4.22.2006

Live to ride, ride to die

Ah, springtime. One of my favorite times in Boston. The Red Sox are playing again, the snow shovel and ice melt gets put in a dark corner of the basement, I can open my sunroof while tooling around town, and the air is filled with the loud thunder of motorcycles. Isn't it such a wonderful time of year? There's nothing that heralds the onset of spring more than the sound of some short-pipe Harley accelerating at full bore down an otherwise pastoral, tree-line thoroughfare.

Now, before all two-wheeled enthusiasts out there add themselves to list of people I've pissed off with my rants here, let me make a disclaimer: I actually like motorcycles; almost bought one, too. It was a 1984 Honda Shadow 500, a starter/project bike, that would have been a great way to learn how to ride, and how to fix a bike. It was short money and I didn't care if it got wrecked. Other priorities prevailed at the time of the purchase, and I had to spend my bike money on something major repairs to my regular car. Not only did I miss the chance on buying the bike, but it made me realize I didn't have the money to pay for repairs, maintenance, insurance and excise of a motorcycle.

I will live to ride again, but when I do, I won't ride like an idiot the way I see other bikers do, and I won't ride through a residential neighborhood at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning at full bore.

All through the winter I was reminded that motorcycle season was coming every time I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck (usually next to or near a Harley emblem) that read: Motorcycles are everywhere! Indeed they are. Though not quite the same way as God is everywhere, but close. Like the other day on the Southeast Distressway, for example, when an old Honda Gold Wing passed next to me between lanes, and wove through traffic. Or the guy on the Kawasaki crotch rocket wearing a head bubble helmet who cut and slashed his way through the slowing tunnel traffic on Route 93 on Tuesday. He came up hard and close on my right, then cut in front of my bumper so I had to jam on my brakes to avoid hitting him as he sailed into the lane to my left only to go around the car in front of me and cut to the right back across the highway again.

Those examples are a fairly representative sample of the types of crazy things I see by motorcyclists every day, and it's not recent. Once last year, I had a topcoat on while in the car and the belt got caught in the door. While at a stop light, I swung open my door, but had to pull back at the last second before it was ripped off by a guy on a crotch rocket (you won't find me using racist bike terms, by the way), riding up next to me on my left. Previous to his arrival, the only thing on my left was the double yellow line.

So, yes, indeed motorcycles are everywhere, because many riders think their size gives them the authority to ignore marked lanes. And each time I see this behavior, I am reminded of a motorcycle slogan, "Live to ride, ride to live." I get the intent. A person has a passion for riding, but gets a passion for life from riding. But this is a double-entendre that should also be a safety message: Live to ride, but don't ride like an idiot and you won't die.

I remember when I was considering the motorcycle purchase. I was 20. I thought I was the mac-daddy and was totally going to get tons of chicks to ride on my hawg. There was no reasoning with me, either. The few people who knew about the impending purchase tried to counsel me against it, and they all said, "motorcycles are dangerous." I disagreed with them, saying that safe, smart riding would not be any more dangerous than riding in a car. The major difference between a bike accident and a car accident is that the bike doesn't offer the protection a car's frame does. And I even corrected people to say that motorcycles themselves weren't dangerous, but that it was the riders who did things that put them in harm's way. I would do my best to avoid that and share the road properly.

Now, still as a non-rider, I do my best to share the road will all two-wheeled vehicles, motorized or not, even when the rider does something stupid like opening it up on the wrong side of the road to get past a line of cars stopped at a traffic light.

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4.17.2006

Holiday driving

There are several days during the year when driving into Boston isn't a good idea. Today is one of them. Actually, it was worth staying out of there all weekend. I was reminded of this as Mrs. Boston Crazy Driving and I navigated our way through city streets to get to the Opera House to see "Wicked", based on the book by Concord-native Gregory Maguire. Ed. Note: I will admit that I am a meat-eating, red-blooded American man and I enjoy the musical theater. Anyone got a problem with that? I didn't think so.

Anyway, I digress (The show was great, BTW).

It was definitely a challenge driving into Boston Friday, and I wasn't reminded of the marathon until we cross Dartmouth Street and saw the tent in front of the library. For those wondering why we were in the Back Bay when trying to get into the Theater District (or perhaps the Ladder District if you're a real estate agent), we came in on the parkways via Putterham Circle after supping at Mandarin Gourmet -- great Chinese food.

Sorry, this post is all over the place. Mrs. Boston Crazy Driving was driving and getting aggravated that she kept being cut off. She's no shrinking violet behind the wheel, but I suggested that she fill any open space or there's a 90 percent chance someone else will. This is so on any Friday night, not just tourist weekends. As she was complaining about the traffic, I was doing some figuring in my head. There's about 22,000 runners, and if they each brought 1.5 people on average with them, that means there's about 60,000 extra people in the city. Add to that the tourists who are looking to take in a little Revolutionary War history today at Lexington and Concord, and people unaware of the marathon or Patriots Day who are here for general tourism or college previewing, and I would bet there's probably 80,000 additional people in the city. That's like Newton invading Boston, though I doubt Newton would ever consider anything so silly.


Other days and weekends came to mind when driving into Boston should be avoided. Labor Day is chief among them. The uninitiated who read this should know that Boston has a college or a college dorm on every block, and Labor Day weekend is move-in day for these colleges. In some of the outlying neighborhoods, especially Allston and Brighton, the city streets are lined with U-Hauls and the sidewalks become de facto landfills with all the cast-off furniture that cannot fit in or on a Toyota Corrolla or Honda Civic.

Hundreds of thousands of people, and this isn't an exaggeration, descend on Boston on Independence Day to listen to the Pops concert on the Esplanade and watch the fireworks over the Charles River. The best seats, in my opinion, are my comfy chair, with the TV volume turned down and WGBH radio turned up. That way you get stereo sound, no out-of-towner announcer, and if you have to go to the bathroom, it's a few steps away.

Same goes for First Night. That's amateur night, if you ask me. Stay off the roads and you will be safe. If you want to ring in the new year with a bang, go out in your backyard and light a bottle rocket.

I'm sure there are other times that don't come to mind now. Some are limited to certain neighborhoods. Don't ever expect to find parking in the North End, but don't even think of driving within three blocks during one of the feasts of the saints. These are great celebrations, especially if you're hungry, and they are best reached on foot. Don't drive through Franklin Park during Puerto Rican Pride Day, or through Southie on the Sunday after St. Patrick's Day. Both are great times to be a part of, but not to drive to, or through by mistake (I have made all of these mistakes, BTW).

I would mention that driving anywhere near Downtown Crossing at Christmas should be avoided, but with Filene's closed and Barnes and Noble closing soon, I would guess it will be OK this Christmas.

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4.06.2006

Mascot goes in for a nip/tuck

Simon is the honorary Boston Crazy Driving co-pilot. He is a very friendly and playful boxer dog that came into our lives before Mrs. Boston Crazy Driving and I married. We adopted him from a rescue in Rochester, N.Y. He has given us joy that no amount of money could compare, and he has been a very good testing subject for our parenting abilities. Although we did find it hard to scold him for eating the couch cushion one day early in the experiment in his best impression of Hooch.

Being a member of the working group, Simon likes to have jobs. He warms various chairs and couch cushions for us, keeps us warm at night by sleeping under the covers and also dutifully checks our heading with his superior nose while riding in the car. He generally knows when we are within a block of both of our parents' houses.

We were devastated when, after having him for barely a year, we found out he had a heart murmur that could shorten his life. After visiting the doggy cardiologist for a heart ultrasound, he was declared as healthy as, um, well, a horse. We were relieved, and the sleepless nights were for naught. But on a recent well visit we discovered he is not so healthy, though you wouldn't know it to look at him. Simon has skin cancer. It's not terribly serious. It's a small bump on his thigh and the doctors insist it should come off along with a noncancerous one on his elbow. We're more concerned with him being put under general anesthetic and spending a night in the hospital than his ability to recover.

But I know this dog. He should recover fine, and will be back to his old self in a couple of weeks. He survived an abusive owner who pushed him out of a car to get rid of him with his good nature towards humans intact, so I'm sure he won't lose a step after this surgery.

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Straight on red? Yes. We do that here, too.

Universal Hub posts a couple of examples where going straight through a red light isn't expressly prohibited, which seems to defy the logic of a red light. This phenomenon is most frequently created at a fork in the road and the traffic signal is meant to control traffic flow, but because many drivers equate it to a right turn on red, they plow through. UH offers a couple of examples.

My own are: Where Centre and Adam streets meet in Milton at a nicely landscaped traffic delta. Most of the time the traffic from Centre to Adams has a green, but when it's red most drivers treat it like a stop sign. There are two places on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester on opposite sides of the same intersection at UMass Boston. The inbound traffic that wishes to turn right into UMB has a red light very deep into the slip road, and it's not clear if the driving operation is still a right on red or a straight on red. On the other side of the intersection, the traffic on the side road that runs in front of the Globe almost always has the green, and people tend to use that as a bypass to continue on Morrissey towards Malibu Beach.

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4.04.2006

Dead spots and forgiveness

Had the common pleasure of having my radio frequency turn to the sound of a drain snake upon entering the northbound Tip Tunnel this morning. It was a very charming effect that added to my experience while listening to the post-mortem of yesterday's Sox season opener on WEEI. For some reason known only to the Mass. Turnpike Authority, certain AM frequencies are jammed from the tunnel's entrance to the downramp from Albany Street, which is almost half of the tunnel. Both WEEI 850 AM and WRKO 680 AM were blocked. WBZ 1030 AM was loud and clear, though.

When the radio started working again, I got to hear talk about Roger Clemens meeting with Sox brass to discuss the possibility of him returning. I was mad for a long time at Clemens when he left, but then again, I was mad at him for a long time before he left, too. I was more mad at him for leaving than I am now at Adam Vinatieri for leaving the Patriots for the Colts. I forgave Clemens since he joined the Houston Astros, and would actually like to see him return to a Red Sox uniform.

I can't say why I felt it was the right time to forgive him finally, but it just seemed right. Clemens was the star of the Red Sox ball club for a few years during my most formative time as a baseball fan, and I always felt he should have set a better example. While he was here, I believed him to be lazy, overpaid and egotistical. It didn't look like he trained all that well and basically gave the impression that he didn't give a damn about the Red Sox. He knew he was good enough to pitch well for any team and he held that over Jean Yawkey's and Lou Gorman's heads. So, he took the dough and went to the Blue Jays. Then to the Yankees, where it seems like he learned how not to be a primadonna crybaby.

Despite that, I still had no respect for him. I was glad Grady Little messed with him when he was trying to win his 300th, and that the Sox shelled him out of the game early. That was the Clemens I knew well as a Red Sox fan; he flubbed the big game (anyone remember his Oakland appearance in 1990?). I was also glad to see him retire from baseball right when it seemed like the Yankees needed him most. It made me even happier to see him sign with the Astros in that same offseason.

But in his first season with the Astros, he went 10-0 and even last year was in the top five or 10 pitchers in the league. And I realized that I may have disliked his personality, but I couldn't ignore his numbers or his contribution to baseball. And now I'm greedy with the idea of a healthy Curt Schilling, a still-powerful Roger Clemens, a reliable knuckler in Tim Wakefield, Josh Becket and Matt Clement (for the first half of the season).

So, I cast my vote to bring back the Rocket.

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