Michael A. O’Neill

Author: Michael

  • Popularity of scooters

    My old Oracle buddy Brian found this article on the rising popularity of scooters in the US. I must say, I’m a little shocked at the age skew, but then again, I’m a little shocked that I’m only a couple of years away from being in that age skew.

    As to fuel economy, yeah baby, $6 for a tank that lasts all month! You can run almost any errand–including grocery shopping at any non-big-box store–and park just feet from your destination.

    I have actually had the fuel economy conversation with several colleagues here: one was thinking of buying a pair of scoots for both himself and his wife to make their commutes easier. Of course, she wants a Harley, which costs a mere $15,000 more than a Vespa. Others are merely in the state of saying "I can’t believe I burned $15 of gas racing from Redmond to Seattle. There has to be a better way."

    I miss my scooter.

  • The problem with helmets

    The BBC reported a rather disturbing study on safety and bicycle helmets. Drivers in the UK apparently will give far less space to cyclists wearing protective gear and reflective clothing than they do to cyclists wearing street clothes.

    The offered explanation is that drivers may think the properly attired cyclist may be more experienced riding in traffic and thus ride more predictably, meaning they don’t need to give that cyclist a wide berth. Which amounts to zilch when you need to swerve to avoid debris or glass or a pothole.

    That’s why cyclists have a right to the full lane in California and other states.

  • Scooter Cannonball Run

    My friends Heather and Patrick are now on Day Three of the Scooter Cannon Ball Run. Yes, that’s right, a bunch of scooterists are riding across country, from the Oregon coast to New Jersey. An odd contest–so odd, the Washington Post covered it.

    It is technically a race, but endurance and technical ingenuity is more what’s being tested. If your scoot breaks down and you can’t fix it right there on the shoulder of some backcountry road, it goes in the support truck. Then you have 24 hours to fix it, before you lose your support truck privileges, and are left in Idaho or Nebraska or Indiana to make your own way home. "Italian engineering" and "reliable" generally don’t fall in the same sentence, and six bikes of the 30-40 registered had already broken down by the end of Day Two.

    Heather–who is driving Patrick’s personal support vehicle and serving as the race’s unofficial certified massage therapist–told me last night that one fellow who had temporarily repaired a broken pipe on his scoot with, well, not duct tape, but a similar and slightly more durable quick fix, randomnly stumbled onto a welding shop in Idaho later that day. The shop guys had never worked on a scooter, but with a little guidance from the scooterist/mechanic, the shop guys welded it up like new.

    To give you an idea of what this race is about, Patrick built a bike completely from scratch with help and support from First Kick Scooters in SF. It’s a small frame–just 125cc and one of the smallest in the race. But Patrick welded an extra three-gallon gas tank onto the frame, giving him a total of five gallons. See, speed only gets you so far. It’s the number of stops that sucks up your time. Stops to refuel every two gallons (or 150 miles). Stops to replace parts so the scoot still operates in high altitude. Stops for repairs. Patrick’s blog, OopsClunkThud (which I stole the pictures below from), gives you an idea how much work and knowledge this takes.

    UnStealthunstealth on dyno

    And Patrick is doing well, so far. He’s come in first and second for his scooter class, and Heather claims he would have come in first overall on day one if he hadn’t run out of gas.

  • I should add…

    …that Malcolm Gladwell, in addition to being funny and illuminating, has a big fro.

  • A little more culture shock

    "Talent. Do we have the right talent? How do we recruit and retain talent?"

    That was Steve Ballmer’s (paraphrased) answer to the question "What keeps you up at night?" posed by a Microsoft employee at the company’s annual marketing symposium today.

    If I hadn’t realized I was at a different company yet, this clued me in. I don’t think I ever heard an executive at Oracle worry about recruiting or retaining talent. Talent at Oracle seemed to be an extractable, unrenewable resource, to be used once and disposed of, like oil. Yes, there were exceptions like Mike T., Roel, Andrew and Regis who saw talent and would try to apply it wherever they thought they could. But overall, your skills at Oracle were applicable in one function to one segment of the market. Yes, there was movement, but it was rare and often highly political. Trying to move risked relationships and careers.

    Now, I haven’t been at Microsoft for long, and I’m sure some of the talk about career development was mere hoo-hah. But there seemed to be a real commitment to letting people apply their talents wherever they can add value–from developer to consumer marketing.

    It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. That I’m sure will wear off eventually. But I have it now.

  • Taking responsibility

    So, the kid who hit my car (well, his dad, probably) took two weeks to return phone calls from his insurance company. But he finally called and accepted full responsibility!

    I’m getting a pay-out!

  • Ellie on Uncle Mike

    "You’re a troublemaker!"
    "You’re too rambunctious!"

    Exactly what an uncle should be!

  • Culture Shock, Part 3

    Kitty_litter Another little bit of cultural differences. Microsoft has a vast art collection (Oracle had some too), including a large, low sculpture made of wood that is right outside my building. Unfortunately, the wood has been rotting. Apparently, it’s due to moisture. Which is surprising, because dead wood normally doesn’t deteriorate with moisture, and, more importantly, the Pacific Northwest is not a temperate rainforest.

    Anyway, to slow the deterioration, the grass surrounding the sculpture was ripped out and replaced with gravel. One colleague suggested it looked like a giant kitty-litter box. (see photo).

    But the culture bit is how Microsoft employees reacted. They protested. Quietly. By buying dozens of pink flamingos and planting them in the gravel. It’s been three weeks since I arrived, and they’re still there.

    Flamingo

  • Bridgeton NJ: Man wakes up Sunday missing pants, money, doesn’t remember anything

    OK, I normally don’t post news articles, but… this one is too good. I mean, after a night of drinking on the porch, a man wakes up missing his pants, $3,500 in cash, and doesn’t remember how he got to bed or anything else from the previous night, either…

    If you can’t think of anything hilarious about this article, check out the Fark.com thread I found it on. The sick minds of Farkers worldwide have gone every which way with this one.

  • Totaled

    When I woke up Monday morning, I started thinking of metaphors for how my body felt. Beat with baseball bats, played football without pads… but eventually, I settled on "I feel like I was hit by a truck." Which is, I think, a stunningly apt metaphor.

    Conveniently, Sunday afternoon, I swung by the Vespa boutique on First & Denny. I went to get a new Halo reflector for my helmet–my current one was so stretched, that it kept falling down around my neck on the Monkey Run ride. At the same time, I figured I’d get the name and number of the "official" Vespa repair shop in Seattle. I had no idea I would actually need that information just six hours later.

    Frame_1 Big People Scooters–the recommended Vespa shop–gave me the bad news this afternoon. See the circled gap in the photo to the right (click to enlarge)? That’s a weld point on the frame. Apparently, this is irreparable. To repair my bike, the shop would first need to buy a new frame and get it painted ($2,800). Then, they take everything off my old bike–from engine and wheels to seat and mirrors–and put it on the new frame. That would probably cost another $750. With the towing charges ($300) and 11,430 miles, it’d make more sense to get a new bike.

    In short, my little scoot is TOTALED.

    So unless the parents of the kid who pulled left in front of me can cough up $3,500 to buy me one of the two used ET4s currently listed on Craigslist, I get to file the police report and have my insurance company sue them. If I don’t hear back from them by mid-day tomorrow, I’ll send in the report.

    SiteFilling out the report, I had to measure how far the accident was from a landmark. Google maps is SO useful. I just searched for 520 2nd Avenue W, Seattle WA and zoomed in on the satellite pictures. One-hundred and seventy five feet from the intersection, according to the scale.

    God, that kid must have been stoned or something not to have seen me. Take a look at the attached map I shamelessly stole from Google. I was the red line. He was the green line. No other traffic, straight road, and he turns left right in front of me. He even used his turn signal.

    Duncan from the VBClassic team summed up how I feel perfectly today. "They took your stuff, and you want it back." It’s true. I mean, it wasn’t theft, but my stuff was taken from me, and I want it back. That’s it.

    Then he told the story of how he trashed his wife’s parked car pulling out of his own driveway. 🙂

    Two last pics: my little scoot in the red rock desert, and one from the last time I’ll see it.

    Red_rock_scoot_1 Towed