My daily commute — about sixty miles — plus my entry about the Smart car yesterday led me to thinking about fuel prices and how they impact my bottom line. Gas going to four dollars a gallon doesn’t make a real difference in my commuting. certainly not to the point where I would move closer to work, change jobs, or change vehicles solely for the sake of saving money on gas. So I asked myself, “Self? How much of your daily earnings would you have to spend a day before money spent on commuting forced a lifestyle change?”

Here’s the math. All of my vehicles take premium gas, at $4 a gallon. I am spending less than $11 a day on gas if I drive my Mazda to work. This is my “worst-case” scenario, as the turbocharged four-cylinder battlewagon sucks gas down at 22MPG. If I ride my BMW to work I cut my daily fuel expenditure down to $4.80. A worst, I spend far less than 1% of my daily salary on fuel.

So at what point would I start giving a shit about my commuting fuel expenditures? I am guessing that gas would have to take up 5% of my daily salary to even make a realistic blip on my financial radar. I would complain about the cost of going to work, but the money I make would more than justifies the fuel expense. There just aren’t any equivalent jobs on this side of Richmond.

I think gas would have to equate at LEAST 25% of my daily earnings before I made a significant lifestyle change. I may move closer to work because I feel like I am wasting my time spending 90 to 120 minutes a day in transit. I may buy a more fuel efficient car because I feel like it’s the “right” thing to do. I may change jobs to something closer because I am fed up with my current one. But the cost of daily driving has nothing to do with that decision. And probably won’t unless we run out of gas and it skyrockets to $50 a gallon or more.

At what percentage would gas prices make you change your lifestyle?

I loved living in southern Oregon. The weather was perfect for me, the way of life was slower without seeming backwater (unlike the South), and it symbolized a big tipping point in my career in Web junk. It also started my path towards self-sufficiency, and was a good cultural setting to learn about the three “Rs” of waste reduction: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

As indicated in my article about plastic bags almost a year ago, I like reusing stuff. That’s the easiest way for me to reduce the stuff I toss into a landfill. I keep a lot of the plastic containers that food comes in, try to reuse plastic or paper bags at least once before binning/recycling them, and re-use boxes and shipping components. I’ve stopped using paper towels almost completely in favor of rags.

Most of my “reduce” activities center around water and power consumption. I shave out of a big coffee mug instead of letting the water run the whole time. I use compact fluorescent lamps instead of incandescent bulbs where I can. I microwave my kitchen sponge for two minutes every time I run the dish washer to avoid tossing out a perfectly serviceable sponge and reaching for a new one.

Recycling was a part of the conservation triad that I always refused to participate in. Recycling was a major pain in the ass when I lived in Oregon. I had to separate plastic from paper (subdivided into newsprint, magazines/glossy inserts, and then other paper products), glass had to be divided up into clear and green (they didn’t take brown bottles … or was it green ones? I forget). I had to remove labels from all containers. Cardboard was accepted, but only if it was thickly corrugated. Who has time to wash, sort, and judge all that shit? Plus you had to pay.

So, fuck that. Fast forward almost six years, and the niece is living with me. She looked at all the other conservation shit I was doing around the house. “Why don’t you recycle?” I told her about my Oregon experience. She asked me to check into recycling here, and I did, just to appease her. I was completely surprised.

The Central Virginia Waste Management Authority runs a (free!) curbside recycling program that is dead simple for lazy people like myself. Their rules are simple:

1. Wash out your nasty stuff.
2. Throw away lids.
3. Only recycle plastic items with a 1 or 2 on it. When it doubt, throw it away.
4. Huck all your recycleables in one big ass bin. Or more bins, if you need it. No sorting necessary.
5. Tote big ass bin(s) to the curb every two weeks.
6. Don’t pay anything extra.

Apparently it’s all sorted out at a facility. I couldn’t be happier with the program. My fiscally conservative self is satisfied knowing those people aren’t sucking money out of the welfare system. I am putting less stuff into the garbage bin, even with the niece living here. Double the occupants yet only 2/3rds of my original waste going to the landfill? Score.

Instead of a sorting chore, recycling is a game now. I like filling the recycling bin up with junk mail envelopes and the magazines I’ve finished reading. I enjoy looking at plastic containers to see if I can recycle them or not. I was pleased to put my gigumbo-sized empty detergent bottle in the recycling bin instead of throwing it into the trash.

The moral of the story: check to see what your community does for recycling. You might be surprised at how easy (and effortless) it is.

Thanks to Father for sending along Jalopnik’s top ten post-apocalyptic vehicles. The article has some pretty wild vehicles on there, most notably the bullet-shaped Dobbertin Surface Orbiter.

I’d easily pick the Volvo C303 and the SportsMobile van over any of the other vehicles in the article. I was surprised that the Land Rover Defender wasn’t on the list, tricked out with a snorkel and high-lift. I realize the Jalopnik article is tongue in cheek, but there are better bug out vehicles to put on that list other than a beefed-up RV.

The Sisu XA-185 is an interesting vehicle, but the triple axles and gross weight make me wonder if you’d have to have a commercial driver’s license to legally pilot one.

I still think the 1995 Mitsubishi Montero now owned by my niece is about all the average person would need in a bugout situation. The Monty needs a roof rack, high lift jack, and a tail rack to hold gas cans, but aside from that it’s ready to rumble.

I might take on a BOV project for next spring, maybe with a budget of $5000 or less. :)

It probably seems odd that a guy who loves buying stuff so much wants to eventually move as far off-grid as possible, but it’s true. If I had a hojillion dollars I’d refinish a retired nuclear missile silo and make room for my bestest friends in case the Avian flu comes a-callin’ behind the wheel of a monster truck.

But I don’t have a hojillion dollars, so I have to think of less money-intensive ways to have a little patch of land to call my own.

Buying land and then building on it always seems extremely expensive. My father and his wife built their “dream house” in Colorado and drilling their well cost more than they budgeted for. Like, 200% more. Then they had to have their house built, a road cut, etc. etc. They wound up so jaded on their dream house that they sold it a few years later and moved to an even more remote location in Colorado. Their new home is a lot smaller, and they seem much happier. Dad has always been good at teaching me by example, so I started researching “start small” options.
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Sometimes you just have to see WTF is going on. There’s been a wind storm, you forgot to test your Maglite ahead of time, and now you’re in the dark with your woman. Normally this would be awesome, but you’re right in the middle of Ticket to Ride and you’re about to win. What do you do? Reach for your trusty crank-powered LED lantern made by North Point.
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The BBC is reporting that a Chinese man whose son died from an H5N1 infection has also died, raising concerns that the avian flu might be transmittable from person to person. All previous documented cases of human H5N1 infection has been due to contact with birds, or animals who have come into contact with birds, such as cats. The World Health Organization is still researching the two fatalities. If this was indeed spread by HTH contact, expect some reactionary legislation in the US that probably won’t amount to any increased safety.

I made a few posts in the now-defunct GIMPS forum about N95 respirator masks. This thread deals with a group buy on some masks, but there is good information about how there will be a shortage in the event of a major crisis. Should the two deaths in China become linked to HTH, I would not be surprised to find a run on good N95 masks.

Warning: this is a long entry.

With an interesting drive and my first day of the Suarez shotgun gunfighting course under my belt, Markie and I struck out to find our hotel room. We were both pretty tired, and we decided to check into the hotel, grab some shut-eye, and look for a place to eat.

I’d made reservations at the Red Carpet Inn. I was a little worried when I made my reservation. The Holiday Inn Express and most other hotels in the area were sold out, and the RCI was a not-so-highly-rated one and a half stars. “Who cares?” I thought as I clicked through Expedia.com rapidly, “it’s only one night anyway.”

We arrived to find the kind of two-level, flat-roofed motel I remembered from my childhood. My father and I would travel around buying livestock, and pull over to the most convenient place that would allow a truck and trailer to park. The main requirements back then was something cheap and close to the highway. Cleanliness and safety were further down the list. Much further. The parking lot of our motel was mostly empty when we checked in at about four. It was pretty jammed by the time we napped, showered, and headed out for food. Things had taken a turn towards the scary.

A flatbed ten-wheeled truck drove by, the lady behind the wheel’s face screwed up like Munch’s The Scream painting. The truck didn’t stop and just got back on the highway. As I made sure the motel door was shut and locked, a man got out of his dark-colored Cadillac. “Don’t forget the chicken,” he said as he shut the long, heavy door. A much younger woman wearing a very tight dress poured herself out of the passenger side, holding a bag of food. “At least they can use the grease from that chicken as lube,” Markie said flatly as we got in the Mazda and headed to town.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, although I will admit I loaded nine rounds in the Mossberg just in case goblins went bump in the night.
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Warning: this is a long entry.

One of the first things I noted about the shotgun course was that it stopped raining as soon as I parked my car. I had read conflicting reports of either 10% chance of rain, or 80% chance of rain throughout the day. The sky appeared to be breaking up. At least I didn’t have to put on my rain gear, I would have been extremely hot even under the GoreTex. Like I said in my part one post, my spirits started to lift.

One of the second things I noted was that there was a pigeon flapping around the setup area. One of the guys joked if it was the land owner’s pet pigeon, and Frank replied that it was. He then proceeded to stick his hand out so that the pigeon could nuzzle him. Apparently Frank adopted the pigeon as a young bird and had semi-domesticated it. I expected the pigeon to fly right in front of the firing line and get atomized, but amazingly it stuck around both days. It was gracious enough to hop around to different cars and shit on all of them.

Five students with over a thousand rounds of ammunition between them, zombie headshots, and a domesticated pigeon: we were ready to start blasting stuff.
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Warning: this is a long entry.

Two weeks ago fellow YOTZer and friend Markie sent me an email entitled, “can you get the weekend off ….” In the email was a link to a Suarez International shotgun gunfighting class held in nearby Culpeper, Virginia. SI teaches classes all over the world. The class material requirements sounded ominous: 150 rounds of birdshot, fifty rounds of buckshot, fifteen slugs, and at least fifty rounds of pistol ammunition. The course notes recommended a flashlight, elbow pads, a shotgun sling, ammunition pouch/sidesaddle/etc, and the obvious eye and ear protection. The course was $265.00 and did not include the cost of ammunition or gear.

I’ve been shooting for the majority of my life, but it wasn’t anything like the type of shooting I expected to do at the Suarez course. Moving and shooting, high round count (for me), etc. Normally my shooting is done at an indoor “bowling alley” style range where both the target and shooter are standing still and facing each other. Most notably, I have never received any formal marksmanship training, just formal gun safety training. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being a novice shooter in front of a professional instructor and demonstrating my skills (or lack thereof) in front of total strangers.

However, any knowledge — even if it’s knowing that I suck — is worth having. I didn’t really consider the prospect of attending the course as “fun,” and my excitement level was quite a bit lower than Markie’s. I figured this is something that I should do as a responsible firearm owner. I also felt that I needed to carry forward a maxim I read many years ago: Teach the Teacher.

I enjoy introducing new shooters into the world of firearms and marksmanship. In order to more effectively help novice shooters understand and enjoy firearms, I felt that I needed to raise my own knowledge of shooting. The better trained and equipped I am, the more fun my friends and family will have when they go with me. Plus, it would never hurt to have a cadre of experienced shooters around me in case the dead rise. ;)

I typed in my credit card information and registered for the course. The next thing to do was go shopping.
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Last week I finally got off my ass and did something I’ve meant to for years and never got around to. No, it doesn’t involve twins. I went to see a lawyer and made a living will, along with an advanced medical directive. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and I don’t use drugs. I’m not overweight and while I don’t exercise nearly as much as I used to, I am not a total couch potato, either. However, I do ride a motorcycle, none of my grandparents made it past their early 70s, and mental illness runs in the family. So I figured I’d get my shit together and set forth who’s getting what in the event that I cack off.
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