Today is the first official day of fall – or autumn if you are kicking it calendar old school. Which means summer is over.

As most of you know, I love summer. It’s my favorite season of the year. Sometimes it can get really hot, but this year, the temps never really hit the triple digits like they usually do. Mostly 90′s for the last bit of July and most of August.

So far, most of September has been cold in the mornings but in the low 80′s during the day. I could thrive very well if it stayed like this all year. But alas, it doesn’t. And before you know it, the snow, ice and cold is here.

Surrounded by leaves – this photo from November 2008

Which means my scooter riding days will come to a close in just a few weeks. Even if it gets chilly, as long as there are no snow storms and icy roads, I will keep riding. Besides, I still have a few Scooter Sunday episodes to film and put together.

So thank you summer, for all of the warmth, travel, splotchy burn that turned to tan, drinks, parties, BBQs and many other joys I experienced. I am hoping for nice warm temps for fall before I start bitching about the cold.

Today is my birthday. I’ll even tell you how old I am. But not until later in the post.

This post is more or less my random thoughts on this day. Read on.

Original image found at m3n4.com
• I share a birthday with Lucille Ball, who would have celebrated her 100th birthday today. In honor of her century birthday, Google has made a Doodle.



I had to log out of my Google account to see it because Google celebrated my birthday first.



• Today marks the 20th anniversary of the first public post on the World Wide Web. So I share a birthday with one of the places I spend a lot of time on.
• Up until this post, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged. I do that when I’ve been on a vacation, regardless how long that vacation was.
• I had to go into work twice today. Short periods, but none the less, working on my birthday when it falls on a weekend.
• I rode my scooter to work both times, so that made the 3.1 mile ride each way more enjoyable.
• I will be 50 in two years [do the math]
• Adult beverages will be consumed sometime during the 24-hours of my official birthday [at the time of this posting, none have been consumed yet]

And with that, there is dinner, drinks and a movie waiting for me somewhere.

What did you do on your last birthday?

Scooter Sunday has been rain delayed this week. It will be back next week with an all new episode.

My list of things I need to do before heading to Vegas on Wednesday [tomorrow]:

• Charge my scooter battery (not that I am driving it to Vegas… )
• Pack (I’m taking two bags, one for clothes, one for tech gear)
• Work 6 hrs (please let no stupid shit happen during that time)
• Pack a rain coat (it’s still winter time, even in Vegas)
• Charge phones (both my Treo and my iPhone)
• Post this blog post (the fact that you are reading this means I can check off this item)
• Remember to tell my brother-in-law “Happy Birthday” without mentioning how old he is (he’s older than I am)
• and…. think positive about winning at the penny slots (I might play some roulette, too)

I think that’s it. Wish me luck. I’ll post again soon.

Vimeo version – Click Here (opens a new browser window)

The End of the Season

This episode is the end of Season 2. I thank you, my readers and viewers, for being patient with me this year. While there have been some great videos I’ve done, the creator is always the worst critic. I had wanted to do more episodes, especially given the time I had during the entire month of October. But it didn’t happen. And I’m ok with that, for the most part, because it wasn’t due to the fact that I don’t love riding my scooter and making videos. No no.. there were other factors, which I hope to blog about here soon.

But enough of that. I do have some great plans for Scooter Sunday Season 3 and hope to get back to my regular, creative self during the winter months.

Speaking of Winter…

Which brings me to the return of Snowy Sunday on December 6th, 2009. There will be a new episode each and every week during the winter months, come rain, snow, sleet, distractions, lazy ass syndrome… no exceptions [well, there's always *some* exceptions, but I will try to keep them from interfering with my video making]. I’ve got some great kick ass episodes in store for you, the viewing audience.

Vimeo version – Click here.

Two In A Row

With summer officially gone and fall started, I am doing what I can to get a few more episodes of Scooter Sunday in before it gets too cold to ride. The forecast is looking pretty cold and grim for this next weekend, so there will most likely not be a new episode next week.

Which means I should (that’s the key word there) be able to get caught up on my other blog posts I’ve been wanting to post.

Vimeo version – Click here.

Winner Winner, Memory Card Winner

And as promised, based on random numbers picked for each comment left on this previous post, here are the winners of the SD cards:

• 1Gb SD card – Avitable
• 2Gb SD card – Sybil Law

And the winner of the 8Gb SD card is….

• Hello Haha Narf

Congrats to the winners. Emails will be going out soon with details on how to claim your prize.

Vimeo version – Click here.

UPDATE:

– I forgot to add proper credit to the opening song in this weekend episode.

Band: The 13th Floor Elevators

Song: “You’re Gonna Miss Me”

© 1966 Collectibles Records

Snowy Sunday Ep. 002 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

For the YouTube version, click on this link: Snowy Sunday Episode 002

Make sure you tune in next week. I’ve got something cool planned that everyone will like.

Scooter Sunday Captured Ep. 009 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

For the YouTube version, click on this link: Scooter Sunday Captured Episode 009

The End For Now

As Scooter Sunday comes to an end for 2008, it brings some sadness, as there are times when I wished I lived in a warmer climate and be able to ride year round. But reality slaps me in the face and I realize we get a good 6 months of winter here in Utah. Oh, we have some nice days here and there, but “nice” in the winter is anything above 45 degrees during the day. Still not exactly scooter friendly, considering the roads are pretty icy most of the time. If all things go as planned, Scooter Sunday should be back sometime in late March.

Since last Sunday, the weather turned pretty cold. We had some warm weather, but it was a lot less than we’ve seen in previous weeks. I still need to winterize the scooter, but I’m putting it off, thinking we’ll get one more day in the 60′s… one more quick ride before I unplug the battery and cover up the scooter in a nice warm blanket. I know… fat chance, but wishful thinking on my part.

Winter Plans

So what am I doing for the winter? Hibernating like a bear and snacking on my ration of Mother’s Circus Animal cookies? Not exactly [although I do have a hidden bag somewhere]. Be patient, people. I will reveal all next week.

Scooter Sunday Captured Ep. 006 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

For the YouTube version, click on this link: Scooter Sunday Captured Episode 006

Minor Formatting Change

All of my previous posts have had some form of formatting to them. I used a SPAN tag that formats the text to a Verdena font. It seemed to work ok, but there’s some feed readers and browsers that had an odd display to it. The formatting looked like there were tons of space between paragraphs [I am still using the < p > tags for each paragraph]. So the last post and all posts from here on out will not be using the SPAN tags. It appears to format the text better, at least from what I’ve seen. Let me know if you see any difference.

How Many More Episodes?

I’ve had a couple of people ask me how many more video episodes of Scooter Sunday Captured will I be doing this year. Well, that all depends on the weather here in Utah. So far, it’s been cold in the mornings, but warm during the day. We had a cold snap last weekend with some snow, but this weekend has been very nice… in the low 70′s. Perfect for scooter riding. But as I’ve mentioned before, cold weather is just around the corner. So enjoy the videos while I still have scooter-friendly weather. Once I’ve put the scooter away for the season, I’ll still be making videos… just something that’s more winter-friendly. I’ll post the details on that soon.