He puts it best “I am Scot-to-be-me, who the hell else can I be?”

Sometimes life reminds you that it’s gift, it’s not forever. It gives you a swift kick in the ass and says “Hey! Pay attention nub. Your missing me” Sometimes we forget how precious a gift it is and well, sometimes we don’t.

This post isn’t about how we all forget the gifts of life, it’s about some of us, who remember. I remember that life is short, but hope for longevity. I remember that life is tedious so I can recognize the simple. I remember that life is a million laughs and therefor, I know when to cry. I remember that life is a journey, a long winding country road, so hope for the highway stretches to be short. This is why we are bikers (and biker chics), the origins of the saying “It’s not the destination that matters, its the Ride brother.”

This past weekend someone that I know brought us all together in one place, colours aside and unimportant. He brought my sisters and their sisters and more sisters still, all to one place where we could smile at each other and share some good times. He brought Gypsy’s brothers together, past and present, in an attitude free moment in time. Not many men can say this in our world, that they brought together many colours and beliefs, even if it was for just a day. Almost everyone there, set aside the politics and the protocols, to just be there and to be there because of my friend. Those very very few who couldn’t bring themselves to lower their noses for just the day, aren’t worth my time to mention anyway.

There were a lot of stories that floated around on Saturday and some of them were funny enough to bring tears to my eyes, hand slapping tables and hoots n hollers of joy. Many people there told stories that just brought a glimmer of memory or hope to our minds, taking courage by the throat and making it stand there beside the stage with them, until their story was done. Some people, had to have courage, and courage’s sister… her brother, aunts and uncles standing with them while they told their stories, but damnit, we are a tough ol bunch of people. We didn’t let courage sit down again until we were finished.

Courage was so busy that day, floating around all over the place and working pretty hard, I didn’t have a chance to snag her for holding the mic while I told stories. It’s ok though, there were so many storytellers that day, I don’t think I could have stopped laughing long enough to get it out. So unfortunately, you poor saps get to listen to my story and it’s one that courage can take a break for.

Hi, my name is Pontiac. Yup, that’s right, Pontiac. You know, that big ol floating boat on 4 wheels? That’s it, you got it. How, you might ask, did I get this most dusty-old-beat-up nickname? Let me tell you. I have a friend who I met just about two and a half years ago who has a hearing issue in his one ear. He hears words all wrong in that ear and most of us know, to just talk to the other ear. We do have two of them after all. Well when I was introduced to this crazyass man he obviously didn’t hear my name correctly and kinda stood there looking at me for a minute with his eyes all scrunched up and red whiskers just twitching.

“PONTIAC!? What kind of name is Pontiac?! Your mother disliked you didn’t she.” No matter how many times I told him my name and for sure he knew exactly what it was, I still got Pontiac. I tried for a year or so, to get him to change it to Tequila, or Rox, or damn just about anything besides Pontiac! I am NOT a big old boat of a car! Finally I just gave up, and he always did call me Pontiac. We had some hilarious good times and I didn’t mind being called Pontiac, as long as it was by him. Even his crazyass woman called me Pontiac and well, that was just ok too. I love the chic. No one else though, and I fought like crazy to make sure that was known. Still, enough people remember Pontiac for sure.I can’t say I fared poorly with the name though, at least it wasn’t sofa or beergut or any of the other names he heard in that one bad ear.

One night in Dover, Gypsy and I were kinda assigned to make sure the drunk bugger made it safely to where he was staying the night. We partied and listened to bands and walked the streets until about 3am him and his woman, Gypsy and his woman. Trying to get him to work his way to sleep, we ended up visiting a couple houses. Did we know who the people were? Oh Hell no, but a friend of a friend of a friend…..but hell it was our friends Birthday so anything was game.

Eventually we did get to the point where he was going one way and we were ready to go ours and damn but 5:30 in the morning was disappearing fast, but we made sure he was going to make it to a bed, sleep, and be around another day to call me Pontiac and lean on Gypsy’s shoulder. As pissed as he was that we were trying to take care of him, I know the bugger didn’t mind all that much.

So, I am forever saddled with “Pontiac” and I don’t mind so much. As someone pointed out to me on Saturday when they gave me a big hug and said “I betcha don’t mind being called Pontiac now” and truly, I never really did. I lost sight of courage then, sneaky little bitch disappeared pretty quick.

So in amongst my rambling, the point of this post to day is to tell of one man who brings life to a party. One man who loved life and lived every moment full. One man who didn’t give a rats ass if you agreed with him or not, but had respect for your opinion and demanded the same from everyone he met. He was a man of his word, made his decisions then kept to them regardless of if they turned out as planned. He was a brother, a father, a husband, a son and a friend. Even now, he has the power to make us smile and if I am right, is sitting around somewhere drinking all the damned whiskey and giggling away at us all. He believed in brothers and old world biker respect.

He puts it best “I am Scot-to-be-me, who the hell else can I be?”

You will always be remembered Scot-T by us all and I’ll always be Pontiac.

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Winter is when i get smart… s m r t.

These final months or weeks of winter (if you believe a rodents predictions) are when I typically, delve deep into life mysteries and search out the wonders of human knowledge. Ok, someone mentions something then I research it on the internet till i’m not bored anymore… same thing.

Some of the things that get flown around the lunch table at work are pretty far out there. Sometimes, I just simply don’t believe them, so I look them up myself and usually get a good smirk out of it knowing just who in our office, is a fibber. Today I heard something about medical science, about an age old enemy of humans and science, about the most horrifying words anyone can imagine coming out of their doctors mouths. Cancer. Cancer in any form is scarey and 90% of the population, fear it like the black plague because people have learned to associate cancer, with death.

So at lunch we were talking about different animals that people have seen out in the wild. One guy had seen a timbre wolf and several of us had seen the owl perched in one of our buildings here, one day.

Some of the wild animals people seen have been pretty interesting. In the general tone of conversation, topics changed and moved around and then this guy says that he heard about some farmer, who kept on having his chicken show up with liver cancer. The farm took some chicks to some dude and they’d splice the chicks open to investigate the nature of the cancer. After about 6 months, the guy had developed a vaccine that they’d give via 2 shots to the head of each chick when they were born. The farm never had chickens with cancer again.

I couldn’t believe the guy, I’d never heard about it and I’ve heard of all kinds of theories and history surrounding Cancer. So, in my afternoon boredom I decided to check it out and googled “chicks liver cancer vaccine” and came up with this article, as well as several others. This one, in particular, pretty much confirmed my coworkers story. Which Came First gives an little tidbit of information from the 1909 chicken farmer and the resulting vaccine.

I immediately started to wonder after reading the first paragraph…. WHAT the heck took so long to have this vaccine, inoculating humans? 6 months it took for chicks. But no, it’s not a conspiracy, once I continued to read, I found out way more than I ever wanted to know about Cancer. There are proven virus’ that cause cancer but do not always cause cancer. This revelation is actually, what triggered scientist to search in the area of human genetics. Genetics would obviously be a factor in why only some people, got cancer from these virus’ and why others did not. Still, the FDA didn’t approve the Vaccine for human papillomavirus of cervical cancer, and hepatitis B in the case of liver tumours.

In case anyone wants to know more about vaccines, or why there isn’t vaccines for all cancer’s, I think this place explains it better than I can for while I understand it, putting it into words myself is like reinventing the wheel. There just isn’t any need. Take it from the source. The News Today

What bothers me most, is that I always thought, liver cancer was liver cancer, heart cancer was heart cancer and skin cancer was skin cancer. Enter Metastatis. Skin cancer can Metastatisize to the liver, thereby infecting the liver with skin cancer. Basically, it travels from the primary tumor to other organs. Cancer itself, is what bothers me most, but knowing that skin cancer can indeed “infect” other organs, bothers me for some reason. Same reason why cervical cancer, infecting the liver, or the glands, or the brain… how the heck to scientist wrap their heads around isolating this thing and thereby, eradicating it? Mind boggling and most disturbing.

There are many different forms of treatment, diagnosis and overall research into cancer. Some fascinating finds have lead to cures or technology in other medical areas. One thing that fascinates me, and makes me think that all the problems computer’s bring may just be worth it, is Nanotechnology. Here is an article I found while trying to find cancer research fields. Using Nanotechnology to diagnose and isolate cancer cells and growth, among other things. Awesome is the human mind.

Suffice it to say that Cancer research is HUGE, immensely confusing and on such a large scale it’s hard to grasp the enormity of it all. It’s almost like trying to contemplate the universe, all the different solar systems out there, possibility of biological life on other planets and just how far, the blackness out there goes. Rather makes the individual person, in a single City, on a single Continent of our single planet… seem very very small.

And… It Starts…

So, here we are, the dawn of February in Canada. Snow is everywhere and though I have to admit, quite beautiful, certainly not what I want to see. It sparkles, and dazzles drivers who are driving to fast to get where they need to be. It makes my morning commute a royal headache and quite honestly, if I didn’t know that we need the moisture quite so much, I could say “see ya” to snow without blinking an eye.

Still, there is something quite beautiful about seeing it that pictures just can’t justify. In the morning, when the sun comes up and fills the frozen icicles on the trees full of fractal rays of light, I can honestly say that it is most dazzling. I feel for those people who were born and live in the hot climates who have never seen snow. Just like some of us Canadian’s have never seen the ocean, it’s on the list of”MUST SEE” before the ultimate metalhead takes you to never-never land. So, I can appreciate the snow even if I can’t “like” it. After all, it keeps me on 4 wheels as long as it’s there. I’m not quite that brave nor experienced enough to bike it in the snow.

With February 1st looming around the corner, I find myself thinking more and more about open roads, destinations, events, friends and activities that are lacking all winter long. Yea, we get out to see friends, we go and play Euchre or attend parties and Christmas dinners, New Years eve bashes and Valentines day parties. But what we really want, is to ride. Just… ride. Most of us don’t care much about winter time events and simply use them to stay in touch with our “family” but it gets increasingly harder to actually want to go out and party as the weeks go slowly by. We want to ride. Nothing simpler or sexier than that.

But THIS… is not sexy or simple. It’s cold, and slippery and dangerous.

Most of my work mates and non biker friends don’t really get it. I mean, it’s just months of the year where you do other, snow related, events instead right? Anyone who has never been on a bike and felt the cool air hitting their faces, smelled the lavender in the fields growing or traveled along the same parallel as an eagle or any other bird, just simply can’t understand. There is something exciting about traveling at 100 kms/h without four walls of steel around you. Your senses are acutely aware of everything, every move of traffic and every sign that a driver isn’t paying attention. You can smell small subtle changes in the air and atmosphere, good or bad, you can smell them cleanly. I’ve gotten so many good shots of traffic or buildings and people on the back of Gypsy’s bike, I just can’t get those in a car. I can close my eyes and clear my mind, letting my senses tell me where I am. It’s why they say it’s freedom. You are truly free to explore exciting things and let your mind build on anything you see. It’s the difference between viewing snow, and seeing a photo of it.

February, marks the beginning of the longest months of the year for us bike bound people. We go through withdrawal and the days take forever to pass by. We start putting our hands out the car window and imagining it being on a bike, how cold it is. Could that be warm enough? What if we bundled up under our leathers? Hmm… full faced may actually be worth it. After a couple of minutes, we pull our hands back in and grimace as we shove them in front of the heater in the car.

In another week, we’ll repeat the cold-air-test yet again, only to reaffirm our suspicions that it’s to cold, and let the depression sink just a little bit deeper, more solid. Suckers for punishment, aren’t we. Well, we are a crotchety old bunch of bitches and bikers who just want to do what they do. Can’t blame us for being grouchy in the face of Canada’s denial of clear warm roads, can you?

Sooner or later, anyone who reads these blogs (lol) will find a post where I just blow my rocker and post about how damned cold I was on a road trip that I took way to early in the year and how frigid 100 km/h REALLY is. But until then, I wait, test the air, and try to convince myself of how pretty the snow is.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

 

Sunday’s Solar Flare has already started to show its effects in our Earthen magnetosphere. This Aurora was taken early this morning in Norway and is absolutely breath-taking.

Astronomy Picture of the Day.<— This is ASOP’s official site where this article can be found. Clicking on the photo also takes you to their site.

They say that we may be able to view some of the effects in the form of Aurora’s over several parts of North America, Tuesday night.  I’m relying on my trusty Astrophotographer to capture some epic Aurora photos for me to blog about tomorrow. Since my camera isn’t quite equipped with these abilities, and although I’ll give it a gung-ho biker-bitch shot, I’m not to hopeful about what will be captured.

If you are into these kinds of photos, I’d love to post them in my blog at the end of the week with full credit and story of course.

Yea I am a biker chic. Today’s biker chic insight of the day: Biker chic’s see the world through clear eyes, with alive senses. Since we are not encased in steel on the road, we smell, see and hear all that most woman don’t. We love beauty in its most natural, raw form. Auroras are as Raw in nature as you can get. This, is beauty.

Gypsy? No such thing

It’s a fact of life here in Canada… winter is cold. It’s full of icy roads and damned frigid winds. If you want something else from December to April, you better go live somewhere else. Pretty simple.

Another fact of life, bikers live in Canada. And astounding number of bikers as a matter of fact. Some ride 12 months out of the year. Yea that’s right, you heard me. Snow, ice, rain and sand. They RIDE. Crazy fucks if you ask me. But there is something to admire in their determination even as misguided as it is. They are warriors of a different breed and not easily understood. So am I here to help you to understand bikers or their lifestyles? Hell no. I’m here to rant and carefully lay it out, like the good biker bitch I am. If you can’t handle that than piss off and find some other useless facts to peruse while your at work sneaking internet time.

If you are at all interested to know facts, to know points of view, to see little tidbits into nameless peoples lives and thoughts or candid shots of travels, events and whatever the hell else I feel like shooting, then I’m game.

Gypsy is my favourite target, my best shots are all of him in various degrees of candidness. Many a morning Gypsy has woken to a camera staring at him and the click of a shutter before his eyes have even focused. Why do I torture this man so? Because there is something special about moments of incoherence. Those few seconds that it takes the brain to register itself as awake, the eyes give glimpses of dreams and emotions you may never see again. I find those moments captured in pixels.

So, this site isn’t about Gypsy, though you’ll read a lot about him in mentions and activities. The site is just a simple combination of everything I do, the kind of people I call family, and life as a Canadian Biker.