A Vespa & What Not

It is true. The words of Anna were not lies. We now own our first scooter. My good friend & cohort Nick gave me a sale’s job before they moved to Birmingham. From that point on it’s always been a dream, but never really a necessity. When I began my own company and began working from home, my Mazda 3 was sitting in the garage every day and never getting used. Realizing that it was a waste to make a monthly payment on something that only got driven every other week, we decided to sell it. Since then, we’ve learned to adapt our driving patterns and adjusted to life as a one car family. It has taught us many things. It has taught us to think twice before going somewhere. And it has forced us to live locally. I realize this isn’t practical for everyone. But it’s something that worked well for us.

Anyway . . . lately Anna has been getting more and more into photography and finds herself gone on the evening and/or the weekend. Often stranding me at the house for 10+ hours. If we lived anywhere near food or necessities, this wouldn’t be a problem. I could just walk where I needed to walk. But since we live slam smack in the middle of suburbia . . . walking isn’t a practical choice. And rather than spend $5-10,000 on a car, we decided a Vespa would be the best way for me to be freed up to do what I need to do when I need to do it. And as we continue to try and move out of the suburbs and plant down somewhere smaller and more local (Athens, Gulf Shores, who knows) . . . this will be an even better choice.

Anna and I stay on top of our finances pretty good. Anna basically has given up on pedicures. I’ve given up on buying new clothes. And we both decided to cut back on our television watching (we have 7 channels, one of which is PBS). That and the fact we don’t use the air or heat hardly at all except when guests come over. So we’ve got a little extra to put towards something like this.

Anyway . . . not really sure why I just went into all of that. I guess I always carry with me some sense of buyer’s remorse and guilt for buying “nice” things when so many people get by with much less and are much more content than me. That and I think way too much about the 3rd world lately. Anyway . . . I’m sure this just has to do with me being bipolar half the time. With all of that said . . . I want to introduce you to the new club that I’ll be joining soon . . .

The Imperial Scooter Club. Check out the members page for a sweet pic of the creepy Deliverance fiddle player. But I’ll be rolling with these guys soon and going to some rallies. Which brings me to my main reason for posting this . . . I need a nickname for myself and for my bike. Any suggestions on either? Check out their member’s section for the lofty standard . . . like this dude.

You can also find a new category for the Vepsa. And I’m going to be posting a lot more blogs and Flickr pics related to travel blogging via the Vespa.