Common Ground

OK, so the Summit and University Roundabout is a dead issue. No beating a dead horse here. I do want to pass along the contrast between how timid Wisconsin is about them and how Colorado has overdosed on them.

While driving over the Rockies, towns are few and far between and usually exist for the skiing tourists. I took some breaks while driving at some of those towns and the use of roundabouts is extensive. I believe that in one town I went from the Interstate 70 exit immediately to a cascade of FIVE roundabouts. I admit to being a bit overwhelmed by this. One is easy. Five is a bit intimidating to a person happening upon them for the first time. I did not, however, see any bits of fenders and headlight glass. They do work and they do speed up traffic.

Did I see that horse flinch a bit?

I am in my La Quinta motel room in Denver Colorado catching up on business email and voice mail. The company that I work for has several stores in the state and I'm doing air conditioning classes at most of them this week.

Monday was the fourth time that I've driven over the Rocky Mountains to Grand Junction. It was around 90 degrees at class time. I'm told that it was about that warm in Waukesha at the time too. The difference out here is that it is high desert area and it is DRY. Most houses out there have a gadget on top of the house called a Swamp Cooler. It's kind of like a huge humidifier that you have on your furnace but the dry air is cooled through the water panels and cools the house. Cheap to use but not effective in humid areas.

The next morning I checked out of my Holiday Inn hotel, not feeling any smarter, and drove back over the mountains. The rental car that I had, a Kia Spectra, didn't have cruise control, but was otherwise a nice car and has given me an average 36MPG so far. Nice, cause the gas isn't any cheaper out here. I stopped in Vail to stretch my legs and there was snow in the wayside. Quite a contrast from the day before.

Speaking of fuel economy, not far from Grand Junction are the huge oil shale fields extending up into Canada. There is more oil there than the Arabs have. It just is harder to get. I drove by signs from Haliburton looking for oil field workers and saw many wells being drilled. On the interstate I passed several trucks with Haliburton lettering. Think what you may, I appreciate that it takes big business to keep gasoline in the tanks at the gas stations. I went through the rationing and long lines back in the early 70's. I'd rather pay the higher prices.

One thing that sticks in my mind was an ad campaign from then Standard Oil. They said that if everybody used just one gallon less a week, there would be no shortage. In our case the reduced demand would reduce the price of gas. Think about that as you drive your SUV and I zip along in my Kia getting 36MPG.

So someone wants to fly their helicopter to their business somewhere around the city. I don’t know if the particular location is appropriate. I have not checked it out myself. However, people should not be so quick to speak against it. One of the long time dreams of the future has been private aircraft that you can take home with you, if not land right by your house. Much hullabaloo has been made on the cable channels about the Moller Air Car. A car sized personal aircraft that uses brute force to move it along, much like the Hawker Harrier hovers. The problem, unlike a helicopter, is that loss of an engine means you descend with all the aerodynamics of a car! But the point is that people are working towards the goal of personal aviation that you take home.

Personal aircraft that you take home. You’d like to have something like that. Drive down highway 12 near Lake Geneva and you will see houses clustered around a runway. Here people can pull their plane out of their garage/hanger and fly away from the homes. The late Harry Quadracci had a helicopter that he’d take to his Pine Lake home. A person in Greenfield built a platform on his roof to land his helicopter until the local spoil-sports showed him that there really is no true freedom in this country. I knew a fellow that landed his Luscombe in a field behind the machine shop he worked at.

Usually the neighbors object to the noise. I doubt it is really that. For years now we have tolerated people taking the mufflers off their motorcycles and kids illegally modifying their pocket rockets and trucks so they can share the rumble and noise with the rest of the world. All the time the police “turn a deaf ear” to the problem.

So the complaint can’t really be about noise. Could it be jealousy? I know I am.