Seventeen Years of Blogging

This last weekend, Saturday 12th November marked 17 years of posting here on “Dave Moulton’s Blog.”

Having posted the first article on November 12th, 2005, which coincidentally was also a Saturday.

With no thoughts of quitting anytime soon, I do wonder how long I can continue.

I was 69 when this started, I am now 86. My health is still good, apart from the fact that I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at age 80.

Soon after I announced that here, someone commented, “My father lived with Parkinson’s for 35 years.” Which made me think, “Great, that means I could live to be 115 years old.”

Parkinson’s is not fatal; people die with Parkinson’s rather than die from it. I manage it quite well with diet, exercise, supplements and a low dose of one basic medication. I view it as an inconvenience rather than a handicap.

It does affect my speech at times, and I stumble over words occasionally, but due to covid of course, it has been a while since I attempted any public speaking engagements.

But then again, I have always had a problem where my brain works faster than my mouth, and words tend to lag behind my thoughts. Maybe it is just a need to practice more.

My main issue is a tremor in my right hand. I had to switch the computer mouse to my left hand, and even though I am predominantly right-handed, I have adapted quite well.

Typing becomes slow and tiresome at times because I keep misspelling words by typing double, or even triple letters where they shouldn’t be. However, I think how much worse I would become if I did not type on a daily basis. Writing has become an essential exercise for both my Parkinson’s and my brain.

So, no thoughts of quitting anytime soon. However, I have been thinking about changing the format to appeal to a wider audience.

Seventeen years of blogging has often felt like having an unpaid job, but all the regular content posted here has earned me a great position with the search engines, especially Google.

When the time comes, I can no longer do this, I will have something of value to pass on, but I do need to appeal to a wider audience. Vintage bike enthusiasts, especially those interested in one particular brand, by nature is a dwindling audience, rather than an increasing one.

This site does need to be upgraded to a “Secure” platform, and needs to be in a format that can easily be viewed on many different devices, including smart phones.

I will be working towards that goal in the coming months. Priority will be switching over the vast amount of content I have in the archives. Anyone with knowledge how to do this, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Let me hear your thoughts on what I have done right, (And wrong.) and how “Dave Moulton’s Blog” can improve moving forward.

The URL will always be DavesBikeBlog.com but the search engines already respond to variations of that, like “Dave Moulton Bike,” Dave Moulton’s Blog,” etc. Often quite well to simply "Dave Moulton," even though there are many other people with the same name.

Comments

[John B]

Thanks for posting the link on Facebook. Feedly hasn't been working for me for a couple of years.

[Lee]

Dave, I appreciate the work you have put into this blog over the years. I look forward to Mondays to see your latest post. Keep up the good work, as long as it's fun and beneficial. Regards, Lee