You’ve Been On The Road Too Long When…
By · Comments… you wake up in a strange hotel room at four AM, searching desperately for the bathroom, choose the wrong door, sleepily realize your mistake a second after the door slams and locks, end up locked out of your room, and come fully awake standing in the hallway in your underwear (fortunately), forcing you to make the ultimate walk of shame to the front desk, where a snotty desk clerk snidely asks if you have any ID, then you’re finally escorted back to your room by a burly security guard that can’t seem to stop snickering.
Not that such an event has ever happened to me.
Ever.
Kicking Out The Rust
By · CommentsIt’s been a while.
Not only has it been a while since I’ve written a blog post, but since I’ve donned a jacket and helmet and gone for a ride. Maybe that’s what’s been wrong with me lately. Today, I set out to find out.
First I had to round up all my gear. My tankbag was well hidden under some Christmas stuff. My helmet visor needed a good dusting – never an encouraging sign. Slithering into my riding pants, the zipper of the fly bursts off, which is absolutely not a good sign. Rain Cloud Follows, my trusty and faithful Yamaha FJR, sat dejected under its dust cover, still dirty from the last ride – which was so long ago I can’t even remember what it was.
(I exaggerate. I remember it well. The last long ride Fiona and I took on Rain Cloud Follows was to Napa and Oregon – which means the last real ride report I’ve done – a long, long time ago – can be found here.)
The Big Day
By · CommentsToday I turn forty.
Forty! I can remember when I thought forty was old. This is what I looked like when I entertained such foolish thoughts:
Keywords
By · CommentsSince I started the new and seldom updated Frenchy’s Rant, I’ve been secretly using Google Analytics to monitor the meager traffic that trickles through my site. Honestly, the Faithful Fifteen seem to have stuck with the blog, and every now and then someone new stumbles along. Full disclosure, anytime I am feeling good about myself, I check Google Analytics . The extremely low number in the Daily Visitor column ends that feeling pretty quickly.
Google Analytics offers tons of information on the visitors to the blog. I can see where people visited from, how long they stayed, what they read, and now I can even see which keywords in a Google search brought visitors to my little corner of the intertubes. Usually the keywords are blog related: ‘motorcycle’, ‘frenchy’s rant’, or something similar. However, sometimes those keywords are in no way blog related at all. One in particular, a string of almost nonsense words really got me wondering: “How the hell did a random bunch of words like that led someone to Frenchy’s Rant?”
I Googled the great phrase to find out. At first I found nothing. I had to dig fourteen pages deep to solve the mystery. The keywords somehow matched up to my Scotland ride report. Here is the passage that made the curious searcher stop by and check out my blog:
‘When riding conditions really suck in the middle of a ride, … Look at that fucking rain! It’s coming down sideways! … much better than the Indian food of the day before, I decided to try something REALLY adventurous for lunch. … beverage is lovingly created – the Macallan distillery, but that got washed out.’
The phrase that matched that post? I swear I am not making this up: ‘an indian boy suckng really milk from a girl and fuckng her very lovingly‘
Priceless!
The rest of the information from Google Analytics completed the story for me. This search was performed on Christmas Eve! That right there is the best Christmas present I could ever hope for, and is the reason, low traffic or not, I will do my best to continue to blog.
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