It is Memorial Day Weekend and another summer is kicking off. For most motorcyclists, that means pulling the bikes out of the garage and partaking in much needed two-wheeled therapy. I’m stressed, though. Panic is setting in.

I already feel like I’m out of time. But why?

YouTube

I enjoy the video editing process but I am not a professional. The time I take to edit a video is unreal. Three to four hours of editing to produce 15 minutes of content isn’t very efficient. The channel is getting some traction now since I’ve acquired the Trail125 and featured it in videos. Subscribership has tripled in two weeks. I’m under 50 total. Triple is still triple.

Maybe I will just film everything and get around to editing later. I have to do something when I’m not shoveling snow in the Winter months or in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.

Blogging

BaldRider.com visits have more than doubled since last month. I don’t want to lose that momentum. Unfortunately, most of those visits are to a review comparing QuadLock to Rokform. Why unfortunate? I posted that review on August 11, 2022. I’m happy folks find it interesting but there are other topics here, as well. Take a look around.

I’ve been dedicating more time to writing to meet some of my New Year Resolutions for 2023. Each article (Can you call a blog post an article? Still figuring that one out) takes eight to ten hours before it is ready for publishing. Finding topics to write about takes even more time. Video-editing has taken some of that time up. I probably cannot sustain posting both YT videos and blog posts in the same week until I get faster and more proficient at both.

Paying Bills

When I get monetized and have 300,000,000 views per year on YouTube or my blog starts getting serious sponsorship from some company that prints money, I can do this full-time. My day job eats up precious time until that day comes. I recently started a new position and what little mental capacity I have is dedicated to learning new things. Getting up to speed quickly is the key difference between me and a homeless guy.

I’ve spent the last 3 years as a remote employee but I am now commuting once a week 50 miles each way. That gives me seat time with the Goldwing. Thanks to lanesplitting, my commute is much shorter than it would otherwise be. Maybe you’ve heard this before but traffic in California is no joke. Still, commuting is eating up time I could be doing other things.

Would anybody watch videos of just commuting? We could find out. If I just think of my employer as corporate sponsorship, it doesn’t sound so bad.

Riding

Commuting is a guaranteed two hours per week on the Goldwing but Booger (Trail125) is getting the most attention. It is a shiny new, if incredibly slow, toy. It is the perfect errand vehicle provided you don’t have to get anything too big. That leaves my poor Ural with no seat time at all.

The sidecar is supposed to be in a parade and is participating in a car/bike show in July. There might be some blog or vlog material that comes out of that. We’ll see. It needs some action to prevent it from rotting.

Maybe three bikes is too many. Forget I said that.

I don’t want to continue down the road of producing more content about motorcycles than spending time on them. I wrote about this back in February. It is a balance I still have not quite figured out. I need to be out there riding and going on adventures to create materials for blogging and vlogging. I can’t do it all at the same time unless I start livestreaming while riding.

HoneyDo List

After the snow melted, property damage became apparent. Fixing storm damage is just an extra line item on my list of good-weather tasks to complete. That list keeps growing. A carryover from last year is repainting the decks. Most of July through October in 2022 was ‘wasted’ working on it. It was my second full-time job.

Just now, Mrs. Bald Rider came into my office with another project that needs to be done this weekend. So much for the fun activities I had planned. It isn’t like it is a holiday weekend or anything. I won’t even get a chance to clean the garage for the 73rd time this year.

Stop Complaining

Complaining is one of my favorite hobbies. It is probably the thing I do best. I made myself this busy because of my own decisions. I didn’t have to start this website, a YouTube channel, get a new job or own a house. These decisions were not thrust upon me. I chose these things. I don’t know whose idea it was to get married. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Bald Rider.

My time management skills must improve if I want to continue down this road. Less time on the couch falling down YouTube rabbit holes is a must. How many hours of sleep does a middle-aged man need to function? What are the winning Powerball numbers?

I can only imagine how busy I would be if I had children. I hear those things are major time-sucks. Expensive, too.

I’d rather have motorcycles.