Lay day?

It was pretty windy today and I seriously considered the corollary of the Auckland Rule, the one related to the sport that has brought international attention to Auckland, yacht racing. In yacht racing if you don't want to race today you can take a "lay day".

Well, it was pretty windy today (didn't I already say that?) and I really wanted to take a lay day. I checked the bike log and I had ridden eight days in a row, nearly 200 miles. But the TV and internet weather forecasters are pretty unanimous that tomorrow the weather gods will provide a day off (prediction of morning showers developing into a steady rain). When you really, really need a day off, the weather gods give you one. Today was not a weather day off. I rode my bicycle for a ninth straight day.

Here is a photo of the skyline presented by the State Fairgrounds.Visible on the horizon are the three big spikes into the atmosphere presented by the Fair. They are the Fair water tower (yes, I have ridden to that water tower numerous times), the "Space Tower" and the turbine blade.

There is a lot of talk here about wind power and who doesn't want to be green? But that turbine blade is only one blade and it is anchored to the ground. An actual turbine will have blades anchored to a central hub. The central hub will be at a distance above the trees higher than the top of that single blade. The whole thing will be more than twice the size of that single blade. Who doesn't want to be green but those things are not going to disappear into the background scenery.

Wind power proposals are now being floated in the south suburbs which would result in actual turbines in actual people's actual back yards. These citizens are now being faced with the reality of what a turbine in their backyards will do to their personal environments. We are quickly finding out just exactly who DOES want to be truly green. It turns out that most people don't want a turbine in their backyard.