My Friend Got Owned

This is a story sent to me from my friend Marci, who is a fellow motorcyclist. I thought it was funny enough to let you have a read as well.

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Hello All.  It’s been a while! Thought I would give you an update.

As most of you know, I am back in school to start my next career.  I chose Medical Assisting at Everest College for a few reasons.  A) With all of the medical crap I have been through in the last 10 years, it should come easy to me. B) If I can get into an office with a hot up-coming Plastic Surgeon, I might be able to get some work done J (kidding…sort of) C) But most of all, I just want to help people when they are sick, to try to feel better.

Today was Orientation and class begins tomorrow.  And with that, comes fear and insecurity such as; 1) Will I be the oldest there?  2)  Will I do okay or will it be hard for me to ask for help and so on.

So, for the past two weeks, I have been trying to convince myself that A) It’s cool if I am the only Sr. Citizen in the class…I ride a motorcycle.  B) It’s cool if I need to ask others for help…I ride a motorcycle, and C) It’s cool if I look like a fat cow in scrubs, because I wear tight black leathers and ride a motorcycle.  The cool factor SURELY outweighs the insecurities right?

As I sat through Orientation watching the Staff of morons trying to get each of us to clap our hands and sing the gay “Everest College” song, it was time to introduce ourselves.  Damn, I hate this part BUT…I ride a motorcycle!  It’s my turn:   “My name is Marci. I am married with 3 boys and my hobby/passion is riding motorcycles.”  I was so damn proud of myself and could feel the “cool factor” emanating through the room!!  I did it!!!!

The smile on my face went to an immediate frown when I heard a voice say “You ride? I ride too.  What kind of bike do you have?” As I glanced over to see who was speaking to me, I saw it was the most gorgeous twenty-ish, long dark brown hair, perfect teeth, size 0 chick, sitting at the table across from me. I replied “I have a Gixxer!” thinking SURELY I am still as cool as ever.

Then I heard it.  The sentence to beat all sentences.  Cool against Cool…”I ride a brand new Street Triple! (aka Chuck Norris because this bike is THE BADASS of motorcycles right now.  It draws crowds wherever it is on display).  “How long have you been riding?” she asked.  Thinking I could save myself and my cool factor, I replied “Probably longer than you have been alive”.  (It’s not really a lie if I include time spent on the back of a bike with each boyfriend right?  Ok, ok, I lied through my teeth. Geez tough crowd!!!)  So she says “I have been riding for 14 years. I have a lot of dirt-bike racing under my belt as well.   I am surprised I have never seen you at T-Hill or Laguna for track days.  We should go riding together!”  Oh yeah…like I would EVEN take a chance riding with her so she can wipe the asphalt with my ass.  I had nothing after that….all I could do was smile sweetly.  To make it even worse, her name is Dina ands she is from San Leandro. Dina?  Dina is a name for The Real Housewives of Silicon Valley.

And so…I was OWNED!  It’s going to be a LONG 8 month program (jus sayin).

Well, it’s2am and I can’t fall asleep. I’m going to try again.  Must be jitters for my first day! LOL

Love,

Marci

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Don’t worry Marci, you’ll do fine.

When Rubber Meets Ice

I learned to drive in one of the most cantankerous, hard to drive, pile of crap, vehicles ever. It was a late 1960’s Ford Econoline Pickup, basically the same vehicle as the junky Econoline Van, but with the back end cut off and replaced by a truck box. 

It was horribly designed and implemented. The engine, passengers, and most of the weight were located in the front of the vehicle. Since it was a rear wheel drive vehicle, having very little weight on the back wheels made for horrible traction, especially on ice. 

The design was so bad that the kingpins were too small for the vehicle. The kingpins sit at the end of each side of the front axle and represent the pivot points for the front wheels when you turn. These kingpins were so horribly under-designed, they continually wore out. The result was an incredibly stiff steering wheel. It took both of my 14 year old arms pulling hard to make it turn. 

That was an annoyance when the roads were dry, but it was downright dangerous in icy weather. When you drive on an icy road, it’s very important to be able to counteract sliding by turning into the slide. If you can’t turn fast enough, well you can guess what happens.

South Dakota roads, even the gravel mile roads, have ditches. These are deep depressions on each side of the road varying anywhere from 3 feet to 20 feet deep, usually depending on the width of the road. They remind you of what an English moat around a castle might look like. Ditches hold the snow that is removed by massive snowplows that clear the roads.

Farmers still need to get to their fields with their tractors, wagons, and other machinery. Therefore these ditches have small bridge-like structures made out of dirt, that span the distance between the road and the field. They’re called field access roads.

My brother and I were traveling to a town nearby in the Econoline Pickup, for a reason that escapes me, when we came upon an ice patch about a quarter of a mile long, spanning both sides of the road. I anticipated it by slowing and turning the steering wheel so that the front tires were as straight as possible. The last thing I wanted, was to get into a slide with this piece of junk. 

It didn’t work. Even though the steering wheel was straight, the wheels must have been slightly turned. That coupled with the fact that I was still slowing down, made the back end of the truck, try to catch the front, ever so slowly. It was like watching a movie in slow motion as the vehicle started drifting to the left. 

I quickly yanked the wheel left and I heard the front end make a popping sound. The truck slowly stopped going left, and accelerated to the right. The front wheels had stuck, then gone too far, sending the back end the other way. I manically tried to turn the other way, the front end popped even louder this time. The slide to the right stopped, but was immediately replaced by a quicker one to the left. 

Again I yanked the wheel back the other way but it was too late. The rear of the truck came around so that we were sliding down the middle of the road perpendicular to traffic flow, staring down at the steep ditch straight ahead. 

There was nothing I could do at this point but hold on. I saw my 12 year old brother put his left hand on the mid-engine cover, and right hand on the door, bracing himself for impact. He nearly lifted himself off the seat as the sideways motion of the vehicle subsided, and translated to forward motion down the ditch. 

I slammed hard on the brakes, but they were of no use. The rubber tires slid on the road as if they were ice skates. We plunged down the steep slope, the entire windshield filled with the image of the far side of the ditch. It was a forgone conclusion that we would impact the far side and be launched through the windshield. We weren’t wearing our seatbelts because the truck didn’t have them. 

Luckily the foot of snow on the down slope slowed our progress, and the deeper snow in the bottom of the ditch lifted the nose of that overweight junker just enough that we flew up the far side of the ditch and stopped with a barbwire fence stretched tightly across the windshield. Even better we had split the distance between two wood fence posts. 

We spun our heads to look at head other and smiles broke out. We were just happy to be safe. 

We backed down the ditch and tried to drive out, but the slope of the ditch was too steep. We could travel laterally along the ditch, but when we tried to go up the slope, the truck slid back down. One of the field access roads was about 100 yards ahead, so we gained as much speed as possible along the road side of the ditch and hit it about 20 mph. The truck got air as we flew out of the ditch and landed back on the road. We were slammed about the cabin as we landed, but we were just happy to be out.

The rest of the trip was made without further incident, but to this day, whenever I see an icy patch on a road, I remember that barbed wire fence stretched across the front of that truck and remember what could have happened.

Boys will be Boys

This has to be one of my favorite stories from the midwest. Perseverance in face of great danger. 

I worked for my father’s electrical business while going to school, so I never really got a chance to take the summer off. So, we would save it up for a big blowout during some of the last weeks before school. This one year we decided to take our dirtbikes out to Sturgis, South Dakota, sight of the now infamous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. I think today’s attendance figures number in the hundreds of thousands, but at that time, it was more like 20 thousand. 

We stayed at a cabin in a little town called Rochford, SD. A town so small that you can count all of the buildings using just your digits, and that doesn’t include toes. It is located out in the Black Hills at the conjunction of Rochford Rd, and North Rochford Rd, basically the middle of nowhere.

Early one morning we decided to ride our bikes out to Castle Peak. (I find it amazing that every mountain range no matter where I go, has a Castle Peak). The peak was located up tree lined slope that rose a few hundred feet above the valley road. At first we thought we might be able to take our dirtbikes to the top, but a quick reconnoiter of the slope revealed that it was much too steep, had too many trees, and there were large boulders that would be difficult to get around. We decided it wasn’t possible. 

However, that didn’t stop the explorer urge in every one of us to conquer the mountain. We parked our bikes on the far side of the road, and took off on foot. The lower part of the slope wasn’t too steep and we made good progress. As we neared the halfway point though, we were slipping and sliding on the remains of decomposed rock. We pulled ourselves up using the trees that ranged from six inches to eighteen inches in diameter stopping to catch our breath every few minutes. 

From time to time we came upon small rocks in the trail, that jutted out from the ground. We found that with a little effort we could break them loose. We made sure everyone was out of the way, then pushed the rock down the hill. It was great fun to watch them start slow, then roll faster and faster until they hit a tree or another rock, and stop. 

You’ve heard the phrase boys will be boys, and this was a clear example, but of course what we were really trying to do was validate the laws of physics. Uh huh, sure. 

As we got nearer to the top the trees started to thin slightly and the loose gravel became more loose. The slope also became increasingly steep. It was almost to the point that we had to climb on all fours, but not quite. We came into an area where there were almost no trees, and in the middle was an enormous rock perched precariously on top of another flatter one. 

At once we identified it as a target and set out to push it down the hill. However, it really was enormous. We were five young strong men. Some of us were wrestlers, others football players, all of us were physically in our prime. We got behind the rock and pushed with all of our might. It rolled up, but only a little. We turned around backwards, put our backsides against the rock so that we could use our powerful legs. It moved a lot farther, but still not enough. We were stymied. 

We tried to work out other ways to push, but nothing worked. Then I saw it. A large tree trunk of a newly fallen tree up the trail about fifty feet. I quickly explained my plan and we set off in pursuit of the tree. Even with the five of us, and the fact that it was downhill, it still took a half an hour to muscle the tree into place. We placed the end of the tree under the edge of the massive rock, rolled a smaller rock underneath the tree, and all five of us hung off the far end of the tree trunk. 

It was a comical scene as we levered the rock up almost to the tipping point, but it would fall back down. We needed to get the tree further under it. On one session we levered the rock up, and one of the guys ran down and rolled a smaller rock underneath to hold the big one up. It gave us the room we needed. On the next push, the massive rock rose up, tipped over, and started rolling down the hill. 

It started slowly, making a thump, thump, thump, as the uneven shape dug into the slope on every turn, but it rapidly gained speed. It ran over smaller rocks either as if they weren’t there, or smashing them out of the ground to roll with the big one. The smaller trees were like toothpicks and flew in the air like leaves as the rock cut them off in its wake. Even the larger trees were no match and the rock blazed an eight foot wide swath down the mountain while we whooped in delight. 

Then we saw it. The path down the mountain led straight to our bikes. Even worse, a car appeared on the road from our left. Our delight turned to horror as the car approached from the left and the rock bore down on it. Sickening glances shot between each one of us as we started yelling at the car to stop. We waved our arms and shouted as loud as we could, but they didn’t seem to hear us and continued toward their doom. 

Luckily the hill leveled out toward the bottom. Luckily the dirt was sandy and loose. As the rock reached 100 feet from the road, it started to slow. At about 50 feet it thumped about as fast as a heartbeat. Not ours, but a normal one.

Just before the road the rock rolled up on one edge, teetered for a moment, then fell back the other way, and lay still. It was only then we could breathe properly again.

We traced the path of the rock down the hill and marveled at the devastation. It was as if a bulldozer had driven through the trees. 

Was it dangerous? Yes. Should we have done it? No. Was it fun? Absolutely.

To this day whenever I see those friends, all I have to say is the rock, and they know exactly what I mean.

Another Story from the Midwest

In South Dakota you can drive at 14. I know that sounds nuts, but South Dakota is very rural. I am sure you can imagine what would happen if that were the case everywhere, but in my hometown there is a total of 6 stoplights. There’s a simple reason this was put into place, so that farm kids were allowed to drive farm machinery and help out their parents. 

Before you wonder if the South Dakota lawmakers are crazy, there are restrictions. Since I haven’t lived there for a long time, I’m not current, but when I was there the license was restricted so that you could only drive from 7am to 7pm. Not that it stopped us, but that was the rule.

I got my first car, a 1966 Dodge Charger when I was 14. A lot of you muscle car guys would kill to have that car today, and I had it when I was 14. Incredible. I got it for $650, which at the time was a good sum of money, but I had traded in a motorcycle that I had fixed earlier. 

I worked as an electrician for my father’s company and made pretty good money so I was one of the few, other than the rich kids, that could afford a car at that age. 

The car itself was pretty much a piece of junk. The body had a severe case of cancer, also known as rust, from the salt that’s used to keep ice off the road. The engine had seen many miles, but the biggest problem was the brakes. They barely worked. 

They were the old drum style and made an annoying metal on metal screech every time I used them. I knew it wouldn’t be long until they stopped working all together. 

Since I didn’t have that much money I decided to fix them myself. I hadn’t done much car maintenance, but I was mechanically inclined. The system was pretty simple when you got down to it, so I figured I could handle it. 

I installed the new brake shoes, connected all the crazy springs, installed the manual adjuster, and buttoned everything back up. I backed out of the driveway and took off down the street. The brakes didn’t make any noise and actually worked well. I was darn happy with my work. 

After a couple of turns, stops, and 3 more blocks I reached the stop sign at the only four lane major highway intersection near my house. I pressed on the brakes as I neared the stop sign. To my surprise the brake pedal went all the way to the floor and the car didn’t slow in the least. Luckily there was no one coming to my left, but when I looked across the freeway an 18 wheeler was bearing down from the right. 

I stepped on the emergency brake, but it also went all the way to the floor. It was connected to the rear brakes, which seemed to be the problem. 

I tried to judge whether the truck would beat me through the intersection or not, but at 14, I wasn’t a good enough driver to know. I slammed the shifter into low gear hoping that would slow the car a little, and luckily it did. I reached the far side of the intersection as the 18 wheeler filled my entire windshield. I steered hard to the right and missed the rear of the truck by a couple of feet. 

I rolled through the intersection and killed the engine. The car rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the road. 

With the adrenaline pumping like a fire hose, I think I probably sat there for at least five minutes trying to calm myself down. I walked home and got my brother to help me tow the car. 

I took it apart again and after some careful examination, I finally figured out that I hadn’t installed the manual adjuster properly. After a few times using the brakes, it had popped out, letting the brake cylinder go too far, and release all the brake pressure. Since they were all one system, I had no brakes on the front or rear. 

I continue to work on my cars to this day, but now I always get the shop manual so that I make sure the proper procedures are followed. 

When you only have nine lives, you don’t want to squander them by being stupid.

Stories from the Midwest

I’m one of those transplants from the midwest living in California. I grew up in a dinky little town in Eastern South Dakota, right near the border to Minnesota. While there are still some things that I miss, there are lots that I don’t. One of the things that I don’t miss is the winter weather.

When you are a kid, winter weather is great. You get to frolic in the snow, play hockey on the ice, get your tongue stuck on the monkey bars when it’s really cold, basically all the things that are good about cold weather. 

As an adult, cold weather is a royal pain in the ass. You may have to shovel snow to get the car out, scrape the windshield before you can drive, and warm up the car for 20 minutes so that your teeth don’t chatter while you’re driving. 

My hometown is a university town and I got my BSEE degree there. Most of my classmates stayed on campus. The cold weather didn’t bother them too much, other than they had to dress warmer. Living at home, I drove to class. 

One morning in particular I remember an nasty ice storm swept through during the early morning hours. The streets were treacherous as I tried to park my big American car near class. I found a spot about two blocks away and set off to walk the rest of the way. 

The experience of walking to class was incredible. The trees looked like living crystals as the bright sunlight shone through the thin layer of ice that covered their branches. My breath made a light mist as I exhaled the pristine air. The sunlight warmed my coat as snow crunched under my boots. It was the perfect morning to be outside and I didn’t want it to end. 

As I came around a corner danger lay in my path. It wasn’t a slippery downslope, or an out of control car, but a large black wire that lay on the ground near the sidewalk. The wire was about the size of a large garden hose and broken in two. At first I thought it was just a telephone cable, but as I got near, I heard a sound like frying eggs. A small blue plasma of electrically charged air flowed from the center of the wire into the ground below. Seven thousand volts of electricity was taking the shortest path to ground leaving only a dangerous spark at its end. 

Working around electricity in my fathers’ electrical business I knew the danger. Touching that cable would mean nearly instant death from electrocution. As the ice around the wire slowly melted even touching the water could be lethal. I gave it a wide berth and ran the rest of the way to class as best I could given the icy conditions.

I went to the office of the first professor I could find and told him that I wanted to use his phone. When he asked why I told him what I had seen. The color nearly drained out of his face as I told him about the cable. I thought he was going to pass out. It took him a moment to gain back his composure so that he could tell me what was going on. He was the engineer that had designed the cutoff system that would kill the power to any cable that broke and lay on the ground. What I had just told him was that his system didn’t work. 

He told me he would take care of it and not to mention it to any one else, and I haven’t to this day. 

Turns out, I got an A in his class after that.