The Native Iowan

An overcast, breezy, blanket worthy morning here in my valley. Yesterday was very hot, aircon’s were on most of the day. Today is nice, light, gentle.

I am moving slow… Came off the Segway the other day and landed on my head. And broke my glasses…

The Segway is an interesting beast in that it’s two wheels holding up the platform you stand on, via gyroscopic controls. So long as the machine is on and the gyroscopes are doing their merry gyroscopic duties, the platform you stand on remains horizontal, stable. The computer knows when life is cool and gives you a smiley face on the Info-Key. Once you make the little guy on the screen unhappy and his smile goes to a frown, beware! The gyros may shut off with little notification. You’ll hear a small beep-beep sound of alarm, then the whole circus thats holding you upright says adios. It shuts down. And the machine stops being cool…

and you relearn that Gravity Never Sleeps.

I was not going fast. (which is indeed deadly, coming off at speed hurts bad)

I upset the gods of gyros and went down over the handlebars and onto my head. The bump above my right eye tells me I went down forward and sideways. My glasses are broken at the right bow. I must have stuck my head with the glasses into the ground with enough force to rip the bow out of the glass.

I know that coming off the Segway is not good and what instincts my aged body still possesses must have helped… I remember hearing the evil little beep-beep, being tossed off then rolling and getting to my feet pretty quickly. Within a second or two. It do happen quickly.

Have a bruise on my left ribcage where I probably hit the handlebars. My neck is sore. No doubt have a low level concussion.

Not bad for an old fart, eh?

What’s the most common thing one hears before the death of a Hemmer-Hillbilly? “Watch this!”

What’s the 2nd most common thing one hears before the death of a Hemmer-Hillbilly? “I can do that too!”

Yesterday Paul and all his girls came over for breakfast with a serve of vroom. 7 and 9 yr old Nova and G.G. took the older girls for rides. Nova is a terror and scared the shit out of Leloa. Kande liked the vroom and eventually took the 250 Raptor out, and rolled it… Now these little quad-bikes are dangerous… dangerous fast and dangerously unstable. They roll very easy. And thats what Kande found out.

She was hooting along pretty quick for 1st gear only. Her first time on such a machine so Paul got her rolling with the throttle being her only control. She had yet to learn brakes or gears so, hell yes, a good time to roll the machine.

I saw her take a corner but dump the front right wheel over small embankment. Both machine and rider cartwheeled through the air. I saw a boot and the helmet fly off the rider. I watched as the quad bounced on and over her. Very much like a cartoon…

I arrived in time to see the panic fading from her eyes. She was assessing herself and finding nothing majorly wrong, The adrenaline was dumping, the fear slowly replaced by a humorous embarrassment. And a rush. A rush of “gee, dancing on the razor’s edge is fun”…

Leloa was complaining about not having a camera during the “good stuff”.

And the beat goes on… The Dawgs are happy.

More later