Friday, January 7, 2011

Future Bubble Car

Many car designers are convinced that radical change in vehicle technology will be needed to overcrowded megacities in the future. In 2030, over 60% of the world population will live in cities, against 50% today, and many of them will be able to buy a car. The need to reduce emissions, an acute shortage of land for roads and parking, and the prospect of laws limiting the classic cars at any point the idea that different types and small vehicles will be in demand. In this spirit, some of these designers that come with things that looks much like a vehicle that was familiar to more than 50 years. Welcome to the return of the bubble car.

Bubble cars were built for personal transportation affordable. Most were two seats with only three wheels. They became especially popular when fuel prices soared in 1956 during the Suez crisis. One of the first was made in Italy Iso Isetta. Germany has been a prolific builder, too. Messerschmitt and Heinkel, banned from practicing their profession in the previous construct military aircraft turned to the cars of bubbles as an alternative in time of peace. BMW, meanwhile, changed the Isetta to use an engine of his motorbike.

modes higher revenues, lower fuel prices and changes made to the original bubble cars, but the idea seems ripe for revival, and three new versions, known as A-Vs (for devices electric-vehicle network), exciting the crowd at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. They can operate normally or operated independently, with their residents to do something else while the cars will automatically avoid hitting each other. They can also be summoned for their parking using a mobile phone. And instead of being driven by a gasoline engine smoked a little, they are powered electrically. What is most exciting is that the balance on two wheels.

The three FR-V, each with a different body shape, were built by an alliance between General Motors (GM), a U.S. company, and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, one of the largest automakers in China. The balancing system with two wheels on the use of cars has been developed by Segway, a company that makes personal transport devices used by police, postal workers and people who need to slide around large business campus (and whose owner, Jimi Heselden, was killed Sept. 27, while riding one of the devices in the company on a cliff).

Thursday, January 6, 2011

A New Chapter in God’s Book

We started off the New Year my favorite way with Gabby’s birthday being the first order of business.  I think of the years before we had her we often slept through the night not even greeting the new year until we got up the next day…my, how things have changed!  Now I find that I look forward to the New Year more than I used to.  Many get retrospective with the years end but I find myself far more eager to press ahead.  The past is merely a stepping stone to the future!

 

The future can’t be grasped fully without an understanding of the past.  That being said I’m reminded of the strange dishes I’ve tasted abroad.  Even trying things like the above dish of peanut butter soup and grass cutter rat would seem daunting…I admit it, I was daunted too however in tasting it I found it to be something far more wonderful then I would have dared hope!  Willingness to push your limits is a requirement if you want to see reward come.  I think of a song my mom wrote called “Great Victories”.  That song talks about how you can only have great victories by having a great battle…how true that is!  We had to break a mold to go to Ghana in the first place but because a brave group of ladies led by my mom tried something we had never dared to try before we were so blessed later on.  Because of that 20 years later I stood with my family meeting the son of the man I’ve grown to consider my brother.  Seeing Lovely with Julian filled me with a very real joybecause I felt like I was seeing the future through my camera lens here.  Here were people from two entirely different nations and cultures standing together and facing a bright future togetherand I knew it was speaking of even better things to come. 

 

We finally had some time to visit a botanical garden in Ghana.  We had to go some distance above Accra to get there.  We stopped at one point and looked down in the valley where the city stood.  It was a good way to try and forget the intense heat.  One thing I love about the tropics is the extraordinary flowers there are .  I’m not expert on plants…for all I know these are in America but surely not in Montana!  Just look at these spear shaped and red edged leaves!  Glorious greens and yellows give me hope in this wintery white world we’re in right now.  Ah yes, I remember what green looks like now!  Surely this is tropical paradise!  Everyone takes pictures of the top of palms but I found there to be a beauty in the roots too!  Ancient trees looked down on the present with a majestic flare.  Just look at the base of this monster tree!  Many of you have shown pictures of your chickens…this African rooster knew who ruled the forest…at least in his mind!  The largest tree trunk had a spiny protection unlike anything I’ve ever seen before..would you care to hug this tree?!?  It’s hard to grasp just how huge these trees were from a picturebut remember we were with a large team of people and this group shot was taken at the base of one of these trees so this may give some perspective. Some trees weren’t just amazing for their height but their width!  This tree was carved from top to bottom!  Orchids were everywhere…this one was unlike any I’ve seen in the pastand this while not an orchid was beautiful none the less!  We have centipedes and maybe millipedes but this one was well over six inches long !  Look a water balloon tree!  Okay, I actually have no idea what kind of tree this is!  Ever seen a cinnamon tree?  Well, now you have!  The bark was so aromatic…even the leaves smelled like cinnamon!  The military landed a helicopter in the garden years ago and the jungle is slowly claiming it for it’s own .  This little beauty peaked out at us as we continued down the path!  There are palms and then there are palms!  These growths in the tree looked like giant pinecones or maybe that’s what I’m used to seeing here in my home state.  Mom’s ankle was bothering her some at this point so as she stopped to restI thought I’d get a closer look at the pinecone type growths…I’ve never seen anything like this!  They were at least 12 inches long!  Soon other flowers grabbed my attention .  If I lived here I’d try to have these in my garden…I wonder if they’d survive my black thumb.  Well, that’s about it for now, Hope this warms the cold wherever you are and remember:  spring really is on the way!