Thank You for the kind words. I think one of my Father's greatest disappointments with me was that I did not get the Gearhead Gene. Everyone else in the family had it but I did not. I have always been more interested on what made things tick in a vehicle rather than going as fast as possible in a vehicle. Now my father did take me stock car racing (just Pure Stock at a local dirt track) and I had a bunch of fun with it but my talents lay in Engineering design. I'm a R&D Mechanical Engineer in my day job. And yeah, there are so many stories of people who just don't understand the percentages or how powerful these modern day Motorcycles are. I had a friend who knew of someone who died in one day after purchasing one of the "crotch rockets". The guy had never driven a very powerful motorcycle. He got on it and did not hold tightly to the bike. When he took off, the acceleration pulled him back and as his body shifted backwards he unconsciously rolled his throttle hand back, accelerating the motorcycle. He hit a solid brick wall going some ungodly speed and died instantly. Gordon
Dealing with the disappointment of a parent is never easy and tends to follow one unless you have an unusually strong character. Going into R&D ME is one, actually several, better in my book. Not only do you understand the mechanisms but the underling principals behind them. They should be proud of your accomplishments - of course growing into a decent human being is accomplishment enough.