Category Archives: website

This Says It All

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I have blogged a lot about where visitors come to my website, and I have also blogged a lot about an obsession by many about whether men wear pants inside their boots or not.  I have also blogged on occasion about how fellow residents of the United States have lost their ability to spell or write in American English.

The following image says it all.  If the image is hard to read on your screen, click on it to enlarge it.  Then read what was typed into a Google search.

Then laugh or cry, or both.  Oh for Pete’s sake. I know getting “their” and “there” mixed up is common, but this is a typical example of what I see in hundreds of searches every day. It is so sad that so many people have not learned fundamental English writing and grammar skills — and this is for those who were born in the U.S. and educated here.

And this example does not hold a candle to the garbage that I see the kids in my own family write on their Facebook status updates. Yikes!

Life is short:  lurn hw 2 writ

In Case You Tried to Reach Me

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… and you cannot … or you think you sent an email to me, but I have not responded…

It turns out that my web hosting provider is being subjected to a huge distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack … and as a result, it has made all domains that they host on all of their servers out of reach.

In case you tried to send an email to me, I regret that I will not see it nor be able to respond until the provider restores service.  This includes email to “BHD” and “the other” me that some of you know.  Both of my web-hosted email accounts are unavailable for me to view and respond to until this situation is resolved.

Nonetheless, I’ll be switching web hosts soon, since this is not the first, and probably will not be the last, that their service isn’t working.  Even though it is not their fault, their reliability is not as good as it once was.  Further, I can get larger amounts of storage and data transfer for a lower cost elsewhere.  So this week, when I’m not on-the-clock for my job, that is what I will be doing:  migrating files to a new host and then “making it go live.”  I sincerely hope it does not result in more downtime for my website visitors, nor my email.

Life is short:  … well, it just is…

No Website Updates?

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Someone sent me an email asking why my boots and leather website has not been updated since November 12.

Answer is:  I haven’t had time.  I had surgery to have a hernia repaired on 12 November, then a week to recover.  After that, I began working at my new job.  Then we had the Thanksgiving holiday this week, which found us entertaining 100 senior pals.

While I haven’t had time to update or add to my website, but that doesn’t mean that I have given up on it.  I will update it from time to time, as there are things to do, or new photos to add. 

I have to admit, though, that I did take Northbound Leather up on a huge discount for some formal leather a while ago.  I should have the gear by Christmas and will post pictures then.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I will be traveling to Seattle on 1 December (through the 6th) for a series of work-related meetings, but I’ll have time on the weekend to do some exploration as well.  If you’re in Seattle and want to meet up, let me know.

Life is short:  time is, unfortunately, limited.

How to Win Friends (or not)

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Having a boot-and-leather oriented website and blog (this one), it is not unusual to receive messages from people who see the website or blog.  However, contrary to popular belief, I don’t get that many messages from people I don’t know.  That’s despite having an average of over 2,500 unique visitors to one or more pages on my website each day, or over 500 daily visitors to this blog.  The vast majority of visitors reach my website and blog through the use of search engines like Google.  Some, however, have found it via links from my YouTube Channel, or links from profiles on hotboots.com, recon.com, and a few other places.  To be honest, I forget where I’ve linked it over the past five years.

Anyway, a way to “win friends,” or to build a friendship with me is to communicate in a sane and rational manner.  Sure, like anyone else, I appreciate compliments, but I am not seeking praise nor expect it in order to make a friendship.  What I look for is normal communication that demonstrates respect, kindness, and intelligence.  I admit, grammar and spelling is important to me.  If someone cannot spell (and English is their primary language), then it tells me something.  A typo or two is forgivable.  Writing to me in “text-speak” with all those abbreviations is not.  Email is a form of written communication — like a letter — and isn’t a text message.  Learn the difference!

I understand that a number of my visitors live in countries where English is not primary, yet they try to communicate with me in English as best they can.  I am very understanding about that, and accept that nuances of American English are not well understood, and are not handled well by on-line translators.

I will give three examples — two good and one bad — of some recent contacts.

1.  A guy from New England who rides a Harley contacted me.  He had been reading my blog, and sent me a message describing his interest in riding Harleys, told me about the boots he likes to wear when riding (and thanked me for information about the boots that he found on my website), and gave me some suggestions on riding in the Canadian Maritimes about which I had posted on my blog a desire to ride sometime.  He was cordial, friendly, and normal.  His message was describing his interests and talked about some of mine, as well as helped me pursue one of my motorcycle touring interests.  We have subsequently exchanged dozens of email messages about a variety of topics.  He’s straight, I’m gay — so what?  With his permission, I posted a couple of his messages recently as a “guest blog.”

2.  “LC” contacted me through my website complimenting me on it, but also describing his interests in leather.  His message was brief, but well-written.  We began a conversation and I was pleased to take him on a motorcycle ride recently.  What led to our getting together was an exchange of email that indicated to me that he was safe, normal, intelligent, and that we share some common interests.  Yeah, we’re both gay and we both really like leather, so there’s the beginning of the conversation, but not the end to it.

3.  The bad example is a recent one, that said, “Hello Dear how are you? you have great pics, love all your boots I would like to be your partner just to have you wearing those boots 24/7, I am 34 very handsome and masculine Italian looking, I am serious i really want to be you please let me know?”   As I was reading the message, I was asking myself, “is this guy nuts?”  Right out-of-the-blue, he’s proposing partnership.  He wrote with incomplete sentences — he wants to “be me” or “wants to be you(r partner)?”  Huh?  I just delete messages like this.

Let me assure you, I seldom get messages like that, but I do… sometimes, and into the electronic “trash” they go.

I try to answer all legitimate messages that I get.  I like to make friends, and talk about mutual interests.  I don’t care if you’re gay or straight or ride a motorcycle or not… what I care about is that you’re normal, safe, sane, and can carry your half of a written conversation.

I am pleased to have developed some wonderful friendships by starting off with an email exchange.  My friends, “AZ”, Kevin, Clay, Bama-David, “John Smith”, Steve, and some others initiated friendships with me that way.  My life is much better with them in it.  We enjoy our frequent email contact, and occasional chances to see each other in person when travels permit.

So in summary, communicate well, and you’ll win friends.  Make off-the-wall proposals, and you won’t.

Life is short:  communicate.

My New Website Redesign

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I have had a form of my Bootedman.com website since late 2004, migrated it to its own server and domain in early 2006, and have been adding to it and maintaining it ever since. It’s a great hobby, as it keeps me challenged with new things to learn.

As the site has been growing, changing, and advancing with technology, I decided that the old tables from the HTML from long ago had to go, as today’s website technology uses cascading style sheets (CSS) and Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) rather than straight-old HTML with code that was built for the earliest versions of web browsers.

I also had some comments that my home page appeared very “busy” with so many image icons leading to interior pages. Some users complained that the icons wouldn’t load, or would cause the site to bog down and stop when viewed.

I also have had other users tell me that they liked its simplicity, so they cautioned making it too fancy with lots of “bells and whistles.” The good thing about CSS and PHP is that it keeps a lot of the messy code away from view, and makes pages load faster and look cleaner. PHP also allows for added security to ward off potential hackers, as well as blocking bozos (you know, the brainless dolts who link to my website from forums where they post inane comments.)

This website redesign process has been ongoing for months. I learned these skills on my own. I really should have taken a class, but I challenged myself to learn how to do it “the hard way.” Sorta analogous learning how to do long division before using a calculator.

I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

Life is short: refresh now-and-again!


What I Did on My Blog Vacation

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I can talk about it now, … now that the primary elections are over in my home state. Early last week, a candidate for whom I was volunteering went ballistically negative against his opponent by creating a website devoted to tearing his opponent down. I found out about it just about the time it hit the “blogwaves.”

All throughout the campaign, I told the candidate that I detest negative campaigning, and that many of my neighbors feel the same way. His primary political consultant, who doesn’t live in our area, is known for hitting hard, but (IMHO) is out of touch with the feelings of the residents of our area. My candidate’s actions became incredibly mean-spirited and awful, and literally made me lose my lunch. I didn’t sleep the night I found out about it. It hurt me that much… so I had to pull away from the ‘net and reduce exposure to sh*t like that. I resigned from his campaign, and “checked out.”

I put the paper recycling bin next to the mailbox, and instructed our friendly mail carrier to deposit *all* political mail in the box. I didn’t even want to see it. I had already voted (since early voting is finally allowed in our state) so the volume of political mail sent to me after I voted was a waste of trees.

While away from the ‘net, I spent joyful time caring for my beloved aunt. Some days, she just wanted to be held, so that’s what I did… for hours. I also had a chance to play Bocce with the Bocce boys in the retirement community nearby, chattering away in Italian.

My partner had minor oral surgery last Friday, and I made home-made chicken soup which cured him of any residual pain. We spent most of the day last Saturday working on the yard. When you use compost as fertilizer, it takes longer than spreading chemicals from a bag.

I caught up on taxes, with those dreaded estimated taxes due on the 15th for myself, my small business, my aunt, and 14 other senior buds.

I cleaned house, killing more dust bunnies than we have actual bunnies in our forest. I fixed a broken garden wall that suffered the consequences of freeze-and-thaw. Lots of stuff… but I stayed away from politics, and the people who go with it.

Oh, and I accepted an offer for my dream job. Yep, my lay-off is over. I go back to full-time work doing what I love in a couple weeks. The job is conveniently located in my home town, so the commute will be easy. I am anxious to begin a new chapter in my life, doing what I love to do, and for which I have won international recognition.

…and I watched my candidate lose … he shot himself in the foot and deserved what happened as a result. So sad, so very sad.

Great break: now back to blogging.

Life is short: remember the priorities, focus on the positive, and separate yourself from negativity.

The Blank Page

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I found the most interesting and useful internet page — it is called, simply, “Blank Web Page.” (See it by clicking here. I promise, it won’t hurt your computer nor introduce bad things like a trojan or a virus.)

I build in re-directs from some of my website’s pages to this page from time to time. A “re-direct” simply means that if you think you are visiting a page on my website, it ends up somewhere else and entirely off the domain of my website.

Unfortunately, some people who participate in various on-line forums include a link to my website. They make comments about what appears on the website page to which they are linking. Most of the time, I can’t see what they’re saying, but I can guess. Since they linked to me without permission and I have no idea what they’re saying, I redirect them elsewhere. I don’t want them on my site.

Forums for CHP officers, Finnish motorbikers, die-hard Harley bikers, and even some brain-dead chick’s blog have linked to some pages on my website and then have been re-directed to “Blank Web Page.”

Whoever invented “Blank Web Page”: thank you for creating it. I had no idea something like this would be so useful.

Fortunately, the people who link to my site and get re-directed to a blank page quickly loose interest and stop visiting. Then I can rest my website back to usual.

Life is short: outsmart dimwits.

Persistent Website Downtime

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I truly regret that my website experienced a significant period of downtime yet again last night.

After incurring five prolonged periods of downtime within the last six weeks, I said to myself, “okay, that’s it!” I called my web host, Hurricane Electric (which was recommended to me by Larry of hotboots.com), and they confirmed the server on which my website is hosted was having problems again. So I sent them an email and requested that my site be migrated off their dysfunctional server to another one. Hopefully, the new-to-me server on which my website is hosted won’t have such problems.

Unfortunately, my website and my email was also down during the transition period to the new server. If you sent me a message any time from Monday afternoon until night, I haven’t seen it yet, but no worries, I’ll get it eventually and reply to you.

I have been very pleased with Hurricane Electric’s service for many years. I have a number of websites hosted by them now. Bootedman.com is the largest, but regardless of a website’s size and functionality, their reliability and affordability is what “sold” me. I think this one server downtime problem is an anomaly.

To anyone who tried to visit my website and received an error message or a message that the site wasn’t there any more, I apologize. Hopefully with this migration to another server, the problem will be resolved.

Life is short: don’t have unplanned downtime!

Living Vicariously

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There are people who:

  • are curious to know what it’s like to wear leather
  • would like to leather up and go out to some leather-dress-code-enforced gathering
  • would like to ride a motorcycle
  • would like to wear boots

…but who don’t.

So they search the internet to explore their interests. Some of those searches end up on my website or this blog. Looking at photos and reading about what other guys do is a safe way of living vicariously through others (provided you’re not on the computer 24/7).

For example, through a commentary exchange on this blog that I have been having with Straightjacketed, a bondophile in the UK who is a very nice guy, I am living vicariously with his interest and ability to get his partner to get into gear and go with him to The Hoist, which is a leather bar in London and has gatherings at which they enforce a strict dress code. For various reasons explained in all those comments (so not to be repeated here), my partner and I no longer gear-up and go out. But I enjoy reading about the experiences of a younger guy.

SJ also truly enjoys bondage, which he explains and demonstrates on his blog. I read it and learn what someone who does that enjoys. While bondage is not something I would want to do or would find stimulating, there are a lot of guys (both gay and straight) who do. Fa così sia, to each his own.

As another example, I see visitors come to my website from very rural areas of the United States (and other countries) where they can only dream about wearing leather, going out, riding a Harley, having a boot collection, or whatever. They are stuck. I know what it’s like to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. The norms of the society in which they live are conservative and restrictive. If they put on a pair of leather pants, boots, and a leather shirt and went to a local pub or restaurant, they would feel very uncomfortable because of the reaction from family, friends, and neighbors who don’t accept. They would be called names and perhaps worse: lose employment, housing, and maybe even be “run out of town.” These things really do happen. So they keep their interests private by surfing the ‘net and living vicariously through others (including this old vanilla leatherman, me.)

I admit: I live vicariously through others, too. There are things I might like to do, but either do not have the financial resources for exotic travel, the stamina to stay awake past 9:00pm, or a partner who has any interest in socializing with other people. So, SJ, keep posting, and please continue to comment, as I enjoy learning more, as well as your witty remarks and information that you share.

Other guys: keep visiting the website and this blog. I’m always open to receiving questions which I may address in future blog posts or directly via email. I respect privacy, and know that living vicariously through others is human nature.

Life is short: explore!

Redirected

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Regretfully, I took a page off my website that was being linked to from a forum that shall remain nameless. However, since I can’t see what they’re saying about me because it’s a password-protected site, and with the huge number of hits on my website coming from it, the safest thing to do was to take the page down and redirect visitors to another website which may suit their interests (or at least take their interests off me).

That’s a bummer, but such is life on the internet. Thanks to my web stats program, which revealed the source of this unwanted link.

Okay, whoever you are, go away.