MSF Dirt School...this should be interesting

Morning...

After riding for eight years now and surviving several thousand miles off-road on my BMW R1200GS, I've decided it was time to take a class to learn how to do more than survive. Today I will be attending an MSF Dirt School to learn how to ride a dirt bike. I am hoping to learn skills that will allow me to be able to take advantage of the vast off-road riding available near my new home in Southern California.

After looking around at different companies that offered off-road training with options from three day camps at $1,400 riding your bike to half day courses bike provided. I have signed up with is www.schoolofdirt.com to attend their half day course, for several reasons. First, I'm an aspiring writer, former software engineer that is currently unemployed so, cost means allot. Second, I don't like the idea of using my bike to take a class where, I know, I'm gonna end up in the dirt which risks my expensive bike, part of the reason I want to take the class is to minimize the risk of damage to the bike, not to mention myself. Third, proximity is a big deal. The School of Dirt is only twenty five minutes from my house, which means I can be home in time to cook dinner, as well as, be close enough to go back in with follow up questions or additional instruction without having to plan a major trip in advance. Finally, my biggest deciding factor was around community. This organization is run by local people that have found a way to give back to the local motorcycle community by teaching responsible/safe riding and do something they enjoy. Working with a small organization gives me an opportunity to meet locals and hopefully begin establishing my own connections to the community, in which I am new.

My research suggests the intention of this class is to teach basic techniques and how to ride dirt bikes responsibly. Further techniques developed are riding strategies, direction change, signaling, control, starting and stopping, traversing hills, emergency maneuvers, and negotiating obstacles.

Well, time to get ready! I'll write a full review after I've completed the class.

Live like I ride...with a smile...
...it only takes one lifetime to get it right...
...but all of them to whine if you don't!

The Trip That Wasn't

I think I've been time warped again. I guess that thats one of the downside of having Merlin (the master of time warps), as your guardian or guide. I've been dreaming off and on for the past six months about the ride to and from this years BMW MOA International Rally in Salem, Oregon. Riding up the California Coast on the Pacific Coast Highway then follow the 101 all the way to Otis, Oregon turning east onto 18 the Salmon River Highway through the Siuslaw National Forest and then Oregon State Highway 22 into Salem. I had big dreams of checking off at least four of the final six states in the country, I have yet to ride. I was hoping to be able to check off forty nine states in 2013, but it appears that is not in the cards this year. Last week, between writing the Story of Dax and Amanda Arach (The Original Crusade), researching blue water capable liveaboard sailboats and cooking diner for my family, I mapped out the ride and cost of attending the rally.

It was with much frustration, that I resolved myself to the fact that, seventeen months of being unemployed has drained my savings to a point, I can not make the trip to Salem. Oddly, before mapping it out I was confident that the trip would be possible since, it was on the west coast this year, where I happen to find myself. However, upon completing the map it turns out that the round trip ride would be a little over 2,500 miles not including my hope to hit Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington on top of Oregon. In spite of the continental proximity, the trip would require a two day ride to arrive and a minimum of two return days and a potential price tag of $700 - 1,000. In a previous time in my life, that wouldn't be a big deal, as it would have been less than half of what I made while on vacation. But these days, that would set back my solvency by a month. Not an option!

The big adventure for this summer is going to be lived vicariously through the Instagrams, Facebook posts, emails and Facetime calls from my two little sisters (Carly and Carrie) and my Mom (Colleen Sayre). I have gotten accustomed to being the adventurer in the family that everyone is living through and now I get to be a watcher. Don't get me wrong. I am happy for them to have made their dream come true. This trip has taken over two years to plan and bring to fruition. As I write this, they are high above the earth traveling from Orlando to Philadelphia in the first leg of their trip to Scotland. They will be spending the next ten days traveling the Scottish Highlands and drinking in all the Outlander sites they can behold, as well as, camping on my sister's, Lady Carrie Wood's, newly gifited land in Glencoe.

As far as the rally is concerned, I will content myself with reading about the antics at the rally, in next months issue of the BMW MOA Owners News. Oh and see if I can find an off road training class close to home and learn how to ride in the sand or just disappear onto a winding road for a few days...Shhhhh!

Live like I ride...with a smile...
...it only takes one lifetime to get it right...
...but all of them to whine if you don't!

Time Warps...some call them anchors

Well, CaveDweller you're right, our family has our own series of time warps. You personally get the benefit of extra time to visit benefit of the extra time to visit by getting there faster or spending less time in the car. For me, the stretched side of the warp is most commonly while I'm writing or traveling and on a deadline. Most of my life, I have found that when I do my best work is with my back against a wall. When there is a problem that has to be solved immediately or a deadline to meet, everything around me seems to slow down and I write a document that would take two weeks in a night. When the sun rises, I have finished a fifty page Software Strategy document complete with pictures, diagrams and meeting invitations to the key stakeholders. Then, I take a shower, ride Dragon to the office and present the paper for review without anyone the wiser, that I did it last night, let alone that I haven't slept in twenty four hours.

The time warp gives to help my life and career but the way it takes is just too hard some times. For instance, one morning, I'll stroll by Dragon and think "Why all the dust? We were just on the road... Oh Crap! We haven't been out in over two weeks! Later today! I promise!" A few more days go by and I pass her again, "Why all the dust?" I think. Once again, I make my promise.  The truth is that these are the times she takes from me. My favorite and most meditative gift to myself is riding or being on the open road in anything at all and she continues to tie up my time, keeping me anchored to the land.

She chooses her victims, I mean partners, carefully and doesn't allow everyone to experience the full glory of her gifts. The ones she chooses however, need be careful what they ask for as the price you pay could be much more than you are able to bare as it may be the loss of your only tranquility.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that on the rare occasion the time warp mistress will be generous and allow you the opportunity to experience the stretch while you are doing that which she usually takes away. Recently, I spent an entire day riding. I started with cool crisp air along the coast, a brilliant sun filled afternoon in the heat as I stormed the mountain turns and then the return trip in the dark shadows of the late afternoon in the turns. Finally, capped with the sounds of waves crashing on the rocks as I coasted home. Again, I say a spectacular day of riding that only took me away from my family for three hours (their time) and Dragon grinned at the two hundred fifty plus miles on the trip meter. Just then, my phone beeps, "U be home for dinner?" While dismounting, I think to myself, "As a matter of fact!"

My final thought for the subject today.  If, like my family, you are able to experience these quirks or holes in the fabric of time or your not. Remember, not to bemoan the little setbacks that make them possible. Embrace the time you have and every so often maybe you'll actually give yourself a break.

By the way, time warp mistress or not. Dragon says the last ten thousand miles have been her favorite, on account of most of the miles have been headed to "No specific destination!"

Live like I ride...with a smile...

...it only takes one lifetime to get it right...

...but all of them to whine if you don't!

Re: Don't buy the boat!

What can I say to The Joy (and Power) of Being Right Here?

You know me...everything is an adventure and you're right, for years now "Dragon" has been my escape hatch, so to speak. She still is and will be for a long time to come. Believe it or not, after spending seventeen years is one place, I remember and appreciate the art of finding joy where my feet are planted. Although, much like Fitz in 'Martin Vane Says Hello', I too have forgotten the meaning of life, intentionally at times, only to awake later and be mesmerized by the joy of find myself all over again.

The idea of the boat however, has been in my psyche since I was very young. Why is that Mom? The first images I remember, in my minds eye, are of a boat anchored at the edge of a harbor in dark choppy seas, cold walls of sea water crashing into and over me on the deck, storm clouds raging over head, and a very young me being encouraged to climb the mast and command the seas to calm and then lay on the deck and break the clouds one at a time till there was nothing but blue skies as far as I could see. This little single-masted dinghy grew over the years, replaced plank by plank, as you taught me to master the pain of my migraines through visual meditation. Now, moored at the edge of that same harbor on the western edge of Scotland is a huge three-masted ship complete with galley, three bedrooms, a head with shower, and most importantly, a crows nest with a hammock to relax in once I have calmed the seas and sky of my world. That was my only escape hatch for years, until I found the "Blue Dragon," a '99 Moto Guzzi Bassa which gave me a physical freedom all my own.  Together, the two Dragons have taken me all around this great country of ours and even to Canada on a whirl-wind ride that has spanned almost eighty thousand miles in eight years.

I am living firmly in the here and now...truly absorbing as much of what is around me as possible.  Still my mind wanders, both as I write my first novel that takes me around the world and back and as I sit in quiet meditation and allow myself to fall away and my soul to emerge from its glimmering leather and scaly shell, deep within my sub-conscience.

After all these years of settling the seas and calming the winds around my ship, I have come to realize that for all the hard work I have put into creating this beautiful vessel, it is far too complex to sail enjoyably.  So, I have begun rebuilding my ship into a live aboard, ocean worthy sailboat that can be manned single-handed but has room for a partner and a little more.  Remembering how to sail in my mind is effortless, even on the large ship as a respite from the real world.  I want to know (remember that is) that, not only can I sail the pleasure cruiser I've name "Phoenix" in my mind but that I can sail away on her, in this world as well.

See, I inherited this thirst for knowledge and adventure from someone, I won't name names "Mom", and the idea of learning to sail and know about boats and how big it needs to be to safely transport us and Dragon are simply an extension of that thirst.

Until I find a suitable manifestation of Phoenix within our price range, I will build her in my mind's eye, and take reminder courses from the ASA, to master the art of sailing her safely into the next big adventure.

I hear you MOM! I'm not buying a boat, I am manifesting it, one plank at a time, just like you taught me. And don't worry, it will be big enough for you to sail with us on occasion, if you're not too busy writing another book. Congratulations on your latest book, 'Martin Vane Says Hello'.

Sat Nam!

~Topher

Life Anew

Hey everyone...

Well, as you may have noticed, I have not exactly been posting much in the last few months. I had taken a break from my blog and social media. There have been a lot of changes in my life, during which I felt silence was the better part of valor. Now that I have gotten beyond most of that, I am back and ready to begin my new adventures and share some of it with the world.

In the past year, I have traveled over 50,000 miles in my car and in excess of 7,000 miles on my motorcycle. I have visited all but ten of the lower 48 states and moved from my home of twenty years in Massachusetts back to the state of my childhood, Georgia, made brief but important visits with my Mother in Florida and my Grandpa in Ohio. I spent a good deal of time in Alabama, with my girlfriend and partner in life prior to our move to Costa Mesa, California.

My youngest daughter graduates from college in May, my divorce is final, my house has an offer and will hopefully be sold within the month and my family is beginning to find its way in this world!

On my adventure, this year, I spent a great deal of time in California, exploring the beaches, and towns along the coast and in the mountains living in my tent and cheap hotels. I saw the sunset on the a Pacific Ocean for the first time, committed the ashes if my loyal friend and companion Merlin, whom was a 14 year old a Bichon Frise, to the ocean and various other locations along the journey. I watched the sun rise and set over the mountain peaks around Copper Mountain, Colorado. Witnessed the onset of darkness as it enveloped the Redwoods and myself in northern California. Fell asleep to the roar of the surf on dark sand beaches, and awakened to the gentle crashing of the waves on those same shores. Felt the sharp bite of cold as it stole into my tent though the night, both in the mountains of Colorado and in the Sierra Nevadas of California. Awoken to find frost on the inside if the tent just inches from my face. Sat in the snow and stared with wonder at the hot sulfur springs erupting from the ground at Lassen National Volcanic Park in June. Fallen asleep with my sliding door open to the ocean and the I-5 in San Clemente as the sound of the rushing traffic and crashing surf washed over my soul. Lay in an attic bed, mere inches from the roof, listening to the winds of a tornado hurdle cars through the air and tear roofs from houses in the heart of Mobile, Alabama, while waiting and wondering if it would find me as it tore through the neighborhood only two blocks away. Spent sleepless nights with my hand in the bed of my partially paralyzed companion to both comfort him with my presence and monitor his movements in the night. Giving countless late night baths to clean him up and then hours holding and warming him and exercising his legs. I spent innumerable hours alone: writing, thinking, reading, riding, driving, contemplating life and capturing my view of the world through word and photography. There have been late nights in the hospital, visits to animal clinics and animal acupuncturists. Break downs of the body, both emotional and physical, as well as on trailers and moving trucks. Searches for welders and machine shops, long waits for road side assistance in the middle of nowhere and the pleasant surprise of an unexpected sunset in the dessert! I've been snowed on in the dessert, and snowed in in Texas. On the bike, I have frozen in Alabama and Florida and roasted in Missouri while sitting in traffic overheating. Learned to lane share in California to navigate and weave through the bumper-to-bumper traffic and avoid overheating. I have driven or ridden for up to 1,400 miles without stopping and hit the wall at 140 miles and stopped for the night. At a small two man shop on the side of the road i learned how to reset the maintenance light on my Prius and I have had my oil changed at big chain garages, where I taught them how to reset the maintenance light. There have been days, that I haven't talked to another living soul and others where everyone I encountered seemed to have the need to talk, either to share their story or ask after mine. I've seen men go out of their way to help a stranded motorist in need and a cop drive by without a look. Strangers have fed me in campgrounds in return for conversation and a telling of my story; another tried to rob me in the parking lot of a gas station; others scoffed at me for living the dream when I answered their inevitable question, "Where are you heading?" and I replied, "I don't know yet! Whichever way the wind takes me today!"

So, here is where I find myself! My sun and the wind have guided me here, to Costa Mesa, California...for the first time in a long while I feel at home. I can breathe, I can sleep, I can write again.

Today, I am starting my life anew! I am no longer bound by the conventions of how things should be, but by how I decide things will be!

Get out there...find your life anew!

Ride Hard...Live Well...it only takes one lifetime to get it right!

~Chris Wood

Blog Hop: Welcome to The Next Big Thing

Thank you, Colleen Sayre for inviting me to The Next Big Thing Blog Hop.  I'm excited to have the opportunity to share and participate.

Currently, I am an unemployed Senior QA Software Engineer.  I've worked for large multi-billion dollar corporations, small credit collection agencies, prestigious colleges and Video On Demand software companies.  I thrived in the software industry and enjoyed the challenge of building products out of dreams, poking holes in plans, finding ways to break programs before the customers got a chance and helping find better ways to design our mouse traps.  In retrospect, I have found that the vast amount of work that I did revolved around the written word.

The majority of my career has been spent documenting how we would build the products other people dream about, reading or writing functional and design specifications, and looking for the holes in the plans laid out before me, devising and documenting ways to validate or break the program and then using that documentation to help define fixes for the product.  I've worked with documentation team to prepare user documents that help customers install, deploy, or upgrade as well as train their employees how to use applications.

Along the way, I realized that the part of my job I liked the best was finding the most illustrative manner in which to convey my message.  With that in mind, I decided that while I am out of work, this is the perfect time for me to exercise my passion and talent to write something that others will enjoy, something a little less technical.  I want to write fiction.

I started off this month with every intention of diligently participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November and basically write my first novel.  Unlike, many of the other participants, I went into the month without any sense of what, who or where my novel would take place.  I hadn't made story idea notes; I didn't have a framework developed; I didn't know my characters names!  Hell, I didn't even have any ideas floating around in my head.  I'd been working over the summer on a book of travel and roadside adventure stories from my six-week journey around the U.S. either in my car Tug or on my motorcycle Dragon.  The Adventures of Dragon Wrider is still in the works and I hope to have it pulled together soon.  So when the first day rolled in and out and I didn't really have a clue, I wasn't surprised.  Early one morning several days later, I awoke to a familiar voice telling me his part of a story and so it began.

I have been asked to answer a few questions about the newest book I am working on and I'll do my best to answer them in a way that my characters would approve.

What is the working title of your book?

The working title is The Original Crusade.  Although I think that Nadan, my favorite character--and the one who keeps waking me up at night to remind me I'm not done--prefers the Genesis of Camelot. Seeing how pushy he can be, I figure Nadan will win.  But for now, I'm resigned to the say the official working title is The Original Crusade (The Genesis of Camelot).

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Twenty plus years ago, I began writing a story around a central character named Nadan.  He related to me his adventures, and his companions adventures, through several incarnations and reincarnations.  Their stories centered around their lives in Camelot in the years after the disappearance of Merlin.  I still have the old remnants of this book floating around my office and hope to one day renew it.  However, this time Nadan has returned to introduce me to an entirely new battalion of characters whose stories span a much greater time frame.  It is a tale that tells of the beginning of the ideas of Camelot not just of Camelot.

What genre does your book fall under?

I am not sure that the vast number of genre that exist in the book community do much to help either authors, or readers find the books they are interested in reading.  Instead, I believe they provide critics and publishers a means of stereotyping authors and works into categories, making it easier for them to isolate them for marketing purposes and justify writing off entire groups of writers.  That said, I believe that this work would fall into the Literary Fiction or Fantasy genre.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Jesus, Merlin, Arthur, Nadan and Dax:  Ewan McGregor
Mary, Guinevere, Gabriela, Angela:  Kelly MacDonald or Kiera Knightly
Ilisiador (Druid):  Ian McKellen
Mary's Oldest Brother:  Eoin Macken
Mary's Middle Brother:  Henry Ian Cusick
Mary's Youngest Brother:  James McAvoy
Mary Mother, Evelake and Barbara:  Cate Blanchett or Charlize Theron
Lamerok:  Kit Harrington
Young Merlin:  Isaac Hempstead Wright
Narrator:  Colin Morgan

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

This is an adventure through history that tells how a few several souls continue to reconnect, sometimes across continents, to make a difference and shape the world we all live in, by believing in themselves, one another, love and the goodness buried in the human condition.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The current intent is to self-publish although, that doesn't mean that if approached I would not consider working with an agency.

How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Well...I'll have to answer that question definitively once I have completed the first draft.  However, I will say that I am around three weeks calendar time into the writing and feel that I am about halfway finished, although my characters control when and where I go and therefore, how long I will have to write to tell their story.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

That's a truly interesting questions.  I have never read anything quite like what I am writing.  I am sure there are some out there however, this idea of a soul coming back over and over again has roots in religion, with reincarnation being the theme tying them together.  As a child (I still am at heart), like may boys my age, I was intrigued by the stories of Arthur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table.  It is in this vein, of morals, ethics and pursuit of happiness that I write.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Interestingly, complicated questions to answer.  Why truly does anyone do anything, but to be happy?  I would have to say that for the 'Who' portion of the question, it is first and foremost my mom and author Colleen Sayre.  As far back as I can remember, my mom told me stories about far off lands and the chivalry of the knights of the round table.  In her spare time, she wrote, always working on some story or song or book, and she would tell the stories to me and share in her passion for storytelling.  As I got older and became interested in writing, she encouraged me and acted as my editor on much that I wrote, including that first adventure of Nadan many years ago.  However, neither of us ever pursued our passion as intently as we desired.  However, in Dec 2011, Colleen Sayre published the first of four books and got me thinking, "If she can do it, maybe I could too."  That lead to the 'What.'  A few months ago, my mom enlisted my help to publish her fourth book, A Solitary Life.  I agreed and set to work doing minor editing and then cover design, artwork and photography for the book.  Being involved in such a great work and having the opportunity to help bring it to life pushed me to begin in earnest to pursue my passion for writing as a possible career alternative.  Finally, Mom challenged me to participate in this year's NaNoWriMo.

What else about your book might pique the readers interest?

I think that the mingling of the stories of the genesis of Camelot, the life and death journey of joined souls, the connection with Jesus and Mary Magdalene and finally the struggles of a modern day love story, of a family, and of a man raising his son to be the man he wished he could have been all those centuries ago.  The message being how to search for a moral and ethical balance to life while pursuing personal happiness and honor.

Back to the Road...

Like Odysseus, I am to begin my journey again, tomorrow. I begin with a new stillness in my soul and the understanding things are as they should be...and tomorrow will be what I make it. Nothing more, nothing less. A two century old story reawakens to find that it has the cast needed to move the plot forward without a force of will but by rise and fall of the sun and moon and the seasons ushered in by the wind. I invite the wind into the folds of my jacket to wrap itself around me, as I ride out into the world once again.

Always Safe, Never Careful!