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.