Back In the Saddle...

The Route
Originally uploaded by BernieC

It's been a while since I took a decently long ride. Well, it was a stunningly gorgeous day today and I managed to get out on the road for a ride around Mt. Rainier National Park. Here's the route. Check out the Flickr set.

In other news, I turn 30 in 10 days. Woo.

;-)

So I'm a day late...

Happy Halloween? Yes, I was Boss Hogg one year for halloween. I haven't dressed up in a long, long time. Maybe next year :-)

What. A. Year.

Well, folks, this has been quite the year. Let's take a little trip down memory lane...

January: Celebrated 6 years with my then girlfriend in Victoria. Watched her leave for India for 6 weeks before I left for India, myself. Started building a friendship with someone who was, at that point, only an acquaintance.

February: Left for India at the beginning of the month for four weeks in Bangalore for work.

March: Returned from India to a life that had changed a bit. Started socializing more with friends. Had a very fun and interesting welcome back party. Continued building friendship with the person who used to be an acquaintance.

April: Ended my six year relationship with my girlfriend. Road trip to Vegas with a friend, and on the return, San Francisco. Start friendships with several people and become part of a new circle of friends.

May: Started seeing someone I knew in high school. This did not last for long (see below).

June: The fit hits the shan and thus begins the worst summer of my life.

July: Yup, the fit's still in the shan and summer still sucks, but I took a motorcycle training course and I bought a motorcycle. Woo!!!!

August: The fit's no longer on the shan. I take a deep breath and life starts to simmer down. I turn 28. I take another road trip with a different friend - this time to LA to see the Price is Right, and through the Bay area. One of the best road trips ever! I got to go to Disneyland!!!! For the first time!!!!!

September: A minor crisis averted. And a long motorcycle trip around the Olympics.

October: Nothing much to report here. Did go to Oregon Trail Rally near Tillamook, Oregon.

November: Nothing much to report here. Did go to the Seattle International Autoshow.

December: Wild West Rally at the beginning of the month. Then, a trip to Connecticut to see my grandmother, whose health had been progressively getting worse. Then back home for a week, and then back to Connecticut for her funeral. Happy Holidays, yo!

A very eventful year. Ups and downs. But through it all, my friends have been there and I end the year with more friends than when I started. I love my friends. Being 3000 miles away from my real family, my friends ARE my family.

Woo, off to MPLS again, and other stuff.

Well, I'm off to Minneapolis next week to go do some install work at a very large corporate customer of ours that is headquartered there. Should be interesting, and it'll be a new experience for me -- I've never really been on point for an install like this before, but the customer seems to like me so they asked for me specifically.

More importantly, I got some news today that an old friend from high school was in a boating accident while on vacation in Alaska. Sadly, he did not survive. It still hasn't quite hit me yet. We stayed in contact after high school and we visited each other several times over the past few years whenever our paths crossed.

I think back to high school, and I remember how much of an uptight little perfectionist I was. I was so angry at my personal situation that I couldn't take a joke. Some of that remains with me today, but I have mellowed a lot over the years. And he was the one person who flat out told me - stop taking everything so seriously. After he did that, sometime around 10th grade, I was finally able to start coming out of my asshole shell and start socializing more without feeling like everybody hated me or was making fun of me behind my back. Oh, I was still an asshole through the rest of high school, but I think it was his encouragement, and encouragement from others that started to change me.

It still hasn't quite hit me yet. It probably will when I go to the funeral or memorial service back home. I just hope I don't miss it due to being in MN.