While you see a chance….

My understanding of the Steve Windwood song by the above name, which was released in 1981, is that it had a remarkable lineup of musicians playing the instruments.
If you count Steve Windwood that is.
He played all of the instruments, recording them one by one until all was done. Very patient…very talented!

The end result is a pretty good song, with a pretty good message.

So, the other day I found myself in a situation where I saw a chance….and I took it.
I have had a motorcycle license for over 30 years, but sadly, my own motorcycle has become a permanent fixture of my garage since 2001.
As luck would have it, I tripped over a 2008 Suzuki GS500F at a used car dealer. It had been there quite awhile, and they were apparently very eager to get it off their showroom fllor. I offered them $900 less than they were asking for it and they accepted!
It had just over 1000 miles on it!!!!

If you want to see happiness, picture me on a motorcycle for the first time in well over a decade. That night, I went for a nice drive with the woman I LoVe holding on behind me.
Life….is good!

Cheers!

Advertisement

Somewhere, over the rainbow…..

This picture was taken just after a late summer thunderstorm rolled through the Byward Market in downtown Ottawa on Sunday afternoon. 

There is wrong, and then there is this…..

😉

The importance of Initial Stability

A quiet Sunday morning. I’ve already had breakfast on the deck with a beautiful woman. The sunrise was beautiful, the weather a perfect summers day!
How contradictory it is to sit under a pergola on my deck, just the two of us. My house is in the country, on an acre of land. Just my lady and I on a beautiful morning. Last week we were in Manhattan for several days. I was out and about in that huge metropolis at all hours of the day, and there is NO place on that island where you feel alone. Lonely, maybe. But never alone.

Later in the morning, while listening to The Sunday Edition on CBC radio I casually did some surfing on the internet and happened across the main page of Wikipedia. Today, they announced, is the anniversary of the sinking of the Swedish war ship Vasa. On this day, 386 years ago, The Vasa was on its maiden voyage. It had taken two years to construct and outfit this huge warship, and it was on its way to take part in the 30 Years War. After sailing just under one mile, a gust of wind caught the ship. It leaned hard to port, with its open gun ports going below water. The sea rushed in, the ship filled, and promptly sank in front of thousands of people onshore who had gathered to see her off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

It was found, during an inquest and in the years that followed, that the reason for sinking was a “lack of initial stability.”
In layman’s terms, they built the ship wrong!

This wasn’t just any ship. This was to be the flagship of the reverse fleet. The King of Sweden was very anxious for it to take up station. While he was in Poland leading his troops in battle, the new prize of his navy was sinking to the bottom of the Baltic. Sadly, there were many involved in the building of the ship who knew that the design was flawed and that it would most likely meet with a disastrous end. Presumably they did not see it coming this quickly!
They never told the King….because they were afraid of his reaction.
Thirty men died.

Almost 400 hundred years later, we all recognize that trait in our everyday lives. How often have you avoided telling someone bad news because you were afraid of their reaction. How many maiden voyages have we embarked upon that have sank in the first mile? Sometimes we all lack that ‘initial stability.’
But even if we lose a flagship now and then, there is more to life than one bad voyage. Life really is about the journey, NOT the destination!

Cheers to all!

Mid summer post

There are people who follow my blog.
There are blogs that I follow.
I have a lot of admiration for the blogs I read. Ordinary people taking a chance and putting there thoughts out there for all the world to see.
That’s brave!
I also admire the people that i see who have found the will to write on a regular basis! Good job by you all!

A special shout out to Frugoal and her 93 days of summer writing campaign! I have really enjoyed that, and find myself looking forward to the daily e-mail notification that she has added yet another post!
http://frugoal.wordpress.com/author/frugoal/

I hope to find some inspiration from you all!!!

Cheers!

Just goofing around……

Just goofing around…….

He’s got this dream….

That is a line from one of my absolute favorite songs of ALL time.

“Baker Street” by the late, great Gerry Rafferty. One of life’s simple pleasures is tripping across that song on the radio. The mournful wail of the saxophone, the haunting words…. pure poetry from beginning to end.

By the way, I KNOW there is a remake out there… it just simply does not merit mention in this space.

Anyways… I always ponder over that line whenever I hear that song.

`He`s got this dream about buying some land, gonna give up the booze and the one night stands…. `

Is it instinctually human to have a desire to own land? Maybe it’s just me? Hell, I own an acre of land, with a humble little abode on it, and I feel like buying property every time I hear that line! Not a huge amount of land, just enough that I can’t see anyone from it. Maybe 10 acres or so…. maybe a little more. The desire within me gets to the point that sometimes I check around my area to see what is available in the way of vacant land up for bids.

There is a LOT of speculation going on out there!

A lot of people think their land is worth a LOT of money. Who am I to say… maybe it is. It is safe, at this point, to assume that I am in no danger of losing my virtues by becoming some kind of land baron. I’m simply just not that smart, and I am really, really cheap!

Oh… and my lack of smartness in prior engagements (That is so funny when i think about it….), has left me without the funds required of a baron of any type.

Now in spite of this, I still look. I look at land far away from other people. Somewhere with some space. Just me and no one else. I want to be able to protect that tiny little sliver of land from anyone ever building a McMansion on it. I want there to be some wildlife on it. Ok, not lions and zebras and the such, but squirrels are welcome, and chipmunks, and maybe some deer would cross my mythical, nonexistent land at some point. Oh! Bunny rabbits… gotta have some bunny rabbits! I don’t fancy myself a Dr. Doolittle or anything silly like that, but it would be nice to protect some small area from the evils that we have visited upon this land in the name of progress.

Now, as to the rest of the line that has me so enthralled…. I am really not much of a boozer. Two beers is pretty much a full night of drinking for me. As for one night stands.. I had one once. But I kind of screwed it up…. it started on a Saturday and went through until the following Thursday!

So that just leave the dream, about buying some land. I know at this stage in my life that it will probably remain just that, a dream. Still, it is a nice dream. A sunny day dream, with green grass, a little creek, birds singing…. and me just lying there, flat on my back, staring at the deep blue sky and taking it all in.

Of course, with my luck, that would be precisely the point where I get stung by a bee, to which I am deathly (you know, to the point of death) allergic.