One of the latest trends in automotive technology is manufacturers adding Runflat (or extended life) tires as standard equipment on cars.  The theoretical advantages of the RF concept are great.   No need to include a spare tire saving space and weight.  This in turn gave an added advantage to fuel efficiency.   The safety advantages were also there.   If for any reason you blow a tire, you can just keep driving to the nearest safe place to get your tire repaired.  No need to stop and change a tire.  On the performance side, the advantage of a stiff sidewall include the very fast turn-in.  Meaning turning your steering wheel steered the car in that direction right away.  None of the turn was absorbed into the flex of the tire sidewall.   So we can see great advantages in this technology that would be of benefit to drivers.

 

The runflat technology is not without its problems.   For one, they are expensive.   Hence you only find them on premium (read more expensive) cars.   Not all tire dealers know how to deal with them.  The sidewalls are so much stiffer than regular tires, tire installers needed to get specialized equipment to mount and dismount them.   Due to possible litigation issues, your local car dealer will NOT fix runflat tires.   If anything happened, the tire needs to be replaced.  Usually in pairs.  Hence the expensive part of the equation factors in again.  Over time the cost should come down, like most high tech stuff.  However, there are some side effects to runflats that still need to be addressed.  

 

The runflat tires are more fragile.   They seem to be less resistant to puncture.  Fixing a puncture is also more complicated as you cannot simply plug the hole.  You need to dismount the tire and patch the leak from inside.   Also, the bead that holds the tire to the rim is susceptible to coming apart.  Particularly if you run on rough roads a lot.   This requires to tire to be remounted.   These are issues that I have come across myself.   Finally, with the advent of "traffic-calmed" neighborhoods, the speed bumps used by many places forces runflats to wear in an un-natural manner such that the thicker sidewall eventually separates from the tread.   This causes a sudden loss of air and the tire unrepairable. 

 

Another common complaint of runflat tires is the ride becomes harsh and noisy due to the stiff sidewalls.  This is not necessarily a problem as it also provides better road feel on what is happening on the road.   Runflat tires are also noticeable heavier than regular non-runflat tires. For those driving sportier cars, this means unsprung weight is rather high and it affects the handling of the car.  Not a big issue for most drivers, but an issue nonetheless.

 

So my conclusion is, though the concept of Runflat tires (others have their own copyrighted names for the same concept) propose a great solution to a rather common tire issue, they are not quite ready for prime-time yet.   Perhaps the technology will refine over the next few years.   For now, they are a rather expensive solution to a small problem and also introduces a few other issues on their own.

 

 

So we're into the tail end of August and I'm making fewer and fewer entries into this space.   I guess I should get my act together.   So in the months of July and August what have I done?  Not a lot. 

 

My friend Steve, who used to own and run a quaint little steak and seafood restaurant in downtown Vancouver called NY Grill opened a new restaurant in Richmond BC called LA Grill.  I kind of question why the name change as NY Grill had established itself a pretty good reputation and its regular customers would have been more than happy to cross the bridge(s) from Vancouver into Richmond just to visit and enjoy the usual good food.  Anyways, I'm sure Steve had good reason.  For those reading this and have never been to one of Steve's restaurants, we think he makes the world's best calamari.  His steaks are pretty good too.   Especially good value for money. 

 

...Linda, if you're reading this, it's time to build a website.

 

In case readers don't know, Linda is Steve's wife....or Steve is Linda's husband.   Linda is the person on my mind a lot of late because she is in a fight against cancer.   I continue to pray for her and wish her well.

 

In July, I also took pictures at a wedding.  I've been shooting weddings since I was in highschool.   I have taken pictures for at least one wedding every year since.   This year, I shot two weddings.  One of them didn't turn out all that well though a few shots were very good, I didn't think I did that well.   Sorry, John.  The reception in a building that was painted black inside does not lend well to good composition.  There were a few pictures I thought were pretty good, but I wouldn't say it was one of my good shoots.  

 

David and Lisa's wedding was different.  It was a Wiccan wedding...or handbinding.  Most of us know very little about the Wiccan religion other than to associate it with witchcraft.  So I went into this shoot wondering what was going to happen as well as having to do some research on what the Wiccans did and were all about.   Being a born again Christian, it was interesting to see the reaction of some of my Christian friends when I told them about this particular photo shoot.  As it turned out, I didn't become a warlock or a wiccan priest or anything like that and I certainly did not get brainwashed into abandoning my Christian faith.  In fact, I would hope that my conduct would bring somebody to think about what my faith meant and hopefully lead them to consider what Jesus dying on a cross might mean for them.  In anycase, the pictures turned out pretty good.  Initial reviews of pictures posted were very favorable and I was quite pleased with the results myself.  

 

Another thing that caught me by surprise was the idea of shooting pictures on film had become so obsolete to so many people.   There were a few people who came up to me asking me what I was doing using such "bad" equipment.   Yet the pictures on film were noticeably much nicer than those shot on digital cameras.   Capturing precise colors and moments of action on film was much easier.  However, I must say, being able to adjust pictures in photoshop is a great bonus.   This photoshoot, I tried something different in film processing.  I usually bring the film to a professional lab for developing and proofs.   I decided I might save David and Lisa a few bucks to just bring them to London Drugs.   LD did a good enough job for developing and pretty good for proofs, but when they choose the proper pictures for their album, I would still bring them back to G. King for enlargements and prints.   What surprised me we LD did not even know what a contact sheet was.  I always do a contact sheet to examine the negative.  But LD only knew how to do an "index card" which was a digitized sheet of shrunken pictures.   Which actually defeats the purpose of contact sheets.   So I still ended up taking the negatives back to G. King anyways.

 

So now we're into August and we did our annual camping trip at Beaver Lake Campground in Lake Cowichan BC on Vancouver Island.   Having recently gone through back surgery, we decided not to tent it this year and instead rented an RV.  That was pretty cushy.  It was like bringing your hotel along with you.  I got all sunburned, did some swimming, fishing and rowing (a rubber dinghy on a lake).  We didn't catch any fish, but the trout were jumping and were kinda hoping they would just jump into the boat.   The weather is kind of cool this year so it was surprising the lack of mosquitoes this year.   Also, it is the first year there wasn't fire ban so we were able to have a campfire and burn marshmallows every night.   So in a way, the cooler weather we've had here this year was a blessing.   After camping we were in Victoria just hanging around with my friend Park when we ran into another friend I hadn't seen in at least 10 years.  Peter and Rebecca.   The connection to this post is that Peter and Rebecca had meet take pictures at their wedding.   He was one of the first weddings I ever shot.  I also got to say hi to their kids....both of whom have graduated from university and working on their masters degrees.  It's been that long.

 

That's about it to report, other than the MINI got hit by another rock on the way home from work one day.   So it's on windshield number 5.

 

Thanks for reading.