As Weeks Go, It COULD Have Been Worse...
But not by much.

The past 7days have seen some interesting happenings all over the place. If it wasn't a governor stepping down due to his "relationship" with an international call girl ring, it was record prices of GOLD ($1000 an OUNCE - where's those Krugerrands?), which unless your first name is AURIC, you hail from Austria, have a classic Rolls Royce driven by a Korean chaeuffeur with a steel-brimmed bowler hat, and are being pursued by an agent from MI6, you've been boned along with the rest of us.

Gas prices continue to RISE, and that makes me want to go out and buy some LOCKING FUEL CAPS for our cars, because knowing the nature of people as I do, I somehow can predict that fuel theft from personal vehicles will be on the increase. It'll be like something from Mad max, where the gasoline becomes as precious AS gold.

All it takes is a cordless drill, a chunk of hose, a gadget that acts as a siphon pump attached to the drill, and a container to place the fuel...oh, and about 2 minutes time.

And of course we're seeing the domino effect from the fuel prices; higher costs for everything at the grocery stores, and most every other store. The food that USED to cost, say $100 a week, is now costing at LEAST $25-$30 more, depending on the item. Electronics will cost more, as the plastics used in encasing them rises (along with import costs to fuel the ships bringing those goods here).

Now we can sit here and debate the alternatives to our current gas crisis.
We can discuss rationing, or how we Americans can't live without our gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups until the cows come home, and still not arrive at any definitive answers.

We can talk about alternative fuels such as hydrogen, electric, biofuels, and solar hybrids too, to no avail.

Hell, we can even think on that WATER ENGINE at Purdue, or the AIR-POWERED engine from India, or even using ALGAE as a biofuel, but until we get REAL serious, REAL fast, we're pretty much stuck in low gear...and we better start to like it, because the immediate prospects aren't going to tint any of our glasses a rose color anytime soon.

One of the mainstays of humanity has been our propensity to EVOLVE.
But when it came to the combustion engine, we dropped it in neutral and sat there idling for the past 100 or so years. Sure we've got cars that are so much "better" than those our grandparents drove. Better looking? Perhaps. Better functioning? Debatable. Better pricing? Not hardly. Actually, when you look under the hood, they're not all THAT different from a century ago, but the carmakers wanted us to "think" they are. They provided us with so MANY creature comforts while that dinosaur of an engine sat there, decade after gas-sucking decade, churning out noxious emissions at ever-increasing horsepower levels, just so we could power all those "add-on" systems and GO FASTER. We might have a computer monitoring engine functions now that would have made the Apollo 11 astronauts green with envy, , but it's STILL the same basic principle behind the engine that powered a Model T back in the early 1900s.

We have sacrificed practicality for luxury on SO many levels that we've all but forgotten what it means to drive and maintain a vehicle. Mechanics have been supplanted by computer experts, service stations are now convienience stores, and the olny reason we still have auto PARTS stores are so that those few of us "lone wolves" can still make repairs when we have to, or even change our OWN oil (wow, people still DO that?) when it's required.

Better to crank up that BOSE stereo with those TWELVE speakers, or flip on that DVD player, than listen to the sound the engine is making, eh?

The really amusing thing about all this is that we HAD a chance to turn from our dependence on fossil fuels close to forty years ago....and we did nothing. We rationed fuel, and we coped as best as we could during the oil embargo in the 70s, and after it was over, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief...and still did nothing.
We promptly went back to our old ways, letting the carmakers lead us around by the noses on our primate faces.
And NOW, we all seem to realize we're in it up to our hips...and it's getting deeper. We can drill for oil further North, but environmentalists oppose that. We can drill offshore as well for oil, but again, the logistics, costs, and environmental impacts (should something go wrong) are seemingly insurmountable.

I don't know about you, but my wife and I have done all we can to practice frugality when it come to using fuel. We maintain our cars, combine our trips, and never drive in a manner which consumes fuel in an excessive rate, such as jack-rabbit starts or otherwise "rugging" the gas pedal. If the speed limit is 65, we do under 60, because it SAVES GAS. And yes, I check the tire pressures regualrly as well.

In the home, we adjust the thermostat to suit the weather, as long as we're not uncomfortable. And if that means adjusting it several times a DAY...so be it. We have an older furnace, and it's not as efficient as newer ones.
We placed CFL bulbs in lights we use most often, have adjusted the hot water heater thermostat, insulated the house better, and have almost everything possible to SAVE energy (and the money it costs to use it).
We can't do anymore than that.

So it bothers me whenever I hear someone saying "you need to do more". We're at our tipping point, and yet we still get no "reward" for OUR frugality (and neither will you for yours), unless you consider the higher prices for everything a reward.
I don't.
And like I stated above, we could be doing worse.
Hey, maybe NEXT week...we WILL!
I mean it's not like we're looking for BOMBS, and finding TURNIPS, right?

Have a good weekend, in spite of the Ides of March (hail Caesar), and do stay safe.
And remember, this Sunday is Palm Sunday!