Geek Habitat

Yes, we still love our hybrid–a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid FWD–which we purchased on March 6, 2006.

On the way home from my folks this evening, I refueled the hybrid since it was starting to do its annoying 50 miles to empty periodic buzzer (gotta admit, nothing would be more pitiful than a hybrid stranded on the side of the road, out of gas.) Anyway — 13.37 gal unleaded @ $3.49/gal = $46.77; I got 465 miles on the tank (could be higher) and a tank average fuel economy of 34.8 mpg. Not bad for an SUV, eh? And that’s w/hauling full loads in the cargo area to drop items off at the recycling and donation centers repeatedly (multiple trips), as well as four new tires (non-low rolling resistance, which is what most hybrids use to increase fuel economy by decreasing friction/drag.

Do you take a vacation when a project you’re assigned to is in trouble at work? …when a family member is sick and in the hospital? …when money is tight and you are having trouble paying your bills?

N-O!

Then why the hell should the United States go on a gas tax holiday for the summer months?

If a bird chirps in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, is it really chirping at all?

Sorry, just bastardizing a quote since it appears Twitter.com is borked/totally offline. I can’t access it by HTTP or Twhirl (a Twitter desktop client). I guess it’s a testament to how much I’ve been using it lately, because there are a few things I want share with people, but can’t until the bird that is Twitter regains consciousness after a clearly nasty fall.

Justin and Sara are fast asleep, and my eyelids are getting very, veeery heavy, so it’s probably for the best that Twitter’s not up.

Reposted from Twitter because I’m too pissed off to want to blog it –

* Sigh. The tire we had patched last saturday (and left a camping trip early TO patch)? It’s FLAT.

* There’s a RAZOR BLADE in my tire. I am beginning to think I need to check behind and under my car anytime I park it. F*ck

* I drive a hybrid and it’s stuff like this that makes me get sooo paranoid. I have had a DOZEN tire punctures but this is the 1st RZR BLADE:(

My brother and I left our folks’ house after visiting with them this evening to a genuine “WTF?” moment as we caught sight of both of our vehicles. Thomas’ Sonic Blue Mustang looked like a bucket of especially watery red slime had been thrown over it repeatedly, and mine looked like it’d been in a wind tunnel test involving mud with a high water content. With the Ford Escape Hybrid, I at least have a rear window washer and wiper so I didn’t have to resort to washing it off before I could leave the folks’ driveway.

Reposted from jurvetson’s Flickr photostream (check out his blog, too!) –

jurvetson released this photo under CC 2.0 Attribution.