News and Views

Here’s Devon’s latest commercial, for Lipton Peach ice tea.

I know I just posted yesterday about my new DVR. Well, this is big enough that it requires a separate post.

Dish just announced (and downloaded to my DVR) a new feature: “Auto Hop“. This is basically automatic commercial skip. It only works on the prime time shows recorded with “Prime Time Any Time”, and it only starts working a few hours after the programs were recorded, but then when you start playing a show you are given the option to skip commercials.

I can’t believe that the networks and their advertisers will let this stand, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can. I hate commercials and always skip them anyway, but this takes the hassle out of it.

Dish network just released a new DVR (the Hopper), which I upgraded to yesterday.

There are two improvements that stand out for me.

1) I can get HD on my remote TV. Before, the remote TV just received an SD signal, so this is a big improvement up in our bedroom.

2) Prime Time Any Time. The system records all the Prime Time shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox from 7 - 10 each evening (Arizona Prime Time), and saves them for 8 days. During that time it still leaves 2 tuners free, so I can record up to 6 programs at the same time during Prime Time. This is a big deal, as I was always juggling programs around and having to decide which shows to record and which to skip during prime time. I’ll probably also sample some new programs that I haven’t bothered to record before, since they’ll all be there ready to view any time.

Other incremental improvements include faster interface, 2 TB of storage, and multiple USB ports, but 1 and 2 above are the biggies for me.

At the rist of completely boring everyone with more talk of my Volt, here’s a cost comparison I have worked out with my previous car (Acura MDX) and the prototypical gas miser, the Toyota Prius.

Comparing the cost to drive my Volt (at 2.5 cents/mile) and the MDX (25 cents/mile), I have saved $360 this month driving 1600 miles. At this rate, I would save $4320 in a year. Compared to a Prius, at about 45 MPG on regular at about $3.75, I have saved about $93 for the month.

But I’ve been driving 40 miles to see Mom in the hospital almost every day. Past history shows I actually drive on average about 1000 miles/month. In addition, summer electric rates are higher, increasing my costs in the Volt to about 3.9 cents/mile. Averaged over a year, it comes to about 3.3 cents/mile.

Here are tables showing the savings this month, and then in a typical month.

Devon has a very brief, but central, part in this new Ford Fiesta ad.

The girls says, “Oh, a new car!”
Devon replies, “Look at this: ‘CD Player’ “.
They dubbed his voice, as they did the girl.

The idea is that when he gives the voice command “CD Player”, it’s so cool that it’s like a parade or circus suddenly appears.

He had to travel several hours on a bus, work all day, then travel back on a bus overnight just for those couple of seconds.

Every summer we get ants in the house, especially in the kitchen where they like to harvest Apollo’s leftovers. We hate to spray insecticide around where Apollo and we eat, but hate having ants in the house too.

Last year we found Ecosmart Ant and Roach Killer at Home Depot. The active ingredients are peppermint oil and rosemary oil. Without much hope, we bought a can to try. We were very surprised. It is quite effective in killing any ants that are present, and it discourages ants from entering where it has been sprayed. I suspect that the neurotoxins the big chemical companies market may work better and last longer, but this seems fine and I feel a lot better spraying it around the house.

It makes sense, when you realize that plants developed many of their chemicals to discourage insects from eating them. Fortunately these particular chemicals are benign to humans, and in fact we use them to flavor our foods. They smell a lot better than the petroleum-based sprays too.

Anyway, that’s my recommendation for the day.

I just passed 1000 miles in my new Volt (1024 to be precise). I am still on my first tank of gas — I’ve used about 6 gallons so far, leaving a little more than 3 in the tank. 807 miles were all electric, and the remaining 217 were using gas — most of them driving out to Wickenburg to see Richard and Dianna a couple of weeks ago.

I am still in love with this car!

I bought $3.90 cents worth of electricity this month from the local utility, SRP. With the $15 service charge and taxes, my total bill will be about $20. Last year I paid $113 in April.

I was actually building up a credit, but then two things happened:
1) We had a few cloudy and partly cloudy days last week when I didn’t make as much electricity;
2) I bought the Chevy Volt electric car half-way through the billing period that can use up to 10 KWh a day to fully charge.

All that considered, the $3.90 is not bad at all.

The weather is starting to turn hot — we should hit 100 this weekend — so my bills are going to go way up. But I still expect to save $100 or more each month.

I took a trip out to see Richard and Dianna today in my Volt. They are staying near the village of Congress, about 90 miles from my house. I was interested to see how the Volt did on a longer trip. Here are some numbers:

First a summary:
– It cost the same to make the trip as if I was driving a pure gas car that got 52 miles/gallon, figuring the cost of electricity and gas.
– I drove 53 miles on battery alone, and 127 on 3.27 gallons of gas.
– Pure gas mileage was 39 miles/gallon
– Altogether, since buying the car I have driven 512 miles on 3.7 gallons of gas, leaving my tank still over half full.
– We ate a very good (and spicy!) homemade tomato soup and Mexican cornbread for lunch. Thanks Dianna!

Some Details:
I made it about 38 miles from home before I ran out of battery and the car (automatically) switched over to gas. After charging at Richards, I added about 15 more miles coming home, so for the 180 mile round trip I did about 53 of them on electricity alone. The remaining 127 were done on 3.27 gallons of gas, for a pure gas mileage of 39 miles/gallon.

The pseudo mileage (total distance/total gas) was 55 miles/gallon, but that is calling the electric miles free, which isn’t quite accurate. To make it a little more complicated, since electricity costs about 1/4 of gas for equivalent miles driven, the cost of driving on electricity is the same as the cost of gas at 155 miles/gallon. So 155 miles/gallon for 53 miles, and 39 miles/gallon for 127 miles gives an equivalent to 52 miles/gallon. In other words, if I had a car that got 52 miles/gallon, it would have cost me the same to make the trip as it did in the Volt. It’s about how well a Prius would do.

For shorter trips, especially where I never use gas, the cost is the same as a car that gets 155 miles/gallon. As trips get longer, the cost approaches that of a car getting 39 miles/gallon. So if you frequently drive long distances and your main goal is to save on fuel, get a Prius. If most of your driving is around town and you usually drive less than about 40 miles in a day, a Volt will be cheaper to operate (though not cheaper to buy). Having driven both I have to say that a Volt is more fun to drive.

I had to burn .17 gallons of gas today, driving the last 5 miles home from Mom’s house today. I would have made it, barely, but I added 5 miles when I stopped to meet my friend Don for lunch. It was about 35 miles without the lunch detour.

For you Democrats, Obama said he plans to buy a Volt after he retires from being President.
For you Republicans, George H. W. Bush bought one for his son Neal.
For you late night TV afficionados, Jay Leno has been driving his Volt for over a year as his main commute vehicle.