Motorcycle Views

I retired early from Bell Labs in 1996. I had worked there for 35 years in New Jersey. What would I do to keep me active and productive after that? I had only been riding motorcycles for seven years when I retired. Needless to say, I have been on a whirlwind of adventures since then.

I started building websites, I got active in three motorcycle groups with my wife, Jane. I rode a lot and traveled all over on my motorcycles. I wrote a lot. I became the Motorcycles Guide at About.com in 1999 and that continued for more than seven years as I built a 3-page site into 20,000 pages. After that, I started my own website, Motorcycle Views, and this Newsletter links to it. Every group I joined needed a website and I either built one from scratch or became their webmaster.

After Jane died in 2008 as a result of an automobile accident, things slowed down and I wasn't too much interested in anything. I lifted myself out of that depression when I met Rosemarie. We have been together since 2009 and now travel back and forth with our Maltipoo dog, Princee, from New Jersey to Florida where we have homes.

Yes, I am retired but don't find much time left over in the day whether I'm here in Florida or in New Jersey. Take the last 48 hours.

Very fortunately, we are in Florida right now where the temperatures vary from 50-80 degrees during the winter. I watch the weather in NJ and look at the traffic cams to see how bad the roads are.

On Friday, we had someone come out to remove our custom shelves in the garage and move them to the other side of the garage. That meant I had to remove all the storage boxes and other items from the existing shelves and get them ready for the relocated shelves that would be ready by 6 p.m. Friday. I got most of that done early Saturday, just before the storms began.

We got a steady, heavy rain most of the day that ended up completely overflowing our pool. The water was spilling onto the patio and heading for the back door. We had no hose to attach to the pump to waste some of the pool water to the back yard. The hose had been stolen about the time we moved into the house and we never got around to replacing it. Fortunately, the rain finally started to lessen and the danger was past. The streets in the area, however, were flooded with up to a foot or more of rain. I got a glimpse of what would happen when a hurricane finally hits this area. We haven't had one here in 10 years.

The reason we were relocating the garage shelves was that we were getting a new A/C system that would now go in the garage but would require creating a closed piping system for the house--a big job. That's starting tomorrow and will last for two days.

About two weeks ago, my house in NJ had a shutdown of its heating system. I had one of those WiFi connected thermostats that I could control from my cellphone. I had to get my neighbor across the street from me to come inside my house and help troubleshoot the system. The furnace was not turning on and the temperature was near 50 degrees in the house and falling. The outside temperature was near zero. I had to get my heating company to come out and it appeared that the automatic thermostat had failed. What to do? I decided to have them remove the modern-age thermostat and put in an old technology but reliable thermostat. That fixed that problem.

Maintaining two house separated by 1200 miles is not for the faint of heart.

Currently, I'm about three hours away from issuing this Newsletter.

Last night, the Chairman of the Polar Bears asked me to put the application page up on the website so people could register online for the 2015-2016 season. Of course, it's a little harder to do than it sounds. I have to modify an existing HTML file to reflect the next season's dates and make all the connections to make that work including testing. Then I have to make it work for the mobile versions of the Polar Bear site so both smartphones and tablets will work. Unfortunately, this is not a simple matter. I have to go to a special site to change anything that will be accessed by a mobile device. There I have to create a "plugin" to make a form that the user will fill out and be automatically emailed to The Chairman of the Polar Bears. At the end of the season, I had just been deleting this plugin. There was no way to save it for the next time. This time, I decided to save all the stuff I had to create for the plugin in a text file. Next year, that will be easier. By the way, you can go to the Polar Bear site to see the new form. It will look different (using that plugin) if you access it via a smartphone or tablet.

I have three websites that I'm responsible for. Two I built myself but the third is one used by the GWRRA NJ-F group where I have been the webmaster for eight years. There are many things one needs to know to maintain this site and most had never been written down. I took it upon myself to document all my activities as I found I had to perform them. I just finished a 20-page manual yesterday that I follow myself and hopefully, others in that group will be able to follow should they want to replace me.

As you know, I have also been active converting my book, 50 Wild Motorcycle Tales, into an Audible selection. Over the last 48 hours I've been working with a producer to find mistakes in the files created by the narrators (including me). That means I have to listen to each file and follow along word for word looking for mistakes and documenting them so they can be corrected in the editing process. It's more work than I ever imagined.

I'm just now (noon) starting to get pictures of the Polar Bear run to Whitehouse Tavern in Waretown, NJ. The weather is still very cold with threatening snow and sleet. But, our intrepid riders have made it and I'll be spending about three hours processing these pictures later today and placing them on the Polar Bear website.

It's been a hectic last 48 hours for me. Regardless, I'm enjoying my retirement living in two places and trying to keep track of everything. Maybe we'll decide to only live in Florida. It's too soon to know. It's so much fun juggling my life and keeping my brain active in my declining years. -- Walter

P.S. It's now two and one-half hours before I issue this Newsletter.

Recent Additions to the Motorcycle Views Website:

Motorcycle Picture of the Month:

Here are the Most Popular articles on the Motorcycle Views Site. Take a look:

• Motorcycle Salvage Yards: Where you can find motorcycle parts.
  
  
• Motorcycle Seat Heights: Lists seat heights by motorcycle make.
  
  
• Famous Motorcycle Movies: The great motorcycle movies are discussed.
  
  
• Motorcycle Recalls: Gives all motorcycle recalls for the last ten years by make and year.
  
  
• Women on Motorcycles: These women ride their own bikes.
  
  
• 10 Ways to Be Safe on a Motorcycle: This article could save your life.
  
  
• 10 Motorcycle Myths: There are many myths about riding.
  
  
• Latest Motorcycle Pictures: See the latest received pictures by category.
  
  
  
  "This is me (Lil Lady) on my 2004 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200 Custom. I paid $4000 cash for it. It had 7000 miles on it. Spruced my baby up. Previous owner obviously didn't care for the bike. This is my first Harley and first time I'd ridden a bike this size. After numerous times of tipping over, bloody knees and dislocating a couple of ribs, I had the bike professionally lowered to fit my 5'-3" frame. I was determined I was going to ride the wind ... more" -- Laurie

My Motorcycle Books:

My third book, Motorcycle Haiku Poetry, also available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle editions, contains haiku poems about motorcycles. A surprising number of visitors to my site quickly caught on and enjoyed haiku poetry that had been submitted to me over the years from motorcyclists. Haiku is a simple poem of three lines with five syllables in the first and last lines and seven in the second line. They are easy to write, and most riders like to read them. I coupled each haiku poem with a motorcycle picture and description that tied into the poem itself. I wrote seven of the haiku poems. Click the book cover to learn more about the book and how to buy it on Amazon.com.

Polar Bear Grand Tour Pictures and Videos:

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Expect newsletters on Sunday afternoon every other week.

Please understand that the Motorcycle Views Newsletter is NOT the Motorcycle Views website. The newsletter provides a few links to content on the Motorcycle Views website. Once you click a link in the newsletter, you'll be getting access to content on the Motorcycle Views site.

If you'd like to view some recent newsletters, just go to the newsletter sign-up page and look below where my three motorcycle books are described for links.

Thanks for signing up for the Motorcycle Views Newsletter. Using this Newsletter, I'll keep you up-to-date with what's going on in the Motorcycle Views Blog, the Motorcycle Views Website, and the Motorcycle Views Forum. The forum has a new look as of February 13, 2015. Take a look. Not sure what a blog is? It's like a daily readout of what I'm thinking about, similar to a diary at times. Most often, I'm using mine right now to tell my visitors what has been added to the Motorcycle Views site.

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