Gas Shortages and the Credit Crisis, Cleaning up the lake

Gas Shortages and the Credit Crisis

I've been riding my motorcycle to work now for the last two weeks. This has stretched my gas budget quite a bit. The weather has been great. Since the hurricanes hit the East coast and the Gulf coast there have been reports of gas shortages. If you do a Google search at this time, you'll see pumps are running dry in Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, and parts of Tennessee. The issue seems to be that refineries were cutting production prior to the storm, so they could switch blends. This forced a shortage at the time the credit crisis is building to a head. Here in Central AR some stations only have regular, no premium or mid-grade.

The credit crisis has me wondering what the heck is going on. There needs to be some sort of solution. I hope we're not looking at the new milenniums version of the Great Depression. I realize with fossil fuels in short supply, and a need to move to new energy that a change is coming... but it's a very uncertain time, or seems that way.

Lake Cleanup

My team at work did some volunteer work at Lake Willastein in Maumelle today. I brought my Kayak and cleaned the shoreline and picked up stuff in the water. It was VERY nasty. It seems fishermen have no respect for the lake they enjoy fishing in. They dump beer bottles, beer cans, skoal cans, etc... in the lake. I found a gun case in the lake, and a bunch of other nasty stuff. Filled three 30 gallon bags with trash from the 1/2 of the lake I was able to clean in 3 hours. I saw a crane, a copperhead sunning itself on a board, turtles, ducks, etc. Several people thanked us for cleaning up. It's a great park. Some of the stuff in the lake were energy drinks, and health supplements. So joggers and runners and bicyclists also throw their stuff in the water. Pretty sad, they work so hard to keep their bodies fit but make the lake itself unfit. Hopefully people will not be such pigs, but cleanups like this will have to continue to just keep things decent.

BTW. This blog entry is written on my new Acer Aspire One netbook, with 1 gig of memory, and a 160 gig hard drive... from my couch. :-)

Technology = Fail!

I might as well rant some more about technology issues.

• Thingamablog freaked out on me, I spent 10 minutes trying to publish a blog entry. Had to reboot my PC to get it to work today.
• Bulleting in Thingamablog is also acting wonky tonight!
• A friend's home PC blew up, and I had to walk them through on the phone how to fix their bios settings for it to work.
• Cell phone issues (already covered) - I have to point out though, that from my past knowledge of the cell industry Text Messaging is unreliable. A call is better really. Why? They use excess bandwidth and capacity to deliver text messages (cell providers). If the network is full, or there is a bottleneck the voice calls typically get routed and text messaging gets the short end of the stick.
• Pidgin, it's an Open Source IM client. Well, looks like Yahoo changed something, because it doesn't work with Yahoo IM anymore. I updated it, but no luck. So I downloaded YIM, and it was a good thing I did the expert install because it planned to SPAM my machine something fierce. Replace Google as my search choice, add toolbars to my browsers, that kind of stuff. I hope the Pidgin development team releases a patch soon.
• The Vulcan has some sort of SLOW leak at the rear drive shaft. So I gotta take it in and have it serviced I think, and have that fixed.
• The truck is due for a oil, V-belt, and transmission fluid change.
• Oh a bright note, I noticed my Chickens and Hens are actually spreading through their flowerbed. But then again, they don't run on electricity or gasoline do they?

Plants & Gas Prices

I have six Hibiscus/Rose of Sharon hedges. All of them survived their first summer last year. Two on the side of the house appear to be doing well, but one in the backyard has gone nuts. It's four or five times the size of the others, and is growing like crazy. I watered them all tonight with water from my rain barrels. I can't put more than a 1/4 of a bucket of water in a 5 gallon bucket because of my back, so it took a while to water them and the fruit trees. I mailed off my mailing label and a request for a new apple tree, new nectarine, and replacements for the other plants which have died. We'll see if eBurgess.com makes good on their warranty in 3 or 4 weeks.

Gas prices have stabilized at around $3.91 a gallon for regular. I haven't paid more than $3.69 for gas in several weeks but my back injury and having to drive the truck instead of riding will run through the last 5 gallons of fuel I have from the gas being below that price this week. I hope my back and the weather will allow me to ride the bikes soon. My new helmet should be on the way already, so maybe this will all coincide.

Disappointment, Back Pain and the Economy

Disappointment

I had a date last Saturday, which went well but unfortunately things went South during this week and I won't be seeing her again. It was a bit of a disappointment, she seemed like a really nice girl with a good head on her shoulders. The whole dating scene is fairly discouraging, I've met women who say they're drama free and find out the opposite sometimes. Every time I have thought about giving it up, someone new shows up. I realize you've got to meet a lot of people in life, before you meet the right one.

Back Pain

My back pain on Monday led me to go to see the Doctor the same day. I was prescribed muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatory drugs. Combined with the shot the doctor gave me I felt good enough to go back to work the same day. I've been doing exercises prescribed by my doctor, and staying mobile seems to make it hurt less. I've got to switch desk chairs at work though, the one I like so much seems to pinch my back pretty bad and when I walk in and feel almost fine in the morning and then sit down for 30 minutes I have to pull myself out of my chair. This may sound weird, but the harder the chair the better it seems. I'm not a fan of the muscle relaxers. They leave me feeling groggy, and at some point I just sort of drift off. I am going to take them through the weekend, but try to lay off on Sunday and see if I still need them. I can tell my back is getting better. Have you ever noticed when you're ill that life doesn't seem right? Reality seems disconnected, and nothing is really as you perceive it because your perceptions are clouded by your injury, cold, fever, or whatever illness you're going through.

Economy

I came home today after a work outing, and went to bed. When I woke up it was slightly after six o'clock so I turned on the TV in the bedroom (it's an old 19", but a good television). Alltel was in the news today as they're being sold to Verizon, and I wanted to see if there was anything about it on the local news. It seems very strange to me to see the nightly news (I haven't watched it in years) and see commercials for the Smart Car, for Hyundai cars with the slogan - "I want my MPG", commercials from the oil industry touting how much oil we have here in this country alone, commercials about alternative fuels, solar, etc... Things I remember people talking about in the late 70's when I was a little kid and we were experiencing the oil crisis. There is a lot of Deja Vu for me there.

The last time I filled one of the bikes up, it cost me $4.22. I used premium in the bikes, and I use regular in the truck. With a 10 cent discount per gallon at Kroger, gas is still 1 penny higher than when I filled up my gas cans before the Memorial Day weekend. I've been using some of that gas in the truck as needed but with my back like it is I don't want to handle the cans at the moment so it cost me $53.22 to fill the truck up this week. I hope I'll be fit to ride next week.

The economy seems to be more and more the focus of the news. From food prices soaring, and expected to soar more... to gas prices going up... to companies being bought and sold... The subprime mortgage mess is really starting to seem like the perfect storm, when you combine it with all the other items. It makes me think that if someone were to attack our country, be it terrorists or another foreign power that we'd be in a heck of a mess. I know past generations have survived economic collapse, I bet they felt much like people today are feeling. In those times there were businessmen, statesmen, and leaders who had a vision and they persevered and our nation and the world came through those downturns, those conflicts. I just hope that God will give us similar great men and women with such vision and wisdom to lead us through the tough times ahead.

I apologize if my writing is suffering, I don't feel all there with these meds. It's like when you come out of a fever almost, at least that's how I feel right now.

$3.84 a gallon

Yesterday gas was $3.84 a gallon in Maumelle, for regular. Premium was well over $4.00!

An article in the New York Times says that speculators are responsible for a $30.00 markup on a barrel of oil from a study a few years ago. OPEC claims that refiners are not buying oil, they're limiting the supply of gas to push the cost up.

All I know is that what used to cost me $40.00 a week for groceries is now costing me $60.00 a week for groceries.

Inflation on the cost of fuel and food has steadily been outpacing pay increases for most Americans.

I may have said this before, but I feel like my dad did in the 80's. Politicians are no good, they're working for special interests and those interests aren't necessarily working for the good of our economy or the country. I'm really ticked off about how little congress and the president are doing. They are so out of touch with reality that I think they must all be insane.

Roundup

I didn't sleep well last night, I was suffering from allergies. I got up today, was supposed to meet some friends from lunch but my head felt solid from all of the sinus congestion. I took some Benadryl, I gotta quit taking that. Twice this week it has had me dazed and confused. I spent one day at work working through things, but felt like I was in a stupor from the medicine. Either suffer with the allergies, or the medicine. I'm gonna try Tylenol for Allergies next time I go to the store. I decided to wash my bedsheets, laundry. I went out and moved the rain barrels to the garage and installed a new tap on one and did some repair work on it. Then I made a new one from a new barrel. I took them around back set them up. So free water for the plants. I also put down cardboard as mulch on my four surviving fruit trees. eBurgess has yet to respond to my inquiry about replacement plants. I cleaned the birdcages, fed the dogs, vacuumed the house and then went out and mowed and weeded the front yard. I also mowed the backyard, and behind the fence. I just fixed dinner, but I'm waiting about 10 minutes for it to cool before eating. Gas was $3.79 the last time I checked.

$3.68 a gallon!

Mowed my yard (front and back) this weekend, used the weedeater out back, and my new electric grass shears in the hard to reach places.

Gonna cost me $4.00 to fill up the 1 gallon can next time! Augh!

Another thing

Valero lowered their gas price from yesterdays $3.65 to $3.52, as if that makes it any better that two days before it was $3.45. I guess they have to make an effort to look like prices go down, or sate people who were angry they jumped 20 cents, by dropping it so those people will all think... Well, that's not as bad as $3.65. I think we're being had, but what can we do? All these Gas Strikes don't work. People not buying gas on one day, and then buying the next. If people were to make a concerted effort to commute together, and not buy gas for a month... Maybe that would help, but truckers and travelers couldn't do that. So I donno. I've thought about writing the President, and my representatives... but would they even listen, do they even care? They're so out of touch, every time I write a senator they send back a form letter. Later on I'll get a form letter response which sorta addresses my question, in the same general way a person predicting the end of the world does their predicting... in an open and broad noncommittal way. So what's the point?

Price Gouging?

Yesterday I paid $42.00 to fill my truck up at $3.45 a gallon for regular.

Today on the way home, it was $3.65, at the same station. The priced increased 20 cents a gallon in 24 hours! What the heck!

So is this price gouging?

Hedges, Clouds, Chores

I had the day off, so I am putting in a few blog entries.

I'm still waiting for my Royal Empresses to do anything. Four of my six fruit trees have leaves, and I am waiting for two to leaf out. My hedges in the flowerbed have gone nuts along with the festuca grass (which is going to seed) and I am gonna need to trim them this weekend! We're having tornado warnings and t-storms all day today so I am sure the plants will love the rain.

I am waiting to get out and go to the store to pick up some toiletries, a case of diet coke, some yogurt, and basic groceries. It'll be this evening most likely since I am waiting for my new hats to show up.

I took my original hat boxes, and put my fall/winter fedoras away. I scrubbed and washed the trash cans and waste baskets from around the house, and vacuumed. Now it's time to go fold and put away the laundry!

Oh, gasoline, it's $3.45 a gallon right now. I rode my bike once this week, and am going to be watching the weather from now on because I need to ride it as it costs me $1.00 to $1.50 roundtrip depending on whether it's the Buell or the Vulcan... and to drive it's $3.45 now for the trip roundtrip in the truck.

Highway Robbery. Oil Cartels, and Ethanol

$3.39 a gallon for regular gas, and the label on the gas pump warns: May contain 10% ethanol.

• The nightly news says that oil refiners are idling their plants, and producing less and less gasoline since the price per barrel of oil is climbing.
• OPEC refuses to up production, saying supply is fine and the world economy shows no signs of slowing.
• Economists say that the US economy is hitting staflation, and we have already entered the beginning of a recession.
• The world economy follows the US economy, a recession here will lead to a worldwide recession and possibly a depression.
• Food shortages are being reported in third world countries since the US is redirecting corn and wheat into the production of ethanol.

Some things to think about.

• Ethanol lowers gas mileage, it's basically filler, like when they used to add alcohol to gasoline to screw customers in the late 70's and early 80's.
• Ethanol damages some kinds of rubber seals, gunks up fuel injectors, and is bad for your engine.
• If you ride a motorcycle, your bike won't like Ethanol, so you better buy premium fuel.

Some thoughts being offered up on forums on the web

• OPEC is saying they won't up production, but the truth is (according to some) that they CAN'T, they've maxed out on their supply. They have hit Hubbert's Peak and are trying to hide the fact that the world is running out of oil.

Some things I've noticed:

• In an experiment last week, I drove 55 mph on the highway (1970's and 80's speeds) to see if it would increase gas mileage. I also drove 5 mph under street speed limits except for ones below 30 mph. I averaged 22 miles per gallon. This is the MAX gas mileage on the window sticker my truck came with back in 2002 (it's a six cylinder Ford Ranger).
• When I drove above the speed limit by 5 miles per hour the week before, my gas mileage averaged 18.75 miles per gallon.
• My gas mileage this week, after hauling around a trailer for several days and splurging by doing the speed limit on Sunday to get somewhere in the afternoon was 20 miles per gallon.

Conclusion:

• It's time to start watching the weather, and riding to work. I need to get back into that habit, 70 miles per gallon on the Buell and 60 miles per gallon on the Vulcan would go a long way towards stretching my paycheck more with the current gas prices.
• The oil companies need to be hauled across hot coals, I am betting they're going to report record profits again.

Taxes and Gas

I just got my personal property assessment... and the taxes they want me to pay.

$270.00

Why so high, my truck, and two bikes aren't worth that much.

So I check the assessor's site, and, well, Marie didn't delete the Sable and her wrecked XB9R from the assessment and have them assessed to her like she was gonna do in December. AND, her XB12R, which she bought after we were divorced is showing on my assessment. What the heck?

I went online and deleted the XB12R, XB9R, and Sable... but I have to go to the Treasurer's office and assessor's office on Monday and get them to back date it so I don't have to pay the taxes on those vehicles. My dad is friends with the Treasurer, and I just made a new friend who works there, so hopefully I can get this corrected.

It seems like everything is going wrong Friday! (It was Friday's mail I picked up today, and yesterday was no picnic).

:-(

Oh, and Gas is $3.18 a gallon now at the Valero.

Vulcan

83 miles on the Vulcan today, Highway 10 to 9 to Kanis loop and home.

Filled up $4.44 for 1.28 gallons of Premium. Rounded up is 65 miles per gallon.

Gas has climbed to $3.15 a gallon for regular the local Valero.

Gasoline and Buell

Got up this morning, and when I went out to start the truck it wouldn't turn over.

Turns out the battery, which was six years old died sometime in the night. I'm just glad it didn't die when I was running around the other day. I tried charging it up but no luck. The automotive store checked the battery and verified it was dead. Six years out of the stock Motorcraft battery isn't bad, considering the truck is 6 years old! I got a new battery, and the truck started up fine.

I saw three Vulcan-750's on the road over the course of the last few days.

I took the Buell for a ride, I forgot how much fun the little bike is. I think I won't sell it. I backed it out, turned the gas on, let it get primed, and the bike started right up. I rode it to Mayflower on the old Conway highway, gassed up at the Valero ($3.18 a gallon for regular, but I put premium in the bikes. I put a half gallon in to fill it up). Took the highway home from there.

Gassed the truck up tonight on the way home from dinner with family, 243 miles and 12.696 gallons. That's 19.13 mpg, which isn't bad considering that the truck went 30 miles with overdrive off yesterday hauling 104 concrete pavers which were 8" x 16" and weighed 10 pounds each, plus a roll of fence wire, and four 6' steel posts the other day. I'm sure that cut down on my mileage some, but it was still much better mileage than I had last time I gassed up. For the record, it was $3.06 per gallon at the Valero near my home.

The weather is supposed to be windy tomorrow, 20 mph winds... but I'll try and get the Vulcan out and take it for a ride tomorrow.

The ride today though reminded me of why I used to love riding so much, and why I need to get back into it more again. It was sunny, warm, and beautiful out and I saw tons of bikes on the road. Plus, at 70 mpg for my Buell it'll be nice to ride to work again. I really appreciate God's creation when I see it each day, but it seems extra beautiful on the back of a bike.

Gas mileage

I stuck 6.8 gallons in the tank, and had 121.5 miles on the last tank.

That averages to 17.86 miles per gallon as of today.

I normally get 20 miles per gallon (It's a compact pickup, and I have two bales of straw in the back at the moment. It's a real truck). I need to check the air pressure in my tires. The truck will be due for an oil change in about 800 miles too.

$3.09 a Gallon Wednesday at the Valero

Gas Prices jumped

Last week on Wednesday, Gas was $2.84 at the Valero Station on Maumelle Blvd.

It stayed at that price until Sunday,

• Sunday morning it shot up to $2.89.
• Monday morning, it was at $2.92.
• Monday afternoon, it was at $2.97.
• Today: $2.99.

So in the course of 3 days, the price of gasoline jumped 15 cents a gallon for plain old unleaded.

What the hell?!?!

A Google News Search for Gas Prices shows a ton of results...

Turns out, Oil Prices spiked at $100.00 a barrel because speculators (these people are pond scum) are expecting OPEC (these people are ALSO pond scum) to cut production. Yet, Exxon and the other oil companies will be reporting record profits once again. It really irks me how when Oil Prices spike, gas prices IMMEDIATELY spike to reflect it... but when Oil Prices have dropped, gas prices haven't relented. There is OBVIOUSLY price fixing going on. Because if gas prices were a reflection of Oil Prices as the increases immediately following oil price spikes, then you'd think the price would DROP after the fact.

I guess it's time to quit eating out, and when that rebate check from the government comes in I'm not going to spend it like the President expects us to. It's going into my savings if it doesn't get sucked up by the high gas prices. I've about had it with the politicians, the economy is stalling and it's gonna stall out and go into a nosedive if this stuff keeps up.