I sold the Harley a couple days ago. As much as that bike has meant to me, it was time to say goodbye. I bought "Danger Roja" brand new after completing 26 radiation treatments and 59 bone-crunching chemo treatments. She was a reward to myself for making it through all of that, and was an instrumental tool in pulling me out of that chemo induced fog and back into the world of the living. I put almost 52,000 miles on her and wrecked the ever loving shit out of her once, and juiced every bit of life giving serum out of her I possibly could have, but it was time to find her a new home.
I placed a craigslist ad laying out the whole story of her, every last detail. Most people who wreck their bikes won't mention it in the ad, but I felt like it was a piece of a much larger, and very interesting story. It took a couple days to be contacted by her potential buyer, but it did happen. Paying off the loan balance was a bit tricky because the bank Harley uses for all their in-house financing is in Illinois, so the payment would have to be sent in and processed before they would release the title. The new buyer (Jeff) was a little unsure about this, thinking the bike might be stolen or have a salvaged title, or any other scam people run on people from craigslist.
In the half-day he was hemming and hawing, I was contacted by a second interested party, Jim who happened to be Jeff's co worker. Jeff had been talking about the bike at work, so Jim looked up the ad and set up a time that evening to come take a look. When he saw Danger, saw that the registration had my name in it and that the vin number matched up, he called Jeff and said he was being an asshole about it, and that if he didn't make a move on it within two days, Jim was going to buy it out from under him. He basically sold the bike for me, which was a relief :) Two days later I drove her down to the trucking company in SoDo where the guys worked and took payment. Jeff and I drove (in his car) out to BECU to get a cashier's check to send off to Harley to pay off the loan balance, and I took the remainder in cash. The title should process in about 14 business days, then we'll have to meet back up so I can sign the title over to him. I'll have enough left over to pay off my one remaining credit card so I'll enter into this new phase of life completely debt free. Without the expense of the bike, and with the half-proced apartment, this transition should be pretty easy :)
In other news, today I have an appointment at work to take my return to work pee test. Once this comes back clean (it should take a few more days to determine that) I'll be authorized to start back to work. Then it'll be time to plan out when my last day will be. This is really coming together, and, though I'm not excited to go back to that warehouse and face everyone who knows I'm "the cancer patient who got busted for smoking pot", I'm looking forward to this all coming to an end.
Then I'll have a huge retirement party :)
I placed a craigslist ad laying out the whole story of her, every last detail. Most people who wreck their bikes won't mention it in the ad, but I felt like it was a piece of a much larger, and very interesting story. It took a couple days to be contacted by her potential buyer, but it did happen. Paying off the loan balance was a bit tricky because the bank Harley uses for all their in-house financing is in Illinois, so the payment would have to be sent in and processed before they would release the title. The new buyer (Jeff) was a little unsure about this, thinking the bike might be stolen or have a salvaged title, or any other scam people run on people from craigslist.
In the half-day he was hemming and hawing, I was contacted by a second interested party, Jim who happened to be Jeff's co worker. Jeff had been talking about the bike at work, so Jim looked up the ad and set up a time that evening to come take a look. When he saw Danger, saw that the registration had my name in it and that the vin number matched up, he called Jeff and said he was being an asshole about it, and that if he didn't make a move on it within two days, Jim was going to buy it out from under him. He basically sold the bike for me, which was a relief :) Two days later I drove her down to the trucking company in SoDo where the guys worked and took payment. Jeff and I drove (in his car) out to BECU to get a cashier's check to send off to Harley to pay off the loan balance, and I took the remainder in cash. The title should process in about 14 business days, then we'll have to meet back up so I can sign the title over to him. I'll have enough left over to pay off my one remaining credit card so I'll enter into this new phase of life completely debt free. Without the expense of the bike, and with the half-proced apartment, this transition should be pretty easy :)
In other news, today I have an appointment at work to take my return to work pee test. Once this comes back clean (it should take a few more days to determine that) I'll be authorized to start back to work. Then it'll be time to plan out when my last day will be. This is really coming together, and, though I'm not excited to go back to that warehouse and face everyone who knows I'm "the cancer patient who got busted for smoking pot", I'm looking forward to this all coming to an end.
Then I'll have a huge retirement party :)