by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2005/07/17 22:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/07/17/439837.aspx
People have been asking about the scooter lately, starting to wonder what it looks like. the term conjures up images of....
But that is a Scooter of a different color. :-)
There are actually two scooters -- nicknamed Fat Man and Little Boy.
Now some people have seen Fat Man, either on the Microsoft Redmond campus or around the neighborhood in Bellevue and Redmond. It is a Pride Mobility 3-wheel Victory (there is a picture there of the 4-wheel version, but the 3-wheel is mostly the same; mine is blue, too). The specs are there if people are interested, and they can even see the weight. I do not travel with this scooter, as is a bigger pain to take apart enough to get into my car (and won't completely fit in the trunk!).
Little Boy is a Pride Mobility 3-wheel Go-Go (the picture on the other side of that link is a 3-wheel too, but mine is blue, not red). The specs are there, too. and the site talks a lot about how it can be taken apart into four pieces. It is the one that sits in the trunk of my car and that I use when I am travelling (its dry cell battery makes the airlines happier). It is the one you have seen if you have seen me at confereces or dancing or whatever....
The reason I have two scooters? Well, to quote a blog that has long since been expunged, from August of last year:
Kind of funny, but I have been tooling around in this Go-Go Scooter all weekend, and it easy to transport (take it apart, stick it in the trunk, drive somewhere, put it together again, and presto!). I went a bunch of places and got the hang of things quite nicely. But at the end of the weekend, I realized something: the truth is, it's not the most comfortable thing in the world.
But thats part of the design -- solid instead of pneumatic tires, low to the ground, bare bones seat. Its built for portability, not for comfort. Even at that, its 87 pounds and either airlines will refuse it or they may charge me a weight penalty for it. So there is no way I could get something bigger and exoect to travel with it. But hell, at least half of the reason I finally decided to get a scooter was for the trips out of town. So I have to get this little scooter....
So I started wondering -- why not get two scooters?!?
This little Go-Go is gonna cost under $1000, even with extras. So why not buy it myself (out of pocket) and then fight the insurance companies for a bigger one like the Victory or the Legend? I got so excited about this idea that it almost depressed me that among the cabal made up of my neuorologist, physical therapist, and the company that will eventually provide the scooter, no one is around since it is Sunday night.
Ah well, I will get cracking on this tomorrow. Its gotta get easier, truly. All I know is that I probably "walked" 15 miles over the weekend between mall, shopping centers, and stores -- something I have not been able to do for YEARS. So one way or another, at least one (and maybe two!) scooters must happen.
So I did get the two scooters. And I was wrong -- the airlines neither refuse it nor do they charge a weight penalty. If I didn't know better, I'd say that a disability can be kind of a scam, sometimes. But I was not expecting the boon so if they started charging I would not complain. The ability to use it in the airport alone has been priceless.
On the other hand, I wear a pair of glasses and am kind of a geek. Hmmm....
Maybe there is a connection?
# geoff.appleby on 18 Jul 2005 2:38 AM:
# Maurits [MSFT] on 18 Jul 2005 3:04 PM:
# Michael S. Kaplan on 18 Jul 2005 3:13 PM:
# Maurits [MSFT] on 18 Jul 2005 3:22 PM:
# Michael S. Kaplan on 18 Jul 2005 3:28 PM: