Some time passed and I started to believe the 7-er was too big. I revised my goal to own a 540i, manual transmission. As I matured more I came to the realization that these vehicles aren’t cheap, and I probably wouldn’t be able to afford a 5-er. So I revised my goal and made it to own a BMW 3-er, of no specific engine size.

Originally my goal was to buy a BMW when I turned 25. I did not forget that goal. When I turned 25 I was still living in an apartment, did not own a car, and had no dependants. Financially, owning a BMW, possibly used, was possible but I went a different route: I bought a motorcycle.

I have been riding the 2007 Honda Shadow Spirit since 2008–four riding seasons (well, I did miss one due to living on another continent). I’ve done some things to the bike to make it a little more capable of long-distance rides: added a GPS, quick-release saddle bags, changed the rear sprocket, and added a quick-release windshield. Honestly, with all of these things the bike feels like it’s bigger and heavier than it is and removing them makes it feel light and nimble. But the bike remains heavy, slow, and loud. These are great things for cruising around town, but work against it on the longer rides.

I want a motorcycle that I can ride to Toronto without wearing ear plugs; a motorcycle that has a luggage piece that can hold a second helmet; a motorcycle that doesn’t leave me searching for a missing gear when riding on the highway; a motorcycle that can keep up to the 130 km/h traffic on Toronto’s 401 express lanes; a motorcycle is comfortable for 2-3 hour riding stretches; and a motorcycle that has the power to get me out of a situation at the flick of a wrist.

Some bonus features? How about ABS brakes; an on-board computer; a centre stand; and maybe heated grips. How about a maintenance-free belt-driven final drive, a 0-60 time of 3.6 seconds, and a convenient 12V power outlet? World-recognized reliability and experience in creating performance vehicles.

How about a BMW F800ST? Six gears, a top-speed of 225 km/h, fairings, windshield, luggage, quiet exhaust, designed for light touring with a sporty-twist. Not too much power, but more than enough for public roads. I think this is the bike for me.

It was weird and hilarious.

It’s also worth mentioning that I had an Iced Grande two-pump white mocha light-ice latte. It was amazing.

There were two recurring items of work that I could remember: journal entries, and cursive writing. Journal entries definitely happened every day. We would all have time to write an entry, which always included a drawing for me. The topic was rarely set so I would often write about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles–a sort of fan fiction, if you will. But as much fun as writing TMNT fan fiction was, it was more fun to play games at the back of the class.

Being the bright, young man that I was, I had mastered a technique that would allow me to play with the toys more than anyone else in the class. My technique involved not doing the work assigned to me, but claiming that it was done. I was so smart that I would wait a believable amount of time before I would ask for permission to play, and Ms. White didn’t ask me for evidence that the daily quota was met.

The plan was not perfect as it were, because we were also called on at random every day to read entries from our journals to the class. If I was called on I would have nothing to read. (It, perhaps, hadn’t occurred to me that I could just read from an earlier entry, as I did occasionally write something.) To work around this, I would always ask to go to the washroom every day at journal reading time. I would spend the approximately length of time that journals were read in the washroom. When I came back from the washroom I would always stand in the hall and listen in until I confirmed that journal reading was over. It was perfect.

Okay, it wasn’t actually perfect because I eventually got caught. Remember that I also had cursive writing that I skipped out on? Well, one day Ms. White decided that she would check everyone’s cursive. It took a while to get through everyone and the whole time I was worried–staring at blank pages. It was probably the most agonizing time in my life up to that point. Inevitably I as called on to visit Ms. White’s desk with my notebook to show her my missing work. She was not pleased. I was sent to my desk and told to sit and do the work until it was done; meanwhile my classmates were all playing games, running around, having fun.

My work ethic changed after that and I started to apply myself a little bit more.

Two other things that were worth noting from these grades: my aptitude for maths was uncovered, and Emily Gale–my first crush. We had a maths challenge one day where we had to correctly answer a series of addition questions on the path to finding some treasure. I was one of only a couple of students to answer each question correctly, and for this I won one of those large plastic “diamonds” as my treasure. In retrospect I should have offered the treasure to Emily, but I suppose most 6 year olds don’t have much experience in the art of wooing.

I have a Polk Audio PSW10 10″, 100-watt subwoofer. This little subwoofer might be perfect for, say, a garage. I’ve had this sub for a while and it’s done its duty. It weighs 26 pounds.

My second subwoofer is an Infinity PS212. I haven’t used it yet, but I suspect it would go great in a living room. I have only great great things about this sub. The sheet says it can dip down to reproduce 25 Hz sound. It weighs 44.7 pounds.

My third subwoofer is a JBL L8400. This one has served faithfully in my home theatre for half a year now. This impressive little guy has a response starting at 22 Hz, and a 600-watt amplifier. It weighs an impressive 58 pounds.

The two most important features of iPhone 3.0 with respect to being a good mobile phone are: MMS, and Internet tethering. MMS is the messaging with pictures, sounds, and videos. MMS has existed for years: my SE T616 had this in 2003; my Treo 650 had this in 2005; now, finally, iPhone has this in 2009. MMS will not be available to first generation iPhone owners, but will be available to iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS owners. I presume that MMS is not available to first generation iPhones due to the slow speeds that EDGE offers.

Internet tethering allows you to use your mobile phone as a data modem, often used with a computer. This feature predates MMS. In fact, I was using a Nokia 6360 (circa 2002) on the Rogers TDMA network as a dialup modem at 9600 baud. We are fortunate enough to now have very reasonable download speeds available over the wireless network, making tethering on the iPhone long overdue.

iPhone 3.0 resolves a number of other long-standing complaints of others, but these are less critical in my opinion. Cut, copy, and paste are now supported through iPhone. Notes are now synced when iPhone is synced. Landscape mode is supported in more apps (Mail, Messages, and Notes). There is now a voice memos application. And, finally, bluetooth audio is supported (iPhone 3G and 3GS only).

There are some new features that are quite cool. I think Spotlight search on the iPhone is a great addition. This allows you to search all of contacts, e-mail, apps, your calendar, and more from one location. I didn’t look into whether this is extensible with application plug-ins (for example, if you had a recipe management application could it install a search plug-in on iPhone?), but this would be a great and welcome feature.

On top of the features that are listed on the iPhone software update page there are many minor tweaks that make using the device much more comfortable. You can now share contacts (e-mail a .vcf card); the home button is more configurable; the recent calls menu is greatly improved, showing more information in the list and listing call times and durations(!); lists in the iPod application include more information; the interface for moving, deleting, and forwarding multiple messages in Mail and Messages is much nicer. All of this among other minor OS and application improvements.

And these features only touch what you as a user will see. The OS upgrade will also offer developers much greater possibilities than before, including dock-connector access, PAN access to nearby users, and in-app purchases. I dare not leave out the long-awaited push notifications–Apple’s answer to background applications.

In all, iPhone OS 3.0 is very exciting. iPhone 3GS is a nice bump forward in internal hardware, but its significance is eclipsed by the software update. iPhone OS 3.0 finally brings the iPhone to where all other phones have been for the past 5 years and makes it a seriously good option for those really looking to tie their life up in one device.

To this day, seeing a BRIO set will bring a smile to my face. I hope that my children and yours will enjoy BRIO toy trains as much as I did. I can imagine it now…