Thursday, December 29, 2011

Withdrawals

At the end of the riding season a year ago, a friend of mine posted a comment on Facebook, saying that he had put away his "two-wheeled friend and counselor" for the year. This summer, I had a glimpse of just how true my friend's words were. We had some major initiatives at work during the month of July, such that I pretty much spent at least an hour or two working every single day from the end of June until the last week of July, and frequently put in my eight hours at work, then another two to four hours from home in the evening. It's not fun, but that's a part of the deal for a network administrator. Things break, you fix them. You make upgrades to the network, but it can't be done during the day because that would break the business during peak hours.



<shrug> It's part of the job.



What I found, however, was that even the short ride home from work was enough to put me in a better frame of mind. If I took the "long way" home, a serpentine route that winds up a half dozen or more switchbacks up a mountainside before turning into a steep, windy, gravel back road which overlooks the ridge that my house is built upon, my mood was even more improved by the time I got home.



I learned an important lesson this summer: motorcycles are cheaper than therapy <grin>



Unfortunately, I rode my V-Strom up the driveway to my house for the last time in 2011 near the end of October. It started snowing a day or two later, and it still hasn't quit. (Well...that's not entirely true. We did have a couple of weekends where the temperature was quite mild -- to the low 50s even, once -- but I'd rather ride my motorcycle in foot-deep snow than wet ice any day of the week!)



Consequently, I found myself brooding over the view from my back porch the other night:


I'm jonesin' for an hour on two wheels ("c'mon, just one hour, please?!?!") while glumly aware of the fact that I'm still three to four months away from getting Sue Zuki out of my garage.



Why do I live in Alaska again?



Nevermind...come April, I'll be reveling in 20 hours of daylight and the ability to ride for 15 minutes and be absolutely. Totally. Alone.



I can't wait :)