It was a beautiful day yesterday. The sun was out, the temperature was hovering around 18 degrees C and there was no wind. Truly spring was finally here and I could not imagine any further snow falls.

I have only had my Vespa since last June and have ridden only 8,500 Km since my last bike that I had sold in 1979. Therefore you may say the honeymoon is still on!

But yesterday was a challenging day in my small office upstairs. I had two scheduled WebEx seminars to give and simultaneously with that I was in the process of setting up Office 2013 and scheduling my WebEx seminars for the next week. My heart and mind were out riding carefree in the sun but my body and fingers were typing madly away on my computer.

To make things worse, I discovered that although office 2013 (especially Outlook) has some really amazing new features and it is fast and very functional, it to my total disappointment is in black and white. Yes, you read that correctly. You have a choice of themes across Office 2013 from All White, Light Gray or Dark Grey. I was partial to this really cool blue theme that was similar to my company colors. My wife on the other hand had a purple/pink thing going on. Here is a picture of Word in the light Grey Theme. The white is really hard on the eyes. I read on some forums that European companies will not change because of this since it affects employees moral and is difficult for people who have floaters in their eyes.

OFFICE WITH LIGHT GREY THEME – ONE OF THREE CHOICES: WHITE, LIGHT GREY OR DARK GREY?

Talk about a black and white world?

After finishing my meetings and setting up my new Office 2013 to my satisfaction it was about 2:30 in the afternoon. I took the time to make a green smoothie for lunch then got into my riding gear and set out to carry out some errands. I had to get to the bank, the post office, the computer store, a local fruit and vegetable store, and finally back home.

After every stop I would leave the store and reach into my pocket for the keys to the Vespa and I would inherently want to push a button to open the doors or hear a beep. I suddenly felt like Pavlov’s dog since I was so well conditioned. I noticed how very simple it was. When I approached the Vespa my fingers would twitch and want to push a remote button. I suppose this comes with years of using the car remote as I approach the car.

I almost feel that I should install something that operates by remote. Perhaps a beeper, a light or even a spring-loaded top box that pops open to reveal my helmet. Now that would be cool. A hydraulic Top Box Opener that slowly opens the top box  and a blue light shines from within to reveal my Arai helmet.

Any other ideas? I guess I will just keep pushing the Tucano Urbano sponge key holder when I approach the Vespa until that annoying habit goes away or I embark on installing something to run on a key chain remote.