Date:         Sat, 22 Apr 2006 20:03:02 -0700
Reply-To:     Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Subject:      Re: Local gas prices
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=response

C'mon man. That's like saying if air were really polluted we'd quit
breathing it.

I'm not using a drop more than I have to. My gas consumption by the gallon
varies very little from month to month. Pulling my kid out of school and
shutting down my business are the only further steps I could take to cut
back and those obviously are not acceptable options.
Until I can engineer a solution that allows us to use less gas for the same
things (i.e. better mileage), or go over to something else altogether, I
don't have the choice to 'stop consuming it', or even lessen my consumption.

There seems to be some weird kind of parity coming out of this... no-names
are only 2-4 cents cheaper than the brand names today. $3.15 to $3.19 for
regular.

I made the point to somebody in a pmail that in the 2.5 years I lived in
Japan, in my off-base travels I rode in a passenger car once. Once.
It was all trains and busses (and a lot of walking, but you could get to
most of what you needed by walking). There were plenty of cars, though not
nearly as many as Americans own. Most of the traffic you saw on the roads
was commercial or mass transit. Their mega-highways were small compared to
the average LA freeway. It was cheap too- you could move over most of
southern Japan hopping train to train for a few main fares and some cheaper
transfers, and the stations were usually no more than a few blocks from
anything. Once you got used to using it (a short process) you didn't even
really think about a car.
Contrast that to an LA freeway; 8 or 10 lanes in some places, thousands of
cars in sight- one person in each car. The waste is astounding. People
commuting more than an hour or more each way to work, driving in from
Palmdale, etc. 'It's a better life than in the city...' Bullshit, you live
in your car, you tell your kids goodnight over the cell phone. The crap we
inflict on ourselves and then put up with is beyond belief.
In some ways the LA area is very similar to the Tokyo area. The population
is less dense obviously but every scrap of land that isn't damn near
vertical has something on it- but not parking lots. The Japanese style
system would compliment LA perfectly. They should build up what's left of
the freeway medians and put tracks down. Probably never happen tho.

Somebody mentioned the trucking industry here... I don't get that one
either. Seems that using those dedicated rail lines to move loads long
distances and then use the trucks from nodes on the line would be much more
efficient and cost-effective than tens of thousands of individual trucks
crossing the country every which way, some of them empty on the return. You
would think cost pressures would drive that but it doesn't seem to work that
way.

I think I need a Flintstonemobile.

Cya,
Robert

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Palmer" <jpalmer@MTS.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2006 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: Local gas prices


> Come on now guys.  If gas were really expensive, we would stop
> consuming it.  That doesn't seem to be happening.
>
> On 21-Apr-06, at 10:07 PM, Jake de Villiers wrote:
>
>> Yeah isn't that great. They've got us trained so that 99.9 cents a
>> litre
>> ($4.50 CDN/Imperial Gal) creates lineups at the f*cking gas station!
>>
>> On 4/21/06, Robert Fisher <refisher@mchsi.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> The no-names seem to have gone down a penny (to $3.08) since last
>>> night....
>>> I better run right out and fill everything up.
>>>
>>> Cya,
>>> Robert
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jake
>> 1984 Vanagon GL
>> 1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
>> www.crescentbeachguitar.com