Be the Adult

  Borf Was Here! In Borf''s (aka John Tsombikos) graffiti heyday, I was driving into DC at 4:30 a.m. to be at my client site on New York Avenue around 5. As much as I hate destruction of property, I was always curious to see where he was going to leave his next mark on the city. The sign above was the magnum opus, and I gasped and smiled when I saw it. It was only a matter of time before he got arrested. Almost twenty years later, I have a teenage son and while I know he's a good kid, I also know he's in the danger zone; those couple of summers between 16 and 18 where you have some degree of autonomy, a few bucks in the pocket, and a lot of time on your hands. This is when the experiments happen, first love, bros telling other bros they don't have the balls to do something, and then they take a geotagged video and post it on tik-tok. Morons. ...or, there's a better narrative where they volunteer, take that car to do something FREE, and refrain from spending the...

  Ducati Streetfighter V-4 SP (Credit: Ducati Motorholding S.p.A.) The photo you see above is the new Ducati Streetfighter SP in action. Like the Panigale V4, it's a technological and handling tour de force with unbelievable capability. It also costs $35,500. Achingly beautiful, it can be made even lighter and more responsive with $5,000 dollars in titanium exhaust and for another five grand, you can get gorgeous magnesium wheels. For that money, I could buy almost any motorcycle and many used sports cars that would be plenty capable, and every single one of them more capable than me. Disclaimer! I've had the booming aftermarket stereo that cost half-a-year's salary. I put the most idiotic purchases on an already-bloated credit card. I've read the ads and thought material possessions could change my life for the wrong reasons. I wrecked a car when I didn't have the skills to back up my ham-handed inputs. In other words, I was an idiotic male, insecure from growing u...

It seems we're getting to the age where we attend way more funerals than weddings. In the wake of my father-in-law's death in February, I lost a very good friend of mine who hadn't yet hit 40. An old soul, he and I clicked when we worked together around 2012 on a project in Virginia. Fast forward to 2020-21, and we were together again on a project in Indiana. After a lengthy hiatus, we un-paused our friendship and had a great time working hard on-site, then remotely once Covid hit.  He was a genius in his work; a great writer, teacher, and mentor to anyone that he worked with. Our skills complimented each other perfectly. I was concrete, conduit, steel, and tech, while he was tech, network, server, and troubleshooter extraordinaire. With a couple of our other genius coworkers, there was nothing we couldn't build.  I have no issue with death for folks of a proper age, but he was robbed. So many plans, things to explore, restaurants to visit, bourbon drinks to try, marr...

  Two Days of This... In February of this year I had the good fortune of attending the California Superbike School at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Led by Keith and Dylan Code, this traveling circus of motorcycle goodness travels the country (and the UK, I believe) teaching life-changing (and saving) techniques in an easy-to-digest manner, surrounded by expert rider coaches, great staff, and a cadre of like-minded riders that made great company over a two-day weekend session. A chain of events got me here, which leads to the title of this posting. December 2020: Friend tells me about a trip he took to a Ducati/Triumph dealer. Dealer tells him a Multistrada is the best all-rounder, but a Daytona 765 is probably the perfect track bike July 2021: After gestating in my mind for months, I go to my local Triumph dealer to try the new Trident 660. It was brand new and the redline was screaming at me at 6,000 (break-in) rpms, so I figured it was just a sparky, but unexciting beginner bike. I ...

  Three long weeks ago, I did the usual check of the lights, turn signals, etc. on my 2007 Ducati GT1000 when I noticed a) my brake light was pretty bright and b) is seemed a little flaky as I squeezed the brake lever, as in ‘on-off-on’ instead of the expected, ‘on’ when I squeezed the lever and ‘off’ when I wasn’t. The bike being 14 years old and not having ridden it in a few weeks, I just figured it needed some persuasion. Squeezed it a dozen times, it started working as advertised, and then I went out for a ride. When I got home, I noticed it was bright again, which made realize I was a little stupid and unsafe for assuming it would just work itself out. From there, I went to the Ducati of Omaha site, my go-to for parts, pulled up the drawing and ordered… the wrong thing. At this point I also realized there wasn’t really anything on the internet that talked about this, so I figured I’d share my story and hopefully save you a little time and headache. The (incorrect) swit...