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Wheelchair fashion tips: In your face, and a ladylike runway show
If Bjork can be deemed fashionable, if we can make kitchen appliances fashionable, why can’t we be rolling thrones of haute couture too? Srsly… If you watch the above video by Tiffany Giddes, a T10 paraplegic and member of The Ability 411 crew (a collaboration of five paralyzed vloggers who answer questions about life with paralysis), she shares all the best fashion tips she’s discovered since her injury. They are awesome. Tiffany is one tough chick so you know her fashion tips will be good. Her ability to be turn a project into a reality is crazy. Take her new movie Collision about a female wheelchair assassin—she stars in it…
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SCI Superstar: Jesse Billauer
The ocean can be a dangerous place. Sharks, big waves with multiple personalities, fugly Man o’ Wars, but you don’t have to tell Jesse Billauer this. He’s a born and bred Cali boy who came out of the womb with a surfboard attached to the hip. Jesse, at 17, was living the semi-charmed life of a California teenager – young, athletic, gorgeous (still is) and staged to be one of the next big surfers; it was an idyllic life. But his world turned upside down in 1996 when the crest of a wave threw him off his surfboard. Jesse hit his head on a sandbar and became a C5-6 quadriplegic…
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A spoon, a girl and a cell phone
Long ago when I was a newbie in rehab, they sent me home with a reacher as my designated method for picking up stuff on the floor, and then life happened. Sans-reacher, you have to use a lot of crazy stuff – a broom, a stick, a grocery bag, even a big saggy purse – to pick up stuff from the floor (people with disabilities are ninjas of creative solutions when they have to be). And in this video by Annemarie Hopkins, a wonderful woman who founded 3eLove.com (and sadly passed away in ’09), proved you can do a lot more with a kitchen spoon than just stir tomato soup.…
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Quadriplegic moves robotic arm via thought, touches girlfriend’s hand
This has got me so excited I don’t know where to even begin. Researchers have finally figured out how to hook up our minds to robotics after successfully implanting electrodes into the sexy red-headed brain of Tim Hemmes (a C2 quadriplegic injured in a motorcycle wreck 7 years ago). Will this be the eventual spinal cord injury cure? Read this entry
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SCI Superstar of the Week: Mark Zupan
The original tattooed hardcore wheelchair athlete, Mark Zupan is the King of “Muderball,” aka quad rugby, the crazy wheelchair flipping sport (you only wish you were as cool as this Austin, Texas dude). He has the sexiest tattoos ever, more confidence than any guy should legally have….what’s not to love about this guy? Love him! Read this entry
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Service dog surfs with owner, another reins in a horse
Why did I say no to getting a service dog again? Check out this post I wrote for SPINALpedia, where I share two videos of insanely original service dogs (or “canine partners”) who are learning new tricks that were definitely not learned in service school. Read this entry
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Wheelchair travel tips you can’t won’t find anywhere else
When I flew in a plane the first time as a wheelchair-user 5 years after my accident, I was so nervous. I didn’t want it to be a hassle, or rather “be” the hassle. I was hoping and praying it’d be quick and seamless. It’s really too bad this video wasn’t available, showing how a wheelchair-user boards a plane (no you don’t stay in your chair. FAA regulations), when I was freaking in my early days. Had I seen this video, it would’ve calmed almost all of my nerves for sure. And this video is loaded with wheelchair travel secret after another wheelchair travel secret; shared by seasoned traveler himself, Mark Schmidt, paraplegic…
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So excited – Push Girls sneak peak
The Sundance Channel aired a 12 minute sneak peak of the Push Girls last night, and holy crap you guys, it looks better than I had hoped. It’s not cheesy, it doesn’t have that “whoa feel sad for these girls” type of feel. No, the show has hit the nail on the head. I officially love the Sundance Channel for making this show. There I said it. Hitting on guys when you’re out at the club, real life with your man in bed (“Yes I can have sex. Lots and lots of sex”) to being obsessed with wearing high heels even if you can’t walk, seeing all of this glossified on the…
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Aussie wheelchair tennis players explain the game
I’ve been blogging for SPINALpedia.com, a very cool video site that contains thousands of spinal cord injury-related videos, for a couple of months now. What I love about this site (other than it wass founded by my friend Josh Basile, a really smart C4-5 quad from Maryland who’s studying to be a lawyer) is that the videos are categorized by movement – full hand movement, partial hand movement, no hand movement, and for all the other body parts too, making it easy to find a video that would actually work for you without wasting too much time (gotta love that). My latest post for SPINALpedia.com highlights some of my favorite sports…
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Burn those calories: Insane wheelchair pull-up
A crazy wheelchair pull-up and the easiest at-home workout for quads. Check out these awesome videos
