Tank 286 - 4 August 2K11: Hey, it was convenient!

Refueled yet again at the Fas Mart near my house, "home of the world's slowest gas pumps." I also discovered that it's also the home of the pumps you can't set to just pump while you clean the windows and remove the trash from your door pockets.

It remains the home of the pumps that can't tell when you're done entering your 5-digit ZIP code.

And sometimes when it rains, the shelter's so small that the rain drips across the hood of your car.

And it seems about half the pumps are gone or out of order.

But, hey, IT'S CONVENIENTLY LOCATED NEAR MY HOUSE!

Anyway, The cool thing about this tank when compared to last tank is that I went 447.5 miles, which is one mile more than last tank. I refueled with 11.763 gallons, which is 0.005 less gallons than last time. So my mileage was 38.04 miles per gallon, which is 0.1 miles per gallon more than last tank.

I'm mildly excited at my fuel economy for this tank. On at least three occasions I totally floored the gas pedal to accelerate with as much enthusiasm and aggression as the 140-horsepower economy car could muster in order to get around (if you can believe it) drivers who were either driving slower than me or weaving around in their lanes in a way that made me nervous. I figured those moments of anger and frustration would have ruined my overall mileage.

Perhaps with this next tank, I'll be able to remain calm the entire time and control my impulses to mash down the gas pedal and/or drive aggressively just to slam on the brakes a little farther down the road. Yes, perhaps this next tank will be 40 miles per gallon or more! Probably not, because I have poor self-control, but one can dream!

This tank put me at 10,303.5 miles for the year. Last year I had gone 11,812.1 miles. But last year I had that 5-week class that I drove like 200 miles each day to get to and back from, so it's not a good comparison really.

Special Thanks to Nobody Special

A few days ago I got a special performance incentive check in the mail from G0ogle Ad5ense for $116.

Yes, after more than four years of blogging, my advertising revenue due to people cl1cking on my sp0nsored ads had finally reached the magic number of $100 in revenue, and that triggered the process for G0ogle to send me payment for my years of continuous effort and "work."

Over the past years, my most success has been in the last months, with my wildly successful rant against the horrible Delta Touch Faucet (still sucks!), and my disappointment that Ikea hasn't jumped on "the Girl with the Dragon tattoo" bandwagon and started carrying Billy's Pan Pizzas in their Swedish Grocery section. Thanks to you, my post is on the first page of results if you G0ogle "Billy's Pan Pizza" and "Ikea" together.

So to all of you who were in no way not unencouraged to avoid clicking on the sp0nsored ads, there's no need to thank you or avoid expressions of appreciation for your lack of noneffort and support. Without any of you, none of this wouldn't have not happened, exactly.

And I can't say for sure that my intentions are to keep asking or not asking you to look at or not avoid clicking on any or all of the sp0nsored ads on this blog, seeing on how this additional income that may or may not be generated by such inactivity of unclicking on no ads is something that I might or might not welcome on a more or less irregular basis.

So in the future, I continue to be humbled and awed at your continued support and/or nonsupport of my generally innocuous posts concerning my gas mileage and infrequent other adventures.

Tank 285 - 26 July 2K11

I refueled this morning at the Fas Mart near my home ("Home of the world's slowest gas pumps"). It was before 6:00 am and 74 degrees outside. Gas was $3.499 per gallon, and I got 11.768 gallons after driving 446.5 miles. So my fuel economy was 37.94 miles per gallon.

As the world's slowest pump was filling the mighty Corolla, I used the window washer and squeegee to clean off my front and rear windshields. After the first shutoff click, I gently squoze the pump handle again and more than half a gallon of gas went in. If I had given that pump handle a big squeeze, I suspect it would have shut off earlier due to the bubbles and such, and my mileage would have been over 38.

But it all will work out over time- probably next tank if I go to a different gas station it'll look like I used lots less gas and got much better mileage.

This was my 23rd tank for the year. I was on the 23rd tank of 2010 on June 14th last year.

Also of note, it appears that due to a days-long vacation we took earlier this month, I will escape July only having refueled twice during the month. This is an exceptionally rare occurrence, except for that I also went through July 2010 with just 2 trips to the gas station. And July 2009. And May 2008. And December 2007. But other than those five times, not a single other month with as few trips to the gas station!

Tank 284 - 11 July 2K11 - Better Nate Than Lever

I refueled the mighty Corolla over a week ago and then promptly went away on a vacation. I didn't tell anyone I was going on vacation so as to avoid the fear of announcing to all the robbers that my house would be empty and open for robberies.

Anyway, way back to last week, the car had gone 441.6 miles on 11.844 gallons of gasoline, making for a fuel economy of 37.28 miles per gallon. So my dream of making 2K11 the most fuel-efficient year ever is being challenged by two consecutive lower-than-expected tanks of gas in a row, back to back.

However, I can take solace in the fact that I have driven about 1,500 fewer miles so far this year than the similar stretch of time last year.

On the other hand, I can be "continued frustrated" at the fact that my 284 tanks of miles equals 111,891.6 miles but the car's odometer read 111,950 at the time of my last refueling.

Perhaps it's time again to check my tire pressure. I check my bicycle tires every week or so, but don't remember the last time I checked the tires in the Mighty Corolla. Probably I can check it at one of the many Wawas on my way home.

Where's the Real Savings Here?

Like many people, I am mesmerized at the extreme couponers on the TV who buy 92 bags of croutons for less than a dollar. Inspired by these daring acts of bravery, we (and by "we" I really mean my wife, with sometimes help from one or more of the kids) are entering the couponing club. Now, we haven't been able to buy 100 tubes of toothpaste for a nickel yet, nor do we think we ever will, but we have seen notable savings on things we would have bought anyway.

This week, Target had these Schick hydro-five blade razors on sale for $6.49 each, and if you bought two of them, you'd get a $5.00 Target gift card. And we had two coupons for $4.00 off one of these exact razors. With a little thinking, it became evident that it would make these razors $2.49 each, and the purchase of two of them would cost $4.98, plus we'd get a $5.00 Target gift card, basically making these razors free of cost.

What an amazing bargain! But oh, no! Our local Target was all sold out! Luckily, there is a Target near my office, and two more between that one and home.

So I stopped at these three Targets on my way home earlier this week, only to see that those silly razors that were on sale were all sold out there also. Happily, I noticed at each stop that the refills for these razors (also on sale) were $10.99 for four measly blade refills! For that price, one could buy at least 8 disposable razors.

This is an horrible dilemma. On one hand, I appreciate the reduced consumption of replacing only the blades, but on the other hand, it's bloody highway robbery to have the blades themselves priced so much higher than the disposable razors that perform the same job.

Granted, the disposables were "triple blade" and the replacement blades were "quintuple hydroblades," but really, how much better can razors get? It's not like I want to slice off the top layer of my face!

So our current conclusion to this story is that we'll stick with the disposable razors that cost less and do about the same job. The "free razors" would have been nice, but the replacement of the blades would have cost much, much more in the long run.

This is a prime example of the gimmick that was pioneered by the razor companies themselves- give away the product and make money on the replacement parts that predictably wear out after repeated use. Well, as a consumer, I strongly dislike this gimmick.

Particularly vile is that these companies also produce the same disposable razors that sell for so much less than the fancy razor blade refills that they also make!

Makes me want to grow a ZZ Top beard in protest is what it does!

Tank 283 - 30 June 2K11 - Gas is Cheaper, Commute Takes Longer

This morning I refueled again at the Fas Mart near my home, "home of the world's slowest gas pumps," but it's convenient. And since they stopped the annoying speaker that turns on with commercials when you start pumping gas, it's almost tolerable. Except for the silliness of hitting enter after putting in the 5-digit ZIP code, as I referred to earlier.

So anyway, I had gone 429.7 miles on this tank, and added 11.668 gallons of gas, at $3.329 per gallon, making for a fuel economy of 36.83 miles per gallon. It's pretty poor, but my five-tank average remains over 38 mpg, so at least I have that going for me.

I have noted in the past that when gasoline price creeps over $3.50 a gallon, my trip home takes less time on average. The last few weeks have provided data that reinforce this conclusion. Twice this week it's taken me more than 70 minutes to get home, where my average for the year is 59.77 minutes to get home. On Tuesday, at least two crashes delayed my trip. One of the wrecks shut down I-95 so I (and everybody else) had to take route 1 home, which is not a good alternative.

My conclusion is that the cheapening gas price had given the general population of aggressive drivers the green light to speed and swerve around again, and these crashes were evidence that they were out of practice.

Indeed, my conclusion was supported more this morning as I drove to work- a snake of vehicles, including a BMW 3-series (obviously!), an Hyundai (the working man's BMW 3-series), and a crotch-rocket motorcycle all sped through the rest of us speed-limit-following drivers at ludicrous speed, darting across the three lanes of the Interstate from the fast lane to the slow lane and back over the course of about a tenth of a mile (or about 4 or 5 seconds at the speed they were going), only to slam on their brakes as they encountered what obviously was some grandmother rolling roadblock who was only going 70 in the fast lane with her vanpool.

Happily, when I get home this afternoon, I will be on a four-day holiday break, so perhaps I will not need to even sit in a car during this time.