Vespbretta.....

[Stig / Major Tom]

Vespbretta,
How are you? And how is your LIKE200i running?
Some more pictures please when you get time.
I have watched that youtube series of the Vespa shop - very informative....what, 10 parts?!

About 10,000 miles on my LIKE200iLX - still good City Grips (put on at @400 miles from new)- tho rear will need replacement maybe this year.
Now that it is a problem with my new boss to park my scooter in our warehouse (where 6 old nasty leaking trucks are parked each night before we take them out in the morning...but I cannot park my perfect scooter !?) I will be riding the LIKE less each year.....and maybe thinking of selling it. The Burgman AN400 will be my go-to scooter for leisure rides on days off....so the LIKE will be redundant? Sad....because I love that scooter, and is so good  for dark and wet rides to work on the morning work commute - with the big lighted Bestem box on the rear and that LIKE's big tail light. Stone dead reliable - never failing to start or get me home....I will see how putting it under a cover each day at work in good weather is.....in that bad neighborhood. Frankly, have not tried the cover since putting on those long stemmed Italian mirrors. Hope it still fits.
I might stay another 2 years at my job - will have 30 in, already drawing full SS - and go find a job where co-workers are not so aggra
vating.
Like most jobs - the work is fine - it is the dept. co-workers that are a PITA. I think I've done well to put up with it for the last 25 of those 30.
Ride my LIKE to my new job?
Take care and let us know how you are doing.
Regards, Tom T.
Stig

Son and I in better times....

[vespbretta]

Hey Tom,
thanks for asking. Personally I´m doing quiet fine so far, except the fact that we Europeans in general are facing quiet a severe overall change situation here, unfortunately not to the better. Europe is being flooded with refugees and migrants, as you might know from the world news. Not always funny. Reports of rapes and molestations and violence (incl. riots) are increasing, sadly enough. Polititians are mostly helpless and overchallengend... Nobody really knows where this is leading to in the end.

I know I promised you already last year some nice downtown and scooter pictures of my beautiful hometown Vienna/Austria. Didn´t forget it, but also didn´t have the time and leisure.
Hopefully I can give it a new try this spring. 

Can´t say much new stuff about my Like, except the fact, that it is having it´s winter nap since the End of November in the hallway with approx. 8000km now on the odometer.  I do not ride anymore in winter. Maybe in March/April I will start riding again. And I expect it to fire up instantly and run reliably as ever so far.  As you said stone dead reliable scooter, as long as you don´t take it to any service-/repairshop.... 

At the moment I am dreaming and thinking of making a scootertrip/ferrytrip to Sicily/Italy or Sardinia/Italy in spring just for fun. But it´s quiet a bit a distance and therefore somehow pretty crazy. But you know, wintertime is scooter travel dreamingtime. 

Best wishes and regards,
Robo

[Stig / Major Tom]

Hey Tom,
thanks for asking. Personally I´m doing quiet fine so far, except the fact that we Europeans in general are facing quiet a severe overall change situation here, unfortunately not to the better. Europe is being flooded with refugees and migrants, as you might know from the world news.......
Best wishes and regards,
Robo

The refugee situation in Europe is too - amazing.
I doubt many countries would know how to handle this sad and scary situation. The scale of it all is almost impossible to imagine. So many hundreds, or thousands, each day - pouring into countries. How to deal with the health, safety & lodging of these immigrants -- that must begin to feel like invaders to the home country citizens. What governmental social network could handle this type of human flooding of their resources and facilities?

I sometimes wonder if it might be better for European countries to band together, build a force,  and try to root out the causes that are driving these refugees to flee their homelands. Might make better financial sense as well. I also think that possibly some of these people are not so much refugees from terror - as they are seeing that Europe (with it's abundant social safety nets) will indeed host a refugee - so they decide to follow along and improve their simple living situations as well. An opportunity is presented to them, to step into this flood of humanity who truly are in danger.

What to do about it all.....
What a massive problem.
We have a smaller scale issue with peoples from South & Central America, and Mexico.
I am told that 52% of kindergarten children in the USA are other than caucasian.
A joke is, that soon enough, if you want English on the phone you will need to press 2.

But, in my small rural Ohio town, it is the drugs flowing through from Mexico that has the bigger impact. Heroin is the #1 cause of death in young people in my area.
Like polio - I thought heroin was gone. But no, it is back with a vengeance.

But tomorrow sunrise it will be 31°F, warm enough for a long scooter ride to my coffee village. At last!
Clear skies so I will be alert for frost on the roads and take it easy in corners. Only one ride since Xmas eve.
Too long.
(the coffee is OK, not too special. It is the excuse to ride and a place to stop, then turn around, that is important.
There are no Grand Canyons or Eiffel Towers or sea coasts in rural Ohio! The big recent news is that I think my youngest daughter will be going to Paris next year with her schoolmates. I am teaching her how to buy French bread, find a toilet, the Eiffel Tower and her bus.
Take care, Tom T.
Stig