Original post from 9/26/2003…
Macromedia bought a Segway a while ago, but it’s been living up at the San Francisco headquarters (motto: We’re So Much Hipper Than You). The company threw a party up there on Thursday, so they sent busses to pick up the Redwood Shores employees.

While we were up there, a few Redwood Shores people slipped away from the sushi and fondue on a daring mission to swipe the Segway for us. (Cue Mission Impossible theme.) It was secreted away on the bus by the time it pulled away.

And now (Bwa ha ha!), we have one at work.

People have been tooling around the office all day. There have been a few casualties. Bonnie has a collection of plastic bits that used to be attached to the Segway. One of them used to be a kickstand. The other two are of mysterious origin. One of them is rather disturbingly spotted with dried blood; rumor has it that there was a mishap in the elevator late last night that resulted in a scraped knuckle or two. There are also telltale black scuff marks on several of the cubicle walls.

A handful of us took turns riding it on the way to the local deli. Nothing produces instant celebrity faster than possession of a Segway in Silicon Valley. We were giving interviews and fielding questions the whole way.

Update…
Within the span of one week, the Segway was completely destroyed (and there’s a suspicious hole in a wall outside of one of the conference rooms) and is in for service. Reportedly, somebody got hit with the recall problem.

Before catastrophe struck, we took some movies of people riding around the office. Here are a couple of me (they’re a bit large, but I can’t be bothered to fix that)… one and two.

“Rebecca Hyatt” can be rearranged to “Ye CA tech brat”.

Also “Racy beta tech”, “Yet acerb chat” and “Ye bat catcher”. (That last is patently untrue, as I immediately called for backup during the Great Bat Incident of 2000.)

Internet Anagram Server (“I, Rearrangement Servant”)

Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back. Now in Latin.

magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
(Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.)

Mother of Killer Files Workers Comp Claim. Mental note… be sure to punch time card before going on killing spree and committing suicide.

Unless, of course, it was a grapefruit.” Washington Post Correction:

A Sept. 21 item in the Metro in Brief column about a woman fatally shot in Prince George’s County and a child who was wounded incorrectly reported the woman’s age, the child’s sex, the child’s location at the time of the shooting, and the street on which the shooting occurred. A correct account of the incident appears in today’s Metro in Brief column.

“Surely, there is no sight more moving than a man and three square yards of carefully tailored cavalry twill moving in perfect harmony.” Trouser Semaphore. Don’t miss the Trouser Semaphore in Action video.