Friend Jon Swanson has graciously allowed me to write at 300 words a day for this day. Head on over, as my friend Robert might say.
Get thee to 300 Words
Beating my mom
Don’t get the wrong idea — I’m talking about a contest.
My family has always been into fuel economy. My dad started our focus by keeping track of fuel economy in a little book that stayed in the glovebox. Every time he filled the tank, he would figure out the gas mileage. My mom continued that tradition, all the way till just before she died, about twenty years after my dad passed away. I did it until I got married, about 20 years ago. Heather couldn’t be bothered with that habit, so I ditched it in the interest of fidelity.
We inherited my mom’s Toyota Corolla, due to the generosity of my three siblings. It’s a basic model — with a 3-speed automatic transmission — not the best fuel-saving option.
Mom got in the low-to-mid 20s. I have kept track since getting the car, and we have consistently gotten in the low 30s. Why? I can’t be sure — I hadn’t been in a car while she was driving since maybe high school. But I can tell you the ways I save fuel…
- Treat the accelerator pedal like it’s your enemy. When you see a stop light ahead, immediately take your foot off the pedal. Anticipate slow-downs in traffic and take your foot off the pedal whenever you see a slow-down ahead.
- Treat the brake pedal like it’s your enemy. Coast to a stop when possible.
- Put it in neutral when you are going down a big hill. (Combining this with the brake-enemy measure may be dangerous. And try not to break the speed limit!)
- If you’re at a traffic light that waits two minutes to change, shut your engine off before the beginning of the cycle. (At the end of the cycle, be sure to start it quickly enough that your neighbors behind don’t know you had it off!)
- If you have a ski rack, take it off. Those sap mileage due to the aerodynamic drag they create.
I have many more tricks, but I didn’t want to take up your whole day.
I admit most of these measures are extreme. And they will require retooling your brain to make them work well. You will need to exercise caution at all times. When traffic is thick, you’ll have to quit doing most.
Have fun! Your results may vary.
Celebrating the obscure
…In this case, Saab.
A loyal reader told how she appreciates that I celebrate obscure aspects of life in this blog. (Thanks for appreciating that, Johanna!) It’s true — I enjoy noticing and highlighting the oblique aspects of life that many others either don’t care about or gloss over.
While one sister and her family were visiting recently, we had to take them up to the mountains, to celebrate an aspect of Colorado that is not obscure — our beautiful mountains.
We chose a day trip to Copper Mountain, because their chair lifts run for free in the summer. That gave all of us an easy way to quickly enjoy incredible views. Two of our party were under four, so the lack of a long hike was a major benefit to them!
After we returned to the resort, I enjoyed savoring an obscure aspect of the automotive kingdom — Saabs. The company held its national convention at Copper that weekend. We got to see more Saabs in one place than is normally possible (outside of Sweden). Many came from their US headquarters in Michigan.
My favorite was an ancient station wagon. It so clean that you could eat a meal off the air cleaner cover. Though it was very small, there were three rows of seats. My fantasy machine kicked into gear — I thought how perfect it would be for our family car. But my logical side said that it really doesn’t get much better fuel economy than our Honda minivan. And I’d have to develop a close personal relationship with a Saab mechanic to keep that baby on the road.
Maybe when I get to heaven, I’ll be driving a prehistoric Saab.
A bridge too far
Ben & Jerry’s just introduced this new flavor — Hubby Hubby.
Normally I’m for freedoms, but I can’t really go along with this particular celebration of that particular freedom.
Just from a marketing standpoint, I think they’re making a mistake — they may alienate some of their client base. (Then again, militant members of the GLBT community may make it a best-seller.)
It’s sad when a good tool gets corrupted
One morning recently I went into my Twitter account and discovered that there were about 20 new spam followers. I spent about 3 minutes blocking them — 3 minutes that I would have enjoyed spending in almost any other way.
Twitter is a great tool. It’s sad that the people behind these “people” don’t have anything better to do with their time. I’m sure they make money out of it somehow, like many spammers do.
I’d be truly happy if all spammers were locked in a room with each other for a month — and their punishment would be to spam each other until their fingers wore out.
