Blogger - Spam

Well, I guess I messed up a bit. StandUp For Kids sent another email blast to about 60,000 last week and I decided to use this blog address as a link in the email to obtain more information about the Name the Segway contest.
Apparently, some blog bot detected this email and made the assumption that we were spamming. I requested a review and thought we were now unlocked and cleared - but I have been receiving bounced emails do to the fact that some IP locations are still considering this address spam. Grrrrr!!! I can't really GET to anyone on blogspot, so please bear with me as I spend valuable time attempting to repair the damage of the bot. Anyone else concerned about AI robots?

The Fleet is Here!

Hey!

I've told a few people that I'm getting a little burned out with the planning process. Think about it - I've been doing this since January! And it seems like a lot of the things that had to be done - had to be done a couple of times each. Well, there are those moments of triumph! And today - another!

Yes! YAY! The FLEET is HERE! The last 4 Segways came from Segway LA today. Look them up - http://www.segway.la/ These people are amazing! They have done all they can to make this trip happen and they deserve some business! If you're anywhere NEAR Santa Monica / LA - you have GOT to visit their shop (see Sponsor Page) and talk with them. They have been so involved with this trip I feel horrible that we had to change the plans that we had to leave from Los Angeles. I really want to meet these people! Maybe when I come back, huh?

So here they are - lined up and plugged in and just WAITING for August 2 - a little less than two weeks away. I'm ready NOW! Enough planning - let's GO!

I know - there's a few more things that need to happen before departure, so here's the latest.

* The RV is set and ready! We need to fill water tanks, LP tanks and gas tanks (ouch) and then I need to get it packed with the beds made and dishes put away. Sounds pretty domestic huh! But, since we'll be stopping at Wal-Mart almost every day, I'm not too concerned about forgetting something.

* The trailer is complete with tracking for the tie-downs and an anchor for the generator, a custom made hitch and even a new exhaust vent on the roof so that we can run the generator while we're moving. It was delivered to Midwest SignTech yesterday so I can't WAIT to see what the graphics will look like!

* I've been practicing and - - - - I'm gonna' get sore!

* I'm hoping that I'll have a run with my sister and her family sometime this week. Last time, it was the experiment of 2. This time, a group experiment - 5! Watch out!

* Took a trip through town last Friday to deliver SOS Announcements to TV stations and the newspaper. No activity from the media as of today but they haven't heard the last of me yet! I'll be calling again soon! Had a little scare though. Well, not so much "scare" as "panic", I suppose. It was windy. I mean WINDY! I took the new machine and figured the route to be only 15 miles - should be a piece of cake. But wind has an effect other than being chilly and sending little pieces of (fill in the blank) into my eyes while moving. It uses up battery juice - - - BIG TIME! Got half way through the route and I was down to a couple of bars on the meter. Turned around for home and crossed my fingers that I'd make it before they went dead. That's the last thing I needed was to have one of the TV stations follow me out the door and watch me tip over or just as bad, PUSHING the Segway home. It was a successful arrival however, so there are no embarrassments to report.

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You're disappointed arent' you!?!?! Don't despair - we have 2500 + miles to go. It might be weird, but I have this strange feeling that perhaps, during the next couple of months, there just MIGHT be another story or two! Stay tuned!

Weekend Stories

The weekend was nice!

It was supposed to rain - but it didn't! (I'm a little bit scared of rain now - for SOME reason!) Anyway, my brother decided to ride with me on Saturday. I've NEVER had the experience of a riding WITH someone before and it was really cool! I do have to remember that he can't read my mind though. It's different making sure somebody knows where I'm going - - - BEFORE I go there! No accidents though.

Speaking of accidents - I'm wondering if you have no-texting-while-driving-laws in your state. Minnesota has them. Apparently, I need a no-texting-while-walking-down-the-stairs law too. Somebody was looking out for me because I did NOT break my ankle! Whew! (hand wiping brow gesture). Healing nicely!

Last week I stopped out to load some items in the RV. Haven't been there for nearly 2 months. The 30 foot box wouldn't start. Turns out I need 3 new batteries. OK. Installed on Friday. While waiting for my brother on Saturday, I went out to drop off a few more things. Turned the key. Nothing. Left an email for Duane and he apparently went out there on Sunday! This guy (BuyRV - SellRV in Oronoco, MN --- see the sponsor page) is the BEST! He responded by telling me that he turned on the batteries and everything was fine. You have to turn ON the batteries? What?!? I'm not a "camper" - I have this feeling that it's going to be a LONG learning curve. Good news? I am SO fortunate to be working with Duane who seems to have unlimited patience! THANKS!

Picture: This is my brother Bill. He's riding on the equivalent of a Segway tightrope. This is a narrow strip of concrete 12" above and adjacent to a 45 mph road on a bridge over a river. I say "narrow" because the wheels of the Segway barely fit! Even with tree branches hanging over the "rope", he made it just fine! He's completely "Certified" now! (you can decide for yourself if the word should be "certified" or perhaps a more appropriate"certifiable")

Preparation - Country Roads 1

A short one today (probably). I've been practicing on city streets in Rochester but today I needed to leave town and test the GPS upload from Google Latitude on my phone (it failed - more testing to do apparently). But I do have a story (of course!)

The picture you see above doesn't make any sense until you know what you're looking at. So you're driving along and you "drift" to the side of the road. You get a warning buzz from the indentations under your tires created to let you know that you've "crossed the line". Let me tell you - because you can't see it from the picture, those things are CRATERS! At first I thought "OMG" and then immediately, 'interesting!". Then I purposely but carefully drove over a set of these and I thought "hmmm. Foot massage!" That would be good because I've noticed that my feet fall asleep after an hour or so - they really do!

I tried it. First one foot (strange feeling but I would imagine a foot massage would be strange the first time too!) and then the other foot / tire. OK. Except - HEY! What's this?!

Apparently, the Segway is a very sensitive machine. It was trying to figure out what this "washboard" experience was - first on one tire and then the other. Apparently, after just a few seconds, it came to the conclusion that the machine was broken. SO IT QUIT!!!

Ultimately a relatively feeble warning was recognized and successful. There was no "incident"! (again nothing for YouTube!) Lessons for today: Forget about the foot massage and don't drive on the craters!

See ya' later!

In preparation - Rain

Greetings!

OK. Today was another adventure. I mean, that IS one of the goals of this project, right? This morning, I met with Mike at Gander Mountain. They were terrific by offering a substantial discount on items purchased for the SOS Tour. So, in addition to SFP30 clothing and sun glasses, I brought home two sets of Frogg Toggs Rain Gear.

And, guess what? This afternoon it started raining! What am I waiting for? I need to try out the Frogg Toggs and find out what it’s like to ride a Segway in the rain! We expect to be faced with wet weather at various points along the route and I do plan to ride - rain or shine. Well that is, of course, unless we encounter golf-ball sized hail –and I’ve packed a 5 iron just in case.

Rather than bore you with tons of prose, I thought I’d condense this into common-sense (well, you be the judge) definitions.

Hydroglide: This is very similar to hydroplaning (aquaplaning) that happens to you in a car. This is a term that should be applied specifically to Segways, however. Do Segways hydroglide? YES, as a matter of fact, they DO! Interestingly enough – Segways ALSO “glide” sideways! How fun is THAT?

Sliding into Home: Since I’m really not an avid sports fan, I had to look up how a person does this. The directions say: 1. Feet first, 2. Bend your leg, 3. Try to hook the slide, 4. Go in the back door (huh?), 5. Knock the ball loose (catch and release I was told recently!). OK. My experience was similar. Feet first -check. Bent leg -check. Hook the slide – perhaps. (skip #4) and then knock the ball loose – not so much. My directions? 1. Find a road, path or sidewalk exhibiting a perpendicular flowing stream of water over a not so flowing layer of mud. 2. Hydroglide. 3. Butt first. 4. LET GO – LET GO!!! 5. Be very hopeful nobody can witness to this event, especially those with cameras. YouTube would see an increase in activity levels and you’ll need to shop for a deserted island.

Spinning your wheels: Yea – enough said.

Slippery Slope indeed: We’re supposed to dread living our lives on the slippery slope which leads to - well, eventually to some place bad. We do things to avoid it whenever possible. When a person is riding a Segway down a descent grade of 10% or so on a very polished glass-like asphalt surface, watching as the wheels try to keep up with the flow of water in the downward direction that all water flows - it is downright terrifying! I promise to avoid the slippery slopes in my life – I do I do I do I do!!!!

Muddy things up: I suppose Segway doesn’t exactly encourage the use of these machines in wet weather – so maybe that’s why they didn’t include MUD FLAPS (hand slapping forehead)! The brown streak up my "back" (picture enclosed) actually drew comments from people sitting on their porches! (none to be repeated here, of course)

Blind Spot: Yes, cars have blind spots. I found out recently that RV’s ALSO have blind spots (we avoided the accident, thanks for asking). But Segway blind spots? OK – that’s not exactly correct. It’s not the Segway, it’s the Frogg Toggs. Put that hood over your head to avoid the pelting rain and whallahh, - blind spot. (how’s that for a word, whallahh!)

Segway Spinning: As a result of the “blind spot”, coming to an intersection can be intimidating because you are forced to stop the machine and “spin” around in order to check traffic before you cross the street. What does that feel like? Well, just ask Natalia Kanounnikova (yes, of course I had to look this up!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQLtcEAG9v0 (Note: Segway Spinning is not an approved Olympic Event - yet.)

MPH: Believe it or not! A Segway wheel spinning at 12.5 mph on dry pavement continues to spin at 12.5 mph on other surfaces too – things like water, mud, grass and then pavement again…. Ouch! (Called centrifugal force – it’s quite a surprise!) But I am painfully aware of this now and

. . . It’s never a bad idea to own TWO sets of rain gear!
. . . Tree branches that hang over sidewalks hang MUCH lower when it’s raining. They’re also a MUCH heavier!
. . . Goggles look weird. Wear them anyway.

See ya’ next time! Off to do laundry.
m

30 DAYS!!!

Will you LOOK at that! My calendar says July 2 which means that the SOS TOUR 2009 begins to make its way across a nice little piece of the country in just 30 days! I am excited! (and a little nervous, too – gotta’ tell the truth, I suppose).

So what’s been going on? I’m just going to highlight a few things right now. Yesterday I sent an email blast to about 100 and it was four pages long. I’ll spare the blog followers. But, I’ll start with things that have happened since I wrote yesterday's update already!

Check the StandUp For Kids website! http://www.standupforkids.org. We’re there now – in full color WITH our new SOS logo designed by Midwest Signtech of Rochester. These people are amazing. I won’t stop talking about them! Get used to it.

TEXT TO DONATE! It’s ready (mostly). Here’s how this little gadget will work. Let’s say you want to make a $5.00 donation to StandUp For Kids. All you do is send a text from your cell. Send the message ‘SOS’ to 85944 and you are done! You’ve just donated five bucks and it only took a second. Everything has been approved with the exception of Verizon. I’m sure they’ll come through for us (I have Verizon and I’m going get a little pushy pretty soon). But if you’ve got Sprint or T-Mobile or something it should work just fine. The donation is always $5 by the way. But you can text every day if you want J

We now have a pretty firm route schedule. (on SOS website soon)

We have the outline for the Ride-a-Long (RAL) Events and for the Taste of Segway events. Work needs to be done here but as we get the approvals, they will be posted on the website, in the blog and on Facebook. Yes – on Facebook! (search segwayoffthestreets@gmail.com)
Still experimenting with Twitter –more later!

OrthoAthletic – We’re on their newsletter! THANKS! I just can’t imagine nicer people! I hope I get the chance to meet them personally one of these days!

We now have a complete list of non-emergency phone numbers for the route so that we can contact police departments as we arrive. We don’t want to break any rules. As a matter of fact, I just found out that in Chicago, I am allowed to ride on the sidewalk (as in most cases) but here in the Windy City I can’t go any faster than 8 mph. After traveling all the way from Minnesota at 12.5mph, I’m gonna’ feel like I could crawl faster!

SOS Tour 2009 business cards have been ordered and will be here in a couple of weeks.

Next week I will complete the order for the last 4 Segways to be delivered by mid-month.

A new contest is in place! “Name the Segway”. This will also be posted on the SOS website shortly, but if you want a head-start, go to http://www.firstgiving.org/michaeltaylor3. Make a donation in the amount of $25 or more and in the comment section, type Submit “the name you want people to vote for”. Then tell all your friends that they should vote for your name. They go to the same site and donate $1.00 for each vote and in the comment section they write Vote “the name you want people to vote for”. Easy! Fun! And the owner’s of the top 5 names will get the new Nintendo Wii Fit Plus game with Segway coming out this fall! WE need to raise thousands of dollars for this though – so get going! Check back next week for the link to all of the details.

Well, this isn’t too bad. With 30 days left, I’m sure there will be a lot to say from now on. I’ll keep you posted. Got questions? Email segwayoffthestreets@gmail.com!



http://www.segwayoffthestreets.org shortly.