Author: Aaron Weber

This weekend, I went up to New Hampshire to test-drive a new 2008 Triumph Street Triple. It’s a lot like my 2000 Suzuki SV650, to be honest, although it’s got about $2000 more refinement in every aspect of performance and handling.

I’d been thinking of selling my bike, to be honest: I don’t use it all that often, it’s expensive to maintain and dangerous to ride, and so forth. But I had such a great day Saturday, even getting caught in the rain on the way home, that I’m more or less renewed in my moto-ownership.

I doubt I’ll make it up to the Greasebag Jamboree in Meredith – those guys look pretty intimidating – but we’ll see.

Hey, greasemonkeys: I got a weird-ass offer for you: Pistons. Well, mostly pistons, but also some other stuff. And these aren’t any old pistons: They’re incredible high-performance Cosworth pistons. Now, I’m not gonna lie to you, they might be kind of obscure. But you should totally have one just in case you later come across something they’ll fit into.

I got pistons for Nissan and Datsun A12, A13, A14 engines. I got pistons for Porsche 911 3.7 and 3.8L models. I got some freaky pistons for bored-out high-compression Chevy and Pontiac small-block V8s. Really, all kinds of pistons. Not many con-rods. I’m not sure what a con-rod is, really, but I got a couple boxes of them. Also a bunch of assorted, probably mis-matched oil rings. I’m told pistons need oil rings, but lord only knows which of these pistons needs which of these oil rings. Like I have one cardboard tube labeled “Oil rings Cosworth 71.1mm?”

I got a stack of flanges, two boxes SKS 44mm side-draft carbs, a couple gauges of indeterminate type, some assorted flywheels and clutch plates for Beemers, and a cardboard box full of stock pipe headers from something, possibly a BMW M3.

Seriously: You need some billet aluminum camshafts? Hit me up.

When I got a pair of eyeglasses, the fine folks at Eye-Q in Harvard Square gave me some very good advice: I should care for them and clean them just as I did my face. A year or so later, I went back to have some screws tightened and the nosepiece adjusted and they asked me how I’d been taking care of them. I said, just like I do my face: Ignore it until it’s too filthy to see through, then wipe it off with my shirttail.

Apparently that’s not what they meant. They clarified that I should wash both my face and my glasses with warm water and mild soap, and then dry them with a lint-free cloth. At that point I should put a gentle moisturizer on the opaque parts to prevent drying and flaking.

I suggested that they open a glasses-and-skin spa but they didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea.

I’m actually related to the subject of this song:

What the hell does this gibberish mean? “Built on Learn.com’s award-winning Learning Management System (LMS) technology, the LearnCenter® platform from Learn.com has evolved over the past five years…”

OK, so it’s about learning. And it’s from Learn. And at this point the word “learn” has been repeated so many times it sounds more like a ficticious beverage than a verb related to knowledge acquisition.

I didn’t think I’d like getting up early and commuting to an office, but it’s a lot nicer than I thought. Sure, my throat is still dry and swollen from the recirculated air, and I still have trouble getting out of bed at seven instead of nine (or later.) But once I’m up and moving, I’m on the train reading something (today, an article in Harper’s about the gay-marriage rift in the Episcopal church and how it’s a distraction from the important work of the church on issues everyone agrees about, like feeding the hungry and ministering to the sick.)

And then I get out at Park Street and walk up the Freedom Trail toward the Golden Dome, eavesdropping on cell-phone calls about state legislature (“no, they sent it to committee, it’s not going to get done this session…”) and business (“We need the RFP in by Tuesday!”), past the old-school barbershop (at $16, it’s more than my corner haircut joint in Somerville, but still a bargain – the barber talked to me about good and evil while cutting my hair, and he keeps a stack of motorcycle magazines and Playboys for while you’re waiting).

And on the far side of the hill, I’m up on the 17th floor, trying to be helpful. It’s good. This company has been around for fifty years, and although we have deadlines, nobody’s got the insane intensity I used to see at my first job. Nor is there the sense of futile absurdity I felt in later positions.

It’s just functional. I had no idea such a thing could possibly exist. It’s kind of awesome.

Who, exactly, does the NYT appeal to? Conservatives accuse it of being too liberal, liberals think it’s gone soft on conservatives who accuse it of being too liberal, and with op-ed pieces like “President Apostate,” it’s obviously giving up on the small but profitable demographic of people with some small measure of common sense.

Who’s left? Doddering patriarchs who forgot to cancel their subscription when the paper started printing those wretched acrostic puzzles? Masochists who can’t get enough of being outraged by the poor quality of their daily paper? How many of me can there be, anyway?

A love-lorn Italian guy gets locked up on apparently bogus charges, with no recourse, no rights, no nothing.

The kicker: His well-connected friends are surprised that this sort of thing has happened… to a white guy.

The money quote: “They were pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing, because it doesn’t happen that often, except to people you never hear about, like Haitians and Guatemalans.”

Personally, I prefer to sleep with a pillow under my gun, but I guess this would be an adequate way to keep your weapon at hand. If you’re a loser.