it okay. so all my riding was done after i got home from work.
i also noticed tonight that the vin number on my insurance was wrong. the first character should have been “1” but it was an “I”. i called progressive and they updated it and are sending me new cards and such. of course, i probably won’t get them before i leave on my trip.
speaking of not getting stuff before the trip: i hope i get my new driver’s license in the mail before i leave. my current one expires on july 1. i also hope the dealership gets my new permanent plates before i leave. i’m thinking temp texas dealer plates and an expired license on a motorcycle might not be a winning combination when going on an extended road trip through multiple states.

mileage as of end of today: 331
well, it finally happened. i didn’t manage to get at least 50 miles today. which isn’t so bad since i’m up over two days. lots of rain around again today, but i (still the daredevil) drove into work anyway. some misting but no rain, no street spit, no problem.

mileage at the end of today: 292
lots of rain around, but being the daredevil that i am (ha) i went ahead and rode to work. no problems with rain while riding, nor wet streets, or anything. i need miles! i tried downtown again, and managed to find a good parking spot because someone parked poorly across lines, leaving 2/3 of a spot open…not enough for a car, but a motorcycle fits nicely. had a cup of coffee at kaveh kanes, then off to eric and sara’s to watch the pistons spank the lakers. i’m not much of a basketball fan, but it’s nice to see a TEAM of underdogs defeat a bunch of hyped individuals, and do so with class. real teamwork and sportsmanship is something that is missing from most professional sports these days, in my opinion.

mileage at the end of today: 228
i got a day up yesterday on my mileage, so i’m hoping to keep ahead. the sunburn experience convinced me to wear long sleeves now. i drove downtown, but didn’t park because there was evidently an astros game going on…parking was in short supply. i took a night ride to the house of pies on westheimer and ate, then rode out westheimer onto some farm and markets and such until i had no idea where i was, but managed to find a path back without retracing my steps. i love it when that happens.

mileage as of end of today: 148
put about 100 miles on the bike. i don’t ride in circles, but i usually don’t have much direction. i try to ride in traffic areas so i vary speed, come to stop signs and lights, etc. i also managed to get a good sunburn on my forehands and forearms. you’d think that wouldn’t happen, what with all the sun i get sitting in front of computer terminals indoors all the time…

i’d been wanting to get a new motorcycle for a long time. i’d given my old kawasaki vulcan 750 to my brother back in…uh…i don’t know. he was thinking he’d fix it up. he came down to visit and we went by a couple of bike dealerships and i showed him the two motorcycles i was looking at: another kawasaki 750 and the new-for-2004 honda aero (also a 750). a couple of weeks later, my brother called me up and told me he’d decided to not fix up my old bike, and in fact had bought a new bike…a honda aero. what are little brothers for? ; ) so that meant i really didn’t want to get an aero…i didn’t want to look like we were weird twinkie brothers if we rode together. *shudder* so time went by…
i looked around, got prices, did research, and settled on probably a honda sabre (1100) or *maybe* a honda vtx1300 retro. the price jump from aero to sabre was about $2k, when the jump from sabre to vtx1300 was about $1k. a bit more than i wanted to spend, but for $1k it might be worth it. i went to honda of houston on a thursday a couple of weeks ago and talked with a guy, but they didn’t seem to interested in giving me a price i thought was fair. while i was there, i noticed i didn’t like the vtx1300 retro in person as much as the pics online. but the vtx1300 looked pretty cool.
then today i was planning to go to stubb’s southwest and wild west honda. i stopped by stubb’s first. i told the guy i knew dealer cost, was pre-approved at my credit union, knew they were in business to make money, and was looking to buy that day. he said to make an offer. i did, and his manager approved. so i didn’t get a great deal or anything, but i got a deal i thought was fair and they made some money. so i’m now the proud owner of a 2004 honda vtx1300. color? black, of course. what else would you expect?
i was sort of up against the ropes because my brother and i had talked about taking a road trip this summer, maybe to cornerstone in illinois, but we’d have to leave on june 26th…which meant time was running out. so i bought with two weeks…perfect, right? well…a new bike has a break-in period. it needs to be run at varying speeds, so that means no long road trip to get the miles. this bike’s is 600 miles, then to the shop for fluid changes and such. which means i’ll need to ride an average of 50 miles a day to get in the 600 by june 26…
mileage as of the end of today: 48

well, it’s been some time since i made a weblog entry. a whole bunch of crazy sh!t went on with tamara. mostly her convincing herself leaving me and breaking our martial vows is the right thing to do. i don’t agree, but i know i didn’t support her emotionally as well as i should have, and a lot of things plus my male ignorance distracted me from being able to see she was going down the tubes and going to give up on me and our marriage. obviously she’s still sinned and went against G-d’s will by having an affair and choosing to leave me, but i feel like i’ve really been trying to figure out what if anything i could do to help the situation. one of my personality flaws shines through in this scenario: too little, too late. tamara no longer cares about our marriage — she has let her love die, she has let her commitment die. obviously i was a part of that process without knowing the level to which i was, but my attempts to save what i really did consider to be so precious appear to be futile. i don’t believe this is G-d’s will, but i only hope that G-d can honour my attempts to do the right thing and take care of me and create a new path for me. it would be wonderful if tamara could see that honouring our vows is important, but i think she’s been dead in the heart and gone through too much to survive. i will miss her, but hopefully G-d will take care of her and bring her to Him.