Saturday, April 29, 2006

Online, In the Nick of Time


How important has the world-wide-web become to us as a society? Well, here’s a good example. We were in Sequatchi TN last weekend to compete in the last STRA Modern trials event. Clay over-heard someone mention wireless internet and BAMB, he was gone. When I get ready to get back at it, I find him sitting under a tree, instant messaging one of his many fans! Actually, I’m not sure who the fan was in that electronic conversation, but with the poor cell service found there, he was sure in a better mood after finding he could still stay in touch with “the world”. It is remarkable though, to be able to hook up like that in the middle of nowhere?

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Another Humbling Experience

Well, been a few days since I uploaded any random thoughts, so I’ll share a few now. I had a great time riding Sunday afternoon with the gang at Ginder’s ranch. We’re thinking of making the trip to TTC this weekend, so we loaded up the modern bikes to attempt re-acclimation of the intrinsic differences between riding new, versus old. The new modern style trials machines are truly amazing. They’re light, nimble, powerful, and extremely well designed. Why is it then that these engineering marvels look so clumsy with me on board? There were a half a dozen guys riding there Sunday, all of them on 30+ year-old motorcycles and every one of them looked like gazelles compare to me. Even the Guru, riding a strange, smoke-belching monster with what must have been wooden tires, made me look like a fish climbing a tree. Oh, the guys tried to cheer me up (I think). Cap said at one point that me and that Sherco looked like a water bug, darting and stopping all over the place. I think now he meant like a bug looks on the buffet table at the Sizzler as it dodges serving tongs, completely out of place. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever haul that thing up there again. I’ll bring the little Honda from now on, at least it’s got real issues that I can blame probable failure on. Oh well, I sure had a blast anyway.