Personal entry

In my second month of riding I was very fortunate to meet a very good person who lived in my suburb. He would be my mentor.:

Hey BuckBuck,
Nice to meet you today & put a face to the name. Keep up the practise & when summer rolls around you'll be ready to venture further afield.

1000kms....that's nearly from Welly to Cape Reinga....didn't know Stokes was that big……

Tragically he was killed six months later.

I have included in this extract ...

Whether one may consider my approach to learning to ride to be:

Obsessive
Practical
Cautious

Or

Transferring learning techniques gained from a military background.

I think this ‘transfer’ probably sums up the first three above. Why? Because at the end of the day, (if I got that far) my life, not may – but will, depend upon it.

My Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder over many years was full of ‘catastrophizing’ ...

To what extent a disciplined environment has on an individual, be it the military, police, emergency services paramedics, doctors, nurses, to name but a few occupations, is as wide and as varied as any and all of the individuals. How we handle situations is born of training, implementation, and accepting the end result knowing that every thing that could be done was done, be the outcome a good one or a bad one. The strength of the professional character is at times camouflaged as are the weaknesses. ...

How it came about I can’t be sure, but I think either my Dad or Aunt kept my school principal informed of the struggles occurring at home with Mum in and out of hospital. I was around eight years old when the principal handed me a box of matches and told me I was in charge of the school incinerator. Each lunch time a small group of us would round up all the garbage bins and bring them to the incinerator, I would run to the principals office and he would give me the box of matches, I would light ...

Well I am glad that week is over. At least all the new equipment we brought for the Tribology lab is working, now to start getting results. I do get nervous when the management make statements like…We can now run the equipment until the oil analysis tells us it is time to repair.

Driving down today Kiwis in one car Aussies in another…no Kiwi baiting today. Wife tells be it is 25 to 30 in Bishkek today, it was snowing at the mine last night. I have been up here..4000M for the last ...

By and large I believe that parents do the best they can for their children with what they’ve got no matter how rich or poor.

You know I often look at my age, deduct the age my father was when I was born, and then move the calendar back to him at my age now. – you follow that – for example Dad was almost 33 years old when I was born, and so 33 years ago he was the age I am now. Where and what happened in his life back then, and how did he handle it. Similarly jumping forward, when ...

The Newbie Training Update
Well I have covered some personal background in these blog entries so far and will return to that shortly. In the meantime I have been asked by numerous people since leaving kiwibiker last year and while out riding over summer, whatever happened to the Newbie Training Update. This was a forum thread in the General Bike Ravings Forum – Wannabe and Newbie Bikers Sub Forum. The material was deleted from the Forum at my request and the Blogg was ‘emptied’ by me and ...

Isn’t the Internet a powerful tool - I have been able to go into immigration archives and find my father’s original entry to Australia, the documents and declaration he completed and a photograph of him.

Dad demobilized from the US Army in 1945 and wound up on a bus to Nebraska…..many years later I joined the dots. Apparently his first wife, according to my aunt (Dad’s sister) did not settle too well in the USA. Dad last saw his sister in San Francisco when he put his wife and daughter ...