Battery Prices

Has anyone else noticed how much battery prices have gone up lately? I had to buy a new battery and found the price had doubled in the past couple years...good thing I bought a nice one, hopefully it will be a while before I have to take the hit again.

We had another Bottom Dollar "pay me to walk out with a case of food" day. It was wonderful, we both loaded up on Stouffer's instant meals. Joe got a case, I got that and more. The deals that you can find when you are paying attention are just absurdly low.

Also, as an informal poll, how many of our regular blog readers would like to chat with a virtual personality that mimics either Joe or Dale? We have recently wandered into some strange software that allows you to customize a chatbot and it is hysterically entertaining and creepy.

Ultimate Business Trip - 582 Miles Carpooled

This week I had the pleasure of a three person / two person round trip to Pittsburgh.  The bad news was that it was grueling as it was a round-tripper in one day.  The great news was that I was essentially a stow-away and got to tag along on some already scheduled journeys and my expense was exactly ZERO dollars.  So as not to feel as a freeloader, I did drive one leg of the journey.

Joe drives Dave and Mike to PA RLA.  Mike drives Joe and Dave to Bridgeville.  Bill Drives Joe to Reading.  About 582 car-miles saved.

Back to School - Ha Ha Ha!

Betsy is back at school and so are Dale and Joe.  Relive day one of the Fall session.  Great fun and saving money too!  Carpooling rules.

Betsy drives Joe to DBMS where Betsy works.  Dale drives to DBMS, drives Joe to work.  Betsy drives home. Dale drives back to D'ville, drops off Joe at his house, then drives home.  About 40 car-miles $aved.

Brakes are waste, but not a waste.

I've mentioned the notion of automotive brakes as waste in the past.  If you think about it, braking is used to reduce the velocity of your vehicle.  Reducing your speed inevitably requires a subsequent acceleration which is fuel consuming....waste.

Considering the thermodynamics (unavoidable), basically you are turning the energy in the fossil fuel you pumped into your tank into heated rotors instead of energy to get you to a place.  Deming would call that waste.

Instead, I like to drive as a trucker.  Anticipate the stops and starts.  According to Bill Beaty,  you can personally reduce traffic and improve your game by just following a couple of east steps. Check his site and the YouTubes.  Interesting stuff.

Stay off the brake, stay off the accelerator, stay away from the pump!

Some things you don't notice until you're not driving

On the positive side, there are a lot of fun things to observe when you are not focused on driving.

Being a passenger sheds a whole new perspective on mundane road projects.  Actually there are a number of these "crossings to nowhere" along our route.  I think this is simply good civic planning.  Someday the cars will be gone.  ...but we'll still have two feet, right?

Groundhog Antics - Need Suggestions....Are they good to eat?

Sometimes the drive elicits random thoughts.  Lousy Groundhogs.  I thought all they did was eat.  Can we eat them?  Anyone have a recipe?

If my assessment goes up due to the groundhog's home improvements, I'm going to be pissed.

Why is that Owl following us?

I don't know exactly how many days in a row now, but Joe and I have been seeing an OWL (capital letters) in or around Joe's neighborhood. We have spotted it several times just sitting there, watching the road for some reason all it's own, and apparently quite contentedly staring down cars. It is kind of creepy as owls (lower case), don't usually come out in the daytime. Nor do they in my experience make suggestive eye contact with people in cars. Today we saw it again for the Nth time and I swear it looked deep into my soul with eyes that seemed to ask "Going my way, stranger?". Needless to say, I was terrified for the long moment, I hope we don't see the Owl (upper and lower case) again.

It doesn't matter who's driving most of the time

When this venture started, there was this implicit need to be equal.  "OK, so if I drive M, W, F this week, you can drive M, W, F next week and things will be even".  Interestingly, we never really talked about that, but the thoughts were out there, at least in my head.

What we came to recognize within a few days was the fact that our commuting expenses ( which can be calculated by some really smart web apps) were being reduced by half.  Of course if Dale drives more, my expenses are further reduced, wink-wink.  But even so, Dale has significantly reduced his expense albeit to fund some of my savings.

What matters most - especially at the onset - is if there is a brake pedal on the passenger side of the commuting vehicle.  We all have a different mode of driving.  The person on the right will have a tendency to push on the floorboard more than once.

We're not smart enough to be spies. We're just carpooling.

One of the treasures of driving home each day is the opportunity to see our friends at Bottom Dollar Grocery.  Our relationship started in an unusual fashion.  Can you imagine that Frank, the produce guy thought that we were spies from another grocery?

Photoshop Silliness - Potholes

These would be fakes based on the shadow in the second image, eh?

$20 for 110 pounds of chicken legs?

Thursday we saved $10 off of $30 with a coupon at Bottom Dollar Food in Exeter.  We bought 50 lbs of chicken legs for $13.65 before the coupon.  We bought other things to get us to $30.  If we had our heads on, we should have purchased 110 lbs for $30.03 - less the $10 with the coupon, and donated our $20 (er, 110 lbs) of chicken to Opportunity House.  We'll get that done next time.  In the meantime, here is an alternative: Skinless Chicken Legs - 5lbs