Personal Vespa Failure

I often blog about stupid things that kill IT projects. This post describes how I almost killed my Vespa scooter today. I live in Boston (actually Brookline, which is almost an extension of Boston), and often ride a Vespa on short trips around town. Many times it’s faster than driving, it saves gas, and is definitely lots of fun.

Today, I went to visit my Tibetan friend, Tulku Thondup, in Cambridge, which is a few miles from Brookline. Tulku was born into a nomadic family in eastern Tibet, went to India as a refugee in the late fifties, and eventually settled in Cambridge where he taught at Harvard University. A brilliant Buddhist scholar, he is a prolific author and travels the world teaching and presenting workshops. Eventually, I may post pictures about the trip I took to Tibet a few years ago with Tulku and a few other friends.

Along the way to Cambridge, I stopped at a gas station to put air in the tires and check the oil. Since I try to maintain my faithful steed meticulously, I braved greasy hands and added oil. Bad move on my part. Why bad, you ask? Because by mistake I added the oil into the gas tank. (Don’t ask how it happened, it just did.) Well, I thought, this is no big deal since the oil will burn off as I ride. Yeah, well it was a good plan for about a mile, until I reached Harvard Square, and the thing sputtered and died. I called Tulku to cancel today’s visit, and resigned myself to pushing a dead scooter several miles back home. This was not a thrilling prospect, to say the least. To make a long story short, I coaxed the thing back to a semi-living state, and rode it directly to the Vespa dealer in Boston. Tonight, it remains hospitalized, preparing to undergo emergency cleaning of internal systems, which I hope will take place tomorrow.

And the moral of this sad tale of woe: whether in regards to IT projects or Vespa scooters, sometimes bad things happen and the best you can do is clean up the mess later.