#2. I bought a motorcycle. An old motorcycle. Considering that its thirtieth birthday will fall next year, it's older than I am. It was listed on craigslist, and I went down and bought it from a less-than reputable shop that mostly sells scooters. It had a title, but I was soon to discover that the title needed amendment, and the shop had not transferred it into their own name before selling the bike to me. Having only the original owner's name and address, I sent him a letter with the necessary paperwork, and left the bike parked on the street while I left town for the weekend. When I returned late on a Sunday, it was to find empty asphalt where the bike had been. A call to the impound lot revealed that it had been towed for having been left ["abandoned"] on a city street for more than seventy-two hours. Additionally, I would be unable to release it from impound, not being in possession of a properly transferred title, showing that I was indeed the bike's owner. During a frantic telephone call to the shop the next day, I learned from the proprietor that he had bought the bike without even so much as a telephone number from the original owner. After a few days of continually pestering him [he was somewhat reluctant to assist me], his "service manager" finally turned up a telephone number by doing an internet search, a feat at which I had already failed. After both myself and the service manager had left messages for the original owner, I still had to wait several days for him to return the call, a period during which the impound lot was charging eighteen dollars a day for the bike's storage. I made contact and arrangements to meet with the original owner; he was not surprised that the shop was behaving irresponsibly, even indicating the possibility that the shop owner may have neglected to transfer the title for the reason that showing the sale of a certain number of motorcycles in a calendar year would require the purchase of a motorcycle dealership license, in addition to whatever he needed to sell only scooters. So, the paperwork was straightened out, but I still needed to wait a few days to reclaim the bike, in order to generate the nearly four-hundred thousand dollars necessary to get it out of hoc. To its credit, the bike put up only a minor fuss in starting up, despite being an antique forced to sit out in the weather for nearly two weeks. It had a frozen front brake and its alignment had been yanked out during the tow [they also clipped my fifty-dollar cable lock], but my sometimes-mechanic uncle and I sorted that out in short order.

A week after I purchased the bike, I learned "the hard way" that it has trouble with its charging system. After riding around for a hour or so with my buddy and his new, newer, and much more reliable motorcycle, I was unable to start it. Being brand-new to the world of mechanized two-wheeled transport, I had no idea what was wrong, and having exhausted all other options that came to mind, I enlisted another uncle to help me get it home the next day. His help was invaluable - we rented to motorcycle trailer in his pickup, which he insisted on paying for. The kid at U-Haul told us that the trailer had straps built-in, which we didn't think to question, until we got to the bike and had no way to secure it down. So, we improvised, tipping the bike part-way over in the trailer and resting it upon the spare tire. In the process we managed to spill some gasoline, put some scratches in the bike's gas tank, and leave my uncle's sunglasses on the trailer when we pulled out, but... mission accomplished?

Since, I've worked at determining why the bike keeps discharging the battery, but the problem remains. I've only been stranded once more by it. I had ridden to work for a periodic overnight shift, and after running out of things to do, left early at 4am. I made it within a mile or so of home when the bike couldn't maintain its spark, and I came up to a stoplight with a dead engine. I managed to get it restarted, but it would die again as soon as I flipped on the headlight [yes, it's old enough to have a headlight switch, rather than the headlight being always on, as with all modern bikes]. My idea was to pull the battery and bring it home for charging, but I had forgotten my screwdriver. I started walking and got to the grocery store about 4:30am to see if they were in on the screwdriver trade, but the closest I could get was a pair of paring knives for $1.29, with which I thought I might be able to coax out the battery screws. No joy, but I did manage to slice up my fingers a bit in trying. About equidistant in the opposite direction was a Walgreens. I never did find out if they carry screwdrivers - did you know that not all of their locations are open twenty-four hours? I decided that the effort I had already put in was greater than that required to simply push the bike home, so I was off. It only took 30-40 minutes, the early-morning air had not yet taken on its mid-summer heat, and I was able to climb on and roll down even the minor grades I encountered. Additionally, before 6am, there are few commuters around to gawk and few police officers around to question my motives, and we made it home safely. I also gained some insight into the extent to which you can run a relic motorcycle on battery power alone.

Here's a bonus: See a couple images of me and my bike at my photo-buddy's blog: http://www.johnpedersenphotography.com/blog.

Small Tales of hardship and despair. This summer, while I've been absent from blog-postery, I've been participating in a series of mildly aggravating experiences.

#1. I first heard about squirrel invasions a mere few days before it nearly happened to me. A friend of mine works at a rental office for an apartment complex, and she reported that squirrels had been entering their units through unsecured windows with air conditioners. Having a built-in prejudice against those filthy, disease-ridden rodents, I could hardly imagine something so terrible as coming home from work to find a cornered and desperate pair in the process of destroying my home and sanctuary. I was napping on the couch later in the week when I was awakened by - something - happening outside the window. Peering through the blinds, I saw a squirrel sitting on the windowsill, giving me the eye-ball. I tried to frighten it by pounding on the window, but it seemed reluctant to leave; it had already assembled a collection of leaves and twigs - the beginnings of a nest? Immediately my thoughts settled on the other window, outfitted with air conditioner and nothing but a pair of thin plastic accordion walls standing between inner peace and outside turmoil... When I arrived at home from work the next day I saw that one of the filthy beasts was outside the air conditioner, and that it had been chewing on the plastic wall and the wooden window frame; I could actually see its grimy feet beneath the wall, inches from my nose. In a panic I tried to frighten it off - pounding on and shaking the air conditioner, turning it on and off; it took a mighty effort to effect its retreat. In its absence I saw the reason - in the bottom of the window sill, laying on its back and mewing, was a tiny, hairless, blind baby squirrel. I allowed myself a few seconds of shock and revulsion, and then was seized by action. Months prior, in preparation for a sushi party, I had bought several hundred pairs of wooden chopsticks at United Noodles [to the tune of four dollars]. Now, as if possessed by the spirit of some fallen wartime hero, I took up a pair of chopsticks and attempted to negotiate their ends underneath the squeaking squirrel-spawn, without withdrawing the plastic wall in case the mother returned and decided to eat my face. The idea was with the business ends of the chopsticks under the baby and using the edge of the sill as fulcrum, I could catapult its helpless body out of my window and my life - forever. I admit that in my desperation I wasn't very gentle, and may have injured the specimen during this exercise. Before I could accomplish my goal, the mother returned, and I refocused my efforts on antagonizing it sufficiently so that it would never return. After several moments of pushing on the plastic wall and poking its feet with the chopsticks, it finally retreated again, managing to take the baby with it. Immediately I removed the air conditioner from the window and slammed it shut before collapsing in exhaustion.

When the air turned hot again I risked the air conditioner again, trying various tactics - putting tin foil down on the window sill [apparently they don't like to walk on it], spraying the area down with WD-40 [apparently they don't like to smell it], and reinforcing the gaps with styrofoam - but this last effort served only to give the squirrels something additional to chew on. Still, the summer has now passed, and I did defend my apartment's sanctity and honor. Next June, the battle begins anew.