My story is fairly common for guys my age.  I played around with motorcycles when I was a teenager, but after I got married motorcycles were way down on my priority list.

I was too busy earning a living and raising kids to even think about the risky business of riding a bike. 

But once my daughters were older and we could afford more life insurance my interest in motorcycling returned. In 1997 I was given a free 1972 Honda CL350 basket case.  I rebuilt the bike, took the motorcycle safety course and I was back on the open road... at 38 years old...

Here's wishing everyone a good 2009!  I spent part of my New Years day changing all of the 30 year old light bulbs in my 30 year old gauges in the '78 CB750 Landshark.  I can see my speedometer at night again.  Amazing, the little things that make me happy.

I like this time of year because I get to make my goals for the next 12 months.  Among the goals I've adopted is to finally finish my 1980 CX500 bobber project.  I started the project a year and a half ago, but it got interrupted when I started production of the book.  I worked on it briefly during the summer but put it up again when the book came out in September. 

So here's the story on the CX500...

Well, I wanted to use this week's blog to tell you about my CX500 bobber project.  And I wanted a picture of it in its current state of creation for reference.  But not only did we have Christmas #1 last weekend, it also got to be too cold to pull the bike out and take a snapshot of it.  Yes, it does get cold in Texas from time to time.  So without a photo I just don't want to talk about the CX500.  Instead I'll tell you about another bike that I just purchased.

Once upon a time, a few years ago, I was over at my buddy Jim's place shooting the breeze and drinking beer.  Jim had one of those garages with too many motorcycles in it.  Way too many. 

Producing the book, "The Fine Art of the Motorcycle Engine" was never a monetary endeavor for me.  I already knew even before looking for a publisher that coffee table books don't make big money.  Granted, I will make a few thousand dollars out it, but when you consider the hours and hours I put into making the book, the financial return will be grossly out of balance.  The main reason I wrote and produced the book was for the shear adventure of it. 

I thrive on little adventures - never know just exactly what will be around the next corner.  I guess that's why I enjoy my career as a photographer and why I enjoy motorcycling.

So I knew that authoring a book would bring me new adventures.  Hell, just finding out what a publisher needs in order to produce a book was an adventure in itself.  But now come the little adventures that develop after the book is produced.  Here are two of those little adventures...