Welcome to my blog

Do you ever feel antsy?

I know I do and I can tell you how it starts.

I can feel it start at the tip of my toes. My heels start wiggling almost impulsively. Like a shock of energy racing through a telephone wire, it travels up my whole body and starts making my fingers tap incessantly. My shoulders tense up. My teeth grind and I get an uncomfortable urge to move. The surroundings that I inhabit suddenly become mundane. My thoughts dart from one thing to the next. Thinking does not satisfy what my body wants to do. My body twitches. Some might call this adult ADD, but I call this the urge to do something, to create. It’s the familiar “itch to scratch”. I can feel the wasted electricity coming out of my hands. They want to build something.

There are people who just work, sleep, and pay bills. That's it, that's life for them. No hobbies, nothing to enrich their lives. Then there are people who break out of the norm and make a life in tiny houses, or pack up their cars and traveling is their life. There are people who create and build and enhance their lives. Breaking out of the mundane is a romantic notion. It also causes anxiety that I don’t want my life to feel wasted. Thus, the waves of feeling antsy begin again. I envision myself chasing the moments that make life pure. 

Every time I close my eyes I envision myself riding a beautiful chopper in the desert. I can feel the hot air and see the sunbeams radiating a landscape that mirrors Mars. I believe that's my heaven. Thinking about that eases anxiety but I still want it. I want it now. I’m still antsy, still thinking. My thoughts intensify. Impulses grow stronger. I have an intensity that burns bright. I have an imagination that runs incredibly wild. Once I get set on something, I do it until I have it. 

Me and "Hef".

I am going to build my first custom chopper.

When you build a chopper you are the artist, inventor, mechanic, fabricator, painter, and to top it all off, you get to ride what you created. It’s a piece of fire breathing mechanical art that propels you through the world. I can’t think of anything else that embodies all those facets into one. The bonus is the comradery of likeminded people who embrace the same thing. When you surround yourself with people who believe in you and see the same artistic direction, the possibilities are limitless.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a 1999 Honda Shadow VLX 600. It’s essentially the same bike as my other bike, “Hef”, a stock 1992 VLX 600. I didn’t have the heart to cut up Hef so I jumped at the opportunity to pick up another Honda Shadow.

The day we picked up my second Honda Shadow. 

I keep thinking of what I want it to look like. This is the most frustrating part, you have all these ideas and plans but can’t see it in person yet. Only until I start actually collecting parts I can then see where the build is going. I’m thinking of upswept fishtails, king and queen seat, and debating about building it into a real rigid.

I've never built anything before so this is a whole new ballgame for me. I even fumble at putting furniture together so the idea of actually welding a bike myself gets me super giddy and nervous. Could this be one of my life's highs? One of the things that I reflect on when I'm an elderly adult? To think I did something that I really wanted to do, and no one stopped me.

I started this blog because I want to track the progress on building my chopper. This is the beginning.

This is my “Goal Board”. (I will update this with new goals as I go along)

1. To have the bike on the road before Babe's ride out East Coast.

2. To bring it to Babe's ride out in Joshua tree.

3. Learn to weld.

The blank canvas.