Monday, July 23, 2018

A heartfelt apology

I need to apologize to my friends and readers, in no particular order...

Sonja, Richard, Dom, Steve, Karen, Bill, Peter, Jim, Michael, Brandy, Kathy, Ry, Ken, Mike... I have been mostly absent here, and on your blogs. Partly it's a busy-ness and time disruption, partly it's a cycle and habit disruption... but whatever the root external excuse may be, it's really just me not being here for you.

It doesn't help that Google has chosen to cease sending email alerts when new comments are posted. But that's just another excuse, after all...

What I need to do is to work adapt to the changes, and just do it, as Nike used to encourage us all to do.

I was shocked this morning to find your comments piling up on recent posts, with me thoroughly distracted and unaware.

I am going back to respond to each and every one.

I am also hoping to change my lifestyle to more fully adapt to my new reality. It's easy when you make huge changes in your life to just go with the flow and let the big events you set in motion carry you along on the current.  The risk is that as you float along like a cork in a stream, you don't realize the things that are no longer there. It's remarkably hard to spot things that go missing. Like the dutiful butler answering knocks on the front door who simply vanishes one day without a sound, who knows when.

It's me, not you, dear friends.

Let's see if I can make amends, shall we?

Warm regards to each and every one of you, you are important to me.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Playing with fire!

https://youtu.be/ZQ6Qep2uDBw

This episode is about big challenges, self-therapy, and what it means to live my life.

To understand the relevance of the title, my decision to qualify for the Ontario Bar was not imposed on me. I undertook to do it because it would allow me to practice law in Ontario without artificial constraints. I knew it was going to be demanding, but I know I didn't appreciate the scope of the challenge and the demands it would place on me.

I still don't know the results of the second exam.

It was tougher than the first, not because the subject matter was more difficult or more alien, but because it naturally lent itself to inherently wordy and somewhat convoluted questions along the lines of "Amy, a lawyer, is consulted by Darrin who is considering an appointment as trustee to his friend Fred's estate. Fred's partner Arnold owns the matrimonial home as a joint tenant with Jessica, Fred's estranged sister..." The mind reels and spins trying to keep track of the fictitious people you were introduced to mere moments earlier and to make sense of their peculiar relationships as the question unfolds before your eyes like origami in reverse. The question finally pops at the question mark, and the four possible answers shimmer before you, as all the while a tiny obsessed corner of your brain reminds you in a nervous twitchy way that you only have one minute and forty-five seconds to process the question, and to pick the correct answer, and it's already taken you 52 seconds to read the question, read the answers, then re-read the question. This is question 56, and there are 184 more questions to go. Ughhhh!

 In that sense, I was playing with fire, all day long, all week long, for months on end. It was like trying to digest an encyclopedia.

The silver lining came in the form two quick breaks and a life-changing gift. The breaks happened before each of the exams, one in February when Susan and I took off to L.A. and San Diego to visit with family and very dear friends, and one in early April when our immediate family flew to Vancouver to be with our kids Andrew and Anuschka for the birth of Kaia, our first grandchild. Susan and I arrived at the hospital early on the day following Kaia's birth. It's difficult to express how special that was.

These past six or seven months marked a second fracture in the rhythms of my life. First the move to Toronto after a lifetime in Montreal, then the Bar Exams. It feels like a lot to process.

On the occasions when I felt I was hitting a wall, I promised myself that if I pushed on, when that last exam was behind me in June, I would find a field, lie on my back, and watch the clouds drift by until I felt redeemed. and that's exactly what I did. The jet threading a contrail straight as an arrow high above the wispy clouds was an unhoped for sign that the time had come for me to get back on my feet and launch into a slightly belated summer of fun and relaxation.

In a nutshell that's what I attempted to do with this video, to explain as best I can what I have been through and get beyond it. At least emotionally. Those results still loom over me though. What if I flunked? I don't know what the answer to that last question is.

I may never have to answer it.

Thanks for sticking with me as I work all of this out. It means a lot.


Monday, July 16, 2018

Wrapties are here!

https://youtu.be/QkOKb0jI1Rg

A while back (like months ago I think) I got an unsolicited email from Australia from Mark Blackburn wondering if I would consider doing a review of some newfangled tie down straps.

At the time I was up to my neck studying for those pesky Bar exams. I warned Mark that I would not be able to devote any time to his request until mid-June at the earliest.

Some weeks later I received a package with two 180cm Wrapties. They sat idly in the envelope until I was done with the last exam, and then for another two or three weeks while I dealt with a backlog of stuff that was similarly on hold while I devoted 100% of my time and energy to those demanding exams.

When I was finally able to tackle video production once more, the first project had to be those Wrapties, I owed Mark a review and I had to deliver.

I have to confess that the Wrapties took a little getting used to. As with most things, you need to get your hands into the equation and handle them, apply them to a task.

In that spirit, we had some unprecedented winds a few weeks ago, and our home sits in a kind of wind tunnel. Instead of taking the planter that sits on a table on our balcony into the house, I grabbed a Wraptie and in a wink I lashed the table to the balcony railing. The winds came, they felled trees, they blasted our courtyard, the trees swayed and tossed to and fro, but... our lightweight folding tables stayed put, never budged. I was impressed.

In this episode of the vlog I share two other uses for Wrapties. In an upcoming episode, I will provide an account of their performance on last weekend's 250 kilometer expressway ride to Kingston Ontario where I participated in the Isle de Wolfe scooter rally. The Wrapties performed flawlessly.

Among the benefits: there are never any loose ends to flap in the breeze, and the design made it a snap to stow my riding jacket that I ditched for a little Friday night rally challenge on an isolated dead-end country road. It was hot and humid, and riding in my T-shirt was a welcome relief from a long hot day in the saddle. All I needed to do to secure the jacket on top of my dry bag was to release the extra length of Wraptie that would otherwise have been a loose end, stretch the Wrapties over the jacket and let the velcro do its job. Easy peasy. I think that little unexpected trick is what really and truly sold me on the Wrapties.

Check out the video I linked above, I think you'll be impressed too.

I you want some Wrapties of your very own, check out their website: www.wraptie.net.

The music for this episode of Life on two wheels is Safety Net by Riot, made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Thunderbird takes a wing

https://youtu.be/fMhZ4j2V2oo

At long last, I am surfacing from my six-month self-imposed exile. It was a nightmare of grueling study, eleven and twelve hour days, seven days a week. With a little luck I passed the final Bar exam. I won't really know for another couple of weeks. I have to be philosophical in spite of the massive effort. It will be what it will be.

Moving on... It feels so good to get back to other things. Even doctor's appointments and lab tests, and tackling chores around the house is a kind of liberating joy. A real deliverance.

Speaking of moving on and liberating things, it's time for Thunderbird to move on too.

Sonja and I are on the same page and the result is that Sonja's beast of a bike that I christened Thunderbird, the 2003 Honda Shadow VT 750 American Classic Edition is now on Kijiji.ca looking for a fresh adventure and a new loving caring owner.

Check out Sonja's blog here.

Sonja's 2015 Maritimes adventure begins on her blog here.

Here is a post from Life on two wheels that explains how to purchase a far-off motorcycle for touring.

The music for this episode of Life on two wheels is Bleeker Street Blues by Chris Haugen, made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library.

I've got a backlog of videos screaming to be released so please stay tuned, there's lots more to come.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Terror incident

Terror incident on our street, Susan and I are fine. 10 people are dead, 15 are injured. Seems to be a senseless criminal act motivated by alienation and a desire for revenge against society.

Words are inadequate in times like this.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Ken's at it again! So's Bill!

Well, Ken Wilson is once again off to join the mad crew of intrepid men and women who, every even year, set off on their scooters on a mad cross-continental dash from sea to sea. Yes folks, it's high time for the 2018 Scooter Cannonball run.

For Ken that means a preliminary trek to Morrow California just so that he can make a mad dash to Virginia Beach. This time Ken is driving a support vehicle not his scooter. Well, kind of. You see Ken is riding to California, flying back to Florida, driving the Cannonball support for team snail back to California, then providing support all the way to Virginia Beach, then flying back to California, then riding back east.

Copyright 2018 Ken Wilson
This always fun to watch.

You can follow Ken by keeping tabs on his 2018 blog by clicking here, or if you are curious and want to learn a lot more about Ken, click here. If you want to hear him explain his cross-continental madness in person, click here for the short interview, or click here for the long story. If you want to see how Ken responded to my rider profile interview, click here. If you want a taste of what it's like to ride with Ken, then click here, and here, and here.

One of the riders Ken will be supporting will be Bill Leuthold, If you click on the last three links immediately above, as a bonus you get to meet Bill as well. Wouldn't you know it... Bill has a rider profile too: click here.

The one thing I can personally guarantee, is that you won't be disappointed. Ken is the real deal, and a BIG DEAL. No fake news here, I promise. Same goes for Bill. You will no doubt be able to follow Bill's Cannonball run on his blog by clicking here.

Just because he can, Ken is going to follow up the Cannonball with a leisurely scooter riding adventure in northern Spain.

Copyright 2018 Ken Wilson
I guess that the secret to Ken's adventurous nature is that he learned all about risk flying medevac helicopters during the Vietnam conflict.

Nuff said!

I'll be following Ken and Bill.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Tom and the Terribly Tempting Terrific Tesla Model 3

https://youtu.be/aoQ_RDCLwgk

I know I said that I had absolutely no time for you until mid-June because I had to be a slave to studying, and while that is basically true, it doesn't quite mean that I have ONLY spent my time with my nose in the books.

The fact is that my brain needs some breaks. I can literally feel my brain-strain at the end of a ten or eleven hour day of wrestling down in the depths of detail into which the Bar exams do their level best to drown my spirit. Among my THERAPEUTIC DISTRACTIONS I was lucky to count a) my interview with Nathan Body at the Peak Powersports BMW Motorrad launch up in Barrie, b) a hop, skip, and jump to visit with my dear friend Andrew in San Diego and Susan's cousins in Los Angeles, c) joining my dear friend Tom as he immersed himself in a hopefully soon-to-be-his Tesla Model 3, and d) a jaunt to Vancouver to meet our first-ever grandchild Kaia Eliora Naidoo Masse, and to fulfill my teaching obligations for Governance Professionals of Canada where I poisoned the minds of aspiring colleagues with the fascinating topics of Records Management, and the dismal, arcane art of public company annual general meetings.

In case you couldn't tell, this episode of Life on two wheels is about c) Tom and the Terribly Tempting Terrific Tesla Model 3.

I apologize for that second paragraph.

It bears a stunning similarity to my study notes for the Bar exam. The upside is, that if you're in a hurry, and don't feel like savoring my meandering prose, you can absorb the gist of this post by broadening your focus, scanning that paragraph as a chunk, and assimilating 95% of my message in mere seconds, versus the many minutes you might ordinarily have to devote to catching my drift.

Because I couldn't afford to take two weeks off from studying during my Vancouver trip, I had no choice but to purchase a brand new MacBook Pro laptop. I feel I owe you a review. WOW!!!

There is no point in going any further really. As the Bard famously had Hamlet say, brevity is the soul of wit.  If I were more witless, I would add that adding a MacBook to my arsenal along with a decent dose of iCloud, has been a productivity game-changer. Holy mackerel! Did you know that you can copy on a (iPhone, iPad, iMac, MacBook) and paste into any of the others (iPhone, iPad, iMac, MacBook)???? I certainly didn't!!!! I edited 90% of the video for this episode on the flight home from Vancouver on Sunday using Final Cut Pro X on the MacBook. WOW!

OK, that's enough witlessness on that score.

Coming in a little while, video from those other distractions.

The musical selections for this episode are Ice Cold by Audionautix which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (Artist: http://audionautix.com/) and Take You by Vibe Tracks, both made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

My brain strain...

... and a break, courtesy of Peak Powersports in Barrie, BMW Motorrad, and Marigold Public Relations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL7OLhZdDPM

This actually happened a few weeks ago, but my frantic study routine gets in the way of EVERYTHING that isn't studying for a Bar exam. Oh... and there was a whirlwind trip to visit family and dear friends in Los Angeles and San Diego. There will be, in the fullness of time, an entertaining video of that trip, I promise.

To be perfectly honest, my overtaxed brain really needed to take a step or two back, before charging ahead for the rush to the finish in a few weeks' time.

I hope that you enjoy this tiny little hiatus, I sure did. Big thank you to Katie from Marigold Public Relations for doing double duty filming with the number two camera.

The music for this episode of Life on two wheels is Cycles by Density & Time, made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Taking stock: truth, mayhem, and death

Taking a minuscule break from my breakneck studying routine, because it's important.

Time is running short, so I'll be brief, and then follow my nose back into the books.

I have from time to time posted about politics. Last year I posted a vlog about truth. Prior to that I posted about the risks of the Trump presidency, here, and here.

I wasn't surprised when some thought I was overreacting, that things would never be that bad. After all, lies and meaningless bluster don't kill, right?

There are elections looming now. There's still time to think carefully, and to consider the importance of truth, no matter what your particular stripe might be. And to vote.

Here are some sobering thoughts to help with that chore.



Wednesday, January 10, 2018

New Year, HUGE challenge

https://youtu.be/zNgonVCwTVI


I remember the year, not that long ago, when I posted over 100 times.

Last year I became convinced that the future was video and I tied a vlog to my blog and the posting frequency plummeted.

It's sad in a way, because you get into the habit of posting, and you have an audience of loyal readers, and in some way you drift away from that mode of expression, the constant give and take, and it hurts.

The irony is that the time commitment to social media ramps up considerably when you shift from blogging to vlogging.

There's a natural equation or algorithm at play here. The busier I get, the less presence I have here. That troubles me, but, what can you do?

You gotta do what you gotta do!

This year dawns with a mountain in plain view that I must climb. Like a friend who leaves to climb Everest, it means that there is going to be absence in your life, as my life gets really, really interesting.

It's all explained in the video, so have a look.

I really do feel that I am letting you down by not posting more blog posts or vlog episodes, so I may decide to shift gears and come back here to let you know that all is well and give you an idea of my progress.

Once thing is certain: I am more committed than ever to my Life on two wheels so, when I return from that mountaintop, I will return here.

Happy new year to all!

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Ephemera circa 2017

As I struggle to wrap my mind around YouTube and my barely nascent career as a YouTube 'creator', there are still mysteries in the blogosphere that are curious puzzles I am likely never to solve.

Among the puzzles are messages that 2017 has floated into my inbox praising this blog as a top-rated go-to moto-blog. As much as I can't help lapping up the praise, I remain skeptical.

There was a Dilbert cartoon I stumbled on that I have alluded to in the past where the punchline was "will work for recognition".  Since I don't get any financial reward for the work I do here, in the Dilbert spirit I have posted my 'awards' in the sidebar.

Most recently, I received a very nice email from some kind folks informing me that science and statistics had rewarded me with a fresh accolade:

https://www.testfacts.com/top-15-motorcycle-blogs/

I apologize for this evil display of pride, justly ranked among the seven deadly sins. Yet, I just can't help myself. In my defense, I feel that the kind people who went to the effort to find and list my blog deserve to have me recognize the recognition. There's that, plus, as the internet evolves as it must, this ephemeral praise will evaporate like the gasoline I often manage to spill when I gas up the Vespa. In that spirit this post is where the recognition belongs, where it will get buried as time passes and future posts pile on, eventually sinking into Google's bottomless basement storage locker until it gets dredged up from time to time in response to some random search.

Oh well, that's all for now.

It's time for me to get back to my 'studio' to grind away at the YouTube challenge cum mystery. I've got to crack 10,000 views on my channel to unlock some prizes in the shape of enhanced permissions and the shadowy possibility of some monetization that may or may not ever materialize. In this respect I'm like a teenager toiling away at a video game in the basement hoping that today is the day that I unlock the Sceptre of Ottokar (no... wait, that was a Tintin story...).

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Great Post-it Tab Hack

https://youtu.be/VvdlAU2OaDQ

I am writing a book.

The subject is ultra-dry, and potentially crushingly boring.

It's about document management. More specifically document management for governance professionals.

I am working hard to inject as much wit and humour as possible as I plod along. With a little luck, my students and readers will come to share my passion for organizing the heck out of a potential maelstrom of information.

The book is to support a records management course I'll be teaching as part of the Governance Professionals of Canada professional education certification program.

Governance is a fascinating field because you work at the highest level of the organization you serve. The nature of the beast is that you find yourself responsible for a broad range of activities spanning the gamut from running the Board of Directors, to corporate and securities law compliance, ethics monitoring training and compliance, and a bunch of other stuff, as well as the mundane range of responsibilities that come with management responsibility including staffing, budgeting and the rest.

The result is that in no time you find yourself surrounded by records: minute books, corporate files, insider reporting files, mergers and acquisitions files, stock exchange compliance files, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

The key to taming the beast is to develop strong records management skills.

More or less in that vein, a trivial little skill I taught myself is to make quick-and-dirty custom-printed tabs to label files and books.

When a file becomes thick with documents, and grows into one volume after another, being able to find the four or five key documents in a hurry is a real blessing. The same goes for the key sections of the numerous weighty books sitting on the shelf. Thick heavy books like "everything you need to know about UK corporations law but were afraid to ask" (a thousand-plus page tome, and not its real name).  You get the picture.

In the context of working on the book, studying for Bar exams to come in March (yes, life is like a huge game of snakes and ladders after all), and organizing my home office, I remembered my little Post-it notes hack.

It occurred to me that some of you might benefit from this little trick as well.

Hopefully I managed to convey the gist of this trick in the video.

The music for this episode is Santorini 2 by Vibe Mountain made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library

Friday, November 24, 2017

Vespa, TREE-ed!!!



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Here is my desperate bid for YouTube viraldom!

Well, not really. I mean, don't get me wrong, I aspire to viraldom, but I'm not into kidding myself, I'm nowhere even remotely close to that. Seriously.

In this episode come along as a fetch a Christmas tree as a favour to my daughter Lauren.

This is where you learn that when you ride a Vespa, no errand is beyond reach.

The music for this episode of the vlog is Swipesy Cakewalk by E's Jammy Jams made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library.

If you've been living under a rock, and you've never heard of Steve Williams and Scooter in the Sticks, by all means go have a peak at what Steve's up to.

If you were hoping that this episode was going to be Five-0 in the 6ixI I'm afraid it's still in the studio waiting for more bits and pieces to come together. Hopefully when it finally sees the light of day you won't be disappointed. Also in the works are Vespa maintenance videos including an oil change, hub oil change, and yes, a cooling system flush and thermostat replacement. Exciting stuff indeed.

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned!

Friday, October 27, 2017

I broke my 40 year-old Ray Bans!!!



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I love, love, love my sunglasses.


I've posted before about my Ray Ban Outdoorsman aviators. My optometrist had told me, way back in 2011, that the Ray Ban Outdoorsman had been discontinued.

Lucky for me that he was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I just bought a brand new pair of Outdoorsman aviators.

Currently aviators are back in style.

In the years I have owned them, they have been out of style, in style, out of style, back in favour, outcast, and now, really back in style. I don't care, truly I don't. I love my Ray Bans.

They broke (actually only the left temple broke) because I subjected them to poor treatment. I admit this freely now, just as I admitted it in the past. First off, they are intended for use they way they come from the store, i.e. not with prescription lenses. I forced the frames to accept prescription lenses (which in fairness, is not really a problem).

The real abuse happened as my eyesight deteriorated over time. As my eyes got funkier, the lenses got way curvier, and well, there's the rub. Literally.

Watch the video. I think that I succeeded in describing the failure in exquisite detail that even the  most casual viewer will immediately understand.

Now for the good news.

If you have had similar issues, if you have given up wearing Ray Ban aviators because your prescription is interfering with the actual operation of the frames, then especially watch the video, because all these years later, I finally found the cure. Watch the video.

I am content, chuffed, happy, ecstatic really, that I now have a pair of Ray Ban Outdoorsman aviators that will outlive me, no matter how pathetic my eyesight becomes.

Yay!

Detailed show notes:

My Ray Ban sunglasses are the Outdoorsman model (model number RB3030) purchased in 1977 and worn pretty much daily ever since. The left temple snapped three weeks ago. The lenses are my existing prescription lenses. Here’s a link to the glasses.

The music for this episode of Life on two wheels was sourced in the excellent YouTube Audio Library and is Cop A Feel by Audionautix which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Artist: http://audionautix.com/ 

Saturday, October 21, 2017

A conversation with Steve Williams



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Why would anyone in their right mind choose to write a blog?

Well... if that is a question that occasionally pops up as you browse among the more than 650 million web sites currently cluttering the interwebs, while you keep bumping into some of the estimated 200 million sites that are blogs, and you scratch your head wondering what on earth could possibly drive a person to blog, here, on a silver platter, is a golden opportunity to learn why two of us are driven to post aspects of their daily lives for all to see. Watch the video.

In fact, for all you social or behavioral scientists and psychiatrists out there, this is particularly exciting, because as Steve Williams and I, both of us seasoned well-followed, and (hopefully) well-respected bloggers candidly expose our respective motives, it will no doubt thrill you to know that I started blogging in some measure because I felt compelled to follow Steve's example. Somewhere in that overly long, tangled sentence, there is the tip of an epidemiological study in psychiatry begging to begin. Watch the video.

Anyway... I'm afraid you'll be compelled to watch the video if you really want to learn what makes us tick. Good luck with that. Watch the video.

If any of those social scientists and psychiatrists I alluded to watch the video and have insights into our character flaws they'd care to share in the fleeting hope that both, or either of us, might use those insights to mitigate our failings, please leave a comment below. You just never know. Please watch the video.

Steve and I thank you in advance.

The music for this episode is Laid Back Guitars by Kevin MacLeod and it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license and is made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library 
Source: Incompetech.com
Artist: Incompetech


The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.