Genius Idea

Sometimes I get the best ideas, but I rarely follow through on them.
This morning as I was running in the dark, I came up with another one.
I run in the street because it's less likely to be uneven and trip me up like the sidewalk does, plus the asphalt is better for my knees and joints than the concrete.
I run against the traffic so I can see those few cars that might be headed my way in my small town at 5:30 in the morning. I consider it my responsibility to get out of the road if a car is coming and it doesn't see me or can't get over.
As I turned onto a street with very few streetlights, I realized cars might not see me since I don't wear any lights. I have reflectors on my water belt and my shoes and my hat, but if a car doesn't have its lights on, it might not see me.
If a car didn't have its lights on, I would hear it, I reassured myself.
Aha, but what if it's an electric car, you can't hear those, the annoying, worrying voice in my head responded.
That is a problem that people have been working on: how to make electric cars louder so the vision impaired, or runners in the dark, aren't surprised by them.
That's when I came up with the genius idea. The tires have to go around for the car to move.
When I was a kid, we had these great plastic straws that went on the tire spokes of our bikes and made the best t-t-t-t-t-t- noise as the wheels rolled down the street. That's just what we need on electric cars.
Here's a photo from Yellow Dog Racing to illustrate the way the tires look.

I think these kinds of colorful accoutrements will spice up the electric car images too.

Our Darkest Hour

Well, it's our darkest hour, not in the sense of doom and gloom, just in the sense of how much light we have.
Today is officially the winter solstice -- the day we have the fewest hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere. Good thing all those Christmas lights are turned on.
Some people dread the coming months of winter as the holiday season ends and the long, shrill month of January begins. Then February, the shortest month of all, seems to last forever as gray days drag on.
Both those things are true about January and February, but what is also true is that each morning, the sun peeks above the horizon a little earlier, and each evening it lingers in the western sky a few minutes longer -- starting now!
This is the shortest day of the year.
Okay, it's a small hope to hold onto, but if it helps me survive the winter while rejoicing in each extra moment of daylight then so be it.
Enjoy your winter solstice and the coming extra minutes of daylight.