Some people hate how Buells look, but not me. My only stipulation is that I put 10,000 of my own miles on the odometer of my current bike before I go looking for something new. The practical benefit is that I’ll be able to get a 2008 or 2009 model for cheaper once the 2010s are out.
According to my status update from earlier today, there are only two kinds of motorcyclists: Those who have crashed, and those who are going to. (Personally, I think that saying is kind of stupid, because you can make impressive-sounding dichotomies out of anything. Need an example? There are only two kinds of people: Those have died, and those who are going to die. See?)
Anyway, this morning was apparently my day to crash, and crash is exactly what I did. I was coming down Campbell at about 5:45 a.m., and I was in the middle of the first left turn (the big one). I had started in the outside of the lane, as I should have, except that I ran into a small problem about halfway through the turn. The recent storms must have washed dirt and sand onto the road, and then cars went and pushed that stuff towards the inside and outside of the lane.
Well, my front tire ate up some sand, and then I don’t quite remember what happened next. Either the loss of traction flicked me, or else I tried to adjust and nudged the handlebars, but at any rate, I started heading off-road. Since the shoulder of Campbell is all dirt and tiny rocks right there, it was pretty much over for me at that point.
The bike slid out in front of me, and I followed shortly after it once it managed to shake me off (a low-side crash, as it’s known). After about 30-40 feet of sliding, bike and rider came to a stop in the dirt off to the side of the road. At that point, I did what any motorcyclist would do: I picked up the left turn signal, put it into my backpack, picked up the bike, and rode home.
The damage report is as follows:
All in all, there was relatively little damage to me because my protective gear did its job. Except for the dirt and dust, you can’t even tell my jacket was in a wreck. Gloves are a little scraped, but fine. Boots are scraped, but fine. Helmet is undamaged and didn’t get touched. Jeans have a couple holes in the left knee, but those are cheap to replace. I’m missing some skin off my left hip, so if you happen to come across it, I’d like that back.
I guess I’m just really thankful for the circumstances of the spill, and for the fact that I’m able to write about the whole ordeal just 14 hours later. I mean, there were no other cars on the road, I wasn’t seriously injured, the bike wasn’t seriously hurt (only about $300 hurt), and I was able to ride the thing home and park it just fine. So, thanks for watching out for me, Lord.
People have been asking me if I’m going to keep riding. I think you can tell from my tone in this post that I’m going to keep riding. I’m repairing the bike as soon as possible, and then I’m gonna ride it until the odometer stops turning. Stuff like this happens. It’s just a matter of whether you pick the bike up and keep going or whether you give up and refuse to learn from your mistakes. After all, there are only two kinds of motorcyclists…
I’ve got a cute picture for you below. It makes me hungry for dinner. How about you?
For a moment, let’s assume that I went and looked at a bike very similar to the one in the previous post. Oh, what the heck—since we’re just assuming, let’s say I went and looked at that exact bike, down to the year and the color. Now let’s assume that the aforementioned hypothetical bike was in perfect condition with only 1700 miles on it, and for a moment, let’s assume that I put down a $100 cash deposit towards the total purchase price of $3700. [Assumptions are fun, aren't they?]
Now suppose that the seller told me that there’s a lien against the title of the bike. If you’re not familiar with how loans work, this essentially means that the institution financing the current owner still owns the bike because it hasn’t been paid off yet. This presents an obvious problem for me in the area of titling. When I give the seller a certified check for $3600 (the price we agreed upon minus the deposit), I expect to receive the title in return. Well, since the seller doesn’t own the bike “free and clear”, she doesn’t have the title in her possession, either.
On the surface, it seems like the only way to resolve this is to have the seller take possession of the bike through whatever means she can. If that entails borrowing money from friends or family to pay off the remainder of the loan, then I think that’s what needs to happen. The heart of the issue is that she’s trying to sell something she doesn’t own! OK, but I really want the bike, so I’ve been scheming and trying to come up with a solution that will work for everyone. Even though I graduated from one of the best business schools in the country, they don’t teach stuff like this (useful stuff, that is) in the classroom. Here are my options as I see them:
So what am I supposed to do? Does anyone have experience with dealings of this kind? I’m going to call my credit union tomorrow and find out how situations like this are normally handled, but I appreciate any and all supplemental input.
Gracias.
Not quite an SV650, but those are mighty hard to come by these days. Here’s a 2005 Suzuki GS500F, which I’m checking out tomorrow (and in the color configuration shown below, too). The more I research this bike, the more I like it. Detailed motorcycle post still forthcoming.
I found this exact bike in the Tucson area for a good price. It’s a 2003 Suzuki SV650, and I’m hoping I can strike a deal with the seller and become the proud owner of this bad boy. I intend to write a longer post about motorcycle stuff shortly, but just enjoy the pictures for now.
Am I thinking about it? Of course I’m thinking about it.
Check out this A380 made out of Legos. It brings back fond memories of building Lego creations as a child, except on a slightly smaller scale. The model is the largest Lego airplane in the world, measuring almost ten feet long and more than three feet tall. It’s made up of more than 75,000 bricks and weighs about 220 pounds. It took expert builders at Legoland 600 hours to complete, and it’s 100% awesome.
I’ve had an American Express credit card for a couple years now, but I would only use it several times a year, and only when shopping at Costco. (Costco doesn’t accept any other credit cards, and the reason why I didn’t go there very often in the first place was because I was mooching off my parents’ Costco membership.) Well, I finally broke down and bought my own membership in my name, and at the same time I signed up for a new American Express card linked to my Costco account. (It’s a rewards card, and they give you $25 just for signing up, so why not?)
Anyway, the new card came in the mail today, so I went online to activate it, as per the instructions. Activation went fine, but there was some kind of problem linking the new card to my existing online account. I called up customer service (at 1:00 a.m., no less), and spoke to a human almost immediately. Furthermore, the customer service rep was a native speaker of English (hooray!), and after asking me a couple questions, she had everything linked up in about a minute. Problem solved.
This has not been my experience when dealing with customer service for any of the Visa cards I’ve had in the past, nor with any of my current Visa cards. Without a doubt, I have to wait at least 5-10 minutes, I can barely understand the rep’s English, and he always tries to upsell me on some credit check or insurance policy. No thanks. In contrast, the American Express rep was coherent, efficient, and only helped me with the problem I called about.
Maybe I’ll start using my new American Express card everywhere from now on.
The scene is yesterday at about 6:30 p.m. The sun is setting and it’s getting dark out, but it’s not quite nighttime yet. I’m coming home from an afternoon of apartment shopping, and I stop at my credit union on the way home because I’ve got some checks to deposit. I’m standing at one of the two ATM’s, waiting for the machine to finish sucking in my deposit envelope so that I can get my receipt and go home. Since it was a fairly warm day yesterday, I decided to carry openly, with my pistol in plain view on my waist. When summer rolls around in Tucson, concealed carry more or less goes out the window.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a white pickup truck with two Mexican guys pull into the parking lot. They look kind of sketchy, but I don’t think about it too much because there are a lot of people in Tucson who look just like them. One of the guys gets out of the truck and starts heading straight towards me, even though there’s a vacant ATM right next to me. I half-turn to get a better look, and now my gun is fully exposed in this guy’s line of sight. He stops, takes one look at my waist, and turns around to head back to the truck at a quicker pace than he originally came. The truck peels out of the parking lot, I grab my receipt, and that’s the end of that.
I don’t really want to think about what could have happened had I not been carrying yesterday, but I might have had a pretty unfavorable situation on my hands. It’s not like the guy pulled a weapon on me and demanded my wallet, but the whole thing was extremely suspicious at the very least. Why come to the bank if you’re not going to use the ATM? Why walk towards me when there’s an open ATM on the other side? Why turn around and change your mind after seeing that I wasn’t going to be an easy mark? Exactly.
Stay safe out there. Your personal safety is nobody’s responsibility but your own.