Gas Woes, Apple News, & a Funny

Gas prices mean more suddenly

A few days ago I mentioned that I was going to be changing my driving habits a little bit. Well today @ work, I learned that I will get to feel the full effect of this come July 8th. You see, currently I live a whopping 1-½ miles from work. Come July 8th – when I transfer stores – I will be about 17 miles from door-to-door. Yikes. Let’s put that in perspective:

Say I average 10 mi/gal right now. Let’s round up and say the trip is currently 2 miles (I like easy math!). OK, so that’s 5 trips on a gallon. So if gas is $4/gal, that means that every 5 days back & forth to work, it costs me $8 in gas. Not bad!

OK so I get better gas mileage going the 17 miles down the freeway. Now let’s say that driving the new route, I’ll average 17mi/gal. WOW. OK so now we’re looking at $8 a day for gas. Holy f*ck, that’s a 500% increase in gas expenses, people. Now these numbers aren’t quite exact. For instance, I’ll probably average between 20-25 miles a gallon in reality, but up here, whereas the rest of the US is averaging $4/gallon, I haven’t seen it less than $4.60/gallon. Yes, it’s that much more than what you’re paying (unless of course you’re reading this from Europe, in which case… I feel your pain).

This is going to put a dent in my pocketbook for the next 6 months or so before I rotate back to town. Sh!t I’d say we should move if it weren’t for the fact that in 6 months I’ll probably be right back in here… it’s hard as hell finding a place for the pups too, so since we have a place, we’ll probably keep that place, you know? It’s secure at least. What if we move and the landlords there suck? What if in 6 months we can’t find another place in town? Yeah, I think we’ll have to stick it out. Especially since if we move, that just means The Girl would be driving back into town for work the same distance.



Apple WWDC 2008 Notes of Interest
Apple today did a few interesting things: One, they introduced the next-generation iPhone, which will have massive price cuts associated with it (at&t is subsidizing apparently). Sorta makes the iPod Touch look… well, overpriced. I hope they drop that a few pennies. Maybe I’d get one if they did. I’m in the market for a new iPod anyway, sh!t. C’mon, Apple!

They also announced that they will be distributing a new version of Leopard next year, dubbed “Snow Leopard.” The similarities in name are signal that there are no major feature changes between the two. No, Snow Leopard is supposed to be a stability release more than anything, and all signs point to them dropping support for PPC chips with this release as well.

I’m looking forward to it. We could use a stability release. I’m cool with that.



Funny moment of the day
It was beautiful day when I left for work this morning, and indeed stayed that way pretty much all day, until about an hour before I got off of work. I got outside, and it was misting a bit, and really it was kind of a cool atmosphere outside; the mist was coming in sideways and it almost looked like a heavy fog but you could see far. It looked like the ground was steaming, and though it was coming off sideways, there wasn’t really a breeze that I could feel. I can’t really explain it.

Anyway, when I got home, I opened the back gate and saw a bucket and sponge. Which means… The Girl washed her truck today.

That is… just too damn funny. HA HA!

Peace.