Here’s a little something for my former co-workers — it’s a cartoon from the New Yorker:

And hey, how about that cool little Love Ride fundraiser? We’re up to $221 now with six days to go!

I know the link works because I just tested it.

You just click on the little Love Ride 21 icon and it’ll take you to my Love Ride donation page, where you too can be one of the Kool Kids sponsoring me in the Love Ride on November 14. I have $136 now and I’m shooting for $500. Just kick in $20, $10, even $5 and I’ll put your name in the honor roll and you’ll get to help some charities that need your support.

Clickety-click.

Pink Floyd was right when they sang Money, it�s a hit, but I’m going to disagree with the next line Don�t give me that do goody good bullshit because that’s exactly what I want — DO give me that do goody good bullshit.

The goody good bullshit is the Love Ride and I want you to sponsor me in it. Twenty bucks, ten, five even, just kick down with something. Click the Love Ride 21 icon and help me raise money for some worthy charities.

I’m shooting for $500, I have $136 so far, and I only have eleven more days to do it. Help out, will you? Pretty please?

It’s that time of year again. It’s Love Ride time, the annual fundraiser I’ve participated in for the last three years, and I’m doing it again this year.

What is the Love Ride? I’ll let you follow that link that I helpfully provided there for you to get all the gory details, and instead I’ll just sum it up in a nutshell: It’s an annual motorcycle-based fundraiser here in Southern California, where 30,000+ bikers get together and ride to raise money for Reading by 9, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the City of Hope, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Los Angeles, and a host of other groups. We ride, you pay, people who need help get it. What’s not to love?

And this is the part where I hit you, my super fantastic readers, up for $$$. I’m not like all those freeloader sites you see out there, the ones with the Amazon or PayPal donate buttons: “Hi, Chuck Atkins, please support my I Love Kittens site!” No, the Pie is on me, and I’ll never panhandle you for pocket change to help support my hobby. But I will hit you up for cash for this — because it’s for a good cause, not because I want it.

So go ahead and click on the Love Ride 21 graphic over there in the right-hand column and donate a few bucks to sponsor me in the Love Ride. My entry’s already paid for (by me, thankyewverymuch); I’m just asking you to help me meet my goal of raising $500.

If I do hit that $500 goal, well… I’ll post a picture of … something me-related. Let me know when you donate and what you want a picture of and I’ll do it if we top $500. And here’s the scary part: there’s no limits on this — you name it, I’ll do it. Whatever.

Damn. Now I’m scared. Go donate, quick, before I change my mind.

I’m very proud to announce that Beth is now an officially licensed motorcyclist. She took her MSF class a few weeks ago and just passed the written test at the DMV today, thus earning her M1 endorsement and entry into the Brotherhood of Motorcyle Riders. My sweetie is now a genyoowine Biker Babe!

Next up: we buy her a motorcycle in the next few weeks so we can go riding together — Beth on hers, me on mine, Zoe riding behind me.

Congratulations, honey!

Stuck in Missoula over the weekend with nothing to do, the Sales Manager and the Operations Director here at the station took me out for a ride on Saturday. The Sales Manager loaned me his Harley Softail and we rode up into Idaho to have lunch at the Lochsa Lodge.

Yep, I like it here in Missoula. Nice people, great riding, excellent bacon cheeseburgers. I could get used to this.

This is me with my borrowed steed up at the lodge.

There’s a forum for Road Star riders (which is what I am) called, conveniently enough, Road Star Riders where people discuss anything and everything about their motorcycles, and sometimes the discussions range over into the political arena.

The political stance over there is very much right wing conservative, with an overload of posts about how fabulous Bush and Co. are and how pathetic liberals and their ilk are. Being of that ilk, I occasionally jumped into these discussions to provide a little balance, a little factual information rooted in reality, and a little of the wonderfulness that is me. My contributions were VERY much not appreciated. So much so that the guy running the forum (“Thor” – spare me the machismo) has banned me and deleted all my posts. What a sissy.

Now, “Thor” (bwahaha) obviously thinks he’s a rough, tough, bad-ass biker. I offer his signature picture (which appears at the bottom of each of his posts) as evidence of his inflated opinion of himself:

But you know, for a rough, tough, bad-ass biker type, he’s awfully thin-skinned. I mean, he was practically convulsing over my posts in support of gay marriage, and you’d think my saying that W is the worst president we’ve ever had was a slur against his mother. Oh my, was he upset! And the fit definitly hit the shan when I defended my remarks with logic and facts and helpfully pointed out all his misspellings and poor grammar and corrected the factual errors in his statements to me. I could almost hear him crying. And so he banned me and deleted all those upsetting posts of mine.

Wah.

At that point I realized his sig-pic didn’t accurately portray him, so I decided to modify it for him:

I sent him a copy, because you know I’m all about being helpful. I wonder if he’ll use it…

Yay, I got my motorcycle back. Oh, did I forget to mention that it was gone? Oopsie.

Background: Right about the time I was getting ready to leave for Chicago, at about the same time I was putting the Land Cruiser (no name for it yet — I’m thinking of calling it The Chuckwagon) in the shop for revivoratory surgery, I learned that Yamaha was issuing a huge recall on my model of motorcycle, one that included me. Seems there was a little problem with the transmission that could cause it to sort of break while you were riding it and kinda lock up the rear wheel and maybe make you fall down and go boom-slide- ow-bleed-ow-crunch- ow-die.

Not good.

I immediately took my bike to the shop the next day and dropped it off for repair … and there it sat. For. Ever. Yamaha issued the recall, but didn’t quite get around to issuing parts to fix it. So my bike sat in the shop for nearly a month and my truck sat in the shop for nearly a month and I sat in my home in Van Nuys and wondered how the fuck I was going to get to my job 65 miles away in Aliso Viejo.

Enterprise Car Rental loves me now; I’m their neighborhood frequent flier. I rented a car for a few days before going to Chicago, then rented another one for a few more days when I got back. It kind of sucks to be a 2-car, 2-motorcycle family when you can’t use 75% of your rolling stock and you have to pay to use someone else’s micro-mini econo-beer can car.

But you already knew I got my truck back, and now I’ve got my bike back too. I’m back on 6 wheels again and it’s nice to have a choice when leaving for work in the morning. Because, you know, it’s been cold and rainy here lately. That’s truck weather — when you’ve got a truck. And the sunny weekends are motorcycle weather — when you’ve got a motorcycle.

Now I have both. Yay.

In one of my last pre-Hitler entries, I asked a critical question and then left you hanging with the answer. Oopsie. Let’s resume, shall we?

Question: Will Santa bring me a Harley for Christmas?
Answer: Santa’s a funny little fucker.

Did I get a Harley? Yes I sure did, only Santa phoned it in — he brought a Harley telephone:

Isn’t it … um … great? It’s not quite what I had in mind, but… Well, it is a Harley. Sort of. I guess. It goes “Vroom!” and the headlight goes on when it rings, so I’ve got that going for me. But… Well… No. No, I’m not putting this thing on my desk. I’m not going to answer a Vrooming phone, I’m not going to talk into the seat, I’m not going to anything with this phone. I guess I should have been more specific on my Christmas wishlist. Santa clearly needs a clue or three. So, for next year:

“Yo, Santa, I want a 2002 Harley Davidson Road King Classic motorcycle, please. A real one. That I can ride. That doesn’t plug into the wall. The color should be “Vivid Black.” It should have a 1450 cc Twin Cam 88 engine. It should have electronic fuel injection. It should have a tooled leather seat and leather-wrapped hard saddlebags. It should have a detachable windshield. It should have wire-laced wheels. It should run on gas. It should not be a telephone or a ring or a belt buckle or a cue rack or a plush toy or an umbrella or a T-shirt or an ornament or a mug or a tie or a mirror or a clock or mudflaps or anything with the Harley-Davidson logo on it but a real-life actual in-the-flesh motherfucking Harley-Davidson motorcycle! Get it, you fat stupid elf? Motor. Cycle. Thank you.”

Moron.

So, okay, I didn’t get the right Harley. I did get a whole passel of other stuff: two bathrobes, two pairs of flannel “lounging pants,” a shockingly large check from Beth’s dad, and an iPod. Ever since Christmas I’ve been lounging around the house in lounging pants and a bathrobe, dreaming of what to spend the Christmas money on and downloading songs into the iPod. It’s a 20 gig model and after ripping and downloading every CD in the house, even Beth’s stuff that I hate, it’s barely half full. Shweet. And then a few days after Christmas I went riding with El Steve, who gave me a beautiful pair of Harley-Davidson chaps, which look fabulous under the bathrobe.

So all things considered it was a pretty good Christmas for young Chuckie. Even the Harley phone wasn’t too bad — at least I got an entry out of it.

Ah, Christmas Eve… A night of nervous anticipation for children everywhere: Santa’s on his way! Will he bring me what I want? Was I good enough? Is he here yet? Where is he??? Zoe and I just checked NORAD’s Santa tracking page to see where the old elf is (he’s just leaving Europe now), and she’s getting more and more anxious about his arrival.

As an adult, I’ve left the Santa-wonder behind, but there’s still that little thrill of anticipation for the gifts tomorrow. I’ve made it known to anyone who’ll sit still and listen long enough that what I really want for Christmas is a Road King, but I don’t really expect anyone to get me one. They’re $25,000 fer Chrissakes, and nobody I know has that kind of money to spend on Christmas presents — at least not for me. A Harley for the holidays is a nice pipe dream, but ain’t no way it’s gonna happen.

And yet… Hope springs eternal. I know there’ll be no Harley under the tree for me tomorrow — but there’s an insanely hopeful little part of me that hope-hope-hopes that maybe there will be anyway. Christmas is about joy and wonder and miracles, right? It could happen. Couldn’t it? Couldn’t it?

Merry Christmas, everyone! (And to you Godless heathens who don’t celebrate the birth of Our Lord — Merry Christmas anyway!)