Thursday night and the days following changed my life more than I could ever possibly imagine or portray with words.

For those of you who are wondering what happened Thursday night, or are wondering what it felt like from my eyes, let me first explain it simply, and then give you a step-by-step of what I thought and experienced.

So first simply…

Thursday night my incredible friends, family and community came together to show me the most tremendous display of love and support I could have ever possibly imagined. After reading my article Medicare Is Broken – Trying to Get a New Wheelchair for over Six Months about the failings of the healthcare system and the large sum of money I’d be paying out-of-pocket to get a new wheelchair that met my needs, they sneakily came together with a “Top Secret” Facebook campaign to raise $10,000. When I say sneakily I mean it, and somehow a secret Facebook group spearheaded by two sisters Bri and Billi (and very close friends from my younger years) were able to bring together so many people in my life, raise a whole bunch of money, and change my life. The icing on the cake and cupcakes (and boy let me say they were yummy… because I’ve eaten a whole lot of them) was bringing these hundreds of people together under one roof at the PIHS cafeteria and somehow tricking me into going without a clue that anything was up. I went into the room that night thinking I was part of a panel to speak with middle schoolers on overcoming adversity, and left feeling more overwhelmed with love and support than I could ever possibly imagine. Let’s just say having a huge room of friends, family and community literally at your back showing they love and support you is one of the most impacting things I’ve ever experienced. It certainly changed my life.

And they were all so sneaky about it … Like my world rocked… Absolutely didn’t have a clue… In shock most of the night.

So how about from my eyes…

A few weeks ago, Anne, the principal of PIMS (and mother to the two sisters above) called to see if I’d be interested in being part of a panel to discuss overcoming adversity to middle schoolers. I thought sure, why not and asked her to send me the details of the day so that I could put it into my calendar.

A few days later I got an email saying that the panel was at 7:30 PM on Thursday night, March 2, and I instantly remember thinking to myself, “crap… that’s so late and on a shower night… how in the heck am I going to make this work” and then I remember thinking “what in the heck are middle schoolers having a panel of speakers that late anyways.” But as most people have noticed I’m kind of dense and slow on the uptake sometimes, so I just went with it and tried to figure out how to make it work. Not to go into too many details of the glory of quadriplegic life, but let’s just say showers are no longer the 5 minutes of jumping underneath the showerhead joy they once were, and take a lot of extra time, planning, and help from a caregiver.

Under normal circumstances I would have just shifted my shower night forward or back a night, but with a meeting to discuss the city’s Splashpad on Tuesday night, a City Council meeting on Wednesday night, and plans Friday night I couldn’t think what else I could do other than miss the event or be very stinky and smelly.

Reluctantly on Monday morning, 3 days before the big night I realized I just couldn’t make it work and wrote the very short email below to Anne feeling very bad about not being able to make the panel but not seeing any other option.

Hey Anne,

Had thought this was earlier, and am trying to make this work but it’s challenging with the 7:30 PM start time as I have a caregiver who shows up then until 10 PM to help me with a shower. Normally I would be able to move this to the night earlier or after, but have a City Council meeting Wednesday night and plans Friday.

I feel terribly doing this, but there’s no way I can be there for 7:30 PM this Thursday and still meet all my other requirements.

-Mike

I think you can all imagine the tailspin this must have thrown into everyone’s plans.

The next morning my caregiver showed up to get me out of bed and one of the first things she said, was, “I hear you need a shower Friday morning,” and I thought to myself “what the heck… how did she know that?!?” and I remember going out to the dining room that morning irritated at my mom because I was going to ask the caregiver if she was available to help Friday morning and didn’t really feel like it was mom’s place to have done so for me. She was clueless and said, “I didn’t say a thing to her” and I said… “well, obviously you did, how the heck would she know otherwise” and we went back and forth and were both probably a little irritated and confused with each other. Little did we know that my sneaky friends, yes you, you wonderful caregiver included, were putting one over me and my family.

So, somehow everything was lined up perfectly for Thursday night, almost like a divine intervention or… something.

And to Thursday…

Thursday rolled around, it was a busy/hectic day, and after finishing up supper I remember Bria and Brody being an extra handful. The little guy kept crying, Bria was extra fussy and terrible two like, and me being the great uncle that I am thought, “Man I need to get the heck out of here.” and did what any great uncle does when the going gets tough and the kids keep crying, and grabbed a good book and jetted the heck out of there 45 minutes earlier to the thing at the high school. I don’t know how many other people get like this, but on a really crazy day sometimes I just need a few minutes of peace and quiet to myself. I got there, super early, and somehow Mrs. Barter was just there, magically, anticipating my arrival. Looking back, I should’ve thought it was odd that somebody was just there, 45 minutes early, to let me in the front door.

So I’m sure that sent the SOS out to everyone, Mike’s here WAY early, likely before most of the people were here for this “surprise.”

After visiting with Mrs. Barter for a little while, and being me and a little ADD, and nostalgic about being in high school I started getting antsy and started wandering. I get out into the hallway and see my friend Matt quickly coming towards us from the wrong way… not the front door that they told me to enter, but from the cafeteria. Looking back I should’ve thought this was funny because the panelist were supposed to come in the front door and Matt was coming from the other way, but again I’m dense and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Matt and I went back to Mrs. Barter’s room and visited for a while. He’s a close friend and in a wheelchair like myself, and we shared some of the joys about getting a new wheelchair, the wheelchair fittings and the multiple doctor visits, and just what a pain in the butt it is and how expensive everything is, and we talked about the off-road device I traveled down to Southern Maine to look at that you can drive out of your wheelchair and overall just had a wonderful visit catching up. At one point I remember laughing and joking at each other and saying… “Where’s everyone else… what a weak panel if it’s just the two of us…”

We started heading down the hallway to the cafeteria and I remember looking around and saying, “man nothing has changed… not even the hallway or the lockers… it’s like I was just here as a highschooler.”

And I think, looking back at this point, this is where things weren’t going exactly as planned. We went around the corner on the last hallway headed to the cafeteria and Anne stopped us saying that our families weren’t quite there yet. And I remember thinking to myself, “what the heck, why is my family here” and then see my grandmother comes through the wrong door later and I’m just like what in the world… but remember I can sometimes be really dense, like, looking back seriously dense, and although I was starting to think something was up I just went with it and remember looking over at Matt, saying something stupid and rolling in through the doors of the cafeteria.

At this point I saw a whole lot of, like hundreds, way, WAY more than I had expected, and instead of realizing something was up I just got butterflies and started freaking out thinking about what I would say. I hadn’t planned, I had just thought this was going to be a little thing with a bunch of middle schoolers, and was freaking out that half the town was here.

And then I turned the corner and saw my good buddy Seth who is living in Washington and his wife Kristin who is finishing up her degree in New Hampshire and it’s almost like all logical systems shut down. I knew something was up, but I couldn’t figure it out, and honestly at this point my brain wasn’t working all that well, and looking back I think I was sort of in shock. Anne literally had to turn me around, and the video started and that’s when I lost it.

As I sat there watching this video, completely dumbfounded, I saw some of the very closest people in my life. One of my very best buddies way out in Hawaii say, “Hi Mike”, to friends far and near, to people I randomly pass on the street, customers at the store, girls I’d had crushes on in high school (sorry Wendy), to people that haven’t been in my life for over 20 years, to my very first friend, and others that I hardly know. And I became overwhelmed, and started crying, thinking about how I’ve really had one of the most wonderful and amazing lives that a person could wish for, and that it’s because of all the people on the video, and the people surrounding me, and the people who have been in my life.

When I broke my neck, I thought my life as I knew it was over, and I guess that’s true, but that’s also when my life as I now know it started. It’s when some of my very closest bonds and friendships became and it’s when I realized that life is more than just skiing up or down a hill or the next adventure, but that it’s about the journey and the relationships and the lives you change and touch along the way and how your life is changed and touched along the way. Looking back at that day, 10 years ago, on March 1, 2007 when I lost so much, I lost my job, I lost my passions… and at the time it felt like I had lost my life… and I did loose my life as I knew it, but I gained so much, and feeling that all flash before my eyes as I watched the video and feeling the collective love behind me. I felt and still feel with all certainty for as much as I lost on that terrible day, I have gained so much, MUCH more.

And as I watched this video I began to come out of my stupor and smile and enjoy all the people, all the memories from my past, and promises for more in the future. And I smiled and cried and smiled and cried, and felt thankful for everyone in my life, for my family and friends who have always been there for me even during some of the most trying of times, and for the wonderful community that has always had my back, and was sitting there behind me with more love and generosity than that room could possibly contain. For all that were there, I’m sure that you could feel it, because I could feel the warmth envelop me and envelop us all, the feeling was palpable, intense, all-encompassing… and it showed me what it is to be a friend, what it is to be a family member, what it is to come from a community were collectively you know that each and everyone has your back and that everything will always be okay. I don’t know how else to explain that night other than that it changed me and changed me forever. I feel so lucky, and so thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life.

As the video ended I was pulled to the front room and turned around to see the hundreds and hundreds of people in my life. Honestly, I’m still in a fog from that night, and as I talk about it with others little glimpses of who and what keep coming to the surface, but it was wonderful and there were so many people there, and honestly I’m just overwhelmed from the support.

As I sat there, people came forward with a warm touch on the shoulder, to a hug, to so many man hugs… I don’t think I’ve given so much man love or seen so many teary-eyed men in my life, but I went through the line of people, so many wonderful people in my life and all I could say is thank you, I’m stunned, I love you, and well thinking about this and writing about this all and exposing myself like this… It’s not comfortable, but part of it is I think what was so beautiful that happened that night. We all came together, and for the first time for me I saw what an impact I’ve made on others’ lives, but also felt how strongly they and this community have impacted my life. Like I said earlier life changed… world rocked.

And, the nights not over, and I feel like there’s more to write here, but this is all I’ve got for now. To Bri and Billi, thank you for being the ringmasters to this incredible surprise. To everyone who believes in me and gave so generously, you have changed my life more than you can imagine. The sense of peace I will have in a new wheelchair that fully, and absolutely meets my needs to the best of what today has to offer will give me more joy and comfort than I can explain. And to more possibilities… maybe to someday having a tracked ripchair that I can drive ANYWHERE… Well who knows but I certainly know that my life is better because of all of you!

Thursday night was the most wonderfully impacting night of my life. It will leave me forever changed and be a gift that I keep for the rest of my days. Thank you everyone and I love you.

In writing this, I want to make something very clear from the start; I’m doing this in hopes of making some sort of positive change, in hopes that a congressperson or a representative, or someone very high up in the Medicare World or Government will read this, feel some compassion and outrage and decide to make a difference. I’m not writing this so that people will feel sorry for me, or to complain, but so that HOPEFULLY someone will read this and try to do something to fix the system.

Medicare is broken when a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down has to beg and scratch and fight so hard to get a new wheelchair and then pay over $10,000 out of his own pocket to get one that actually meets his needs.

I’ve been trying to get a new wheelchair for over 6 months, and the latest thing after waiting 4 weeks for a prior authorization is that my paperwork and “medical necessity” was declined because a date stamp was not placed on the paperwork by the Durable Medical Equipment provider.

Does that make sense? Does it make sense for Medicare to look for every opportunity and technicality to deny this paperwork or should they actually be trying to help people and provide them with the equipment they need?

Let me explain my current situation… I’m a C5 Quadriplegic paralyzed from the armpits down, and when I say paralyzed I mean no feeling, no movement, NOTHING. So… I’ve got a pretty major disability, but I’m a young guy, 35 years old who makes the best of life and does a lot. I’m outside a lot, I play with my niece and nephew, I go for long walks with my service dog, I give back to my community, I’m a city counselor, really, I live a pretty awesome, active life. But… being paralyzed, I can’t walk, I can’t move, I can’t get out of bed, I can’t do a lot of things.  And believe me, I hate that phrase… “I can’t”, but it’s true “I can’t” do a lot of things without an electric wheelchair that I can trust and depend on.

And herein lies the problem… My current wheelchair is over 5 years old. It’s so worn out that the actual metal frame, where the seat system connects to the base is broken. The motors are so worn that when I go up the hill to my house from downtown they actually overheat and shut down, sometimes leaving me sitting in the middle of the road. The buttons on the joystick are so worn that sometimes it takes several tries to actually turn my on wheelchair in the morning and there is a giant crack and electricians tape holding them together. And this is what I’m supposed to trust and depend on for my daily life and independence, for my lifeline to the world, to actually keep me safe as I go out into the world.

The safety engineer in me, the normal rational human being in me thinks this is ludicrous, but Medicare has rules and steps and criteria you have to satisfy before they will consider providing a new wheelchair. The first being the wheelchair needs to be over five years old and the second being that it is in such condition it is not justifiable to repair. Well, let me tell you, after 5 years of my very active life and upwards of 10,000 miles my poor wheelchair is so worn out it should most certainly be replaced.

I started the process back in the middle of July, almost 7 months ago, the first step being a face-to-face appointment with my physiatrist for a wheelchair evaluation and to demonstrate need. Surprisingly (*insert sarcasm here) I still need a wheelchair, and this marked the first step where I could now start getting a new one. Little did I know that Medicare starts a 45-day timer from this point that REQUIRES a patient gets a signed prescription for a new wheelchair within this timeframe. Again, Medicare has rules, ridiculous rules.

So now I could start the process, it was time to try out a few wheelchairs and seating systems and find out exactly what I needed and worked best for me. Living in a rural community in Maine it was a little more difficult to actually try out these electric wheelchairs that I would spend over 14 hours of my daily life in so I was at the mercy of my Durable Medical Equipment provider and some of their manufacturers reps to get equipment up here for me to try.

So I had to wait, had to wait 27 days for the first wheelchairs for me to try to show up here. Little did I know, that 27 days of my 45-day window to get a wheelchair were gone just like that. A manufacturers rep from Permobil showed up here with two chairs… The Permobil F3 and the F5. The major difference between the F3 and the F5 being that the F3 is designed around the limitations and funding of the American healthcare system, and the F5 being designed around what the rest of the industrialized world would cover as the best chair for someone in my situation. And I tried both of these chairs out, and guess what the F5 was markedly better, now I’m not saying the difference between the two was night and day, but the F5 had two features that were very important to me; a top speed of 7.5 MPH, and upgraded suspension that made the ride significantly smoother and more capable off-road. And why does that matter? Well my wheelchair is how I get from point A to point B, it’s how I independently get around town, it’s how I’m active with friends and go for walks across the backyard or through the field or to really anyplace outdoors and cool, and it’s how I’m me. That top speed makes the difference between whether it takes 1 hour or 35 minutes for me to get somewhere, and the off-road capabilities whether I spend the afternoon or day by myself stuck somewhere (at very real risk) or find myself seamlessly go where life and my wheelchair takes me.

I immediately fell in love with the Permobil F5 wheelchair and saw the dramatic improvement it would make on my life, and knew from the bottom of my heart it’s what I NEEDED. And this is when I learned more of what is the quagmire of Medicare. Medicare categorizes wheelchairs under “groups”. Group 3 wheelchairs which is what the Permobil F3 is considered are covered by Medicare, Group 4 wheelchairs which is what the Permobil F5 is are not. They are considered as having added capabilities that are not needed for use in the home. So the wheelchair that would make an incredible difference to my independence and freedom is not covered by Medicare.

Think about this, Medicare is completely structured and only cares about providing people with the minimum wheelchair that is sufficient for in-home use.

Even worse, the system groups all wheelchair users together, and the guidelines are structured for geriatric users, older people who find themselves in a wheelchair due to old age, as opposed to looking at the differences and needs of a younger/active user versus an older person who stays at home. So when they look at me as a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down they throw me into the same basket as a 90-year-old wheelchair user who needs a chair not because they are paralyzed but because their body is failing them with old age. Does that make sense? Wouldn’t it seem that I, very active and 35 years old and paralyzed from the armpits down, might have different needs than someone who’s much older and less active?

Nope! Well not according to Medicare.

Again, I found the best wheelchair for my NEEDS, but it was not covered by Medicare. I could pay the difference for the upgrades between the F3 and the F5, but at a price tag of over $10,000 I just couldn’t do it, well at that point I just couldn’t do it.

So the search continued on and I requested my DME provider to find me other wheelchairs to try. And guess what I had to do again… wait and wait and wait, finally after 3 postponed trips from the Quantum rep, and over 10 weeks of waiting, I had 2 Quantum wheelchairs to try out. Remember that 45-day window… Unbeknownst to me at this point I had blown way past the allowable window for me to get a new wheelchair. And even worse, after waiting all this time for these new wheelchairs to try out, they weren’t set up for anywhere close to somebody my height or disability. I could barely even sit in them, and after just a short spin around the house and outdoors I quickly saw how insufficient they were compared to the Permobil I had fallen in love with several months prior. Sadly, they felt like toys.

At this point I decided I was just going to bite the bullet, empty my savings, and pay the extra for the wheelchair that met my needs. I called up my DME provider and said I’ll take it, and this is when I ran into Medicare’s foolish 45-day window. After waiting so long (at no fault of my own) to actually try out a few wheelchairs before I committed to spending 14 hours a day in them I had exceeded the 45-day period Medicare allows between the face-to-face with my doctor and ordering the wheelchair. So because of that I could not just simply pay the tremendous price tag and order my new wheelchair, I had to start the process all over again. Now how the heck does that make sense?!? I mean I’m a quadriplegic for goodness sakes, my condition hasn’t changed for almost 10 years, and now I have to see a doctor again, Medicare has to pay for me to see a doctor again, just so I can meet their asinine 45-day criteria. So here I am waiting… You know you can’t just get in to see a doctor at a minutes notice, and I had to wait 4 weeks and fortunately there were enough cancellations that my physiatrist could see me in the middle of December to do a repeat visit of what we had just done in July just so I could buy my wheelchair. That went as expected… Incredible, I’m still a quadriplegic and I still need a wheelchair, and finally we get to the process of submitting our preauthorization paperwork to Medicare so that I could get my wheelchair.

That was at the beginning of January, and after 4 weeks of waiting for Medicare to decide if a wheelchair is medically necessary for someone paralyzed from the neck down I get the big “denial” notice in the mail stating that my “medical necessity” was denied because a date stamp was forgotten by my Durable Medical Equipment provider. I called them up frustrated, and then spent over 6 hours on the phone with Medicare to see if they could expedite the second review. I talked to customer service representatives, durable medical equipment claims advisors, supervisors, supervisors supervisors, and to the very top that I could go and while I did get some compassion along the way, the only answer I got was that I would have to wait another month for them to reevaluate my paperwork. It didn’t matter the urgency of my claim, it didn’t matter the legitimacy of my disability and claim, it didn’t matter that my life will be terribly impacted when this wheelchair fails (and fails again), all that mattered was that the “rules” said they could take upwards of 30 days to evaluate my paperwork. But what about the other 45-day requirement that I get my wheelchair or I have to start this process all over again. I’ve already waited 30 days… What happens if it takes them another 30 days to find that there now is a time stamp and that a quadriplegic actually does need a wheelchair. Do I have to start all over again?

And all this time I’m trying to live a fulfilling life when I have a power wheelchair, a vital piece of my independence and life, that is falling apart.

How does this make sense?!?

And again, I scream at the top of my lungs Medicare is broken!

Medicare is broken when a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down has to beg and scratch and fight so hard to get a new wheelchair and then pay over $10,000 out of his own pocket to get one that actually meets his needs.

Now who out there will help me fix it?

Let me tell you what happened, not so you’ll feel bad, or be like “Mike…!  I’m so glad you’re okay!”  Nope… I’m writing this so next time you become complacent or not as safe as you should be you step back and think.

Wednesday morning was an absolutely beautiful morning… Sunny, 75°, nice little breeze, and that perfect morning dew smell in the air.  Had lots of work/stuff to do, but with it so super nice out, decided I’d go cruising around town with Caleb the super dog and a good book.  We strolled down to Mantle Lake to find a nice quiet spot, but the weed wacker boys were noisily mowing/trimming the park, so we continued on down the bike path, eventually to the banks of the Presque Isle stream at Riverside Park.

Innocently enough I pulled my wheelchair up underneath this nice shady tree, facing the water… One of my favorite spots… A place I’ve gone many times, and got to reading.  What a beautiful morning!  Sitting there reading for a little while, and my phone rings… It’s my grandmother and I pick up and say hi.  We chat for a little while, and I get coughing and coughing… A nasty little lung oyster wants to say hi to the sunshine, and I cough real hard and the top strap of my wheelchair let’s go and I start falling forward onto my wheelchair’s joystick.  No biggie y’all think, just catch yourself, but the only thing is all my belly muscles are paralyzed, and I’m quickly teetering towards the point of no return.  I throw my head and arms back… the only thing I can do to counteract the force, this movement forward, and sit there teetering… not moving forward, but also not moving back, just there 1 mm from complete safety, and 1 mm from falling forward onto my joystick and driving my wheelchair off the bank into the river.  I fight like I’ve never fought, pulling my head back, straining, trying to get whatever motion back that I can, and I start teetering, teetering back to my wheelchair with a flourish, a flourish of energy and I’m there, laying there against the back of my wheelchair, and I’m alive.

I sit there stunned for a few minutes, still on the phone with my grandmother, and I tell her I have to go, and sit back and think about what just happened.  I look down at the safety strap that goes across my chest that is now unattached on my lap, and look over at the joystick that is in 5^th gear ready to go forward and fast, and the water that’s just a few feet away, and take in the gravity of the whole situation.  Holy shit!  I almost just fell forward and drove my wheelchair right off the bank into the water.  I almost just drowned, I almost died, just like that.  And then I got sick all over, and my body started tingling, and I had this incredible euphoria, but I was scared, but so happy because I was alive and everything was okay.

Crazy, huh?  One minute, everything’s okay, just hanging out reading a book, and the next I’m almost plunging to the depths of the Presque Isle stream.

I call my father, and he comes down to Riverside, to help me put my top strap back on, and we see the Velcro is completely gummed up with a bunch of little dingle berries from my favorite wool sweater.  I’ve known that the strap hasn’t been attaching as well as it once did for months, but always said to myself it was fine, I’d fix it tomorrow.  But today, it was all gummed up, not working, completely useless, and it almost ended my life.

com·pla·cen·cy - “a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect or the like”

So why did I share this with you… Not because I want you to feel bad for me.  Not because I want you to say “oh Mike, I’m so glad you’re okay.”  But because I want you to think next time you climb up that ladder you’ve gone up 1000 times before, or jump on your bike for a quick ride down the street without checking the brakes, or go for a rock climb on that rope that’s may be seen it’s better days, or jump in your car that just had work done to the brakes, and assume everything is okay.

DON’T!  DON’T BECOME COMPLACENT!  Don’t just assume everything’s okay.  Take those extra seconds to double check that ladder, make sure everything is safe on your bike, replace that rope that’s a little too worn, and re-torque the lug nuts on your vehicle after service.

Because sometimes that’s all it takes, that small moment of complacency, to be that dude in a 500 pound wheelchair sinking to the bottom of the stream with a service dog tied to your arm swimming around in circles.

Scary thought, huh!  But I’m totally awesome and okay and again have a new lease on life YIPPEE!

So let me catch you up… In one blabbering run-on paragraph long sentence… my family started looking into purchasing a ski shop, my father and brother-in-law purchased said ski shop, garage became loaded loaded to the ceiling with hundreds and hundreds of ski things, Caleb continued to be the most incredible/lovable creature in the world, MY SISTER AND HER HUBBY MOVED BACK HOME!!!, we planted a garden, lots of adventures to awesome places with my buddy Mark, we fixed up a location for the shop in downtown Presque Isle, Bike Board and Ski opened with my brother-in-law Andrew at the helm, lots of busy months with my father/Andrew getting things going in the shop, I got obsessed with my garden… It was like watching my children grow… I gave them nourishment and they grew and prospered until a gopher came by one day and ripped a bunch of them out, I became a city counselor, Cannondale became our premier bike brand, some awesome adventures with my sister and Andrew, wow… this really is starting to run on, we started fundraising for a new Community Center, the ski stuff showed up, my parents went on their first major vacationsince my injury, a cruise to the Caribbean!!!, I made some incredible new friends and reconnected with many from afar… Scott/Benny boy I’ve missed you guys!, Daisy taught Caleb some bad tricks, I officially ran and got nominated to a two-year term as a city counselor, we had a poop load of snow in December, sales got very intense at the store, a wonderful Christmas with all the family now at home, and me typing here frantically today in a fantastically great mood feeling like life is moving ahead wonderfully, making a difference, having fun and building connections.

Phew… I’m out of breath! Crazy how much can happen in a year!

How about a little more detail?!?

My Sister and Her Husband Moved Back Home!!!

Absolutely the most wonderful thing of 2013 was my sister and her husband moved home… YAY!!! In early spring Julie and Andrew started thinking about the move home, and after everything fell together with the business and Andrew becoming part owner when my father, and my sister landing an incredible job with Cary Medical Center it happened, if finally freaking happened, they moved home!!! At first, it was one big happy family, with Julie, Andrew, and their kid, err dog Daisy joining us up on the Hill. We had lots of great adventures that summer, me working as an impromptu trainer kicking their butts, and Daisy/Caleb furthering their relationship as best dog buds in the whole wide world, with Daisy teaching Caleb a few bad tricks, until they found an absolutely beautiful home and moved to Caribou. Best thing in the whole wide world to have your awesome lil sister and a brother-in-law who is like a brother living right nearby!

Don’t We Make Quite the Crew

All Four of Us Hanging out

Me and My Favorite Two Ladies

Julie taking the Kids/Best Buds went for a hike up Bigrock

The Bike Board and Ski Shop

It’s no secret that I broke my neck in a skiing accident, and at first, the last thing I wanted to be around was skis and things that brought back too many powerful/painful memories that made me think about what I had lost and what I was missing. It wasn’t until several years after my injury that I grew at peace with not being able to ski and really got a handle on what I was missing so much; it was the people, the people who like to ski, and who make enjoying the outdoors their life. Somewhere along with that mental transition came the opportunity for my family to purchase the ski shop, Rocky Mountain Sports, that my father had originally been part owner of when I was first injured. After several months of research, putting together a business plan, and looking at the financial reality of owning a ski shop, my father and brother-in-law purchased Rocky Mountain Sports, and incorporated the new company Bike Board and Ski.

Over the past 9 months lots of hard work took the old Rocky Mountain Sports and a historic location in downtown Presque Isle from this to…

Our Garage Loaded to the Ceiling with Rocky Mountain Sports Inventory

Rehabbing the Old Location at 157 State Street

Some Paint and a Refinished Hardwood Floor Made a HUMONGOUS Difference

A Soft Start… Opening Day with Just Enough Bikes/Stuff to Get Going

And finally… to the Winter Grand Opening!

I Grew My First Garden

Well sorta, I was the manager of my first garden you could say, almost like a real farmer. I’ve always wanted to grow my own veggies, but who would have thunk how much enjoyment I’d take from watching these little seeds grow into the most incredible, fresh, yummy vegetables! Like I mentioned above, it was almost like I had all these little kids that I loved, that I nurtured (or told people to nurture ) and watched grow from these tiny little sprouts, into gangly little plants, which flourished, and floured, and started growing uncontrollably, completely overtaking their flowerbeds, until they started producing the most incredible little vegetables which grew, and looked so beautiful, until we picked them and ate them (which I guess is kind of different than raising kids) except for the tomatoes which turned all black and got blight during the two weeks of nonstop rain, but we got some incredible lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, beets, onions, carrots, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, green peppers, and some other stuff that the gopher decided eat.

Check out These Three Raised Beds Each 12’ x 4’ x 10” Deep

Look at All the Growth after Only a Month!

Another View of the Beds Looking Back Towards the House

I Could Keep Going and Going and Going

And you know, I could keep writing and writing about all the wonderful/awesome things that happened last year, but I’m starting to run out of words, and the pictures are what you’re all after, so how about a few more and we’ll call it a day and I’ll make the promise that I’ll write more sometime soon.

The House Get Some Pretty Landscaping

Me and Caleb Getting Sworn in As City Counselors

Me and The Super Dog Just Got Closer and Closer

Can’t You Just See/Feel the Love. He Adores Me and I Most Absolutely Adore Him!

I miss you all my Quadomated friends, it’s been a wonderful, uplifting, feel-good sort of thing writing you this morning, almost therapeutic or something.  Really makes me appreciate all what 2013 was and that I have so many wonderful friends and family surrounding me.

I’m just giddy with excitement about my new LED light bulbs.  As in, every time I turn on the lights I now look up at the ceiling with a big smile on my face and chuckle at all the money I’m saving and how much brighter my room is now.  I’m definitely getting more and more addicted to saving money with smart technology and energy efficiency!  And, the more I think about payback, energy efficiency, and my impact on this beautiful green earth, the more I want to do!

What really helped push me in the right direction this weekend was a random trip to Lowes.  Figured I was starting to stink up the house by sitting inside so much, and that my buddy Caleb the super dog could use a little work out in public, so I headed to the big box home improvement store and planted myself in front of the row of light bulbs and started looking/dreaming.  You see, I have wanted to buy LED lightbulbs for the entire house ever sense we built it, but was having the mad internal debate over spending $40+ per light bulb on a technology that was still in its infancy.  So every week, I’d come into Lowes and think about all the energy/money I could be saving, but how ridiculous it was to spend $2,000 on lightbulbs!

That was, well, until this past Saturday, when I was scanning the gluttony of lightbulbs when my eyes fell on a group of Sylvania BR30 LED’s sitting over a $9.99 price tag.  Was this a mistake?  I brought one up to the front of the store to get a price check and found that they were indeed $9.99.  HOLY CRAP!  What a deal!  And I went back and grabbed the 5 that were remaining, and found a sales guy, and can you believe it… found 33 more!!!  Yeah, 38 seems like a crazy lot, and it’s no wonder my electrician thought I had the most lights he’d ever wired, but with all the cathedral ceilings and recessed lights it took a lot to cover all the space.  So I spent $380 on lightbulbs this past weekend, and in the coming years expect to save thousands of dollars because of that purchase!!!

Giddy with excitement… Yes I am!

Figuring out the Payback of a Lightbulb

I know a lot of people out there are rather skeptical about how you could save so much on just a lightbulb, so let me break out a quick calculation to show you how I came up with the huge savings.

The Sylvania BR30 LED light bulbs replace a 65 W incandescent light bulb with 14 W of LED light.

The average lightbulb is run 3 hours per day or approximately 1000 hours per year.

This equates to 65 kWh of electricity for an incandescent and 14 kWh for the LED.

At $0.15 per kWh this means it cost approximately $9.75 to run the incandescent light bulb all year, and $2.10 to run the LED; a savings of $7.65.

This is further improved by the 25,000 hour life of the LED versus the 2,000 hour life of the incandescent.

Payback for my $10 expenditure = 1.3 years (not counting the probable expense of an incandescent lightbulb that burns out every 2,000 hours)

If one extrapolates the savings over the entire 25,000 hour life of the LED things get even more interesting.  Realize these are just rough numbers, using somewhat unproven lifetimes for LEDs and probabilistic averages for incandescents.

But, over 25,000 hours a 65 W incandescent would use 1,625 kWh whereas a 14 W LED would use 350 kWh.  At $0.15 per kilowatt hour this is a 25,000 hour (approximately 25 years) cost to run an incandescent of $243.75 versus $52.50; a difference of $191.25.  If you figure in the cost of the LED lightbulb and the approximate 12.5 incandescent light bulbs needed to match its lifespan and savings equates to roughly $200 per lightbulb for 25,000 hours of operation.  Yes, this is a hugely rough approximation, but close enough to get the idea, and most likely rather conservative considering the likely inflation/increased price of electricity.

Now, multiply this by 38 lightbulbs and you’ll see that I should save close to $7,000 on this purchase over the next 25 years… Yes, this is if the LED light bulbs last that long and I stay in the house for that long, yada yada.  The point being is some very real and impressive savings!

Did I say I was addicted to this energy efficiency/money savings stuff?!?

What about the Light Quality?

A lot of critics say the light of an LED is harsher/bluer.  What I can say about these particular LEDs, is that it’s not really harsher, but whiter and definitely brighter.  I really don’t mind the difference in light/color and really like the increased output/brightness to my rooms at night.  The only negative is they don’t dim as low as the previous incandescents.  They still drop-down quite a ways, possibly to 20-30%, but from that point and lower they just abruptly shut off.  Not a big deal, but definitely not as pleasant when my automation system automatically brightens the lights in my bedroom each morning to wake me up.

Sort of like hey Quadomated, wake up and enjoy the day!  It’s time to get going!

My Younger Years Skiing at Big Rock

My father takes a left-hand turn on to the Graves Road with our rusty old station wagon, as we bump up the dirt road into the parking lot of Big Rock early that Saturday morning. It’s 7:20 AM, more than an hour and a half before the mountain opens for the day, and there are only two other vehicles in the parking lot; a little red colored Ford Ranger and a beat up black Ford F-150. We pull into our spot close to the ski patrol hut and unload several pairs of skis, a few each for me and dad, and the skis for my sister and mom who will show up later that day. I step onto the freshly groomed corduroy and feel the snow crunch beneath my feet as I somehow manage to wrestle 3 pairs of skis up to the patrol hut. My dad unlocks the padlock, and we step inside, our breath instantly freezing the air. Somehow the hut feels colder than it is outside. My dad opens the old 55 gallon drum woodstove and crumples up some newspaper and puts some kindling on top to get the fire going. He throws on a few bigger logs, and we head over to the Lodge to warm up and catch the ski scoop for the morning. As I walk through the side door, Marie greets me with a huge smile and slabs a bunch of butter onto a fresh bagel and puts it on the stove for me. By this point a few more of the ski patrollers, workers and hardcores have arrived at the mountain for the morning and we all sit down together to eat breakfast and get ready for the day. This is the start to the many Big Rock mornings I remember throughout my life.

Standing in Front of the Big Rock Spring Slush with My Sister

All these memories came crashing back to me, as I rolled my wheelchair into the Duncan Graves funeral home last night to pay my respects to Gary Pierce who sadly passed away too early in life from brain cancer. As I entered the room I was instantly overwhelmed by a lifetime of memories and emotions as I saw the entire Pierce family and the many folks who made my Big Rock family as I grew up. There was Dan, and Erin, and John, and Travis… the big kids I had looked up too and always looked out for me when I was just a little bugger on the slopes, and there was the ski patrollers Randy and Conrad and Alan and Steve and Tom who had been my older buds, almost like an extended group of uncles. And finally there was Wendell, my mountain grandfather sitting on a chair. I was overwhelmed to see everyone together, a few years older, but still the same amazing people, and instantly thought back to my childhood and how all these people, how the Pierces, the patrollers, and particularly my father and Big Rock made my childhood the best that any kid could have wished for.

I know I’m not reminiscing alone when I think back to the old days of Big Rock. It wasn’t just a place where people would ski back then, but a place where Wendell and Marie brought happiness to everyone’s lives and made us all feel just like we were part of one big, Big Rock, family. They opened their arms to everyone who came through their doors in such a genuine we love everything about this sport/lifestyle that made Big Rock the most special mountain I’ve ever been too. And that’s saying a lot, considering I made my life skiing and traveled to some of the most famous mountains in the US with my job as a ski lift engineer. Truthfully, none of them compared to the genuine hometown, family feeling of Big Rock.

Standing at the Bottom of Big Rock Ready to Take the Poma for my Slalom Run

As I moved from person-to-person last night, and listened to the many stories of the person we were remembering that night I was instantly taken back to a lifetime of incredible memories and stories. I thought about the crazy man with the big white boots fearlessly climbing up and down those lattice towers, the many summers and falls I spent with my father and Randy trimming trails and rolling hay out over the rough spots, the time Gary was driving me down the Comet when the black truck lost its brakes and we almost ended up in the woods, and the time he hollered at me when he nearly fell off the tower when I didn’t throw that huge wrench quite close enough to his outstretched arms. I thought about all these memories, how times Gary almost single-handedly kept the mountain running, and how because of all his and his families dedication so many people in this area got to enjoy skiing culture in Northern Maine. Gary, Wendell, Marie, all the Pierces, thank you so much for making Big Rock the place that it was to me. It is without a doubt, second to only my incredible parents/family for making me the man I am today.

I’m still thinking about all these memories today, and want to share a few of the special ones with you.  I’m sure all of you Big Rock rugrats will chuckle to think back to all the great times we had.

Snowball fights and Trail-wide Downhills

Remember those spring skiing afternoons when after a season full of skiing us kids started getting a little bored with just skiing and resorted to pelting each other and sometimes the adults with snowballs?  I can remember one particular morning when the Presque Isle kids went after the Mars Hill kids and Marie thought we got a little out of hand and put us in our place.

Then there were the trail wide processions of youngsters with the ultimate race to the bottom… The
downhill!  If that wasn’t daring enough sometimes we moved our fearless race to the Hoochi Man!

That old Poma Lift

Remember how they used to load us small kids with an adult/bigger kid close by front and rear, so when the Poma would lift us up the bigger people could sit down and stretch the cable lower so we could keep our tips on the snow.  What about those times you’d get a frozen one and the lift would launch you to the sky, sometimes taking whatever you had between your legs with it!

Cranking the Ski Patrol Hut to 110°F

Sitting in Front of the Ski Patrol Hut

We used to love getting that old cast-iron barrel stove just glowing red with heat.  I can remember the day Ted placed his 7XKs a little too close to the stove and blistered his bottoms, or the countless mittens that caught on fire, or the time Conrad came into the hut after a cold night skiing and almost passed out from the heat.  We’d sometimes drop huge bunches of snow on the stove to make a sauna until the old ski patrollers rounded us out.

The Big Rock Burgers

Mmmmm… Need I say more!  Marie could make the best hamburgers and bagels on this planet! What in the heck were the new owners thinking when they got rid of the legendary Big Rock burger cooking stove.  How dare you!

Skiing the Entire 14 Days of Winter Break

I remember skiing so many days in a row, that by the end of it I could barely move the next morning, but still we kept skiing.  We’d get to the hill early in the morning, do lap after lap on the fresh corduroy, and when we’d had enough skiing we’d start snowboarding, or riding shovels down the hill (yeah, you really can ride a shovel… It fit the butt cheeks perfectly), or a couple times we even cut trees down across the cross-country trail.  Didn’t that tick Gary off with the groomer… Hey, I really didn’t like cross-country!

Working my Summers and Falls to Pay for My Season Pass and Skis

Sitting inside the Ski Patrol Hut, Getting Ready for My GS Run

It was pretty sweet growing up with a father so heavily involved with the skiing culture/mountain.  He wasn’t just the high school ski coach, ski patrol director, ski instructor, but so heavily ingrained in the skiing culture and Big Rock family that skiing became our everything.  We didn’t just think about it/enjoy it in the winter, but worked our summers and falls at the mountain or ski shop.

I remember loading these gigantic bales of hay onto the back of Gary’s black Ford with a forklift, the shocks of his poor truck absolutely sinking to their knees, and then driving his black truck up the hill with its radiator overheating and throwing the hay off to cover the rocks and doing all over again and again.  I’d be hiking up the Chair Trail with my father and Randy winding out the bladed weedwacker to cut the brush, and traveling all over the state to ski sales with Travis and that little Isuzu panel truck.  I vacuumed up literally millions of house flies after they bombed the Lodge, and painted the rental shack and ski racks so many times I can’t even count it.  Me and dad would just work and work, sometimes at the most strenuous and exhausting jobs, some of them mind numbingly boring like inventorying the old boots, but we never minded it because of the people we were doing it with and because we were working for our season passes and new skis.  It was an incredible way to get ready for the season!

And I Could Keep Going on and on

And I could keep going on and on and on about all these incredible memories, and yes, thinking back to this and remembering is a little sad at times, but it also makes me so happy to sit here and think back to all the wonderful memories and times I’ve had.  And now, all these many years later, six of them without me actually skiing I’ve now come to realize that the actual skiing is only a small part of what makes skiing the incredible lifestyle it is… The biggest part is the people!

You see, skiing isn’t so much about the skiing as it is the people you’re doing it with.

And with that, I promise you I’ll be soon finding myself heavily involved in the lifestyle and culture again.

The Install

Inside: Along the West Wall of My Family Room

Inside: Along the West Wall of My Family Room – It’s Running

This is where I spend all my time during the cold winter days, is adjacent to my bedroom, and connected to the rest of the house through a set of large double sliding doors.  By installing the heat pump directly above my mini beverage refrigerator, pointing towards the largest portion of the house, I’m hoping to heat the largest portion of the house/air and maximize savings.

Outside: The Compressor Unit Hanging off the House, the White Trim Protecting the Refrigerant Lines

Outside: A Closer View of the Compressor Unit

It seemed like a pretty straightforward install, with a single heating contractor spending maybe 2 hours on the inside, and 4 hours on the outside, and the two electricians 2 hours wiring the new 240 V line to the panel, pulling a long feed across the house, and installing a disconnect next to the heat pump.

How’s it Working?

Quite awesomely!  But there are still a few things we’re figuring out… particularly the best way to get it integrated in and working with our radiant heating system, and how to get the warm air to some of the, now, colder rooms.

Let me explain…

After installing the heat pump we needed to adjust the thermostats down for two of the radiant zones to take advantage of the cheaper heating price of the heat pump.  So, the thermostat for the heat pump is set to 74°F (yeah I know… I get cold easily!), the radiant heat zone for my section of the house set to 70°F, and the radiant zone for the main section of the house set to 68°F.  The thinking here is any time the heat pump can make enough heat to heat the majority of the house I’ll let it, and since I get cold so easily, if it ever has a hard time keeping up I’ll kick the slab on to make up the difference.  Probably most people would allow for a greater temperature difference between their heat pump and primary heat source thermostats to maximize savings.  I’ve also added an additional time in the programmable thermostats for the two radiant zones to kick on the heat of the zones for 30 minutes at 4 AM.  This might be totally unnecessary, but I want to make absolutely sure the water in our concrete doesn’t get too cold by running the heat pump (causing those radiant zones to never heat up the concrete).

Any thoughts on this, oh so smart home building/energy efficiency people?  Do I need to cycle my radiant to keep it from freezing, or is the insulated slab enough within the building envelope to keep that from happening?

Another challenge I’m trying to figure out related to this, is by using the heat pump, the radiant zone for my section of the house is being used significantly less, which means the warm water is no longer flowing underneath the floor in my bedroom/bathroom.  One would hope that the warm air from the heat pump would be making it into these areas, but due to how it blows/directs the heat straight ahead my bedroom and bathroom are now cooler than I’d like.

Last night I experimented by placing a small plug-in fan inside my bedroom and blew the colder air out into my family room where the heat pump is installed.  It seemed to make a dramatic difference at the temperature inside my bedroom.  I’m going to test this out/try it for a few more days, and if it continues work, I’ll make a more permanent solution by installing a large CPU fan at the corner of my door and run them using a relay and temperature sensor connected to my home automation system.  That way, if the temperature inside my bedroom is colder than the family room the fan will kick on and exchange the air until the temperatures are similar, at which point the fan will turn off.

A Couple More Considerations

Both the inside and outside units of the heat pump make some noise.  They’re not excessively noisy, but also not as quiet as a refrigerator (like many folks suggest they are).  It’s super important to take this into consideration when placing the outdoor unit.  The low hum of the outdoor unit makes is completely livable mounted on the outside of my family room, but most likely would have made it hard to sleep if mounted on the outside of my bedroom.  The inside unit can be anything from a low swish, to a moderate level blowing of air depending on what level the fan is set.  Most often I leave the fan set on level 2 which provides a noise level I can live with and moves enough air to heat the majority of the house.

Doesn’t blow hot air like a wood/pellet stove.  These heat pumps are designed to pump out an 80°F-120°F warm feeling air as opposed to the much hotter 180°F+ that comes from forced air furnaces, and wood and pellets stoves.  As the heat pump gets closer to this set temperature it ramps down the temperature of the air it’s blowing out to increase efficiency.  This sometimes makes it feel like the heat pump is blowing cold air, when it’s actually blowing slightly warmer air, but it feels cold because it’s lower than our body temperature and blowing.

Hot air likes to travel in straight lines.  This heat pump had a very powerful fan that can push heated air easily 30+ feet into the next room, but this same heated air for the most part bypasses my open bedroom door just a few feet to the side of the unit.  Additional fans or ways to move heated air around (or a tolerance for colder areas) might be necessary to get the heated air into the rooms off to the side.

Looses efficiency the colder it gets.  By their very nature, air to air heat pumps pull heat from the outside air and by changing the pressure/phase of a refrigerant release this heat as warmer air inside the home.  As the temperature outside gets colder there is less heat to pull from the cold outside air and the units become less efficient.  The Fujitsu units are considered tops with their 27+ SEER and 15+ EER and the best efficiency/coefficient of performance at low temperatures, but they can only go so low.  From 0°F and blow performance is significantly reduced, and I found mine to put out very low heat in the -5°F range.  At that point I just turn it off and let the radiant slab do what it’s designed to do.

When the heat pump is on it never truly turns itself off.  I guess this could be considered a good and a bad thing.  It makes the unit far more efficient, because it ramps up and down based on the demand, but for a passive solar house with significant solar gain, this means the unit just coasts along for the entire sunny day even when you need absolutely no heat.  I wish there was some circuitry, or way to have the device automatically turn itself completely off if the room temperature is significantly above the set point and increasing.  For now, I just look out the window to see if it’s sunny in the morning and turn the heat pump off.  I may in the future decide to interface this with my home automation system and use a predictive heat algorithm to determine the most efficient way to heat our home.

Conclusions… so am I happy?

Given everything mentioned above, am I still happy?  Would I buy the heat pump again?  ABSOLUTELY!

It really is an awesome device, and if it holds up to all the ultra-energy efficiency claims then we are in for saving close to $1000 per year, and paying for the device in less than 3 years with the help of the $300 tax credit and $600 rebate from Maine Public Service.  Even better, while receiving all this winter savings, we now have a superefficient, very quiet cooling system in the summer and vastly increased comfort year-round.  For me this is the hugest thing, as a quadriplegic who has an impossible time regulating my body temperature, having the ability to quickly heat up/cool down my room will make such an incredible difference in my life!

Before, when I used to get a chill, I’d either close myself in my bedroom and fire up the space heater (because it’s one of the smaller rooms in the house and could increase in temperature more quickly), or run the space heater for several hours in my family room.  Now, I can just kick the heat pump on high with my family room door closed to the rest of the house and heat it up 5°F in less than half an hour.  Then, once I’m all warmed up I can ramp the unit down, open up to the rest of the house, and keep on saving!  And, in the summer, no longer will I be hightailing it to the supermarket or someplace that has air conditioning when it gets too hot.  Now, I’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the comfort of my home!

This little doozy has been gnawing at me for over 4 months, ever since I purchased my new to me, but definitely used handicap accessible van, and got charged $800 sales tax by the State of Maine for handicap equipment that had already been taxed once before!

INCREDIBLE! RIDICULOUS! OUTLANDISH! How could the very state I live in hold out their greedy little fingers and tax me just because I’m disabled?

Let me explain…

Earlier this summer I finally made the decision to get a new handicap accessible van. When I say new I mean slightly used/new to me, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to pay $60,000+ for an overpriced handicap accessible van that is little more than a $25,000 van with a lowered floor and foldout ramp. I started looking used, and called the two handicap vehicle dealers in Maine only to find they’re equally proud of their used inventory and charge $40,000+ for a low mileage 3-4-year-old van. So, I turned to eBay and got looking, finally after a few months finding the perfect van from a private seller. Just to make sure I was getting a deal, I told the two handicap van dealers exactly what they were competing against, a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan Braun Entervan XT conversion with 25,807 miles, 3,168 miles on the conversion for $27,000. Their response, knowing that I was a very real buyer ready to go today, was $35,900 for a van with 8,000 more miles. NOT LIKELY!

After several emails back and forth, learning that the seller had purchased the van just months before, and was only selling because his father had more quickly than expected passed away from a degenerative disease, I became comfortable enough to buy the van sight unseen. So I committed to the deal, sent my sister and her husband south on the Amtrak to southern Connecticut, and made the biggest vehicle purchase of my life without even rolling wheel into the van.

And what a great deal I got! Upon making the very long journey to Northern Maine, and arriving on my front doorstep I saw this absolutely beautiful red van. Like amazingly perfect, still smell the new car smell inside, holy cow I have the absolute awesomeness of new vehicles! YAY!

Now onto the tax stuff…

I soon figured out what an incredible deal that I got! The people who sold me this van provided me with their original receipt showing the following:

Used Vehicle Price: $15,300
Conversion Price: $21,700
Subtotal: $37,000

The sales tax in Pennsylvania, where the van was originally registered, is 6% which came to $918.00. In Pennsylvania they only charge sales tax for the purchase price of the vehicle.

Now on to the Maine Department of Motor Vehicle I arrive at the DMV with all my paperwork, including this previous registration, and a further breakdown showing that of the $27,000 I paid for my new van only 41% of that, $11,000 was for the actual vehicle, and the rest, $16,000, for the handicap conversion part of the purchase price. You think they gave a crap about that?!? Heck no, The State of Maine wanted me to pay sales tax on the entire $27,000.

I said that’s ridiculous and nicely pointed out how foolish it was to the DMV attendant. She agreed, but said there was nothing she could do, but there was a phone number in Augusta I could call. So I got out of line, called that number and again was told I had to pay taxes on the entire purchase price. I talked to this lady in Augusta about how ridiculous this was, how I was being forced to pay taxes on handicap accessible equipment that had already been taxed once before, and she not so sincerely said… “Sorry, that’s just the way it is.”

Outraged, I left the DMV without registering my vehicle and made a number of phone calls. I called Maine AlphaOne, the state of Maine Law Library, one of my friends who is heavily involved in state politics, and researched the Internet. And what did I find, but Legislative Document 447 “An Act to Exempt from Sales Tax the Sales of Adaptive Equipment To Make a Vehicle Handicapped Accessible” which was proposed in 2003 by the 121st Maine Legislator.

Fiscal Detail and Notes

This bill expands the sales tax exemption to include the sale of certain adaptive equipment. This change will reduce sales and use tax collections by an estimated $32,703 in fiscal year 2003-04 and $47,634 in fiscal year 2004-05. The reduction of these tax collections will decrease the amounts transferred to the Local Government Fund for state-municipal revenue sharing in those years by $1,701 and $2,477. The resulting net reduction of General Fund revenue is estimated to be $31,002 in fiscal year 2003-04 and $45,157 in fiscal year 2004-05, based on an effective date of October 1, 2003.

Fiscal Disposition: Ought Not to Pass Pursuant to Joint Rule 310 03/25/03.

More outraged, I wheel back into my handicap accessible van, and head over to the Department of Motor Vehicle and pay $1,350 sales tax, of which $800 was for sales tax on handicap accessible equipment.

How does this make sense?!?

Not only do I have to pay thousands and thousands of extra dollars every year for my extensive medical and home healthcare aid cost, have my earning potential significantly challenged due to my very real disability, but on top of having to pay an extra $15-30k for a vehicle, I also have to pay the state their cut… their tax on me being disabled. IT’S FREAKING RIDICULOUS!

So yeah, I’m ranting now and very upset now, but rightfully so. How does it make sense that we as a society, we as the State of Maine tax our disabled population extra just because they are disabled.

Arghhhhhhhhhhh! They are charging me an extra $800 on the sales tax for my handicap accessible equipment just so the state can make an extra $40-$50k! ACK!

Writing my representatives again, and by golly I’d better get a response this time!

This post is about setting up and using a cell phone completely hands-free.  While it is heavily tailored for those with high-level disabilities it could also be very useful for anyone looking to use a cell phone hands-free while driving.

Okay, so I’ve finally found a totally hands-free way to use my Samsung Galaxy S3 by replacing the stock S-Voice with Dragon Mobile Assistant.  As mentioned in my previous post, CALL TO ACTION – Completely Hands-Free Cell Phone?!?  there are a couple hangups with the standard Samsung S-Voice and Android Google Now/Voice Dialer options that require the occasional home screen or Bluetooth keypress that keep them from being a viable completely hands-free solution.  Dragon Mobile Assistant addresses these issues and provides a truly hands-free solution that will provide high-level quadriplegics like myself, and others with disabilities that keep them from using their hands with a true way to access their phone using only voice.

Couple caveats to keep in mind…

Complete hands-free operation quickly drained your cell phone battery. Any time you need complete hands-free response that means the device needs to be listening to you all the time.  For a device that’s plugged in this is not a problem, but for a cell phone the added drain can quickly deplete the battery within hours.  For my Samsung Galaxy S3 with the Dragon Mobile Assistant set to Driving Mode (always listening) that means my battery was completely drained in just over 4 hours.  For this to be a viable option an upgraded battery pack or the ability to directly connect the cell phone to a wall outlet/wheelchair battery is a must.

Dragon Mobile Assistant is still in beta (under development) so there are likely to be some changes and hopefully improvements. This is a big thing here, the software is still under active development, so I hope that means it’ll see continued improvement and better integration with Android.  There are a number of things that don’t seem to work exactly right, particularly when using this software with a Bluetooth headset, but if you’re using this strictly as a hands-free phone those won’t be a problem.  I’ll discuss my issues at the bottom of this post.  Hopefully someone from Dragon will take note of my suggestions, and even better let me be a formal tester for their products.  I’ll draft up an email/make some phone calls to see!

Samsung S-Voice is tightly integrated with my Samsung Galaxy S3 and required a number of steps to disable/deactivate.  This was a major hurdle I had to overcome, and at first provided the very laughable scenario of two female virtual assistants fighting for my attention.  Before disabling S-Voice I could get into scenarios where both S-Voice and Dragon Mobile Assistant would be listening for me and trying to do different things.  As you can imagine, sometimes two females competing over the same man don’t exactly have the desired results, so one had to go.

So you decided to go all in with Dragon Mobile Assistant… Here are the steps to make it happen.

Installing Dragon Mobile Assistant and Going Hands-Free

1. Install Dragon Mobile Assistant from the Google Play store.
2. Disable S-Voice home button double tap by:
   • Open S-VOICE
   • Press MENU button at bottom left, then SETTINGS
   • Uncheck “Open Via the Home Key”
   • There is a good video of this step here
3. Completely disable S-Voice application by:
   • Go to SETTINGS -> APPLICATION MANAGER -> ALL PROGRAMS
   • Click  S-VOICE, then click DISABLE
4. Open Dragon Mobile Assistant
   • Press MENU button at the bottom left, then SETTINGS
   • Click “Background wake-up” ***this is the option that causes Dragon to always listen for “Hi Dragon” and is hugely important for hands-free operation.
   • Press the BACK button at the bottom right to go back to the Dragon screen, then click the small steering wheel icon on the bottom left of the screen to activate DRIVING MODE .

And now you’re completely hands-free!

All you need to do at this point is say “Hi Dragon” and then you can say a whole range of commands, from anything like “Call Home” to “Text John I’ll see you at 9 tonight” to “Set an alarm four 7 AM” to “What are the directions to the library” among a huge list of other things.  You can say “What can I say” to get a detailed list of the many possibilities.  Even better is the Dragon Mobile Assistant blog which demonstrates most all of the commands with picture and video.

Here is a silly product promo video of the product in action… Wonder if it could help me pick up chicks like this guy!

In Summary…

Super excited I’ve finally found a completely hands-free way to use an Android cell phone.  I hope what I’ve written can help some of you higher-level quads or other folks have more mobility/accessibility with your cell phones.  Where the software is still in its beta stages and electronics can sometimes be flaky PLEASE DON’T USE THIS AS YOUR ONLY MEANS TO GET OUTSIDE HELP IF YOU REALLY NEED IT!  I always plan on a number of backups/redundancies in case one of my ways to get help decides not to work.

I’ve used Dragon Mobile Assistant extensively over the past several days with very good success.  It does what I need, understands my voice accurately, and overall works very well.  It will be the solution I use every night when I Velcro my phone to the underneath of the shelf directly over my head and set it to “Driving Mode” so I can have a completely hands-free way to call out at night.  There are still several things to fix, especially in Bluetooth mode, but I recommend it to any of you who’d like an option to use your cell phone completely hands-free.

And the issues I noticed with Dragon Mobile Assistant

1. Always uses your phone’s speaker/microphone even if you have a Bluetooth headset paired.  This doesn’t make sense, if I have a Bluetooth headset paired to my phone it would only make sense that the virtual assistant listens/speaks to me using this headset.  At the very least, a long keypress of my Bluetooth headset will initiate Dragon Mobile Assistant and my phone’s internal microphone is accurate enough to dial out the right number, and then the phone call gets transferred to my Bluetooth, but this back and forth doesn’t make sense.
2. I can get Dragon Mobile Assistant to start listening with a Bluetooth long keypress, but there is no way to get it to stop listening to me.  With normal Bluetooth dialers you press and hold to activate the voice dialing, and if you change your mind you press and hold to stop dialing.  This is not how it works with Dragon Mobile Assistant.  Pressing and holding the Bluetooth activates Dragon Mobile Assistant and it doesn’t stop listening until you ask it the program.
3. A Bluetooth long press does not bypass the lock screen, and if I remove the lock screen it waits for the words “Hi Dragon” to be activated.  I had to deactivate my lock screen to get Dragon Mobile Assistant to work on a Bluetooth long keypress, and still, after activating it doesn’t start listening right away, but waits for me to say “Hi Dragon”.  If I’m using a Bluetooth headset it should instantly start working after a Bluetooth long keypress.

Thinking back to when we first met, I was a few months out of the rehab hospital, feeling the independence/freedom of being able to drive my wheelchair around everywhere quickly slip away as winter approached and I could no longer get around. I started searching for a ride, but was quickly overwhelmed by the $50,000+ price tags of the new adapted vans, and turned my attention to eBay to take a chance on a nice-looking, low mileage, full-sized van in Chicago for a reasonable price. I bought the van sight unseen, and Sargent’s Trucking graciously brought it back to southern Maine where it arrived at the handicap accessibility dealer for a thorough check over. They did an operational maintenance, added a few specifics just for me, and told me what an incredible deal I’d gotten minus one thing… It had no driver’s seat!!! Big problem, because my buddy Scott was supposed to show up two days later to drive it the rest of the journey to Northern Maine. We started brainstorming ideas, and eventually Scott came up with the half brained idea (sorry Scott… but this would’ve been way sketchy) of using a folding lawn chair for the 200 mile trip north. Fortunately for us, the actual captain’s driver’s seat showed up the day before Scott.

So the van made it up here, all shiny and black, looking kind of new, and the change in me was instant. I went from being a land locked person limited to a few blocks from my house on sunny days to somebody with real independence. I could do anything or go anywhere… so what did we do… but go driving out in the woods and almost got big black stuck on the very first day! Have no fear, Big Black was a trooper and got me back home, like it always did, but this was the first of a very interesting series of adventures.

We threw an incredible Hawaiian luau party and fit all of the girls in this picture, including me into Big Black. If only I had thought to hang a mistletoe from the ceiling! As a memory, the blue Hawaiian Lei from around my neck hung from the mirror of big black until the day before it sold.

Hawaiian Luau Benefit Party

Then there were the many long trips with friends to Portage, Long Lake, Lac Temiscouata… all over the place. We always sat in our seats and behaved ourselves!

Headed to the Sporting Club in Big Black

The long 14 hour journey south to get Caleb the Super Dog.  I think he still thinks the new van is not as comfortable as big black.

Caleb Sitting in the Back of Big Black with One of His Friends

And the time when my next-door neighbor almost drove Big Black into the water tower!!! You see, big black has always had hand controls, and, unbeknownst to me, and particularly to this nice, innocent lady, these hand controls make it so you can’t adjust the tilt of the steering wheel up and down without adjusting the hand controls. Well, we didn’t know this, so my friend who’s also rather short decided to tilt the wheel all the way down so that it would be easier for her to drive. No biggie, except when she did this it caused the back of the steering wheel to get fetched up on the hand controls, and as she pulled left out of the driveway caused the van to completely floor it, and squeal the tires across the street, quickly headed to the water tower. Luckily for us, she’s a quick thinker and doesn’t panic under rather crazy situations, because she floored the brake, got everything under control, and we managed to cruise on by the water tower without leaving a Big Black sized hole in the municipal water supply. PHEW!

But let me say this, with all these awesome adventures, the many long trips, and over 40,000 miles Big Black never let me down and was the most reliable/dependable vehicle I’ve ever owned. Almost like it knew it was carrying some extra special cargo!

Big Black, I’ll miss you with all my heart, but don’t fret too hard because I know you’re going to another great home. And even better, from the sounds of it, this time the recently injured guy will actually be driving you! As in, he’s already passed his driver’s test, and you’re the next step to his independence. So Big Black, take care of this new owner and bring him many faithful miles and memories just like you did to me!

I’ll miss you!

Oh, and one more thing! Through all this journey of owning Big Black and selling it to the next person, I got to meet a really incredible guy. Just like Sargent’s trucking helped me get the van home, Shawn Moody and a couple of his friends helped get Big Black to the next guy. Shawn, have only gotten to know you for a few phone calls/short time, but I can already tell you’re going to be a great friend that I’ll stay in touch with for many years. Thank you for helping get my van to the next person and what a pleasure it was to meet you!

Selling my Ford Econoline E-150 Wheelchair Van – Next to Shawn Moody