bluh

I’m really damn tired, also in France. Aside from the screaming baby with moron parents across the aisle from us on the plane & ancient craptastic 767, things have been great, especially the ultra smoov quiet fast sleep-inducing TGV ride from Paris gare du l’est to Nancy. Yeah, that’s the train line they set the rail speed record on – 574.8 km/h.

That’s real fucking fast.

And so far the people have been very nice, the scenery beautiful, shit is expensive (thanks, Federal Reserve!) and our travels utterly unaffected by the rail strike, despite taking two different rail lines.

We have no bandwidth at home. None. The deathstar decided it would be a good idea to cancel our working DSL on our original phone line before activating it on the secondary phone line. The DSL might get turned back on as early as Monday. Might.

We had to pull out phone books yesterday to find a telephone number. This shit has got to get fixed.

Please, call us and release us from our boredom. If you’ve got my cell number, the message will tell you the real cell number on which to call me. If you have my home number, it should work.

Maybe our neighbors have wireless access and haven’t activated WEP/WPA. We’ll see.

I actually considered dialup for this weekend.

HJALP.

Right now, diesel is more expensive than gasoline. This is normal for this time of year – busy shipping season for christmas gifts, harvest time, refineries gearing up to produce heating oil – and quite a bit different than previously in the year. At one point #2 ULSD was over $1/gallon cheaper than 87 octane unleaded gasoline.

But, folks have a hard time getting over this “diesel is more expensive than gasoline” stigma. Why they can’t do the math is beyond me, but here is an illustrative example.

I just filled up my 2006 VW Golf TDI at approximately the same mileage at which I would have to fill up my previous vehicle, a 1995 Volvo 850. I will use the lowest observed prices for both #2 ULSD and 87 Octane RUG and the overall fuel economy calculated over several thousand miles for both vehicles.

1995 Volvo 850: overall 26.3 mpg fuel economy

2006 VW Golf TDI: overall 43.4 mpg fuel economy

The lowest observed price today is $2.739 RUG; $2.899 ULSD. At these prices, the 850 would have cost 10.4 cents per mile for fuel. The Golf TDI costs 6.7 cents per mile for fuel. Even at $3.234/gallon for the AWOC B11 I normally fill up with (at least often enough to maintain a minimum of B2 in the tank at all times), the Golf TDI would still only cost 7.5 cents per gallon.

Keeping the Volvo would cost at least 2.9 cents more per mile, or 38.7% more than the Golf. Not to mention the two grand in work it needed immediately… and a car with 160k miles on it is going to start requiring regular replacement of non-trivial parts.

Remember folks, the price at the pump is irrelevant, what matters is the cost per mile.

Oh, and the Golf has gone 800 miles on a single tank. The Volvo did well to go 500 miles on a tank… a tank that was at least 3 gallons larger. 38.7% more per mile in fuel sounds pretty bad right now, and that’s with diesel that’s 50 cents per gallon more than gasoline. Just imagine what it would be like this summer when ULSD was a steady $2.999/gal and RUG was at $4.039/gal – actual prices I observed. (hint: the Volvo would then cost over twice per mile in fuel than the Golf… 122% more expensive)

Over the years I got to be quite a connoisseur of soap. Though my personal preference was for Lux, I found that Palmolive had a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor – heavy, but with a touch of mellow smoothness. This bar of Dove, however, has a nice floral bouquet, a refreshing crisp tartness and finishes with hints of oak, saddle leather and motor oil.

Direct Transport? I forget the name on the side of truck, but it was from Chattanooga TN, white, with “004” on the back of the cab. I do remember hearing your horn quite frequently as well as seeing your lights flashing repeatedly, you jerk. If I offended your meth-addled brain by having the audacity to let a nice space cushion develop between the car in front of me in the slow traffic on I-90/94 through downtown Chicago on 2007 September 22, around 1100 – 1115, well, that’s too bad for you – the National Safety Council agrees with my driving tactic.

I only wish I had a camera or pen & paper with me that day. Normally right now I would be emailing your bosses pictures of your truck and a description of your dangerous, hyper-aggressive driving right about now.

But, lucky you, I had my car detailed the day before and had not put my usual assortment of flotsam back into my Golf. It’s a shame drivers like you give the other careful, cautious 98% of OTR drivers a bad rap.

Way to go, gummint. Now Loonies are worth more than our Washingtons.

And they all laughed at me for having a cake-heavy portfolio.

• Diesel is creeping up in price
• 50°F (10°C) in my house this morning
• Technically we’re in the grey area between labor day and the autumn equinox, but it sure has been beautifully nice and warm during the day but cool and crisp in the shade
• Sun is starting to set earlier, around 1930 or so

Nice.

I think this thing is back up and running.

LAST CALL!

we’re moving to a hosted account, one that isn’t reliant on commonwealth edison for power or the deathstar for internet access. there may be a few days of pain, but it will all be worth it, trust me.

this machine will still be reachable via sammich.dyndns.org but there will likely be nothing here – apache may continue to operate but only on a non-standard port, sshd has on such a port for a long time now, qmail will be turned off completely. the ease and cost of hosting has made it very attractive to not run my own server anymore.

but, like i said, the machine will remain up and working until it doesn’t – i like having a shell account mostly reachable from the outside world as my own sandbox to piss in.

so, like a wiser feller than myself says every single night:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE