And Murphy strikes again....

My fiasco with calendars continues...I got an email from someone who ordered a kids calendar - at first I did not understand the email - so I went and looked at my only copy of the calendar and sure enough the printer never put in the calendar pages - rendering this calendar completely - totally useless - I shake my head - I guess in the excitement to get them out I never really looked at them - I just wanted to get them in the mail - so I did the only thing I could do - I refunded $10 of the money paid by these people.

The Calendars were $20 with $10 going to charity - since the charity - The Little Warriors had been paid already - I refunded the calendar cost - so in all - I would have been farther ahead to have just donated to the charity without all of the work it took do the calendars and have to fix someone else's mistake - live and learn right...somedays you are the windshield - some the bug!

I am keeping today short and sweet since I am already three hours behind on the day - check out the news feeds at www.beltdrivebetty.com to see what might affect your world...

I leave with with a few giggles from around Facebook etc...cause I NEED TO LAUGH RIGHT NOW!

Have a fabulous Friday and a great weekend...

Belt Drive Betty
Editor & Rider

The erosion of our freedoms - "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Apathy is, in my humble opinion, the single most destructive force of the human race these days.

It is not a small town issue, or a big city issue, nor is it a national issue. Apathy is not restricted to volunteerism or politics, to corporations or individuals - it is a global situation - it is the enemy of every living being.

According to the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary Apathy means:
1 : lack of feeling or emotion : impassiveness
2: lack of interest or concern : indifference

The syndrome, no matter the topic, no matter the community,  affects everyone.

There are many famous quotes on the topic of Apathy - quotes that have been around for hundreds and thousands of years - Apathy is nothing new.

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
― Martin Niemöller

"I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.
 Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna

"...So long as the people
do not care to exercise their freedom,
those who wish to tyrannize will do so;
for tyrants are active and ardent,
and will devote themselves in the name
of any number of gods, religious and otherwise,
to put shackles upon sleeping men." Voltaire - François Marie Arouet (1694-1778)

"When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force.
When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered." 

Dorothy Thompson(1894-1961)

There is, in my humble opinion a root cause to Apathy and that is the lack of Empathy which is defined by the Mirriam-Webster Disctionary as:

1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicitmanner; also : the capacity for this

It appears to me that because so many seem incapable of putting themselves in someone else's shoes, they have no way to identify with the fears, concerns or situations of others.

Until we are directly impacted ourselves we simply do not get involved.

We all lead busy lives, we all have concerns of our own, but when we forget our fellow man, when we turn a blind eye or expect someone else to deal with the problem or situation at hand, we become an advocate for the enemy not the suppressed or the oppressed.

Is there an answer? I have no idea. All I know, is that in my little corner of the world - in my little circle of influence - I will keep advocating for communication, discussion and action until I die, because for me - to do nothing would be as good as dying.

What say you? Join the discussion because I really would love to know what you think...

I leave you with a couple of funnies from friends on Facebook and via email because laughter is as important to life as breathing....

Belt Drive Betty
Editor & Rider

Hatred of Motorcycle Noise - a reason for murder?

Out of the Philippines today comes an article that could be straight out of a Stephen King book or movie.

A man with an intense hatred for the noise a motorcycle makes killed one man and critically wounded another.

Begin Quote:

Chief Inspector Rodel Marcelo, head of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said that the man who attacked the victims with a bolo—36-year-old Procopio Endriga—surrendered to policemen afterward.

“He claimed he hates [the sound made by] motorcycles and cannot stand the noise,” Marcelo told the Inquirer.

He added, “He also said he fears for his life [because] he is being followed by motorcycle drivers.”

Marcelo said he would recommend that Endriga undergo a medical checkup to determine his mental condition.

Endriga told the police that he lives on the street and that he used to be a construction worker until his contract expired.

According to Marcelo, Endriga was standing in front of the Maynilad Water office at the corner of EDSA and Monte de Piedad Street in Cubao, Quezon City, when the victims drove by him on their motorcycles, one after the other.

Witnesses said Morta had just parked his motorcycle in front of the water utility firm’s office when he was attacked by Endriga.

The latter then went after Calapiz who was still on his motorcycle. End Quote.

Now I understand the man in this article is probably unstable and has emotional challenges, but folks, there are a lot of tormented people in this world and this article is yet one other example of why we as a community need to get much better at empathy - of putting ourselves in other people's shoes and learning to be more responsible with how we share this world we have to live in with others.

I have zero idea if these riders were riding in a respectable manner or whether they had extremely loud or factory exhausts - but just like the cases where some people intentionally ram motorcycles off the road - offence or not on the part of the rider, there are those who have had bad experiences with other motorcyclists and this type of tragic situation really should serve as a wake up call to our community.

There is quite a bit in the news feeds today, an article on the season finale for SOA, but if like me you haven't yet seen the final episode - DO NOT read it today...

Tourism Ontario is giving away tickets to the Toronto Motorcycle Show

In Quebec, the Hells Angels are rebuilding

ISkin & Ducati have some neat accessories that deserve to be checked out

An interesting book on Staying Alive is released by Whitehorse Press

A trials rider spans a 384 foot arch...

And Titan is hosting a "Kickstart" conference in Phoenix.

There are other articles that may be of interest to you as well, check out www.beltdrivebetty.com for the news that may affect your day.

I leave you with a couple of funnies shared by my friends on Facebook or emailed to me to start your day off on a healthy note... because Laughter really is THE BEST Medicine.

Have a fabulous hump day.

Belt Drive Betty,
Editor & Rider

What's happening across the pond and why it should concern you

Motor Biker had some very interesting news out of Europe in his blog today.
The first is an article about French President Sarkozy. Sarkozy and his government have successfully reduced the crash fatality rate in that country by 50%, however they are now going OVERBOARD with things...

They are going to deploy 400 4th generation radars that will have no warning that there is radar ahead, the locations will not be allowed to be stored on GPS. Although they had backed down last year because of protests, they have decided to go ahead with these units anyway.

Starting in the spring, every vehicle in France will be required to have a breathalyzer unit in them.They do not disable the vehicle - they are the balloon type - but think of the ramifications - if you get an impaired you will have ZERO defence because the government is leaving the responsibility to find out if you are impaired up to you - I am not for drinking and driving in any way - but seriously is this not a bit over the top?

Another thing they are looking to force on people will be speed limiters in cars. The Sarkosy government is looking at 2 options - one in every car or only for those who get speeding tickets.

And now come the motorcyclists - as far as Sarkozy is concerned, bikers are bad.

Begin Quote: 
Motorcycle Riders All this is pretty bad and far fetched. But the worst was his statement. Freely translated, he said:

"Half of the dead were decent people who were in their car, respecting the rules of the road, and a human bomb fell upon them, and their destiny and their family was shattered".

In other words, all bikers ride like lunatics, and are a menace to decent citizens. He doesn't take into account that studies and statistics have clearly shown that 70% of the motorcycle vs car accidents were caused by the car driver, not the biker. But it's election time, and he does not like bikers, so he's showing it. End Quote

The second article of extreme interest involves the legislation on motorcycles.
In a press release from FEMA -
Begin Quote:
The European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) voted in Brussels today on its report on the proposal for a regulation on the approval and market surveillance of two- and three wheelers and quadricycles.

In the view of IMCO, as from 2016 motorcycles will have to become cleaner and manufacturers must apply ABS, even for light motorcycles. And as from 2014, measures to prevent powertrain modifications (which are still to be developed) must be applied and users shall present their bikes for inspection when carrying out "substantial" modifications. End Quote

FEMA agrees with many of the proposals that will be voted on in 2012, however they have grave concerns over section/article 18.  

Begin Quote: But if the current text of article 18 is finally adopted, it will mean that all the usual changes motorcyclists make for riding comfort, fuel efficiency, or simply to suit their riding style, will be illegal or will have to be checked and approved, even this has not been a problem so far and there is no reason why it should become a problem tomorrow. FEMA will certainly keep on working on this regulation." End Quote

It appears that Europe is doing everything it can to dissuade riders from riding. 

If the anti tampering law is not changed to allow for personal comfort modifications then a lot of riders will probably quit and that seems, in my humble opinion to be the goal here.

So why should you in North America be concerned? Many of the laws we have here in North America originated in Europe and although modified for our countries - they still come here in one form or another.

The nanny state is alive and well and we should all be afraid - VERY afraid. 

I have said it many times and at the risk of sounding like a broken record I am going to say it again - WE in Canada really need a watch dog - an organization that can truly go to bat for us.

The US has the AMA - Europe has FEMA - we need someone to start speaking for riders here BEFORE these laws can come in to play here.

I know one thing however - Canadians will not get involved and be proactive until there is a threat that is so severe that every rider will want to get behind and by that time it will be way too late.

In other news - I have made a decision regarding Charity Calendar Fundraisers - NEVER AGAIN - at least not the way we did it this time.

Since people have given me nothing but flack over them, I have decided that they are not worth the grief.

I made not one red cent on them - I never intended to make money on them but in fact, because of the screw up by the printer I lost money on them.

I have been belittled because I did not give participants free calendars for appearing in them - can I ask a question? What part of CHARITY FUNDRAISER did you not get?

I have been harassed by people who did not seem to read the fact that the calendars were not being printed until pre ordering was over on October 31st. I have been belittled because some people did not get orders in on time - even though we gave people 4 months to place an order.

NEVER - EVER AGAIN - it is just not worth the energy - next time I want to create awareness and raise funds for something via a calendar it will be a virtual calendar - one you can down load and print off at home - for a fee.

There are many articles that may be of interest to you in the news feeds over at www.beltdrivebetty.com - check them out to stay informed...

I am going to leave you all with some funnies for the day - cause even if you don't need a giggle I DO!

Garfield was syndicated on my birthday - and today - this is exactly how I feel

Have a great Tuesday everyone...

Belt Drive Betty

Editor & Rider

A weekend of learning/practising/exercising patience

We had a weekend of learning/practising/exercising patience - you know the art of breathing deeply and shutting down anger because anger and frustration are useless emotions that suck the life force out of you.

Our current web host, Host Gator had experienced outages that caused our site to go down for hours AGAIN on Sunday. Technical glitches happen, that any of us understand, but to be lied to by said host, had myself and Ali really having to focus on patience, breathing deeply and continuing the work of moving towards transferring all of our content on our site to a new host.

We know our days are numbered with Host Gator and so we let the lies go and didn't give them much for energy - why bother, but when I think back to the article I wrote on Friday about customer service, the weekend's experience really affirmed for me that customer service - the art of caring for and building relationships with your customer appears to be a dying art with some companies.

If there is a problem you are so better off to just admit it and move towards resolution instead of blaming your customer or attempting to hoodwink them with fancy terminology.

Is customer service that much of a dying art? It is with some companies and yet there are other companies who are either stepping up their game or just continuing the practise of relationship building and great service.

I have two such stories to relate to you today...

The first one involves our calendars. UPS had lost them, they finally found them and delivered them late Thursday. I opened them up - all excited - the printing was gorgeous - they looked really good for my first attempt at doing something like that and then I went to open them, only to discover that they had been stapled on the side instead of the middle....OH NO...they were pretty much useless as calendars - now what?

A call to the printer - it appears there was a miscommunication between he and I - the printer agrees to reprint them but we have NO time if they are to get in the hands of those who ordered them in time for Christmas...now what?

I get a brainwave and take the calendars to Staples, now I have never had much luck with customer service at Staples but at this late date I was willing to try anything - I talked to a gal named Jen in the copy centre - showed her the calendars and asked her if she had any solutions that would allow the calendars to be useable. She did! She took one calendar, sliced the side off where the staples were and then used a clear coil binding at the top - because of the way they were printed it means having to turn the calendars over when you change months but far better than not being able to use them at all...

She expressed that they were busy and probably would not have them done until Sunday. Well that was better than waiting another 10 - 12 days to get reprinted ones  plus shipping time, so I called the printer - he agreed to split the cost of having coils put on them and I told Jen to go ahead. Then Friday morning at 10 AM I got the call that they were ready - I was floored - I ran down to get the calendars - they looked 1000% better than when I had dropped them off the night before and was pleasantly surprised that they had given me a 20% discount since the calendars were clearly fund raisers - can you say WOW!

I got to work and got them all in the mail and if all goes well this week people should start seeing their calendars arrive.  Am I 100% happy with them? No - I would have liked them to have been done right to begin with BUT it is amazing what happens when you think creatively and find people who are willing to help you make a silk purse out of a sow's ear - so HATS off to Jen and the team at Staples for the fabulous job they did and to my printer for being so willing to right a mistake.

The next wonderful thing that happened took place when ordering my new media kits.  Every year I have to update my sales kits to reflect the growth of the business and printing is expensive. I often use Vista Print for my business cards etc because they provide a great quality product at a very affordable price.

Anyway, the order I had to place was a very large one, I was pleased to note that one of their specials was free shipping on orders of over $65. I also qualified for other discounts because of the size of the order and the products I was purchasing. When I went to check out however, the discounts weren't showing up and neither was the free shipping. So I emailed their customer service department, next thing I know the discounts are all showing up on my order - SWEET!

But the $120 shipping fee was still showing and since I needed to get the products coming right away I placed the order before I got any response regarding the shipping.

About two hours later, while I am out doing some shopping, I start getting all of these refund notices in my email on my phone. HMMM - what the heck, looks like they are having trouble providing some of the things I ordered. Then I get one final email explaining to me that there was problem on their end with the web offer not going through right and that in order to rectify the situation they were giving me two of the products I had ordered completely free - almost $200 worth to make up for the oops! In fact the refunds totalled to almost double the cost of the shipping. Can you say impressed?

So while some companies out there do not seem to be able to attract good customer service reps and or have a culture within their businesses that does not empower their employees to be good at customer service or perhaps the company itself has no real customer service values to install in their people - I must say that other companies do and or have found their way back to good customer service - I know I will begin using Staples far more often than I have in the past to see if this great experience I had on the weekend is part of a new philosophy at Staples or not and I know that Vista Print has reaffirmed for me why I have done business with them for the past 10 years.  I have always gotten great service, prices and quality from them and this weekend's experience has totally validated for me why I use them as much as I do.

I would love to hear your thoughts on customer service - is it a dying art or are companies finally starting to get that customers have lots of choice and WILL take their business and move it to companies that exhibit great service...what say you?

The news feeds have been rather quiet the last few days, it seems that after that spate of articles last Thursday that everyone went on vacation.

Honda USA has announced a brake recall...

There is an interesting product review on Smoothie Hard Bags for Harley's

There is another product review on Alpinestar's airbag suits that you might find interesting

Inside Motorcycles has info on the upcoming Toronto Motorcycle Show

There's a great story about a Goldwing that survived the earthquake in Christchurch earlier this year

Harley is pleased with their new Blackline and how younger riders are embracing their product.

There are a few other articles you might find interesting so check them out at www.beltdrivebetty.com where we sift through the news so you don't have to...

I have a few funnies to share from people who either email them to me or share them on Facebook because it's Monday and we all need a giggle to get the week started off on a better foot!

That's what's fit to print in my world today...soooo

Have a fabulous day,

Belt Drive Betty,
Editor & Rider