Month: April 2007

Something Changed Today

This was the scene in San Mateo this morning, on my way to work. $3.45 a gallon for regular gas.

[Gas Prices in San Mateo, April 30 2007]

I could drive a mile or two out of my way and save about a nickel a gallon, but for where I live, this is an average-priced station, neither top nor bottom of the pack.

In short, it’s now costing me $7 a day in gas alone, just to drive to work.

I think I might have hit my change point when it comes to gas prices.

UPDATE 5/2 It’s gone up a couple of cents more since I posted this.

I’ve researched mass transit options, but CalTrain + biking the 3 miles from the CalTrain San Jose station would be $11.50 a day and roughly double my current commute time. Plus there’s no shower in the office, so if I broke a sweat on the ride to work I’d be gross and yukky all day.

*sigh* This stinks.

One bit of good news is that my boss seems to be open to the idea of me working from home at least part of the time.

Speaking of Commuting

I bow in humble thanks before the Goddess of Commuting that my commute doesn’t go anwhere near the utter mess that’s been made of the East Bay / Bay Bridge. And it didn’t even take an earthquake, just one fool in a tanker truck.

[Highway] 580 at Interstate 80, located near Emeryville [looks] to be completely destroyed. The tanker explosion caused the upper deck of a connector ramp to collapse onto the lower deck, according to a California Highway Patrol dispatcher.

Interstate 580 is closed approaching the Bay Bridge, according to the dispatcher.

The dispatcher said eastbound Interstate 80 to eastbound Interstate Highway 580 collapsed after heat from the tanker explosion on the westbound Interstate 580 at Interstate 80 rose and melted the upper roadway.

The East Bay in general has sucktastic traffic; this isn’t going to help any.

Small Annual Rituals

One of the rituals of spring, when I was growing up, was putting all the outdoor furniture back out onto the terrace at my grandparents’ summer home. In a time when central air was much less common than it is today, being able to relax outdoors, shaded by trees and a cool afternoon breeze, was an important part of keeping cool.

Forget Memorial Day — the day we hauled the glass-topped table and its matching (and uncomfortable) metal chairs, the more comfortable blue plastic chairs and recliners, and the little side tables for holding drinks and snacks out from the basement, around the yard, and up onto the terrace, then cleaned it all off and arranged it into the familiar pattern, was the day the “season” really began.

I live in an apartment now, a long way from that Connecticut house which now belongs to my parents. But some things don’t change. Today I took a sponge and some Windex and cleaned off my terrace furniture in preparation for the warmer months to come.

Tonight, I’ll sit outdoors and drink a glass of wine. Life’s good when the days are long.

Friday Cat Blogging

[Tommy, Guardian of the Knapsack]

Tommy guards Scott’s knapsack, and his stack of unread copies of PC Magazine.

Now that the dust from grad school has settled, I’ve realized I miss learning new stuff. So, I’m going to look around for a digital photography class. I took one short class on SLR photography some years ago, but have pretty much given up on using my SLR ccamera. I’d like to learn how to use my digicam better.

Melamine – the gift that keeps on giving

And the melamine contamination problem spreads to more parts of the American food chain: More animals got tainted food.

What irks me is that the only thing the politicians seem to be responding to is that “OMG terrorists might put something in our food”. Which is true, but it’s not the immediate threat. How about the fact that potentially lethal industrial-grade chemicals are being dumped into our food supply RIGHT NOW? Shouldn’t that be enough of a reason to take action?

This is a start:

[Congressional] Democrats say they will introduce legislation that would permit the FDA to force mandatory food recalls — a power it now lacks — and increase funding to hire more inspectors.

Hopefully this President will actually sign such legislation.

One thing we did this weekend was to head over to Whole Foods and attempt to do all our weekly grocery shopping there. We’ve gone there before for specialty items, but never tried to do our ‘normal’ grocery shopping. And with the exception of one item (some Aquafina flavored water that Scott really likes) we were able to do so, and we came home with several bags full of organic, non-big-brand food for the house. A few items matched the prices we would pay at a conventional grocery store (like pasta and tomato paste), but most items were a little more. Some few were double the price of their ‘conventional’ alternatives. For example, we skipped buying and meat or chicken — with boneless chicken breasts going for more than $6 a pound in the “sale” bin, the price was too high.

Although we have a bunch of nice, “safe” food in the house, I don’t feel particularly good about our shopping trip. It’s no secret that the food shopping options for poor people are worse than the ones for more well-off ones, but Whole Foods and their higher prices seems to raise the bar even further. As amazing as Whole Foods is, the people who really need the added benefits of a healthy diet are the people least able to afford their prices.

You shouldn’t have to be well-off to be able to have access to safe food. And you shouldn’t have to scare the government with the terrorism bogeyman in order to get them to do something about the safety of the nation’s food supply.