A Life in Waiting

Coffee houses are wonderful things. Ever since I started Bluu a year ago, I have used random coffee houses throughout Westchester County as impromptu offices. Where else can you sit around all day long, hold meetings and have web access (most of the time) and it be considered socially acceptable? Free to boot. Well with the coffee and most of the other available food and drink for sale being overly priced, it does cost a little, but still way underpriced for being able to have a remote office in pretty much any town where I would have potential clients. So here’s to all the coffee houses that have helped support my dreams of being a vagabonding business owner. Cheers!

Hello! This blog which is solely about my life and my rather near future move across the pond, is a little disorganized at the moment. I do apologize, but you see I wasn’t really planning on ‘releasing’ this site out into the public just yet. I had figured that I would allow some friends and family to follow along as this blog slowly got up and running properly. Apparently I need to hurry up.

So please come in, relax and enjoy. If you scroll down to the bottom you will see a previous tab, click that and you will be brought back to the the beginning of my story. And please do comment, all criticism is welcome. Unless it’s about me, of course.

So here I am six hours later sitting on an express train home. A lot has happened in these past six hours, actually not a lot, but enough to warrant that comment. Actually there was a lot of sitting, walking, web surfing and more walking. Not too far from my typical Monday, minus the excessive walking part. Not to get too far off track, but one thing about this walking thing. There is definitely something about urban areas that makes one want to walk more. Well me at least. I don’t know what it is. Actually I do know what it is. I’m too cheap to pay for a cab. But by walking, you get such a better feel for the area you are in, from the architecture to the people around you. As I have mentioned earlier, I love people watching. Forget the Biggest Loser, just head down to East Village and you are guaranteed to be more entertained. Then for an encore, head down through China Town into the financial district. You won’t see a larger distinction from one part of a city to the next. It’s like there’s an invisible wall. Once you pass through it you are transported to another dimension. Absolute chaos, to controlled euphoria.

Now back to the original subject, the motorcycles. So I expertly navigate myself from Metro North onto the 6 train which should drop me off right onto Canal Street, four blocks from where bike #1 is. But alas, this is me we’re talking about, so it can’t go this smoothly. In case you didn’t catch the headlines this morning, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejah (I actually forgot his name, so I just banged on the keyboard to get something that looked close) is in NY for a cozy little visit and to give a speech at Columbia University today. So of course they need to shut down the Canal Street station. So I get off two stops earlier, Bleeker Street and hoof it down to Canal. This is part 1 of the walking. Turns out, it’s quite a distance to where I was headed to on Canal. Not a big deal, I actually really enjoyed the walk there (yes I know Maria, you were right). So I get there and phone the owner to let him know I was outside.

Now as the owner of the bike has a name that I had difficulty understanding on the phone due to a heavy French accent, we’re going to refer to him as Frenchie. Frenchie meets me outside on the street and introduces himself (missed the name again). He comes down looking exactly as all of us stereotyping Americans assume a French man to look. Lean, long flowing hair to his shoulders, precision stubble beard, and the loose linen shirt and pants to perfect the too cool look. Oh and did I mention the slippers?

We walk down the street to where the bike was parked. Now this is one of the main reasons that I didn’t want to buy a city bike. The abuse it gets from sitting on the curb of Manhattan for years. First thing you see is the seat is completely dried out and cracked. Now in my opinion, the seat and tank are the two most tell tale parts of a bike of whether it was taken care of or not. Even the most neglectful of owners will typically keep these two parts in good condition. After a complete look over of the bike, I decided the money wasn’t worth it. As nice of a guy Frenchie was, his bike just wasn’t destined to join me on my journey.

To be Continued…

As it has been quite a bit since my last update, somewhere around a week if I had to guess, I have much to discuss. The reason for me not knowing the exact time of my last post is that I am currently travelling into the city (Manhattan) via Metro North railways to look at a couple of motorcycles for my trip.

I began my motorcycle search a few months ago with a different mindset than I have today. I initially had wanted to ride through Europe on a vintage Moto Guzzi motorcycle. An early 70’s Ambassador to be exact. After watching such movies as The Motorcycle Diaries, I was captured by the romance and appeal of riding an old classic warhorse through the medieval towns of Italy and the rest of old Europe. Well about a month ago I found one that I thought would be perfect. So I grabbed my cousin Jimmy, who is a certified V twin mechanic, and headed up to Northern Connecticut. Long story short, after spending the entire Saturday stuck in traffic, we find a bike that is not suitable for my journey. The amount of time and money that it would have taken to get this bike up to par, was far too high for me to consider. Forgetting the fact that this thing was beautiful, we hop back into the car and drive back home minus a bike.

(Man, I just can’t wait to be one of those annoying foreigners sitting on the train talking way too loudly, making it extremely difficult for any decent human being to type away their life story)

However, the trip was not as much of a waste of time as I had previously imagined. During the ride home, my cousin did an excellent job convincing me that I was making a mistake with pursuing this type of bike. However cool it might be to ride an old classic through the streets of Europe, it just wasn’t practical. He then spent the rest of the time convincing me that I shouldn’t look at any other bike than a BMW for this trip. Pretty surprising advice for a kid that works in a custom chopper shop, so surprising that I felt like I had no choice but to listen.

The bike I’m looking to buy

So here I am, over a month since this sound advice, going to look at a pair of Beemers on the southern tip of Manhattan. This is far from the first BMW that I have looked at. I’ve gotten comfortable enough with these super dependable bikes that I can pretend I know what I’m talking about while discussing them. Which is probably a dangerous thing. Wish me luck…

I actually wrote this title just to break up the stark whiteness of my screen, but it actually seems appropriate.  You see, I am not a writer.  I’m sure those of you who have read my ramblings thus far already knew this, but I still feel I needed to clarify.  The reason I feel that the title is appropriate would be because I sit down to write a lot more that appears.  Half of the time I just end up playing the staring game with my laptop and lose.  I always seem to look away first.  According to Cesar Millan I would be the submissive to my computers dominance.  Man I hang around too many dog people.

The problem lies not with lack of content, but a favorable starting point.  I relate it to song lyrics.  If asked on the spot to begin singing a particular familiar song from its beginning, I struggle almost to the point of seeming to not know the song.  BUT with the first verse given as a starting point, you would’ve thought I wrote the song myself.  Perhaps it’s indicative of my already procrastinating nature?  Maybe I’ll look it up tomorrow.

Well guess that’s it for today.