Holly Crap! People are actually reading this. And that scares the shit out of me. Talk about pressure, now I have to figure-out what to say and try to me entertaining at the same time. I’m screwed.
Thank you to all who either wrote or called me with positive comments. I’m happy to bring you a brief moment of entertainment in your otherwise boring and mundane existence. You know... it’s not easy being Dweeb.
Take for instance the simple process of shopping. I purchase a vast portion of my inventory on my credit cards. My card of choice is a Sears MasterCard that pays back reward points. The points add up real quick and this year I decided to redeem my points for Gift Certificates. I had enough points to buy several of their largest $750 certificates. The Sears reward program web site was buggy, so I called in to redeem my points.
I get this nice woman on the phone and explain that I wanted some $750 certificates. She swoons and comments that she’s never sold a $750 certificate before. She puts me on hold to speak with her supervisor and after a brief wait comes back to tell me that ‘Sears’ has never sold a $750 certificate before. In fact, they technically don’t exist. What is done is three (3) $250 certificates are rewarded in lieu of each $750 certificate. “Fine by me” I told her, as “it spends like cash.” Oh where that only true.
Terms & conditions. An American tradition. It seems that a) I cannot combine the value of more than three (3) coupons per any single purchase, and b) I have to spend –at least- the face value of all the certificates I’m redeeming per purchase. In other words, I have to buy at least $250 worth of good per certificate used, and I can’t redeem more than $750 in a single purchase. I cannot apply anything towards a Gift Card or cash refund.
Just trying to spend $250 at Sears was a chore for me. Forget the tool department. I’ve got everything I need already and no more room to store new tools. Nothing jumped out at me in the clothing department. Got plenty of clean underwear at home, thank you. Jewelry Dept… what a joke. Don’t need any appliances. I’m not cashing in reward points for a new vacuum clearer no matter what. There’s got to be something cool to buy in a Sears store. One would think you could find something in the Electronics dept. But no… everything was old and outdated. I wanted this cool new combination Sirius satellite Radio/MP3 player that just came out. No luck. How about a new digital camera? None of the high-end models in stock. X-Box 360… keep dreaming.
I had better luck in the bedding dept. And once I had $250 worth of products pulled together and ready to buy, I end up with a cashier, who had to be about 12, that had no idea how to ring-up a gift certificate sale. Enter the floor manager, not originally from this country, with an accent so thick, I could not understand 2 out of 3 words she spoke. I think the fact that it was a denomination bigger than what she’s ever seen before, combined with the shock of seeing a stack of these coupons in my jacket pocket, which freaked her out. I just gave up and left. I’m trying another location tonight.
Moral of story: specify smaller denominations of gift certificates. Back to your pitiful existence.
I’m back and I’m feeling rather chatty. It’s been quite some time since my last post, and in that time I’ve been riding a rollercoaster of emotional highs & lows. Staggering highs, and devastating lows. I’ll start with the lowest of lows.
Shortly after my last post, I received word of the death of my dear friend Matt. The news floored me like a 2x4 to the nose. Matt was killed when his Harley went off the road and Matt struck a tree. If there is any upside to this tragedy, he was killed instantaneously and did not suffer. I’m not going eulogize him here, but I will say that his death had a profound effect on me. It happened on his birthday of all days, which just compounds the sadness. He was a young man with movie star good looks, a very talented engineer, active in his church and left behind an equally beautiful, brilliant and spiritual wife who I care for very much. Matt was active with an organization called Ride4Kids.org, part of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, and I will involve myself with this worthy charity to honor the memory of my fallen friend. I’m comforted by the fact he is in Heaven now debating with God which camshaft makes the most power in a Twincam B motor.
Matt was always extremely complementary of my work and bikes, which brings me to one of the highs of the past several weeks. When asked which Triumph was my all-time favorite, the answer is always: the 1966 TT Special Bonneville. The shorty pipes, the Alaskan White tank with Grenadier Red (or Orange for the less sophisticated of us) racing strips, polished alloy fenders and my all-time favorite alloy tail light. Just too damn cool.
I’ve wanted to build a replica based on a Hinckley Bonneville for some time, but there were several hurdles I had to overcome first. The tail light was particularly difficult to source. I had one given to me a couple of years ago, which I installed on my first Silverstone bike. That bike has been sold and finding another one was like searching for the Holly Grail. They command top dollar on eBay and swap meets. I snagged one recently off of eBay at what I thought was a fair price, only to receive it and discover someone had drilled the rear mounting hole straight through rendering it useless to me. I picked up just the aluminum housing at a swap meet, but it is deeply scratched. Ultimately I found a shop that offered reproductions of the entire tail light assembly complete with backing plate and license plate bracket. From this one part, the Project TT SR bike was born.
That’s how it works with me. I find or see one part, but in my mind’s eye, I see the entire bike. Indulge a little boasting here, but I believe that is one of the hallmarks of my success. My Project eBobber was the same way… I spotted the red metalflake solo seat at a huge industry tradeshow, and even before I owned a Speedmaster, I envisioned the complete bike as you see it today. I was the same way during my car days. SEMA was an idea-fest.
Anyways, the TT SR turned out better than I ever expected. So much so that several publications have contacted me about articles and test reviews of the bike. “Hmmm, let me think about that for a moment… Hell Yeah!” I’d like to publicly acknowledge some kind folks who contributed to this project: Hagon, Jenks Bolts, Specialty Spares, Prism Painting and MotoTwin. Dave, Peter, Dale, John, Oliver & Tim… many thanks lads.
Back to the lows. The Internet is a wonderful thing. But there are times that I don’t know whether I want pat Al Gore on the back or pop him in the nose.
I’ve said on many occasions; “There are a lot of mean & hateful people in the world, and sadly some of them ride motorcycles.” As a parts vendor who promotes his parts & services on public internet forums & chat rooms, I must be held to a much higher standard that the rest of the members. I’m completely cool with that and very much am in agreement with it. I try to be careful not to hijack other vendor threads or express critical opinions about other’s work (with the notable exception of the Paul Smith bikes. Crikey!). I also belong to a few on-line motorcycle clubs in which I have a policy of not bringing my business into play. I recently broke my policy by posting a nebulous comment about combination tail light/turn signals complete with a photo of a combo unit I’ve built before. The original thread poster was quite upset about the whole thing and had some nasty things to say about me. I tried to diffuse the situation by explaining to the offended poster that it was not my intent to take “a shot” at him, and he misunderstood the intent of my comment. He didn’t seem to want to take my word I wasn’t trying to hijack his thread or derail his emerging business of selling tail lights. I compounded my mistake by –jokingly- mentioning on one of my club’s forums. Huge fuckin’ mistake. That brought into play another personality who clearly has an anti-BellaCorse agenda.
For those of you who have been following this nonsense, let me make it clear to you that all of this has absolutely nothing to do with tail lights. This is all about spite, ignorance, alcoholism, paranoia, neuroses, and the burning need to see one’s name up in lights. These rabble-rousers crave attention to the extent that they’re compelled to goad innocent people into a war of words by twisting facts, betraying the confidence of –private- correspondence and insinuating the age-old notion that ‘I’m good because the other guy is bad.’ I wash my hands of all of this and choose to simply ignore the offenders.
I’ll do my best to keep the Blog more active in the coming days. Thanks for hanging in there.
