In the summer of 2005, a couple of good friends (Raist and LJ) moved to Vancouver, BC. I'd only been to Vancouver once, in 1990 or so, and then only pretty much just in the area of Hotel Vanvouver, where I was staying (for a gay square dance convention there). I did pass through again in 1995 on a road trip with my (then) new Explorer up as far north as we could get (Powell River, BC), then ferry over to Vancouver Island and back to Anacortes andn home. A fun trip, but that's another story.
For this story, I decided to go up and visit over Labor Day, taking Friday and Tuesday off for travel days --- they shouldn't be as crowded as Friday eve/Saturday and Monday would be, and it would give me time to stop and visit George and Emma in Seattle on the way.
With the New Orleans mess putting a crimp in gas supplies, I almost cancelled the trip, but that area doesn't really feed us oil or gas, and if I end up moving to Hawaii, this would likely be my last chance for quite some time. I did, however, resolve to keep to the speed limits (mostly), and as a result, averaged just a hair under 30 mpg over the whole 900 mile trip. In an SUV, even a small one, I'm impressed --- that's the best gas mileage any vehicle I've ever owned has gotten. Even my Toyota Tercel didn't get over about 24.
Pictures and some more snippets about the trip are at:
Seattle portion
Vancouver portion
Hard to believe New Orleans isn't any more. That probably overstates it, but it sounds pretty bad. Sent something to the Red Cross to help. This is why our National Guard people should be here, not in Iraq: looting for survival is one thing, but what's going on there is despicable. But since they don't have enough people to do rescues, much less maintain law and order... They should learn from this though, and either build the levees to withstand major storms, or give it back entirely and rebuild above sea level.
When I went to Safeway to get a late lunch (their chinese is usually pretty good, but not mid-afternoon, blech!), their premium had topped $3. The regular was $2.86, close to 30 cents over a day or so ago. I sympathize with the people calling for boycotts, but it's misguided. It seems everyone wants a free market, until the it doesn't work in their favor. On the one hand, this is great for getting alternative fuels going --- I was just reading that in Hawaii, biodiesel is now cheaper than petro-diesel. Exactly where we need to be. And be real: even a 30 cent price increase is what, $3-6 for a full tank? Not exactly breaking the bank here. Though, the $10-20 over what it was last year is getting up there...
We upgraded one of our spam filter machines at work last night. The other one got this upgrade a couple weeks ago, and it dramatically sped it up. This one, turned into molasses. Uggh. The support people at the company that makes it rebuilt the database, and got it going again, but it took all day to catch up. It looks like it's just getting caught up now...
Gay movie night tonight was "Straight-Jacket", a really funny spoof of closeted actors in the 50's (i.e. Rock Hudson). It's about the third or fourth time I've seen it in the last couple of weeks and it never gets old. I'll have to upgrade my rating, as when I can do that, it's a 10.