The ride.

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorns have roses.” ~ Alphonse Karr   Millions of kids have been raised on Sesame Street. My childhood was highly influenced by this fictitious and mysterious thoroughfare of puppet friends, children, and racially diverse adults. Grover (Muppet) and Gordon (adult) were my favorite characters. When I was a kid, I could sing every song, and I enjoyed just about every aspect of the show, but especially the short

Last September, I had to be in St. Louis to manage a video shoot for work on the last Friday of the month. It’s only about 300 miles from Chicagoland, or about a five-hour drive, so it didn’t make any sense to fly. I made plans to drive down with the video team Thursday, returning Saturday or Sunday. Wednesday morning, I woke up with a thought… what if I rode my motorcycle down instead? Stupid, right? Crazy. Last-minute and dumb. I mean, I’d never taken the bike anywhere but

I travel quite a bit for work and always have. I’ve spent a lot of time in airports and one thing I never tire of is seeing people embrace upon departure or arrival. There’s just nothing better. Two souls separating for a trip or coming back together from one seem to experience a primal need to embrace, regardless of the length of the trip. I like to believe it’s human nature. Oh, there’s the occasional wave, and, of course, barely a nod from a cabbie or Uber driver, but the