October 7, 2007

If you asked me Thursday night what I had planned for the weekend I would have answered, "Survival." And that would have been wishful thinking...

Ok so the Wizard got the bike from Suzuki! Big accomplishment right there. Almost unbelievable considering how this year has gone, up until recently. That's what we're calling Brad, by the way - "The Wizard" because in reality without his efforts the only forward motion we would have accomplished by now is walking straight into the butt end of a few doors while they swung closed in our face. To put that into perspective for you, I got a page from the Wizard on Thursday afternoon saying he may have scored a deal on an exhaust system from Yoshimura. As I reached back to my pocket for the vibrating phone I thought, "I wonder if he's got the slightest clue as to where exactly he's calling me?" At that moment I was about 75 feet deep into the eves of a client's attic, suspending myself over their fragile bathroom sheetrock ceiling, which was covered with insulation, as the back of my head found peaceful spaces between the pointy ends of the roofing nails that were just dying to puncture my skull. Still though, I got the text and I responded with a cheer. And the next time we spoke I told him none of this would be coming together if it weren't for him.. All praise the Wizard..

The next morning, Friday, I set out on the seven hour journey to the land of OZ to go meet the Wizard and pick up our new Suzuki GSXR1000. The Bay Area to La. is not a very long drive - distance wise, but the traffic is simply horrible. Still though, with the opportunity to race dangling a carrot just in front of my Ford van's hood, we got through it. I had the opportunity to stay in OZ for the night, but I had just taken a call as I pulled up about a 10:30am next day invite to watch Fleet Week in the San Francisco Bay from the bow of a 45' yacht! Now that's not an offer the average guy gets every week, and immediately I thought about Matthew. Tracy and I are still struggling with the big man and I thought a special day like this might be just the thing to cheer him up. I declined the offer to sleep, shook the Wizard's paw, and then set out on the next mission - to get Matt on that yacht

Thank the Lord for chocolate flavored Powerbars. I ate four of them on that seventeen hour journey. I left the Bay Area's 70 degree temperature in a tee shirt and jeans that morning. By the time I returned it was 2am the next day and my teeth were rattling in the fog covered cold. But like my older brother told me a long time ago, "You want to stay awake? Keep yourself cold and hungry." All I can say is I felt bad for Tracy when the iceman rolled into bed in the middle of the night..

Saturday morning came in less than four hours. I'm not sure what woke me but somehow I found myself pondering the eternal comfort of snoozing for a few more weeks - or just rolling out of bed and bum-rushing Matthew with the news about the yacht and Fleet Week. Thankfully I chose the latter and by 10:30am we had the bike unloaded and were pulling out of a dock just north of San Francisco with a wide eyed view of the Bay off the bridge of Sacramento's "Doc Holiday."



What is Fleet Week like? Well I'll make you a deal.. If you give me a couple of days I'll put together a video of the experience. For now let's say it's louder than you can imagine, it's more powerful than five speeding bullets, and you get to see planes do things that they simply weren't designed to do. It's nothing shy of amazing, really. You don't believe me? CLICK THIS

(UPDATED: as promised, here's the full Fleet Week experience)

Tomorrow morning Freddy from Yoyodyne is shipping out a huge box of roadracing loot for us to setup this machine. Matthew doesn't know it yet but he's gonna be running the drill press for the next two weeks straight..

It's time to ROCK & ROLL brothers and sisters! We've got two weeks.