A new chapter; new friends; a new phone

 

The weather has turned back to cool and rainy. Surprise, surprise.

Ah well. As Steven Wright has pointed out – ‘you can’t have everything – where would you put it?’

I got the call from Carter’s Motorsports at around noon telling me that I could pick up my bike at anytime. This, of course, brought a smile to my face.

Of course, even this experience did not come off without a hitch.

Sophia dropped me off at the shop to pick up my bike. As I was gathering my gear from her car, I absentmindedly placed my GPS and my cell phone on the roof of her car, grabbed my helmet from the trunk, my jacket from the backseat, leaned in to say thank you, snatched my GPS from the roof – and 45 seconds later realized something terrible had happened.

But there was hope, right. Very little traffic had passed. All would be fine. The universe was working with me and all was about to be okay again – all I had to do was walk back up the street, paying attention to where a cellphone might land, and then…..

RRRRRRRrrroorororrororoooooommmmmmm…….a very large truck happened by.

This is the second Blackberry that I have killed in less than 1 year. The first one I lost from my outside vest pocket while riding to Pembroke last July. I had received a phone call before starting out and placed my phone in my vest instead of an inside pocket. Careless.

This time, I left my phone on the roof of a car. Careless.

So, a trip to Future Shop, an hour of my time, and a sweet-talk phone call to Rogers Customer relations allowed me to walk away with a new Nokia Lumia 900 at a very acceptable price.

Acceptable is, of course, relative. And subjective. I admit that it would have been much, much more acceptable to have been responsible in the first place, but, spilled milk and all that,….

After attending to the ramifications of my momentary ineptitude, I scooted off to the Horse Shoe Bay area of North Vancouver for my introduction to the guys – and gal – from the CMC 056 Vancouver chapter.

Of course, this is when the skies were preordained to open up and pour on me. And me, with no rain gear…….can you say lack of focus.

I blame part of that on Sophia. She takes great pleasure in being distracting. In a way that can almost be downright cruel, but I digress. I guess I have to take the brunt of the blame for my own lack of focus.

I finally made it to the Meet and Greet. A little late. A lot wet. And was really well received. 6 members from the 056 were on hand to greet the guy from out of town, and once again I was made to feel like a well known friend who had been away for a while. We went to a little Chinese food joint down the block, shared stories, ate good food, and experienced the camaraderie of like minded people interested in similar things. DrMucker and Scotty-004 are both camera buffs – DrMucker has several GoPro videos on YouTube and has inspired me in the past – likely to do so again, I am sure.

DrMucker, Scotty-004, Pathfinder and the rest of you – thank you very much. I am pleased to have met you – and hope to ride with you on Sunday.

I was not able to stay as long as I would have liked – it was already going on 8:00pm and the rain was not letting up – but I was there long enough to know that I have once again made life-long friends in a city far, far away from home. I cannot overstate what that means to a man like me, who spent so much of his life tossing friendships aside in the pursuit of darker needs.

I continue to learn that my life is beautiful, and that all I need do is remember to keep it simple.

Like taking a motorcycle ride for no reason other than the ride.

Peace.

Chinese Food with 056

Members of the 056

DrMucker