There are very few people in life that you can call a proper friend. (i'm not going to use the word "Mate" because in the States, that has some other connitations, which is just weird).  I have two real proper friends. The kind of friends that you can trust with your last bottle of Irn Bru and bag o' chips.

One of them is a man who, despite his love of Neil Young and warehouse management systems, has always been there for me and has always tollerated my love of cheesy 80's hair music: Jamie Barr, you know who you are. The other "Geezer" is someone I've known for the best part of 17 years. He is a man who nearly burnt down his apartment while solidifing the ends of his dreadlocks with wax. A man who decided that one triumph TR7 was not enough and bought two. A man who thought nothing of giving up his chance to ride in the back of the tour van with the chicks, so that we could all get home in one piece. I could go on.... and for the right price I probably would, but in the meantime I'm happy to introduce Robbie Booth...the new guest writer for the Stoafer blog.

How did I come to know this guy and whats the history? Very long story but I'll try to summerize by way of nice looking bullet points:

• I'm at an Edinburgh rock club moshing to Anthrax, headbanging to the Bullet Boyz and laughing at all the grungers in their lumberjack shirts. I'm also wearing my "zildjian" drum t-shirt.
• Robbie's at the same club doing his thing (I cant call it dancing because that be-littles this amazing spectacle), laughing at all the "mincers" who love cheesy 80's hair metal. He's wearing his "Peace Frog" T-shirt...Peace Frog being the name of his band. We chat about band stuff and I'm asked to audition for his band.
• I'm sceptical about the band thing because I'm about to move to Dundee to start University. I Get up to University and find out I'm living in the same apartment block as the singer of the band, Robbies brother! For about 5 years, and after some band name changes, we play in said band and live in each others pockets until Robbie moves to the States to work for Microsoft.
• 2 years later, Robbie gets me a job in Microsoft. We work together for 3 years and Robbie moves to California.
• 1 year later, Robbie gets me a job in his company in California. (see the pattern developing.)
• Company folds and 6 months later, I join Robbie in helping a start-up get off the ground.

So you get the idea. Aside from the initial move to the States, I think this is the first time we've not lived in the same town. Up until a few weeks ago, I think the only thing we didnt have in common was motorcycles. He helped rectify that by not only pretending to be me and instigating the purchase of my bike but also helping persuade my lovely wife that it was actually a good idea. Dont think it would've been such an easy sell without his ever persuasive words.

All that said, It's great that he's decided to write here and share some of his vast riding experience. Believe me he's riden alot, has seen many sights, has many stories and has sampled many different machines. He also knows alot about motorcycles so that helps too. I really look forward to reading what he's got to say and in the meantime, I'll leave you with some other interesting facts about this great man:

• He owns a dog and one cat. He is very angry due to an incident where he was gang raped by 2 racoons. (The cat that is, Not Robbie.) The result being that Numan has an "offset" bumhole and a hatred of all forrest type creatures.
• He was responsible for one of my most embarassing moment where, while walking over a bridge that spanned a busy freeway, him and his brother decided to run up behind me and pull down my pants . As we were coming back from band rehersal it just so happened I was wearing no underwear and had my hands full carrying drum crap. Cheers Chief.
• In our long hair days, Robbie's hair grew "out" instead of "Down"...only adding to his amazing resemblence to Eddie Vedder and resulting in the amazing ability to get all the groupies.
• He used to own 24 guitars...all of them Yamaha SG's.
• Thanks to Robbie, The popular game "Asheron's Call" shipped with a great "feature" whereby if you completed certain steps in the help section, a lovely pop up appeared with the text "Didnae Feckin' Work!". I'm sure he can ellaborate if required.

So there you go...Ladies, gentlemen and people from Russia...I give you Mr Robbie Booth.