I have a not-very-consistent tradition of going out for a New Year's Day ride when I am home for New Year's. Here's my motorcycle story:



I need new brakes. Replacing the pads on my bike is pretty easy. It's almost as easy as replacing brake pads on my bicycle. So, I called the local Triumph dealer here in North County; North County Yamaha Triumph. Notice which manufacturer is listed first. This is a foreshadowing of what is to come.



Disclaimer: the only guy who I let work on my bike is Matt Capri, the owner of South Bay Triumph/Aprilia in Lomita. Matt is a magic man with bikes; no one else comes close. But, Lomita is a little far to ride for a set of brake pads, so I use these clowns - North County - in Escondido for simple shit like tires, chains and the occasional part.



I called the parts guy on the phone.



"I need a complete set of brake pads for my 1995 Triumph Trophy 900." Note: a complete set is one set of pads for the back and two sets of pads for the front (I have dual rotor fronts, as do all modern Triumphs EXCEPT the pseudo-retro model Adventurer and Thunderbird).



He looked it up and told me he needed to call his rep to see if that guy has them. He called me back a few minutes later. "Yes, I can get those in tomorrow." Cool! That's New Year's Eve. I can get the pads and then put them in and go for my ride the next day. The next day I went in there and asked for my parts. The girl behind the counter brought out two packages; a set of rears and one set of fronts.



"OK, where's the rest of it?"



"Uh... this is all we have." The manager was there and he apologized. They confirmed the order and they confirmed that the order should have had 2 sets of fronts. So, I am annoyed. Not only will I have to ride on New Year's Day with my getting-nearly-worn-out front pads, I'll have to come back to get the other set this Saturday. I fucking hate motorcycle parts guys who don't know their own inventory.



I came home and put the rears in. No problems, they worked fine. They rub on the rotor a little but new pads always do that.



I went to the neighborhood NYE party and managed to not get too drunk. I wake up about 8:30 AM the next morning and thought, "Hey! I'm not hungover! Let's go for a ride!" I got dressed, fed the cats and went out to the garage. I smack the door opener button, the door starts to open and at about the 3/4 point the opener starts FREAKING OUT so I hit the button again and stop the motor. It turns out a tensioning spring in the chain drive broke so now the door won't open. What's worse is the big springs on the door aren't strong enough to hold the door open on it's own.



I curse for a while and then took some measurements. I've wanted a roll-up door for a while anyway; this is a good excuse to replace the old door and the opener. I realize the storage cabinets along one of the walls are too tall to allow a roll-up track clearance. Shit, now what? I resign myself to having to move that cabinet to a different location in the garage. I drive over to the Loewe's to get the garage door lowdown. I ask about opener parts; they don't sell individual repair parts. Then we talk about new doors and installation. These clowns won't guarantee installation for 3 weeks ("but they've been usually getting to them in 2.")



"Well, 2 weeks is about 13 days too long, man. My garage is unusable right now. It's dangerous!"



So, I said, out loud, in the parking lot, "Fuck it! I'm going for a ride!"



I came home, propped the door open and the bike out, fired it up and rode to Julian for lunch and then came home, washed it and put it back in the garage. I put the car in the driveway in case the door decided it didn't want to even stay 3/4 open anymore. It was like that all this week.



I had a guy come yesterday to give me an estimate on a door and an opener. We talked about the clearance issues and he gave me a heads-up on what I need to do. His door price was OK but his opener price was too high. I thought about it and decided that since I had to move one of the storage cabinets on the left side and remove one of those crappy shelves Dad and I are going to remove when we do the shop bench soon I decided to forego the door for now and just buy a new opener.



So, I did that today. It took all day but it went very well and works fine so I am happy. I was able to use the mounting locations and some of the existing hardware from the old one and that made things go much easier. The door itself is not square in the frame but I'm not worried about it; in a few months I will replace it with a roll up door anyway.

it's been a while since I posted anything of substance, but tonight's the night!



We had our big layoff the week before Thanksgiving and I was not a victim. I swear, I feel bulletproof. Now watch, because i've written that I'll be next in line. The other interesting rumor is that another reorganization is in the works. This one will supposedly put everything back as it was in 2001. Sigh. This is OK for me; it means my boss is back in San Diego, instead of in Horsham.



Christmas was nice; the house looks great and I had a good time with my brother and sister-in-law as well as my folks.



I've updated the web site with the latest trip adventures: Rome, October, 2002.



I couldn't get up to Tahoe for New year's because Southwest was sold out and American had lousy prices and lousier itineraries. So I've been invited to a neighborhood party for New Years and then I have 3 Sunday nights in row in January: GD employee party, Curtis' graduation party and then Michael Miller's CD release party, assuming he's doing one and I'm invited. I decided to learn a few tunes for New eyars so i can play a little music with Bob, the host and former guitarist. We'll see if we're up to the task.



And speaking of playing, I haven't been! Dammit! This Friday night for sure!!

It was the neighborhood Christmas arty night last night. It was fine - not nearly enough bad behaviour last night as in the previous one.



We ended up playing poker again and I think I came out ahead. it's tough to tell since I don't count my initial pot.



I sanded and painted the crown moulding today an tomorrow I'll caulk it. It looks *OK* but I am never 100% happy with it. I have two new ukiyo-e prints to hang up as well. Maybe I'll do that right now...

Got me some DSL broadband, baby!

Back from Rome and with a lot of photos and some good memories, except I left my car keys in the hotel room the morning I left, which of course meant I had no way to get home from LAX. I had to call my folks and they picked me up. Very embarassing for me.



The Friday of the week I returned I was told that the company wanted us to play the Christmas Party, but we ultimately declined because I 1) am sick of those same 10 frickin' songs (well a few of them anyway), 2) we don't have time to really work aon any more (the married guys can't rehearse 2 or 3 times a week, which is what it would take) and finally 3) we're having a big layoff and I am not interested in doing all this work just to get the pink slip a week or two before the event.



I discovered what I believe to be all the errors in the first book and have corrected them. I am writing a section on the Palatine Hill and have included some new photos. Ancient Rome Second Edition should be ready to go in a few weeks. Early Christian Rome should be good to go in a few months, hopefully.

Quick note from The Eternal City. It's raining cats and dogs today so I decided to catch up on my email and surf a little bit.



The hotel is OK. I have had some funny interchanges with the front desk guy that I will detail later, but siffice it to say he knows I am a travel book writer now and has an autographed copy of Ancient Rome. First edition, too, which is of course the most valuable. :-) There is a nice beer bar down the street about 50 meters that has a combo American/English/Irish feel to it and a similar menu. I go in there nearly every day.



I've been lugging the huge camera bag around every day, loaded with the SLR (with lenses, motordrive, big flash unit) the DV cam, the pocket 35 mm and the GPS receiver. Add a few cans of film, a few DV cassettes and the thing is a monster.



Had some fun nights with everyone, including a great pizza night with the old gang and a nice day with Bruna in Spoleto and a nice walk with Laura on the Appia Antica.



More later.



Ciao!

So we played our "big gig" Wednesday night. It was the annual "booze cruise" that is an event that occurs in tandem with a "Users Conference" that's held at a bayside hotel on Coronado Island.



We set up on the top deck of the boat with the idea that if we sucked then people could escape back down to the lower decks and no harm done.



We had the majority of the attendees on the deck with us and they stayed for the entire hour+ set, so I guess we didn't suck. My comedy MC skills were in full flower and I had the crowd laughing quite a bit. It was freezing and drizzly up there for a while, but we blasted through "Keep on Rockin' In the Free World" and "(What's So Funny) About Peace, Love and Understanding" and by then my fingers had thawed so I was able to play pretty well after that. Vinh played really well tonight. As Mark put it, "We peaked tonight, man! We timed it pefectly!"



We planned a end-of-set jam of a 12 bar blues thing-a-ma-bob with the idea that people in the audience who had expressed an interest in playing could do that with no need to "learn a song." Apparently we scored major points since one guy was a BIG customer of ours. Even though he sucked he jammed for 10 minutes or so. The drummer was a jazz drummer, so the concept of locking on a simple 4/4 groove was alien to him. It was pretty interesting in the way a trainwreck is interesting. I was happy to go down to the bar and get a beer while that while thing was going on. We left Bob in charge on stage.



The next day the marketing folks thanked us for playing and then today positive comments were made in the all-hands meeting, so we're heroes.



We had the experience of playing in front of 100 people and they were entertained to a reasonable level, so everyone won that night.