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IN THIS ISSUE

• Rafiki concludes her description of learning to ride a motorcycle
• Carolyn Harris writes about the experience of blogging
• So you think you are having a bad day?
• Don Henderson´s story is about an understandable confusion
• Marilyn Magid and Tom Kyle send an experiment with your right foot
• Kate Brookfield forwards some amusing remarks by children
• Bruce Galway and Tom Williamson suggest websites

Rafiki concludes her account of her new hobby:

THE MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURES OF A BEGINNER

My brother was exceptional in providing me with all his knowledge and experience. Some of my friends had taken motorcycle courses in the city, but the courses were held in a parking lot. My brother and my husband worked with me and I received much practical road and gravel experience. My brother once said to me that maybe he was too hard on me, but he didn´t want me to have any bad habits.

Stop and starts at stop signs was another learning experience. My brother told me I had to make "jack rabbit" starts away from stop signs in case I had to quickly get away from a car. Sometimes in my "jack rabbit" attempt I would stall the motorcycle, but experience cleared that situation.

I had many adventures with sudden emergency stop situations. One sunny Sunday afternoon I encountered in the middle of my pathway a bare-toothed groundhog snarling at my motorcycle. I quickly pulled the clutch in to avoid running over this live speed bump.

Another time, a short distance away from me, a white-tailed deer wandered out of the ditch. The deer paused to eat some grass by the roadside, chewed the grass and swallowed it before it ran across in front of me. I obviously wasn´t up to road speed if the deer had time for a lunch break.

Speaking of wildlife, a chipmunk darted out on the road very quickly, then stopped dead in the middle of the road. The chipmunk dared me to hit him, then changed his mind and darted off the road in the direction he had come from.

A ride isn´t a ride until you have a sneaky dog lying in wait in a ditch. The dog suddenly bolts out of the ditch in high-speed pursuit. This builds your skills in quick get-a-ways and swerving tactics.

Every time after a ride I was critiqued by my husband about what I did right and what I did wrong: too slow coming up to a corner; only one foot allowed down at a stop; careful on the curves, etc.

When you ride a motorcycle you are always on the alert, much more so than driving in a car. Where you turn your head is where your motorcycle goes, so you can´t gawk around as much as when you are in a car.

It is important to always practice defensive driving. I am always checking my mirrors, always looking ahead and around me to be aware of my surroundings. Since a motorcycle is smaller than a car, visibility, seeing and being seen, communication and space are important. You focus on seeing and hearing, then judging what is going to happen next.

My proudest moment was out riding with the "Big Dog", my brother. Suddenly I was up to highway speed as I wanted to keep up. It takes time and experience to be up to highway speed; it is best for a beginner to ride at a speed in which she is comfortable and in control of her motorcycle.

I now understand why my brother said I was too old. He grew up riding dirt bikes and motorcycles since he was eight years old, whereas I grew up riding ponies and horses since I was eight years old. (My horse riding adventures are another story!) I asked my brother why he hadn´t taught me to ride a motorcycle when I was younger, but he said he couldn´t get my butt out of the saddle!

I will never obtain the years of experience my brother has, not in my lifetime, but at an older age I have respect for the power of a motorcycle and appreciation of the enjoyment received from riding. My brother always said that riding a motorcycle was a form of relaxation for him. He has always enjoyed the fresh air and tranquility of the back roads. Riding was a time of meditation.

My riding continues on the paved back roads. No main roads for me! There is so much traffic and speed that it is not safe for a beginner. Riding in traffic requires new skills of battling the wind force of larger vehicles. According to my brother, I´m not a true motorcycle rider until I´ve been baptized by rain, so riding in rain will be another chapter in my experiences to come.

Recently we packed a lunch and rode along a beautiful scenic back road. We stopped by the roadside at a quaint historic church and ate our lunch under the shade of some pine trees and listened to the music provided by different varieties of birds. Money can´t buy such magical moments.

Life is good.

So I´m off to my next destination.

P.S. If any readers are experienced motorcyclists, I am open to any of their tips and experiences which might help me along my way.

Carolyn Harris discusses a current topic very popular with internet users:

BLOGGING

Blogging is free and easy. If you have a special interest or just want to keep in contact with family and friends, try an online journal posting called a weblog - or blog. It´s hard to say just how many blogs are floating around in cyberspace, but according to a study over three years ago by Technorati.com, over 100,000 new blogs are started every day, 12% of those using the internet have a blog, and 18% have read one. Many of the blogs I run across are less than three years old, so that number must be much higher by now.

Keeping in touch with family and friends, sharing ideas, or selling something are among the reasons to start a blog. My step-daughter, Liz, is a nurse in American Samoa, so she´s far from family and friends. A good photographer, her blog is 90% photos of dinner with the governor, windsurfing, or her cockroach chasing cat. She posts, then sends an e-mail with a link to that new post. A personal blog like this can limit viewers to those invited.

Funny and smart, my friend Bev is a care provider for a husband suffering from Alzheimer´s. She wants to share ideas and vent her anger with other care providers. She has stories in her files about life with George. We spent about an hour setting up her blog - which should have taken about 20 minutes if Bev hadn´t been messing around telling jokes. She didn´t care who read what she wrote, so we clicked the box that let the RSS feeds pick it up. She was amazed when the day after her first post she received comments and links from other caretakers. Bev found there´s even a group of sandwich caretakers, caught between both generations, out there in the blogosphere.

If you have something to sell, a blog can find customers. My friend Charm uses her blog to find customers for her spirit art. My blog Traveling New Zealand( http://travelingnewzealand.blogspot.com/) has AdSense. I pick the size and where I want the ads to show up - on the side, bottom, or top. Google inserts ads that fit the story. I make money when someone clicks an ad for more information.

If you´re going to blog, have something to say. What interests you? Politics, pets, recipes? Do you have a hobby and want to share ideas? The best blogs are focused and don´t jump from canning peaches to the brawl at the local high school football game. Unless it´s a family and friends only blog, don´t ramble. Keep it snappy.

How to Start a Blog

Before you start your blog, decide on your blog name. My first blog, Wednesday´s Woman,( http://wednesdayswoman.livejournal.com/) was started to market an unpublished novel, "Wednesday´s Child". About women´s issues, this blog is written by Molly Brown, DMS. Molly was the daughter telling the story and Molly Brown seemed to fit for unsinkable women. DMS was added because I have a weird sense of humor.

Your pet pooch could write a blog - of course you´d have to let him use your e-mail and remind him doggie treats aren´t allowed around the keyboard.

While you´re thinking up a name for your blog, decide where your blog will be hosted. If you´re a beginner, you want a blog host that doesn´t require you to know HTML - that hypertext markup language used to format websites. Live Journal, TypePad and Blogger are popular sites for beginners. Wednesday´s Woman is hosted by Live Journal - you´ll find a little "powered by" near the bottom and also "design by Lizzie Unger" on that site.

Last November, I picked Live Journal for my first blog. I was thinking about blogging and thought I had better stop doing all that thinking and get a blog started. I knew Frank the Goat ran Live Journal, but I didn´t know the Russians owned the site. It´s easy to forget this is a worldwide web and blogs can be in any language. Since then, Live Journal was sold and is now headquartered in Portland. Live Journal is free, but users can upgrade their account and have a site free of banner ads for $5. per month. TypePad of San Mateo is used by bloggers hoping to have a more businesslike format. TypePad offer a 30-day free trial and monthly fees of $4.95 to $14.95.

Google owns Blogger. I picked Blogger for Traveling New Zealand. Headquartered in San Francisco, Blogger is free and easy to use. When I check into my Google account, Blogger pops up and I can click directly into my dashboard - the page where you can change settings or post. There´s many other free sites such as AOL. There´s also specialty sites like Travelblog.org. I keep a site there to catch more readers for Traveling New Zealand, but it´s harder to use. I have to type in HTML codes to change text or link to another site. Once you´ve settled on your blog name and where you want to park your blog, you´re ready to join the blogosphere.

Register with a password on the site you choose and see if the name is available. Once you´ve registered with your blog´s name, they´ll send a link back to your e-mail. This allows only you or someone with your password to post. Click on the link provided and it will send you to your dashboard, or set-up page. Pick a template - your pre- designed page layout - colors, header, and where you want your sidebars - right or left. Then enter a short bio. During this set up, decide how you´ll screen comments, and whether you want your blog private or sent to the RSS feeds. Any of these can be changed at any time, even months later.

To be concluded.

ARE YOU HAVING A BAD DAY?

Well, then consider this...

In a hospital´s Intensive Care Unit, patients always died in the same bed, on Sunday morning, at about 11:00 a.m., regardless of their medical condition.

This puzzled the doctors and some even thought it had something to do with the supernatural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths occurred around 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, so a worldwide team of experts was assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents.

The next Sunday morning, a few minutes before 11:00 a.m., all the doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible phenomenon was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books, and other holy objects to ward off the evil spirits.

Just when the clock struck 11:00, Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward and unplugged the life support system so he could use the vacuum cleaner.

Having a bad day?

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdex spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers.

A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.

Still think you are having a bad day?

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman.

STILL think you´re having a bad day?

Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn, Germany. Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two helpless protesters were trampled to death.

What? Still having a bad day?

Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn´t pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "Return to Sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.

There now, feeling better?

Don Henderson sends this story which illustrates that

INNOCENCE IS PRICELESS

One Sunday morning, the minister noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names and had small flags mounted on either side of it. The six-year- old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the minister walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, "Good morning, Alex."

"Good morning, Reverend," he replied, still focused on the plaque. "Reverend, what is this?"

The minister said, "Well son, it´s a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service."

Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque.

Finally, little Alex´s voice, barely audible, asked, "Which service, the 8:30 or the 10:45?"

Marilyn Magid and Tom Kyle want to know

HOW SMART IS YOUR RIGHT FOOT?

Just try this exercise from an orthopedic surgeon:

1. While sitting where you are at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number ´6´ in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction.

This will boggle your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your foot, but you can´t. It´s pre- programmed in your brain.

You and I both know how stupid it is, but before the day is done I know you are going to try it again to check it out. Send it to your buddies to frustrate them too.

Kate Brookfield thinks these have to be original and genuine, because no adult is this creative:

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

Jack (age 3) was watching his Mom breastfeeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked: "Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?"

Melanie (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was Granny replied she was so old she didn´t remember any more. Melanie said, "If you don´t remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six."

Steven (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom good night. "I love you so much that when you die I´m going to bury you outside my bedroom window."

Brittany (age 4) had an earache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a child-proof cap and she´d have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: "How does it know it´s me?"

Susan ( age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. "Please don´t give me this juice again," she said. "It makes my teeth cough."

DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: "How much do I cost?"

Marc (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: "Why is he whispering in her mouth?"

Clinton (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, "I don´t know what´ll happen with this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in?"

James (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt." Concerned, James asked: "What happened to the flea?"

Tammy (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then asked, "Why doesn´t your skin fit your face?"

The sermon I think this Mom will never forget: One particular Sunday sermon: "Dear Lord," the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face, "without you, we are but dust...." He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter, who was listening, leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little four-year-old-girl voice, "Mom, what is butt dust?"

RECOMMENDED WEBSITE

Worth another look is this site sent by Bruce Galway, to put things back into perspective:

http://dingo.care-mail.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf

Tom Williamson forwards the URL for a video of a kid with no bones to speak of:

http://fun.mivzakon.co.il/flash/video/2306/2306.html

This newsletter may be read online at http://members.shaw.ca/vjsansum/or http://nw-seniors.org/stories.html

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry A. Kissinger