American Eclipse (1878 and 2017)

I just finished reading American Eclipse by David Baron.  It chronicles the path of three notable people as they prepared for and viewed the eclipse of July 29, 1878.
Thomas Edison is known as an early American prolific inventor.  He ventured west in 1878 to test an invention which was supposed to be a very sensitive heat detector.  While his experiments were largely inconsequential and his "tasimeter" a footnote at best, the theory behind its use was sound and perhaps ahead of its time as it may have been one of the first instances of searching the cosmos using radiation outside of the narrow visible spectrum of light.
James Craig Watson viewed the eclipse hoping to find the existence of a planet inside the orbit of Mercury.  He found an unknown object that he determined to be the planet "Vulcan" which he was looking for.  Dying a few years later, before his planet discovery was debunked, his legacy remains one of setting up an astronomy award which bears his name today.
Maria Mitchell went to research the eclipse with a female contingent.  Plagued by the misogyny of the era, her eclipse viewing didn't result in any immediate consequence, but her legacy lives on as an early female pioneer during America's ascendancy in science.

I read the book as I am preparing to head out to see the 2017 eclipse in a few weeks.  My upcoming eclipse viewing is strictly experiential, not scientific.  I've done as much preparing as I can at this point, which means I am now free to worry as the date approaches.
Like most people, my chosen location is based on a mix of where I live, where it is likely to have minimal clouds and where the amount of people will be tolerable.
In February of 1998, I went down to camp on St. Johns in the US Virgin Islands.  An eclipse was passing through that area but the eclipse was more of an excuse to go on a rather exotic vacation for a couple weeks.  Camping on the beach near a bizarre cast of characters and wild donkeys was quite an experience.  St. Johns was in the 80%+ band of the eclipse, and it was interesting, but anticlimactic.  If anything, the crescent shadows cast by the sun obscured by the moon were probably the most interesting feature.

I want to see totality this time.  And I'm a chronic worrier, so I have several weeks to fret.
I worry about the weather.  As much as I plan on going to an area that is likely to have minimal clouds, even the driest areas in Eastern Oregon have some probability of all-day cloudiness or torrential rain during the actual event.  I am aware that I can do nothing about this, and while minor adjustments can be made, major changes will be difficult within the time frame of accurate weather forecasts.  My preparation has essentially locked me into the general area I've chosen.  More out of curiosity, I looked at major destinations on the path of totality to see what, if any, hotel rooms were still available.  Few are, and they are all really expensive; in the most egregious example, a 1-star hotel with bad reviews in Casper, Wyoming is still available ... at a cost of nearly $1200.

I worry about people.  I plan on going to a less-populated area of the country, but will thousands and thousands of other people have the same idea.  Intuitively I think not; a small subset of the population will be going to great length to see the eclipse and a larger subset will make an effort near where they live, but I don't believe the entire path of totality will be crawling with people to view an event which is to last only a few minutes.  Still, I'd rather not view the eclipse while stuck in some traffic jam which is historic for the area I'll be in.

While I enjoyed reading American Eclipse, I'm not sure it was wise to do so.  David Baron writes of the inability of people to find boarding rooms in 1878.  There are a lot more people around with a lot more ability for information 139 years later.  In some sense, being in the right kind of crowd may be fun for an event like this - I just hope to have a few square feet for me and my tripod.
He also writes about terrible weather leading up to the eclipse.  But in the end, the eclipse day was clear and weather forecasts have come a long way in 139 years.

I guess as with any kind of travel, the anticipation is part of the experience.  Forty-nine days and counting...

Time Marches Deliberately On

Astronomical summer doesn't start for another few days, but it seems like summer is already half over.

I'm far enough away from school that I should no longer dwell on these things, but the whole concept of "summer" remains something I think about often.  Ignoring the first few years of life which are replete with childhood amnesia, early life is discreetly compartmentalized.  Agreeably so.  I don't know that this is good or bad - more than likely it is neither, and just what becomes the norm.
Each of those first years is broken into first semester, second semester and summer.  This pattern is offset from the calendar year, almost certainly since a previous agrarian time has the growing season offset from the calendar year.  School was secondary to the income and food when much of the population had to take advantage of what can be done spring through fall.  The fiscal year practiced by many businesses is more nebulous and doesn't count as the same, or similar thing, since it only exists on a handful of accountants' spreadsheets and can be any to-from date that a company chooses.

And so for some 20ish years, life is broken into three loosely detached sections, with summer being the most important.  It was with a harsh reality that I realized that after graduating college, the time dimension became much longer.  No more starting a new school year in September.  No more mending with a second semester after Christmas break.  No more throwing away the previous school year's notes, to summer's heat and humidity.  Once hired after college, the next transition looked like it would be...

I'm doing some body work on one of my cars right now.  The last time I've done any body work was about 20 years ago (on the same vehicle).  I've lost some of the skill required to do body work in the last 20 years, which means each step has been done very deliberately and only after thinking about it; the thinking has taken more time than the doing for some steps.  The deliberate work may also be influenced by by being in my mid-40's.  I think I was 26 when I last painted this car.  I don't remember 26 as well as I remember college.  Likely 26 may have been far enough into work life to already have some introduction to the monotony that was to get older.  Instead of years being broken into first semester, second semester and summer, days are broken into work, eat, sleep (repeat).
I'm both enjoying the body work on the car and being intimidated by it.  Cars are a hobby and nearly everything is fixable in body work short of a welding fire that sends the car into a molten inferno.  But my body work skills even in my mid 20's were adequate at best.
I'm compelled to get the car done with enough time to put at least a few miles on it yet this year.  To do that, my deliberate pace must continue deliberately progressing forward.

My Dad died two years ago on Father's Day.  Two years isn't that long - only a few percent of my life - but it doesn't seem possible that it has already been two years.  Time on the small scale can often drag on, slowly and deliberately.  Stepping back away from the immediate, time on the large scale accelerates toward the infinite.
My summer started with reading The Last Lecture by Randy Rausch - both he and my Dad died of pancreatic cancer.  Have big dreams, Randy Rausch says.  Bronnie Ware tells us to fulfill at least some of our dreams.  And yet, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want says Randy Rausch.

I have, or had, plans on visiting a tourist farm later this summer.  It is only a few hours away, and I could probably do it in one long day; although two days is more likely.   These plans keep getting moved back.  I've got the car's body work to plug away on.  I have a fall hunt that I need to maintain my fitness and rifle skills for.  I can't travel around Memorial Day or around Independence Day - too many other people travel during these times.  I'm making plans for the August eclipse.  The lawn needs to be mowed every once in a while.
As a result, my short adventure plans appear to be perpetually in the future.  Time marches deliberately on.

Astronomical summer doesn't start for another few days, but it seems like summer is already half over.


"...because down in my gut, I wanted nothing more than a clean bed and a bright room and something solid to call my own, at least until I got tired of it.  There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary and sort of comfortably detached." -Hunter S Thompson.

19-something-something Yamaha Chappy

I will occasionally enter my youth into Ebay's search function.  I doubt I'm not alone on this.
I recently entered "Yamaha Chappy" into Ebay and two examples showed up - both within 200 miles of my house.

My vehicular trajectory followed a familiar path to many boys who grew up in the suburbs in the middle of the country.  I had a few regretful bikes until at some point I graduated to a "BMX" bike.  My memories of this bike are probably greatly flawed, but it was purchased very used, and my older sister and I brush painted the entire bike black.  We thought it looked really cool, but I suspect it looked like it was painted by a couple young kids.  I think we were supposed to share the bike; I don't recall how well that actually worked.
Overall, I do recall the neighborhoods we lived in as being quite safe.  But there was a mix of childhood malfeasance and some minor crime.  At some point in my young childhood, our house was broken into through a basement door after the door window was broken.  This must have been traumatic as it is still an entry point I worry about now, as well as in all my previous houses.  I don't recall the theft being very financially devastating, but potentially our parents just hid that from us.  I seem to recall that was the event that pushed our parents into getting a checking account and checkbook.
Back to the brush-painted, black dirt bike, it was stolen when our family went to eat at a fast food restaurant.  We knew it was left outside, and there was some gnashing of teeth about whose fault it may have been.  But the bike was gone.  I do not recall another bike while living at that house, but I suspect there must have been more bikes while living there - I'm not counting my horrible bright orange bike with a basket on the front that I used to deliver newspapers.
The other theft I recall was the stealing of one penny.  We had a small flower garden next to the garage filled in with concrete and the siblings in the family thought it would be neat to cement a penny in it when it was poured.  We chose a shiny one from the current year.  At some point, rocks were used to chip the penny out.  I strongly suspect this was done by older neighborhood boys, Jerry or Paul - probably both.  I hope it was worth it for them.

Years later, and now in a different house in a different city, I bought a Schwinn 10-speed bike from Kevin, a boy at school.  His family was considerably wealthier and he got a new bike every few years.  He was shorter than me, and we were both growing, so the Schwinn was too small for me, but it worked for what an early teen needed a bicycle for.  Besides, it was Schwinn and had 10 speeds.

Everything changed when I turned 15.

At the age of 15, Michigan allows a moped license.  At my age now, this seems crazy to allow 15-year-olds on public roads, sharing the space hulking vehicles.  But in the 1980's it meant nearly total freedom.  This moped allowance with minimal licensing requirements made more sense when mopeds were little more than slightly-motorized bicycles such as my brother's Puch that he used to deliver newspapers.  These were actually started by pedaling them and pulling a small starting lever.

The mid-1980's was the era of the Honda Spree.  These things were seemingly everywhere.  They can still be found, but since Sprees were beat to death by 15-year-olds for only the few years they were made, good examples are rare.  They were also nearly disposable in construction.

As cheap transportation goes, the Honda Spree was a luxury vehicle that there was no way I could afford.  I could afford the Yamaha Chappy being sold by an older acquaintance who had recently gotten his real driver's license and a car (I seem to recall his car was a Pugeot of all things).  I think I bought the Chappy for $50 with the stipulation that I would not ask for help from the seller in fixing it as a requisite part of the sale.
My Yamaha Chappy was a yellow LB80.  As a 72cc bike, it was not strictly legal as a moped, but since there was also a 50cc Yamaha Chappy made, I was able to get a moped registration sticker for it with just a bill of sale.
I do not have any pictures of my Chappy, but it looked something like the following picture.  I definitely remember the white plastic fenders.

Yamaha Chappys were made in a few configurations, but mine had a 2-speed automatic transmission with both a high and low range.  One of the current (as of this writing) Chappys for sale on Ebay is the same configuration in red.

My Chappy had lots of problems.  The seat was basically non-existent; the sun had baked it to strands of Naugahyde with pale yellow foam blistering through.  My sister made me a seat cover from some kind of fuzzy fabric.  I can recall riding after (or in) the rain and the sponge effect of the seat cushion was squishily wet.
The 2 speed, high/low, shifter mechanism was broken as the former owner used to slam shift it.  He would start out in low for great acceleration, then slam it in high for higher speed.  This was almost certainly toxically damaging to the gear mechanism, which suggests these things were somewhat overbuilt.
At some point in the ongoing repairs that my Chappy needed, I got into the brakes.  Both front and rear brake linings were completely gone.  Stopping was metal shoes on metal drums.  Somehow, it seemed to stop OK and I didn't know any better at that time.
Worse yet, the brake lights didn't work, so I rigged up a button on the handle bars I had to push to let cars behind me know I was stopping.  Jeepers this was dangerous...
I did wear a helmet which was given to me with the bike.  It was a bright blue snowmobile helmet that was probably at least two sizes to big.  I think the helmet was wearing my head for protection.

The most memorable issue with my Yamaha Chappy was the kick starter was stripped.  In order to start the bike, it had to be pushed to the top of a hill in neutral, then engage the transmission and stutter-start it downhill; there was no clutch, so no way to bump start it.  Predictably, there was little tread left on the rear tire by the time I got it.  This must not be a totally unique failure since one of the first results on searching Ebay was a kick starter shaft, linkage and spring.

I spent considerable time trying various repairs for the kick starter.  Stronger bolts did little.  Drilling dogs between the starting lever and the shaft, using nails to gain bite between them made it worse.  Eventually I saved enough money to buy a new shaft and kick lever.  The internal spring was never reinstalled correctly, so the kick starter didn't reliably stay up - but the kick starter finally worked!

I have no idea how many miles I put on that Yamaha Chappy, but I'm sure it was a lot.  I used it to get to school, to work, to everywhere.  Some of the Spree-crowd were envious as my Chappy had an illegally sized engine.  It was technically a motorcycle.  The Chappy's speedometer went to a very optimistic 80mph vs. the Spree's paltry 40mph.  A race with my friend Larry showed that it was actually a little slower than a Honda Spree, at least to the end of the street.  The Chappy probably weighed twice as much and even in high gear was geared more toward trail use, but I was devastated to lose to the 50cc Honda.

Fifteen is a transitional age, and I only kept the Chappy for that one year.  Mopeds lose their coolness quite quickly sometime around taking driver's education.  As I got close to 16, I bought my first car (a 1969 MG Midget).
I ended up giving or selling the Chappy to a friend whose parent's were holding out his driver's license.  We had gotten into some trouble and both had to pay restitution - a topic for another time.  His parent made him pay my portion, and feeling bad, I gave him the Yamaha.  He didn't ride it much and I think we jointly ended up destroying it by spending an afternoon taking it over jumps in a playground.
It was barely running when we parked it in the back of his parent's garage.  I'm slightly saddened that this was almost certainly the final time my Chappy ran.

I'm far enough away from 15 now that I can look at Yamaha Chappys on Ebay and only look.  More stuff tends to clutter life, not improve it and I have no idea what I would do with an 80cc motorcycle even if someone gave one to me.  Despite the attempts, youth can not be repurchased on Ebay.  At best, a facsimile can be purchased, only briefly.
I am somewhat relieved that the Chappys on Ebay are far enough away to remain virtual.  I can't predict what would happen if I were to be able to actually see one, sit on one, and feel the grips.  I do hope the kick starter would work.

The Walk of Shame

Some well-meaning group organized a blood drive when I was in college.  A few of us were convivially joking with each other about some of the screening questions, "Have you been incarcerated for more than 72 consecutive hours?"  I guess that is the magic time point.  Before that, fine.  After...
Lots of people were rejected for blood donations.  It was college and we were young and invincible.

"We thought we were beautiful.  We were all beautiful.  We were in our 20's" - Steve Martin

A girl walked from the private interview room crying.
Our blood drive joking stopped for a few moments - crying over a blood drive?  And not even enough time for a letter to be delivered from the County Health Department???

I've given blood pretty consistently over the years.  The regional blood center often comes to work every eight weeks.  Every two months, a pint of me would flow into a bag and I would get cookies and juice - the hemoglobinic equivalent of kindergarten's animal crackers and orange Fanta.  Over the years, I've donated many gallons of blood.  I've got a pile of pins somewhere recounting all this donated Merlot.  I've given so much that I have permanent pock marks from needle sticks on my inner left elbow.

Lately, I've had problems with donating blood.

No, it isn't due to dengue fever being present in Hawaii when I was there.  It isn't due to my recent tattoos.  And no, I haven't been incarcerated.
I'm deemed too healthy to give blood.
Really ... a person who's corporate health screening BMI determined overweight, a person who really likes cookie dough ice cream and Golden Double Stuff Oreos is too healthy to donate life saving blood.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how spring brings spontaneous weight loss.  I've been biking a lot recently.  The weather is in the glorious early summer period.  When I'm not biking, I'm walking the dogs, mowing the lawn, finding anything to do outside.
As my weight drops, so does my blood pressure and pulse rate.  Since quitting drinking, both of these things have remained stubbornly in the healthy category, but the spring and summer activity drops them even more.
During two recent attempts to donate blood, my resting pulse rate was too low to donate.  The first time it was 49BPM versus the cutoff of 50BPM.  They checked it again with an identical result and I was told I could not donate.  Fifty beats per minute seems to be an arbitrary hard cutoff.  Marathon runners can have a resting pulse rate of 40BPM.  Miguel Indurain, a competitive bicyclist once recorded a resting pulse of 28BPM.
The second failed attempt at donating blood was due to a pulse rate of 43BPM, retested at 44BPM.  To be honest, I was surprised at this rate; maybe I need more stress in my life.  The donation crew attempted to get a doctor waiver to allow me to donate, but the doctor didn't return the phone call or page.  Hopefully doctors have better things to do.  Wait ... do doctors really still have pagers???  How very 1980's.
And so for the second time recently, I had to do the walk of shame outside of the back of the blood donation bus.  My colleagues silently judging me.  My coworkers assuming I am a zika infected, syphilitic, recently-released inmate.

I think I'm done donating blood.  I really hate the walk of shame - so now I feel a little bad for the girl who couldn't donate back in college.  Maybe she was too healthy as well.
After I got home from work on the day of the failed donation attempt, I rode my bike just under 25 miles.  That will show them.  I guess the next bleeding car crash victim will just need to use the donation from some other nacho-eating bicyclist with different genes.
No A+ for you!

Will Quitting My Job Give Me Sunburn?

It is Memorial Day Weekend.  The unofficial start of summer.  Societal summer, not meteorological summer.  There are a lot of people on vacation right now, which means it is a terrible time to go anywhere.
For me, summer starts when it gets warm and stops when it gets cold.  Anytime might be a good time to go anywhere.

With summer here, news stories keep reporting the statistic as fact that even one sunburn in childhood doubles the risk of skin cancer.  This might be true; I've yet to see this reported with any link to a credible study backing this up.  The other statistic I keep seeing is 5 sunburns through young adulthood increases skin cancer risk by up to 80%.  Again, this might be true and at least there are hints this comes from research, hopefully peer reviewed.  I should point out that both of these being absolute facts is mathematically impossible.  Both of these statistics keep referring back to a handful of dermatologists.  I'm sure they are brilliant practitioners.
Somewhere around 1996, SO went to a new dentist.  She came home with a list of treatments that were urgently required and with a cost that could have bankrupt us.  A few days later, a coworker was almost in tears wondering how she was going to pay for dental work required by her new dentist.  The required work was eerily familiar.  It was, predictably, the same dentist.  Neither SO nor Coworker got the imperatively needed dental work.  Both are fine.
In 2007, Dr. Stokes was sentenced to over 10 years in prison for scamming money through unneeded surgery as a dermatologist.  Legalities aside, not all doctors are ethical.  I actually think I might have known Stokes' kid at one time?  Probably not.  More than likely, I'm confusing names from a long time ago.

And if a statistic is reported often enough, it eventually becomes true.  72% of the population knows this.

Last year for a few weeks in August, the news repeatedly reported that flossing has no benefit.  Children everywhere rejoiced.  The news got it almost right; reporters often get things wrong.  A much more accurate reporting would be that studies looking at the effectiveness of flossing were not rigorous - so the benefit is not conclusive.  This doesn't make as clicky of a headline.  The AP, when dryly reporting, gets it right more often.  Flossing may still be either a critical health habit or a phenomenal waste of time.

I don't like gunk in my teeth - I will continue flossing.  Sunburn hurts - I will continue to wear sunscreen.

Work has been a bit slow this week.  This may be partially due to people's vacation.  It is sometimes astounding how various tasks spontaneously become less urgent during weeks common for vacation.  There are really only two big things going on and both of them are disorganized clusters.  Motivation is predictable.
Too often recently, I think I really want to sell everything - everything - and travel on the cheap for the rest of my life.  Maybe I really want to, or maybe I do like my stuff.  After a few frustrations this week, it seemed like it wouldn't have taken much...
Niue here I come.  I shouldn't have looked at flight costs online, I could get to Niue for around $1000(US).  One way.

If one sunburn doubles the risk of cancer and 5 sunburns increases the risk of cancer by 80%, what is this relative to?
I don't believe I've ever met anyone who hasn't had a good lobster boil sunburn at least a few times.  Sunburns were a rite of passage for 1980's summer Michigan.  SPF5 was seen as overly cautious while suntan oil took up copious shelf space in the drug stores.  The day after spending a sunny day on the shores of Lake Michigan ... skin so biting that wearing pants at work was excruciating ... peeling so bad a few days later that noses look like egg rolls and foreheads look like old onions...

"Boy, I'll tell you I'm the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth.  Sorry, we're closed." - Sam Malone, Cheers final scene

A Beagle Named Jackson

Jackson had a huge tumor removed from his neck.  The tumor was wrapped around his jugular vein, and the vet said it was quite an ordeal to remove.  The histology report said it was a metastasis of a primary cancer; the vet was unable to find the primary tumor, suggesting the most probable place was on his heart.  Jackson was given 3 months to live.  That was 2008.

Unlike most dogs, Jackson found me.  He was a large and obviously friendly beagle running around the neighborhood.  I really didn't want another dog at the time, so I let him run.  My current three beagles (Sammy, Dixie, Soda) would watch and bark their fool heads off at him.
On a memorable Sunday, this stray beagle decided he needed religion and ran into the church behind the house.  A parishioner brought him back out and tied him up outside.  He obviously had an oversized personality.

A lady at the vet's office was looking for a beagle though, so after a few weeks, I grabbed him, leashed him up, and brought him to the vet.  He told me he loved to bark for the few days I had him.  He was still quieter than the neighbors living next door at the time.
The lady at the vet wasn't able to keep him, so when I stopped in, there was a sign looking for a home for a male beagle.  I left, but SO and I looked at each other in the car and walked back in.  After having him neutered, he joined the family.

Jackson was a beagle's beagle.  He was the loud boisterous beagle that everyone thinks of when they hear Beagle.  He loved to bark; he just assumed everybody loved to hear him sing.  As food time arrived, he would always let me know by singing and getting the other dogs riled up.  For years, the ringtone on my phone has been Jackson and Fairbanks barking before food time.  He loved to eat.  He loved walks - no walk was ever too long for Jackson.

Still, Jackson was also one of the best behaving beagles I've ever had.  Even if he was preoccupied, he would usually come when called.  Outside of some typical chewing when he first arrived - the dog bed still bears his scars - he was rarely destructive in the house and was house-trained with a solid steel bladder.

Jackson was larger than any other beagle we've had as well.  This occasionally caused problems.  He had no problem lording over the other dogs to suggest to them that he should get their food.  He was just tall enough that he could look out the back kitchen window.  After hearing me drive in the driveway, he would always jump up to the window, head tilted sideways so he could watch me walk up to the back door.  Often that would mean a walk!

Almost all beagles are adorable, but Jackson was one of the most photogenic dogs I've ever had.  He came around when I was doing a lot of photography, so there are no shortage of pictures.  His picture has been my surrogate picture at work for years, and has resulted in numerous conversations and questions.  Company policy strictly forbids any pictures being used in place of actual employee head shots, but nobody has ever told me to remove it.

I can't imagine how many miles Jackson and I have walked together.  As the big rambunctious beagle that he was, he usually insisted on being the dog who was walked.  Realistic calculations suggest we probably walked close to, if not more than 10,000 miles together.  That is a lot of shoe leather - and paw skin.

In 2008, Jackson was diagnosed with cancer.  The most noticeable symptom that I saw was that he stopped barking.  Something was definitely wrong.  The tumor was removed and diagnosed as Hemangiosarcoma - an almost always fatal cancer.  Our vet said the primary tumor was most likely on his heart and the end would come quickly;  3 months at most.
He recovered from the surgical removal of the tumor from his neck quickly.  He got extra attention and I told him he was an awesome dog every day.  A month turned into two.  Two eventually passed the three month mark.  Six months turned into a year and the new vet told us she couldn't find any new evidence of cancer.
I didn't understand it, but was glad.  Jackson was just happy being a beagle.

I moved into a new house a few years after his cancer.  He adjusted, not to the new normal, but to the new Awesome! quickly, but he did have to explore his new surroundings.  The new house is in a rural area with no street lights, and shortly after moving in, he took off one evening.  I looked for him for a short time, but eventually had to stop.  It was just too dark.  I got up a few times in the middle of the night to see if he had returned.  Around 2AM he finally slinked back home.  Cold.  Wet.  Jackson hated being either of those things.
He tried to run away one more time after the first snow in the new house.  I wasn't up to chasing after him and took a shower.  He was waiting to come in shortly after, and it was funny to see his tracks in the snow as he had obviously been running around the house, looking in the low windows off of the front porch trying to figure out how to get in out of the cold weather.

Jackson aged gracefully at first.  He was less insistent on being the dog to get a walk.  Less aggressive with his or the other dog's food.  He loved sitting on the couch with me.  I could even motion to the other side and he would move if he was sitting where I wanted to.
But those little things started to creep up.  Kidney issues showed in his blood work.  Thankfully he eats just about anything so the special diet food was gobbled up as quickly as anything else.
He started having issues jumping on the chair.  I noticed he would pee a little bit sometimes when walking around.  The back legs just didn't work the way they used to.  I didn't want to admit it, but I'd been through this before and it was pretty clear he had degenerative myelopathy.
His physical condition slowly deteriorated which was terrible to watch.  At one time it seemed impossible that the biggest, loudest, most animated dog I've had would ever get old, but it was happening.  His mental facilities started to go as well; on his bad days, he could get lost behind a kitchen stool.
Still, he had some good days.

Eventually his movement needed to be restricted.  The degenerative myelopathy had gotten to the point that his incontinence was becoming a problem.  The floor mopping approached a daily exercise at times.  Jackson's world shrunk to the back yard and a playpen in the bathroom by the back door.  He didn't understand his physical ailments, and hated not being in the living room or the bedroom.
SO rigged up doggy diapers for him, which helped some, but they could only do so much.  I'm not sure if he had enough feeling in his back legs to be able to tell it was even on most of the time.
Jackson had always despised being carried, but it was increasingly the only way for him to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.  At times, he barely moved his back legs and stairs were out of the question.

He didn't want to eat anymore and oscillated between drinking tons of water or none at all.  He lost somewhere around 50% of his body weight.  While he still liked having his head scratched, it was becoming increasingly obvious that he no longer had his dog's life after nearly 17 years.
It is never easy, and there will always be second-guessing...

It was difficult to watch Jackson over the last several months.  It was no milk bone for him either, but he seemed to handle it with a stoicism that only an old dog has.    What I realized near the end, was that I was already missing the dog that he was.  I will always miss that Jackson.

Still, I'm comforted by the fact that  the three months left to live in 2008 turned into nine more years.
I'm not sure if Jackson hit it big on the dog's life lottery, or if I did.

"And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall"
               -Pink Floyd

Six Months 5000 Mile Review of the 2017 Honda Ridgeline

John Davis of Motorweek often describes Honda as doing "everything really well, but nothing great."  That is probably a good description of the Honda Ridgeline.
It isn't a ten ton backhoe hauler.
It isn't a Moab rock crawler.
It doesn't have the biggest bed.
It doesn't have the best fuel economy.
But it does the job of what a truck is needed for really well.

My truck is the RTS trim level in "obsidian blue" - why do all vehicle manufacturers insist on superfluous color descriptors?  It is dark blue.
The RTS trim level is one above the base level.  It has the more basic radio, textile seats, no wizz-bang auto-braking or automatic target acquisition system.  Some of these features I may have appreciated, but I'm a bit of an outlier in that I really dislike leather in a car - it cooks in the summer, freezes in the winter.  Heated and cooled seats are a just a fix for these symptoms.

Aesthetics are subjective and initially I was 100% neutral on the appearance of the truck.  After owning it and seeing several others around, the look of the vehicle has grown on me.  I do think it looks better in darker colors relative to some of the lighter options, but I wish Honda didn't use such a benign color palette.  All the available colors are somewhat corporate.  Blue is, of course, the fastest color.

I'll start off with what I don't like about the Ridgeline.  I really miss my manual transmission.  My left foot sits there forlornly and my right hand has little else to do other than occasionally helping to steer.  Only a little over 2% of the cars sold in the US still have a manual transmission, and many manufacturers are saying it is just a matter of time until they do away with them completely.  I'll just have to get over it, but I won't be happy about it.

In some ways, all future four-wheeled vehicles will be compared to my 1994 F-150.  I loved that truck, although it was probably as much because it was my college graduation present to myself as anything else.  Given the slow growth in size of almost all vehicles over time, the Ridgeline is pretty close in size to that '94.  But space is more usable for what I need now with the crew cab and smaller bed.  I'll still plea for a smaller capable truck in the US, but they just don't exist anymore.  Thank you chicken tax...

Coming from my last vehicle, a Toyota Tacoma, I love the power level of the truck.  It isn't a rip-snortin' Raptor, but acceleration is quite quick and the payload of the truck is more than adequate for a midsize truck - on par with other similar vehicles.  Fuel economy and power level are often trade-offs.  So far, fuel economy is averaging just over 23mpg vs 22.8 for the Tacoma - given the mileage difference, I'll call that the same, so the increase in power is comparatively great.  Many of my vehicles had slight overall increases in fuel economy over time while the Tacoma's mpg decreased slightly.  Only time will tell how the Ridgeline acts, but at this point, I'm very happy with both power level and efficiency.
I'm somewhat surprised at the performance of the Ridgeline engine.  The V6 redlines at 6750 - this compared to another Honda I own, my GL1800 which redlines at 6000RPM.  The Goldwing has solid shim-under-bucket lifters with far less reciprocating mass, yet the Ridgeline engine still revs higher.  However, I'm probably unlikely to use the upper limits on the Ridgline as much as I do with the GL1800.

Getting to where the rubber meets the road - lots of people hate this truck because Honda has taken a slightly different approach to many things.  The 4wd vs AWD is probably the biggest one.  In place of a 2-speed transfer case, the Ridgeline has permanent All Wheel Drive.  This past winter was sort of the winter-that-wasn't, but on the few occasions I needed it, I was quite impressed with how the truck handled on snow and ice covered roads.  And with more advanced ability to place torque to the wheels with grip, it was slightly better than most previous 4wd vehicles I've driven in the winter.

Off road manners have been similar to driving with poor road conditions.  I had a hog hunting trip in the swamps of South Carolina and I never once felt uneasy about the conditions I had to put the Ridgeline through.  One of the message boards I sometimes read through had a Tacoma owner say, "I can't wait to see one of these stuck."  The cliquey mean-spiritedness aside, this shows ignorance more than anything else.  The system used on the Ridgeline is not dissimilar to what has been used for decades in other AWD vehicles that have demonstrated good capability in poor traction conditions.  On a road trip out west last year, I talked to a guy in a Subaru in Nevada who had outfitted his Outback for off-roading.  He had some good stories to tell about its capabilities.  I have gotten 4wd vehicles stuck in the past, although that was due to crappy tires as much as anything else.  I don't worry about getting stuck in the Ridgeline any more than that.  The hog hunting trip was successful.

There is some AWD push/understeer; the front wheels do push gravel around my parking area during tight turns.  But I've yet to own a vehicle that doesn't do this at least a little.  This is far less than in SO's much smaller Ford Focus.

Where the Ridgeline really shines is interior.  With a unibody construction, there is much more room inside to work with.  Honda has laid out everything fairly well.  The digital speedometer took some getting used to as I can't look at it askew and lie to myself that I'm going a more compliant speed as I can with an analog gauge, but I've adjusted to that quickly.  There is a large center console, although I wish it was a little taller - it would give more room and stop the dogs from walking on it quite so much.  Seats are comfortable enough that my trip to South Carolina (11 hours) was done easily.  Interior noise is minimal and the audio system works well.  It was nice to dump a few books onto a USB drive and listen to that for my longer trips.

Some people have complained about how far the rear doors open, but they open wide enough to get a double rifle case into the back seat area - or UNDER the back seat!  This frees up tons of space for other stuff.  The complaints about the rear doors seem to be niggles about nothing.

Ride quality of the truck is fantastic.  With fully independent suspension, my commute in the vehicle is very tolerable.  Bumps that would have the Tacoma bouncing down the road are soaked up by the Ridgeline.  The truck feels solid with very little road noise.  There is one downhill section of torn up road with a stop sign on my morning commute which would always set off the ABS on my Tacoma.  I've yet to have that happen on the Ridgeline.

The truck has an automatic climate system which I was somewhat leery of at first.  I tried to use it manually and it was slightly frustrating.  Eventually I just hit the Auto button and - surprise - it worked very well.  Much like the permanent AWD system, it just works - trust it.  I still use manual when the temperature is hovering between needing heat and cooling, and the ability to force the AC off while in "Auto" mode is a nice feature as I don't like AC when the temperature is only moderately warm.

I'm currently around 5000 miles on the truck after six months.  The Ridgeline has an automated system to tell me when maintenance is due - which is both good and bad.  I suppose this will help save money in the long run, but it makes it really hard to plan as I intend to do most of my own maintenance.  Based on what I've read about other Hondas, it seems the Ridgeline has slightly more required maintenance than something like the Ford F-150.  I've read about 15k differential fluid changes and 30k transmission fluid changes, but I really haven't put enough miles on it yet to know that for sure;  I'm currently at 50% oil life which would suggest somewhere around 10k between oil changes, longer than I'm used to, but I'll adjust and it will save time and money.

As a comparatively low volume seller, getting good information on the Ridgeline can be a little more challenging than some other vehicles.  There are lots similarities between the Ridgeline forums and other trucks.  There are the ever-present people who will do nothing but complain about their newly purchased vehicle, or write stuff with the delusional belief that Honda is anxiously reading forums and individual buyers will cause them to change something.  There are also the clearly ignorant people, and the bafoons who insist on arguing with them.  

As two examples, one guy on a Ridgeline forum was complaining about the amount of rust on his suspension parts.  Who would have thought unpainted steel would rust?  And this is clearly not an issue.  A guy on a Tacoma forum was complaining about a high steering effort, only to find out later in the thread that he had put his truck in 4wd, and had never taken it out.  The fact that his truck was still driving shows the strength of the drivetrain on the Taco - but I would never want to own his used vehicle.

Thankfully, the Ridgeline shares a lot in common with the Honda Pilot - so with a bit of creative searching it is possible to get informed opinions from multiple sources.  Still, it never ceases to amaze me, regardless of make or model, how many people have never read through their owner's manual.

Some of this review may sound like I'm knocking my 2009 Toyota Tacoma - I am not.  At the time, it was the best option for me.  The first generation Ridgeline had, quite frankly, terrible fuel economy for what it was.  My Taco was a great truck for well over 100k miles.  Over time, I'm sure there will be things I grow to like more and less about the Honda.  

I need a truck for commuting, home projects, for hunting road trips and all kinds of other things that come up day to day.  John Davis is probably right, the Honda Ridgeline appears to be doing everything very well and maybe even great.