smug factor

I've been kicking this idea around in my brain since I got back from California. She and I rented a Toyota Prius while we were out there. There was a credit for renting one from the San Francisco Airport, and we figured that the difference in price would balance out with the better gas mileage. Total damage for the fuel, about $30. Total mileage, over 600 miles in a week. Two tanks or so in the subcompact we were supposed to get would've surpassed that total. Add the extra pep in the mountains, and it turned into not a bad choice.

I can't quite figure out how the Prius became so trendy. It's not particularly good looking. Its curious construction created blind spots that could hide SUVs. Even when checking blind spots, body panels blocked views. Starting it was a crapshoot, with a very finicky ignition system that required four simultaneous steps to get that electric motor to hum. The only thing I can figure is the smug factor.

Celebrities love them. Toyota charges quite a premium for them. People that drive them love them, despite all these shortcomings. If you're not sure why, check out Matt Stone & Trey Parker's thoughts via South Park's "Smug Alert" episode. It's classic South Park: contrastingly irreverent and poignant with a touch of revulsion garnish on the side.

I'll hold out for a decent looking car that gets better mileage than what I've got now. I've gotten a slight uptick in efficiency and a good cut out of my gas bill this year. Next year, who knows what'll shake out? I need to make friends with a coworker early in the year to carpool. That'll make driving to work fun again. I'm gonna miss you, Casey!

c'mon, pump!

when i got my truck way back in the day, gas was about $0.91 a gallon. that made a fill up a shade less than fifteen bones. pretty cheap by today's standards...

until today! as i was filling up today, i found myself cheering the pump on, "c'mon; stop, stop! ok, now....stop!"

and when it did, my wallet danced a jig in my pocket. $19.99! first time i could pay for a tank of gas with andrew jackson for years. six years actually. i looked it up, and did a little math.

on another i'm-trying-to-reduce-my-carbon-footprint note, my monthly gas bill is about a third of what it was in february. this whole carpooling thing is working out well!

seriously? seriously!

after the whirlwind weekend of driving and relaxing and yoga-ing and strolling and bicycling and visiting, emphasis on wind, i realized that i had not a speck, not a crumb of food in my refrigerator to take for lunch this lovely fall day. that aside, i've learned in this new routine up here, it's best to plan around the climbing schedule when it comes to food shopping. when i've gone to the grocery store after climbing, i spend approximately 3,152% more than if it were a normal night. that's just a ballpark figure; i'm still double-checking my figures. i think it may be a tad too low.

back to the topic at hand. i needed grub at the grocery store. off i went. the first stop is always the deli to get my quality luncheon meats and cheeses for delicious sandwiches for lunch. recession or not, i'm not gonna skimp on my sandwiches. store brand cold cuts (or worse, prepackaged ones!) just don't cut the mustard. last night, empty shopping cart in the deli with my reusable shopping bags that i'd resisted purchasing until this year. now i'm actually in the habit of using them.

again, i digress. i get my delicious deli meats, virginia ham and swiss cheese this week. a loaf of dark german wheat bread and spicy brown mustard await the pairing at home. i do the rest of my shopping, searching in vain to replenish my nutella supply, and head to the checkout. when i arrive, i pull my bags....er, bag out from underneath my purchases to bag my groceries.

wait, a second. i had two bags in my car. i had two bags in the parking lot. i had two bags at the deli...somebody stole one of my bags? seriously?

seriously. it's a dollar, folks. i appreciate your desire to be more green, but stealing to accomplish that end? that's like ecoterrorism on a smaller scale. earthfirst activists blowing up logging trucks. but much smaller. you do know that the very same store where you committed your petty larceny sells the very same bags brand new?

i guess i'll be buying a shiny new one for myself. ooh, maybe i'll get the limited edition redskins bag while you use my grimy, year-old stanky one. take that!

the great gas experiment

"i can't remember the last time i rode in your truck," she says tonight. i've tried my damnedest to save gas this month. it's been much easier with the addition of a bike to my arsenal of driving avoidance tools. i can manage my barely a half-mile ride to visit my better half. i've been taking it with me on the metro on my ventures into the city. quite often, i've been riding my bike back from the city, but not into it. sure, it's probably because i have to make it to an appointment, but no need to make it back quickly. six miles and change back most days, including today's trek from the white house.

when i got back from florida, i put a half-tank of gas in my truck. since that fateful july 1st, i've driven 144.2 miles. had i not gone climbing in maryland or driven out to reston to move a tv and a grill to arlington, that number would be much lower. the curse of a pickup truck! let's see how long i can stretch it out. perhaps make this half-tank my last half fill-up before i get keys to a new ride?

yes, this was intentional. thirty bucks in gas is far less than what i seemingly must spend during the school year. sixty bucks in metro fares is far more than i spend in a month. i guess reducing my footprint is still pretty expensive. i haven't gotten to the point of walking to the grocery store yet, but if i ever buy one of those little carts, i might just do it. i just buy too many groceries to consider it. which reminds me, i'm still hungry.

$55.07

that's how much a tank of 87 octane cost me at seven this morning. hadn't earned a cent yet for the day, and i was deep in the hole. lately, i've only been putting in a half-tank at a time. somehow, it lasts for a week; yet when i fill 'er up, it doesn't last two weeks. could someone please explain that to me?!

next year, there are two huge gas-saving changes in habit that i didn't have to do a damn thing for. one, she's moving to south arlington. a mile or less from my place. that'll save a 20 mile round trip to spend time with her. that should cut down on both of our consumptive habits, and much less painful than a breakup! two, a co-worker is moving to south arlington also. different direction than she, but co-worker wants to carpool. i may be able to kick this nasty petroleum habit after all!

attempt three to save gas is continually in the works. craigslist is befuddling me with timing issues. i've been trying for a few weeks to replace my stolen bike, which in a twist of dramatic irony, i bet was sold to the highest bidder. got any tips on getting what i want from craigslist? anyone?

book learnin' about ecology

in my short (and failed) quest to read more before cable started to rot my brain (too late), i had checked out 3 books from the library, two i'd heard of and one i had not. the former ones, river of grass by marjorie stoneman douglas and their eyes were watching god by zora neale hurston, gathered dust and i only got a chapter or two into each of them. river of grass was a recap of all that i knew of the everglades. a great book for me to read had i never experienced the majesty of the swamp, or one to collect dust on my bookshelf for pretentious purposes. hurston's tale was described as a seminal work of african-american fiction. a great novel. i barely made a dent in it before lee sent a walk in the woods by bill bryson. no classic american literature, but a great, fast read nonetheless.

having renewed all three books, and returning two unread, i felt obligated to at least crack open the latter of the three: janisse ray's ecology of a cracker childhood. boy, am i glad i did! much like one of my favorites a land remembered, it details a natural history of georgia's longleaf pine forests. juxtaposed next to her poor upbringing in rural baxley, it certainly is an interesting read. the descriptions of the pine lowlands in southern georgia and how mankind has raped and pillaged them were vivid and disheartening. the book ends with this call to arms:

We Southerners area people fighting again for our country, defending the last remaining stands of real forest. Although we love to frolic, the time has come to fight. We must fight.
In new rebellion we stand together, black and white, urbanite and farmer, workers all, in keeping Dixie. We are a patient people who for generations have not been ousted from this land, and we are willing to fight for the birthright of our children's children and their children's children, to be of a place, in all ways, for all time. What is left is not enough. When we say the South will rise again we can mean that we will allow the cutover forests to return to their former grandeur and pine plantations to grow wild.
The whippoorwill is calling from the edge.

if you call yourself a naturalist, conservationist, ecologist, environmentalist, Southerner, woodsman, forester, READ THIS BOOK.

quote unquote

"Perhaps animals are smarter than men...taking only what they need to live today, leaving something for tomorrow...Maybe it is man who will eventually perish as he destroys the land and all that it offers."--Patrick D. Smith

one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors. i think it's from allapattah, which takes place deep in the everglades. the protagonist is pissed off at developers for ruining the environment. the take take take mentality that so pervades our culture, with no thought for the ramifications today's decisions have on our descendants. it appears to be coming true in the southeast today. in case you've been living under a rock, you might have noticed that there's a pretty awful drought going on right now. lee sent this article to me. it's about his neck of the woods, but it hits home for me too (since i am too a tree hugger at heart). drought sucks. couple it with overpopulation of cities, and the american sense of entitlement for raping and pillaging natural resources., and i have little sympathy for the many millions that caused the problems, or the stupid politicians that lack the backbone or intelligence to fix the problem. here's how to fix it: move somewhere else. the ecosystem that you chose for your home was not made for 5 million people. [steps off soapbox]

the red is lee's commentary. blue, that's me.

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CUMMING, Ga. - With water supplies rapidly shrinking during a drought of historic proportions, Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency Saturday for the northern third of Georgia and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area. Georgia officials warn that Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre reservoir that supplies more than 3 million residents with water, is less than three months from depletion. Smaller reservoirs are dropping even lower.
Perdue asked the president to exempt Georgia from complying with federal regulations that dictate the amount of water released from Georgia's reservoirs to protect federally protected mussel species downstream.
"We need to cut through the tangle of unnecessary bureaucracy to manage our resources prudently — so that in the long term, all species may have access to life-sustaining water," he said.
On Friday, Perdue's office asked a federal judge to force the Army Corps of Engineers to curb the amount of water it drains from Georgia reservoirs into streams in Alabama and Florida. Georgia's environmental protection director is drafting proposals for more water restrictions.
More than a billion gallons of water is released from Lanier every day. The Corps of Engineers bases its water releases on two requirements: The minimum flow needed for a coal-fired power plant in Florida and mandates to protect two mussel species in a Florida river.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Perdue's request will be reviewed. "In the meantime, we have already begun drafting interim rules to use procedures and flexibility to address the endangered species requirements and the Army Corps has started the process of revising the operations manual for the river basin," Perino said.
Georgia lawmakers say neighboring states also are exploiting the law as a tool to draw more water from Georgia's lakes.
"We've learned from this what a blunt weapon the Endangered Species Act has become," said state Rep. John Linder. "We need to understand this lake was created not for mussels but for people."
(Funny, I thought the ESA was for endangered species that people made "endangered." All along I thought the building of a massive man-made reservoir has somehow affected the mussels. Next thing you know, they're going to be telling me they not only need water, but it has to be clean too! It's a good thing I'm not a policy maker, I get these things so confused! Thanks Rep. Linder for clearing this all up for me, I sure was mislead. Those crazy enviro-libs nearly pulled the wool over my eyes that time.)
More than a quarter of the Southeast is covered by an "exceptional" drought — the National Weather Service's worst drought category. The Atlanta area, with a population of 5 million, is smack in the middle of the affected region, which encompasses most of Tennessee, Alabama and the northern half of Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia. Georgia was placed under statewide water restrictions in April that limited outdoor watering to three days a week. By May Atlanta allowed watering only on weekends, and in September environmental officials banned virtually all outdoor watering through the northern half of the state. Funny how this seems to be years in the making, and only now it's getting attention. I don't think a 38,000 acre reservoir dries up in 6 months. Just a guess.
Restaurants have been asked to serve water only at a customer's request and the governor called on residents to take shorter showers. More limits will probably be needed, said Carol Couch, the state's environmental director. You reckon?
"This is not something we can conserve our way out of," said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
Well, it appears that one politician gets it!
The state of emergency Perdue declared Saturday affects 85 Georgia counties, more than half of the state. Conditions were worsened by stifling summer heat and a drier-than-normal hurricane season. State climatologist David Stooksbury said it will take months of above average rainfall to replenish the system. Perdue said the state has not yet formed a contingency plan in case the reservoirs run dry. "The backup plan is to conserve and use our water wisely," he said.
Gee, did Cher help you come up with that idea? I think it's a little late for that, Sonny!
The emergency declaration creates an emergency team that will oversee the state's response to drought. It also could free up some state money to respond to the drought, Couch said.