Holy Toldeo!  I have not posted anything here since August.  Wow.  In my defense, the site was down for a while.

Since I lost my job in September, I have not been on my scooter much at all. I can’t take it to job interviews, as that is not the image I want for my first impression. And, if I don’t have an interview, the only time I leave the house is to run errands. Those errands usually involve buying stuff, and that requires the Element.

Today is the first time I have been on my scooter in like a month. Holy cow! I had forgotten how much fun it is to ride, and what a stress reliever it is! I was just going to go a mile and a half to the grocery store. But, I decided the grocery store that’s five miles away was a better option. And why not take the long way home? Sure, it only amounted to a ten or twelve mile ride, but it was great fun!

Last week, we rode our scooters all five work days.

We are now three for three this week. The rain has been early enough in the afternoon to not affect our rides home.

Meanwhile, Bossman rode one of his other motorcycles today. He has several.

Last year, Bossman J went to Bermuda. He returned with a froggy souvenir for me, since I collect frogs.

It’s doubly appropriate now, eh?

My older brother, Agent00J, writes for the popular car enthusiast website Autospies. He wrote two separate pieces over the weekend in which he mentioned me and my Met. The first is here, the second is here.

First off, I have very little interest in cars, and from what I have read in the articles and comments on Autospies, I am way out of my league. In fact, I was soundly ridiculed for being a Honda kind of a girl (I comment as SisterOf00J). So be it. Not all of us need to pad our egos with fine German automobiles.

I am not sure if Agent00J is mocking me or not.

My sister in Florida is a good example of action. Currently driving a Honda Element, she along with her husband carpool to work and combine necessary stops as part of the trip home from work to avoid having to take additional trips. Even though the Element they drive is a fairly efficient vehicle, the high price of fuel compelled them to buy scooters. Since purchasing the scooters, the Element spends a lot more time in the driveway as 3-4 days per week they now commute via scooters.

Please note, the reason we purchased the scooters, as I mentioned down in the comments on that article, was because I crashed the car and we did not have rental reimbursement on our insurance policy. Not because of gas prices.

Continuing…

First off, in making the drastic change from car to scooter, was this a knee jerk reaction to a short term dilemma, or is it really a long term solution to a problem we only got a small taste of? In the case of my sister, the 2 scooters cost a little over $4,000 plus tax and interest (I assume she is making payments as opposed to having paid cash) on the scooters, at what point does break even occur justifying the additional expense of the scooters.

00J forgot to factor in an important issue, and something that is often ranked highly on the Autospies site: the Joy of Driving factor. I love riding my little scooter. Oh, sure, it cannot hold a candle to when I raced my brother’s Porsche 911 around the winding Tennessee roads, but for the sheer joy and kick of adrenaline, I have to say the scooter provides an excellent fix.

We paid cash for one scooter and financed the second. The finance fee is ridiculous, and we’re planning to re-fi or pay it off ASAP.

As for the gas comparison, I think I’ve touched on that before on here. My Element, at roughly $4 per gallon for gas, takes $50ish to fill. I have to fill her every five days if I take her to work.

Each scooter takes just over a gallon of fuel. My Met provides me with roughly 85 mpg. My round trip commute to work is 26 miles. So I fill up my Met twice a week. That means instead of $50 for five days in the Element, I’m only spending $8.

Hubby’s Ruckus adds an additional $8. So we’re at $16 for the week for gas.

At the end of your typical four-week month, that would be $250ish for the Element versus $64 for the two scooters. My payment on the scooters is roughly $120. So, 250-120-64 = $66 I’m ahead every month just because I took my scooter to work instead of my Element. That’s $792 per year, and that’s half of a mortgage payment, or several small weekend mini-vacations.

I think that’s worth it.

And that doesn’t even factor in how much better my mood is on days I scoot. I love love love riding my scooter. Sure, the bumps, crazy drivers who try to kill me, and afternoon rain can be a downer, but overall, I love my scooter. I am very proud when I ride my Met. Seriously, I sit taller and just grin the entire ride (bugs in the teeth be damned!).

I think Joy is a bigger benefit than the money saved on gas.

To the woman in the purple PT Cruiser that lives in the Bryn Mawr subdivision: You, ma’am, are a jackass.

Yay! I finally finished copying all my posts and comments from blogger over to here. Now, if I can just get PPP to update my settings, I can resume the rare paid post on this blog. I’ve done a whole ONE so far (that is supposed to pay out today, btw, but since I’ve been setting up this new URL, I’m thinking I’ll not get paid for it, as customer love is anything but loving).

Now, all I have to do is tweak this template until it looks like something decent. I like this color scheme, but it definitely needs tweaking.

After Tuesday’s disconcerting ride, I was disinclined to ride on Wednesday. It was fortunate, then, that it was pouring rain in the morning. Hubby was off, but he drove me to work. Then, yesterday, the lying weatherman said it would be nasty, so we took the Element. That of course meant it was a gorgeous day.

Today, 40% chance of rain. I knew if I put off riding my scooter, I’d have a hard time getting back on it. So, we rode.

And I apparently took my Stupid pills this morning, as I made a couple stupid navigational decisions. But, I’m back on my scooter, after a scary ride the other night.

My ride home tonight was truly unpleasant. About four miles into the ride, it started to rain. I anticipated this, given the black sky and the weather forecast before I left work. But, since it was starting to rain, and I was going to be riding parallel to the black for many miles, I thought it might be prudent to alter my route so that I would be near various shopping plazas. That way, if the sky opened up, I could stop somewhere other than some stranger’s house and seek shelter. I wanted to turn onto Colonial Drive (Hwy 50) from Mills (Hwy 17-92), but the car in front of me did not comprehend the green or yellow turn signals. So, when it was safe to do so, I got back out of the turn lane and continued along Mills. I took the side street that the post office is on, figuring if nothing else, I could stop at the Narnes & Boble on Bumby, as the rain was stinging as it smacked me.

The road I selected is a brick road with speed humps and three stop signs. Obviously I could not get going very fast, not to mention it’s a residential street, so I wouldn’t go much above 30mph anyway. After the second stop sign, as I puttered along, most likely around 25mph, I suddenly realized I was going to die, and there was not a whole hell of a lot I could do about it. A pimp mobile suddenly rapidly backed out of a driveway without looking and at a ridiculously fast speed. There was absolutely no way I was going to avoid hitting this car. No way. I hurt my wrist, I braked so furiously. While braking, I also turned to the left, hoping against hope that I could somehow swing behind the pimp mobile without either hitting his side, or being backed into if I managed to eek past as he continued to be oblivious to my presence.

And then, he noticed me and slammed on his brakes, enabling me to just squeeze behind him.

Folks, I was terrified. There was absolutely no way I would have missed him had he not stopped. No way. The road was wet, my brakes were wet, and there was not enough road for me to stop or for me to navigate past him.

Scared.

Three additional vehicles tried to take me out on the remainder of my ride home. Three people who felt the need to cut off the scooter. In the rain.

A miserable, scary ride.

I came home and latched onto my husband. And had a martini.

I have been trying off and on to import my blogger blog over here, since WP swears it will import my blog and comments. I have repeatedly failed at this task. So, I’ll just go ahead and copy my posts over, and then maybe copy the very few comments later. Just so I can have all my inane rambling over here and update my paid blogging listings so I can start earning a little more dough over here.

UPDATED: is anyone else able to access things once they spill over to a second page? I keep getting not found messages.

I think this was last Thursday evening.