Published in PlanetBiker Magazine

It’s Wednesday and I’m sitting in my doctor’s waiting room. My appointment was almost an hour ago and I’m getting a bit impatient. The bike shop where I work is closed Sundays and Mondays, like most bike shops, so I tried to get a Monday appointment but my doc doesn’t work Mondays anymore. He doesn’t work Sundays either, so I’m missing work to be here, which, for us wrench-turners, means I’m not getting paid. I can feel my blood pressure rising with every minute I sit here and I know that once I get in the exam room they’re gonna  take my blood pressure and then tell me I need to be on blood pressure meds.  Can you say Catch-22? Geez.

I’m supposed to have an article ready for Planet Biker by Friday, and I haven’t gotten any further than jotting a few ideas down on a notepad. I’m also supposed to hit the road for a week on Saturday, and I haven’t even started getting ready for the trip.  My 14 year old daughter is in a rock band (yes, dear I will mention that your website is at  www.dazeoffrocks.com  and that all the nice people should go there and buy your CD and yes, you’re welcome, sweetheart), and they have two gigs, a private party, and a parade lined up between now and next Monday, and since I’m usually chief roadie and bottle washer, and I’m going to be leaving town, I’ve got to make sure all of that gets covered. (Here’s a tip….if your offspring ever want to be in a band, make sure they don’t get gigs until they get a drivers’ license.) Back at my job in the bike shop, the boss, who happens to be the brains of the outfit, (and who is a truly brilliant man who happens to read this magazine and who has most likely been too preoccupied with highly important stuff to realize that he needs to give his loyal employees a hefty pay raise) has been out for nearly two weeks with the flu, so things are really behind and I probably have no business leaving town, but I figure if you wait for a good time to take a vacation you’ll never get one so I’m going anyway. The good news is, it’s Fat Stock Show time in Fort Worth, which always means lousy weather around here, so if we get some rain and maybe snow, people won’t be clamoring to get their bikes back until the weather gets pretty again, and  what else?...oh yeah, I’ve got to get the ex to take over parent duties by noon Saturday so I can get loose and take my truck out to my mom because somebody ran into her car and she’s putting it in the body shop and driving my truck while I’m out of town, and I’ve got to get my girlfriend to meet me at mom’s and bring me back home and I hope mom doesn’t get in a wreck in my truck while I’m gone and oh yeah sometime I’ve got to get to the bank and get some cash and I wonder how broke I am because I haven’t balanced my checking account in 3 months and if I screwed up something along the way I could be busted and not know it and I hate not knowing how much money I have and I need to get that straightened out and oh golly gee whiz I’ve got ride DVD’s to edit…Talimena is finally done and out for replication and packaging and it’s only a month behind schedule, which pushes the release of the Big Bend video probably back to early summer, and I’ve GOT to get back down there to reshoot some footage I’m not satisfied with and I really want to somehow squeeze in that new Cherohala Skyway DVD before Big Bend but I don’t know where I’m going to find the time. Speaking of Big Bend, neither of the old Trail 90’s I bought to take down there is running yet, and despite having owned them for two months now and I haven’t had time to get them fixed. That has to change..they have to be running, reliable, and street legal by March or that trip will be off, which will push back the Big Bend DVD even further, and  geez…I gotta pay bills before I leave on Saturday, and if I don’t toss all the food that’s going bad in the fridge I’m gonna be sorry when I get back. Laundry is piled up and my digs are a wreck…gotta deal with that before I leave…I can’t stand coming home to a big mess. I’ve GOT to send an e-mail to that guy at the V-Twin Journal website who said nice things about my DVD’s in his weekly podcast. (note to self…I have to get some of my trailers in IPOD format and get them out.) I can’t believe I just stumbled onto that podcast and this guy was talking about me. That was cool! I wish I had an IPOD. My daughter the rock star has a video IPOD. I think I’m jealous of my own daughter. And while we’re thinking about websites….MY website needs a LOT of work to get it the way I want it, and for some reason the only fancy website I’m getting done is the one for my kid the rock star and her co-rock star band members. They even have an online store with “merch” for sale. My daughter the rock star told me that’s what it’s called in the biz….”merch” = merchandise. I guess merchandise has too many syllables for the younger generation. I gotta remember to put that bumper sticker on my truck…the one that says: “It’s not that I’m old…your music really does suck.” So yeah…where’s my online store? I’m the one who needs one because I’m the one paying the bills for both of us, right? I gotta get my links page up at least…good folks are helping me out and it’s the least I can do to recognize them a bit, and I can’t leave town until I change the website to announce the release of the Talimena DVD. People are going to be expecting it and it’s not showing as available. This is not good. If I had known how many thousands of details went into creating a business like this I probably would have never started, but hey..I’m in this far and there’s no turning back now. I hope all that stuff about “if you build it they will come” is true or I’m screwed. Geez again. Are they EVER gonna call me in to see the doc? I’ve felt half-sick for two weeks. I wish I would ever get all the way sick or get over whatever this is…I bet when I leave here I have  prescriptions that will set me back at least $200. And I’ll probably have the flu next week when I’m out of town because I’ve been exposed to it and wouldn’t it just figure to spend your vacation down with the flu especially if you got it from being around your boss and hey maybe I’ll just spend 5 minutes making notes of all this stuff running through my head and make an article out of all this gibberish and…. what?....” The Doctor will see me now?”

“Tell him I’ll be right along – I’ve gotta finish this article.”

People, that’s just a few of my thoughts over a five minute period. Not all of them, just the ones that got as far as being scribbled on a notepad during the 5 minutes.

Why do I ride? I ride because when I ride.....it all.....goes away.

Why do YOU ride?

Call me curious.

E-mail: joe@videobiker.com

Joe – the VideoBiker

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