Showing posts with label gas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gas. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Gas Prices

It's been a long time since I've said anything about gas prices, but I've been thinking two things about them recently.

Numero uno:
I love it when the stock market crashes and we have an economic crisis because gas prices fall a whole lot. I wouldn't mind if we continued this crisis. I mean, I am not struggling to make my mortgage payments (though it'd be cool if they were lower, but really, who doesn't think that no matter how much they are paying?) so I feel rather comfortable... but, wouldn't it be great to have a crisis so that all of the prices everywhere go down? I still can't figure out why exactly it's a bad thing, especially since I have absolutely no investments. And all you people thought I was pretty dumb! Stock market crash = lower gas prices. I've seen it happen. It's not a bad thing.

Secondly:
During the presidential debate last night, one of those candidates said they were paying $3.80 for gas in Nashville, TN. Excuse me? "Did the stock market not crash everywhere," I wondered. Let me tell you something... living in Missouri is super. Would you like to know what we're paying for gas here in Kansas City? Probably not, because your heart will have palpitations. The gas station near my house is currently selling regular for $2.86. That is well under three dollars, folks. It's not a typo. The average price for the state of Missouri is even lower at $2.69.

I went to my favorite gas price website (http://www.gasbuddy.com/) that I used in the past to see what the gas prices were in DC because it always made me feel better about what I was paying. And you know what? No matter what zip code I put in, I couldn't find cheaper gas - although New Jersey is pretty close. I checked all the zip codes I know for my friends and family around the country: Jersey, Texas, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, California, and Virginia. Then I just started clicking on random states: Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Alaska (holy crap, never move there), Hawaii, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arkansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire... Okay, I didn't click on all of them, but you know the only state I found that had lower prices?

Mississippi. If there's more, there are not many more.

And thus, everyone should move to Missouri. It's super awesome here. Do you hear that all you friends staying in the the northeast for no good reason? Move to Missouri. It's cheaper to get around.

So, here's to the second great depression, falling gas prices, and the awesomeness that is Missouri!


End Blog.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

I'll Probably Hate This Once it's Summer

I suppose the biggest headache about owning a home is the maintenance and upkeep. But you know what I learned today? I'd rather mow the lawn than vacuum. Or do laundry or clean in any manner. (Unless maybe it was my car...) A clean house or clothes do not give me nearly enough sense of accomplishment as short grass does. And fresh cut grass smells nicer than any cleaning supplies you can give me.

So, as you may have guessed, I bought a used lawnmower from my friend today. My grass really needed cutting. (I think the front yard may have been worse.)


I had a few different kind of flowers in my yard, mostly purple... so I kinda felt a little bad about cutting the lawn because the color was sort of pretty, since I have no other flowers growing at my house. (I had a dream last night that I went to Lowe's and bought a whole bunch of flowers and landscaped the front of my house.)


One of them looked like it was in the mint family, with its square stem... but I have no idea what kind of flowers they were. Minty ones.


And I also had weeds hanging out with them... So, I mowed them all down.


I got the lawnmower out of my car by Blackwell ingenuity. I had help getting it into my car and realized that it would be too heavy for me to lift out of there alone. So I stacked up some different sized moving boxes still laying around in my garage, and I sort of eased it down stepwise out of the back of the SUV. Come to think of it, it might not be Blackwell ingenuity, but rather the fact that I've been playing a lot of Lego Star Wars...


Either way, I got it out of the car and had no problem starting it up. I got to cutting the grass and stalled the engine several times on high, thick portions of grass. The good news is that I didn't dislocate my shoulder trying to pull the mower start cord thing. I got about... four passes through the back lawn (I started in back so it looked like I knew what I was doing by the time I made it to the front yard where people could see me) when I ran out of gas.

I was really smart and went out to pick up the mower without my gas can. So I couldn't fill it up before I came home so that I had some ready for the mower. I thought I'd start and see how far I got before I had to put gas in the thing. Turns out, not too long.


This is what the grass looked like when I went to get gas.

I got gas, came home, and finished the job. It took a while, I stalled it quite a few times, and I missed a couple spots that I had to go back over. Then I tackled the front yard and my neighbors with the loud bass in their pickup stood at their front door and watched me. Which kinda weirded me out a bit. But it was the old lady that lives over there and then the, like, 1 year old. Sometimes I wonder how many people live in that house. It's at least a three generation family.

Anyway, when I was done, I felt pretty good about it, regardless of the staring. Also, as probably anyone with a lawn feels after cutting the grass, my lawn is bigger than I thought. Here is Remy outside, making sure it was still her yard, and grumbling something about everything smelling different.


But it looked much better after I was done. And I was in good company, I heard four other people mowing their lawns today too. And there is a weed whacker going outside right now. However, there is one downfall to cutting the lawn.


I think these have just become my lawn shoes... and I have to go buy new sneakers. Which, I've had these for over two years so I probably need a new pair of sneakers, but I hadn't really planned on buying them. Until now.

So, there's my Sunday. Now I have to do something less rewarding - laundry.

Don't you dare post a comment about how I missed a spot, or you shall become fertilizer.


End Blog.