The Bionic blog

These boots were made for bionics

Mon, 3 Dec 2007 18:40:12 -0500

Well, after 7 months of planning, finally the rubber meets the slopes. I am heading up to Butternut Mountain (skibutternut.com) to get fitted and then assume the tuck position. The Butternut Adaptive Program looks solid and the demo program will allow me to choose the perfect sticks for the job.

The temp just dropped 10 degrees over the weekend so, if they blow snow, I’ll be toe on the lift line by Saturday 08:30 hours.

Thanks for all the support to date, in thought, word deed and donation. You are an inspiration to me as well.

- Jay

the sound of one-hand surfing

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:27:37 -0500

Thanks to my good friends at frogpad.com, I am well on the way to the Great American Non-vel with one hand tied inside a medical waste bag. These crazy mofos have perfected a one- handed left-handed keyboard that allows me to type with one hand while getting a pedicure with the opposite foot. Mad technology in the hand of manic bionic genius.

In fact I’ve typed this whole blog entry faster than my MacBook Pro can process a single keystroke. So here I sit, once again waiting for binary code to catch up to Macro Bionics. C’mon Jobs...get the lead out!

OK, looks good. I’m outtie.

Next challenge, one-handed adult site surfing. Hmmmm... a little help N8?

OK, that came out wrong.

The Stair master

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:08:39 -0400

Monday afternoon as I sat at my desk going over the speed test footage I could hear the call of the high school sports complex beaconing. So I fired out onto Rte 95 and shot up to Fairfield to see the turf was pretty well occupied. Remembering my junior varsity days when inanimate object seemed fair game for some type of training, I ascended the bleachers and began cranking out sets when I realized I had everything but the camera. Never one to disappoint, I headed back to the car, parked in the bionic spot, retrieved the technology and filmed a series of 100 sets.

You may notice the step over step ascension technique I’m using. This is no small feat (he he he) as the c-leg is not a powered knee meaning it cannot assume the role of hamstrings to pull the body up the stairs when traveling foot over foot. But anytime I stumble across a set of stairs just under standard size (8 inches), I always attempt the forced power up where I use a bit of quad strength and forward momentum to get the job done. And yesterday it gat done. Enjoy the fruits of my labor!!!

Bionic Turf Burn - Reborn to Run

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 12:20:55 -0400

It was a cool blustery day on the track at Fairfield Ludlow High School. With the entire bionic brood in tow, I set down to log what would become the first of many speed trials with the c-leg/standard foot prosthetic. The first few leaps out of the gate would range between clumsy and disastrous. But as I gained my form, things started slowly falling into place. With my son that the helm as the youngest cameraman in Bionic Sports, we set forth to lay claim to our glory.

All in all, I was able to post a half mile of running/sprinting/flailing, all in decent time. I’ll need to formulate a plan with my trainers and prosthetist for securing or balancing my current prosthetic arm or move further through talks and into fabrication on a bleeding edge bionically engineered DEKA arm (see next post).

Nevertheless, as I continue to gain my confidence on the pitch, I’m confident that my scores will improve and the Olympic Scouts will begin filling the stands. As always, you the public are welcome to document Bionic history for yourselves whether reporter, spectator or member of the bionic brotherhood.

Covert Joint Operations

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:59:44 -0400

This morning I crafted an e-mail reaching out to The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an arm of the Department of defense. I was writing in regards to their commissioning of the DEKA Research & Development Corporation to build a fully functioning Bionic Arm. The nature of the communication was to volunteer myself for human bionic experimentation. No sooner had a hit send then I had an e-mail in my box from Colonel Geoff Ling, announcing that he had forwarded my offer to DEKA directly.

Saturday morning, I’ve received a phone message from a top level DEKA employee interested in speaking further about a potential partnership. I, of course, cannot say where this will lead. I only know that bionic reinervation (see future post of same name) is a medical reality and that I am perfectly suited for the procedure.