but I'm back.
Sorry, once in a while, I fall off the Earth.
This one was good because Chris, the guy I subrented my apartment to, said, "I like this place, so I'm not moving" and took my name off the lease. No big deal, but he had a guy with a neckbeard move in who said, "I'll be out in October, so cool your jets -- you can move in then". Which would've been okay, but he wears Richard Simmons shorts (non-sarcastically) and he's apparently not-gay.
I like Chris, and was amused at his weasel behavior, so no hard feelings. They blew me off ("Hello, I'd like my apartment back!") until I said I'd take them to court. It's a pretty good apartment and it's been in the "Smith" name for 10 years. In the Great California Legal Process, Chris and Neckbeard would have to pay my court fees for the honor of losing the case (the rent has always been paid out of my account). I was only going to stiff Neckbeard with that because of his Amish Beard what-all. I'll celebrate getting my apartment back by having a party which you're all invited to. Hopefully, Chris will show up to play banjo. It'll be in about a month. So, I'll say mid-July and I'll post about it later.
Beginning of July, I go camping in Poinsetta, my favorite ghost town in Nevada, and hopefully, I'll ride out to Colorado for a Horizons Unlimited meeting. HU is an overland motorcycle site that's amazingly helpful. I might tag along on the dirtroad route from California to Colorado on my street SR500 because I'm an idiot who had to ride a street bike on dirt in Australia. I blew it by not getting off my ass to make it to mid-America for the motorcycle meeting, and I still need to go to Oregon for a coupla-three weeks working for Doug and his friends. Maybe if I'd done that, I could've bought an old Brit dirt-bike from Doug and ridden that to Colorado.
So I didn't have enough money to buy a pre-1971 bike, which means no Moto Melee for me this year. All I've got is a '79 Yamaha SR500 that needs work, and that there '65 Ducati which is hiding from me in Australia.
Speaking of the Ducati, it's being beaten to death by Bob Brown: Super Genius. He said he'd throw it in the bay, but Bob has a cruel sense of humor and I'm scared he's going to make it run again. So what's next?
I need to ride it to Italy. I want to show up to the Ducati factory and complain that my tank is chipped. I don't think I'll have money to continue rtw until 2006 or mid-2007 (12-18 months) and I need to make it to Isle of Man. I might meet up Doug Lee and Matt Bishop from the South Island, New Zealand to ride up from Argentina heading north to Alaska. They have real bikes, Honda XR400s, so they'd get bored with my slow wandering, but I might show up for part of that.
I went deer hunting with Doug and Matt, but a meth addict in Auckland stole my camera with the pictures from that. I'm also hoping to sell enough plasma to afford riding with Ted Simon in Turkey. Not likely, and if not, hopefully I'll find an old Brit Bike with a sidecar and tag along with Samueljohn for a bit. Of course, I've got the SR500 for that.
So a long way of saying, I'm broke and I don't know what's next. No matter. I've got rent money, I paid a zillion dollars in overdue taxes, and I'll wander around this summer. Tim White gave me a great job where I can leave for random amounts of time. If only it was possible to easily put a sidecar on an oil-in-frame SR500. The ride on the sidecar at Peter Jackson's hanger really makes me want one. Thanks again, Mike Tripae for that ride!
I'll really try to start up with my Perth Adventures on my next post.