Musings from one who writes, and rides…
Our house is a very, very, very fine house. -Crosby, Stills and Nash & Young In 1978 I arrived in Seattle on a Greyhound bus with a suitcase and a letter of admission to the University of Washington. It was my second-ever trip west from Connecticut, made in a great paroxysm of energy that was equal…
Thirty-five years ago I went on a date with this cute hippie chick I met at school. It was (surprise!) a bicycle date. Within minutes, she had a flat tire. Of course, in those days, neither of us carried a tube or pump. So, in a remarkable act of youthful naiveté, we flagged down a…
This article was originally published in the BMW MOA Magazine. The other day a big truck pulled up to my garage, and my 1969 Triumph went off to a new, unseen owner known only to me by his eBay handle: LOVE_OIL_LEAKS. Or something like that. All told, in the last year or so, I’ve sold…
This story was originally published in Cycle World magazine. On a sunny Sunday, my friend Tom rides me to Los Gatos on the back of his KTM 950 Adventure. In my pocket is a fat wad of 30, $100 bills. The plan is to return with two motorcycles. It feels nice to have the cash pressing against…
Lake Florence is not large, maybe three miles around, and though there is no trail, you could complete the wobbly circle with one half day of steady walking and a strong case of poison oak, the thin line of boils a persistent reminder of your exploits. Don’t ask me how I know this. It has…
What drives social media at the Monterey Bay Aquarium? There are plenty of things—like our animals, exhibits, events, and conservation efforts. But more than anything else, it’s the power of Aww. What’s Aww? It’s nothing less than the universal currency of social media. You know: kids under sedation after a dentist visit. Talking dogs. And…
In Paxton, winter relinquished its hard grip on the land slowly, the bony fingers of the season unfurling to reveal the mud beneath. What was uncovered belied the stark beauty of the other seasons—there was only tenacious, axle-deep mud on the narrow roads, and the nakedness of the trees awaiting the mysterious spring messages to…
When you sit down to create social media content, who are you writing for? I’m writing for Sue. She’s imaginary, of course, but she’s as real to me as my next-door-neighbor. And I think about her every time I create a piece of content for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Facebook page, Google+ page, or Tumblr…
This article was originally published in Motorcyclist Magazine. Last summer, feeling bold, I asked my wife if she might be interested in taking a guided motorcycle tour of the Dolomite mountain range in Italy. I ask questions like this periodically to test the bounds of what is possible—in the same way one might ask for…
The summer of 1969 stretched out endlessly, with days spent swimming in the small, unthreatening waves of Long Island Sound, family dinners in the backyard, and stick-and-ball sports played on the sticky macadam of our neighborhood streets. Steamy hot Connecticut evenings were spent with my ear pressed to a transistor radio, memorizing top-40 songs on…