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Riding gear, LA, and old white lies
Aug. 21st, 2002 02:54 amOk... maybe 5 hours of sleep isn't quite enough. I caught myself performing several verbal reboots while trying to give a presentation to the bossmen today. Bleah. Feeling your own mind grinding gears while trying to slip the clutch is kind of unnerving. I'm going to zonk after posting this... and hope no more of my entries have that dreaded "3:30am" tag on them for a while. :)
The news of the day is that Bates called -- my position in the queue finally came up. They start cutting the pattern for my riding armor this week, and needed the 2nd (of 3) payments before they began. Normally they don't ask for a 2nd money infusion -- but they informed me they got burned by a few folks they sold to at the same Laguna Seca event I met them at, so they're asking their other customers to please pay-up before they commit to cutting leather/cloth. This made my budget wince terribly, as September is going to hit me with the tripleshot of bike insurance, bike registration, and vehicle insurance (all large lump-sums paid annually) at the same time I've got normal bills to pay and other new expenses. I'll feel so much better once this fall rolls around, moneywise. I'm actually glad BurningMan isn't draining my resources this year.
I'm definately eager to see the Tug-barding completed... the more I ride around with this flimsy leather wannabe-jacket and thin denim jeans, the more guilty and exposed I feel. I fully believe that one should wear the right gear all the time, and yet I've not been practicing what I preach, due to not having that gear available to me. As I get closer to actually owning the riding suit, I find msyelf more and more eager to have it -- and more paranoid that I'll take a tumble. I get nicely ironic images in my head of low-siding the bike while heading to pick up the completed suit. I'm psyching myself out but good! ( I have good reason for this paranoia, though. )
To not miss my place in line, I have to go down for the 2nd sizing either this Friday, or a week from Saturday. If I miss both those dates, I get sent back to the beginning of the queue, to wait another 20-30 days. Bates is in Long Beach, which is a 6 hour drive. They're far enough away from the 'cheap' airports that a ticket plus the cabride to/from their shop would be unreasonably expensive. My sister has my van for a week and a half, to go to BurningMan (and I'd not want to drive that gas-hog that far anyways)... so this leaves me with doing one hell of a long riding day. 6 hours down, 2-4 hours of fitment work and talks, 6 hours back. 720mi roundtrip, according to Mapquest. Erf.
I'll do it, to be sure; it's just a matter of which date to choose. I'll feel guilty the whole way, doing it in my simple jacket and jeans. I wish I had a friend to co-ride down with me, but I don't know of anybody in their right mind who wants to do a 720 mile day, down superslab. Frang lives up here now, and Hatch is gonna be out-of-state on vacation, leaving me with few things to do once I'm in the LA basin, which is a shame with the entire weekend free. Maybe Peggy and Ashy will be up for a pull-by-say-hi, or have a couch free to crash on if I'm not up to the return trip on the same day. Maybe I'll just flop out in a cheap motel, and then motor it to Vegas to see the Guggenheim "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit before going home. I admit, it's been a long time since I just played a weekend completely by ear. I'll find out more tomorrow, so I'd better be off to sleep. Goodnight!
The news of the day is that Bates called -- my position in the queue finally came up. They start cutting the pattern for my riding armor this week, and needed the 2nd (of 3) payments before they began. Normally they don't ask for a 2nd money infusion -- but they informed me they got burned by a few folks they sold to at the same Laguna Seca event I met them at, so they're asking their other customers to please pay-up before they commit to cutting leather/cloth. This made my budget wince terribly, as September is going to hit me with the tripleshot of bike insurance, bike registration, and vehicle insurance (all large lump-sums paid annually) at the same time I've got normal bills to pay and other new expenses. I'll feel so much better once this fall rolls around, moneywise. I'm actually glad BurningMan isn't draining my resources this year.
I'm definately eager to see the Tug-barding completed... the more I ride around with this flimsy leather wannabe-jacket and thin denim jeans, the more guilty and exposed I feel. I fully believe that one should wear the right gear all the time, and yet I've not been practicing what I preach, due to not having that gear available to me. As I get closer to actually owning the riding suit, I find msyelf more and more eager to have it -- and more paranoid that I'll take a tumble. I get nicely ironic images in my head of low-siding the bike while heading to pick up the completed suit. I'm psyching myself out but good! ( I have good reason for this paranoia, though. )
To not miss my place in line, I have to go down for the 2nd sizing either this Friday, or a week from Saturday. If I miss both those dates, I get sent back to the beginning of the queue, to wait another 20-30 days. Bates is in Long Beach, which is a 6 hour drive. They're far enough away from the 'cheap' airports that a ticket plus the cabride to/from their shop would be unreasonably expensive. My sister has my van for a week and a half, to go to BurningMan (and I'd not want to drive that gas-hog that far anyways)... so this leaves me with doing one hell of a long riding day. 6 hours down, 2-4 hours of fitment work and talks, 6 hours back. 720mi roundtrip, according to Mapquest. Erf.
I'll do it, to be sure; it's just a matter of which date to choose. I'll feel guilty the whole way, doing it in my simple jacket and jeans. I wish I had a friend to co-ride down with me, but I don't know of anybody in their right mind who wants to do a 720 mile day, down superslab. Frang lives up here now, and Hatch is gonna be out-of-state on vacation, leaving me with few things to do once I'm in the LA basin, which is a shame with the entire weekend free. Maybe Peggy and Ashy will be up for a pull-by-say-hi, or have a couch free to crash on if I'm not up to the return trip on the same day. Maybe I'll just flop out in a cheap motel, and then motor it to Vegas to see the Guggenheim "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit before going home. I admit, it's been a long time since I just played a weekend completely by ear. I'll find out more tomorrow, so I'd better be off to sleep. Goodnight!
