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About Me
As a man thinks, so he is. Some people are never.
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Turn off the nav system, crumple up that MapQuest printout, and let's find out where the next random turn may take us!
 The Federal Trade Commission Report on Spring/Summer 2006 Nationwide Gasoline Price Increases was released on August 30th. The report states, "...the 2006 price increases were caused by a confluence of factors reflecting the normal operation of the market and also tends to explain why we did not find evidence that those price increases were caused by activities that violate the antitrust laws." Big picture: there was no plot by the oil companies to take advantage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The report also said that "...it found limited instances of "price gouging... by gasoline wholesalers and retailers." So there were some greedy types who did try to make a quick buck by jacking up prices in spots. The marketplace itself takes care of dulling the effect of a lot of this. If some station owner decides to hike his prices up to make a quick buck, I've got the option as a consumer to purchase elsewhere. What I think happened around Katrina was that the insane over-reaction of commodity traders to seemingly everything, something like this: The sun came up today, therefore it will be hotter than it was last night, more A/C will be used in cars, so demand for unleaded will be up, buy, buy, buy! And commodity prices actually rise because of demand for futures contracts rather than actual demand for the underlying commodity.
I'm not a big believer in massive conspiracies. Generally, these theories tend to fall apart once a few facts get tossed into the mix, and that seems to be the case here. I have no doubt that in spots, gas prices get changed to take advantage of circumstances. The station owners say it's just supply and demand, and I'd agree with them as long as we call it anticipated demand.
This past weekend, there was a minor college football clash with Notre Dame coming to play here at Penn State. Roughly a gazillion people showed up. Final score: PSU 31 ND 10. Parking lots around the stadium opened at 8AM and kickoff was scheduled for 6PM, so people arrived early and stayed late.
Gas prices in the area had been stable at $2.69 for regular. Lo and behold on Thursday evening/Friday morning sometime, prices at the pump jumped to $2.75 as they always seem to do in anticipation of an influx of vehicles, most of which have come a long way and are going to need to fill up to get back home after the game. 15 to 20 miles from the epicenter, there was no price change over the weekend.
Since the football game was a 6PM start, I think it's likely that a lot of people who came to the game would be filling up for the return trip as they arrived rather than on their way out as the game ended between 9:30 and 10PM and the traffic snarl would have people leaving late. Rather than stop in the dark to fuel up, they just want to get home. What a surprise, when I drove in to head up to a tailgate party about 4 hours before game time, the prices had miraculously dropped back to $2.69, which seems to fit right in with my anticipated demand hypothesis. Then again, hotels in the area triple their rates for home football weekends.
So, is it gouging, or just what the market will bear?
Monkey on my back
I got a gasoline jones
And there ain't no cure
 Only two days of school in the books, and I've already traveled close to 100 miles chauffeuring my kids around to various appointments, practices, and games. You would have thought that with one of them having started college that I’d get a bit of a break but she's at Penn State, just about 10 miles up the hill, and she needed to get to a doctor's appointment.
The other one needed to be driven to school because the cello in the hard travel case is too cumbersome to take on the bus. Then after school, she couldn't take the bus home because she had to stay after school to help out at practice with one of the middle school basketball teams, then after that, be taken over to the other middle school to be at their game.
Just wait until her season rolls around. Daily practices or games from mid-October through the end of February, with some of the games being as far as 3-4 hours away. And we haven't even talked about "Emily asked me to come over tonight." yet.
This all ought to qualify me for that livery license plate, right?
At your beck and call
Need to go? I'll drive you there
Dad to the rescue
 Everyone in Happy Valley knows the answer to that one... Because God is a Penn State fan!
September has arrived, and while that means back-to-school for a lot of people, to one group of over 100,000 it means the return of Penn State football season. And to those of us who live in State College, it means the weekly arrival of many thousand of vehicles transporting those fans to the game at Beaver Stadium.
As you can see, there are vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and they'll start to trickle into town on Thursday night. Parking at the stadium goes well beyond what you see in the photo, with some parked as far away as a mile from the promised land.
The roads leading to the stadium are changed to one-way coming in for a few hours before, and one-way going out for a few hours after to facilitate (as much as possible) the movement of traffic. Breakdowns, fender benders, and believe it or not, general stupidity can add to the thrill and excitement of trying to navigate around town on a football weekend.
But if you ever happen to find yourself on the road to our cozy little town on a weekend in the fall, be sure to look me up. I'm heading out in a few minutes to have a little pre-game meal with the Nittany Lion Hoops Club. We're located in that little blue circle just off the southwest corner of the stadium. I'll be the one wearing blue and white so you can't miss me!
Bleeding blue and white
Wasting away again in
JoePaternoville
 There's a lot of speculation and discussion about ethanol and how it's going to save us going around these days. Myself, I'm a bit of a skeptic and feel that turning all of U.S. corn production into ethanol wouldn't even make a dent in our fossil fuel needs, and that we'd starve ourselves in the process. I've even seen some say that cargo ships are sitting idle because no corn is available due to corn being diverted to ethanol production. And commodity prices seem to be rising fast because of the increases in demand because of this rush to be "saved" by ethanol, at least if you can believe the things you hear. There seems to be plenty of spin and wishful thinking going around, and emotion seems to drive a lot of the debate over what's true about ethanol. The volume on this is starting to get loud and make my head spin, so I thought I'd ask a friend of mine who is a Professor of Agronomy in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Penn State University and has some expertise in the field whether my thoughts on the whole situation make any sense. After all, there's nothing like facts to ruin a perfectly good argument! Here's the response I got from him:
Bob,
You are correct, corn ethanol is not going to meet our transportation fuel needs. Nobody is claiming that from the ethanol industry.
The vision of the National Corn Growers Assn. is that by 2015, we will be able to produce 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol using a 15 billion bushel corn crop. Of that 5 billion will be used to produce ethanol, and 10 billion will be available to meet food feed and export needs.
During the past few years, we have produced crops in the 10-11 billion bushel range and have been creating surpluses. This year we should make close to 13 billion bushels and again will have a large surplus. In fact, the corn price has declined significantly since spring. Many commodity traders are actually worried about our capacity to store this falls crop.
There are many good things about ethanol for the ag community and the Midwest. It’s a higher value use of the crop so farmers make more money. This allows them to buy more combines, tractors etc. and pay more rent to landowners in the Midwest. The ethanol plants have revitalized the economy of many Midwest towns that were depressed before. They have also created demand for stainless steel and rail cars so those industries are benefiting as well. And they are making about 5 billion gallons of fuel that we are not buying from Venezuela, Russia, or some other dubious source. Aside from the obvious balance of trade issues, there are also long term geopolitical issues from this dependence.
Ethanol is subsidized by the government and some have issues about this. The increase in corn price due to the ethanol demand has reduced farm subsidies about the same extent, however.
So the net effect of the ethanol issue for the federal treasury has been negligible. The higher price though has stimulated corn production in other countries that could not compete with us when we were subsidized production and selling it below the cost of production.
The other issue is the effect on food prices. Corn makes up a very small part of the retail price of food so increases in price have little impact on retail food prices. Corn sells for about 7 cents a pound, even with the higher prices. A 12 oz box of corn flakes sells for about 2.20. So corn could double again in price and you probably would not notice it in your corn flakes.
Some industries, like cattle and chicken feeding are spending a lot more on corn than they used to, but they also have access to dry distiller’s grain, an economical feed that can replace some of the corn, especially for cattle.
So in the end, corn is not the complete answer to our transportation fuel issues, and corn ethanol will not likely dramatically increase food prices. Some have said it is a good first bunt. We have a lot of unused capacity to grow corn. In fact, due to low prices in the past, we have paved over, built houses, and taken ag land out of production.
Cellulosic ethanol will likely come on in a few years and eventually will be producing much more than corn ethanol. The hope is that combining corn ethanol, cellulosic, biodiesel, hybrid vehicles, higher mileage standards and other technologies we may be able to reduce our dependence on imported fuels by 30-40% by the end of the next decade or so.
If your readers are interested in an economical high performance fuel, they might want to checkout E-85, which was featured on Jay Leno's website last week.
If all this has you aching to fill up with an E-10 blend or so, stop in at the Sunoco across from Wal-Mart.
If you need anything else or some documentation or links, let me know.
Not that that settles anything, but it does give me some ammo to counter the folks who seem to think that all we have to do is turn our corn into ethanol and we'll be able to watch OPEC try to figure out ways to enjoy crude oil soup. It's never as simple as those who see a simple solution think it is.
Boon, or boondoggle
Maybe it's a bit of both
Which way ethanol?
 Living in State College, PA home to Penn State, education is never that far away. And being a college town, neither is an assortment of interesting vehicles to run into. Yesterday we found ourselves parked next to a vehicle that piqued my interest. A quick web search revealed that we had found a 1988 Buick Alberter coach, and during my web surfing I ran across the Ohio Chapter of the Professional Car Society, a group of folks with an interest in some very unique vehicles.
As their web mistress Amy Schultz explained to me:
The Professional Car Society is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of these rare, low-production vehicles, and has worked very hard for the last thirty years to see these cars gain acceptance in the car collector's community. Sure, there are certainly cars that are "more rare"...factory produced Cadillac station wagons were seldom produced in numbers of more than a half dozen per year. Still, professional car production nationwide at its peak barely exceeded 4,000 vehicles, a small number compared to say, the number of 442s Oldsmobile churned out in a single model year.
Mom always said to try and learn something new every day. My natural curiousity doesn't hurt, but it's always nice to run into people willing to assist in my explorations. Stop by and visit Amy and her friends when you get a chance. There's always more to learn!
Professional cars
Most of the time unnoticed
Always there in need
 The more things change, the more they stay the same. As long as there are cars and guys, there are going to be guys into their cars.
The young man in the photo is Joe. Joe is a recent high school graduate and, like my daughter who graduated with him, he's a freshman at Penn State this fall. The vehicle in the picture is Joe's 1983 Jeep, painted a dazzling silver. It seats two (comfortably is a matter of opinion), the gas gauge doesn't work all that well, it leaks a bit of oil, and the driver's side mirror sort of spins around on its mount, but it's Joe's baby.
Joe claims the chicks dig his ride, but as the photo shows, the only thing I'm certain of is that 15 year old girls do seem to like it. That's my youngest, Katie, behind the wheel, and her good friend Gwen riding shotgun. I'm pretty sure they thought the car was cool because it had no top or doors, but Joe is still proud of his ride anyway. Maybe he has to beat them off with a club while I'm not around!
I like Joe's ride for what it's not. It's not a neon-encrusted, badges-removed, coffee can exhaust-equipped street racer. And that gives me hope for the future.
Boys and their car toys
Sometimes it's just a beater
Beats not having one!
 Time flies when you're having fun!
The guitar player with the really cool mirrored sunglasses on the left is yours truly, back in the day! The vocalist is Andy, our band was named Scotch, and this was taken during an outdoor concert called Movin' On held on the lawn of the HUB at Penn State. The photo dates back to the spring of 1977, and while it's fun to remember those rock and roll days, there is an automotive twist to this story.
Saturday morning we headed to The Student Bookstore so my daughter could pick up her books for fall semester at Penn State before the crush of students arrives next Friday. While we were downtown, I happened to wander into the Music Mart and was looking at all the goodies, when I came across a small Fender guitar amp at a decent price. Behind me in the photo you'll notice a rather large (and loud) amplifier with a speaker cabinet containing 4 - 12" speakers. That baby rocked, and still does, but over the years it became less of a joy to haul around due to its size.
Well, the Fender amp was very tempting, and after reminiscing about things musical for a while, the proprietor said that he could sell my amp on consignment. So I bought the Fender and drove home. Did a little cleanup on my old amp, then took the cargo cover out of my Versa and the speaker cabinet stood right inside the cargo area no problem. Drove back downtown, parked in front of the music store and dropped off the amp. After we left the store and were getting into the Versa, the owner followed us outside to say goodbye. He looked at the Versa, scratched his head and said, "You got that cabinet inside THAT?"
I keep telling people how much room the Versa has inside. Some of them are starting to believe me. Ah, those were the days
Rockin' N Rollin' for real
Not Guitar Hero
 It's an oldie but a goodie, and there's probably a version of it for where you live.
There are four seasons in Pennsylvania:
Fall
Winter
Spring
Construction
In some spots, construction season spans not just the entire year, but years. My daughter touched on this in her blog the other day with regard to the Lewistown Narrows Project along US 322 in central Pennsylvania. As it says on the project website, it is, "One of the more complex projects, the $138 million Narrows involves reconstruction of nearly 10 miles of Route 22/322 in Mifflin and Juniata counties, including two interchanges, as well as amenities for public recreation and education."
Those of us who have been driving the route for the last 30 years or so can actually begin to envision the end of construction. I know it's easy to give the construction workers and projects like this a hard time and joke about how many of them are on break or leaning on shovels, and for years it looked like nothing at all was happening as I'd drive through the Narrows. But it's all coming together and seems like it's actually going to get done.
The real reason that it's important to get these projects wrapped up is because it's almost time for Penn State football season traffic to begin making its weekly trek to Happy Valley. 100,000 people descend on our peaceful little corner of the world on weekends in the fall, and it's really helpful to have all the roads working up to capacity to get them in and out of here with as little angst as possible. This also means bouncing gas prices as the local stations always seem to have some sudden increase in demand or shortage of supply that starts on Friday afternoon and lasts until Monday morning. Go figure. But that's another can of worms for another day.
Pennsylvania
Did William Penn have a clue
of what he started?
 Halfway to Friday! Let's hope I don't tear out the suspension so I can make it to the weekend.
One other item to mention about my recent visit to the Edmunds offices...
I'm basically an East Coast guy. That means I grew up with the understanding that the streets are for the cars, and you watch out for yourself when venturing into their domain. Where this California notion comes from that you can just step out in front of traffic and they're going to stop is beyond me.
One of my college roomies at Penn State came from Long Island. We grew up under the same basic rules of survival. But after living in LA for over 20 years, he'll walk out in the middle of the block without even taking the slightest peek at the traffic. While the screeching tires are impressive to hear, I fear that if he visits the East Coast and spends any time as a pedestrian, we may not hear from him again.
So I'm wandering the streets of Santa Monica, trying to fit in. And I finally get the hang of stepping out in front of cars in the crosswalk and not giving away my amazement that cars are actually stopping while I continue on my tour of local watering holes, except for...
The Prius Hordes of Wilshire Boulevard.
Not once, or twice, but three time times in about as many days, some anonymous hypermiler in a Toyota Prius tried to pulse and glide over me while making a turn onto the street I was crossing because he couldn't wait or didn't see me crossing the street. The really bad part is that in electric mode, they make very little noise, which is why I'm highly suspicious of their motives and their aim, sneaking up on me like that! As host of the Hybrid Vehicles Forum, I'm interested in the technology. I don't think it's anywhere near mature just yet and the current crop of hybrids isn't the final solution, but is that reason enough for a hybrid proponent to attempt to run me down?
You want to keep the planet green? Try not to spill my blood, please!
Five Oh M P G
At any price, get mileage
Hypermiling bliss
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