Time For A New Amendment!

It is time for our country to adopt a new right to add to our bill of rights.

"Owning a hybrid car of any size or shape does not grant special rights"

At work, there is a new sign near the front of the lot even closer than the handicap spaces that says, "Fuel Efficient Vehicle Parking Only".

Perhaps my amendment is wrong...let me explain.

A friend of mine from work decided last year to take advantage of the "trade your gas guzzler" promotion and bought the 2nd most fuel efficient Chevy available. He decided to park in the new spots. He was informed that it is for Hybrid vehicles only. Ahem....the sign does not say that!!

While I am very opposed to any special treatment for vehicles or car owners of any type (except handicapped individuals), I am more maddened by the position of superiority taken by these hybrid owners. Where will they be parking when we realize the decomposing batteries are more of a hazard than our fuel burners to the environment? But I digress...

I think my buddy has every right to park there so long as the signs say what they say. In theory, I could buy a hybrid Escalade (22 city/21 hwy) and park in the special spots when he cannot in his Malibu (22 city/30 hwy) which as you see does as good in the city but way better on the highway in mileage.

Better yet, I think I will go out and buy a hybrid decal for my 2001 F150 Supercrew (13 city/16 hwy) and park there. That might be the best idea yet!

The bottom line is that if you have a hybrid, you should be energy conscious enough to want to park as close to the exit as possible. That is where those people should park. Those of us with trucks need to park close, driving as much as possible since we obviously do not care and therefore are of a lower class. Let us park up front and make an example of us. Maybe we'll change our ways and go buy a hybrid or a stupid car. Then again....probably not.

Newest Bunch of BS

At work, Spiffy and I were coming back from lunch in my truck. My F-150 Supercrew, 5.4L Triton V8 with 222,000 miles on it. The truck facts have NOTHING to do with the story but it is impressive nonetheless.

He asked if I had seen the new parking signs up front for "Fuel Efficient Vehicles Only".

WTF? Are we serious?

I am OK with front parking for pregnant ladies.....take out at restaurants, etc. But fuel efficient vehicles? Is this a new class system we have? What is next? Daughters cannot marry a man because he drives a non fuel efficient truck?

The word that comes to mind when I think of stupid BS like this does rhyme with truck.

The way I see it, they should put the fuel efficient spots near the back of the lot. People like me need the front spots saved for us because if we do not find a close spot right away, we drive around until we find one which further creates emissions and wasted fuel. My carbon footprint only grows because of their hasty decision to play favorites to the wind-up cars.

We'll see who is the favorite in 20 years when my truck has been 100% recylcled and their batteries are polluting the landfills. From then on, it is front row....movie star parking for me and my truck!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time...

I think this is the story of my life. Now, this is not a situation where I am just whining ... ok, maybe a little - because I am pretty happy with my life. Just when I sit back and look at what bugs me, it is because the place I live, the job I do, etc etc etc are impacting what I have.

I'll say it again, I am very fortunate - but look at a few of these things.

• If gas goes up, it goes up in my neighborhood when others don't.
• If gas is cheap somewhere like now in the north metro ($3.28), my area is still $3.49 or more
• When the hailstorm hit New Richmond in May - everyone got a free roof in my neighborhood. Mine only has "marginal" damage which means it will not need replacing until after this winter's snow and ice when it is not covered by the hail event (and my roof is roughly 48 square a.k.a. big and expensive)
• At the casino, the guy next to me wins the Royal Flush
• At the liquor store in MPLS (years ago) - my truck was the one sprayed with bullets in the drive by shooting.
• When other people's friends get married, it is across town or maybe Jamaica. When my friends get married, it is in Regina or Saskatoon.

Yeah, its all minor. After enough of these things you start to feel like John Candy in Summer Rental - where you'd like to win just once.

Oh well, life is good anyway.

We Finally Did It! Oh Goody.

It....it is a wide open thing. What did we do? Furthermore, who are "we"? Why is IT so important anyway? Do we really care? These answers and more await you below...


IT is $100 a barrell for oil.
IT is bullshit.
IT had to happen because someone said IT would.
IT better not stay there.

Oh what a way to kick off 2008. "OIL HITS ALL TIME HIGH! $100 A BARRELL!" Meanwhile, oil companies are making MORE than ever before. Yeah, I know you have read my rant here before. I am sure you are sick of it. Me too. IT just bugs the hell out of me that the big oil companies will post the biggest profits of their history while we pay more than $3 a gallon for gas.

The funny thing is that I don't recall what triggered this. A civil war in a country of 150,000 people? A flood in a small town that has a small refinery in Uganda? George Bush admitted he is an idoit? What was IT that caused IT this time?

Listen up. I am talking to you losers that "predict" these things. Shut the hell up. Don't predict something. THEY think they need to make IT happen when you do. You know who you are. Go crawl back into your hole. Leave me and my economy alone.

Who Has Gas?

Yes, second post today. I wanted to post about New Richmond living and I wanted to post about this and the two just don't go together.

Our van. Broken gas gauge for nearly 2 years. $5o0 to fix. No need! I can just track my mileage on the odometer and fill when it gets to the limit, right? That plan has worked flawlessly.

Based on worst case scenario mileage, I can go 400 miles. I have pushed it to 420 and still had almost a gallon in the tank when I filled. Today, I left home with 368 miles on the tank.

"I can make Burkhardt". Yes, there is a BP that I can see from my house but their pumps are slow. The Cenex in Burkhardt has FAST pumps. I will get $10 there and fill in Woodbury to avoid WI gas tax which is higher than MN. (Currently, $2.84 in MN and $2.99 in WI).

I turned the corner, almost to the station and the car started to stutter. NO. Must be my imagination.

CRAP! I am running out and I just used the brake on that corner back there! I coasted as far as I could.

BAD NEWS: Did not make the station.
GOOD NEWS: Less the 1/2 mile from the station.

Now, I have always been the guy to laugh at the schmuck carrying the gas can down the road. WHAT A LOSER! WHO RUNS OUT OF GAS? Sheesh!

News flash. I do. I am that loser.

I bought my gallon, had to face at least 100,000 cars on my humiliation walk back to the van where Jessa sat under a blanket knitting.

Why did it run out less than 400 miles? Winter. Warm up time. Idling in the driveway. Does not add miles to the odometer. That's how.

So call me names. I ran out of gas. I am a dumb ass.

What Gives Me Gas

Did you really think I was posting about that? Maybe some other time....

Some of you that knew about my other short lived and rarely posted on blog may remember a post about gas prices. As we sit here on 11/7 and gas prices are back over $3.00, I find my patience on fumes once again.

Reasons our gas prices go up...

1. Forecasts of tropical storms (not actual storms...just the mere threat)
2. A small refinery in Kansas was flooded.
3. A pipeline in Yemen was hit by a bomb
4. Nigeria might have a civil war.
5. Bombings in Afghanistan.
6. Lyle rented a motorhome for a 5,000 mile trip.
7. A car in Arkansas was found to have missed a tune-up and is getting less miles per gallon than it should.
8. Britney Spears was in the news again.
9. Someone thinks US supplies of oil are getting low.
10. Oil producers are not satisfied with quarterly profits that a perpetually records and higher than than last quarter.

By all of the nonsense that might happen which DOES cause an increase per barrell of oil, we should assume that the US gets oil from every source in the world. If Yemen has an issue, buy it from Mexico. If Mexico has a storm, buy it from Nigeria. If Nigeria has a civil war, get more from Alaska. How is it that any one issue causes gas to jump 30 cents per gallon?

Now, the talk is out there of $4.00 per gallon. We won't stop until we hit it. We cannot! We must hit it and then someone will step in, make some royal change (a.k.a. Bush) and it will fall to $3.00 and somehow we'll be satisfied. Nevermind that at $3.00, the oil companies are making more than most countries GNP.

Now, someone will come back and say, "In Europe, it has been $5.00 per Liter forever. The US has just been getting off easy."

To them I say, "Too bad for the Europeans for putting up with it. Too bad they are not the US. Too bad they are not fighting a war over oil and deserve better prices."

The bigger pet peeve I have is how oil futures for January 2008 being traded today can cause an INSTANT jump at the pumps. The oil bought in January 2008 won't be at my station until February or March 2008 and they are just FUTURES.

I think it is time for the oil companies to be required to invest some of their obscene profits into better refining techniques. They should be part of the solution as opposed to the biggest part of the problem.