I was trying out a new selfie stick — that’s what brought that image into existence. Once I experiment a bit more I’ll post something about it for all the codgers and coots that follow Scooter in the Sticks and wonder what selfies are all about. Far too few old people taking up the selfie call in my opinion. We need to do something to offset the terrible obsession with youth.

Blogo looks great to work with but it has caused problems. Until I work them out I can’t recommend it. I’ll continue to write offline in OmniWriter, or just write in the WordPress post form as I usually do.

In regard to blogging — I’ve been working to get some technical issues straightened out in regard to page speed and other issues that affect SEO. That’s done. Today I got an email from Google saying in October search results will call out sites without SSL certificates as potentially unsafe. So I enabled SSL today — hence the HTTPS in the URL window. During this time of fiddling and lack of new content I’ve watched my Alexa.com ranking drop from around 500K to 1 Million worldwide and under 150K in the US. Smaller numbers are better. Oh well.

Good luck with your blogs. I find it all fascinating and rewarding and riding and photography is the perfect mix.

Riding in Gotham on a bicycle really is nuts. You know that already.

Your scooter looks great with the new windscreen and crash bars. And your pictures are great. Look way sharper than anything I shoot.

Perfect!

As for the ol’ Blogo here? Less polished-looking than your regular postings, but everything works. Your doing this is rather timely for me, as I’m getting set to dust off my two existing but long-ignored blogs, on regarding photography, the other cycling, which is now going to include scootering as well, which should liven things up even more.

Oh…crazy? How can we NOT be, at least a wee bit? I think I’ve only been asked the “C word” while on the Vespa just once, last Winter, and I sort of get that – pulling into the supermarket parking lot on a January afternoon isn’t what your typical non-moto individual would generally expect to see. (Come to think of it, so moot-heads might look a bit bug-eyed at such a sight.) I’ve gotten the Crazy Question much more frequently as a NYC cyclist, which I suppose is a bit more understandable, given that for most of the 40-plus years I rolled on Gotham’s pavement, there was little to no cycling-specific infrastructure (bike paths, parking, etc.) available. So there!

(BTW, finally got my Vespa Euro-spec flyscreen and Cuppini crash bars for the GTS – pics on MV now.)

That’s a near perfect response! I’ll have to give it a whirl.

I shaved the beard off — didn’t want to appear any more crazy. Maybe the plan to let my hair grow long should be re-evaluated as well.

One thing riding has taught me is that there are few universal truths in the world. Especially around what makes a person sane or crazy. There are a lot of “rules” people live by and expect others to adhere to. Dying on a motorcycle is one of those beliefs that drive people’s rules.

And I agree with McClaren — riding bulls is for crazy people!

Retirement does bring a smile! The beard comes with disdain for daily shaving. But when it gets to this point my wife suggests it’s time to shave!

I wasn’t wild about MarsEdit in general. And I could not get it to post an image. It would upload to the Media folder but just would not appear in the post. So I switched to Blogo. It’s nice and posts ok. But I’m puzzled about how to deal with the SEO issues that the YOAST Plugin helps with now. More education in my future. Or just not worry about it.

As to the question “are you nuts?” In my case, there’s no questioning look from the person….there’s firm conviction and belief.

You’d think they’d never seen a sidecar rig playing in the snow….

The trimmed beard looks good Steve….remember to embrace the -ish!