I’ve been a long-time reader of Ernie the Attorney. He posted earlier this week that he was staying in New Orleans due to being unable to get out of town.
My thoughts are with him and the others in New Orleans this morning — looking forward to his next post showing that he is safe and sound…
With Hurricane Katrina (that bitch!) headed into Louisiana at the moment, now may be a good time to donate to the Red Cross.
Alot of people are going to need alot of help in the coming days and months - and I guarantee that one of the first folks on the scene will be the volunteers and staff members of the Red Cross.
Since I’m a geek, I’ll do the geeky thing here.
My previous car was a 2000 Toyota Camry, had I driven it to Woodbury, Minnesota from Boston (1405 miles) at 23 mile per gallon, I would have used 61.09 gallons of gas costing around $175.32 (I use premium at around $2.87 / gallon).
My current car is a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid. It used only 34.77 gallons of gas costing me around $99.80.
Calculate that over the 24,000 miles I’ve driven since I bought this car and it’s burned only 592 gallons of gas costing around $1700 vs. the Camry’s 1,043 gallons of gas costing around $2,994.
There have been only two downsides to the hybrid. One, the maintenance is slightly more expensive.. an oil change is about $115 due to using synthetic oil - then again, they’re only every 5000 miles vs 3000 miles or so previously. Second, the trunk is six inches less deep due to the batteries being between the rear seats and the trunk wall…
Otherwise, I love the car!
Too tired and busy last night to post the final update on the 1400 mile drive, but here is the update.
I made it to Woodbury, Minnesota around 430pm CST yesterday, having followed the path below:
One sees many interesting things on a 1400 mile drive, but the only one I took a picture of was outside of Madison, Wisconsin at a rest area. It’s the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial:
I’ve now bought the new washer and dryer and a new grill - looked at some other things and have much to do. Closing is tomorrow at 10am.
You might have also heard of that bitch, Katrina? Yeah, thought you had. That’s on my mind too tonight.
Pulled out of Boston’s Nine-Zero Hotel this morning at 5:45am EST, pulled into the Residence Inn in Toledo Ohio about 7pm EST. The cat managed to not puke until we got to the hotel, so that’s an improvement over what has happened in the past.
Here’s the map for you Google Geeks out there:
It’s about 774 miles - I drive a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid, and averaged 40.4 MPG for this trip, so my fuel used was only around 19.16 gallons so far.
In fact, at 500 miles, I took this picture with the Treo 650:
Now for pizza, some old James Bond on the telly, and out the door by 6am for the remaining 660 miles to go to the new home in Minnesota. Closing is Monday morning….