We went to Panera for coffee and hit one of those days when the place was full of pretty women. Actually, there was an earlier photo I could have shown for today, but it was just a little too grisly. We found a dead baby possum near the rubber tree and the front gate. The yard gets far more attention than it ever will when I am here alone. Wallace says I’m inaccurate about saying this place is a little too big for one person, but he’s never been here by himself.I’m hearing more about the missing French airliner. The pilots did not issue any warning or alarms. A nuclear sub has been dispatched to the sight, but Wallace points out those can only dive to what, 2,000 feet? This is getting curiouser and curiouser.
Meanwhile, back home we have economic terrorism. The Publix ATMs, traditionally free, have now begun charging $2 per transaction. Them, and the credit reporting companies; totally out of hand. Have you heard the phrase “triple advantage” on the FreeCreditReportDotCom commercials? What is it? There are three major credit reporting companies (it takes Americans to abuse computers this way) and each of them can give you a different score.
This discrepancy can cause people real trouble, especially since the credit agencies have designed the rules so nobody ever gets a perfect score. If you always pay on time, you are just as negatively profiled as if you are always late. It is interesting that nobody is protesting the right of credit reporting to disseminate this information. Who complains when it could cut them off from their only source of ready cash? It’s the same principle why Canadians never, ever complain to a bank manager. Anyway, I for one would like to see severe restrictions on the gathering and usage of credit information.
Eric, the neighbor has a trike for sale. It is in good condition. We went over to check on him when we noticed his tailgate was open for a long time. Sometimes he needs help with carrying groceries. Turns out he was just drying out the truck. I can’t use a trike as my average biking speed is now 9.2 mph, still inching upward. Marney called to say she Googled this address and really likes it. Maybe she wants the trike. This is not to be mixed up with the heavy duty trikes Mitch uses to go cross country up north.
Ballard. That is the name of the fuel cell company I was looking at twenty years back. Wallace says their shares once climbed to $80, then fell back to $3. I’ve read several articles on biofuel that reminded me of Ballard. The manufacture is not relatively expensive compared to $4 per gallon gasoline. The real challenge is the commitment to change over the entire supply system with its huge surplus capacity. That will make the payback time very long, which explains why Ballard sold out the vehicle cell department to Ford a couple years ago.
One aspect I think will change is the density of “gas stations”. Convenient as they are, there are just too damn many of them, like used to be with hardware stores. I predict that fuel designs which get the equivalent of 100 mpg will make for fewer, larger, more centralized filling stations. My personal hunch is biodiesel made from algae. My worst bet is any fuel that uses foodstuffs (like corn). It is plain dumb to use food crops even if they did not require gasoline to grow and harvest. A new word has entered my vocabulary: lignin. It is the material that holds plants together. It is a major barrier to using native growing grasses and such because it is so hard to break down.
Another concept I like is a plan to forget about producing liquid fuel. Biofuels tend to be gaseous. But if that gas was directly burned as fuel for power plants, the next breakthrough in battery technology could win the race. The trivia for today is the US plans for all gasoline powered cars to be off the roads by 2040. With the possible exception of my Taurus.
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