A Mariachi Band may sound like a cool idea, but in actuality, it's not. Well, at least for me it wasn't last night.

I went to dinner with a friend last night to the El Arroyo Mexican Restaurant off I-24 at Old Hickory Blvd in Antioch. I'd been there before. The food and the atmosphere was always nice.

Little did I know that they have a Mariachi Band there on Friday nights. Under Certain circumstances that would've been neat. However, I really wanted to have a nice quiet dinner with my friend, so we could talk.

The restaurant's big, but we were seated right next to where they were playing. So, for the first 20-30 minutes we were there, we were having to converse over this band. Ordering our food was interesting.

After that it was very pleasant there. I had the Queen Tilapia with rice. They cook up a whole fish and serve it up on a platter. It had a really neat flavor to it. My friend who is a much pickier eater, opted for the Taco Salad with only meat and cheese. I felt bad and offered one of my tortillas.

I'll probably go back, but with my nieces. They're five years and 18 months and would get a kick out of that. I'm babysitting the 18 month old tonight and am looking forward to a rousing night of peekaboo!

Yeah, I may love motorcycles and hot chicks, but my family means the world to me. Any time I get to spend with them is golden!

I visit lots of dealers. I mean lots of dealers. Mostly, I have had positive experiences. Every now and then, I have poor experiences and phenomenal experiences.

Today, I had a phenomenal experience.

I went to Bumpus Harley-Davidson's Murfreesboro dealership after having lunch with my Dad. I just wanted to stop by and see the new stuff. I don't really buy much anymore, since I've got nearly everything I need for all riding conditions.

There were some new bags that I liked. There was a new cooler bag that I thought was cool. It fit on the sissy bar and offered great functionality. I can't find it on Harley's website, else I would share a link.

I was checking out the FXRG line. I bought a Unik motorcycle jacket that is meant to compete with the FXRG line and wanted to compare them again for an article I am working on. I was walking around the motorclothes section eyeballing the jackets and this very unassuming guy walks up and asks if I need any help.

At first I thought he was the GM or the motorclothes supervisor. He was very knowledgeable and answered all of my questions. BTW, I can ask some pretty hard ones!

I introduced myself and he introduced himself. I asked him what his position was with the dealership and he replied, "I'm the owner, Tom Bumpus."

I was shocked! This guy was very down to earth and dealt with me like I was the important person in there. This was before he had any idea I was who I am. Sometimes, I honestly feel like when someone knows about Brain Bucket, they treat me differently.

I made the comment that I was surprised that the owner of the dealership (and three more, by the way) dealt with customers on that level. His reply was, "I'm just a normal Joe working here like everyone else. I'm not different than any of my employees."

Now, I've met several owners of dealerships. Mark Adamec of Adamec's Harley is a great guy. Chris Clark of Savannah HD is a nice guy as well. Bubba Boswell is a great guy to know, too. But my experience with Tom Bumpus will live in my memory forever.

All of the dealers I mentioned above are great dealerships and you won't go wrong doing business with any of them. I hate to pick a favorite. Each of them have things they are better at than others.

Today, Tom Bumpus showed me that customer service is very important to him.

The other day, I blogged about some time in Atlanta and going to Ruth's Chris. It was a good time and I am going back to Atlanta to see that friend again soon. Blogging about that little trip brought back some memories about a celebratory dinner at Ruth's Chris years ago. Actually, the memories weren't mine, but a friend of mine's about me.

Part of moving back to Middle Tennessee that's been nice is rekindling old friendships. One of my friends hosted a Super Bowl party last Sunday. I told that friend and several new friends about Brain Bucket. Subsequently, several of those folks have visited Brain Bucket and my old friend actually sent me an email about my blog.

He reminded me about the time we went to Ruth's Chris together for a celebratory dinner. It was a nice meal, but a day that I would actually like to erase from my memory. The bad part of the memory actually had to do more with my date than the meal.

See, I was single at the time. I was trying new things to meet new people. One of the new things I tried was answering a personal ad.

I saw an ad that intrigued me, so I answered it. The girl called me and she sounded so sexy! Her voice was dirty and she sounded gorgeous! I definitely wanted to meet her.

What better time than the dinner at Ruth's Chris? It was being paid for by a colleague. I wasn't in a situation to buy a dinner at Ruth's Chris, so this was my chance to impress her.

I got directions to her house. I put on my best clothes and drove to her house. I knocked on the door with anticipation.

What greeted me almost floored me. This girl was huge. Gargantuan would describe it better. I was surprised she could fit through the door.

I didn't skip a beat. My plan was to act like it was noting and go on. Heck, we were just having dinner right?

I opened the car door for her. At the time, I was driving a Nissan Sentra. I shut the door and walked around to my side. As I was walking to my side of the car, I saw that it was leaning. It was leaning bad. She actually had to undo the shoulder harness because it wouldn't wrap around her all the way. The whole way over the car pulled to the right. It was a brand new car!

I introduced her as my friend and gave her the appropriate attention. I actually thought it had went well. I had no plans to ask her out again, though.

The next day, she emailed me and told me that she didn't want to see me again. Evidently, I had not paid enough attention to her. She said I ignored her. That could be further from the truth. I didn't pay attention to her like we were on a date. Looks like she got the clue.

I never heard from her again and never contacted her again either.

This was also the last time I ever used personals to meet someone.

I came across this video today.


Free Harley Videos

Notwithstanding that the average person would question it's validity, the premise makes for some interesting thought.

If you suffer a bump on the noggin, your arms and legs go limp in an effort to protect your brain. This is a natural reaction by your body. However, in this video the person demonstrating the phenomenon puts a helmet on the volunteer and raps his head the same as before and shows that the body will stay rigid.

There's a common theory about injuries in DUI accidents. The reason that the offender doesn't get injured as severely as the victim(s) is because they are relaxed. The victim(s) see the crash coming and tense up. When the impact occurs their bodies are already under stress, so their injuries are more severe that then intoxicated person's.

Applying this theory to the phenomenon demonstrated in the video, we can deduct that motorcycle helmets are bad.

Just food for thought.

I love motorcycles. I love everything about them. I eat, sleep, and live motorcycles.

When I get a chance to see some cool motorcycle videos, I hop on the opportunity. Yes, I ride a Harley, but any motorcycle video will feed my desire. Here's a few of my favorite sites:

* HDVideos.us - This site is all Harley videos, but you can also find any video from Youtube here as well. This site pulls Harley videos from Youtube and shows them.
* CycleVids.com - This site is about anything two wheeled. It offers motorcycle and bicycle videos.
* BikerPunks.com - This site is all about sport bikes. There's plenty of great racing videos.

Enjoy!

So, I've got a new jacket. I now have three. I'd like to keep two of them. I don't really need to keep the oldest one. It's served me well, but it's time to let it go.

You can buy it now at our partner site for free motorcycle classified.

Here's the link to the leather jacket.

Thanks for reading

I have a friend who has fallen on some hard times.

No, this isn't me. I'm not making up a scenario to tell you a story that's really about me. Trust me.

So, this friend of mine is having a hard time with money and is letting is affect her outlook on herself.

She has been living in a house that's not the nicest in the world. She just recently was told that the house was for sale and she was being asked to move out unexpectedly. She's also had a car accident and her car is totalled.

So now, she has no way to get around and is being forced to vacate her home.

On top of that, she makes her living as a model and the injuries she suffered in the accident have marked up her body. It's temporary, but is keeping her from working nonetheless. Not only does she not have a car and is being forced out of her home, but she has no way to work until she heals.

She's having a hard time to say the least. She's also letting it get to her. It's kind of a downward spiral.

Trust me, I've been there. But wallowing in your own self pity does you no good. The more you're told no, or the lower you fall, the closer you are to a yes or turning your life around.

Feeling sorry for yourself only makes it worse.

I believe that who/what ever you spend New Years Day/Eve with you will spend the whole year with. It's really important to me that I surround myself with family and friends on New Years. Of course that has to include the motorcycle as well.

Yesterday, I went riding with Biker Dick. We took a short little afternoon jaunt on the outskirts of Smyrna, TN. From the Cracker Barrel on Sam Ridley Parkway, we headed out east on Blair Road and the north on Rock Springs Road to Rocky Fork and then Almaville Road back to I-24W to end back up at the Cracker Barrel. It was a nice 30-40 minute ride. It would've been longer, but we couldn't get on the road until nearly 4 and we wanted to be back safe in our homes before sundown, which usually happens at about 5 here in Middle Tennessee.

Today, I met up with Rick Culpepper and some other friends and took a nice trip through Franklin to Spring Hill. We stopped in Spring Hill and had some wings at Wings & Things. Then we headed back out to HD of Cool Springs.

I started the ride in Smyrna to Cool Springs in about 45 degree weather. The sun was shining and all was nice. I really enjoyed the ride out to meet Rick and some other friends.

Once we were done at Wings & Things, we headed out to the bikes and found ourselves in the midst of snow flurries!

Living in Florida for the past five years and Hawaii for five years before that, I had yet to ride in snow. Now, it was about 36 and the snow wasn't sticking to the ground, but it was snow nonetheless. It was pretty neat.

What was more neat that I was able to spend New Years surrounded by friends and loved ones!

Here's to a great 2008!

I went to a Gentlemen's Club last Saturday night and spent some quality time there

While I was there, a bunch of kids came in. I say kids, but these guys were probably 18-24. I could tell they were sailors. They all had the clean cut look. Also Jacksonville has two huge bases.

Anyway, this one kid was wearing a motorcycle jacket. I asked him what he was riding and looked at me like I was an idiot. I said I that I rode the old Harley parked outside and was curious what he was riding since he had on a motorcycle jacket.

He replied that it was too cold to ride, so he and some buddies took their cars.

WHAT!

I immediately chastised him for posing. Don't wear your motorcycle jacket if you're not riding! Leave it at home. You don't look cool, retard!

I'm looking for a new TV. RIght now I have a Sony XBR 65" Widescreen HDTV. I like it alright, but my situation has put me in need of a new one.

I really like the 65" TV's. I'm looking at the plasma screens, but in 65" they are really expensive. So a projection TV is looking pretty good. That's what my XBR is.

Today, I got an email about the Toshiba 65HM167 DLP HDTV - 65", 1080p Native, 16:9, ATSC, NTSC, HDMI, PC Input, ATSC Tuner. Here's a video about it.

The guy talks kinda fast, but the TV is impressive. I think I'll have to see one in person. Stay tuned!