The Perfect Motorcycle

Some uncharacteristically warm February weather last week, coupled with a few good travel articles in Rider and Wing World Magazines have me craving to head out on a road trip.  The last full week in February saw several days with temperatures in the upper 60's to nearly 80.  These warm days are not too unusual as Spring starts to peak around the corner, but having them for several days in a row was unexpectedly pleasant.  The warm weather allowed some seat time on the motorcycle, bringing me to the right frame of mind to read a few good motorcycle travel articles as the local weather returned to something closer to normal.
Any real motorcycle adventure is still at least several weeks away.  But mentally travel can start at any time.

I had a major service done on my Triumph late in 2016.  It was expensive and was also a major pain since the dealership took longer than anticipated and is sort of far away.  There is another dealership in Cincinnati, but every single interaction with that dealership has been negative so I just can't bring myself to go there for anything.  That recent service has got me questioning my Triumph ownership long term - even if a new bike is largely an academic exercise since I really do like the Trophy and a new truck late in 2016 makes another vehicle purchase improbable.

Does the perfect motorcycle exist?  No...  But it is fun to think about.  My Goldwing is an exceptionally capable bike for long distance 2-up touring.  However, it is a very heavy bike and riding it daily is a little like driving a small motorhome for commuting and grocery shopping.  I have no plans to get rid of the Goldwing, but what about for my daily rider and for solo trips?
1.  The perfect bike needs to have a comprehensive dealer network, preferably with a good dealership close enough to home to get there easily on a work day.  The Motus looks like an absolutely amazing motorcycle, but the nearest dealership is well over 100 miles away and if an issue would come up while I'm traveling through Rapid City, SD it would be an eight hour drive to get dealership help.  The BMW Dealership network is adequate, but the nearest dealership to where I live is also well over 100 miles; I'm convinced a franchise opportunity exists here.
2.  The perfect bike needs to be shaft drive.  Chain drive has been used forever and is well-proven.  Belt drive is in a similar state.  I'm a chronic worrier though, and when I did have a bike with chain drive, I found myself constantly checking/lubing/adjusting/etc.  As much as I know this concern is partially misplaced, I also know that my personality isn't going to change on this one.  I suppose I could argue that I'm going to worry about something, so worrying about a chain and sprockets is probably as good as anything.  I will gladly pay a little more and live with a few horsepower lost to a shaft drive.
3.  The perfect bike needs to have cruise control.  My motorcycle adventures sometimes take on a life of their own and on a few occasions, I've found myself a day and a half from home with less than a day to actually get home.  This usually means a slog on the superslab, and cruise control becomes a near imperative.  If my ST1300 had cruise control, I can't imagine I would have gotten rid of it.  As bikes move from throttle cables to drive-by-wire, cruise control becomes more an issue of software vs. hardware so manufacturers not including it starts to get harder to understand.
4.  The perfect bikes need to have simple maintenance.  I don't really care about fuel economy in a motorcycle.  All the bikes I've owned have gotten at least 40mpg over the long haul, so fuel costs are not an issue.  Maintenance cost (and pain) is a much bigger deal.  Most of my recent bikes have been fully faired bikes which adds to the time and/or cost.  Removing tupperware isn't hard, but the plastic can be fragile and removal and reinstallation takes a lot of time on top of routine maintenance.
5.  The perfect bike needs to have simple valve adjustment.  As a subgroup to maintenance, valve adjusting shim under bucket valves has a lot of collateral costs.  Harley Davidson is a near lone holdout in the hydraulic lifter world and there are some bikes which still use rocker arms, but too many manufacturers default to shim under bucket designs.  This makes sense in a hyper-performance bike, but on daily riders it is unnecessary.  I miss bikes like the Honda Pacific Coast 800 which were designed with maintenance in mind.  I was appalled recently when I saw that the Honda NC700 requires valve inspection checks every oil change - unless that was a misprint?
6.  The perfect bike needs to be comfortable.  I loved my VFR800.  The symphony of those screaming gear-driven cams will live with me forever.  It was not a comfortable bike, even after I added Helibars.  I was good for a couple hours at a shot, and an all-day ride, even with a few stops, made me question my sanity.  My wrists ached if I overindulged in miles on the VFR.  I should be able to burn an entire tank of fuel before lunch and two or three more in the afternoon without complaining.
7.  The perfect bike needs to have heated grips as an option.  I used to think heated grips were a gimmick.  Then I bought electrically heated gloves and got a little more curious.  Then I got heated grips on my Triumph.  I ride a lot in cool  to cold weather - having heated grips as a factory option is not an imperative, but it is approaching one.
8.  The perfect bike needs to have adequate, but not excessive weight.  My last four bikes have all been what can probably be considered heavyweights.  Despite what the scooter crowd might say, weight has benefits for touring as well as in bucking wind, etc.  Still, I'm missing the simplicity, handling, and tire life that inherently comes from lighter weight bikes.

So the unicorn I am after seems be a light-weight, low-maintenance, comfortable bike with yesterday's simplicity.  I'll throw in that I want tomorrow's performance.  Can it be inexpensive too?
This doesn't exist and it probably won't.
Life is a series of trade offs, so maybe my next bike will be a lightweight bike like the previously mentioned Honda NC700 - at least the valves are rocker actuated and inspection/adjustment looks quite simple.
Or maybe it will be another sport tourer.  It seems like at some point I'll need to own a Yamaha FJR1300.
Possibly I could trade off on dealer network and finally buy a BMW?  Probably not, I'm just not ready to stand proudly and commit to being a BMW-guy.
Or maybe I'll go with something super simple like a Zero electric bike, and further my Goldwing riding for anything beyond the range of batteries.

What is odd is that my current Triumph Trophy checks most of the right boxes.  There are quite a few Triumph dealers, even if I've had some negative interactions with the closest.  It has shaft drive.  It has cruise control and is very comfortable with well-integrated heated grips.  Maintenance is all pretty easy, and valve inspection interval is a tolerable 20,000 miles.  While heavy, it is on par with other sport tourers and loses weight very quickly once in motion.
So why am I thinking about other bikes?  Oh yeah, warm weather ... and travel.

The Final (Mephitidae) Solution

The drain at the bottom of the window well was covered with stones; the corners showed evidence of digging.  I didn't immediately see it, but tucked in the near corner I saw the unmistakable black and white stripe.
This isn't a typical shallow, city window well.  It sits about six feet deep and is only wide enough to serve as a code-compliant egress.
The skunk was not going to get out on its own.

All I could say was, "Now what..."

Skunks are only native to the Americas and much more prevalent in North American than South.  Small, invasive pockets have at times shown up in Europe and similar species live in Indonesia and the Philippines.  The French Pepe le Pew is geographically unlikely.  Skunks are largely nocturnal and live lives seemingly ambivalent toward humans.  Like humans, skunks are omnivorous and can survive on just about anything.  They have poor senses and are not overly aggressive, with ability to spray noxious and painful (to eyes, etc.) stink as their main defense mechanism - that stink was the root of my problem.
Skunks hibernate in the cold winter months.  However, it isn't the deep hibernation that bears or reptiles go through, as they'll occasionally come out to feed or when weather warms.  It was the warm weather which probably brought out my new denizen.  I had seen a skunk a few days prior while walking one of the dogs.  The dog didn't see the skunk until it was only about 20 yards away.  The skunk didn't see us until it was already walking away.  All it did after seeing us, was waddle on a little faster than before.  A few other skunks lurking about as potential road kill preceded the skunk in my window well.

"Now what..."

As I saw it, I had a three options.
1-Ignore the problem.  This was akin to choosing immobility as a mode of transportation.
2-Help it get out.
3-Kill it.

I was intent on avoiding two manifestations of the largest problem with the great striped one.
a-Me getting sprayed.
b-Skunk spraying in the window well as this might mean I'd have to burn the house down and hope insurance would cover it.

Skunks are largely burrowers, with limited ability to climb.  I tried to lower a board into the window well as a ramp to get out, but every time I did this, the skunk exhibited nervous behavior.  This, in turn, made me very nervous.  At one point, the skunk turned around, raised its tail toward me in a show of bravado that I took quite seriously.  Given the low probability of success, I abandoned this aided escape quickly.  Stink looked far more probable than the skunk's ability to climb up the steep board out of the six foot deep window well.

I thought about trapping it in a bucket or live trap.  And while, if successful, this would help the immediate situation, ultimate success without getting sprayed was far from assured.  While I don't necessarily feel bound by the letter of the law, especially in the rural area where I live, Ohio Revised Code requires trapped skunks be released on site or euthanized.  Releasing skunks elsewhere (transportation comes with its own unique challenges) is not legal.  As an aside, this is also not legal for raccoons, beavers, possums, foxes and coyotes.

I was pretty much down to option 3-Kill it.  But how?

In the late 1990's, I helped some farm friends rid their barn of skunks after a large group of them found a nice home in the barn with ample food supply in the form of the barn cat's food.  Despite several well placed shots, every skunk got their last dying revenge.  My farm friends were not disappointed.  Going in, they were willing to trade intense skunk smell for a definite amount of time for the constant din of skunk stink that had been going on for most of the summer.
Shooting my skunk from the roof of my house would be a realistic option to avoid me getting sprayed, but would be nearly guaranteed to have odoriferous consequences in the basement, if not the whole house.

I went to my local hardware store for some advice.  We tossed around potential solutions.  We all saw some humor in the situation, but no clear solutions.
They handed me the card of a local nuisance animal company.  I had already searched this option online and saw that best case scenario, I was looking at a cost in the low 100's of dollars - with absolutely no guarantee of the house coming out stink free.  I called the number which gave options to press 1 if an emergency or leave a message in the general mailbox.  I had a hard time seeing it as an emergency, but any prolonging of the situation seemed likely to increase the likelihood of stink.

I was approaching The Final Solution, and I didn't like it.
Ohio revised code allows the use of a "toxicant or chemical substance as a means of control for nuisance wild animal" but unlawful to use these "contrary to or in violation of instructions on the label or manufacturer recommendations."
I saw two embodiments of a "toxicant or chemical substance" at the local hardware store that listed skunks - Atlas Giant Destroyer and Amdro Gopher Gasser.  Both of these are flammable smoke bomb type devices.  Meant to be used in a burrow, I wasn't sure how well it would work in the more expansive window well and I had visions of this also filling my basement with "toxicant or chemical substance."  This did give me the idea of using exhaust gasses from my ATV or copious dry ice to asphyxiate the skunk.  I think this might have worked, but it would definitely have been an experiment.  All of these gaseous products brought memories of a recent news story where an entire family inadvertently was poisoned by rodent killer.   I did avoid the product that used zinc phosphide as the active ingredient...
There were several other mouse killers that used bromethalin, which is effective on skunks.  Was I using it contrary to or in violation of instructions on the label or manufacturer recommendations?  No, I've had mice in the window well, and they needed to be controlled (right?).  The mouse nuggets smelled quite tasty, even if they are an asshole redneck tactic.  Why that site goes on to give advice about poison seems quite contradictory.  And if mouse poison is "an asshole redneck tactic" for skunks, why is it not for mice, rats, gophers, etc.?

I went down in the basement later that night and looked through the window with a flashlight.  I have to admit that the skunk looked rather cute, it put its paws up on the window screen and almost looked like a zoo exhibit through the glass.  I was reminded of running over a raccoon a few months prior.

One of my biggest concerns that first night was that the skunk might not be alone - and other neighborhood skunks would go all Baby Jessica overnight.  Thankfully, skunks are somewhat solitary creatures.

The next day the skunk was still alive, although it was less lively.  I provided it with another snack and beverage.  As I was lowering this slowly into the window well by means of a string, I felt like I should be saying something analogous to: It puts the lotion on, or it gets the hose again.  See the movie Silence of the Lambs if that doesn't make sense.  In many ways, the EPA (or is it the FDA?  Or CDC?) have hamstrung us.  Current chemical control substances are so limited in potency that immediate effect is nearly impossible.  Wide availability of extremely strong poisons might need to be approached with caution; there may be alternative solutions online.  These are in a legal grey area, and time to acquire them didn't permit it.

The Final Solution was eventually successful.  I didn't feel good about the situation; it took longer than I would have liked.  It looked unpleasant.
In addition to the skunk, I've had coyotes, moles, deer, ground hogs, mice, rabbits, snakes and all manner of what some would consider vermin live harmoniously in and around the house.  One of the things I love about living in a rural area is the unexpected interaction with wildlife.
But the line does have to be drawn somewhere.

A Quick Note on Virtue

How has working hard(er) become to be seen as a virtue?

From a Biblical standpoint, the root of work is in Original Sin.

From Genesis 3:
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Virtue:  Conformity to a standard of right: Morality.
A particular moral excellence.

And there it is in the definition.

Conformity:  Correspondence in form, manner, or character: Agreement.

It is because we've agreed it is.

Sad...

Digital Photography Overload

I recently got back from a week away.  It is a trip I've done for many years, typically in January.  When I got home, I quickly looked through the pictures I took - a fraction of what I used to take when this annual excursion was more novel - and dumped the pictures into my vacation archives, also uploading them to Google Photos.  I usually have a couple pictures I'll take to work to add to the pile that are used as part of my screen saver, but I was conscious that I didn't do that this year.

Reflecting on this, I think digital photography has robbed me of something.  By getting more, I have much less.  My Google Photos currently has 1323 pictures from 2016.  A fraction of those are great and may be viewed occasionally or shared.  I may at times scan through the bulk of them to look back at past vacations.  But it is, frankly, too many...

Digital photography has brought a lot of improvements.  We can't put the bullet back into the chamber on this one.  By being able to take lots of pictures, more good photos will emerge and a few more great ones are possible.  Still, 35mm cameras, and the expense of film, development, prints, enlargements, brought with it a scarcity mindset - carefully taking one or two pictures instead of today's 30 or 40.  "I can delete them later."  I rarely do.  Careful review on the small camera LCD screen isn't practical.  Why not just dump to archives and upload to Google Photos?  Who has time to go through 218 pictures while on vacation?

Joe Bonomo wrote about The Blur Family in the book Brief Encounters.  The book includes the actual picture which is sadly not present in the online version.
Reading through this, the memories and emotions it brings up sound more vivid, scream louder than if the person taking the photograph would have stopped and retaken the shot again (and again, and again) to "get it right" - by the fourth take, the faces may have been clear, but they would have been distracted by the annoyance of the uncomfortable stagedness of the picture; the younger children probably looking forlornly down at their Thanksgiving plates, the older kids rolling their eyes.  Maybe they were anyway, but the poor (blurry) photography allows more historical interpretation.

Photography was even more prohibitively expensive when Mr. Bonomo's picture was taken (as an aside, why exactly he has a copy of a neighbor's Thanksgiving celebration is quite curious); I lived through this era as well.  There are many family photos which might be viewed as either regretful and awkward, or cherished, depending on the viewer.  It probably also depends on one's state of mind at the time of the viewing.
I loath the fakeness of 1970's portrait photography.  Olin Mills pictures with one dimensional fake backdrops and awkward props up front.  Why a suburban northern family pays large sums of money for a family photograph with a wooden wagon wheel in the foreground is oddly troubling.  Maybe this still goes on today.  If high school "senior pictures" are an indicator, things really have not improved.

Somewhere around 23 years ago, there was an attempt to create one of these family portraits for posterity for our family, recently expanded by marriage.  My SO wisely stayed out of it.  A step-sibling's SO did not, and when that relationship soured, the portrait was altered to change the now non-SO into a large potted plant.  The plant stands strangely out of place.  Computer generated people censoring the original vision of Kubrick's movie Eyes Wide Shut, new characters added to the bar scene in Star Wars, a sock puppet planted in a Ruben painting.

Somewhere, I may have a copy of the original picture.  That picture is a historical record - a vision at least closer to the reality of how things existed.  One SO not shown, one SO an example of what we've all been through.  If I come across that original picture, I'd like to get it enlarged to cover over the altered picture.  Revert history to its original copy.  Maybe history written by the victors can be rewritten by the small.

I find adults arguing about Facebook as perplexing (this should end somewhere around junior high school), but was recently encouraged that someone wanted to download a picture that was never posted for a memory book.  I was encouraged that anyone creates memory books anymore, assuming it is a physical book and not some dreadful Facebook tool...
I had one picture from my 1970's memory book that I hated - hated with a passion.  I guess I could have altered it;  added the potted plant over me wearing a football helmet on my bike.  But no, I removed it.  The memory that remains after the picture has been discarded.  I hate that memory too, but at least the physical manifestation is gone.
I sometimes wonder if the negative exists somewhere in a dusty cardboard box somewhere.  Piles of negatives are the silver halide version of Google Photos, I guess.  Over the ensuing decades, it is almost a certainty that the negative is long gone.

I have boxes of 35mm pictures as well.  Much like I have too many google photos, I probably have too many 35mm as well - just not nearly as many.  But I did recently go through them, trying to find at least one picture taken while in each state.  I was surprised how easy it was to find what I was looking for since the boxes of photos (and negatives) are roughly in chronological order.  Digital (Google Photos) imitates Analog...

Maybe my omission of a picture to be used from my recent adventure for my work screen saver was just a temporary oversight.  After thinking about it, I grabbed one from Google Photos and dropped it in my work computer's screen saver folder.

Driverless Cars: Our Near Term Dystopia

Somewhere around 1995, a manager, Bill, at work commented how he was not looking forward to the day when he had to pull over to the side of the road and reboot his car.  To be clear, we are already there and have been for some time.  We were really there already in 1995.
Every new car has some form of the rather unhelpful "Check Engine Soon" light.  These lights rarely lie, although faults that they signal may be intermittent or transitory.  Whether the identified fault will cause imminent and catastrophic damage, or it is merely an aged sensor beginning to slow, the driver is free to continue merrily on the way - or nervously on the way depending on his or her level of chronic worrying.
This situation IS the "pulling over the car to reboot" - but the default state is to allow the driver to continue.  The default to continue does not work in a driverless car future; the fail-safe is to be immediately off the road until all systems are go.  Without the driver, the job of many of the sensors and associated software takes on a more life-altering role beyond the life of the automobile and beyond the life of those in that immediate automobile.  Until driverless technology becomes mundane and invisible, this paints a very frustrating future vision.

Luckily robots are not programmed with a sense of fairness, but reliability of "things" is expected to be much higher than of people.  Brakes are expected to work 100% of the time, even if a human doesn't use them appropriately and takes on a telephone pole.  Computers are supposed to boot up every time even if someone clicks on a phishing link and opens the computer up to external control.  Cars are supposed to start even if basic maintenance is sometimes ignored.  So it will be with autonomous vehicles; every situation encountered will be expected to be handled expertly, even if that isn't the standard for humans.  If a deer runs in front of a driverless car, while the car is driving through an oil patch with winds dropping a tree across the road and the car crashes, it will be interpreted as a vehicle/software failure.  Developing vehicles to drive autonomously through 75% driving situations is probably feasible right now.  Expand that to 95% and it gets difficult, 99% harder.  That last 0.001%, becomes nearly impossible...
Cars are also being developed for the globe, bringing efficiency to manufacturing reducing development costs.  Creating autonomous cars that will work as well in Minot, North Dakota as they will in New Delhi, India seems daunting, unless global development reverts to regional vehicles - this is economically unlikely and increases the technical difficulty even further.

I actually enjoy driving.  No, getting stuck in heavy gridlock isn't fun, but I've organized my life so that is rare.  I even often enjoy the daily commute, although the destination may not be ideal.
Listening to the media would suggest I'm a dinosaur in this, but I don't buy it.  I think this is partially due to the growing urban/not-urban divide, which itself is painted with a city-scape lens by the largely urban media.

Uber - basically a less unsexy taxi cab - and driverless cars are now prompting clairvoyant wizards to foresee the death of the personal automobile.  Even douche bags are telling us cars are sooooo 2012 (I've never met this douche bag, but reading what he has written certainly suggests he's quite comfortable in his douche-bag-ness).
We've seen this before.  Dean Kamen told us the Segway was going to revolutionize cities.  Cities were going to be torn down and rebuilt all around his mall-cop-mobile scooter; cars were going to be melted down and turned into Segways.  Dean Kamen may be a smart guy, but he must live in a very narrow bubble.

The one thing we can predict, is that we can not predict the future.  Technology can be envisioned, but how it is implemented is something different entirely.  And how it eventually gets used once it is in the grubby paws of the average person is different still.

Because the future can't be predicted, I'm going to go ahead and predict the future.

1)  Driverless roadways are decades away.
There are a lot of old cars out there.  Vehicle quality continues to improve, and older cars are remaining reliable for longer and longer.  The often-cited average age is 11 years.  And that is average, meaning half are older than that.  Not only that, but how driverless technology will interact with drivers is evolving slowly.  Driverless cars can be programmed to respond in a very predictable manner, but the remaining analog interface (the human) can not - whether in a driverless car or not.  There are also a lot of other interests that play a role in addition to millennials who don't want to drive (the difference between an interest and a special interest is whether one agrees with it or not):  motorcycles, bicycles, antique and vintage automobiles, roadkill.
Much like the houses of the future are only slowly showing up due to a lack of infrastructure and because nobody is tearing down all the old houses to build new ones, driverless roadways will need infrastructure improvements that don't currently exist - we can't even currently keep our bridges safe and roads (relatively) free of potholes, adding in new infrastructure (and ongoing maintenance) seems even more unlikely.

2)  Driver aiding technology is here and will continue to be grow.
Driver aiding technology is currently at the curiosity stage.  Tesla's successes and failures are widely and loudly reported.  Fairly or not, this is true whether the technology was being used as intended or not.  Quoted from above: "And how it eventually gets used once it is in the grubby paws of the average person is different still."
Every manufacturer is looking at some form of driver aided technology, and calling it driverless.  Regulations are slowly evolving, which is probably a good thing.
Some of this will be good.  Some will be bad.

3)  Driver aiding technology will be expensive and frustrating - at first.
Cruise control, fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, throttle  by wire, touch screens, dual-clutch transmissions, etc...  These are just a few examples of technology that was first available on (primarily) expensive vehicles, but worked its way down to plebeian cars.  Once in average-joe-mobiles, these things usually work, but still have levels of evolution to go through until they reach nirvana - aka nobody thinks about them anymore.  Until that point is reached, it can be frustrating.  So it will be with driverless aids.
But advances will be made.  Nobody thinks about cruise control, fuel injection and anti-lock brakes anymore (and few would want to go back to carburetors or drum brakes on all four corners).  Touch screens and dual-clutch automatic transmissions are getting pretty good, with some warts still showing.
There is a fundamental difference, fuel injection was and is happy existing within the confines of the individual vehicle.  If fuel injection required all (or most) other cars on the road to also be fuel injected, or a complicated set of rules for the fuel injection to work and for the carbureted vehicles to aspirate fuel, the evolution of fuel injection would have been very slow.
I certainly hope we are not setting ourselves up for a late-1970s re-reality, where the mandates for fuel efficiency and emissions got so far ahead of the technology that the result was a lot of really malaiseful cars.


4)  Somehow, driver aiding technology will be used for porn.
Every technological advancement always seems to be used for porn.  Glossy magazines, VHS, DVD, HD-DVD, online streaming, cell phones, smart phone, personal computers, real-time streaming...  So somehow I'm sure driverless cars will be used for porn too.

Sadly, I may actually be a dinosaur.  I'm not really looking forward to the current vision of the dystopian driverless future.  I enjoy driving.  I even still prefer a manual transmission.  I'd be lost without a motorcycle.  What I'm encouraged by is that this change will happen much slower than what visionaries are sure of - and it will look a lot different than they see as well.

2017 Honda Ridgeline

Somewhere around 1993, my friend and neighbor sold his Ford Ranger and bought a Ford Bronco II.  His Ranger had served him well, but with a new kid, and a need for four wheel drive to get through Michigan winters, he made the jump.  When he got the title to the Bronco, he laughed - showing me where in the "Body Style" box, it said, "Station Wagon."  We looked at the Bronco, at its shape, two rows of seating with storage area out back and no trunk.  Yep, it is a station wagon.

The Honda Ridgeline is not a real truck.
Or so we keep getting told over and over.  In fact, when you buy a Ridgeline, you also get a pink frilly tutu to wear while driving it.
No, The Harley Davidson Sportster is not a real motorcycle.  The Ducati Monster is not a real sport bike.
The Ruger American is not a real rifle.  The Beretta 92FS is not a real handgun.
Lund is the only real boat.  Real houses must be stick built.
The purists have had their say, and they are right.  Always.

A short time ago, I traded in my 2009 Toyota Tacoma on a new 2017 Honda Ridgeline.  I have to start by saying, despite a sometimes love/hate relationship, the Taco was a good vehicle.  In eight years and over 100,000 miles, it has had more good than bad moments.  But there were some items that were coming up, somewhere between repairs and maintenance, that would need to be addressed.  These would likely be painful, so it just made more sense to take the plunge.
I thought about another Taco, but the new model is much more evolutionary than revolutionary with many of the same known weak points.
And while the Taco was overall good, several minor repairs over the years showed a build that would have been far more reliable if trivial changes had been made.  As an example, a few extra cents on the fasteners for the exhaust shields would have made them last the life of the vehicle over the eye-glass sized screws that held them together only briefly.
For reasons I won't go into here, my choices were narrowed down to the Ford F-150 and the Honda Ridgeline.  Apples and oranges.

I actually test drove the F-150 first and like it more than I thought I would.  It is, frankly, bigger than I need and even with substantial discounts, getting what I wanted in my next new vehicle would have meant trade-offs by getting some of what I don't want with a higher cost.  This is the case even with substantial discounts (A-Plan) and current rebates.

Cost aside, my choice was made when I actually test drove the Ridgeline.

And in a situation that continues my string of punctured tires in 2016, the Ridgeline had a screw in the tire at test drive.  New tire since installed.  I hope 2017 will have better inflation.

Like many truck owners, I probably don't NEED a truck.  However, there are many times when having a truck makes life easier to the point that if I didn't have one, I'd probably need at least a small trailer; I do not want to have another wheeled thing to keep stored away some where.  A truck makes far more sense than a trailer and a car that can pull it.  I've not yet figured out how to go hunting and carry bloody critters around after the fact without either a truck, or a lot of hassle.  Truck it is...
So I need a truck to carry bulky and bloody stuff.  I don't need to tow a houseboat.  I don't need to drive half way up Denali.  I don't need to carry a 2-ton generator in the bed to a job site.
As a truck, the Ridgeline IS everything I need.

The Ridgeline is what it is, but it does not pretend to be something it is not.
If you want a four wheel drive vehicle to rock crawl in the Mojave, a Ridgeline is not your best choice; get a jeep with front and rear locking differentials.
If you want a truck to tow a backhoe around, get a GM2500HD.
If you want a real man's 4-Wheeler, get an International Scout (My siblings and I used to get driven to school in one of these on winter days.  Those brutal aluminum bleacher seats and a rusted out floor with winter coming through forces a kid to be tough.)
If you need a wheeled vehicle which can go absolutely anywhere, get a SHERP ATV (google it).

If you ignore the chatter of the body-on-frame-or-nothing crowd, the Ridgeline makes far more sense than most other trucks for the vast majority of buyers.  For the body-on-frame crowd, this was probably good advice ... in 1982.
The vehicle is comparable to other similar sized trucks in the areas of payload and towing.  It is far more capable than my 4-cylinder Taco it is replacing.
The ride quality is infinitely better than other midsized or full sized trucks.
The fuel economy is better, but only marginally.  I think overall the fuel economy of all trucks is lacking.  I'm curious what the maybe-someday new Ford Ranger will be - an Ecoboost 4 cylinder sounds quite intriguing.  Damn the Chicken Tax as there is a demand for efficient capable open-bedded vehicles of a less substantial girth.
The AWD drive system on the Ridgeline is better at handling varying winter road conditions than the dedicated 4WD on most trucks.  Journalist and owner reviews I've read show it is at least capable during off-road situations.

The bottom line: I can't think of anything over the last eight years I've done in my Tacoma that the Ridgeline would not also be able to capably handle, but I can think of many times when the Ridgeline would have been a better choice.

Of the various trucks I've owned over the last few decades, my favorite was and is my 1994 F-150 - a truck I spectacularly totaled in the late 1990s.  As full sized trucks have continued to grow, the Ridgline is nearly the same size as that 1994, but with a more usable interior.  I can only hope I'll like it as much as that Ford in the long run.

The proof will be in the pudding blood.  I've got a road trip with a hunting destination coming up which will be a good test of the long-haul driving and the capability for some off-road conditions.

So, mock the Ridgeline if you must, frilly tutu or not.  But first question the need for a larger, less comfortable vehicle used for the 95% of what most trucks are used for.  Look at the K5 Blazer, and realize it is just a station wagon on steroids.  Wonder why a $50,000 King Ranch F series always seems to be parked at the mall - at least I think - I haven't actually been to a mall in a few years.

Time will be the ultimate test of the Ridgeline, but I'm really looking forward to that time.  There will be an in depth review some time after more real world miles are on the truck.

January 1, 2017

Do we celebrate the end of the old year?  Or the beginning of the new year?

I won't admit what time I fell asleep on New Year's Eve, but will admit it was well before 12:00 AM on January 1, 2017.
This seems a fitting end to a year that was pleasant but unremarkable.  I probably prefer bringing in the new year in a more contemplative manner.

I sort of already wrote an end-of-year post that was just supposed to just be about cornbread pecan waffles.  I did start out the first morning of 2017 with some of them.

Like previous years, I time lapsed my back yard in 2016.  As with the year 2016, it is somewhat unremarkable.  There was some winter and spring snow.  Soybeans were planted in the spring.  There was lots of mowing and some swampage in the summer.  Soybeans were harvested and things started to die in the fall.  Winter came with one snowfall for December.

I've reached a point where I will never try to predict what 2017 will bring, nor will I set any major goals.  I'll spend too much time at work.  I plan on traveling at least enough to keep things interesting.  But I know that at this point, there are more unknowns than knowns.
That may be the magic of throwing away the old calendar - knowing that there is more continuity than novelty.  So celebrations near 11:59:59 on December 31 probably represent neither ends nor beginnings ... but something else altogether.