Monochromatic Outlook

Fri­day was an unbe­liev­able day. This has been an unbe­liev­able week, come to think of it.

Wednes­day I went on an inter­view to work for an online dat­ing web­site com­pa­ny. They had me write Perl with a pen­cil, but I think I did well. The HR man­ag­er who I spoke with first men­tioned a num­ber about ten thou­sand dol­lars per year more than I earn now. I’ve been quite unhap­py with my present posi­tion, so that sounds won­der­ful to me.

On the … Read the rest

I read this one because a woman I dat­ed gave it to me to read when she had me pick up my stuff from her apartment.

I won­der if that has any­thing to do with my think­ing it was insipid, una­mus­ing, pre­ten­tious, and self-indulgent.

Oh well, it was a quick read, and not too much trouble.… Read the rest

Tonight on my way home on 16^th Street a pick­up drift­ed through a stop sign (I did not have a stop sign at the inter­sec­tion) with­out even paus­ing, and then see­ing that I was bar­rel­ing right toward him, he did the most log­i­cal thing if you’re drunk and scared: he hit the brakes and kept turn­ing, mean­ing he was not only stay­ing in my lane, he was point­ed more direct­ly at me and get­ting clos­er to me.

So the learn­ing … Read the rest

Not rec­om­mend­ed for any­one who isn’t fas­ci­nat­ed by motor­cy­cles, this well-researched and pho­tographed cof­feetable book is hard to read only because there are so many pho­tos of beau­ti­ful motor­cy­cles dis­tract­ing from the text at every turn of the page.

Fal­loon presents a sur­pris­ing­ly even­hand­ed overview of the his­to­ry of the Ital­ian motor­cy­cle com­pa­ny, but betrays his love for the Moto Guzzi on occa­sion with words like “unfor­tu­nate” and the occa­sion­al aes­thet­ic judg­ment. It’s always clear where he thinks a bike is … Read the rest

I had a dream last night that I was on my way to be exe­cut­ed. I was work­ing on my «accep­tance speech» for it. I don’t recall what act I’d com­mit­ted but I want­ed to express my hope that what­ev­er good I’d done in the world would ulti­mate­ly bal­ance out my crime.

The weird thing is that all the jurors were on tri­al, and I was one of them. It occurred to me that all I had to do was con­vince … Read the rest

I ran my Fort Mason-Mari­na Green run yes­ter­day after work. It was a beau­ti­ful after­noon and I real­ly need­ed both the release after a dif­fi­cult week and the reminder that in fact I do enjoy run­ning. It’s been too long since I’ve run and hope­ful­ly this is the start of get­ting back into the groove. I ran 5.4 miles in 55:39, dis­ap­point­ing on one hand because last year I was record­ing some much faster times. … Read the rest

Well, it hap­pened. I still don’t sub­scribe to the the­o­ry that it’s nec­es­sary for every rid­er to drop a motor­cy­cle, but Sun­day after­noon I became «one that has» instead of «one that will.»

The cause? My pride, pure and sim­ple. I was try­ing to keep up with bet­ter rid­ers. We took off from a brief stop and I end­ed up third with a cou­ple of faster peo­ple behind me and a cou­ple much faster peo­ple in front of me. I was … Read the rest

Lug­gage Mount­ing Rail Clos­er view of the Moto Guzzi sad­dle­bag mount­ing bracket
Lug­gage Mount­ing Rail Anoth­er view of the Moto Guzzi sad­dle­bag mount­ing bracket

They do seem sort of “extra” and take away from the clean lines of the bike, but not too badly.… Read the rest

Every time I see a Tri­umph Bon­neville, I think, “Now there’s a damn fine motorcycle.”

Tri­umph’s cruis­ers and the sport­bikes don’t do much for me, but that Bon­neville is sweet.… Read the rest