the demon's glee

I have never known a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will fall frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence

It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done better...

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs, who comes short time and time again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcomings;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory nor defeat.
- Ted Roosevelt

http://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/bikes/bike.jsp?b=f650gs

Cut and paste this link into your browser.

Please welcome to Danada... The new RED War Pony. Follow this link to see what all the fuss has been about and what I be riding on the tour. Missing from the photo are the metal panniers on the side of the pony, but just create them in your head.

It can take more than one attempt at something before you get it done. In this case, it took six attempts to complete the task. Each failure up to this success seemed like the end of the world, but the successful step feels like pure energy. Finally, after endless applications, phone calls, stressing, "try again tomorrow's" and fights with the BMW people - I have the bike. I owe my soul to the great state of Alaska and their under the radar, solitary credit union, but I have the bike. They apparently wanted my business - or they wanted my soul, enough to give me the dough I needed. I pissed off BMW when I turned down their financing offer and they decided to tack on new charges to the deal, but in the end - what do you expect from a pig but a grunt? BMW was what I felt was my last resort and when they played hardball and came across as ungrateful and greedy... Well. I am not good with that.

So the trip is officially a GO! I am blissfully happy.

Now the next step - Two smaller trips are needed to work out the bugs and get myself used to distance riding with full gear. I will need to get used to the new riding clothes and the new feel of the bike. I have been really looking forward to getting out there and knocking those trips out. Thanks to Ebay I have a new helmet coming my way and hopefully I will have everything else I need before the departure date. There are a ton of little things that I have to work out before I leave like getting my license, getting into shape, acquiring detailed maps of the routes, getting into shape, finding housing for those days off, getting a physical and getting into shape, bike locks or a cover for the bike to keep it from being stolen, and getting into shape. Getting into shape means hours and hours of yoga... Each day.

There is a lot to do and very little time to get it all done. If you wish to send me something for the trip to carry with me along the way, or for me to wear... Do it now, it must be here before the 3rd of September. Please try to keep the item (preferable a sticker or a patch or a photo) to something small enough to get on the bike. I have shows for the next three weekends and I will only be home for a total of seven days before I leave town. Not a lot of prep time, so if I thought things were tough before, they are only going to get more exciting now.

I will try to keep the blog going while on the trip. I don't think I will take the computer with me, but I will try to find coffee houses and other computer outlets to fill you in on the details as I ride along. I am also working on getting a digital camera for the trip for the occasional video footage of the dream ride. In keeping in with the fine Daniel tradition - the digital camera is having some issues with focusing, so I might be taking just a lot of footage of my fuzzy ride across the country. Some of the weird little points of interest that I am hoping to see are; Mark Twain's houses in Hartford, CONN and Hannibal, MO. Albert Einstein's house in Princeton, NJ. The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. The dying CBGB's in New York City along with Coney Island for a hot dog and the street corner where Tesla died. Billy the Kid's grave in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. And loads and loads of other nerdy stops that sound cooler when I DON'T write them out. If you have some suggestions send them in, I might be able to work them in to the schedule. Mostly, I am taking this trip to prove that it can be done. That anyone, if they want something bad enough, can do whatever they want.

Enjoy the quotes above. They have kept me moving through the past few fuzzy weeks. I will have different quotes for the next two months... HA!