My son wanted to get a comic book a few weeks ago, so obviously I went with him to a shop and got him a few books. One of Wall-E, a few older Star Wars titles and a really old Transformers book (circa 1986).

Of course, I was begged every night for the past week or so to sit and read them to him after I got home from work, which I happily obliged. Quality time together, learning to read, learning to appreciate art, etc.

But obviously, it doesn’t end there. Not even close. In fact, it’s the (second) beginning. I’m collecting books all over again.

Yep, I got the bug too (again), and it didn’t take long wandering around the shop to grab a fist-full of titles and dive head-long back into the wonderful world of comics.

Hey, I’m broke anyway most of the time … may as well have some books to show for it. (You other comic enthusiasts know what I mean.)

I picked up the usuals to start back in: HellBoy, Spawn, various Batman series, Iron Man and Deadpool. I was particularly excited about one double-sized issue which will go un-named from the above list.

This issue looked great from the cover, sitting inside it’s gleaming board and bag. I finally get around to opening it and flipping a few pages tonight, and was slapped in the face by the art. Granted, most of it was good (as I was expecting). But, I was stunned by the discrepancies.

Now, I understand books will often have a few artists working the pencils, inks and colors to finish the title in a timely fashion. But this was overboard. For example, in a two-page spread there was one page obviously drawn by one person and the other page very obviously drawn by someone else. And, their styles were the exact opposite. One was light-handed and detailed, the other very thick-lined and color-blotchy. Night and day.

It really doesn’t do anything to help the old “suspension of disbelief.”

It sucks, to be blunt.

As I flipped through the book (not reading it, just skimming the art), it was that way throughout with even more art styles. The masthead revealed to me there were seven artists, not including the one that did the cover. Seven.

Now tell me, how the $%#! do you expect any kind of consistency or even congruency with that number of cooks in the kitchen. I mean, DAMN.

So I really have no desire to follow Iron Man anymore (oops — let the cat outta the bag, there). Especially when it was followed by that pitiful excuse of storytelling called 500.1.

Back to DC, Image and Dark Horse I go. At least Marvel keeps me by a thread with Deadpool (until they figure a way to muck that one up, too).

When you think you’ve got a handle on things, that you’ve got “it” all figured out … that’s when you get hit. Sometimes it’s good, but most of the time it’s “not.”

I say “not” because even the discouraging things that happen in life really do happen for a reason. They often teach us a more valuable lesson than the positives. Character is only gained through adversity, and stuff like that.

Yeah, we (my family and I) got hit by a massive slider today. HBP, in the baseball realm, if you will. But all things considered, we have already started learning the lesson from it: that life is really way too short to waste time on the small stuff. And yes, most of it is small stuff.

Spent a lot of good, old quality time with the family. It’s amazing how therapeutic it can be for any relationship (with my wife, and with my son) just to spend time together without the constraints of looking at a blackberry every so often, or dragging in after a 10-hour work day, or whatever.

We didn’t really go anywhere (just some local places, had a friend over for dinner, etc.), but we all “rediscovered” each other and how much fun we can have together. You know, why we’re a family in the first place.

I also spent some time reorganizing some of my blogs, giving two of them facelifts (Light Evolved, my photoblog, as well as Moto Boro, which is my motorcycle blog). I got to do some photography, and get in some real time with my new speedlites. Those wonderfully nebulous lightmakers can be both blessing and damnation…

And lastly, I logged plenty of hours with my fav pastimes: reading and video games. T’was a great vacation, indeed.

Yes, there is a degree of sarcasm on the surface. But deeper there is a feeling of abandonment and hurt.

Granted, there are always a minimum of two sides to every story. My wife would say she got up early and made me pancakes the size of a Big Mac and kept our son at bay so I could do whatever I wanted this morning.

My side would be I didn’t mind our son interrupting me, as I wasn’t doing anythig important, and I told her I wanted to spend some family time together and go out to eat as a family.

She left hours ago with our son to go see someone or do something. Now, I’m sure there are things she does for me that I don’t appreciate just like I do for her. We’re human – we make mistakes. Marriages are chock full of mistakes along the line.

The mistakes aren’t what really bothers me, when I take a few steps back and think about it. What hurts truly is the time it takes to come back with a heartfelt apology and some effort to make the situation right.

Most of the time, the real apology doesn’t come until after the defiance or the iron-clad case of defense has been presented. And, I mean from both sides: I’m just as guilty as she is.

Life is short; shorter for some than others. I fear mine is going to be artificially shortened by riding a sportbike. Put aside your pride, your ego and your arrogance.

Babe, I’m sorry.

Granted, I am an organized person (well, as much as I can be with a family, a 4-year old, a few jobs and several blogs). Professionally, I am efficient and work under constant deadlines. I’m good at what I do, and I know what I’m doing.

But in the realm of my personal life, there always seems to be far too little time. Never enough time for my wife and son, to pursue hobbies and interests, to sit and do nothing.

I realize a good bit of this is self-imposed. I would think I’d expect no free time with two jobs, several blogs and a down economy. It’s the nature of the beast.

That’s why it’s important to do what you love. Life is so short, there’s no sense in being miserable. “Work hard, play hard, sleep hard.” “Go big or go home.” All that jazz.

Do what you love, and love what you do. And who you’re with. And how you do it.

Now get out there and do something.

So, I was surfing the web one night (on the Trek bicycles site, in fact), and asked her jokingly how she felt about me spending $11,000 on a bike. She replied that it had better be a motorcycle, and in that event she would be okay if she got to use my Scion xB. I asked if she was serious about her proposal, and she replied “if I get the Scion, then yes.” (Note to self: even at that stage of the negotiation she chose the article “the” rather than using “your” …)

Off to Yamaha Motors’ site I went. My first ever bike was a 1995 Yamaha Virago 535 – a comfortable little cruiser with a shaft drivetrain. I knew in preparation of my mid-life crisis I wanted a sportbike, and I’ve always been a fan of the Yamaha stuff. Especially their race replica bikes…

Now, bear in mind that even though I’ve kept my motorcycle endorsement on my license since 1995, I haven’t been on a bike in over a decade. Bear in mind, too, that race replica bikes are powerful to the point of stupidity and not your average first-timer bike (or returning-rider bike). Most race replicas have a power-to-weight ratio that exceeds even what exotic sports cars like Ferrari sell to the general public. These are not your average “crotch rockets” – they are basically racing bikes used on the tracks with a license plate bracket and a few turn signals bolted on to make them street legal (well, street legal enough until we start taking most of that stuff back off, like the restrictive exhaust pipes and noise baffles).

Are race bikes good first-timer bikes? Sure, if you’re looking to DIE.

So what do I do? I navigate through the Yamaha site until I can find their pages for the R6 - a 600cc race replica with a redline just shy of 17,000 RPMs (yes, that’s 17K, the “1″ in front of the “7″ is not a typo, nor are the three zeroes behind it) and enough horsepower to throw the front wheel straight up in the air as if someone was robbing it at gunpoint (“reach for the SKY…”).

Now, I’m not stupid. But I’m not dumb either — and yes, there’s a difference. Stupid is thinking I can hop aboard that R6 and run the throttle balls-open and not get into some kind of trouble (legal or medical). Dumb is thinking I can get some pared-back sport-ISH bike and think I’ll be happy puttering back and forth to work.

In late February the whole family and I went to the Yamaha/Kawasaki dealership to shop. Walking in, my son and I both had eyes as wide as saucers and grins like a Cheshire cat. I only made it about 30 feet into the showroom, as they had the R6 and R1 models right up front.

Just to say I did it, I sat on one of the Kawasaki Ninjas. Fine bike, but not what I wanted. Also sat on the Yami R1, and felt the brush of death creep past me. Quietly got off that monster, and looked at the R6s.

And lo, the 2009 models were on sale, the skies parted and angels sang…

Now exactly two months later, I have 3,000 miles on my R6 and still love it. More to come.

Granted, most guys do. We like to take things apart, see how they work, put them back together, etc. We love to fix things, and tinker. This isn’t news; it’s not even really non-fiction … it’s one of the basic facts of life.

So I needed a decent set of plain, metric wrenches. Just a set of fixed wrenches. Nothing adjustable, no fancy ratcheting this or titanium that. Just good old wrenches, metrics please. 9mm to about 19mm will do the trick. So when my wife and I were doing our usual grocery shopping at Wal*Mart last week, I picked up a set of Stanley metric wrenches for about $20. Seemed like an ordinary thing to do.

Maybe not.

When I got home, I started taking the wrenches out of the packaging, and noticed several were bent in the handles. I mean, visibly and wavily bent. Granted, that may not necessarily mean the tolerances were inaccurate for the wrenches. But in all it shook my confidence in the tools, as well as my belief in the Stanley products (and what Wal*Mart carries).

Now, I’m not a Wally Basher. God bless them for the simple fact there’s no where else in our rural area within a 30-minute drive when I needed milk and diapers at 3:00 AM not so long ago for my young son when he was a baby. I also know they are the loss leader, but we’re talking about simple crescent wrenches here folks. This wasn’t the latest and greatest of technology even in the last century.

Perception IS reality.

Those wrenches may have been accurate, even with bent handles. They may have held up fine for years. But my perception was they were inferior as soon as I took them out of the packaging because of how they looked. Bent handles? No thanks. I perceived them to look inferior, so to me they were inferior. I returned them and got my little $20 back.

Across the street I so, to the Home Depot. “Surely, they will have decent tools. Wrenches that are straight, for sure,” I thought. “But, I’ll probably have to pay double for them. But, I’d still rather buy quality once than inferior tools over and over.” Imagine my surprise, then, when I walk into the tool aisle and find a set of Husky crescent metric wrenches for $1 more than over at Wal*Mart. Same number of wrenches. But these were all perfectly straight (for one), and felt heavier (more sturdy, for two) and had a much nicer polished finish to them (perception is reality — i.e. if they look nicer then they must be nicer, for three).

I was happy, to be certain, that I found a nice set of wrenches. I was elated, however, to find them for only $1 more (that’s a 5% increase in price, for the mathematically challenged). Sure, Home Depot had ratcheting wrenches for around $75 and all sorts of other uber-cool stuff. But I got what I wanted for a price I wanted.

Well, I actually got more than I wanted. I also picked up mechanic gloves, a 5-piece set of Husky pliers, a 100-piece socket set from Husky (in black chrome!) and various other things totaling about $150. There’s something to be said about winning over a happy customer…