On second thought...
5-8-08 @ 6:21 pm

I was giving real consideration to trying out riding my bike to work. I even found what seems to be the perfect bag to carry the things I have to keep with me. I shopped around and found a really good price on a Maxpedition Fatboy Versipack. Then I started crunching numbers.

I used gmap-pedometer.com to find the exact distance to and from work.

It was about 5.6 miles round-trip.

5.6 x 5 = 28 miles a week.

So riding a bike to work will save me about 1 gallon of gas a week or a little less than $15 a month.
It would take 4 months of riding the bike to work every day to pay for the bag I want.

I think I'll stay in my car for now...

WTKR has withdrawn their suit against Suffolk!
5-8-08 @ 6:17 pm

I didn't receive a response from the e-mails I sent, but my friend Krista did.

From a WTKR representative:

The tornado that devastated Parts of Suffolk not only affected families that had homes damaged or destroyed, it brought out the true brotherhood of friends and neighbors throughout the Hampton roads community at Newschannel 3, our coverage of this tragic event, as with any story we cover, was to report a true and unbiased account of what happened, and especially now, to generate attention and support to the families who need it most.

Our lawsuit filed against the city of Suffolk was in pure pursuit of our freedom of press, not financial gain. Access to the hardest hit areas was unlawfully denied. Newschannel 3, with all news gathering organizations, have the right to access these areas and the people directly affected in order to report an honest and accurate account of what happened. People were frustrated about the lack of information and we felt it was exactly this blockage of access that state laws are designed to protect against.

The lawsuit, while solid in it’s merit, admittedly, was filed at the wrong time

Out of respect to the families affected by the tornado, Newschannel 3 has retracted the lawsuit, but will continue to pursue the liberties that our laws provide for its people and the press.

Want to know when your economic stimulus money is coming?
5-7-08 @ 8:55 pm

The IRS has a web site that lets you enter some basic personal information and find out when you get your moolah!

Just pay a visit to https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/IRServlet?app=IRACTC and rest easy knowing your money is on the way.

WTKR is trying to take $105,000 from Suffolk residents!
5-7-08 @ 6:07 pm

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/articles/2008/05/05/news/local/news10.txt

"[WTKR] has filed a lawsuit against the city of Suffolk, Suffolk Police, the Suffolk city attorney and the Virginia State Police for restricting access to the tornado-damaged sites."

If the city of Suffolk loses the suit, it would be its own storm-ravaged residents that paid for it - in the form of taxes and the other fees any given municipality wages against the people who live within its boundaries.

The best thing to do would be for us to get together and bombard WTKR with e-mails or phone calls.

Suggested letter:

I will be boycotting WTKR until the suit against the city of Suffolk is dropped. The people of Suffolk are going through enough as it is trying to rebuild the communities damaged by the storm. We do not support WTKR, for no other reason than the typical television ratings game, trying to take $105,000 out of the coffers we fill. For the residents of Suffolk, that is salt in our proverbial wounds!

General Manager: dave.bunnell@wtkr.com
Station Relations: towanda.porter@wtkr.com

WTKR NewsChannel 3
720 Boush Street
Norfolk VA 23510

(757) 446-1000

I may have to buy a PS3.
5-7-08 @ 7:26 am

This is a trailer of in-game footage from an upcoming PS3 game called Mirror's Edge. FPS + Parkour = teh win!
It looks like a combination of Jackie Chan movies and the recent TMNT game. It definitely looks like fun!

If it has boobs or wheels, it's going to give you trouble!
5-6-08 @ 8:09 pm

I've read up the last few days about a practice called hypermiling. There's a growing group of people out there that are obsessed with getting the best MPG possible from their vehicles. The initial goal was simple: to get the mileage the EPA claims you can.

But it's grown far beyond that now. Among those that participate, it is far from uncommon for a 10-year-old Honda Civic to get better than 50 mpg. At the top of the heap of the particular forum I'm registered with is a hybrid Honda Insight with over 95 MPG. Is that not amazing?

Full disclosure: if you want the maximum results, it doesn't come without a cost. You have to forget about air conditioning and defrosting. You have to forget about satellite radio and huge subwoofers. You have to forget about hauling around a laundry list of items in your trunk. These guys probably don't even get more than ¼ tank of gas at a time to save on weight.

But you don't have to get that carried away. There are a lot of small tips that can yield significant results for people like me who aren't willing to kick Sirius and the jumper cables to the curb for the sake of fuel efficiency.

· Do not use quick accelerations or brake heavily: This reduces fuel economy by as much as 33 percent at highway speeds and 5 percent around town. EPA tests do not account for this kind of vigorous driving.

· Do not drive at higher speeds: This increases aerodynamic drag (wind resistance) and mechanical friction which reduces fuel economy. The EPA test accounts for aerodynamic drag up to highway speeds of 60 mph, but drivers often exceed this speed.

· Tire pressures: They are a very important key to higher fuel economy. The higher the pressure, the lower the rolling resistance, the higher the fuel economy. The absolute minimum you should use is the driver’s side door or owners manual recommended tire inflation criteria.

· DWB - (Driving w/out Brakes): In its simplest form, you drive as if you do not have brakes. If you have degraded or no brakes for whatever reason, you will increase buffers in traffic like you may never have considered previously. In heavy traffic and traffic jam conditions, this will allow you to maintain some speed before throwing away energy to heating up the pads/shoes. With larger buffers comes the ability to maintain a very slow speed while most others are in a stop and go jam. You can use this in any traffic tie up or heavy congestion.

If you want to know more, start at CleanMPG.com and read Wayne Gerdes' crash course on hypermiling. There's a lot of new lingo at first, but the site is setup to automatically link to a sort of dictionary entry for the acronyms used here, so it won't take long to speak the language. It covers not only how to get better mileage from any vehicle you drive, it explains in depth what is wrong with how the EPA tests and is well worth the read!

Personally, on top of learning about advanced fuel-saving techniques, the folks at CleanMPG.com have also inspired me to consider riding my bike to work as a real option. The distance by bike is 2.5 miles from my front door to the front door of my shop but it involves going through a heavy industrial area as well as some lousy parts of town. I decided to take the bike out for a spin tonight. They have gotten me amped about riding again. I think I've only done a couple miles since last summer. It took longer to get the tires pumped up and my camel bag clean than it would to ride to work, but I'm still not sold on riding through all of that.

I did about 7 miles tonight and barely broke a sweat. The ride went great with no incidents...until I got home and took my shirt off. I caught my left pinkie in the pull chain for the ceiling fan and got a nice scratch. And that is how my luck goes. I think I'll go nurse it with a Yuengling and nullify the calories I just burned. :-D

And while we're on the topic of...
5-6-08 @ 10:53 pm

...Saving gas and money, please visit http://www.fuelmeup.com It searches over 82,000 gas stations nationwide and lets you find the cheapest gas in your ZIP code.

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