Gas math

Some people have noticed that I always seem to be running low on gas. They also mock me because I have run out of gas on a few occasions, although I still maintain that this most recent time in Montana was not my fault... I was an innocent passenger in the out-of-gas-vehicle.

But it has become clear that people want to know why I insist on running my fuel tank to empty. In fact, when my digital read out says "0 Miles to Empty" I will often let the car go for another 10-15 miles. There is a simple and thoughtful answer to this question and it can be answered with something I call, "gas math."

I have noticed that most people feel the proper time to fill up their gas tank is when it is around one quarter full. This means every fifth stop for gas will be a complete waste of time. It is true, you had four quarter tanks which you neglected - they would have kept you running for many miles. Well, if a driver like me fills up their tank 5 times a month, that would mean around 7 minutes wasted a month or about an hour and a half over the course of a year.

Now, I do recognize that the downside to this equation is that you increase your chances of running out of gas. I have been driving with this philosophy for 10 years and I have run out of gas 2 times, heck, I will even throw in this most recent time (that was not my fault), 3 times. Total time wasted due to inoperable vehicle: 160 minutes. Time saved by not going to gas station when tank is a quarter full: 840 minutes. Net time saved: 11 hours and 20 minutes.

We made it

After 28 hours of almost continuos driving, we have arrived in Seattle. I probably have a few more stories regarding the journey, but now it is time for me to sleep.

(This has been quite the weekend for time changes, we drove from Central time, to Mountain time, to Pacific time, and now I just had to change my clock for daylight savings time... I will probably be a bit confused when I wake up tomorrow.)

Fun in Montana

Montana events:
-We had lunch at Costco - free samples are very filling for weary travelers
-We saw a truck carrying a deer or two back from a day of hunting (maybe they finally got Bambi?)
-We ran out of gas
-We crossed the continental divide
-We lost 5th gear for a while... but it came back
-We visited two of Montana's estimated three Starbucks.

Montana is a very long state and it takes a while to get across it. So the little diversions listed above were appreciated. As for the gas situation, I may have encouraged steching our tank of gas, but I was NOT driving when we came to a puttering stop. I will not, however, learn my lesson as it almost took us a whole 5 minutes to borrow some gas, fill the tank, and return our borrowed gas to Jeff, the kind Montana-ian.

Well, we are about to head into the pan-handle of Idaho... I will try to keep you posted on potato sightings and the such.

We are in Montana!

I keep trying to get Erin to stop... There have been so many sights and attractions that she just keeps cruising by...

We just drove past a building with a T-Rex coming out of the side of it, A T-REX!!! And, she didn't even wake me up for 'Home on the Range' North Dakota, no, really, that is the city's name...

OK, well it is almost my turn to drive again, gotta start mentally preparing.

Protecting Americans from hair gel on their toothbrushes

At first I was a little concerned that the Federal government was getting a little too overbearing with their wire tapping and detention centers. But now I admit, I was wrong. They clearly know what they are doing...

When flying the FAA now requires carried on liquids to be in a one quart Ziplock bag. This may seem a little odd in the land of the free... But how many pieces of clothing have been ruined by an exploding toothpaste tube? How many toiletry bags are forever scented by a lotion bottle that was compressed a bit too much?

Clearly Americans can not be trusted to pack their own gels and liquids as they wish, and thus let me be the first to say I will happily give up a bit of my liberty for protection from shampoo covered jeans...

Now if only the Federal government would start helping me pick my favorite television stations so I know what shows I should and should not watch.

Still waiting at the airport... Maybe Erin forgot about me.

Greetings from Minnesota

I have just arrived in Minneapolis after almost missing a few flights… it seems that US Airways was having some trouble with their computer system. When I arrived at San Diego International there was a huge line to check-in, the line kept getting longer because the US Airways computer system was down. I guess this occurred due to a power failure somewhere… anyway, they kept assuring us over the PA that we did not need to worry about missing our flight because they could not "take-off" planes without the computers… I think this was supposed to serve as reassurance. But it seemed to just raise the tension levels in the terminal. Anyway, making it through security was a hassle as always… but it could have been worse. They could have told me that I had 4.5oz of a particular liquid or that my Ziplock bag was a quart and a half – both of these would have been major issues as they would have been 50% above the legal limit for carry-on luggage. In addition I have a power inverter with me, which, to the untrained eye might not look like something that is supposed to be on a plane. So, yeah, security could have been an issue, but it was not… in fact, my biggest problem was that my plane was about to leave and security was at Gate 97 (or something) and my gate happened to be number 23… I did the only thing I could do – run. And thank goodness I did, the Gate Agents were closing up just as I arrived… they knew nothing about the computer outage.

After a brief stop in Phoenix and a faulty seat cushion (not mine, someone else's, but it was enough to delay the flight for 20 minutes as it was repaired/replaced), I have arrived at MSP. Erin, my travelling partner is running a bit late so I thought it was a good opportunity to provide this quick update…

If you find yourself wondering why I am the land of "You-betcha" read down a couple days in the blog… look for the entry with the map and a line heading from Minneapolis to Seattle… that should give you a good overview.

I will try to write more as our journey progresses.

Uh oh, they are closing Starbucks… gotta run!

-9:00 Central Time

A situation that is degrading to chaos

Entropy

Seriously... what a great word. I do not think that great words get the recognition they deserve...
From Wiktionary (the third definition is probably the most useful and the one referenced in the title of this post):

(thermodynamics, countable)

• strictly thermodynamic entropy. A measure of the amount of energyphysical system which cannot be used to do mechanical work. in a
• A measure of the disorder present in a system (now becoming obsolete in chemistry [1]).
• The capacity factor for thermal energy that is hidden with respect to temperature [2].
• The dispersal of energy; how much energy is spread out in a process, or how widely spread out it becomes, at a specific temperature. [3]

(statistics, information theory, countable) A measure of the amount of information and noise present in a signal.

(uncountable) The tendency of a system that is left to itself to descend into chaos.

Junípero Serra High School Online

I am probably one of a few alumni whose high school is more famous than their college. I suppose fame is relative, but whatever your measure - whether it is famous alumni (partial list at Wikipedia) or mentions by John Madden during sports broadcasts - Junípero Serra High School has quite a name for itself.

Well today Serra unveiled their new website... and let me tell you, it is very well done. Check it out if you get a chance and if you are a fellow alumnus I think your registration number for the online community is in the mail.

www.serrahs.com

10/25 UPDATE: In honor of the new site I revised the Serra Wikipedia page to give the internet a better sense of the school and its alumni... check it out.

Lake Monster Culture

Back in 2003-04 my friend from college, Buck Defore, won a Watson Fellowship and went on a journey around the world to study lake monsters. More accurately he was studying the nuances of the society's that are based around the these mythical beings...

He recently found and re-posted his website dedicated to his journey... it is an amazing trek and an amazing piece of web design... so whether you are into lake monsters or into awesome looking sites, it is worth checking out:

http://bcdef.org/lmc/

Gross generalizations

I have met some great and intelligent people since I have lived in San Diego... but one place I have never met a girl that I would want to spend more than 5 minutes with is at a San Diego bar.

You see, when I first came down here I quickly realized that no one is actually from San Diego... so when you go into a bar and see a girl you can always go up to her and ask, "where are you from?" to start a conversation. The first few times I heard the answer to this question I was impressed... the girl would tell me, how she packed up all her stuff and moved to San Diego without a friend or a job. Wow, I would think, how independent!

But then I realized that the story was always the same and it went something like this:
"I was sitting in my room changing clothes and I looked over at myself in the mirror and I realized, I have a rockin' hot body. And then I asked myself, why am I letting this rockin' hot body go to waste under layers of clothing in [insert Midwestern state name here]?" Around this time the hair flips and the distraction has already led me to believe that maybe I am not dealing with the sharpest pencil, but she would continue... "So I realized that I needed to live somewhere near the ocean, and LA is to overwhelming, so I decided to move to San Diego."

Don't get me wrong, I am all for hot girls moving to the place I live... but the problem is that their motivations are not the most well thought out and that kinda defines the rest of their lives as well.

Now what about the people that grow up in San Diego... a few of them have to be intelligent, right? As a matter of fact, there are quite a few intellectuals that grew up down here. I went to college with a handful of them in Washington. So I decided to use the University of Puget Sound's online directory to see where, in the San Diego area, they moved back to... yeah... they did not move back. My friends that were originally from the San Diego area have scattered all over the country but have avoided the bottom left corner.

Perhaps I am just going to the wrong bars?

An embarrassing truth

I turned 27 the other day. Yeah, it doesn't feel much different than 26, but I have to admit something, I have yet to go to the gym since my birthday. This has nothing to do with being lazy or being too busy... it has to do with the elliptical machine. You see, when I get on that thing it asks me, how much do you weigh? what course do you want to do? and HOW OLD ARE YOU?

I suppose I have not been ready to admit my new, older, age to the elliptical machine, or any other piece of gym equipment for that matter. I am not sure what my problem is... but I need to get over it quick... less my body look older than 27.

10/21 UPDATE: I made it to the gym today, typed the numbers two and seven into the elliptical machine... it still worked, I was still able to do my normal routine, I think everything will be just fine.

300,000,000

Sometime tomorrow morning a milestone will occur - the population of the United States will reach three hundred million. This is calculated using the US Census Bureau's PopClock which estimates the current population using the following data: a birth every 7 seconds, a death every 13 seconds, and a immigrant (net) every 31 seconds.

Thoughts on 300,000,000:
The United States is the 172nd most dense country in the world (out of 230) with approximately 50 people per square mile. That works out to 12 acres for every man, woman, and child - yep, even the undocumented ones. I am not making any claims about the environmental impacts or social consequences of population growth. However, when China (a slightly smaller land mass than the US) has 1.3 billion people, I hardly think the gentleman driving on I-8 today with "The United States is full" pasted on the rear window of his pickup was an authority on the matter.

Demographers say that the three hundred millionth person in the United States will most likely be a baby born to Caucasian parents in the suburban South or Latino parents in the suburban West. The baby will likely live to around 85 or 90 and has a slightly better chance of being a male. One thing is for sure, however, the three hundred millionth person in the United States will be born on a great day.

Handling Celebrities

I was at the Pacific BeachFest yesterday with Tiff (back from Berlin) and we stopped by the T-Mobile booth to get a free water bottle, err, to talk to the representative about cellular phone plans. We chatted for a while about the new Sidekick 3 and once we had showed minimal interest, we got our water bottle and a folder filled with information on the Sidekick.

It was not until after getting back in the car that we had a chance to review the Sidekick folder, which we quickly realized was not intended for us... this particular folder was for T-Mobile employees with each document being labeled "Not for Customers." Most of the stuff in the folder was pretty basic marketing and sales aids, however there was one section I found pretty humorous:

"Handling Celebrities

• T-Mobile's Sidekick 3 is an iconic communication device among trendsetters in the fashion, music, and movie industries. In order to leverage our product placement efforts with the Sidekick 3, our marketing team will handle all celebrity inquiries.
• If a person identifies themselves as a celebrity and wants a free Sidekick...you should transfer the person to Special Account Care.
• If a person identifies themselves as a celebrity and wants to buy or upgrade to a Sidekick 3 explain that we have a separate process set-up to handle their needs and follow the same process as above."

I think it is funny that if you identify yourself as a celebrity and want to BUY a Sidekick the sales rep is told to not sell you one, but rather send you off to Special Account Care... (Note to my celebrity readers, if you actually want to BUY something, don't tell the sales rep that you are famous, and hope that they don't notice.)

1,676 mi (about 1 day 4 hours)

I am going to be driving from Minneapolis to Seattle in a couple weekends... Google tells me this trip is going to take me 1 day and 4 hours. That really seems like a ridiculous amount of time in a car (or a pickup truck, as the case may be). However this trip is well worth it, just think, I will get to see wonderful cities such as Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck, Billings, and Butte!

OK, so this is not a sight-seeing trip. I am actually just a warm body to keep my friend Erin company during the long boring stretches (North Dakota) of her journey home from Wisconsin. I am flying into Minneapolis/St. Paul on Friday (Oct 27th) and then out of Seattle early Monday morning in time to make it back for work... hmm, I hope we don't hit too much snow.

Even more exciting than Belgrade, MT is that I am going to try to take this new blogging habit of mine on the road with me and try to make a few posts about the journey while on the road... yeah, I know, I am a nerd.

Did you know?

California's 4th District is currently heavily contested, the candidates:
Incumbent John Doolittle(R) v. Charlie Brown(D).
Yes, that is correct, a guy named do-little is challenged by Charlie Brown for congress. If those two names were proposed for a comic book, the editor would make the author change them because they were too cliche and possibly violated a copyright or two...

Fly Away

Here is a pretty cool site that can do three things to help you get cheaper plane tickets - http://www.farecast.com

1. If you enter a departure city and arrival city along with the dates you want to travel the site will predict when the best time to buy the ticket is...
2. If you enter a departure and arrival city, but your dates are flexible it will tell you when the most affordable time to fly is...
3. If you enter just a departure city you can look at some of the places you can afford to fly to... you can then modify the search based on how much you want to spend or how many days you want to be away.

And if you want to see some of my other favorite sites for finding travel deals you can find a short list of them at http://www.trevordanthony.com in the Sweet Links section or just click here.

The hassles of jury duty may soon be a distant memory...

The newly passed legislation regulating the treatment of terrorism suspects also takes away your right to a trial by jury.

NPR Story: Yoo Defends Detainee Measures as 'Rules of War'

Windows Media Audio

This was an interesting news story I heard this morning while getting ready for work. Listen to it if you get a chance...

The part that is most upsetting to me is that if the government decides (for any reason, including donating to the wrong charity) that you, an American Citizen, are an "enemy combatant" then you no longer have the right to a trial. The government can imprison you for as long as they want, they can take away your freedom, and they can do it without a trial. You get one Habeas Corpus review where you can plea for a jury to hear your case, but if that fails you can be held indefinitely. After that: no trial, no jury, no lawyers, no judge -- just you and a prison cell.

It is even worse for a non-citizen living in the United States or anywhere else - they don't even get the right to a Habeas Corpus review.

Once you are a detained enemy combatant and (in the case of a US citizen) you have lost your Habeas Corpus review, your only chance for a jury trial is if the President of the United States decides you get one. I would assume that the President will only hold trials that the government thinks they can win... so if you have a good case for your freedom, (for example: you are innocent) get used to those prison walls.

This war against terror is billed as one to defend our rights. But, if we have to give up those rights to win this war, what will we have left when we win?