It's good to have you back in the fold, Ken. We missed your inputs and whit. Hope that you will join us again in Maggie Valley come September. The clean bike contest needs the Honey Badger competing.
Mike

Thanks, Mike! And everyone who responded!
I'll be around more. I went through some general emotional funkiness last year, and was actually muddling with the idea of selling the bike and moving on to other (safer) things, after my wife had a scary encounter on her little Ninja 650 last summer, with an SUV coming around a tight corner on a highway in the mountains, at far too high of a speed, just as she was pulling out from a side road. She slammed on her brakes and let the bike fall, and the SUV roared by only a few feet away. The jerk didn't ever even slow down!
That's why I cancelled out of MV14... I was too messed up to even think about riding at that point. I didn't share it with anyone here except Chip... and thankfully he and my other riding friends made me realize what motorcycling - specifically Harley riding - really means to me. But the horrible thought of having to live the rest of my life without my awesome wife really messed with my mind for awhile. She may stop riding herself... I don't know. She hasn't been on her bike since that incident.
One of my best buds put the pressure on me to ride down to PCB for the Thunder Beach rally with him and some other friends a week after MV14, and I'm glad I got back on the bike. I needed the break, and I REALLY needed the saddle time!
Ken