Spring is very much upon us here in Toronto and as promised, I’m back in the saddle of a motorcycle again. Oh how good it is to be back on two wheels.

As some of you may remember, I used to ride a ‘98 Triumph Speed Triple that was unfortunately crashed when I foolishly let a friend someone ride it. That someone happened to be a close friend of mine, but after the event he apparently felt I was trying to take advantage of him when it came to replacement cost of the bike, and I haven’t spoken to him in about 9 months now. I’m not quite sure how exactly I was supposedly taking advantage of him, when I’m the one out $5,000 and 1 friend… but I digress. He won’t return my calls or emails, so needless to say, he and I are no longer friends. And to think, I actually scoffed at everyone who said that this would come between he and I. How naive I was. In the end, I sold the bike remains for all of $1000, and spent the rest of the winter wondering what I’d replace her with.

Purchasing a motorcycle is very much an emotional decision. For the most part, the bikes themselves are all very similar (especially when you’re comparing Japanese bikes). I had no interest in a sports bike, nor a cruiser… so I immediately limited my options, and more or less eliminated the Japanese manufactures. I highly considered getting another Triumph, but in the time since the aforementioned incident, the only dealer in the city closed up shop. So with the Japanese and the British off the list, I had but only the Italians to gaze upon. And my new love would come in the form of a 2007 Ducati Monster S2R.

For those who know anything about motorcycles, I’m sure you’ve heard of Ducati. And I have to admit, their reputation is well deserved. The bike rides amazingly well and, quite surprisingly, similar to the Speed Triple. The Ducati rides smoother, has better brakes, suspension and overall better technology – but the S3 was close to 8 years old, so that’s to be expected. What surprised me the most however, was how much lighter and smaller the Monster is. It also has a smaller displacement (800 vs 955), but I can’t tell the difference whatsoever. It’s just as fast and responsive as the Triumph was – which is to say, faster and more responsive than I would ever need it to be.

This weekend proved to be the perfect weekend to take her out for a nice long 2+ hour ride. And with Google’s latest addition to their Maps tools, I’ve mapped out the route for those interested in going for a beautiful spin in the country.

Apple said Monday that the 100 millionth iPod has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history.

Yeah. That’s a lot of iPods. I know I’ve contributed my fair share to that number… I think I’m on my 5th. Speaking of which, I haven’t upgraded in quite a while actually, and don’t plan on until I can either:

1. Get my hands on an iPhone. Or,
2. Get my hands on a widescreen iPod (aka, iPhone without the phone)

With all the travel I’ve been doing, I’d definitely take advantage of video-playing, widescreen iPod (yes, I realize the current iPods play video). That, and I hate my Blackberry and can’t wait until I can replace it with an iPhone, even though I know the iPhone won’t really work all that well with the company’s email sever, so I won’t really be able to replace it… But a guy can dream, right?

Either way, I’ll be sticking with my current iPod Photo until either of the above scenarios comes to fruition.

Also, speaking of iPods – it had been reported earlier this week that a solider in Iraq had been shot, and his iPod had taken the brunt of impact (quite possibly saving his life). While the thought of an iPod stopping a bullet is laughable, it turns out that the damaged iPod is what actually informed the soldier that he’d been shot! Apparently he’d been involved in the shootout, and then headed back to his bunk afterwards. Only there did he discovered that he (and his iPod) had been shot, simply because the iPod wasn’t working!

In other news, Apple is expected to announce they’ve sold 100 million + 1 iPods later this afternoon.

I’m sure most people don’t know this about me, but for about the last 20 years, I’ve been without a sense of smell.

When I was around 6 years old, I fell approximately 25 feet from a tree, having climbed to the top while my friends made a tree house below. I don’t recall much of the incident beyond the breaking of branches and the subsequent free-fall. Needless to say, the resulting impact left me unconscious and broken on the ground below. I don’t remember anything immediately after the fall, but I do remember awaking sometime later in the the hospital to discover I had a broken arm, was incredibly sore, and had suffered amnesia. Yep, I banged my head pretty good.

While I don’t know specifically if this trauma is what took my sense of smell, I came to realize a number of years later that I couldn’t smell anything. Believe it or not, I never really noticed. My breath was never bad, my shit never stank, my gym clothes never smelly. And I was ok with that, as I never really thought much of it.

Over the years I’ve had a number of “phantom smells”, where I’d see something and immediately think I could smell it. Let it be said that this was by no means a subtle experience. More times than not I was completely engulfed by the smell, unable to escape it. For instance, I once saw some fresh cut grass and for the next hour I felt like my head was in a bag full of it. No matter where I went or what I tried, all I could smell was grass. I’ve come to realize those incidents were probably more of a memory than anything else, and in that case I was simply recalling what fresh cut grass smelled like.

While that may be an interesting story unto itself, what’s even more interesting is that over the last 9 months, my sense of small has started to come back. I have no idea how or why – I like to believe it’s a medical mystery – but I can definitely smell again. I can’t quite smell everything yet, but if I stick my nose in front of it once, I seem to register it the next time I’m around it. It’s like I’m having to relearn how to smell again.

I first started to notice that something was different last summer at the cottage. Jess had just thrown some garlic into a sauce pan, and I was convinced I could smell it. Brushing it off as another phantom smell, I didn’t think much of it. However, the next time Jess threw some garlic into a sauce pan, I happened to be in another room and was completely unaware she was cooking. I thought I could smell the garlic again, and when I walked into the kitchen and could see it in the pan, I was stunned.

I can smell again!

Since then, I can smell all sorts of things. I found it easier to detect savory smells originally, but I can more or less smell everything now. Garlic, onions, coffee, oranges, wine, gasoline, cigarettes, perfume… and yes, it’s official. My shit does actually stink.