Befriending Passion

What's your passion? Right now, mine is riding on the back of Lady Thunder. Anywhere. At any time. It's just my thing.

What if your passion was a little more defining? What if you had a talent for it and you felt it in your blood. You found others who believed in your capabilities and passion (sorry, overused word), and they've invested in you. But like any passion, there's a certain amount of blood, sweat, and tears, oh, and MONEY, that you need to put in to make it go.

Consider our dear friend Erica Ortiz, known by her handle @HorsepowerHeels on Twitter. She's proven that she can drive in a straight line at 200mph or better in her very own drag racer. Check her out over at Horsepower and Heels.

Back in November, her car was coming together for the 2008 season (it's 2008 now, people), or was it? Things didn't quite line up, literally. Since then, Erica has been scraping together support a five-spot at a time.

Her dream is to race Top Fuel. Those are the long, skinny, land rockets that blast down the track at over 300mph. Did you catch ESPN2 today? Yeah, those cars. She can get there, IF... IF... IF!!!! she can get her current car on the track and meet her sponsor commitments this race year. Realistically, she's up against it. What she needs is about $5k to get the car in running order. ASAP. Now. Today.

In my opinion, it's time for her friends to really stand up and help. You don't have to break your bank. Sheesh - just throw a few latte's at her (figuratively, of course), or skip that trip to the spa this month (week?).

So pppppplease, drop by her website and hit the tip jar, as it were, and let's watch her Tweet her way around the circuit this Summer and Fall.

C'mon, help this Lady make her dreams. It's going to be a blast to watch her go. You KNOW she'll Tweet it. :)

-- Mike

P.S. Erica has shared her widget with me, and I've attached it to my blog (>>> over there). Please do help!

Lady Thunder rolls again

It's about time that I wrote something about how Lady Thunder is doing. Fact is, I picked her up from the shop nearly as good as new on April 5. Well, I guess I'm the only one who is noticing the lime dust that is still stuck in various crevasses, of well, everywhere on the bike. She rides great. She has the right tank now.

Of course, nearly as soon as I had her back, I had to hop on a plane. I've been on the road nearly three weeks straight now. First hop was to San Francisco for the RSA Conference. I had a little speaking bit on Monday, then cruised the floor on Tuesday morning, a meeting in the afternoon, then flights to LAX then on to Sydney (International Standards work). Nine nights later, I began to unwind the trip... SYD/LAX/SFO/LAX/AUS. Don't ask.

Monday this week was laundry and get-as-much-junk-mail-shredded-as-possible day, then on the plane to Columbus, OH for the National Standards meetings today and tomorrow. I'm going to hang with my brother tomorrow night - Ohio is where I grew up, and then fly home to Austin tomorrow night.

(* deep breath *)

But then I can ride my bike on Saturday - maybe. A little.