Well not really.

I did manage to snap another cylinder head bolt (in my defense, it had gotten bent from the impact from the gas tank during one my many medium-speed wipeouts in sand in southern Angola that popped off the rubber gas tank mounts and was leaking oil), and this of course means with no pressure at the top of the cylinder head, you have a functioning motorcycle only as long as you take Mt. St. Helens-style oil eruptions, possible valve damage, and cam chain corrosion.

But not to fear.

Why?

Because I am currently being helped in organizing one of the greatest airlifts in human history.  The Belgian government’s instant retreat from the Congo that left the entire country with only 16 university graduates?  The US Army’s last hours in Saigon as CIA officers scrambled onto to the legs of helicopters? The D-Day invasion of the Normandy coast in WWII?  The Berlin Airlift that marked the beginning of cold war hostility between the USSR and the USA?

These all have NOTHING on the Luanda-organized Houston-to-Angola Great Valve Cover Bolt Airlift of 2008, quarterbacked by  a seasoned Cape Town-based entrepreneur known for landing helicopters on lawns for no good reason, a slightly confused Texan motorcycle parts supplier, a obviously former brain surgeon turned Houston courier driver, a bewildered oil company employee about to board a charter flight to Luanda, and an overweight asthmatic airline pilot who wouldn’t dare grab that last donut if it meant taking his hand off the controls for even a nanosecond on such an important mission.

With any luck I will be in the DRC in a few days, and The Great Airlift will be soon seen in the living rooms of housebound seniors everywhere on The History Channel, with millions of forkfuls of Stouffer’s Lasagna frozen in in mid-air as a geriatric army is captivated in synchronicity.

This is all possible by the oasis of America found on Angolan soil in the expat compound here in Luanda - more on this in the next post.

Stay tuned.