Another decision on a whim.

While I'm done with online gaming, I do still miss spending time with the old core group of guys I had played with for so long. One of the reasons it was finally so easy for me to quit playing was that we had all gotten scattered to the winds as a result of a twisted love triangle involving a few of the younger people in the group. For any WoW widows or Everquest widows out there, your spouses don't play because the games are that phenomenally interesting. They play because they're part of a network of people that respect them and want them around.

For people who grew up without much of a social network, or for those of us that were the embarrassing black sheep of the family, finding yourself with a group of people that size that wants you around is a hard thing to let go of. Based on that, there are really only a few ways that they'll stop playing the game that gives that emotional reward: the group collapses, their real life falls apart so much that gaming becomes impossible, or they find something else in the real world that gives them a feeling of accomplishment. For me, it was a combination of the first, followed by stumbling across an ad for a BMW R1150R.

Now I've decided to use my newly revisited real world hobby to go visit the people from my old one. Chesapeake, VA to Center Sandwich, NH in one day (on 10/19), followed by two days partying with all of the old people I spent so much time "with" on ventrilo, and then back again in one day. The last time I owned a motorcycle, I had been riding for almost a year before I tried something like this (though that was still almost 100 miles shorter). This time, I'm doing it about 12 weeks after I purchased my new baby. I guess the fact that I regularly go head out for 6 hours or more a day every weekend already makes the 12 hour trip seem a little less intimidating......having a real bike helps too.