Floribama Riders

In 2005, I went on a guided dual sport tour across portions of the California desert to celebrate turning 50. The next few posts are excerpts from an article I wrote when I returned.

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“Hey, buddy”, Bill said, “me and some of my old college roommates are planning a ride in the desert to celebrate turning 50 next year. Want to come?”

“Count me in” I said. “I’m turning 50 next year, too”.

The late arriving contingent (Charles B., Susan J., Greg S., and I) managed to get a very late start.  I was originally planning to leave earlier with Mark C. but....  We left the Binder Garage in Leeds at 1:50 PM on Friday with Charles and Greg leading at various points.  We took some back roads while we had daylight--planning to slab it after dark.  It was peaceful and pretty and uneventful.  Most of the roads were low traffic and it was a nice ride up.  We finally hopped on the interstate and made better time.  When we got close we hit the side roads.  There were only 2 minor almost incidents.  We saw a deer off the side of the road, and, thankfully, it just watched us ride by.  About 20-30 minutes from the end a large fuzzy white dog appeared in the middle of the road and was too stunned to move.  Greg and Susan came the closest to it.  Again, no problem.

Here is the route for TRTEAR III.... whatta great time!

“Never underestimate the power of an idea”

Marines are crazy. Good boys, but crazy in the best kind of way. Two of my best buddies on the planet are Marines. Guys that not only are Marines, but the types that fly fast machines and ride fast bikes. My kind of people, actually.

Last year, after a trackday by Sport TrackTime, Dutch Roell and Butch Nunnally were hangin’ at the casa having an adult beverage. We all knew that both of them were going to be redeployed back to the “Sandbox” as they call the theatre of operation Iraq. During our conversations about life in general, most of us motorhead types generally will see our discussions at one time or other cycle back to riding, riders, and places to ride. We reminisced about old times, good rides, and bikes we had. We talked about races and racers. We discussed places to go, and things to see… basically, it was a typical BS session that most guys partake of. During our discussions we talked about Nicky and Valentino, we talked about Mat and Ben, we talked about riders past and present, and finally we talked about Joey.

Several years ago, my wife bought a Yamaha XT225 to learn to ride dirt on. The XT is a good beginner bike, relatively low to the ground and light weight, and most importantly, electric start. We have been through several batteries, because the bike doesn't get ridden nearly enough.

We are planning to make a weeklong dirt and dual sport trip to Colorado this summer. We're taking the XT to do some simple sightseeing on. The trails we plan to ride each day are great, but a bit beyond her comfort zone. Some of the group are bringing 4 wheelers, and on days when the guys are riding the trails, the wives may take the 4 wheelers and explore some of the small towns in the area. The dirt roads to these areas are not challenging, and Ruthie should be able to do them on the XT with no problem. I just don't want her to get stuck somewhere if the battery or electric starter decides to give up the ghost.

Sometimes, anarchy is just delicious. I happened to love this old fart till he offed himself. He and I were kindred spirits in oh so many ways... long live Hunter S!

Song of the Sausage Creature
by Hunter S. Thompson

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The oft ignored road, brought me to a place where I could rest a bit and ponder what may have transpired over time.

I'll keep a running to-do list here for the site admin.

Site launch tasks

Place all existing files into redirects using .htaccess or URL aliases at admin/build/path

Import all paid-up users using http://drupal.org/project/user_import

 
Post launch

Figure out how to put multiple images in a blog post.

• See http://drupal.org/node/71054
• Lullabot recommends, "Use ImageCache to resize images. It's worth the poor u.i. and configuration challenges. Tastes best with ImageField, CCK, and Views."

Install & configure recurring events module for chapter meetings. Also consider WebCalendar module

Set up development environment to mirror prod

Install bio module, figure out how to undo Profile and Member pages

On Tue, 6 May 2008, Bruce wrote:

> John,
>  I think we need to carefully consider the unmoderated auto-signup as
> we will get spammers.  It would be ok if someone will monitor it.  B.

On Tue, 6 May 2008, Woods wrote:

> John:
>
>  I have found that about 10% of the email addresses noted in the
> membership list are not valid for what ever reason.  I might suggest
> putting a notice with instructions out on the list server and also
> having the chapter VP's bringing this to the local chapter's
> attention.
>
>  Woods

Moderator approval

I was assuming that as soon as we launch, I would turn on a Drupal feature that requires moderator approval for signup.

So the site signup form would *become* the FBR registration form. I think I've got all the same fields, but Woods let me know if I'm missing anything. I probably have to make the membership type more granular so the user can choose "regular member - $30/year" separately from "regular member - $45 for 2 years."

When we migrate to the new site, I would like to simplify the account creation process for our members. I remember some people had trouble signing up for the forums at http://www.floribamariders.com/cs/forums, and anything we can do to make things easier would be gravy.

I have access to the current membership list from Woods. See http://www.floribamariders.com/member.htm

Auto-signup via e-mail

What do you all think about *automatically* signing up people for access to the site? We would import a list of members who are up-to-date on their payments. The system would notify the member at their e-mail address of the new account, and that person could log in to add their blog posts and see the private forums on the site.