STORY TIME!!

Ok... so sit down, grab some popcorn and a coke; this is a good one:

After sitting thru the personal hell that is the DDS (Department of Driver Services)... I walk in to my house with a shiney new "CM" Class license! I did it, I'm now a legal, licensed motorcyclist in the state of Georgia... way to go team! 

So I get home, figure I'll go use some of my new found freedom and ride around the neighborhood. After 5 or 6 times of goind thru the spaghetti-like streaks of our subdivision..I come home. Step upstairs and talk to jill for a sec, and we decide... what the heck, we'll take it to Baker Road Elem and I'll try driving around in the parking lot. Well the parking lot went really well (I'm learning the friction zone better)... so we had some movies we needed to run to Blockbuster... lets roll! Jill was following me in the escape... so, we run up Baker to the Publix shopping center right at baker & 92. 

Everything was going perfectly fine...we stopped, Jill ran the DVD's inside... we started to leave. 

Bike went... wur wur wuuuuuuuur... *click* *click*. 

Little bit of a back story:  I've had to put the battery on charge twice already, because it seems like its never been 'tended' in the winter. Voltage is fine.. but the Amps are apparently really low. 

So I look at Jill and apparently she could read the "shiiiiiiiiiii...." look on my face... dead battery. I've ran into this same thing before, except it was in the garage.. and not in the middle of a parking lot =/ 

So apparently.. SOMEONE up there was looking out for me. Lo' and Behold.. who is looking for a movie in Blockbuster? A guy who owns 2 honda powersports dealerships in Gwinnett, who sold the Harley dealership in MArietta their shop (it use to be a honda shop).. who has had a CBR, and who currently has 3 motorcycles. God send... litterally. 

So this guy helps me (I didn't have the tools to take the battery out) get the battery out and Jill runs it to autozone... who doesn't have a battery for it. So then Walter shows me how to jump a bike off without cratering or blowing the battery up (if you jump it off like a car, you can kill the bikes electrical system)... so after a while, he helps us get up and running... then we're off to the house...and I'm buying a new battery tommorrow =)

BUT... my first street ride turned out to show me the kind of... far-reaching bonds between motorcyclist. While working on the bike; one of which has a harley. It also showed me that I need to make sure I've got a Toolkit in the storage compartment on my bike!

But in one day of legal driving... I've driven at night, on a busy road, learned how to jump off a bike, and pulled a battery in the middle of a parking lot. 

It was awesome =)

BTW... riding, in general... was just pretty dang fantastic.