Scooter Sunday #29

This episode took a lot more time and effort than I expected, but I think it turned out pretty good. Judge for yourself.

Scooter Sunday Captured Ep. 008 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

For the YouTube version, click on this link: Scooter Sunday Captured Episode 008

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The End Is Near

That’s right. The end is near for a couple of things. One is the election. This Tuesday marks the end of voting and when we will [hopefully] find out who will be our next president. I’ve got one more blog post before Tuesday with all of my election errata and final rants thoughts on all of it.

The second is Scooter Sundays. As I’ve been mentioning the last few weeks, winter approaches and with that comes slick roads, ice and snow – not exactly scooter-friendly weather. Next week will be the final episode for the season…. I know… sad, isn’t it. 🙁 But I will have something to replace Scooter Sundays for the winter time [all the details will be unveiled in two weeks]. Then come spring [most likely mid-March, Scooter Sunday will be back in all it’s glory, with new logos, T-shirts and the videos you all have come to enjoy these past few months. Maybe we can break 30 fans by summer 2009… who knows.

The Number 29

Not too many people in the blogosphere know personal things about me. Oh sure, I’ll share almost naked pictures of myself and show off my dental work, but details of my personal life I leave out of the blog world. Every once in a while, I do find something I’m comfortable to share.

The number 29 has some significance in my life, in multiple ways. First and foremost, it ended up being my favorite age. My daughter turned 1 that year, which for me, was one of the greatest times of my life. On the flip side, it was one of the most challenging and difficult years of my life, coming off the heels of a job loss, a bankruptcy and various other life struggles. Two completely opposite parts of my life happening in the same year. But as they say, enjoy the great things in life and learn from the tragedies.

I’ve never been much of a gambler, especially the table games, but I took a liking to roulette. Back in my trade show days, a co-worker at Word Perfect and I wanted to try roulette, but being the left brained people we are, we wanted to see how the game worked and how the odds worked. So we wrote a couple of software programs and sat in the room and played roulette, betting M&Ms to see how we could do. After a couple of nights of this, we each took $20 and our new found skills and went to the casino. Two hours later, I was up almost $200 and he was pretty close at around $180. So where does the number 29 come into play here? Black 29 on the roulette board has been my lucky number. The few times I’ve had a hunch to place one of my chips on that number, it’s paid off. Not every time, mind you, but it’s been good to me on more than several gambling occasions.

Since then, the number 29 has developed a meaning of life’s lessons, both useful and entertaining. And it’s a number I will never forget. So this posting of the 29th Scooter Sunday brings both mixed memories and fun times – all learning life’s lessons.