5 long round trips a week grants better average miles per gallon than 4 round trips plus scattered city driving on the off days... I am writing now to tell you about something new I am trying... Ultimately hypermiling is a cumulative thing... It takes a combination of behaviors and tactics to get optimal results... Nitrogen is the most common molecule in the air we breath... As a typically-filled tire begins to lose air, the car has to work harder to get from point A to point B. When Nitrogen enters the tire, it leaks 3-4 times less quickly, so you maintain a consistent tire pressure for a longer period of time... Today was my first day of commuting on Nitrogen-filled tires... I will report next week how things go, and if I notice a tangible difference... … View Post »

I think I have finally recovered enough from my weekend to talk about it... I had been planning my wife ' s surprise party for over a month... Saturday was the big day, almost exactly a month later than the actual event... I had a three hour window to pull it all together... I had to run to Costco to get the cake... $18.99 gets you a cake big enough to feed 48 people (in small pieces... It came in at half the price the local bakery was going to charge me... Our weekend took a more serious turn with news of an impending divorce among a couple of our friends... … View Post »

Be sure to check back for news on my wife ' s surprise birthday party, the 3rd Annual Pirate Festival, and more... … View Post »

I have been somewhat entertained the last week or so by the ills that have befallen Senator Obama... One thinks of the classic line, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"... From what I understand, Obama was preaching the same message Bill Cosby has been preaching for years, that men need to be in the home with their kids... I also have come to understand that Jackson ' s comments were even more crude than the news stories suggested... He reportedly used the same word that he blasts others for using... While Obama was still (theoretically) reeling from the impact of Jackson ' s attack, the New Yorker hit him even harder... The New Yorker, a liberal magazine if ever there was one, decided to put a satirical image on its cover... He has shown poor judgement in his friends though... … View Post »

This has generated a lot of traffic on my blogs... If you noticed a new post rating near my comments, you have seen SezWho in action... Entrecard has been great for getting traffic to your page, but a lot of times people just blow through your site, power dropping along the way... This new service encourages people to actually read your blog... You can earn more credits by taking the time to comment on people ' s blogs... … View Post »

But no, it is time to get up... and guess what Daddy was playing with this morning?... Finally he want down for a nap, and peace was restored to our household... He is getting stronger each day I think... This one was not designed for parental supervision the way the other ones have been... I am not a small man, and this took some doing... He will fight bed time again I am sure, but my wife has been getting better at putting him down for the night... Now it seems the playing field is a little more level... … View Post »

The Valley used to be a desert... This is JULY people... July - officially summer weather, right?... Why do I have to clean my windshield every morning from the moisture?... Why has it looked like it might rain almost every day the last 7 weeks?... … View Post »

My son had quite the day today... This involved putting deodorant on, "shaving", and putting gel in his hair for spiking... He was searching for the box with Darth Vader... Too bad he is too spent to watch it by the time I get home... He is getting interested in rough-housing, so Daddy has volunteered for the job... Daddy had something to do tonight, and Mommy was tired, so Daddy made a deal when it was time to come inside... My son has a nifty tricycle that was designed for pre-tricycle-ready kids... He listened fairly well, wrestled, watched Star Wars, rode his tricycle, went to the park with Mommy, and went to bed relatively on time... … View Post »

I am only doing it one day a week for now, on a trial basis, but even so I am pretty stoked... With hypermiling, as much as I do of it at least, it takes just under a quarter tank of gas per day to drive to work... Normally I get up at 5:30 a.m. to leave the house between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. I move very slowly in the morning, so I have to set my alarm to 5:00 in order to click snooze for a half hour... My company pays for my cell phone and internet access, and provided a laptop for home use (even though it is a Mac), so why shouldn ' t I use what my company is providing for company business?... … View Post »