Sunday, September 9, 2018
The unicorn fridge, Ikea, and a Vespa
Well I'm at it again!
Shopping for seemingly impossible things to carry on my Vespa.
This time it's a 36"X15"X24" Sektion over-the-fridge wall cabinet from Ikea.
It all started when our Bosch fridge up and died in the dead of night.
Fortunately, we discovered the looming food disaster when we returned from the airport with Andrew, Anuschka, and Kaia who came to celebrate Lauren and Harris' wedding. Talk about a good news, bad news, great news story.
It turned out, of course, that our dead Bosch fridge was a unicorn! Basically, it turned out to be one-and-a-half critical inches shorter than any other fridge we could find in the market. That meant that our built-in custom kitchen cabinetry was built in a way that would not accommodate any of the new fridges.
The only solution was to replace the cabinet with one that was 15" from top to bottom, rather than the 30" cabinet installed in our kitchen.
Then it turned out that the very nice folks who updated our kitchen when we renovated a couple of years back were retiring. While they agreed to make the new custom cabinet doors we needed, the cabinet was turning out to be... well let's just say that we were on our own on that score.
That's when Ikea came to the rescue!
Susan was at work with the car, and I was itching to start work on the cabinet. What to do... what to do??
The answer, don't you know, was painfully obvious!
Fetch the cabinet from Ikea on my Vespa!
And there you have it. Another exciting episode of Life on two wheels!
The music for this episode is Morning Stroll by Josh Kirsch/Media Right Productions made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library, as usual. Thanks YouTube!
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Catching Ms. Yue
The vast majority of our fellow humans are dedicated to a 9-5 work regimen (or to even more demanding jobs). We live relatively close to where we work and we commute from home to work week in, and week out, with precious few breaks in the routine.
That is why there is something very special about adventurers. These are people who decide to uproot their lives and head out to discover the planet.
In this episode I share an interview with Stephanie Yue at the 2018 Isle de Wolfe scooter rallye. By the time I managed to snag a few precious minutes of free time with Steph the sun was rapidly fading, along with the quality of the video. I have Steph's boyfriend Fred to thank because he agreed to act as the second camera man.
Steph has ridden Serenity, her Vespa GTS, through all 49 continental states of the USA, and her most recent adventure was a moto tour in Pakistan.
You can learn a lot about someone like Steph by following her blog. But nine times out of ten, there is no way to connect the voice to the blogger. This interview scratches that itch. If you visit her rider profile on the Rider Profiles page, you will find links to other interviews, but, as far as I know, until I stand corrected, this is the first YouTube interview of the intrepid Ms. Yue.
With a little luck this may not be the last time I have the privilege of catching up with her.
The music for this episode is Game Plan by Bad Snacks, made available thanks to the YouTube audio library.
Monday, September 3, 2018
Going out on another limb
I am edging myself cautiously into new territory: e-commerce
I have no illusions and, while I will earn a 10% commission on the sale of WrapTies through this journal (click here or go to the "Shop: WrapTies" link above), I am more motivated by the opportunity to promote an excellent new moto product and by the excitement of experimenting with an e-commerce affiliate setup.
Hopefully I have managed to set up the page properly.
I have also added a link in the Gear Guide.
I have no illusions and, while I will earn a 10% commission on the sale of WrapTies through this journal (click here or go to the "Shop: WrapTies" link above), I am more motivated by the opportunity to promote an excellent new moto product and by the excitement of experimenting with an e-commerce affiliate setup.
Hopefully I have managed to set up the page properly.
I have also added a link in the Gear Guide.
Monday, August 13, 2018
You always pay a price
Every choice we make requires that we pay a price.
Most of you know that last fall I made a series of choices along a path leading back to the practice of law. There were many baby steps. My sister Joanne insisted I had to meet with a law firm in the building where she works. They seemed really nice, and they were interested in meeting me.
I have a long standing policy of investigating every opportunity that comes my way. When I was in my early teens my Dad looked away from an opportunity that, in hindsight, would have been a game changer for all of us. I vowed that I would never do that. That vow led me to investigate many opportunities, a good number of which were game changers for me.
This blog, the vlog, and the chronicles you explore here are one example.
The dream of owning a Vespa, turned into the Scoot Commute, then Life on two wheels, the vlog, and adventures on two wheels in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Florida and Italy. That opportunity alone was like opening an old cardboard box and discovering unimagined splendors and treasures wrapped in old newspapers.
Where was I... right, I met with some really nice people at the firm and I realized there was an opportunity to return to the practice of law on my terms. Wow, I never would have guessed. That revelation triggered the baby steps. I had to come out of retirement, apply for re-instatement to active practice with the Quebec Bar; apply to the Law Society of Ontario for the right to practice in Ontario on an occasional basis; and then... why not fully qualify in Ontario?
Well you know how that turned out.
In January I began that quest. It seemed like it might not be excruciating. I only had to write and pass two exams. When I wrote the Quebec Bar exams, way back in 1980, there were six exams. That's like a two-thirds-off deal! Then I found out that there were only two exams in Ontario. Every aspiring lawyer must leap those two hurdles. Two, seven-hour, 240 question exams. Gulp! At sixty-five, was my brain still up to it? At least Bar exams are open book. Still...
The materials made up about 2,300 pages, six three-ring binders' worth, in eight or nine point font, double-sided, with tiny margins. I bought highlighters. First yellow, then I added blue and green. I underlined, scrawled annotations in the tiny margins, took notes, did research, looked up Supreme Court cases, read key passages of more statutes than I care to remember. The Income Tax Act, the Criminal Code, the Residential Tenancies Act, the Family Law Act, the Personal Property Security Act, the Federal Court Act, the Courts of Justice Act, regulations under those acts... the list went on, and on, and on. I took notes. 497 pages of notes in 9 point font, plus 128 pages of subject matter, case law and legislation indexes. I have never, in my life, written so much.
Thank heavens the enormity of the task only became apparent bit by bit. Had I known the scale of the challenge before setting out, would I have done it?
How did I do it?
With the exception of two one-week breaks in Los Angeles, San Diego and Vancouver, I devoted 10-12 hours, every single day of the week, every week of the month, from mid-January to mid-June, sitting at my desk, surrounded by paper, chained to my keyboard, with my eyes alternating from the books on the desk to the computer screen.
I passed both exams.
What a price to pay!
And yet, like the price of a car, or of a fancy meal in fine restaurant, or of a kitchen renovation, the price to be paid comes with extras like taxes and tips.
In my case, that extra somewhat unanticipated cost came later, like a delayed final invoice.
In my mind, once the stress of studying, writing and passing the exams was behind me, I was going to spend a glorious summer riding and exploring, blogging and vlogging, celebrating my success with friends and family. Basically exploiting the law of averages by simply having a ball.
Hmmmm...
The final invoice landed on me a couple of weeks back. I knew I had gained weight. As my brother-in-law Chuck famously said, my exercise regimen for six months consisted of jumping to conclusions and pushing my luck. Between that, and consuming the calories my grey cells desperately needed, I gained weight. My office has mirrored sliding closet doors. I could see the weight slowly spreading like an unsightly unwanted bulge where my waist used to be.
Exercise would be the welcome cure. That's how I planned to balance the scales.
But wait... there was more.
Turns out that when you spend a ridiculous amount of time scouring pages and pages of paper, and typing endless pages of notes, your body decides that this is the new 'normal' and, without consulting you, adapts to what it perceives as the new rhythm of your life.
When you decide to return to the old 'normal', your body says "what the..." and rebels like a spoiled sulking ungrateful child.
In my case, in an attempt to keep me slouched in the best position for reading and typing 11-ish hours a day, my body threw me a curve in the form of what I'm guessing is a pinched nerve somewhere in the vicinity of C6 and C7. Before this I had never given my cervical vertebrae a second's thought.
Holy crap! I can't ride, heck, I can't even walk for more than twenty paces with my head on the level. Tylenol and Cyclobenzaprine are my new best friends.
It's possible that after two weeks, a trip to the doctor's office, a trip to the physiotherapist, two invasive deep massage sessions (feels like you're a chicken being boned without the aid of a knife), and four torture sessions with a chiropractor, I may be seeing a pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel.
Last week I had no choice but to ride Thunderbird for a legally-required safety exam prior to its sale to its new owner.
That was sixteen-and-a-half painful kilometers.
I was praying for red lights. Long ones. Shift into neutral, come to a stop, release the clutch, and stretch my left arm over to the right side of the bike as I more or less kissed the gas tank... relief from the pain. The light changes, clutch, shift, accelerate, and the pain begins to travel from my neck, under my left clavicle, radiating down my left arm, cramping my elbow, throbbing in my wrist... taking my breath away... where is another red light?????
I survived.
In about a half hour I'm off to another chiro session. The last? I don't know. This morning I did return to the exercise regimen I foolishly abandoned last fall. That lifted my spirits.
Baby steps.
I will ride again.
Pain free.
Soon.
I hope.
Most of you know that last fall I made a series of choices along a path leading back to the practice of law. There were many baby steps. My sister Joanne insisted I had to meet with a law firm in the building where she works. They seemed really nice, and they were interested in meeting me.
I have a long standing policy of investigating every opportunity that comes my way. When I was in my early teens my Dad looked away from an opportunity that, in hindsight, would have been a game changer for all of us. I vowed that I would never do that. That vow led me to investigate many opportunities, a good number of which were game changers for me.
This blog, the vlog, and the chronicles you explore here are one example.
The dream of owning a Vespa, turned into the Scoot Commute, then Life on two wheels, the vlog, and adventures on two wheels in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Florida and Italy. That opportunity alone was like opening an old cardboard box and discovering unimagined splendors and treasures wrapped in old newspapers.
Where was I... right, I met with some really nice people at the firm and I realized there was an opportunity to return to the practice of law on my terms. Wow, I never would have guessed. That revelation triggered the baby steps. I had to come out of retirement, apply for re-instatement to active practice with the Quebec Bar; apply to the Law Society of Ontario for the right to practice in Ontario on an occasional basis; and then... why not fully qualify in Ontario?
Well you know how that turned out.
In January I began that quest. It seemed like it might not be excruciating. I only had to write and pass two exams. When I wrote the Quebec Bar exams, way back in 1980, there were six exams. That's like a two-thirds-off deal! Then I found out that there were only two exams in Ontario. Every aspiring lawyer must leap those two hurdles. Two, seven-hour, 240 question exams. Gulp! At sixty-five, was my brain still up to it? At least Bar exams are open book. Still...
The materials made up about 2,300 pages, six three-ring binders' worth, in eight or nine point font, double-sided, with tiny margins. I bought highlighters. First yellow, then I added blue and green. I underlined, scrawled annotations in the tiny margins, took notes, did research, looked up Supreme Court cases, read key passages of more statutes than I care to remember. The Income Tax Act, the Criminal Code, the Residential Tenancies Act, the Family Law Act, the Personal Property Security Act, the Federal Court Act, the Courts of Justice Act, regulations under those acts... the list went on, and on, and on. I took notes. 497 pages of notes in 9 point font, plus 128 pages of subject matter, case law and legislation indexes. I have never, in my life, written so much.
Thank heavens the enormity of the task only became apparent bit by bit. Had I known the scale of the challenge before setting out, would I have done it?
How did I do it?
With the exception of two one-week breaks in Los Angeles, San Diego and Vancouver, I devoted 10-12 hours, every single day of the week, every week of the month, from mid-January to mid-June, sitting at my desk, surrounded by paper, chained to my keyboard, with my eyes alternating from the books on the desk to the computer screen.
I passed both exams.
What a price to pay!
And yet, like the price of a car, or of a fancy meal in fine restaurant, or of a kitchen renovation, the price to be paid comes with extras like taxes and tips.
In my case, that extra somewhat unanticipated cost came later, like a delayed final invoice.
In my mind, once the stress of studying, writing and passing the exams was behind me, I was going to spend a glorious summer riding and exploring, blogging and vlogging, celebrating my success with friends and family. Basically exploiting the law of averages by simply having a ball.
Hmmmm...
The final invoice landed on me a couple of weeks back. I knew I had gained weight. As my brother-in-law Chuck famously said, my exercise regimen for six months consisted of jumping to conclusions and pushing my luck. Between that, and consuming the calories my grey cells desperately needed, I gained weight. My office has mirrored sliding closet doors. I could see the weight slowly spreading like an unsightly unwanted bulge where my waist used to be.
Exercise would be the welcome cure. That's how I planned to balance the scales.
But wait... there was more.
Turns out that when you spend a ridiculous amount of time scouring pages and pages of paper, and typing endless pages of notes, your body decides that this is the new 'normal' and, without consulting you, adapts to what it perceives as the new rhythm of your life.
When you decide to return to the old 'normal', your body says "what the..." and rebels like a spoiled sulking ungrateful child.
In my case, in an attempt to keep me slouched in the best position for reading and typing 11-ish hours a day, my body threw me a curve in the form of what I'm guessing is a pinched nerve somewhere in the vicinity of C6 and C7. Before this I had never given my cervical vertebrae a second's thought.
Holy crap! I can't ride, heck, I can't even walk for more than twenty paces with my head on the level. Tylenol and Cyclobenzaprine are my new best friends.
It's possible that after two weeks, a trip to the doctor's office, a trip to the physiotherapist, two invasive deep massage sessions (feels like you're a chicken being boned without the aid of a knife), and four torture sessions with a chiropractor, I may be seeing a pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel.
Last week I had no choice but to ride Thunderbird for a legally-required safety exam prior to its sale to its new owner.
Look how happy Paul is! |
I was praying for red lights. Long ones. Shift into neutral, come to a stop, release the clutch, and stretch my left arm over to the right side of the bike as I more or less kissed the gas tank... relief from the pain. The light changes, clutch, shift, accelerate, and the pain begins to travel from my neck, under my left clavicle, radiating down my left arm, cramping my elbow, throbbing in my wrist... taking my breath away... where is another red light?????
I survived.
In about a half hour I'm off to another chiro session. The last? I don't know. This morning I did return to the exercise regimen I foolishly abandoned last fall. That lifted my spirits.
Baby steps.
I will ride again.
Pain free.
Soon.
I hope.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
2018 Isle de Wolfe Scooter Rally
This is it! The long-awaited world premiere of the Life on two wheels Isle de Wolfe Scooter Rally movie.
There are stars, breathtaking action, traffic jams, Lambretta meltdowns, howling wolves, daring inter-continental and pan-continental adventurers, a dog in doggles, treacherous ferry crossings, the heart-stopping pop-pop-pop-pop staccato of vintage scooters in heat, massive clouds of blue poisonous smoke, and much, much more.
Come with me as I saddle up and head out to the very border of Ontario, to the DMZ separating us from mighty Trumplandia, the US of A, on isolated island straddling where the inland sea of the Great Lakes meets the mighty St-Lawrence.
Quick, grab the popcorn and the diet Coke, click on the video, and immerse yourself in a true summer action blockbuster!
Did I say it was free? IT'S TOTALLY FREE FOR THE WATCHING! Amazing.
Life on two wheels studios, making Canada great again, one video at a time.
Editor's remark: there is a second version of the video that repairs a minor glitch, no harm in leaving both in the channel.
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 |
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 |
Nuff said!
I'll be following Ken and Bill.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Tom and the Terribly Tempting Terrific Tesla Model 3
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.
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
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.
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
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!
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The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.