My wife is a drunk...but that's not the worst part

Yep, my wife is a drunk. At 5am we both woke up since we're in Yokohama and, for whatever reason, the sun comes up at like 4:30am. Force of habit. Everything is fine. Suzy comments that maybe she drank too much at the Stemgent party. But I did too. It's a convention party. We had fun watching all the socially-challenged biologist try and get laid. No offense to folks with epilepsi, but it like watching epileptics trying to dance at a rave.

As has been the routine this week, I go back to sleep by 5-6am and wake up at 7am. I get ready and we leave so we can have breakfast together and I walk her to the conference.

Except Suzy is drunk. She's pretty distinctive when she's drunk. Her IQ drops from somewhere north of 130 to Snooky-land. I don't like dumb girls and I don't like Suzy when she is drunk. I see two or three cups of shochu (a Japanese liquor that is basically half strength vodka) about the hotel room. Considering that I drink pretty heavily myself, I don't feel I really have that much right to bitch about her drinking, but it's fucking 8am and she's drunk. That means she must have been drinking since 6am or so. When is that every alright?

I try to just not worry about it and help her put stuff in her bag, except I see that there is a diet coke bottle that is half full of shochu and lemon juice. I mean, really, is life so fucking hard that you can't cope sober. I've known some serious drunks in my life. Functional and otherwise. Very few feel like they have to get lit to make it through a conference.

But her being a drunk isn't my real problem. My problem is that I can't talk about it with her. The moment I bring it up, she gets so defensive. I mean like injured-lion defensive. All of a sudden, my concern about her being hammered at 8am...after being hung-over from a party the night before...has transformed into something about me not taking her seriously or I think she's fat or I don't appreciate what she does to maintain the household or I am not respectful of our cats' feelings. Completely irrational. She completely turns it around and tries to make me to be the ultra-dickhead.

I am getting so fucking tired of it.

Facebook: Fraudbook

I am far from being knowledgeable about the intricacies of high finance. I understand the basics about finance: I know what stocks, bonds and securities are. I know basically how an IPO goes and about things like hedge funds work. I personally think finance is a necessarily evil. I think proximity to that much money is like too much power: corrupting.

But anyway, I was listening, reading and watching what seemed to me to be a lot of hype about Facebook's IPO with my eye rolling so many times that I thought I could make my own electricity by wrapping my eyeballs with wire.

In my cynical, very distrustful of Wall Street, conspiracy friendly tinted way, I figured the obscene initial valuation of FB in the $100 billion (with a B) was a clever scheme by Zucky and his insider boys to pump the stock price so all the guys with huge stock options could cash in and become insanely, filthy, obscenely rich overnight and then watch the stock price plummet. I told my wife, but she cares less about finance than I do. I told another friend who said something like "really?" with a touch of incredulity.

I admit think I see underhanded, big business scheme trying to do power-grabs, a la The Manchurian Candidate in my soup. I didn't really even take myself seriously.

Now, I start reading stories about how congress is going launch an investigation on how this whole FB IPO is becoming a huge scandal.

Basically the jist of it is that the people at FB who's job it was to pump up the initial asking price and generate interest in buying FB stock may have "overstated FB's growth potential". Then the big initial investors: JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, etc, got a call that essentially said "The people at Facebook are trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge".

What did they do? Did they call all their clients and say "run away, run far away!"?

Well, sort of. Only thing is they only told their big clients. The big clients who are already filth rich averted a disaster, but the rest of them who bought that bridge in NYC did not. They got screwed.

I know, I am shocked, too. The non-1% getting screwed: That never happens.

Unbelievable. It's like these people feel it's their birthright to fuck people out of their money. Their definition of "earning money" is "stealing money from people". I swear, there should be a sign somewhere on Wall Street that says "If you aren't fucking someone over, you aren't trying hard enough".

My eyes hurt because of all the rolling they have been doing. Where the heck is that wire?

Apathy

As promised, I will now blather about my latest obsession. But what is interesting, is that I almost think this obsession is waning. My desire to buy and build planes and helis is rapidly diminishing. I used to see a plane or heli in the advertisements and just desperately wanted it...NEEDED it. But then once I got it, put it together and flew it a few times, got completely bored with it. It's almost an empty feeling. Now I have another plane that I have bought electronics for, extra batteries, etc, that is just cluttering up my garage. I feel guilty and wasteful.

For the first few times, this coming down from each new-plane-high would wear off and I would be back at it again: lusting after another plane that ultimately would cause the cycle to repeat again. For a while it was RC jets. Then it was helis, now it's aerobatic planes. At least with the aerobatic planes, there is a lot of flying skills that you can learn.  They are far more capable than these compromised-for-the-sake-of-scale jets.

I can go bigger and probably better than the modest 3-d plane I have now, but the question that still haunts me, is why? What's the point? I'm even thinking of selling off my scale planes. They bore me. Not much to do with them other than fly around and go "cool, it looks good in the sky" and land it.

Helis are still not boring yet. They require so much more skill to fly and diligence to keep them flying.

Designing my own airplanes is another avenue that hasn't been completely exhausted. But, I still feel like this obsession's days are numbered. So, what I am going to obsess about next.

I could, and probably should, start riding again, but I just don't want to. I've been doing it for so long, with such dedication that I am completely burnt on it. I have ZERO desire to race.

A fellow ADHD friend is trying to get my back into motorcycles again, but thing is I don't really like riding on the street anymore. I still like the track, but that takes a lot of work and I just can't muster it up again.

So, it's 2.30am and I am still awake. I don't want to go to sleep. I hate sleeping on the couch. I sleep like shit and half the time I wake up in the middle of the night with a headache because I fell asleep with the wrong stack of pillows. Suzy sleeps in the bed and I don't because I snore. This is serious, wake-the-dead kinda of snoring. I sometimes wake up with a sore throat because I am snoring so bad. Sometimes, I'll wake myself up with the snoring.

My Dad snored so loudly that my Mom had to sleep in a different room. I remember one night when I was little kid and I really though some Godzilla thing-a-ma-whose-it was laying waste to my home town and was heading right for my house. Burrrrrrr...burrrrr, burrrrrr (I watched a lot of Japanese monster movies when I was a kid).

I'm so fucking tired now. I still have a headache from last night. I popped a Vicodin and now I am just high....with a headache.

Great.

Oh, and my dog is snoring, too. FML.

So, yeah... it's been four years since I last posted and I really don't think anyone reads this anymore. I mean, who would.
What's interesting is reading my post after so long has given me perspective on what I wrote. Most of it was crap. A lot of "look at me. I am such a hard ass!" What horse-shit! What an annoying self-important, self-congratulating arse.

I've known for a long time that I can be grating and hard to like. There are certain kinds of people that pretty much hate me from the git-go. I've learned to accept that and I just try to avoid those people.

I generally don't like me, either, and after reading some of those inane posts, I am reminded why.

Anyway, I am not going to bore my non-existent readers with more "poor-me" crap...at least for a while. I have a lot of self-deprecation I need to do, but that's another post.

Since I posted last, a lot has happened. Some good and some bad.
Suzy and I got married. Like that was a surprise. What's nice is that I really enjoyed my wedding! It was fun! As you might expect, Suzy never looked lovelier. We spent a week in Catalina, total. Half before and the rest after the actual wedding. Got to know some of my new relatives-in-law. Generally, I like them. There was one or two people that I could do without, but really, I got off easy.

I fell out of racing, mainly because I wasn't fit enough anymore and too lazy to train. Honestly, I just couldn't do it anymore. Twenty-three years or so. That's how long I've been...correction....was a bike racer. Never that good at it either. Except possibly tracking racing. That seemed to come a lot easier. I just wish I had gotten into it sooner and gotten serious about it sooner. Should have just accepted what I already knew, I'm too ADHD to be any good at road racing.

I don't even ride anymore. I have something like $10,000 in bikes that just gather dust.

I'm totally fat. I well north of 200lbs. I drink too much and I just don't fucking care.

I can't believe I didn't post about the house Suzy and I bought in the summer of 2008! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?? (WTF). The biggest purchase of my life and I have to say is I was a dumb ass on a bike that is obviously too much for me? See why people don't like me?

The house is nice. The garage kinda sucks as it's small. But it's *my* garage.

I got so serious about motorcycles for a good while. I think in 2009 I did something like 8-9 track days. A handful in 2010. I basically stopped because I got too damn fat for my one piece track suit. How pathetic is that?

I got a 2009 Aprilia RS125 on a whim. It's a real two stroke, but despite what Aprilia says about it, it's really a woefully under-powered RS250. But I got it set up fairly well. I retro fitted a GSXR 600 front end and make it work pretty well. I used the stock wheel and only one GSXR caliper. I had to design a couple of parts to make it work, but I do have a mechanical engineering degree. I should be able to manage that.

I even got a vintage Honda CB750. Got a pretty good deal. $700. It truly was an ugly POS when I got it. Suzy thought I went completely bat guano. I mean look at it. 

It took a bit, but I was able to get it running pretty well. Oh, and I got rid of that ball-buster of a seat. After my wife started busting my balls about riding it in the gay pride parade, I repainted the tank.

It turned out pretty well.

But then, very abruptly, I just lost interest. It's just happened one day and all of a sudden I was over it. Over motorcycles. I put it on craigslist and sold it for $1500. I think I broke even, but just...and that didn't include my labor. But that's fine since that's kinda why I got it.

All of a sudden, I was back into RC airplane. Oh, and boy, do I mean into it.

Geezus, I have so many fucking airplanes now.

Ok, so this post is going on and on. Next time, I'll talk about my latest obsession and how useless it really is. But I think I need to write some more about other stuff. So,  non-existent readers who probably don't like me much anyway...there's more drivel to come. Stay tuned.

The Ape bites back

Ok, so now it's been 2 months on the Aprilia. As I sort of expected I've had to do some work to the bike that cost me about $500-600. But if anything it's been a bit of a re-awakening. I have gotten back in touch with my inner gear-head.

To be honest, the Aprilia (or Ape, pronounced Ap-ay) is pretty close to my personality. It's exotic and possess a very narrow focus (ie: racing) but is not as snooty as Ducatis are but is no less a bike. Not to knock Ducatis: they are some seriously refined machines now-a-days. But there is a certain spoiled rich kid aspect of newer Ducatis. I have a number of fiends who do not fall into this set. They have older Ducs that demand a lot of attention and they reward them with outstanding performance. But there is another set of Ducatisti that expect to get pampered and apparently do not wipe their own arse without a certain expectation of someone doing it for them and unfortunately it's hard to separate the boys from the men (or women from the girls).

I have a new set of friends who bleed racing gas and ride Ducatis and I have a lot of respect for them. The ride beat to hell, 749s with one faring that says 999 and one that says 749. I have friends that ride 748s and 996s and old-ass-Ducs that spend more time in the shop than they do on the road. But there in is the nature of Ducs. They understand that you get what you pay for.

What I like about the Aprilias is the fact that spoiled rich kids (kids or old men) are almost precluded from them since the factory refuses to cater to them the way Bologna does.

So, Aprilia owners are largely on their own and honestly, I like it that way.

I have always had a taste for the road less travelled and this feels right. A few years ago I finally bought a "new" car: an Audi A4 and a good friend of mine that put up with various beater VWs said "I never knew you were so classy. This is soooooo you!"

No one has said this per-se about the Aprilia, but often people gaze upon the Aprilia with wonder and admiration. Mostly, it seems, because most people have never heard of Aprilia.

"Who makes Aprilia?" people say.
"Aprilia does" I say.
"Huh?" they say.
"It's a....like a Ducati" I say.
"Huh. Never heard of them. But that's a cool bike. Kinda of a beater, huh?" they say.
"Yeah, thanks for that." I say.

But truth is, my Ape IS a beater. It's been neglected, it's flat black and now it's been dropped.

Yeah, you heard right. I went down on the Aprilia.

To be honest, I think it was bound to happen. The bike is a dream to ride at speed but give no quarter at downtown speeds. However, I am pleased at how it happened (if one could ever be pleased with such an event). I didn't go down at 100+mph, or 70mph or 30mph even. This happened at the whopping speed of....wait for it....10mph!!!!

Yes folks, I was in stop and go traffic in the on ramp to the 805 after 200+ miles of some serious canyon carving. To demonstrate how benign this was, it wasn't even on Palomar. This was a Southeast county ride with some Ducatisti: the mixed fairing, "I race on a SV650" kind.

It was the end of a very happy morning. I spent a good 3-4 hours having a nice conversation with the Ape. She revealed her steady nature to me and I was able to go faster and faster.

I was in traffic trying to get home so I could take advantage of the rest of my day, but the guy in front of me was quite impatient with the traffic and when there appeared a slight gap in front of him, he gunned his huge SUV and then stood on the brakes. I followed suit thinking "why would someone gun it like that if there wasn't clear road in front of them"....silly me.

All of a sudden saw a beige SUV stopped and my eyes grew as big as saucers. I grabbed my front brake (if you read my first post about the Ape, you should be cringing at this point as I noted that "grabbing" the front brake a recipe for disaster) and....well there was a whole bunch of bucking (a tank slapper is the term, I think) and the next thing you know I am on my right side sliding along for a whole foot or so.

I think I knew immediately that my shoulder was knackered. I got my right leg out of from under the bike and assumed a Muslim prayer stance (I know this since Mom was Muslim) and the pain hit like a frieght train. Bystanders asked if I should maybe lie down. I knew for a fact that would cause misery like only Jewish people know. I sat there and rode the searing waves of pain till the paramedics showed up. As I kneeled there people kept asking stupid questions that I could barely percieve above the horrid din of a broken collarbone.

Some guy who obviously knew a thing or two about medicine started asking the typical 1st aid questions to make sure I didn't have a concussion. He also instructed me on how to keep a broken collarbone stable. That saved me a lot of anguish.

I expected a certain amount of head shaking, finger waving..whatever...since most people consider riding motorcycles as pure idiocy, but the EMT folk spared me that. They were quite relieved that I was wearing full gear. Seriously though, all that gear saved me major injury. The finaly tally on damage was a clean break collarbone, bruised ribs, bruised shoulder and a bashe up hand. No blood or scrapes or lacerations or even concussion. However, based upon what my gear took, it could have been infinitely worse. My helmet is cracked, as are my gloved (complete with destroyed carbon fiber knuckles). Could have been worse. Thank you Dianese and Alpine Stars.

So, this happend the Saturday before last and I am about a week and a half into what is typically a 13 week recovery period. There is not a lot to be done about collarbones, so all the doctors can really do it give you a harness thingy and a lot of pain killers. I started off with about 30 Percocets and in about 3 days I was down to 10. Percocet is a crazy strong narcotic and it barely touches this. Fortunately, I got a 120 pill refill and it's the only thing keeping me sane. Only now can I take a shower by myself and sleep without heavy medication.

So the moral of this story is WEAR YOUR GEAR! The other thing is: other people poor driving is you biggest risk. You must pay attention!!!

The thing about this that is weird is that the primary reason this happened was because the Aprilia has such good brakes...almost too good. People have complained about how excessive the brakes are on the 1098....now I know what they mean.

So, what am I going to do now? I am going to recover and get back on the bike ASAP. I really miss riding, but I am going to pay a whole lot more attention to Ape. One finger on the brakes at most.

What is also happening is that Ape is becoming more of a beater bike. I am going to have to repaint some fairings and in keeping with the trend of the bike, it's going to be flat black. All business, all the time. No fancy fire truck red paint, no fancy decals. The guy who owned the towing yard who had tattoo sleeves looked upon the Ape with much admiration. Most guys like that who are all about the choppers don't even give Italian Exotica half a look, but this was different.

I don't pretend that I am some sort of hard ass, but I know I have spent a good portion of my life with gease under the fingernails and callouses due to wrenching for a living. I somehow think that the Aprilia reflects that experience and that I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and figure sh!t out.

The Ape is a little scraped up, but she reflect her owner.

Coping

Since I proposed to my Fiance Suzanne, life has been good. Very good, in fact. Living with Suzanne and doing all the couple-y thing we do is quite nice. We have bought a house and we like it very much.

What comes along with sharing a life with someone often includes new relatives, commonly called "The In-laws". In a lot of cases these in-laws cause a lot of strife if so-and-so's uncle does not like you. This happens so much that Hollywood has made many movies about in-laws that are so difficult that one would rather poke oneself in the eye with a rusty pitch fork than deal with.

Fortunately, my soon-to-be-inlaws could be more pleasant and more-over interesting.

There is Suzy's Mom, Georgia who is the sweetest, most doting things since my own Mom. There is Reeve, Suzy's Dad who is a tough cookie. He sails (quite well) and plays handball and is good enough that he can give pros a good game. He's very adventurous and they (Georgia and Reeve) routinely go camping and traveling.

The is Walt, Reeve's brother who despite not so great health, still goes sailing up and down the West Coast with Reeve. There a host of others who's relationship, I am a little fuzzy on the details so I will not embarrass myself with botching them.

One of the more notable, or at least more memorable is Aunt Macia, Reeve's sister. She is a mathematician and is quite nice. Unfortunately she is dying from terminal cancer.

It is unlikely she will live till the end of the year and as the case with these really aggressive metastatic cancer, there is little that can be done. It is no longer a matter of mustering the will to fight like the dickens to beat the cancer. It has already won. It's just a matter of maintaining dignity and making Marcia comfortable.

Reeve is understandably, struggling with this one. This clearly is tearing him up inside. I can see it even when he desperately tries to hide it. I really feel for him.

This ugly, somber process brings me back to how my parents left this world. The ordeal of fighting everyone to be allowed to let my father pass with what little dignity he had left along with having to take care of my Mom with Alzheimer's at the same time and then having to deal with my own Mother's less than dignified passing, really taught me a harsh, harsh lesson. I am infinitely stronger as a result of it.

But, 7 years later, I still miss my Dad very much. There have been so many times where I was struggling on what to do and I found myself wishing I could ask my Dad.
My Mom's passing was easier (if the passing of one's mother could be) for a number of reasons: I was at least in control and could take care of her, I had already dealt with one death of a parent and my Mom was essentially lost to me long ago as a result of the Alzheimer's.

Since their passing, I have taken up certain things as a way to remember and honor my parents. I learned how to machine and to refer to Dad's teachings. I've learned how to cook Persian food.