What’s All This Then!

Several state governments will enact higher gas taxes on July 1st, 2008. Courtesy of API.ORG, here is a detail map of how much you will pay at the pump in taxes. Price includes the Federal bite of 18.4 cents/gallon. Click on the image below for a larger picture.

So as you drive over potholes and rough roads, as you sit trapped in traffic jams and ill conceived construction projects, as you motor in the states of Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Washington, and West Virginia, be sure to thank your state representative!

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Yesterday, I stood chatting with three of my women co-workers when suddenly, all three had a hot flash. Their body heat was so intense that I could feel the warmth being generated as their inner child played with matches. As the room’s air conditioning immediately kicked into high, my female friends swarmed around it like kids around an ice cream van. I swear that I saw steam rising as the cold air rushed past their feverish forms. All I could do was nervously glance at the sprinkler system in the ceiling and hope for the best.

So, all right! I’ll admitted it! I was wrong. I thought there was no way that humans could be the direct and only cause of global warming. But after yesterday’s experience, I have to consider that the world’s population is growing older. More and more of the 3 billion women are hitting that change of life phase where they almost spontaneously combust from their hot flashes. All of the heat has to go somewhere!

Now I’m not blaming aging women as the sole cause of climate change. There is the deadly carbon foot print from that untapped energy resource — the flatulence of aging males.

So what can we do to protect our environment from ourselves? First of all, what shall we do about the gentler half of our species? Perhaps we can send all menopausal women to the coast and have them relaxingly lounge at the ocean’s edge. When their body temperatures spike, the rising sea level is immediately turned into steam. Our female friends are cooled, the ocean waters are turned into clouds, which will block the sun and cool the planet. Female generated global heating is counteracted. The planet is saved. Everyone is happy. Life is good.

Now if we only knew that outlawing all male “pull my finger” instances would be enough to control the carbon butt print threat to the planet. I’ll work on that solution in another post.

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This post is for you if your car’s gas cap is black. DO NOT put the ethanol and gasoline mixture into your car unless you are trying to destroy your engine from the inside out. Cars with the yellow gas cap can safely use this alternative fuel, also known as E85. Everyone else beware!

Before any of you yellow cappers get feeling too smug, don’t let the cheaper price for this alcohol based fuel fool you. It actually costs you more because Ethanol has less energy per gallon than regular gasoline. In fact, you may have already noticed that your MPG has significantly dropped.

Let’s say you can get 20 miles out of one gallon of regular gas. That’s 130.96 MegaJoules of energy your car used to haul your butt down the road. Because E85 only has 96.86 MegaJoules per gallon, you will only go 14.79 miles with that one gallon.

In terms of cost, the most expensive station in my area gouges $4.109 for a gallon of regular. In our 20 mpg example, that’s 20.5 cents per mile. We have another station that sells E85 at $3.769 per gallon. That looks cheap but using our example, that means you pay 25.5 cents per mile! If ethanol is to be cost effective, it would have to be cheaper than $3.04 for that gallon.

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The first week of June was great. I finally got approval to attend some much needed training. Though the classes were intensive, it was one wonderful week away from chaos of the plant. When I returned on Monday of the second week, what had I missed? The plant facility manager and one of the purchasing agents had been fired. And my boss had turned in his notice.

I can say that I was there on Tuesday, when one of my friends on the assembly line waited until quitting time to tell her boss that she would not be returning the next day. It didn’t matter that she was within a few months of retiring. She had had enough.

So these past couple of weeks have been interesting. My boss spent much of this past week going over all of his work with me. Lucky me. Since these new owners have taken over, my work load has already increased. Now with the addition of my boss’ responsibilities, my cup runneth over …. but not my wallet.

I too have been looking for work with that ideal company. One where I can enjoy a share of the profitability that I bring to them. One where “plan” is not a four letter word. One where management-by-crisis is a forbidden practice. If you’re looking for a competent, fun loving, hard working, creative, programmer/test development engineer, call me. Please! And Soon!!!

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Over the past 6 weeks, a group in Washington, DC have been visiting gas stations in the area to hold prayer vigils that implore God to lower gas prices. When our intrepid group first started, you could get a gallon of regular for $3.53. Today, as they continue their fuelish chants, gasoline is within a few pennies of the four dollar mark. I guess with all the war, poverty, disease, and injustice in the world, perhaps high gas prices haven’t made the heavenly top ten list yet. It probably doesn’t help that they start each session with, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Gas.”

Their undertaking made me wonder about that burning theological question, WWJD — what would Jesus Drive? Since he’s of Middle Eastern dissent and speaks no English, my first guess was a taxi. But that’s not very biblical. I believe that the answer lies in the New Testament where we learn that Jesus drove a Honda. For proof, I refer you to the book of Acts where the apostles were said to be in one Accord with Jesus. (Getting 13 men into a small car is nothing short of a miracle. Getting 13 men out of an Accord is nothing short of a circus act.) But we shouldn’t be too surprised that Jesus had a car. God himself drove a Pontiac. Don’t believe me? If you will turn to the book of Genesis, you’ll read about God driving Adam and Eve from Eden in a Fury.

Of course, that was eons ago. Now that God is at least 13 billion years old (that’s 10,000 in Christian fundamentalist years), we don’t know if he still has his driver’s license … which could explain why he is now said to be everywhere at once. This omnipotence must have happened after an uprising of extremely annoyed Angels who were stuck behind God in traffic. What could be worse than being behind an all-knowing Deity who is driving like he has all the time in world while forgetting that his left turn signal is on. “Let there be light. Let there be not. Let there be light. Let there be not. Let there be..” No doubt, Lucifer made the mistake of angrily honking his horn while making obscene hand gestures. God’s response was the first “Go to hell!” ever spoken. The rest is biblical history.

Anyway, I have no doubt that gas prices will become cheaper. Hopefully this will happen in my lifetime. But if our prayer warriors really do bring pump prices down, I do hope that they then turn their attention to 30 year old scotch. Who are we to say that God doesn’t appreciate the finer things of life? That water-to-wine miracle proved that good alcohol was well within the realm of heavenly powers. Wouldn’t you appreciate fine scotch made cheap? I know I would pull over and raise a toast in thanks to the Almighty …

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