Category: life

where everything else happens

Speed in fact, does not kill.

No humans were killed or injured while making this photograph, while travelling in excess of the posted speed limit.

How often do you hear that old saw “speed kills” or “speed is the leading cause of car crashes” etc? The nannies all want us to slow down, “for our own safety.” As an example: about a year ago my home state of Washington lowered the speed limit on a long, straight section of I-5 I drive almost every day, from 70 down to 60 MPH. They did this in response to several horrific incidents where drivers crossed the median and went head-on into the opposite lanes. Every time one of these accidents happened there would be a State Patrol spokesperson on TV, or in the paper claiming that speed was the cause. So they added more speed patrols, handed out more speeding tickets, and eventually lowered the limit.

I never bought the idea that speed had ANYTHING to do with any of these accidents. Inattentive drivers was likely the cause in my mind. Inattentive, distracted, and poorly trained drivers. Talking on telephones. Watching DVDs(!) Talking on telephones. Spilling coffee. Talking on telephones. Did I mention talking on telephones? The State Patrolmen never did. All they ever talk about is speed.

Well, The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a comprehensive study, the first one in almost 30 years, seeking to understand the ACTUAL causes of car accidents. Guess what came out on top? Speeding? Nope. 41.3% of accidents are caused by driver errors which have nothing to do with speed. Not seeing hazards (20.9%), being distracted by something inside the car (10.6%), being distracted by something outside the car (3.7%), and just plain old inattention (3.6%), Unknown error being the remaining 2.5%)

So where did the KILLER SPEED end up?

Single digits: 8.4% were “too fast for conditions” which means that some percentage of those were UNDER the posted speed limit. Another 4.9% were “too fast for curve” which means that some percentage of those were UNDER the posted speed limit. By the way, the combination of falling asleep at the wheel and having a heart attack while driving added up to 5.5% so Speed seems pretty benign and remote compared to yakking on your cell phone, or just plain old not paying attention!

But of course lack of attention ads NO REVENUE to state and local coffers through fines.

At no point does this study heap any serious blame on speed, and speed alone. So next time some moron tells you that driving fast is dangerous, ask them to prove it.

You can read the whole study here.

Exhaustion & Energy.

Highway Hypnosis!

Last night I almost fell asleep at the wheel.

It is hard to believe because “endurance driving” is something I love… something of a hobby. Nothing to me is more pleasurable than hopping behind the wheel and reeling off 300-700 miles at a clip. Last night though, I started nodding off around 200 miles into the route. Thankfully I realized this, right as a sign loomed out of the darkness, as if speaking DIRECTLY to me: “Tired? Rest area ¾ mile.” I slapped myself on the left cheek (face you filthy-minded reader!) and made that short distance, pulled into a parking space, reclined my seat, and literally in an instant fell into a deep restful sleep lasting several hours.

Ironically I’ve been personally & professionally in something of a state of … well… not quite sleep but certainly in slumber. An event yesterday shook me awake from it and sent me on my way. What “my way” will be is uncertain actually, but is not relevant to this bit of story.

Stories. Stories are very important to our species. I found this quote while reading a bedtime story, Crow & Weasel by Barry Lopez to my sons when they were young; and it struck me as vitally important, lodging itself into my brain since that evening more than a decade ago…

“I would ask you to remember only this one thing, the stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day you will be good storytellers. Never forget these obligations.” -Badger

Sometimes we do need stories more than food to stay alive. Last night however, I just needed a few hours rest to stay alive, and I found it at the Indian John Hill Rest Area on I-90. After I awoke and resumed my journey the events of the prior day exploded in my head. I realized that this is what caused my fatigue. My mind was reeling with galaxies of new information, new insight, new opportunities, and new ways of seeing things. I was thinking, NOT driving. Driving to me is a Zen-like activity. Complete concentration with minimal thought, only action. I become hyper-aware and my mind becomes blank… an input processor whose sole task is to absorb the environment around it – and my body becomes an output device at the whim of my mind. My drive last night was different because I could not empty my mind and drive. It was tumbling in somersaults through a new-found universe I had just discovered right under my nose, and applying all those thoughts and concepts to my future. It refilled my “gumption tank” but prevented me from performing the task at hand, namely safely driving home. My body surrendered to my brain there on Indian John Hill and I slept like a baby, despite the December chill.

Gumption Tank. That is a phrase I’m borrowing from another great story. Namely Robert Pirsig‘s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, one of the finest stories I have ever read. It is an honest inquiry into values, thought, and life. Pirsig’s story literally goes out beyond the edges, covering a lot of ground, some familiar enough to be mundane, other territory that lies beyond the edge of the map of our minds… where monsters lie. At several points in his story he speaks of motivation (gumption), and things that sap our motivations (gumption traps). As I drove across the dry scrublands of eastern Washington yesterday I recognized all the little gumption traps that I had fallen into, or attached themselves to me over the past few years… and when I awoke in the chill predawn on Indian Jim Hill I had climbed out of, or cast them all off. No matter what life has in store for me over the next few years, at least I have some gumption back.

Man, does it feel good.

Weekend Tinkering… with Chuck The Plumber!

I was never cited by any candidate in the recent presidential election, but I can use a pipe wrench.

In my quest for energy independence one of the skills I’ve picked up is plumbing, oddly enough.

I’ve plumbed up as much of my homebrew BioDiesel setup as possible. The reason being is that waste veggie oil is some seriously messy stuff. The less I have to touch it, the better. So I have created a system where once I have pre-filtered the waste oil from the restaurants into 5 gallon buckets and poured it into the settling tanks, I never touch the stuff again. It moves through pipes from tank to processor, from processor to wash, from wash to dry, from dry to upper settling, than upper settling to final storage tank, and finally from final storage into our cars. All this movement is motivated by pumps and controlled with ball-valves. It has a sort of Rube Goldberg look and feel, but it works. If I ever move house, I’ll put some serious thought into organizing it better and designing a more compact, logical placement of the various elements.

One limiter to my production capacity to date has been the size of my drying tank. It started life as a 30 gallon poly barrel I obtained from a car wash. This meant that 110 liters was about as large as I could go in a batch. I finally sourced a 55 Gallon poly barrel last week, so this weekend I’m preparing it for deployment. This means removing the plumbing from the old tank and installing it in the new one. One of the problems of my old tank was the standpipe was too high. This meant that I had to manually drain the last 15% or so from my dried BioDiesel. Since this sometimes has residual water in it, I would just dump it into the WVO settling tanks at the start of the process. I decided to cut down the standpipe at some point and now is as good a time as any. I clamped the pipe to my workbench and donning my fashionable Bill Nye The Science Guy protective eyewear along with ear protection, I fired up the Dremel with a cutting wheel and chopped that sucker in half! (have I ever mentioned how much I love the Dremel Tool? Man, what an awesome little thing!)

Not the prettiest cut in the world, but it doesn’t matter… it will be submerged in oil for most of it’s life.

Yes, I smoothed it out with a stone tip, and washed away any residual metal bits. The last thing I want in my injection pump is metal filings!

I also have built and am testing a Methanol Recovery processor. Frankly its scares the bejeezus out of me, but I need to render my glycerine byproduct inert and non-toxic prior to composting it. More news about that soon.

I also finally got around to a long-deferred task: Replacing the handle on my wood-splitting axe. Sounds odd, I know. We have 3 fireplaces and a big supply of firewood. Last winter was so mild that we barely burned anything.. well WINTER was mild but Spring was wild. Lots of snow, but it was never cold enough to really use the wood. The winter before last though? That was crazy. Late that winter I broke the handle of our axe. I found a replacement at our local hardware store, a nice stout hickory one. Seemed crazy to buy a whole new axe when I can just replace the handle. Since I had all the tools out I went after the remaining wood left in the axe head and eventually worked it out. The new handle went in very easy. All that Douglas Fir that has been sitting out in our wood pile for the past 2 years since the big windstorm brought down that tree should be about ready to split this year.

2008 JCNA Slalom Results: 5th best on the continent.

Photo by Nimal Jayaratna

The photo above was taken last summer in Surrey B.C., Canada, during my best timed run of the 2008 JCNA Slalom season. It turns out I came in 5th place in my class with a best run of 46.339. I’m in Class “SPL” now (so you’ll have to scroll waaaayy down,) whereas I used to be in Class “D”… I don’t know why really as I don’t pay a lot of attention to the rules, but at the moment it doesn’t matter because that time would have landed me in 5th place in either class… go figure.

The photo was taken by somebody I met online by the name of Nimal Jayaratna. Truly one of those “small world” situations. I was sitting at work one day when my phone rings and it is a gentleman who says to me “you don’t know me but…” and starts telling me how he found me online as we share a common passion, and that he is in Seattle on business. He wanted to know if there was anything Jaguar-related going on locally. I said sure, but it depends upon how you define “local” 😉 I gave him directions to my house and he drove up there at the crack of dawn, and together we drove the 65E up to the Vancouver area. Crossing the border was interesting as Nimal is from Sri Lanka, normally lives in Australia, is working in the UK, was traveling to the USA on business, and here he was with me crossing the border into Canada to attend a Jaguar club event! The Canadians, who normally just wave me through after asking about guns, detained us at the border for about 30 minutes while they shuffled paperwork. We arrived at the Slalom and I ran my timed runs alone in the car. Each one was better than the previous. I expected this. I always take the first one slow, to get the feel of the course again. Without Nicholas to navigate for me (“Hourglass! Figure-eight! Oval!”) I had to both drive AND think… tougher than it sounds, trust me! Every time I slalom I get just a little better, but honestly I don’t do it enough to really get GOOD. I have a blast though and that is the important part. The key to good performance it seems is being relaxed and smooth, and with enough practice I think I could be very smooth and very relaxed. I proved that after the Official timed runs were done and I took Nimal out for a ride around the course during the “fun runs” and managed a 46.035. That would not have changed my JCNA standings, but it does prove that I have plenty of room for, and am capable of, improvement! I think the car is capable of around 42. The driver aint there yet though!

After our fun with the Canadians I was fully expecting the fine fellows at the US Border to subject us to all sorts of … um… special attention… but we managed to go through just fine. Go figure.

Nick & I traditionally stop in Bellingham at an old-style car-hop drive-in burger joint when we return from Vancouver, and as old habits die hard I brought Nimal there too. In hindsight I probably should have brought him somewhere nicer where we could have gotten out of the car, sat and talked. Oh well, my bad. Next time Nimal, I promise!

We returned home via SR11, aka “Chuckanut Drive“… one of the nicest roads in the world. Nimal sent me all of his photos from the day and last I heard was planning on writing about his adventure weekend with the crazy American in Canada for the Jaguar Club of Western Australia, serving as the special correspondent from the UK. Got that?

It is a small world after all.

Contemplating a new Camera

One of my frequent commentators, jculpjr recently asked about what sort of camera gear I use. It was a timely question as I’m seriously considering a new camera. I’d like to throw out a wish list so to speak and hopefully get some feedback that will help me make a choice. Your participation is welcome.

This is the machine (photo from a contemporary review) I’ve been using to capture images since 2002:

It is an Olympus C-5050 zoom. It has been a great camera for me and I still find it useful, however it is getting a tad beat up and it has some weaknesses that I’d like to eliminate with a new machine. However, let me start by telling you what I like about it most, in order of importance:

  • It is small and lightweight.
  • It runs on AA batteries.
  • Did I mention it is small and lightweight?
  • It has fairly easy controls, and a lot of manual settings.
  • It works well on “point & shoot” mode quite well.
  • It shoots VERY well in low-light conditions.
  • It has this nifty flip-out LCD:

You have no idea how handy this is when shooting with the camera at arm’s length, something I do a LOT. It flips both up AND down, meaning I can hold the camera way above my head, or down on the ground an still see the LCD screen.

Some other nice things about it:

  • It has a “movie” mode, so at the flip of a switch it can be a video camera, with sound.
  • It has lens adapters so I can shoot with a wide-angle or a telephoto.
  • It has never given me trouble.

Now, here are the things I hate about it:

  • Whenever I change batteries, the date/time reverts to midnight 01/01/2002. This is annoying especially since all the other settings (flash, drive mode, etc) are saved!
  • It is NOT an SLR. It has a viewfinder, which I adore, as that is how I prefer to shoot, rather than looking at a screen, but that viewfinder does not see what the lens sees. This is fine when working with the built-in lens, but utterly fails when you add a lens adapter. In the latter case the lens almost always blocks the viewfinder. This hurts as I shoot with a very wide angle lens MOST of the time.
  • The tripod mount is off-center from the lens. A design crime of the highest order in a camera!
  • The LCD is small compared to today’s cameras.

So my ideal camera is a Digital SLR, that is small and lightweight with a good, reasonably-sized multi-angle LCD. After that, I’d like it to have great lenses, good controls, and the ability to shoot video & sound. Size is my primary concern though. I used Mark Collien’s Nikon D-something on the GTTSR and it is am amazing camera… great lens(!) and awesome photos but my gawd… it was friggin HUGE! I just don’t want to lug around something that big & heavy.

So I’m all ears if you have some suggestions. I have ZERO brand loyalty, and am open to any and all comers.