Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Gas Price Follies!!!!
Gas prices have hit $3 bucks a gallon (And counting!) and I've been noticing of late that there seems to be a few less pickups/SUV's in the parking lot at work these days. I've talked to a few of the former truckers and they've all admitted they were having a hard time putting almost $70 a tank full into a vehicle that get about 18mpg on the highway so they can drive to work in comfort. And that's why they were driving them. They liked being able to see OVER the cars in traffic and liked the roomy interiors. They weren't hauling anything. In fact, most of the truck beds I still in the lot are in pristine shape. The owners have, reluctantly, returned to driving the smaller sedans most of them own. I'm also seeing a few more hybrids in the lot, although if you crunch the numbers, they really don't pay off as well as some think.
In the late seventies, Jimmy Carter decontrolled petroleum pricing, and predictably, gas prices shot up. He was roundly cursed and berated for making that move. But a curious thing happened. With higher prices, people started buying smaller cars, and Detroit started downsizing their fleets. Eventually, gas prices started to stabilize due to soften demand for gas, and prices started getting reasonable again. Sadly for Jimmy Carter, he was but a memory as "The Gipper" was in office.
For quite a while, gasoline prices, in relation to consumer buying power, were actually pretty reasonable. Because of that, we've seen a return of big vehicles in the form of pickups and SUV's. Used to be, you only owned a pickup if you needed the load carrying power. They were plain Jane vehicles with no options and a harsh ride. Then Detroit start to gussie them up, with power options, cushy seats, and softer suspensions. People started to use them for every day driving. Then Ford, in a bid to grab some of GM's Suburban market, created the Expedition. It was actually a lash up job at first. They were only testing the market and didn't expect to sell all that many, as the Suburban class was sort of a niche vehicle at the time. To Ford's astonishment, sales took off, and even better, since the Expedition was based on their mature truck platform that had already been paid for engineering wise, they were making a ton of profit on each unit sold, and they became a major cash cow as sales skyrocketed. Foreign makers saw all this and wanted a piece of the action, each coming out with their own models. Bigger and better was the word. Even now, Toyota's running an ad campaign touting the size of their trucks. And they ARE big. But the gas price chickens have come home to roost, and Detroit's been losing market share and bleeding money. They were so focused on the pickup/SUV market, they've ignored their auto fleet, offering rehashed versions of mature chassis platforms year after year. Only recently have they begun to react by offering anything that could be remotely considered as "new." What's the latin phrase for a day late and dollar short????
Complain all you want. Accuse the oil companies/gas station owners/futures traders of gouging all you want. Sign those internet petitions. Boycott a certain brand for a day. You'll be wasting your time. It isn't going to make a bit of difference. The ONLY way prices will come back down is for Americans to use less gas. It truly is as simple as that. Nothing else will do it. It doesn't mean we're going to have to give up one whit of lifestyle points. All it means is that Americans will have to squeeze their fats asses into smaller cars, drive less and walk more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it'll be an "inconvenience" if you have to use a smaller car and walk more. Like my late great Mom used to tell me, "That's rough!!"
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov
Monday, July 17, 2006
Oh, and by the way!!
It should be noted that 37 years ago today, July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched, and 4 days later, man landed on the moon.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov
The end of STS-121
It's been interesting listening to the post flight press conference. It's possible that this flight was one of the most trouble free shuttle flight NASA has had for some time, perhaps even going back to the original STS-1. To listen to the press corps, it must have been a flight of near calamity. I guess a smooth trouble free mission with very little in the way of anomalies doesn't sell very many papers. The landing was a flawless one. I mean they even changed the landing direction from Runway 33 to Runway 15 at the last minute due to rain clouds that popped up to the south, and the flight crew handled it all with aplomb and the pilots put that thing down right smack dab on the numbers. I mean smack dab on the numbers. They could not have been more accurate. Hell, I never was able to get that consistently good when I was flying. Yet, just about all the press has been able to do is nit-pick the very few things that did go wrong, such as the right air data probe's late deployment during landing, the few chips that did appear on the tiles and an APU(That's Auxiliary Power Unit, for you non-techs types.) fuel leak that amounted to about 6 drops an hour or so. Man, I should leak that little. It turns out that leak was so insignificant, they used that APU anyway with no problems.
It's a complicated machine, still considered experimental. and perhaps more complex to operate and maintain than originally anticipated. At one time in the beginning, they were calling it a space borne Mack truck. More like a Ferrari with a cargo department. That's the nature of advanced technical stuff. You're learning all the time. At one time, I didn't think that the shuttle should be retired. I now believe it's time for the next generation reusable spacecraft. Hopefully, taking the lessons learned from the shuttle fleet, the next generation will be more reliable and easier to fly and maintain. It'll have to be, for if it turns out to be a bear to use, it won't last much longer than the shuttle has. I also believe they're going to need to develop the ability for all weather operations. The main advantage to the shuttle is its enormous cargo carrying capacity. Even the largest existing Russian rockets can't lift as much. If the politicians can keep their fingers out of the pie, it should be a good bird.
And I still believe the Hubble Telescope needs another service flight. IMHO, the previous director of NASA was an idiot for canceling that mission.
"Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor."
Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The roads less traveled........
I guess it's odd that, as much as I hate moving, I do love to travel. Traveling to other places is nice, because you can go there, see the best that place has to offer, and then go home and not have to put up with the bad parts. Unless you're in D.C. these days, in which case some of the locals will offer you their version of "money reallocation" services.
When I was a kid, we didn't travel very much, due to lack of funds. So when we did travel, I really enjoyed it, as it was a special time for us. I see the usual depiction of a family on vacation, with the kids in the backseat raising hell and the harried Dad in the front seat blindly swinging his arm around in the back seat, attempting to make contact with anything he can reach. That never really happened with me. I was content to sit in the back, look out the window and watch the countryside go by. In the sixties, the interstate system was just getting started, and travel was still mostly done on two lane highways. Sometimes, if it was a US highway, such as the famed Route 66, it might be four lane. My dad never seemed to like those roads though, so it was usually two lanes for us. That was fine with me. I enjoyed them more anyway. We had a blue 1957 Chevy 210 station wagon that offered plenty of room for us in the back seat, so you could stretch your legs out and be comfortable. We'd go through some pretty small towns, some of which weren't even on the map. If you weren't paying attention, you'd miss them. This was in Missouri where I grew up. Summers are usually pretty warm down there, so of course the windows were open since AC was still a luxury most people didn't have. Multi-disk CD player?? Heck, the AM radio didn't even work. It was broken the day Dad bought the car, and he never bothered fixing it. Cost too much. He wasn't being cheap either. We simply couldn't spare the money.
I carry memories of traveling through the Ozarks, watching the thick, lush vegetation roll by, motoring along in quiet contemplation of what I was seeing and wondering what I'd see over the next hill. Missouri doesn't have any natural lakes, they're all man-made, so the only water we would see was streams and rivers. Since tires back then were little more than old t-shirts dipped in molten rubber, we'd almost always have at least one flat. We'd have to stop at a gas station that had one pump, and a sleepy dog out front. The man who filled your tank (There was no self service back then, the gas companies hadn't trained us to fill our own tanks yet.) was also the mechanic, bean counter, and owner of the place. We'd get the tire fixed, maybe a new tube, then he'd fill the tank and check the oil. They would ALWAYS come up to dad and show them the dipstick and in that southern Missoura drawl insist "It's down about a quart!" My dad would say "It's always down about a quart. No thanks!" (Of course, we'd check it later and it was fine.) Then the guy would wash the windshield, using the greasiest rag he had in the place. I think it was revenge for not buying that damned quart of oil. I'm also convinced that when we were out of sight, he would mail that rag to the next station we would stop at.
The one thing that I've never been able to figure out is why people will go to another city, state, or nation even, and eat at a chain restaurant. I mean, if you go to Chicago, a city that has more fine places to eat than just about any other city in America, would you eat at a Mac and Don's Supper Club??? Hell No!! I'll find one of the local eateries. The best way to do that is if you're staying at a motel or hotel, ask the locals who work there. Find out where they like to eat. Oftentimes, you'll be directed to a non-descript looking place that offers fine food for decent prices. Give it a try sometime. Quit handing your money over to the big national chain places. They'll not miss your money. Support the local places. You'll be glad you did.
"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -- Lao Tzu
