# tblComments

Comments:
Your site is realy very interesting. http://www.bignews.com


# tblJournal

Journal_item:
> James' New Wheels - A Tale of the Glide

*****
Monday, February 17, 2003




It's been nice to read the excitement of others who are scheduling training. I know my time will come. We've all been fidgetting with anticipation for months. 

My family and I spent this weekend at my brother's house and our kids (six in all including 2 sets of twins) had a valentines party. The kids got to open their little product advertising postage stamp sized valentines. Harry Potter is extremely popular with our brude. 

Upon a detailed inspection of the Harry Potter valentines, I found one that made me cringe. There was one that had Harry and Ron in the car that was made to fly. In the top right inside corner of the valentine was printed something to this effect. 

The Ford Anglia is a registered product of Ford Motor Company.

Why Ford motor company feels that it's necessary to point out to American children that the Anglia is one of their products on a valentine seems assinine to me. Does Ford sell Anglia's to the U.S. market? They are compact and undoubtedly use less gas than the cars Ford pushes in the U.S. The fact that they had to point this out on children valentines is ridiculous. Some corporate lawyer out there somewhere said they had to have it, but what about the marketing and PR staff.

Perhaps I have an e-mail from Segway at home. Probably not yet. 




*****

Tuesday, February 11, 2003




Welcome to my Segway blog. I don't have any expectation that any of my random chronological posts will be of any interest to anyone other than myself. However, I need to keep in mind some of the trolls I ran across at the "Other Site". I grew up walking and riding my bike and have always loathed driving a car. Shortly entering the 4th grade, my family moved to R.A.F. Lakenheath where I graduated from high school. I didn't have full time use of a car until my Sophmore year in college. I promptly found how to get in trouble with a car. No vehicular homicide or anything like that. 

Anyway, I started following the Segway just before the GMA unveiling. At that time a co-worker and I were trying to imagine what it would be like to ride one. [Do you ride or drive one?] I guess you drive one, since you're not "just along for the ride". During one of our speculation sessions on how the Segway was going to change transportation, I meditated and thought I felt the glide. Perhaps not. Since I've ordered one, only time will tell. 

Seattle gains "social capital" everytime one of these little greetings occurs. It's like holding a door for a stranger or nodding to a passerby. Every little contact makes people feel more secure about their surroundings and everyone starts looking out for eachother. It's called a civil society and getting out of your car goes along way. The law or reciprocity. What goes around comes around. It's like that recent car commercial where people on the block start picking things up, holding doors, smiling, ect.... I think it's ironic that a car commercial would portray this. Of course the driver of the car is not one of the people on the block. 

Random observations of a mad man. This belongs on the blog.

Read "Bowling Alone" by Robert Putman 

or

"The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs.



*****
"Any town that doesn't have sidewalks doesn't love its children."
- Margaret Mead


Journal_item:
I received my "pay the balance" e-mail today.  While the e-mail itself is straight forward, the timing threw me.  I don't want to read too much into this, but I ordered by Segway after the first of the year.  I figured that it would take a month or two before I heard anything from Segway.  Of course, maybe there's a long line of people who have paid and are waiting for training.  Maybe the first available training will not be for awhile.  I'm hoping this is the case, because I want Segway to succeed and the farther back in the line I am the better the success for Segway.  I find it interesting that no one has indicated that they have a print numbered greater than 3000.  

My brother and I plan on attending a training either in Denver, Dallas or Chicago.  I'll know soon enough.


Journal_item:
Well, I got off the phone with Barbara at Segway a few minutes ago.  I've got my order number and am awaiting the training link e-mail.  I can see where this "hurry up and wait" game can make some folks anxious.  I tell myself "sit back, relax and take in the history being made".  At least I hope that's what I'm watching unfold around the world.  Hopefully the seeds will blossom.  

I am disappointed with some of my fellow land use planners.  I frequent a planners message board where I've been keeping others in the field updated with links to interesting articles about Segway.  Sadly, the planners (or supposed planners) who reply to the thread can't look beyond the supposed "mortal threat to pedestrians".  Oddly enough, if these people would look around, they'd realize that there aren't very many pedestrians out there to worry about.  Pedestrians only thick in the downtowns of our largest cities.  Out in suburbia and small towns, no one walks.  Who are they worried about?  I bet more pedestrians get seriously hurt by cars than any other vehicle.  

I tried to shift the discussion to one of costs and benefits to widespread Segway use.  However, not suprisingly once I put a question forward that requires the planner to envision change, they lock up on the pedestrian question.  I hope these individuals aren't presentative of the local government planner population.  When my Segway arrives, I'll be giving demos to every City Council in the state.


Journal_item:
I scheduled my training for April 5th in Chicago.  My brother and I will attend the training and head out for a city on the town.  I also think that there may be a baseball game in town.  Being close to opening day, I imagine tickets will be hard to get.  We'll see.  This will be my first trip to downtown Chicago and I look forward to being in the belly of the urban beast.

I attended the Leavenworth City Planning Commission on Monday night and have a couple of impressions.  I attended for three reasons.  First, land use planning is my profession and I wanted to see how the local's handle their meetings.  Second, I like to know what new development activity is occuring where I live.  Third, get a sense of what they will think when I wheel in on my Segway.  My impressions !!!  The Planning Commission is stagnent.  There are 8 members, 7 of which are white men over 50.  Their decisions did not include a finding of fact, so they are extremely vulnerable to legal claims of arbitrary decisions not based on rational reasons reflected in the official record.  Their parlimentary procedure was very good, however, they need to reorder their public hearing to allow the applicant to speak prior to the general public and then allow the applicant a rebuttal after the general public speak.  The agenda did not include instructions for the public concerning the public hearing process and the oral staff report was of little use those in the gallery.  There was very little use of visual aids.

I think I'll approach city staff and the LPD with my Segway use prior to providing demos to local appointed and elected officials.  The folks in Salina, particularly at the County, have asked me on a couple of different occassions when I'll be paying them a visit on my Segway.  Know I can tell them the 2nd or 3rd week in April.


Journal_item:
I became just one step closer to being a Segway owner on Friday (3-7-03) when my training packet arrived.  I watched the video twice with my wife.  At one point during the video my wife said, "I thought it couldn't fall over".  I wonder how many other people have this misconception.  She's trying not to act excited, but I think she has an inner need to know what all the hubub is about.  My brother is excited.  He's a college professor and I plan on letting him borrow it in the spring so he can go to and get around campus on it.  To be honest, he will probably replace more car trips than I will in the short run.

I read an interesting article about the two urban planning students at the Catholic University of America who did their thesis on the way Segway may transform the urban landscape.  One of there professors remarked on how these students were thinking outside the box and had bright futures ahead of them.  So there is hope for some in my field.  Give them a few years in local government and we'll see if the political process can beat the creativity out of them.


Journal_item:
Since I last wrote, my mind has been focused, as many of our minds are, on the War in Iraq.  I don't want to expand on the war topic, but like many in this country and around the globe, I have mixed feelings.

I have been sharing my impending purchase with numerous friends and family.  My brother is excited about the training in two weeks and a slew of friends, co-workers and former co-workers are looking forward to demos.  I e-mailed a planner in San Diego about his recent Segway purchase and in a brief volley of e-mails we conceived that linking transportation and housing to limit parking could be achieved by marketing condos, townhouses and apartments with Segways as part of the residential purchase or lease.  Especially near transit stations and employment centers.  The planner in San Diego works directly with real estate investors, so perhaps he can promote the concept.


Journal_item:
Well, I finally got to ride one.  My brother and I had a planes, trains and automobiles adventure from Kansas City to Northbrook, Ill. for training.  It started with a 6:30 flight that didn't leave KC until 9:00.  There was a bad electrical storm in the Chicago area.  When we did land at O'Hara, we sat in the plane for an hour until a gate was open for us to deplane at.  Thank goodness we traveled light.  We'll we decided to take the train into the downtown and then north to Northbrook.  Well, the trains were not running to the north at midnight on Friday evening.  So we ended up taking an expensive cab ride.  Our cabbie had to stop to review the map occasionally.  When we did get to the hotel around 1:30 a.m., there was someone taking their time check in, so we spent sometime behind him.  At least the elevator and room key worked.  My head was on the pillow at 2:00 a.m. with dreams of gyro balancing in my head.


