A week or so ago, while riding a bike home from a park, I saw a guy riding a OneWheel the other way. He was moving fast and carving big curves along the street. As we passed, I yelled, “I want one!” He replied, “I have five!” And thus began my latest interest in this novel form of transportation.
What is a OneWheel? According to Wikipedia, “a self-balancing single wheel electric board-sport, recreational personal transporter, often described as an electric skateboard.” While I get why it might be called an electric skateboard, that term really doesn’t covey what it is. Awkward though it may be, the longer description is far more accurate.
A short time Web searching revealed a local OneWheel Pint available for rental. So, with a few days of nice weather forecast, I rented it.
A OneWheel is not quite what I expected. There are reasons to compare it to a skateboard. It has a rectangular platform to stand on. Rather than four wheels, a pair at each end mounted on “trucks” to allow steering, as on a skateboard, a OneWheel has a large single wheel mounted in the center of the board. The rider stands astride the center wheel, a foot near each end of the board. The wheel houses an electric motor in its hub. The motor and control electronics propel and balance the board fore-and-aft. The platform houses batteries and sensors that can read orientation of the board and placement of the forward foot.
So, like a skateboard, the rider stands on a platform, feet perpendicular to the direction of travel. On both skateboard and OneWheel, the rider has to balance, but they balance very differently. On a skateboard, balance is mostly in the roll axis along the length of the board. A rider leans side-to-side, or tips the board along that roll axis to turn. On a OneWheel, the rider must balance side-to-side and fore-and-aft; however, the self-balancing technology assists in the fore-and-aft (pitch) direction. Fore-and-aft tilt controls the speed. Turning is done with side-to-side (roll) motion. 
Of course, the main benefit of a OneWheel over a skateboard is propulsion! Leaning forward on the OneWheel starts the motor pushing. The further you lean forward, the faster you go. If you want to slow down, lean back. Turning is similar to skateboards, although without the resistance wheel trucks impart as they reach their limit. When the OneWheel leans to turn, it rides along the edge of its tire allowing it to trace an arc in that direction. 
Speed is limited by a feature called Pushback. When a rider approaches the prescribed speed limit (12-18 mph, depending upon the model) the control mechanism raises the front of the board. The rider should heed this feedback and shift their weight back. When the speed is under control the board levels out. 
OneWheel employs regenerative braking (recharging the battery) when decelerating downhill. If the battery is fully charged, Pushback engages to warn that the battery could overcharge and overheat.
I noticed Pushback pretty quickly as I got up to speed. Apparently, many new riders don’t. But with that under my belt, I managed a trip to my favorite coffee shop (~2.5 miles each way), a cruise through the nearby college campus (~4 miles), and a grocery run (~5 miles round trip). All in all, I did about 21 miles in the brief time I had it.
Despite all the skateboard and scooter comparisons, the best I can describe it is as a magic carpet. It’s easy to see why riders call it “floating.” And it was more fun than I’ve had in a long time.

Today I hiked the bluffs with the intention to spend some time in my hammock. It was a lovely morning, though a bit overcast for the season. A cool front arrived and, while expecting rain by mid-day, the morning was promising. 
I brough Ellie, our Sheltie/Papillon mutt, along, fresh from her grooming yesterday. She seemed eager to get out. Her haircut is a bit shorter than usual and it does make her look younger. But, alas, she’s 12, losing her hearing and slower on the trail every time. 
I found my hammock spot and decided on a pair of trees just a bit farther off the trail. My first spot has nearly perfect trees, but the trail splits around them so it feels as if you’re really in the middle of the trail because, well, you are. There is another pair of trees just off the west side of the trail. I thought I’d be there for awhile so decided it was a better location in the event others might enjoy the trail this morning. 
I set the straps at or just above my height. My first try connecting the hammock was just a bit too high to get into. After lowering and recentering things, I found the middle, scooted my butt in and swung my legs up. That’s when I discovered these trees don’t cast the shade the others did. But it wasn’t hard to turn myself around to take advantage of the available shade. 
I was trying to keep an eye on Ellie as I set up. She doesn’t go far but as her hearing is declining, I’m concerned she might not hear me. I called and clapped and spotted her a few dozen yards away. She came and I was able to reach out the uphill side of the hammock and scoop her up and in. She settled in and relaxed in a few minutes, with the occasional start to track some movement off in the brush. 
As I started to relax I started to wonder what I was going to do. I found space in my lumbar pack to stuff in a book of poetry. But for the moment I thought of my meditation practice. I closed my eyes and began with the focus on my breathing, in, out. I’ve heard meditation is the focus of attention inward, on purpose, without judgement. I started there, recognizing the distractions as they came, dismissing them and returning to the breath. But I soon had a sense of other distractions. Not the usual random thoughts that creep in, but the sensations of the bluff around us. 
I remembered an exercise we did in a college philosophy class, the idea similar to meditation but rather than inward focus and rejecting distractions, the intent was to take in the surroundings with each sense, individually.
What do you see? Well, nothing, since I decided to keep my eyes closed. That was easy.
What do you hear? The first sound was the wind. It surprised how many places I could hear it. First, in the needles of the branches above us, but also in the surround scrub oak. The wind was picking up and as I tried to tell if I could hear it higher up on the bluffs or whistleing through the nearby cellular network towers, I could hear the similar sound of distant traffic in the mix.
What do you feel? I focused on a favorite part of the hammock for me, the swing. I’m learning that with each setup, as the distance between the anchors changes, so does the rhythm of the hammock. With wider spacing between these trees than my deck setup, the hammock swung a bit slower, a little more relaxed. But there were other things. Ellie, in spite of her relative calm and willingness to join me, was hot. Her panting came at a rate much faster than the swing. And her rapid breathing added a slight bounce to the motion. As the cloud cover increased, we could feel the sunshine fade and the air cooling. The wind became gustier, enough that the anchor trees began to sway and add to the compound motions and frequencies of the hammock.
What do you taste? Not much, really, without anything actually in my mouth. But when you focus, it can be surprising to note the humidity, in the taste or lack of taste of the surrounding dirt and dust. Being a bit humid for here, there was less taste of dust than on the driest days.
What do you smell? Other than dog? In the high arid climate, about all I ever get a sense of is pine, but it is faint and fleeting. It is late enough that wildflowers, which are sparse here at best, are gone and I, for one, have trouble detecting any scent from them, even in their season.
There is something about the way my sense of the passage of time changes when I’m meditating. It isn’t as though time stops. But it recedes into the background somehow. I love it, but it's hard to describe. When I’m really focused, time seems irrelevant. I have noticed a striking consistency when I begin to recognize the world outside my focus. It feels nothing like waking up. I don’t fall asleep. I reach a state where I know I’ve been focused but feel myself emerging from it, leaving it behind. And it is so consistently 12 minutes that if I set a timer on my phone for 12 minutes, when I reach to stop it it is always within a few seconds of going off. As my awareness of all my senses returned, Ellie began to be a bit agitated and I lowered her back to the ground. I took in the scene and pulled the book from my pack. I love to let it open and read whatever poem it chooses to reveal. Not long after, the sense that I’d been there long enough began to creep in. With the first urge to check my phone, I sat up, swung my legs to the ground, slid out of the hammock and began to pack it all back into its stuff sack, the straps in their bag, and everything back into the small lumbar pack. 
With Ellie waiting a bit up the trail, we completed our typical loop, down the trail to the sidewalk and around the block back to the house.

Well, Ramona and I have had 5 days to get to know one another. We're getting along quite nicely, I think. Getting in and out of her isn't exactly automatic yet, but it's becoming familiar. Weird that NOT using a key takes more effort for me than using one. But that will become habit soon enough.

I've still got a bag of stuff I took out of the Car Who Shall Not Be Named, but I'm reintroducing those items slowly. It's not really trash, per se, but I'm not sure I need all of it cluttering up my new ride. My sunglasses and charging cables have made it back in so far.

First impressions are definitely good. I like the way she feels, but there are notable differences. First of all, she's quite a bit lighter! In general, that's good. She's quite nimble and probably quicker. But she is a 4-banger and despite her acceleration, she sounds as if she's working harder. I must admit, the sound of the old V6 was much more enticing than a straight four. But I'm getting accustomed to the toss-ability of this one. The quality of materials, especially the interior, is much better than most competing vehicles at this price point, but you can feel the lightness in the doors. They close very solidly but just don't feel as if there's as much to them. On the other hand, the light weight also shows up in the gas mileage -- so far around town I've averaged about 10% better than the old one ever got on the highway. That I can get used to.

Perhaps the best impression comes from the modern driving tech. Moving from a 2008 to a 2017 feels a bit like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a nap. The cruise control is adaptive radar-enhanced. The ability to keep a set distance from a vehicle ahead, up to and including stopping itself when traffic stops is eery. It also has lane-keeping assistance that offers a choice of feedback. When active, if you approach a lane line the wheel feels as if you're running over rumble strips. It's uncanny! I also like that that's as far as it goes. It does not intercede and try to steer for you. I've driven a couple rentals that steer themselves and it's overkill.

A couple of years ago, when it first seemed self-driving cars might be closer that we thought, I read an article that said, while self-driving is technically possible, the smarter path most auto makers are taking is better driver assistance. I like that approach and Ramona is a fine assistant. Okay, she cannot park herself, but neat as that trick is, it still feels more like a trick than necessary assistance.

As the Clark's Third Law states, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." By that definition, Ramona is magic, indeed.

Farewell, 2008 VW Touareg 2 V6.

I'm not sure why I get so attached to cars. I know they're just material possessions, and depreciable assets at that. But I've loved cars since I was little and I get involved. The story of this troublesome vehicle goes back to around 2004 when I sat in one of the first VW Touareg's in the dealer showroom while waiting for an oil change on the Jetta wagon I had at the time. The Touareg was VW/Porsche/Audi's first SUV and it was nice. I sat in the lovely and comfortable interior thinking, "I'll never be able to afford one of these."

But when it came time to hand the Jetta down to my son, I made the mistake of looking at used Touaregs. The one I got seemed a good deal, but I didn't get my mechanic to check it out and that was a big mistake. It never stranded me and didn't act up all that often, but when it did it was expensive and time consuming to fix. As I posted on Facebook last week, it was like a dysfunctional relationship. I loved her and she never treated me right. I should be happy to see her go, but the emotions are, in fact, mixed.

Getting used to a new vehicle will take a little while. I am pretty good at figuring out the layout and features of different vehicles. Years of business travel, driving unknown rental vehicles away from airports in unknown territory, usually in the dead of night, built that skill. But I think the strangest thing about my new 2017 Mazda CX-5 will be getting used to all the things that actually work! The turn signal cancels itself. (The Touareg's did not.) The sun visor stays up where you put it. (The Touareg's did not.) The Mazda recognizes that the front passenger-side door is closed when it is. (The Touareg did not.)

So, Touareg, as much as I wanted to love you, you were a pain. Your untimely demise was also costly. (Much like health care, the end of life carries a large percentage of the cost.) But they hauled you away today. Good riddance. 

Now to begin a new relationship with my CX-5. I'm thinking of naming her. (Perhaps the Touareg resented never being named, aside from the occasional references to the Beast.) My second car was sporty and red and earned the name Arial, from the redhead Little Mermaid. This car is blue and my kids pointed out that our favorite blue-haired character is Ramona Flowers, from the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. So, time for Ramona and I to begin getting to know one another. Here's to a beautiful friendship! (And let's hope she doesn't have any evil exes...)

This photo, posted earlier this week on my Facebook page, shows the first stage of adding solar panels to our home. Several have commented or asked questions, so I thought I'd address it here.
I was curious and began by clicking a link from our local utilities in an online feed somewhere, I'm not even sure where. I knew our local utilities were offing some sort of incentive, but I wasn't sure what or how it worked. 
Contact was made. An appointment scheduled. We learned that the process works like this:

• Your average annual electric use is calculated from historic utility usage and bills
• The provider designs a system to generate the same amount of electricity you've used annually
• If you decide to proceed, the provider installs the system including wiring it into your junction box. The utilities company comes and installs a net metering system to monitor the amount of power being applied back to the grid.
• Once activated, utilities stops charging you for the electricity you are using (still provided by them.)
• What you then pay is the financing of the equipment. The system is designed to offset your use and the numbers work out that the fixed payment is less than the electricity you've been buying. (The mathemagics includes the provider pocketing the $500 incentive from utilities and assumes you will apply the tax credit when you file next year directly to the balance. For us, our monthly payment will be about $15 less than the monthly cost of electricity has been.)

So, oddly enough, I don't use the power my panels generate. Those amps go back on the grid and that is power the utilities no longer needs to generate. I still use power from the utility grid but no longer pay for it. 
Bottom line: this is how Colorado Springs Utilities is working to satisfy  the Colorado Renewable Energy Requirement, Initiative 37, passed in 2004. It made sense to us, so here we go.

One of the obvious benefits of living in Colorado is the snow skiing. It's literally world-class. This point was made clear to me on a trip to Switzerland, when I bemoaned the fact that I didn't have time to plan skiing the Alps, my hosts asked, "Where do you live?" "Colorado," I replied. "Why would you ski here? We go there to ski!"

For years I've felt mildly guilty that I haven't taken advantage of the great skiing offered here. I did for the first years I lived here. But the last time I skied was with my children over 10 years ago. We gave them the opportunity to try skiing for several years when they were little and while they did well, they didn't seem to love it. It's such an expensive endeavor, I let it go.

So this Spring Break, I decided to take time off with my wife (who works on the school calendar.) Little did I know that she'd planned a girls' day out to Denver with friends. So, I decided I'd take the day to ski. 

My equipment is obsolete, and likely banned from the slopes, so I had to rent for the first time in living memory. That wasn't tough, though admitting that I used to ski 195 cm grand slalom skis dated me. The ski tech laughed as he showed me the 166 cm all mountain skis I'd be using. "Those 190 days are gone," he said. Oh, and the rental had to include a helmet, something I'd never used on the slopes. 

A lift ticket to Monarch Ski Area was purchased online in advance, at a respectable discount. I love Monarch despite it's small size. It's easy to cover the entire mountain in a few runs and settle in where the conditions are best. And in my early years in Colorado, they had the best military discount!

The drive was uneventful, though I didn't get moving as early as I thought I might. But I was on the slopes by 9:45 a.m. I wanted to be careful, but figured I could warm up on blue runs. Despite the time since I'd last done this, I was a pretty fair skier. And it came back so quickly, it didn't feel as if it had been anywhere near as long as it had been. Blue runs quickly gave way to a few short black ones, only one significantly bumpy steep one that incited mild panic for an instant. I quickly rediscovered how much I loved this! I skied past noon, ate my lunch from the open hatch of my SUV and noticed how many people seem to leave by early afternoon. As the day's exertions started to be felt I began to cruise the empty green runs, much faster than I would have had they not been empty. When I finished perhaps my longest uninterrupted run, a bit winded, I asked myself if I should do one more? And I remembered the answer, no. If you have to ask, it's time to quit. 

Although it was early for dinner, I stopped in Salida, finally leaving Hwy 50 for the downtown area for the first time ever. I found a great little tavern, had a burger and some fun conversation with some locals at the bar and regretted that it took me so long to visit Salida in earnest. They convinced me to come try my antique kayak in the Arkansas River there sometime. Hopefully, that will be another blog entry someday.

The return drive was uneventful, but somehow much longer than the output trip. As much as I rekindled my love of skiing, I also rediscovered the challenges of day-trip skiing, where it's tough to actually ski for longer than you spend driving the round trip. So, I don't think I'll be investing in new ski gear very soon; however, I feel better about myself as a Coloradoan for having done it again.

When I was young, my life-long fascination with aviation led me to create a short list of aviation related goals I wanted to a accomplish. (This predated the term “bucket list” but consider it a flight related “bucket list.”) One item on the list was to skydive. 

It was the last item on my list. I was never very sure I'd complete my sky list, but after several items had fallen into place by chance (hang gliding and hot-air ballooning), I thought I should finish it. 

I found a skydiving school nearby and screwed up the courage to go. I managed two jumps on the first day. I progressed through those first static line jumps and returned a few weeks later to work up to hop-and-pops, jumps with no free fall time, but pulling my own ripcord. As a young Air Force officer I didn't have the money to go as frequently as I might have liked, but I went back every few weeks. Because I wasn't there every week, instructors wanted me to do a hop-and-pop to demonstrate basic proficiency. But before I could get to actual free fall the afternoon winds would come up, exceeding the safe limit for students. So, I collected a few more short falls, one at a time.

On one of those jumps, things got a bit interesting. When you jump from a small plane with a high-wing configuration, you don't jump at all. You sit at the door, put your feet on a small platform, and pull yourself out along the strut that supports the wing. Once hanging onto the strut you simply let go; however, you must hold your body in the correct position to transition from forward flight into a stable fall. Try to imagine lying face-down on the floor, arms arched over your head, head and shoulders raised off the floor, legs bent up a bit behind you, so you are resting on your center of mass. That's the correct position. 

What made my jump interesting was that my position was not quite correct. If you bend your legs back too far, then there is more drag on the upper part of your body and instead of falling face-down, you get blown over on your back. Without getting any more technical about it, this is bad. 

So, within a few seconds I realized I had not seen the ground. But I was clear of the plane and I had waited for the 10-count, so I pulled the ripcord. Feeling the parachute deploying toward my feet further supported the conclusion that I was not falling in the correct position. I glanced down to watch the chute go past my feet and saw the riser lines unfurling, one to my left, the other between my legs. Quickly realizing that was a problem, I had the presence of mind to cross my right leg over my left to keep the lines apart. As the chute filled with air and slowed my fall, I dropped between the lines and the remainder of the ride under the canopy was relatively uneventful, despite the opposite twists in each rinser line.

I gathered up my chute and carried it to the hanger where the jump school rigger repacked student parachutes. As he took the rig from me he looked at the lines, flipped the harness through them and told me, “You really ought to be careful when you land not to walk through the lines and twist them like that.” I told him, “I did that in the air.” His expression slowly changed, his eyes growing wide, as he replied, “You know that's bad, right?” “Yeah, I know that,” I said. 

It took a few weeks, but I did return to do one more hop-and-pop. That was the point I decided I'd done more than enough skydiving to cross it off my flight bucket list.