Funniest Motorcycle Story EVER!

I do not know who wrote this. Over the years I have received this as an email numerous times.

I now share with you (if there even is a you) the funniest motorcycle story ever.


I never dreamed slowly cruising through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Studies have shown that motorcycle's requires more decisions per second, and more sheer data processing than nearly any other common activity or sport. The reactions and accurate decision making abilities needed have been likened to the reactions of fighter pilots! The consequences of bad decisions or poor situational awareness are pretty much the same for both groups too.

Occasionally, as a rider I have caught myself starting to make bad or late decisions while riding. In flight training, my instructors called this being "behind the power curve". It is a mark of experience that when this begins to happen, the rider recognizes the situation, and more importantly, does something about it. A short break, a meal, or even a gas stop can set things right again as it gives the brain a chance to catch up.

Good, accurate, and timely decisions are essential when riding a motorcycle at least if you want to remain among the living. In short, the brain needs to keep up with the machine.
I had been banging around the roads of east Texas and as I headed back into Dallas, found myself in very heavy, high-speed traffic on the freeways. Normally, this is not a problem, I commute in these conditions daily, but suddenly I was nearly run down by a cage that decided it needed my lane more than I did. This is not normally a big deal either, as it happens around here often, but usually I can accurately predict which drivers are not paying attention and avoid them before we are even close. This one I missed seeing until it was nearly too late, and as I took evasive action I nearly broadsided another car that I was not even aware was there!

Two bad decisions and insufficient situational awareness all within seconds. I was behind the power curve. Time to get off the freeway. I hit the next exit, and as I was in an area I knew pretty well, headed through a few big residential neighborhoods as a new route home. As I turned onto the nearly empty streets I opened the visor on my full-face helmet to help get some air. I figured some slow riding through the quiet surface streets would give me time to relax, think, and regain that "edge" so frequently required when riding. Little did I suspect.

As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me. It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it-it was that close.

I hate to run over animals.and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact.

Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels can take care of themselves!

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing the oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his little beady eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Banzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" as the leap was spectacular and he flew over the windshield and impacted me squarely in the chest.

Instantly he set upon me. If I did not know better I would have sworn he brought twenty of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light t-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and leather gloves puttering maybe 25mph down a quiet residential street and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing.

I grabbed for him with my left hand and managed to snag his tail. With all my strength I flung the evil rodent off the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw.

That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary pissed-off squirrel. This was an evil attack squirrel of death!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands, and with the force of the throw swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact he landed square on my back and resumed his rather anti-social and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him!

The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it. The engine roared as the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in well I just plain screamed.
Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel torn t-shirt, and only one leather glove roaring at maybe 70mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel and with a demonic squirrel on his back. The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.

With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little affect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he is a Scottish attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got IN my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed partway and he began hissing in my face I am quite sure my screaming changed tone and intensity. It seemed to have little affect on the squirrel however. The rpm's on The Dragon maxed out (I was not concerned about shifting at the moment) and her front end started to drop. Now picture the large man on the huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very ragged torn t-shirt, and wearing one leather glove, roaring at probably 80mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out his mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of, so to speak.

Picture the scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork.

Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn t-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing one leather glove, moving at probably 80mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.

I heard screams. They weren't mine...

I managed to get the big motorcycle under directional control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign at a busy cross street.

I would have returned to fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really. But for two things. First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. One of them was on his back in the front yard of the house they had been parked in front of and was rapidly crabbing backwards away from the patrol car. The other was standing in the street and was training a riot shotgun on the police cruiser.

So the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway. That was one thing. The other? Well, I swear I could see the squirrel, standing in the back window of the patrol car among shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery, and shaking his little fist at me. I think he was shooting me the finger. That is one dangerous squirrel.

And now he has a patrol car.

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made an easy right turn, and sedately left the neighborhood. As for my easy and slow drive home? Screw it. Faced with a choice of 80mph cars and inattentive drivers, or the evil, demonic, attack squirrel of death...I'll take my chances with the freeway. Every time. And I'll buy myself a new pair of gloves.

Remembering 9/11

With the bombings in London, it made me think about 9/11. Here is an edited note that I sent out on the morning of 9/13 to my friends and family outside NYC to let them know that my wife and I were okay. I edited out he really personal stuff and the irrelevant stuff.

I just thought I would send everyone a note on what is going on in New York. From 14th street down is closed to non-emergency vehicles but people are still allowed. On one of the news reports they said that below 14th street people were not allowed, not true. The main reason that it is closed up to 14th street is because the closest large trauma center is on 12th street and 7th ave. My wife and I are near it off 6th ave. The ambulance sirens are starting to get to us, as are the sounds of the fighter jets overhead. They fly over pretty regularly.
Below canal street has been evacuated, but they have been slowly moving that boarder closer to the site, allowing people back into there homes. In some areas they are allowing people to go home and retrieve items and pets. There is an entire 10+ building apartment complex directly across from where the trade center stood that is off limits. The ASPCA is trying to arrange with the police to get the pets out.
If you stand on 6th ave you used to be able to see the trade center, this morning was the first time people really got to look at the new skyline. Since it happened there has been so much smoke and dust that even though you knew it was gone, there was still this sort of weird feeling they were just hiding in the cloud. There is no smoke this morning. They are just gone.
The dust is all over the city, it has a metallic gritty feel in your mouth. The engineers that my wife work with say the is the asbestos in the air. The EPA has been saying that it is OK, the levels are to low outside the "hot area" and that the exposure has to be over a long time to be dangerous.
There is a chance of rain tonight, that might help to get it out of the air.
There was a line outside the local hardware store, people were buying dustmasks. It was strange seeing New Yorkers sitting at an outdoor cafe wearing the dustmasks, lifting them to drink there beers.
The almost the entire crew of the fire department of our neighborhood is gone.
The hotel where my bachelor party was is expected to come collapse sometime this week, if it didn't last night.
Probably one of the creepiest things, for me, it the complete quite. I am not a huge fan of living in NYC, partially due to the noise, but there is always music in the air here. Someone is playing the stereo, a car stereo, music coming out of a store, especially the local record stores and there is always someone playing the guitar for change. Now there is nothing. This may sound like over-dramatisation, but with the car ban, the only sounds in our neighborhood are the occasional sirens and jets overhead.

A Great Rant about a Bad Movie

If you want to read one of the best rants around about a truly horrible movie, check out this review of the 30th Anniversary NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD DVD from Ain't It Cool News.

This makes my loathing for Tim Buron look like a love fest.

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=4397

Further proof that Tim Burton is a talent less hack who should be put down

Since no one seems to read this blogg I have decided to turn it into a general rant about stuff that pisses me off. This in turn means that I will be posting a lot of stuff about how much I dislike Tim Burton.

So when he said he was doing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory he said he wanted it to be the darker story that Dahl had written. OK, I disagree but if he wanted to do a straight version on the book, fine. We all knew it would be crap, but okay at least he was not going to make bullshit up like he did with Planet of the Apes.

Now the little bitch has decided that he needs to add material to the book.

He is giving Willy Wonka a dad.

An evil dad.

An evil dad who is a dentist.

An evil dad who is a dentist played by Christopher Lee.


This is going to suck on a whole new level of sucking.

All the whores in Thailand do not suck this much.

Speaking of Thai whores at least Lee will do a decent job with the material. It's not like they got Mike Keaton to do it.

Check out this article from the Sci Fi channel. http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=31454&type=0

Charlie's Wonka Gets A Backstory

Tim Burton, director of the upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, told SCI FI Wire that he has given Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) a new backstory that involves a troubled relationship with his father—a familiar theme in Burton's movies. "Yeah, I've got some problems, you know?" Burton said in a news conference in Nassau, Bahamas, last weekend. "You've seen me enough to realize that by now, haven't you?" In Charlie, a new movie version of Roald Dahl's classic children's book, Wonka flashes back frequently to his childhood with his stern father, a dentist played by Christopher Lee. Burton (Big Fish) said that he had his own issues with both parents when he grew up in suburban Burbank, Calif. "You try to work out your issues, but then you realize those kinds of traumatic issues just stay with you forever," Burton said. "Somehow they just keep reoccurring. No matter how hard I try to get them out of my head, they sort of stay there." Wonka's backstory doesn't appear in Dahl's book, but Burton said that he felt it was needed for the movie. "We sort of felt that if you have an eccentric character—and it's fine; it works in the book—we just felt in the movie, you've got a guy that's acting that strange, you kind of want to get a flavor of why he is the way he is," Burton said. "Otherwise he's just a weirdo. And you want to at least have a sense as to why he's acting so strangely and why he's got some problems. If ... your father were a dentist and Christopher Lee, you can see where that might cause you some traumatic experiences in your life." Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opens July 15.