The site has been gathering a significant layer of dust as of late.
Over the course of the 2016 riding season, our webmaster, James was spending a ton of time on his Zodiac, ripping around the lake in the Calabogie area – and I spent all of my free time riding (big surprise there).
We were enjoying a pie at Louis’ Pizza – the best pizza in Ottawa in my opinion – a few weeks ago and discussing what we were going to do to bring the website back to life, and to start providing you, the reader, with the type of quality content that you have come accustomed to reading.
We talked about the amount of work and time that is involved, and we came to a decision.
The ADVJOE.ca website is going to change. And here is why:
In 2010 I began a blog, titled ‘What I’ve Learned Along The Way’.
I was writing about my recovery from addiction and alcoholism. There were only 3 posts that first year, and they were all very heavily focused on my recovery experiences. Truth be told, I came off sounding like a bit of a talking head, espousing all of my wisdom and listening to the sound of my own voice, as it were. In those days I still had grand designs of becoming a recovery guru, and the posts read like a field manual.
Then the blog sat dormant for 2 years.
In April of 2012 I felt inspired to write about a newfound passion in my life – my motorcycle, and the adventures that go along with it.
There were 44 posts in 2012, many surrounding my epic solo-motorcycle adventure out west to the Canadian Rockies and Vancouver.
And then I slowed down with the writing again. I had my own reasons. Reasons anyone would hold as valid: my father passed away in June 2013, I was involved in a bad wreck that left me with 2 broken ankles in May of 2014, and then my mom passed away in October of 2014, and I rode my way through my grief, writing very little.
In mid- 2015 ADVJOE.ca was born, and although I still managed to add some 20 posts to my blog site that year, the heavy focus lay on the new website.
James, as webmaster, built a beautiful website and then began adding some great content.
I still believe that James’ 2016 Dakar Rally feature and content are the most comprehensive on the ‘net.
But with only the two of us involved in the site, it became pretty easy to get busy riding and boating, silently wondering when the other of us was going to add some content.
And so the site lay dormant. And we talked over pizza. And a decision was made.
I am going to simplify things a little.
I do not have the technical savvy to keep all of the plug-ins and website gizmos working efficiently, so the site is going to be pared way down.
ADVJOE.ca is going to become something new all over again, in a familiar way. I have a ton of material to blog about, and hundreds of photos as well as hours of video to pull content from as I return to my internet roots: blogging about the things that are important to me; that I am passionate about, and that I hope you will enjoy reading.
Writings, ramblings, and reasons for not going back.
Oh – and as a bit of a teaser: I am riding the D2D (Dust 2 Dawson) in June of 2017
It’s going to be fun, my faithful readers. My hope is that you will stick around for the ride.
AdvJoe
