Squawk! and Zip!
We went to the usual pet emporium to pick up some cat food for Darjha, because he’s become a finicky eater all of the sudden, and some chemicals for the aquarium.
As usual, we looked at the other critters they generally have around — cats for adoption, fish, rodentia and birds. This one, a which is supposedly a young Cinnamon-Pearl Cockatiel (it’s definitely a Cockatiel. It’s the Cinnamon-Pearl part I’m not sure about), was particularly sociable and engaging.
Its main goal of the evening was showing off — climbing all around the cage, trying to get to my glasses and hair, and generally clamoring, “Take me home! Take me home!” We didn’t. At least not yet.
In other fun things, I’m trying to save gas, money and my van. The van’s generally doing well, but it’s got around 168K miles on it. At 16 MPG, plus maintainence costs for an old van, it’s getting expensive to run, but, I really am not looking forward to replacing it any time soon. Instead, I want to make it last as long as possible.
I’m thinking about something that would allow me to run around Columbia to go to work and handle all the little errands I have to cover, but be very efficient and inexpensive to buy and operate. The inexpensive to buy requirement generally rules out a car.
This, BTW, is not the first time this thought has come into my head, and not the first time I’ve looked at a motor scooter. However, in the past, scooters have been very expensive to buy (nearly as costly as a small motorcycle) and mechanically finicky.
Yesterday afternoon, I went out to one of the local dealers to look at a few models. The pictures above are of the two models I’m considering. Both are about the same price. The “Retro” model (left) certainly looks cool, but is not quite as practical, as far as its ability to store things when trundling around the town. The “Metro” model (right) doesn’t look as cool, but has a little better storage and a better ride.
Both get between 60 and 80 MPG — 4- to 5-times the gas mileage of the van, using cute little 49.5cc 4-stroke engines. At that rate, either one would pay for itself in gas savings alone in a year to a year-and-a-half.
In Maryland, a motor scooter like this falls under the same motor vehicle rules as a bicycle or moped — no special licensing or insurance is required — and, where I’m planning to ride, would be no more dangerous than a bicycle. That said, I would feel comfortable riding either on far more extended trips than I would a bike.
Post Revisions:
There are no revisions for this post.
What you need, Geren, is the US equivalent of a QPod. Much safer than a scooter.
Emrys: Looks like the QPod Fun would be ideal. Too bad they’re not available here. The only similar vehicles I’ve seen that are road legal in this area are the Mercedes-Benz-made SmartCars, which start around $12K and go up in a hurry. No advantage.
BTW, the QPod Fun, if sold here, would cost around $10K. At that rate, I might as well just buy another Hyundai.
Are you thinking about getting the bird?
Wouldn’t the cats love their own bird?
I know our Sheltie would love to have her own house rabbit.
Theresa: Maybe. But remember, our cats are defective. They’d just as likely be petrified of the bird(s).
Not to encourage you to take on any more work or anything…but ‘teils really are great for first time bird people. They’ve been bred in captivity much longer than the large parrots so there are a lot of mutations, which both cinamon and pearl are - and I’m guessing that this guy was a cross between both. Pearls are the ones that are all a very light grey, so light that they are almost pearlescent. There was on at Petsmart up here and he was gorgeous!! They almost look like they’re faintly glowing. Cinamons are the brown flecked, also very pretty. People who have ‘teils are very loyal to them and tend to get a flock of them eventually. They’re very engaging, love people, some can learn to talk and almost all can learn to whistle. Learning to get along with cats…well, that depends on the cat. But I will say this: many hand fed birds are very fearless and some cats can sense this , get a look at the beak and claws and decide “you know what? you stay over there and I’ll just stay over here” You never know.
[...] those interested, the little Gray Cockatiel pictured on the site the other day is now happily perched on the top of my laptop screen, watching me [...]
Tea: I’ve read a lot of stories on line of getting cats and birds to coexist peacefully. One guy let the bird teach the cat who’s boss — he held the poor cat up to the cage, and the bird pecked him on the nose. The cat had very little interest in the bird from that point on.
We had Darjha in the room with the bird for a few minutes last night. I don’t think Darjha was really even aware that the bird was there. To Darjha, the cage/stand combination was just a new piece of furniture dragged in by his human, and why weren’t we paying attention to him! The bird was certainly aware of Darjha’s presense, though he didn’t get particularly upset. Just very, very alert.
[...] As I mentioned, I’m considering and researching the purchase of a motor scooter to reduce the use of my van — if for no other reason then to reduce the amount of gasoline I burn. The van gets a whopping 16MPG around town, which is about 90% of my driving. [...]