April 30, 2006 Diary (with videos)
What a day.
For some background information, something bad happened to the DNS for Vanson Leathers, making their website unavailable. Long story short, I did them a favor (full story on my new website scooterati) and decided to take them on their offer to come by and check out the sale.
So when thinking about people that would enjoy a field trip to Fall River to see the good people at Vanson Leathers, I thought of my friend Dmitry.
First, I finally met his cat. I love this cat. The cat just loves to play and likes to fetch. He cat has huge double-paws. Love that.
Next we hit the road and got to a full parking lot at Vanson Leathers. Their big sale drew a big crowd, and there were wall to wall motorcycles. Didn’t see any scooters, but saw a full compliment of sport bikes, street bikes, roadsters, and every combination thereof.
We went and checked out the store and I met up with my contact there, who introduced me to the owner and we went over the whole situation together. Long story short, they let me pick out a jacket, which was a remarkable gesture. I really didn’t think they’d be so appreciative and I thought maybe they’d throw me a free Vanson wallet or give me a discount but I certainly didn’t think they’d let me pick something out to have. I love it. Like all Vanson products it is perfect, and quite comfortable. I also fell in love with a jacket they have a prototype of hanging on the sales floor—it is a really crazy distressed aged leather. Looks great, and has a nice fit to it. Once they get their supply of the leather ironed out and put on the finishing touches it will be an amazing jacket that they’ll sell out of almost immediately, I promise.
After we left the store we checked out the stunt riders, and I filmed them with my N90. A lot of people in the crowd were paying a lot of attention to my phone. Sometimes I forget that a phone that flips out into a full-blown camcorder isn’t exactly commonplace. So I grabbed a couple of videos of the stunt riders goofing off in the parking lot and have them available here as well.
and -
After that, I came home, put on my new jacket and went for a ride down Blackstone, up into College Hill, stopped by Whole Foods for some tortillini salad and sandwich buns, and came home to lotion up my new coat and commence the break-in period.
It was quite a day.