Local Man Acquires Scooter, Breaks Leg

Not really -- but I wrenched the mutha pretty good. I'm gimping along okay today, though. Through the miracle of cheap, generic ibuprofen and the love of a good woman, I'll heal. So... which of you good women want to help the cause? ;) Ah, the mid-life crisis of the destitute geek-of-all-trades. :)

Here's how it happened: I rode the scooter from Carlos' house, two blocks from the condo. He cautioned me that it had more git-up-an'-go than it might seem, so he said, "Be fuckin' careful -- and drive it around your parking lots over there for a few hours to get a feel for it before you start crossin' town on it, mang. And always put on your helmet before you start the fucker up." Good advice from Carlos -- because about ten minutes into tooling around my condo parking lot, I accidentally goosed it just a bit as I was cornering, and reaching for the front brake, and I grazed the curb, toppling the scooter. My laughing ass was laying in the grass, with a 300lb. scooter on my lower left leg... no bruises, even, but I must've twisted my knee and ankle a bit, 'cause they're both pretty sore, today.

Wanna see the scoot-scoot?

110% street-legal, licensed, and registered to me and Tha Curl-dawg. Hey, if I drill a few holes in the helmet carrier... then again, I might not like cleaning cat shit out of it. ;)

Ain't it a beaut? I am soooooo happy.

How did me and the scooter hook up? Well, grab a cup o' coffee, and I'll tell ya all about it...

On Thursday, summer came back to Gnashvegas with a vengeance. 78ºF, sunny, light breeze -- perfect SoCal weather. I was still exhausted from lack of sleep all week*, but I got out to meet people early in the day. I was going to walk up to Aldi, and catch the bus into town to Cafe Coco, where I was gonna post some Curly, and talk with y'all. But a few things slowed me down -- I met a nice gent who was working on his daughter's condo in the next building. I got him a cup of coffee from my place, and we had a great li'l chat. He took some of my doctored HCA business cards (just to show that I might actually know a li'l somethin'-somethin' -- "Ooh, Senior Application Engineer in Internet Strategy for a Fortune 100..." these could help me -- I cross out the phone and e-mail info, and write the current stuff on the back, along with, "PC problems solved, 24/7 -- quotes up front; No fixee, no payee," etc.), and said he'd get the word out.

Then, his daughter comes in for lunch. She works for the Metro Parks commission as a fitness trainer (mrrrrow!), appears to be single, has a lovely, rambunctious black lab, and (get this) she's also on the condo's HOA board. I told her if we could figure out some way to get me free WiFi at home, I'd build and maintain the HOA website gratis, and help organize users of said site (passwords for residents to get into discussion boards, etc.). She was all over that. So, I will not be online on 11/20/2006, 18:30, 'cause I've been invited to make a proposal to the HOA board at that time. :)

So, by this time, it's gettin' close to 13:00. I'm hungry, thinking seriously about a nap, to be honest... but it's sooo fuckin' georgous out, I just can't do it -- I wanna live to the fullest, today.

So, I eat a sammich, strap on the notebook, and head east on foot, towards Aldi and the bus stop. Along the way, just around the corner from Curly's place, there's a yard sale in progress. I decide to see if they've got some cheap queen-sized sheets, etc. Well, that's when I spied the shiny scooter you see about. The sign said "$1600 o.b.o.," so I asked the very pretty young lady to tell me about it. She explained that her English-speaking abilities weren't very comprehensive, and she would call her husband and let me speak to him. A minute later, I was talking to a man named Carlos, and he said it ran great, that he bought it for his wife, but she was scared of it, and never rode it farther than trying it out around the block one time. He said he used it a couple of times to jet to the store for small items a few times... and the odometer reads 462 miles. It's a 2005 model Y-Moto (Chinese) scooter, w/150cc engine... remote starting, alarm, storage... the works. Top speed of ~40mph, and it gets 90 miles to the gallon. Heh! Save the Earth, motherfuckers!

My next car will be a schweet Honda hybrid, or something even more eco-friendly, this I vow. But for now, I've made enough friends out of my neighbors that I've had multiple offers of rides to-and-from, if nowhere else, to the bus stops. So, if the weather is bad, I can trade friendship and tech advice/work for rides all winter long. I have a covered breezeway area to park the scooter, and everyone's cool with that, so... I fuckin' rule! ;) What a great, great week, my peeps!

* I got 9 hrs. Friday night/Saturday morning, and am almost rested, again, btw. :)
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