Birds of a feather

I am like my grandfather's pocket watch that tells exactly the right time never less (or more) than twice a day. Well, not quite that bad, but I am running about a week slow. These events happened seven days ago. What can I say? Settling in after a major move is a little more than a full-time job, and keeping up with the dizzying world of the blogosphere takes a back seat.

I could have sworn last Monday's meeting was called for seven. My iPhone and the MeetUp app said six.  So I aimed for six.

Settling in

There is actually some room to spare in the kitchen thanks to some creative use of space under the stairs.

We built one of those custom shelf things on casters that lives under the stairs and holds kitchen stuff that is rarely used but can't be disposed of, like cookie sheets, the pizza pan, the mammoth turkey-sized roasting pan, and some other stuff.

A magnus fumus usque ad udo litore

The title for this instalment of Life on Two Wheels could be our moto. In some ways it represents our immediate family: four kids in Toronto, two in Vancouver.

Cardboard hell, or "where's the kettle?"

Moving day was last Tuesday. It was a day I hope to forget.

"Where does this go?"

"Ah... den."

"Should all these boxes go in the locker? Oh, and where's the locker?"

"Right..."

The beauty of a three story town house, with the den, office, and spare bedroom on the third floor, is that it's a really nice retreat. Or will be, once the furniture is in the right places, the TV is up and running, the home network is firing on all cylinders... To be honest, as much progress as we have made, on M+6 the house is not nearly a home.

Too much cardboard. Too much wrapping paper. Too much, and I thought I'd never say this because normally it's endless fun, bubble wrap.

At least the internet as I knew it and the Apple wireless network is functional. The TV is only partially operational though. I think the Bell guy might have to make a return engagement.

The point of all of this is that there is hope. There is definitely hope.

I just thought I'd check in, in case you all thought I had plowed the Vespa into a culvert somewhere down the 401 in Ontari-ari-ari-oh.

Smoke Meat Pete

How important is Montreal smoked meat?

I explored this with you recently.

I forgive you without hesitation for thinking I was indulging in a just a tiny little bit of exageration. Mark Twain had a nice way of putting it. He called them stretchers, truth embellished with a gloss that invites a reasonable person's closer scrutiny.

Au revoir mes amis! Helllloooo!

Je vous quitte.

Il s'agit du dénouement d'une histoire déjà bien longue. La fin d'un projet né lorsque nos trois enfants approchaient la fin de leurs études.

(patience... please read on)

I am a wrencher!

My Dad (thanks Dad) encouraged me to tear our lawn mower apart over a fall and winter season. I must have been thirteen.

Sonja's Big Move

Sonja has become a multi-state, globe trotting person. Now she's on the move again.

All packed up and ready for the move to Toronto.

Roast prime rib

Easter Sunday is almost here. The family will be gathering. You need to think about making something exceptional as an antidote to all the sugary treats the Easter Bunny is about to bring.

I anticipate few meals as much as when the star of the occasion is a standing rib roast. I know that many people figure that a nice leg of lamb or a bone in ham is the tradition for Easter so my suggestion will strike you as doubly counterintuitive, but bear with me. There's plenty of time to shift gears.

Bell Canada

Telling your story, whether it's to friends at the pub, or a story on your blog, is horribly inefficient. An incident of mere seconds takes way longer than that to explain.

Project report: Installing Hot Grips™ heated grips on a Vespa GTS 300 i.e. Super

This project report shows how I replaced the heated grips on my Vespa GTS 300 i.e. Super. If you are installing heated grips for the first time, you should refer to my earlier project report concerning the initial installation of heated grips. That project report is more complete and shows all the steps involved in disassembling the Vespa's headset, removing the stock grips, making a wiring loom, installing the heat control, and installing the heated grips.

When the time came to install heated grips on the Vespa GTS 300 i.e. Super, I hit a challenge. There's always a challenge.

Light, space, pixels, paper, steel :art:

posted with permission - 1903 Magazine

Weak bladder

This article may not be what you were expecting.

The end is near

Susan and I have a lot invested in our Montreal home, and I don't mean money.

When we were last thinking of moving it was because Susan really wanted a larger family room. That, and she had her eye on this part of Beaconsfield south for years. I would have been quite content to stay in our old house.

I agreed to move, but on one condition.

The beginning begins

The odds are the 2016 riding season will kick off early, with an epic ride.

Our pre-move preparations got me into the garage on Sunday. We're not hoarders so there wasn't much to discard, other than my Honda Civic.

Delibee - a hidden treasure

Let me tell you the story of Delibee, a tiny little jewel of a restaurant tucked away in a sleepy suburb, just north of the train tracks, and just west of bustling Trudeau International Airport.

To understand how important this virtually unknown eatery is, you need some historical and cultural context to work with. So let's travel briefly away from Delibee and head east towards downtown and then a little further east to the street Montrealers who have a long history here call 'the Main'.

ToadMama's Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge (BBBC # 29)

So this is it.

The end of Kathy's February blogger challenge: 29 posts in 29 days.

I knew it was going to be a difficult challenge. I had a lot on my plate in February, but I managed to pull it off.

If you are inclined to see all 29 of my responses to Kathy's devilish prompts, you can click here for the February 1 to 6 responses, click here for responses 7 to 15, and click here to see 16 through 28. I have added links below each response to the other participating bloggers' takes on the same topic.

I decided to save a stand-alone post for the last response. I'm glad it's over, but kind of sad to pen the last response.

My responses revealed my character in significant ways, in the way that Chuck Close's hundreds and hundreds of tiny abstracts yield a portrait once you back off enough. If you've never experienced his work, I encourage you to seek it out, or click here to see some examples online (but it's not the same experience as seeing it in a museum).

Kathy's last prompt is...

ToadMama's Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge (BBBC # 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28)

Kathy (ToadMama) published what she is calling her Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge. It's simple, a challenge that's a little crazy, and potentially demanding, but that is turning ought to be a whole lot of fun and very revealing for the participating bloggers.

A Friday to forget

While I was struggling unsuccessfully to get to Tampa last Friday, Susan was having an equally bad, awful, difficult day.

She pulled into the garage at home and when she got out of the car, she heard a really loud hissing sound.

Fear

I saw this card in Portland Oregon a while back.

I bought it because it meant something to me.

2016 Blogger to Blogger Tour - But just not now

I got to Trudeau Airport at 10h45 for an 11h30 boarding and 12h12 departure.

That didn't happen.

2016 Blogger to Blogger Tour - Meeting legends

Those of you who are perspicacious will have noticed that I indulged in a little time travel. I not only caught up on Kathy's BBBC, I managed to go all the way out to February 22.

The reason is simple.

Operation Empty Nest - The Great 2016 Real Estate War

The end is in sight for the crossroads period of my life. March 30, 2016. That's when we pull up roots and begin a new life in Toronto.

All the conditions for the sale of our Montreal home, and the purchase of our Toronto home, have been satisfied. Now it's all about wrapping up the basement renovation and packing. The renovation began before the offer to purchase our Montreal home came in, so we're committed to completing it. Now it's just a question of getting the paint out of the cans and onto the walls without making a mess of the floors.

ToadMama's Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge (BBBC #7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 , 13, 14, and 15)

Kathy (ToadMama) published what she is calling her Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge. It's simple, a challenge that's a little crazy, and potentially demanding, but that is turning ought to be a whole lot of fun and very revealing for the participating bloggers.

ToadMama's Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge (now with BBBC # 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6)

Kathy (ToadMama) published what she is calling her Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge. It's simple, a little crazy, and potentially demanding, but in the end, ought to be a lot of fun and very revealing.

Operation Empty Nest - Vignettes from behind the lines

If you've been reading the instalments of my life for the past six months or so, you've noticed the not so subtle military undertone colouring my ramblings.

We interrupt our regular programming...

... for a brief message of shameless self-promotion.

Hum a happy tune, move like a hillbilly

The final conditions were waived at last. We're free to shop!

A last pre-shopping challenge.

Our son has offered his now semi-homeless parents a room at the inn. There's a queen-size bed, but... wait for it... no mattress.

Big Move to the Big Smoke (and mirrors)

I know why it's a Big Move, but I have no clue why it's the Big Smoke, and I have no inclination to Google it. We already have enough dim views of Toronto as a new place to call home, that adding one more is a bad idea.

I'm sewing again

When you ride, there's always something to do.

Bright, bright lights on a waning winter's day

Time passes. Memories fade.

That may be the most poignant fact of our lives.

Vespa Club of Canada

The Vespa Club of Canada is re-born, and I am proud member No. 25.

Greetings for Christmas 2015, and New Years 2016

Just when I thought the dust had settled on this year's Christmas celebrations, yesterday the postman delivered the ModernVespa.com 2015 gift exchange present. I got to the door as the driver was climbing into his truck and we exchanged enthusiastic waves in a scene reminiscent of a Saturday Evening Post Norman Rockwell Christmas cover.

With the help of the Empire, I strike back

I slid onto my perch and looked Kitchen Mac straight in the screen. I was focused. Reestablishing order and control over whatever was slowly going wrong among the wayward applications in my digital domain was mission critical. Keeping my collection of music and art out of harm's way was an objective I would reach.

Music and images

I believe that art, in all its forms, is the essence of our humanity. I will go further, and argue that the arts drive our evolution more than any other aspect of our being.

Long before the Motorola flip phone became a consumer product, there was the Star Trek communicator. Jules Verne explored ocean depths long before Jacques Cousteau did. Man walked on the moon in July 1969, but Jules Verne wrote about it more than one hundred years earlier, and Tintin made it there in 1954. Leonardo da Vinci explored human winged flight five centuries before the Wright brothers broke the bonds of gravity at Kitty Hawk.

The laws of nature vs the nature of laws

Sometimes humour, even dark humour, accomplishes more, in a single sound bite or hastily drawn cartoon, than reams of newsprint, gallons of ink, and endless 'breaking news' segments can manage.

Rider profile: Mike Fritz

Name: Michael Fritz
Find me on Earth: Cornwall, Ontario
Find me Online: http://vstromamericas.com
Interview Date: Saturday, December 12, 2015
Interview Location: Cornwall, Ontario

Life on two wheels: When did you start riding, how old were you?

Mike: I was 5 years old when my father bought my brother and I a blue plastic battery operated bike. It was only meant for indoor use and surely I drove my folks batty driving it all the time. I was 8 or 9 when my friend bought his first dirt bike and I rode it as much as he did. I was hooked for life. At 16 got my first street bike and only went back to a dirt bike in 2014.

Life on two wheels: How many motorbikes have you owned?

Mike: 7 bikes.

Life on two wheels: What is your current bike, and is the current bike your favorite?

Lunch with Peter and Mike

I had to be in Ottawa yesterday for a meeting at four o'clock. It made sense to seize the opportunity to drop in on Peter Sanderson.

Peter had some business to look after in the morning and suggested we get together for lunch. He was already meeting Mike Fritz to celebrate Mike's birthday and asked me to tag along.

That meant three bloggers getting together to celebrate a birthday, what could be finer?

Allow me to introduce Mike Fritz.

On a December roll

To answer Richard's question from yesterday, I was at it again today.

Winter ride

I was seriously remiss.

I borrowed camping equipment for my July trek to the Adirondacks, and hadn't yet returned it to Marlene.

The weather gods are holding off the snow, at least for the time being. So today I made good.

Comfort food: Heirloom spaghetti and meatballs

Do you know why humans achieved so much more, in the course of evolution, than any other animal on the planet?

The proximate cause, of course, is that we are the smartest.

Life and death at the crossroads

Events continue to cascade in my life. It's been unremitting since May. The pace of change is something to behold.

Most recently I lost my Dad, on the twelfth of November. Out of the blue.

It's not a sad story, it truly isn't. Denis led a very happy full life. For the last six or seven years he was afflicted with progressive memory loss. He was in remarkably good spirits for the most part. That much hadn't changed. I believe his failing memory served to insulate him, to a degree, from his growing frailty and the ever-shrinking sphere of his existence. Then, in a matter of minutes or hours, a stroke took his life. He was eighty-six.

I've had this post on the subject of happiness simmering gently on the back burner for a little over a month. It's high time to publish it before something else happens, like the barbaric,

Remembering

On November 11th I went to the Last Post military cemetery in Pointe Claire.

I have written about this place once or twice before. Here time stands still. Twenty thousand servicewomen and servicemen have been laid to rest in the cemetery. My grandfather Georges Terroux, who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I, is one of them.

It was a privilege to be here on Remembrance Day. The cemetery was well attended.

Been fiddlin'

Today I managed to implement about ninety percent of the changes to this journal that have been rattling around in my brain for many, many, months.

I have to say that translating the thoughts in my head into reasonably well-behaved pixels on the screen has been as painful as I thought it would be.

Authoring any digital media, whether it's software programming, graphic content like photos, or the look and feel of a blog, is fairly obsessive work. Trial and error, error and trial, trial and error. That, and the occasional epiphany when, on the very cusp of total frustration, something finally works. There are far too many moving parts between what this blog looked like for the past five years, and where it is now. I won't bore you with the details.

Runnin' errands

I haven't posted much lately. We bloggers come, and we go.

Some of the going is voluntary, some is imposed.

I have come to the end of some roads. Other roads beckon.

If I was a commuter, now I run errands. Like a run to Costco last week, to buy new cordless phones.

2015 Blogger to Blogger Tour - Epilogue, and lessons learned

It's been a long time between posts. The main reason is that the past two months have been, by some measures, the best and busiest of our lives. There was the annual conference of the national organization I chair that was, for the first time ever, held in Montreal. As soon as that ended we celebrated the marriage of our eldest son. Sonja and Roland came to visit, then Susan and I went on an amazing trip that took us to Edmonton, Jasper Park, Vancouver, and Maui. Phew.

Along the way, I worked on this post, mostly during our flights. I hope you will find it was worth the long wait. 

I'm getting slightly more experienced with touring. That means I still have a lot to learn.

Toying with Templates; Flirting with Failure

I've dropped hints about wanting to make changes to the way this ongoing story is presented.

The choices are unfortunately unlimited.

It's like shopping for a BMW vehicle with an unlimited budget. Sedan? SUV? Limousine? No problem. Suede headliner? 100,000 LED mood-lit interior? Built-in cigar humidor in the console? No problem. No kidding. I was chatting with Billy at Canbec BMW just the other day. Got millions to piss away to annoy your siblings and leave your heirs breathless and nervous? No better place to start than by ordering a custom seven series sedan with oodles and oodles of options and doo-dads.

Project report - Installing heated grips on a Honda Shadow VT750 ACE

The Honda Shadow is a shared bike. One day I'll get around to explaining in detail how Sonja and I came to co-own the Honda Shadow, which we now call Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is new to us, it's a gently used 2003 motorcycle. True to its roots, Thunderbird was fitted with a bunch of aftermarket accessories installed with thoughts of cruising down the boulevard with the sun glinting off as much chrome as possible, to the tune of very loud aftermarket Cobra exhaust pipes.

2015 Blogger to Blogger Tour: Safe travels

Sonja and Roland returned this past Thursday from their Ontario trip with Sonja under the weather.  Apparently traveling makes Sonja sick. Her love of travel is so deep, that she considers a predictable head cold to be a small price to pay for adventure.

On Friday I resumed my tour guide duties and took the traveling dynamic duo to see the remaining must-see sights of Montreal.

We had seen the southern and eastern sides of the city from the three drive-to lookouts on Mount Royal.

The ScootCommute on CITY TV

Today was the day I got about three and a half minutes of the fifteen minutes of fame that Andy Warhol kindly alotted to me.

Some time a few weeks back, I got an e-mail asking if I would mind being interviewed on Montreal CITY TV's morning show Breakfast Television. I was both surprised and genuinely honoured.

When I mentioned to Susan that the show's managing producer told me that it would be a three-minute interview, Susan burst out laughing "You can't even introduce yourself in three minutes!" she teased.