{"id":9671,"date":"2015-04-29T06:58:39","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T10:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=9671"},"modified":"2015-04-29T06:58:39","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T10:58:39","slug":"distracted-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=9671","title":{"rendered":"Distracted Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning while on my way to work aboard my Harley, I had a number of things on my mind. My spouse’s pain and inability to walk… a major problem within my professional association that reflects poorly on my legacy… a number of items on my “to-do” list at work with pressing deadlines… and having to take off work on Friday to drive to the mother-in-law’s to fix the DVD player that we got for her a few months ago.<\/p>\n

All typical, every-day things that many people have going on in a busy life.<\/p>\n

But thinking about those heavy matters caused me to have a number of close-calls. I quickly snapped…
\n
\n\"HiVis\"…back to the present and said to myself, “pay 1000% attention, always, while operating a motorcycle!” Even though I was on the road at oh-dark-30 with relatively light traffic, it was dark and even one silly fool who doesn’t “see” me on my motorcycle could cause me to have a life-threatening situation, especially when the size\/weight factor of car-vs-motorcycle is considered. I do my best to “be seen” by wearing a high-vis jacket, as well as using lots of lights on the front, rear, and sides of my Harley.<\/p>\n

Even though I am more visible to others, nothing helps if the operator (me) isn’t paying as close attention as he should. So I reminded myself that there was nothing I could do about those other, pressing matters while driving. I refocused, and the remainder of my ride to work was safe and uneventful.<\/p>\n

I just have to remind myself that one can be distracted, even if not using a mobile phone which I never would do while driving. In 2003, I witnessed a crash by a cell-phone-yapping-yuppie that killed my biker buddy Rick<\/a>. Since then, I have been on a crusade to eliminate distracted driving and ban the use of mobile devices when operating any vehicle. I don’t care if your new yuppie-mobile has built-in hands-free phone technology — you’re still distracted when you are thinking about your conversation rather than paying 100% attention to the road and surrounding hazards.<\/p>\n

I digress… just a reminder… keep focused on the ride. Other matters can wait until the right time to deal with them.<\/p>\n

Life is short: ride 1000% focused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning while on my way to work aboard my Harley, I had a number of things on my mind. My spouse’s pain and inability to walk… a major problem within my professional association that reflects poorly on my legacy… … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle-ride"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}