geodeticman.5
08-12-2008, 03:21 AM
Small talk to be sure, but that feeling is creeping up on me tonight, for the first evening this month.
In the hottest blazing days of summer here in Colorado, non-permanent snowfields up on the Divide melted if they are going to completely; glaciers intact, and *fall* is in the air tonight here, out of nowhere. Its too soon of course, but you how that first day, or evening feels, smells, temperature changes subtly or significantly.
It is noteably cooler tonight at 6200 feet in Castle Rock. That is not high for Colorado; over 2/3 of the state is over 10,000 feet in elevation, little-known fact even to Coloradoans. 6200 feet is only one-thousand feet higher 20 minutes up out of Denver - thank God for that fact - pollution, traffic, etc.
Those factors, in what was our sleepy little story book town where, when my wife and daughter and I moved here in '96, Mamie transitioning from junior-high (its not "junior-high. Dad.......its MIDDLE SCHOOL oops OK honey) to middle school at the time, have grown more big city-like in bursting-at-the-seams subdivisions, a gazillion new restaurants, hotels, ....and believe it or not, our first real MOVIE "thee-ate-er" lol. Thats how small it was. Now we are in the second fastest growing County in the Nation. Our sleepy little burg is a burgeoning bedroom-community to Denver, much like Evergreen.
Now, the High-school kids go to the 12-movie cineplex in town, self-consciously brandishing the ubiquitous cellphones, and "beeper" car-lock remotes to what neither I, nor my friends at their age would EVER have had - a new car, or near new- rotated out of dual-income Mom-and Dad's 2 -3 year car ownership optimum resale or trade-in frequency, whatever it is now, totally foriegn concept to me.
I buy a new car, and drive it with increasing cost effectiveness, noting with Scottish satisfaction as it goes from $500/yr to license, down to $20 when it gets 130,000 miles on it. 3 new Subaru Legacy's back to back, 4 actually if i count Merrry's little 4wd mini -Justy, the only 4wd, automatic, air-conditioned car ever sold for $10,000 to my knowledge - with a lot of chiseling on my part down from 13,000 msrp lol. That car had an almost "first" in it - an electronic, continuously variable automatic transmission in it- the "ECVT" it was called, wierd... you could hold it steady at 3,500 rpm, from 0 - 75 mph, and never change the engine speed if you chose. Merry never could drive a stick, ......
Now I notice the ECVT being touted as revolutionary in Infinity's, Mercedes, Lexus', et al, as being "new" ... snicker. The very first. and only other CVT before the Justy was the Get-Smart TV series little red convertable sports-car he drove - it was a Sunbeam Alpine, and its dirth was the CVT that had a rubber-belt that wore out at 25,000 miles, whereas the Justy - quite clever - had only three moving parts - versus the modern automatic transmission averaging almost 300 parts in it.
The Justy would have two metal cones, one inside the other, opposed to one-another sliding in and out, thus provding varying radii for the electro-magnetically charged steel chain that would slide with the cones to change "infinite gears" - no thud or thunk or a sense of gears chaging at all, very ingenieous.
Well, off of my subject I was, most Coloradoans have the requisite SUV, 99% of which have never been off of pavement, at least off-road per se . But there are about 3-days a winter "they" say that in Colorado, down in the city, you are *real* glad to have 4wd. Of course, up in the mountains, like my High School home-town, at almost 9000 feet, 4wd is a way of life - and quite necessary.
Mamie inherited our first Sube Legacy 4wd, and had her first - thank God - only accident in it. I sadly said good-by to that car, the family wagon, stickers and all, which had faithfullly carried the whole tribe to Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Trail Ridge, Pike's Peak, countless summer vacations as she grew up, rubber-tomahawk in hand from the fake Indian trading posts....Mamie and us loved those years...so many memories....the car NEVER failed us from new to its untimely death at 130,000 miles when Mamie successfully negotiated a sharp cutoff concrete abrupt shoulder into soft-fill berm, and fish-tailed back onto the road, experiencing the common fish-tail increasingly getting out of hand until she hit the concrete delimiter in the median.... and landed sideways in the car, thankfully not injured. Now 26 and married.
Wow....
Well, more rambling, more subjects than I intended, but you guys know by now to expct that from me.... main thing is.... are you feeling...smelling...detecting..any first hints of fall in your neck of the woods ? Even when we do, in Colorado, we will have a spectacular Indian Summer in September - October - the best hiking months of the year - if you dont; mind waking up to 4" snow outside your tent, when it was 75 dgrees the day before......Thoughts ?
~geo steve
In the hottest blazing days of summer here in Colorado, non-permanent snowfields up on the Divide melted if they are going to completely; glaciers intact, and *fall* is in the air tonight here, out of nowhere. Its too soon of course, but you how that first day, or evening feels, smells, temperature changes subtly or significantly.
It is noteably cooler tonight at 6200 feet in Castle Rock. That is not high for Colorado; over 2/3 of the state is over 10,000 feet in elevation, little-known fact even to Coloradoans. 6200 feet is only one-thousand feet higher 20 minutes up out of Denver - thank God for that fact - pollution, traffic, etc.
Those factors, in what was our sleepy little story book town where, when my wife and daughter and I moved here in '96, Mamie transitioning from junior-high (its not "junior-high. Dad.......its MIDDLE SCHOOL oops OK honey) to middle school at the time, have grown more big city-like in bursting-at-the-seams subdivisions, a gazillion new restaurants, hotels, ....and believe it or not, our first real MOVIE "thee-ate-er" lol. Thats how small it was. Now we are in the second fastest growing County in the Nation. Our sleepy little burg is a burgeoning bedroom-community to Denver, much like Evergreen.
Now, the High-school kids go to the 12-movie cineplex in town, self-consciously brandishing the ubiquitous cellphones, and "beeper" car-lock remotes to what neither I, nor my friends at their age would EVER have had - a new car, or near new- rotated out of dual-income Mom-and Dad's 2 -3 year car ownership optimum resale or trade-in frequency, whatever it is now, totally foriegn concept to me.
I buy a new car, and drive it with increasing cost effectiveness, noting with Scottish satisfaction as it goes from $500/yr to license, down to $20 when it gets 130,000 miles on it. 3 new Subaru Legacy's back to back, 4 actually if i count Merrry's little 4wd mini -Justy, the only 4wd, automatic, air-conditioned car ever sold for $10,000 to my knowledge - with a lot of chiseling on my part down from 13,000 msrp lol. That car had an almost "first" in it - an electronic, continuously variable automatic transmission in it- the "ECVT" it was called, wierd... you could hold it steady at 3,500 rpm, from 0 - 75 mph, and never change the engine speed if you chose. Merry never could drive a stick, ......
Now I notice the ECVT being touted as revolutionary in Infinity's, Mercedes, Lexus', et al, as being "new" ... snicker. The very first. and only other CVT before the Justy was the Get-Smart TV series little red convertable sports-car he drove - it was a Sunbeam Alpine, and its dirth was the CVT that had a rubber-belt that wore out at 25,000 miles, whereas the Justy - quite clever - had only three moving parts - versus the modern automatic transmission averaging almost 300 parts in it.
The Justy would have two metal cones, one inside the other, opposed to one-another sliding in and out, thus provding varying radii for the electro-magnetically charged steel chain that would slide with the cones to change "infinite gears" - no thud or thunk or a sense of gears chaging at all, very ingenieous.
Well, off of my subject I was, most Coloradoans have the requisite SUV, 99% of which have never been off of pavement, at least off-road per se . But there are about 3-days a winter "they" say that in Colorado, down in the city, you are *real* glad to have 4wd. Of course, up in the mountains, like my High School home-town, at almost 9000 feet, 4wd is a way of life - and quite necessary.
Mamie inherited our first Sube Legacy 4wd, and had her first - thank God - only accident in it. I sadly said good-by to that car, the family wagon, stickers and all, which had faithfullly carried the whole tribe to Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Trail Ridge, Pike's Peak, countless summer vacations as she grew up, rubber-tomahawk in hand from the fake Indian trading posts....Mamie and us loved those years...so many memories....the car NEVER failed us from new to its untimely death at 130,000 miles when Mamie successfully negotiated a sharp cutoff concrete abrupt shoulder into soft-fill berm, and fish-tailed back onto the road, experiencing the common fish-tail increasingly getting out of hand until she hit the concrete delimiter in the median.... and landed sideways in the car, thankfully not injured. Now 26 and married.
Wow....
Well, more rambling, more subjects than I intended, but you guys know by now to expct that from me.... main thing is.... are you feeling...smelling...detecting..any first hints of fall in your neck of the woods ? Even when we do, in Colorado, we will have a spectacular Indian Summer in September - October - the best hiking months of the year - if you dont; mind waking up to 4" snow outside your tent, when it was 75 dgrees the day before......Thoughts ?
~geo steve