“Did you know the speed limit was 40 back there? I clocked you at 55.”
“Uhh, no. Sorry, I’ve never been in this town before.”
“License please.”
…
“I’m just going to give you a verbal warning. Watch the speed limits.”
“Thanks officer.”
I missed the sign signifying the speed up to 50mph, but it didn’t take me long to correct the mistake with a gentle roll on of throttle. The wind rushed past my helmet, and I was still somewhat lost in thought. The excitement of the road ahead pounded softly in the back of my head, but it was too soon to shut off the music, flip up my visor, and give into the pure physics.
… If you always get up late.. You’ll never be on time…
Broken Social Scene crooned softly into my ear, adding more emotion to my thoughts than was really needed. I had just left Albuquerque behind, and for the last 30 miles I had been pondering the things I had seen and said. I woke up this morning on Frank’s couch, in my sleeping bag. His new cat, Zack, finds mostly anything a toy. I understand the mentality; I have a cat too. Of course, it did not help that Frank was cranked up, trying to stir the cat into a frenzy so it would land on my chest. I packed up my things and left as soon as possible. I called Danny, left a voicemail, called Josephine, another voicemail. So, I headed out to Rio Rancho to see Scott. I hadn’t talked to him in a while, not out of malice, just… lack of something useful to say, really.
Today was also his daughter’s birthday party. She is a toddler, and as I walked into his house, I discovered a fleet of toddlers. Scott and Ansley both wore matching Elmo t-shirts. Parents were everywhere, smiling, snapping photos, encouraging and discouraging the kids. I stood by the door, took off my courier bag and leather jacket, and found myself in the sudden possession of a piece of birthday cake. Kids? I don’t want kids. I’m worried if I had kids that I would mess them up somehow, or fail to be able to provide for them. My sister has kids, and she is doing well with them, so at least my folks are not pressuring me to pop out offspring. Scott is full on into the dad thing. Everyone tells me that having kids is the greatest thing, but Danny says they are just trying to make me unhappy like them, haha.
I found a quiet corner of the couch and waited for the excitement to die down. Scott’s folks popped in a DVD of photos from their recent trip to Antarctica. Yeah, that place. Part of me wonders why you would spend the money to just set foot on the continent and leave 30 minutes later, another part of me thinks it would be very awesome. Danny finally came to my deliverance, thankfully, and I ducked out to meet him at Flying Star on Menaul.
Happy Zombie Jesus day! Hopefully he won’t see his shadow and winter will be over soon.
OK, I just bought my ticket to hell there, but what the hey?
Regardless, here I am, 5:30 in the morning, sorting out my favorite pounding tracks for inclusion on my beat up iPod shuffle. I’m planning on going on a motorcycle ride tomorrow up in the hills, roads willing, and I wanted something thumping. I’ve been running Debian on my laptop here and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the iPod was reconized when I plugged it in. I rather expected an hour or two of futzing with it before anything worthwhile happened.
I hope to be down in NM soonish to wrap up some house stuff. Email if you are interested in stopping in and I’ll let you know when.
I know there have been no updates in a while, but I just have not felt inspired. I still don’t know the area up here all that well, except for my commute and the few tangents here and there, and it has been driving me nutty. Just the same interstate commute every day. The bike seems to love the 85+mph rides into work most days, though, and my fuel mileage stays firmly above 40MPG for the most part regardless.
So, recently, we bought Amanda a used ’92 Subaru Legacy 4 door sedan. 146,000 miles, ran good, but the clutch was shot, $700. Bought it, drove it to the shop. I spent a couple of days putting in a new clutch, which wasn’t nearly as hard as some of the ones I have put in in the past. I cleaned it up, fixed a door lock, bought trim pieces from the junkyard to get everything little thing inside looking good. It passed the emissions test no problem, and was running good.
However, the windshield had a crack. Saturday I took it in to get it replaced, and get the safety check. The safety guy was not there so I couldn’t register it. Whups. Monday I sent Amanda down to Salt Lake to have them do the check (for free, no less) so she could get tags for it. I had been at work for about 3 hours when the phone rang. It was Amanda, really broken up, and I couldn’t understand much of what she was saying, except she had been in an accident on I-15. I jumped in the truck and headed north.
Turns out that while attempting a lane change through a mound of slush to get clear of a disabled vehicle on the side of the road, she had lost control of the car and ended up hitting the disabled vehicle, an Isuzu Trooper, at about 50mph. The Trooper was mostly alright, but the Subie folded up, as you can see. More photos here. So, the $700 car is no more.
I’m debating taking the engine and tranny out and hanging onto them for a bit to make a few more bucks on it, but I haven’t decided yet. I gotta take it off to the junkyard Monday, though, so we’ll see.
Ah well, at least Amanda was not really hurt. She’s got bruises, but nothing broken.
So, anyway, watch out for slush this winter 
Now that it has begun snowing up here, I haven’t ridden the motorcycle much. I hope to still be able to on the days that is is clear to save some gas, but for the last 2 weeks I have been driving the Mustang back and forth to work. At about 12-15 miles to the gallon, with 40 miles to drive each day, it gets pricey. So, I have a nefarious plan.