Obama(THHO) has decreed that we, the sheeple, should all drive the General Motors Volt. After all, it is electric (with a gasoline backup engine) and we all should know that electric cars are the future of transportation. So energy efficient! So inexpensive to drive! Cheap to fuel!

Let’s do some math, shall we? I know, Obama(THHO) doesn’t want us doing math and other stuff like thinking for ourselves, so let’s not tell him, OK? (that goes for you dhs bots, too, ok?)

Let’s start with my own vehicle for a starting point, ‘kay? We purchased a 1998 QX4 used in 2004 for about $18,000.

Yeah, it was a little high, but it was in pristine condition and Blue Booked for about 21k at the time. it had a tick over 50k miles on it. It is free and clear with no payment. It averages about 17 1/2 – 18 miles per gallon down hill with a tail wind. It has a 19 gallon tank. Let’s use an average of $4.00 per gallon (ok, fine – $3.999) for the sake of argument. At 17 gallons per week, operating costs (no insurance, repairs or maintenance costs are factored in here) are about $68.00. I have a 20 mile one way commute (24 if I need to swing by the warehouse on the way to work). This works out to about $.2285 per mile ($3.999/17.5), which means a daily cost of a warehouse run on the way and straight home after work would be $10.054.

The Chevy Volt must be incredibly cheap to drive, then, if it can be operated for less than that! Let me go out and plunk down $46,000 for a new Volt.

And a little more for a charging station. And even more for the storage fees needed to store the stuff on my side of the garage since TMBWitW sure isn’t giving up her side and park her Camry out in the elements.

OK, that was a little snarky. I’m sure I could find a cheap, HOA approved shed (less than six feet tall so it doesn’t extend above the fence) where I can store my table saw and other woodworking equipment.

Now – the commute. The QX4 has a cargo area with the seats down of 85 cubic feet. The Volt has a cargo area rated at 10.6 cubic feet. Hmm. That means my commute just went from 24 miles with a warehouse run to over 50, since I would have to make multiple trips to the warehouse. Eight, to be exact. 24 miles warehouse commute, two miles from warehouse to store means 24 miles plus (7×4) 28 miles for the extra runs equals 52 miles one way. OK, so I have to leave a lot earlier too, to drop MEG off at the babysitter and then get to the warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store.

I received an email from my friend Dave T.:

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel’s Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Let’s see … after 25 miles, the Volt is running on a gasoline engine. It takes ten hours to charge the 16kwh battery. That would put a big dent in the day’s schedule, so the gas engine it is. Hopefully, I’ll have enough time after getting home before having to leave earlier the next day to get a full ten hours of charging done.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah – so, if you can’t count on the electric motor for more than 25 miles, then the vaunted Volt no longer gets the 95 miles per gallon on the electric motor alone. Once you figure in the 9 gallons of gas, the average drops to around 30 mpg. $3.999/30 = $.133 per mile. But wait! I forgot the electricity. 16kwh x 1.19 per kwh (the average cost of electricity) = $19.04 for a 25 mile charge per day. $19.04/25=.761 – $.761 per mile for twenty five miles, then $.133 for the remaining 47 miles works out to $19.04+($.133×47)=$25.291 per day.

So I need to sell my QX4 for about $2500, finance another $43,500 and lose an hour and a half of morning time to reduce my carbon footprint and drive the Volt, which costs more than two and a half times more to operate than my QX4.

If I was a liberal, left leaning DemocRat with Obama stars in my eyes, I might believe that this is actually a good idea.

I would like to take this moment to do two things: mourn the death of common sense, and thank Dave T. for the email that started this line of thought.

(just so you know, i am not selling the QX4 anytime soon, and i am certainly NOT buying a chevy volt. ever.)

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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Tinnitus is what I have. Not bad enough to get a surgery to correct it, but bad enough to hear it all. the. time.

This is on top of the slight hearing loss that makes it difficult – nay, impossible! – to hear more than one source of sound clearly at a time. So, if you are talking to me and telling me about the program you are watching, please pause or mute the program before talking, or it all comes at me like an audible bowl of oatmeal.

The tinnitus, though – it’s starting to get on my physical nerves. Imagine, if you will, the sound of the station between stations on the FM band. Not AM – that’s too harsh of a sound. That FM non-station sound is constant in your imagination, and it is unceasing. No matter what time of day or night, you can hear it. The volume level is about three on a scale of ten. Not overly loud, but constant.

I hear it when I wake up in the morning. I’ve been hearing it all night, unconsciously. When I fall asleep at night, I fall asleep hard because I am tired. When my body gets enough sleep to become aware, usually after a couple hours, then I can hear the tinnitus again. It won’t let me fall back asleep. I toss and turn then, for the rest of the night. I fall asleep from physical exhaustion again about an hour before my alarm goes off to start another day. I get out of bed, still tired, both physically and mentally. This cycle repeats every day.

(doing the same thing, over and over, expecting a different result …)

I yawn during the day. A lot. I cover it up mostly, so no one sees it at work. How would that look, the manager yawning all the time? Once in a while a yawn catches me off guard and I have to work hard to stifle it in front of the boss or worse, a customer.

Boss can see this post. She knows I have the hearing issues cropping up lately. Now, she knows how else it affects me.

I’m not saying this to elicit sympathy. I am saying this as a matter of explaining. Letting you know why I don’t respond immediately when you call my name. Filling all of you in on why I don’t always know everything that is said to me. Ask yourself: Did he acknowledge what I said? Was he looking at me when I said it? Was there another sound source when I was speaking to him?

If I smile and nod at you when/while you are talking to me, I can’t hear you and I am just trying to be polite.

Please don’t be offended when I ask you to repeat what you said. Again. And once more, to make sure I heard you correctly.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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Two years ago. About 1710 hours.

As much as I didn’t like what you had to say sometimes, I still miss you, Mom.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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(shh – it’s my day off. tmbwitw and i are going to spend the day together – movie, lunch, that sort of thing – while meg is at auntie’s. i won’t be online or anything – because it’s time to be with themostbeautifulwomanintheworld.)

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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From the mailbag this morning:

I was eating lunch with a six year old and I asked her, “What is the 20th
of February?”
She said “President’s Day!”
She is a smart kid, so I asked her, “What does President’s Day mean?”
I was waiting for something about Washington or Lincoln etc.
She replied, “President’s Day is when President Obama steps out of the
White House, and if he sees his shadow we have one more year of
unemployment.”
You know, it hurts when hot coffee spurts out your nose.

Thanks, Dave T. I owe you one.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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