Category Archives: vroom vroom

mindfreak’d

Posted in vroom vroom by

Ed pulled a disappearing act on me yesterday, and I freaked the hell out.

Granted, the situation was a little odd. Ed rode his scooter into work yesterday, and at the end of the day we rode home together. Everything was fine – traffic was normal, the weather was overcast but dry, and no one tried to kill us on the way. We rode through the Stanley Park Causeway, and started to ride over the bridge.

I pulled ahead a little because my scooter is more powerful than his. When I approached the crest of the bridge, my attention wandered while looking at the mountains – no more than 2 seconds, at most. I looked in my rear view mirror to check that Ed was still behind me (as I do almost compulsively in my natural role of Navigator), and .. he wasn’t. Ed had turned into a large pickup truck. That is odd.

I kept riding, glancing into my mirror every second or so to see if Ed would catch up. After all, there was nowhere else for him to go. I slowed down a little, and continued to look. No Ed.

I safely landed on the North Shore, and was startled to see still no Ed. Confused, I rode up to the information booth on Capilano and pulled in to wait for him. Minutes passed – no Ed. More minutes – still no Ed. Now extremely confused, I opted to drive Oscar back up Marine via the bike lane to see if he was in the pull-out area. This was a little risky, as it meant I was driving against heavy traffic in a tiny bike lane and then onto a sidewalk. I made it without getting run over, and arrived at the usual stopping lane.

No Ed.

Now I was worried. I tried calling his cell phone, and got his voice mail. There was no sign of him anywhere on the bridge, he wasn’t in the only stopping zone, he hadn’t passed me – he just wasn’t there. Traffic was still flowing out of two lanes, so there hadn’t been an accident. Where the hell was he?

Now completely panicked, I called Josh to see if he was near a computer. My logic told me that the traffic cameras on the bridge would tell me if Ed had been flattened, as there was no way for me to travel back up the bridge from the spot I was in. At this point, I half expected Josh to ask “Ed who? I’ve never known an Ed” and tell me that my missing husband was clearly a figment of my imagination. He didn’t though, and while he wasn’t at his computer, would be along the same route shortly and would check for a flattened Honda Dio and my missing spouse.

I made some more phone calls, waited some more, and still no Ed. There was nowhere he could have gone. I feared the worst – that he hit a bump on the bridge and went sailing into the Burrard Inlet, scooter and all. It was the only explanation.

Finally, my phone rang. It was Ed, who was past me along Marine and in the parking lot of Save On Foods. What the holy fucking hell? It turns out that as I waited in the information booth parking lot, his scooter died at the top of the Lions Gate Bridge. He managed to coast down to the bike path, then follow it down and under the bridge to end up on the Secret Road where he was able to start the scooter again and make his way to the grocery store. I was right in that he hadn’t passed me – he had gone behind and around me, and scared the living hell out of me in the process. I was almost in tears on the phone, because I do not like it when Ed turns into a pickup truck and then disappears completely.

He was safe though, and we picked up our groceries and made it home. Unfortunately, my anxiety lasted well into the evening and I had a very bad headache that led to a very long nap, effectively fucking my sleep schedule right in the ass. I’ve had better Wednesdays, to be sure. And I think I’m going to put Ed on a leash when we scoot so he doesn’t disappear on me anymore.

The HR lady swatted me with paperwork when she saw my sign below. I called her on it, but apparently it isn’t an HR violation when HR beats you up.

sodden

Posted in vroom vroom by

I am giving serious thought to microwaving my pants.

I choose to believe the forecast the morning when it said “light rain stopping in the afternoon”. Unfortunately, “light rain” was code for “torrential, icy downpour” and “stopping in the afternoon” seems to mean “build the ark while you can”. I am wet. My pants are soaked through, and I’m leaving puddles wherever I walk. This is uncomfortable and doing little to better my mood. Boo, rain.

In other news, I am completely exhausted and a little burnt out. I am looking forward to the long weekend – hell, right now I’m looking forward to 5pm so I can go home and crawl back into bed. I like The Lab, but I *really* don’t want to be here right now.

no more excuses

Posted in vroom vroom by

I scooted in to work today. I was thoroughly sick and tired of making excuses – it’s still winter, the roads are wet, I truly love taking three forms of transit to work every morning, the forecast says there’s a 40% chance of 1mm of rain falling; I better be careful – so I very loudly said FUCK IT (scaring the cats in the process) and rode Oscar downtown to The Lab.

It was cold but glorious. The wettest part of my person is my ass; I forgot to bring a towel to mop up condensation and suffered wet unmentionables because of it. I’m also paranoid about my parking spot; I left Oscar next to two other scooters in a fake-but-known-to-be-used-by-scooters-24/7 spot the internet told me about. I can’t see the spot from my office, but I’m sure if went into the CEO’s office I could see – I may have to do that later. CEOs don’t mind that sort of thing, right?

I heart my scooter with all of my persons.

nerves of milk

Posted in nerd, vroom vroom by

Oscar has an owie. It was beautiful yesterday, so Shan, Josh and I went for a scoot to West Vancouver to look for boots. All was fine and good, except Oscar would not start. The ignition tried to fire up when I pressed the start button, but after a sickly sound or two there was no more – absolutely nothing happened when I pressed the go button. As much as I like to claim I am an independent woman complete with hands being thrown up at me, it is at this point that Shan and I started to call boys. I can build you a computer with my eyes closed then make a 4-course dinner while balancing budgets and textbooks on my head then kick your ass at the video game of your choice for dessert, but I just don’t do vehicles or engines.

Ed didn’t answer his phone, so Josh came downstairs and managed to kick start Oscar. Once he was going, he ran beautifully and we went for a glorious ride. The start button just would not work though, so we think Oscar’s battery may be dead. He has an after-market alarm, and it probably drained his battery so now I have to figure out where to get another one and what to do with it. I should make Ed do it, since I had to call upon a backup knight in shiny armour – seriously, what the hell is the point of having a husband if he can’t come to your rescue when you need it? It’s a good thing Josh came scooting with us; Oscar had to be kick started three times and I was only able to do it myself once. I do not like having a broken Oscar. It makes me sad. I also need to practice my kicking.

I have to go make myself presentable for the thing. I am unfathomably nervous. Between the thing and Oscar’s owie, I could really use some excellent karma so this morning I did this. It is neat idea. You should do it too; then we can try out the mesh network and freak out the squares with our green and white plastic laptops.

cheese eating surrender monkeys who will FUCK YOU UP

Posted in nerd, vroom vroom by

I just registered hex-angels.com. Normally I don’t go for hyphens in domain names, but hexangels was already taken. My distaste for the web hyphen – ironic, since every single one of my posts contains at least a dozen of them – was dampened this time when I discovered that the official Hell’s Angels website is hells-angels.com. The URL without the hyphen actually belongs to the Hell’s Angels of France. This makes me laugh for a number of reasons, the least of which is not picturing baguette carrying, beret wearing, skinny cigarette smoking brie eaters on giant Harleys. Sometimes, stereotypes are fun.

Who wants to design me a logo!

i love the smell of tangents in the morning

Posted in everyday kimli, i'm an astronaut, vroom vroom by

Ed and I didn’t end up going to Quattro for dinner last night, but not because it was closed (we had planned to go to the North Shore location all along), or because we were afraid of being shot at (we live in the Ghetto of North Vancouver; it’s a fact of life) – we didn’t go because I don’t really have a job.

I’m not being sarcastic this time; I really don’t. I sent a Come to Jesus (what does that mean, anyway? I honestly don’t know; I just enjoy the visual of asking my boss to meet me at the Jesus for some coffee and a scone) email to my boss asking what the hell was going on, and promptly (well, a couple hours later) found out many interesting things like there’s trouble afoot and hours are being slashed and executives are taking pay cuts and people are being let go and also all projects are on hold so um there’s really no work for me to do.

Well then. I was also told to take anything else that might come along, was guaranteed a good reference, and they’ll keep me posted if anything comes up for me to do. In the meantime, I have about three weeks of work I can bill for, and .. that’s about it. Oh, and the support system I worked so very hard to build up and make our clients love us for was scaled back to the pre-me state of the president or vice president will get back to you on that when they have time.

With all that news fresh in my ear, neither Ed nor I felt very good about spending a lot of money on a fancy dinner, tenth anniversary or not.

However, the evening wasn’t a wash by any means. Josh and I scooted to the Vespa shop to meet up with Ed and Shan’s newly tuned Scarabeo, and then we scooted around town for a bit smelling the below-mentioned smells and having an excellent time. We met up with Miranda and Reilly, and the 6 of us scooted to go have a look at a Mitsubishi Delica that Josh has his eye on. Afterwards, we all went to Da-De-O’s for some amazing food (some of which was on FIRE) and many laughs and good times before we all scooted to our respective homes for sleepings. So, while Ed and I didn’t get gourmet Italian food, we DID get to hang out with our favourite people, eat some deliciously filling tasty things, and spend a good third of what we would have spent had we stuck to our original plan. Besides, our Fifthiversary is coming up next week and we’re going away for fun and romance and island adventures.

A silver lining is not at all second best when silver is obviously so much more awesome than gold.

I couldn’t sleep last night though, which means my stress-induced insomnia is returning. The Skunk Jamboree certainly didn’t help either – it was so bad I had to leave the bedroom, and the living room was only slightly less foul. When is skunk season over? Far away skunk isn’t so bad, but when they’re doing that anal scent gland thing basically under your bedroom window, something has to be done. Do gorillas eat skunks? I could get some gorillas for the neighbourhood; put them in uniforms and let them patrol the area.

I do not enjoy being able to taste anyone’s stink, with or without fear of being infected by it. I am not Agent Elrond. You’ve failed me yet again, Starscream. LEFT CHEEK! LEFT CHEEK! LEFT CHEEK!

Hee! Who needs a job when I crack myself so consistently up?

they still need me, but they don’t want me (now)

Posted in i'm an astronaut, vroom vroom by

For a fifth year in a row, Vancouver was voted the world’s most livable city by the Economist. Woo! Suck it, Trebek!

I am Not Wanted, and I’m torn between being amused and .. well, mostly just amused by it all. My former co-astronauts are scrambling to come up with reasons to keep me out of the Space Station; removing my access to tools, clients, and email and telling me I’m basically not needed for anything at all. Then there was the company BBQ last week that I wasn’t invited to – that one was cool. I accidentally got the reminder, but the original invitation never materialized – and when I tried to get more information, no one was available to answer my questions. It’s hard not to fall back on the conspiracy theory when faced with stuff like this. You’d think I was wearing a hat made of dog poop, or something.

I’m enjoying my time away from the rest of humanity, but perhaps it’s time I stepped the job hunt. The rug I’m standing on feels very wobbly for some reason, and when I peer off into the darkness I see an awful lot of people eagerly clutching at the edge just waiting to give it a great big yank.

So, scooters. There are 6 of us. We’re officially a gang now, and given my tendency to name things and also look for excuses to buy another custom-branded messenger bag, I am trying to get the peeps enthused about a name. No one is biting, though. Maybe it’s just my work-related paranoia talking, but sometimes I think my friends put up with my many, many eccentricities because everyone needs an ugly friend and I usually have gum.

Some possible gang names that have been bandied about include:

  • Urban Crawl
  • Hipsters on Wheels
  • Scooter Shooters
  • Burrard Inlet Scooter Patrol
  • and my favourite by far: Hex Angels

No one is keen on being called an angel except myself, but it works on so many levels! First of all, it’s a play on “Heck’s Angels”, which is of course the scooter-core version of the Hell’s Angels. Then, we’re all nerds and often work in hex. Hex is also Greek for six, and there are six of us. Lastly, Shan and I are fluent in the Witch-Fu and we could totally put a hex on you and turn you into frogs. See? It TOTALLY WORKS on MANY LEVELS. If only people loved plays on words and naming things as much as I do!

one of them said what do you want more than anything in this whole wide world
do you want money
do you want sex
or do you want all that success
i thought about that myself

vroom vroom +6

Posted in medical anomaly, vroom vroom by

Ol’ Dislocatey is really being a bitch this week, and Ed is filling my head with all sorts of horror stories about how my arm is slowly immobilizing with scar tissue and herpes because I didn’t go to physical therapy. Frankly, I didn’t know I was supposed to go. It’s not like I have a regular doctor who keeps me abreast of these things, and I don’t exactly have any benefits that would just love to send me to multiple sessions of Flexi-Bendi Time so I just sort of left my arm alone. It’s mostly fine, really. I don’t know that it’s nearly as traumatic as Ed seems to think it is. I think he’s just being mean and is also jealous of my awesomeness.

Where is the postman? I am eagerly awaiting the postman. I took my raise and bonus to heart a little frivolously, and am now waiting for the fruits of my astro-labour to arrive from the internet. Given my issues with patience, the wait is a little more difficult than it should be. Besides, it’s not like I have anything else to look forward to during the day – working naked is only so interesting for so long.

So hey, what day is it?

It’s SCOOTER FOR ED DAY!!!!! I’ve been waiting for over two years for this. Ed doesn’t seem to be very excited yet, but I’ve got enough glee for both of us. YAY! Another scooter buddy!

It would be awesome if my skin would stop acting like that of a particularly greasy 15 year old.

wanted: adventures

Posted in everyday kimli, vroom vroom by

Weekend number 2 of No Plans is over, and I couldn’t be gladder. I’m sure there’s a lot to be said for doing absolutely nothing – some find it relaxing, I’m told – but damn. To fill the hours and hours of nothing, I ran an experiment – how long could I go without a shower?! As it turns out, not long at all. By the 24th hour I was starting to feel the creeping itch of the unclean, but by then the apathy had set in and I was unable to muster the enthusiasm needed to go through the whole act of getting clean. Sunday was more of the same, with a lot of sleep on top for good measure. My sinuses were acting up so I liberally doused myself with Benedryl – sure, I could breathe, but I was also unconscious for most of the day. Sleepy times. Boring, sleepy, uninteresting times.

This week there are Plans. I know it annoys my friends that I always seem to have Plans, but the alternative is that we all sit around doing nothing for weeks on end. At the end of the day, I’d much rather be able to look back and be satisfied that I went out and experienced things instead of being unable to account for entire days. Plans are not always bad. Plans can be chockfull of fun and corn dogs! Among this week’s plans: a photo walk, the PNE, and maybe – hopefully – please god – Ed’s scooter.

This year has been a good one for scooters. I upgraded to Oscar, and Sally went to a friend. From there, it spread like wildfire and now we are a roving gang of 5 bad-ass scooter riders. It is fun and super. However, there are 6 of us .. and the only one without a scooter is ED.

Truthfully, it’s only sort of his fault. He put his deposit down on a scooter in July, long before Miranda and Shan had their rides. However, Ed is some sort of Fancy Pants who HAD to have a custom-built, pre-tricked out scooter. He’s getting a Honda Dio (2-stroke, because he hates the environment) made for him with racing parts and a paint job to match the Mazdabator. It will be very cool and awesome and good times, but holy shit it’s taken FOREVER to be ready. In fact, the scooter he gets this week will not be the complete deal – he had to whine, cajole and beg Wayne to cough up a scooter with stock parts so he can ride while there’s still a bit of summer to enjoy. When his racing parts come some time in September, the Dio will go into the shop for some additional souping.

It sucks ass that Ed does not have a scooter yet. I feel really lousy leaving him behind when we go on rides, and it seems like an absurd bit of overkill when we go out with 5 scooters and a car – but what else can be done? With scooter number 6, we will finally be a force to be reckoned with. I can’t wait – I’m probably more excited for him to have his scooter than he is. Scooter for Ed! Scooters for EVERYONE!

Now we just need a threatening name and gang sign, and we’ll be set.

squeee!

Posted in vroom vroom by

We just got back from seeing Rise Against for the 4th or 5th time (we’re not stalking them; we’re just big fans). The show was awesome – they were headlining, so they played some songs we don’t see live often – but I got the biggest squee ever *after* the show:

On our way out of the venue to the blessedly cold night air, we passed four scooters parked by the tour buses. I naturally stopped to have a look, then put two and two together – the scooters were, in all likelihood, those belonging to the members of Rise Against themselves. The band and their scooters were the cover story of a magazine I picked up while in San Francisco, so I know they ride. Sure ’nuff, the scoots all had Illinois plates on them. There were two Vino 125s – one was identical to Oscar – a Buddy 125, and a something else I couldn’t make out in the dark. SQUEE! Punk rock and scooters! I am a giddy fan girl.

Ed and I scribbled a note and I left it in the bucket of the Buddy 125. Dunno if they’ll see it, but it was worth a shot. Yay for awesome shows and mutual scooter love!