Life is a State of Mind

Toyota to add Solar Panels, how cool is that. I notice my mileage slips a little whenever the heater or air conditioning has to be run, so this will offset at least the air conditioner loss and keep the mileage high.

In other news, my Prius broke a new personal record this morning, it reached 506 miles on the tank of gas when the alarm sounded telling me to go get some more gas. Previous record was 499 on a single tank. I also plugged all the fuel records from my car into a spreadsheet and came up with 48.35 miles per gallon average over the two years I’ve had the car (35,790 miles/740.153 gallons).

I typically put ~9 gallons in the tank every time I fill up; and that is the cheapest gas at the pump. It was a bit of a shock filling up Erci’s Porsche with high octane gas this weekend, and putting in over 17 gallons (ouch).

Just rubbing it in a little, for the past 137 miles (since I last filled up) I have averaged 55.5 miles per gallon in the 2006 Prius. It helps enormously that the weather has been calm enough to run with no heater and no air conditioning.

With all the holiday party action, new jobs, and planning/prepping for Yuletide Ball Championships; I am afraid I have been lax in updating. Here is a batch mode update…

This morning I had an unexpected adventure, just as I was finishing breakfast and feeding the fish, I discovered that my 30 gallon marine aquarium was leaking on the kitchen counter and from there down onto the floor! I wiped the water with a towel, waited a moment and it was definitely an ongoing leak and not just a spill.

So I grabbed an old 29 gallon tank from the basement, transferred the water, fish, shrimp, corals and heaters/pumps/lights to the temporary replacement, and made sure the leaky tank stopped leaking (about an inch of live sand and water are still in the tank waiting for more time)… then I headed into work. At work I think we can shrink from 5 active marine tanks to 3 if we need to, but we must keep the big fish separate from the little fish and the little predator away from our shrimp… so 3 tanks is the minimum. Must work this out with Sutragirl.

I have been hitting a learning spurt in my dancing, picking up several new groupings and refining technique at both studios. I hope to dance with Cassandra, Ann, Anne-Marie, and Sutragirl at the Yuletide Ball Championships. It should be great fun.

I am replacing my dual 500MHz G4 Mac desktop and 500MHz G4 Mac cube server at home (both running 10.3.9) with a 20″ iMac and a Mac Mini (both running 10.5.1). That is taking a while to get everything set up properly (jump from 10.3 to 10.5 is non-trivial, but fun), and I am discovering that I do not have enough firewire cables, extra drives for backups, and time…

New job has been a huge learning experience (exactly what I asked for… though perhaps a bit much of it) and I have been learning all about openSuSE 10.3, HP Blade c7000s, i-LO server management, PXEboot/tftp/dhcp install servers, YaST, and relearning Solaris, BEA WebLogic, and NFS… Plate is full… and after the holiday break it will be time for MySQL replication servers, MediaWiki, Oracle, and Progress. Folks at the new job are awesome, and everyone tries to do everything… Damned Astaro VPN is not letting me in, but that’s because we cannot save a new configuration with my userid in the PPTP allow file… sigh. It’s fun working on a team of five with three Prius owners on the team!

Children of Hurin is helping me stay in touch with Fantasy/SciFi at night… and the writer’s strike has given me a chance to catch up to almost current on the few remaining decent TV shows…

Wow, it’s been years since I was in Upstate New York during a snowstorm, but that is being changed right now.

Mom has her RoadRunner broadband connection now (an amazing Wave Comm contractor came out in the middle of the blizzard and hooked up her connection, even had to climb the pole outside, though we told he he could come back after the storm). She also has Erci’s old iMac 800, a new Epson printer/scanner/copier, and my old Canon Elph PowerShot S100 digital camera to play with.

Tug Hill Plateau (about 30 miles North of Rome) is getting 3-5 feet of snow as I write this, and Rome is expecting 6-15 inches with tall drifts. It will be fun digging the cars out of the drifts tomorrow and setting out on the trip back to Virginia.

The Prius is doing fine in the snow and even the bone dry extreme cold yesterday and the day before. MPG has fallen dramatically (only getting around 40MPG because of the heater running all the time in single digit temperatures with wind chills well below zero), and even further to 35MPG today in the snow and warming up the car long enough to scrape windows clear. Traction is good though (relatively new tires) and no problems starting or getting into doors (locks often freeze solid in these conditions).

Had a wonderful visit with Ant and Jammie last night, met their cats Merlin, Tookie, and Buddy; exchanged mac geek files, book reading lists, movie lists, and watched lame SuperBowl commercials. Had dinner at Ninety-Nine (a new local chain with pretty decent food). Sadly I did not get to see Terry and Tammy as the weather (and Terry’s recent travel/drive schedule) prevented it - but we’ll hook up later.

Sutragirl has written about last night’s trip back from Spamalot in DC already, so that’s where you should go if you want to hear more about the flooding on Constitution Avenue. People made it home safely, though Ruth and her girls had a long, segmented trip after their van got stuck in the flood.

We have several friends who are dealing with flooding or close to flooding basements. So far we only have a small roof leak into our bedroom closet (moral: get gutters cleaned regularly). Roads are closed in several low spots where water is flowing over the road. Be careful out there folks.

The ground is so saturated that the next 30 hours of rain are all going to be flooding and problematic. Hopefully it never arrives.

I’ve been driving the new Prius a lot and in general I love the thing, but I have a first complaint and suggestion.

This thing needs a relatively quiet, alternate horn in addition to the normal load one it has for emergencies.

Several times now I have nearly run over pedestrians when driving around parking lots looking for a space. What happens is that said pedestrian will be walking along in a straight line, and I will come up the path behind them slowly and the Prius has invariably shut off the gas engine because it does not need it any more. What I keep failing to realize is that said pedestrian cannot hear any engine noise and does not realize I am there at all! Often the pedestrian, without looking, suddenly darts out across the traffic lane which they assume is empty, and I need to brake suddenly to avoid a squishing.

It’s not really their fault, cars have made noise their entire lives; the sudden appearance of a near silent one takes getting used to. It’s not my fault, I am going very slow in parking lots (as evidenced by the complete shutdown of the gas motor).

I used to have similar situations while riding my bicycle in parking lots, but on the bike I can simply talk out loud or give mild warnings like “coming up on your left” which alert the walker of a risk without causing them to panic (like a sudden loud horn toot). In a my car, this is less instinctive; it does not occur to me quickly to talk out loud… and I don’t want to annoy anyone with the loud horn.

Prius needs a small rattle on the grill, or a quieter horn alternate…

I suppose this will fix itself when the heat of summer kicks in and running the A/C forces the motor to stay on and make the car just a little noisier.

BTW - so far, 50.7mpg is my average and they tell me it goes up slightly once the car is broken in. Filling the tank the first time was a shock. From empty to full was only 9.549 gallons of ordinary gas, and I have not put only $28.26 into a gas tank since it was less than $1.00/gallon and I was filling a 1971 Buick Electra 225 (24.5 gallon tank)!

Well, fate popped in and the Toyota dealer I pass every morning on the way to work called me back after this morning’s visit. They had a 2006 Prius, White with Tan interior, option package #6 available today!

I considered it a sign, and grapped that machine. I drove the Prius off the lot after accepting $7000 for my old Saab. Not what I wanted for the Saab, nor what it should be worth after only ~5 years, but I see the writing on the wall. It was becoming very unreliable and very expensive in repairs. The portents were reinforced; as I was pulling my junk from the Saab and putting it in the Prius, the Saab stalled again and was unable to start without a jump. At least the folks at the Toyota dealership know what they are getting.

Anyone need 4 winter tires (16×7.5) 5-110 lug pattern? I also have one mounted and new wheel and tire (225/45-17 with the same 5-110 lug pattern, wheel is fancy alloy, and tire is a Sumitomo HTR+ 90W I think).

I’ll add a picture of the Prius when I get one. I am thinking of custom stickers to make it look outrageous - perhaps tiger stripes or zebra stripes… perhaps giant sunflowers? Tropical fish? Suggestions?

Well, it is time to face the fact that my 2001 Saab 9-5 Aero Wagon has become a lemon as it has aged. The truth is I love the ergonomics of the car and especially the ventilated seats so much that I have poured far more money than is sensible into keeping this thing running, but system after system keeps failing. I cannot help wondering if the 1999 Saab 9-5 2.3T (Sedan) I used to own has failed any better through the ravages of time/age. I’d like to think it was a better car.

My car has stalled and been unable to restart, or failed to start without serious efforts too many times now, so I find myself in the car market again prematurely. My next car will be the cleanest, greenest machine I can find, and as a bare minimum will be AT-PZEV rated in California. That limits the choices down to a small number (about 24 last I checked) of mainstream models. The Toyota Prius is at the top of the list because of it’s extraordinary light impact on the environment, and because I know my lovely HP Velotechnik Street Machine GT recumbent bicycle will fit in the back (something most of the allegedly bigger “SUV” light trucks cannot claim).

I am not sure how I will survive the heat of the Washington D.C. area without those ventilated seats, but I will figure out something (do the wooden beads work? what about installing my own fans?).

Well, Erci went and beat me to it. We picked up her Barcelona Red 2006 Toyota Prius this evening. It is very, very nice. I want one too. I balked at the non-negotiable prices earlier this fall, and I am glad I waited because the 2006 models will play MP3 encoded CDs and alarm when a tire pressure is low, but I am now thinking I want to replace my Saab 9-5 Wagon. AT-PZEV rating and 50+ MPG are calling me.

On a lark I dropped by the local Toyota dealer last week to see if the AT-PZEV rated Prius was easy to get in Virginia. It turns out that all the Prius cars being sold at the local dealers have the AT-PZEV rating in case you have to move to California after you buy your Prius here in Virginia! Awesome.Then I dropped by a second time with my HP Velotechnik Street Machine Gt (recumbent bicycle) in my Saab 9-5 Aero Wagon to see if it would fit in the Prius. It does! It is a very close fit, and I have to load the bike in rear end first (the Prius luggage space narrows at slightly at the back of the car), but it does fit. This is great news, and we put one on order this past Saturday.

The main goal is to dramatically reduce my personal contribution in greenhouse gasses, and with an AT-PZEV rating the Prius is vastly cleaner than my not even LEV rated 2001 Saab 9-5 Aero. Additional benefits are:

• approximately double the mileage (~57mpg versus ~27mpg)
• Prius uses regular unleaded versus the Aero needing Premium unleaded
• CVT transmission instead of the Saab’s manual transmission (traffic)
• having a real, turn-by-turn Navigation system instead of crappy On-Star
• wireless key system so I can leave the keys in my purse
• bluetooth phone connection for my wife’s mobile phone

The only drawbacks I see at this point are that I am giving up the Saab’s wonderful ventilated seats (a six pack of “muffin” fans in each front seat behind perforated leather, very cool). It will be hard to survive hot summers in Virginia without the cooled seats, but perhaps I can aftermarket something into the Prius. I’ll also be giving up some unneeded horsepower (I should never have bought the Aero), possibly a few other luxury features (climate controls for each side?).

I am re-negotiating price with the dealer now, but look forward to swapping out the Saab for the Prius once our special options package comes in.