Scooting with Dru

Yesterday Steve Williams of Scooter in the Sticks fame announced that he was going to start upon a new journey, and that his posts on Scooter in the Sticks would slow down.  For many, including myself, this is a sad day.  Steve is a rare man who has the talent of both the visual and the word ( whereas I have neither, but since I also lack the shame gene, I do both anyways :) ).  His contributions to the online scooter community through his art have had a great impact, and he will be missed.

I personally have high hopes that he'll be back after a short break, but only time will tell.  Until then, Steve I will miss your art and words, you have been a daily read for me for 2 years now.

Unfortunately, I suspect that some of his new direction came as a result offrustrations with an upgrade on his blog which cost him some lost data, and more then likely, quite a bit of frustration.  I can relate.

When I first started blogging about my scooter adventures, I made a choice to not use one of the commercial blogging systems and to post my own using a desktop blogging software.  This decision came after poking and researching all the options.  Blogger was the obvious easy one, but there was also the option of doing a privately hosted site using WordPress or Blojsom.  The problem with all of the above is that I prefer to edit offline, and doing so in those environments meant a text editor, or a product like MarsEdit (which I now use for another site that I maintain for work, for anyone with a Mac and an online editable (WordPress, TypePad, Plosjom, Blogger etc. blog, I suggest that you run over and give Daniel a bit of money, the product is really that good and I won't say that all that often).  At the time, I was already writing a personal blog on my .mac account using Apple's kinda of funky, but more or less usable iWeb product.  You can still see those posts here.

Then in July, I decided to split my then all encompassing single blog space out into three seperate logs, as they related to what I do (and it is actually now five, as I've had to add one for my day job, and my personal one is back up too).   Anyways, when I made that change, I also changed software.  These days, I use a Mc based program called SandVox.  It keeps everything in a single local file and publishes to the web when I'm happy with it.  When used with backup software, this means that I have been through 4 computers since I started blogging with this software, and never had a blip of data loss.  It also means that I can rework the entire visual aspects without ever impacting the content.  

Unfortunately, once committed to one or the other, moving from one to another becomes very difficult, so while I've been lucky to find a system that works for me, it isn't a good answer for everyone.  But then again, understanding that last line is part and parcel to understanding the choices involved in riding.  Commuting on a scooter works for me, but for a couple of the guys that I work with, a scooter would cripple their manliness, so they have to ride 1000cc bikes with no storage.  That works for them, and the scooter works for me.  In the end, we all get where we need to be.