October | 2014 | Steve Tilford

Yesterday, Bill, Trudi and I packed up and made the 10 hour drive from Cable back to Topeka. Bill had spent over a month up there and it was just time to get moving. I texted my guy Burt, at Rebound Physical Therapy and he got me in at 7:45 for an appointment this morning, he’s taking off for a physical therapy conference in Las Vegas this afternoon. It was a little harsh considering how late we got back last night.

Burt took a few measurements, etc. and then showed me some exercises to do. He said that he could get rid of my limp in probably 6 weeks. Huh? I figured it would be 6 days. Sometimes I hardly limp at all. Anyway, I’m going to try to stick to the regiment and do exactly as he says.

I know that I’m just 16 weeks out from surgery for a broken hip and that I shouldn’t be so much in a rush, but it seems like this thing is just dragging on and on. I guess I could just be like Andy Schleck and quit racing. Not likely.

I don’t have the exact numbers, but as of yesterday morning, something like 140 people had already filled out the survey for a broken hip from cycling. That is out of 4500 people who went to my website on Tuesday. That is an unbelievable number, something like 3% of the people who visited. Doesn’t that seem insane? I knew that breaking hips in cycling was prevalent, because of the number of emails I received after I broke mine, but nothing as high as 3% of people coming here. Add collarbones to that and it seems like a pretty dangerous sport.

It is supposed to rain for the next three days here in Topeka, so I’m going to try to catch up with all the stuff I haven’t done the past month or two. I have no idea whether I’m going to be able to even participate in cyclocross this season, so I can’t really plan that far ahead.

The leaves are still green here and it seems so much more like summer here than up in Northern Wisconsin. A little reprieve. I never really experienced a true summer, so having a real fall will be nice. Anyone see the total eclipse of the moon yesterday morning? Pretty cool.

The lunar eclipse.

Back to Rebound Therapy.

I love the place, but the paper work involved in all medical care is just plain stupid.

I got up pretty early, at least early for me, this morning and have been listening to NPR as I’ve been trying to wake up. I just heard a segment about the Ogallala Aquifer and how it is going to be irreversibly drained in the next 50 years if we don’t slow down pulling water out of it at the rates we are.

The Ogallala Aquifer supplies 30% of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. But the tap isn’t going to run forever.

And one of the main reasons that we are using some much water is to grow corn in Western Kansas to use to make ethanol. I guess the federal government mandates ethanol in our gasoline, probably to support corn prices, but whatever the reason, we grow it where we don’t have enough rain.

So, instead of growing wheat, which doesn’t need 14 inches of water per season to grow like corn, our farmers are planting corn and using lots of water.

This whole thing is very short-sighted. It reminds me of the draining of Lake Travis, outside Austin, to sell water to rice farmers downstream. Growing rice in drought stricken Texas is just stupid. I remember reading that the city of Wichita Falls, Texas, is going to start using toilet water to drink. Here is a link to that.

But, the Ogallala Aquifer is a lot more important than one lake in Texas. It supplies water to pretty much the whole central US. Water for crops and water for the cities. There are some places where the Aquifer is empty. It says here that is will take 6000 years to naturally refill it with rainfall. That is pretty long.

I know our farmers have been using water for a long time. But, it is time that they get up to speed and start growing crops that can grow on their own, with the rainfall where the crops are planted.

We don’t have the luxury to be pumping water out of the ground so we can drive our automobiles with less emissions.

This water thing is going to be a huge problem worldwide in our lifetimes. I think that wars will be fought over it. It seems like this is something, we as a society, have our government to watch out for us. It doesn’t seem like they are doing a very good job. I really don’t understand politics.

Steve Tilford

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Monthly Archives: October 2014

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Using Water to Make Fuel for Our Cars