I do hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Christmas, and are gearing up for a tremendously fabulous New Year. As you can imagine, things have been chaotically busy. The kind of busy that eventually has you searching endlessly for something you later realize you never had in the first place. Such is life.

It recently dawned on me—rather like a slightly confused pigeon realizing it has landed on the wrong statue—that after all the doing, tinkering, muttering, and general going‑on, I never actually wrote Part 2 of the epic brake‑job chronicles. This is, of course, a grave omission in the historical record of Things I Meant To Do But Didn’t.

Happily, the tale concludes without explosions, disappearances, or even a minor uprising from the local squirrel population, who remain deeply suspicious of my feeder‑maintenance schedule but have not yet organized themselves into a functional revolutionary committee. Both the Sportster (Tuck) and the Heritage (Sugar) were reassembled with a combination of mechanical competence, accidental competence, and the sort of profanity that would make a longshoreman pause thoughtfully and take notes.

Throughout the process, I also engaged in a robust dialogue with myself—loud enough that the squirrels, perched in judgment, were left to wonder whether I was addressing them, the motorcycles, or perhaps some unseen entity responsible for the cosmic absurdity of brake calipers, pads and rotors.

Naturally, once the bikes had been reassembled into something resembling their original, non-explosive configurations, the ceremonial test ride was required. This ritual is traditionally performed with great enthusiasm, even when the sky above is making the sort of disgruntled noises usually reserved for deities who have misplaced their spectacles.

The thermometer, meanwhile, had taken it upon itself to impersonate the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come—pointing a bony, frostbitten finger toward temperatures that suggested any ride longer than three minutes would feel remarkably similar to receiving a root canal from a dentist who moonlights as a blacksmith.

Nevertheless, onward I went, propelled by equal parts determination and the faint hope that I hadn’t reassembled the brakes in a configuration best described as “interpretive.” To my delight, they worked. They actually worked. This was especially impressive considering it had been more than two years since I last flushed the brake fluid on my beloved Heritage, whose pads had bravely endured a pilgrimage to Sturgis in 2024. This fact speaks either to the remarkable durability of modern brake pads or, more depressingly, to how infrequently I manage to ride anywhere that isn’t the grocery store.

In any case, the coming months will inevitably demand another round of brake-related nonsense. A prospect I greet with all the enthusiasm of someone discovering they’ve been volunteered for a community theater production of Hamlet—as the entire cast.

Saying goodbye to 2025 feels, in many respects, like bidding farewell to a houseguest who stayed too long, drank all the good coffee, and left mysterious stains on the carpet. And yet, somewhere deep inside, there’s that small, unreasonable part of me that wishes for a do‑over—a cosmic mulligan. Unfortunately, the universe, in its infinite lack of customer service, does not issue refunds, exchanges, or second attempts where time is concerned. So I’m left to file the whole thing under “Intentions That Didn’t Quite Pan Out,” a folder already bulging at the seams.

The hardest entry in that file, of course, is not making the time to see my mom more before she passed in August. That one will echo through the rest of my days, a quiet, persistent reminder that the heart keeps its own kind of ledger, and it is far more meticulous than we ever expect.

Beyond that, 2025 didn’t exactly shower me with triumphant highlights. There were no soaring victories, no cinematic montages of personal growth set to inspirational music. There was, however, the trip to Orlando—the full Disney experience, complete with crowds, spectacle, and the faint suspicion that the entire place is powered by equal parts nostalgia and industrial‑grade sugar. That adventure nudged the year’s emotional graph slightly upward, like a polite clerk adjusting a crooked picture frame.

But overall, 2025 will be remembered less as a banner year and more as one of those odd, lopsided chapters life occasionally hands you—full of lessons you didn’t ask for and moments you wish you could rewrite.

One thing is absolutely certain: I was busy in 2025. Not the glamorous, champagne‑soaked sort of busy, but the more common variety involving schedules, obligations, and the creeping suspicion that time is being siphoned off by some unseen cosmic accountant. And 2026, from all early indications, appears determined to follow suit with the enthusiasm of a Labrador who has just discovered the concept of fetch.

My audiobook‑narration side hustle continues to devour hours with the appetite of a polite but insistent black hole. Add to that the ongoing parade of household projects, the valiant attempts to wedge in bicycle rides before my legs file a formal complaint, the daily care and feeding of the dogs, and—soon enough—regular pilgrimages to the new property my wife and I have acquired. This land, I am certain, will consume both time and money in quantities best described as “geologically significant.”

But beyond all that, I am clinging—quite earnestly—to the hope that I will embark on some proper long‑distance motorcycle journeys. The kind that fill the dusty, underutilized corners of my memory with something other than grocery lists and the lingering shame of forgotten passwords. I approach this hope with the confidence of a man who believes he has cracked the secret to winning the lottery, blissfully unaware that the universe is already rolling its eyes.

Still, optimism persists. And if naïveté decides to make a surprise cameo, well, it’s only fair—it’s been with me this long.

Be that as it may, I am fully prepared to march into 2026 with the sort of determination and moxie typically exhibited by prizefighters who have just discovered their nemesis has been talking smack about their footwork. It’s a peculiar blend of grit, optimism, and mild delusion, but frankly, that’s the fuel most of us run on anyway.

And truly, we should all approach the coming year with that same spirited defiance—chin up, shoulders squared, ready to glare meaningfully at whatever nonsense the universe decides to lob our way. After all, if we don’t meet the future with a bit of swagger, it has an annoying habit of swaggering at us first