Month: September 2008

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Still No Gas

Still having trouble buying gas around here. The Mapco and BP stores are having the most trouble getting gas tanker deliveries. Most of the Mapcos only have gas for about 3-4 hours every 2-3 days.

The Shell stations are getting gas sometimes twice a day now, so the really long lines are starting to disappear. The Thorntons are getting enough gas to stay open 24 hours now. Thankfully, there are two Thorntons near my house, so I can get gas when I need it, but there are areas that still have trouble getting gas on demand.

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How about those Redskins?

Great game today. I’m more and more impressed with this year’s team.

The Washington Redskins beat the Arizona Cardinals, 24 – 17 in a close, exciting game.

Next week is at Dallas against our age old nemesis, the Cowboys. There’s always been a rivalry between the Cowboys and the Redskins. It’s kinda poetic, don’t you think? Or maybe symbolic. It promises to be another good game.

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Gas Rationing

Some of the individual gas stations are adopting rationing plans. The most common policy is to limit the number of gallons of gas that you can buy at one time, the most common limit that I’ve heard is 10 gallons. The Thornton’s gas station near my house has a dollar limit of $75 per visit.

The most bizarre example was down in a little town that has only 2 gas stations in the area. The BP is out of gas except every 3rd day when they get a limited delivery. The BPs and independents are the hardest hit on the shortages. The Shell stations seem to be getting one delivery of a partial tanker truck every day, but they have no idea what time the truck will come and it is scattered throughout the 24 hour period with no regard to location or volume.

So this little town has a BP that is out of gas and Shell station that just got a delivery about 30 minutes before I arrived. The word got out fast and all the locals mobbed the station with entrance and exit chaos. So the local police were called to restore order and they came up with this plan:

All cars have to get in line from the one entrance behind the store adjacent to the shopping center parking lot. All cars must form a line that snakes through the shopping center parking lot around the entire perimeter and then down the side street. There were 72 cars in that line when I arrived, pilling over into the side street. Anyone accused of cutting in line was ejected by the police and denied gas.

The police parked their cruisers on one side of the pump island and only allowed 2 cars at a time to approach the open side of the island. Upon reaching the pump, the police inspected your fueld gauge. If you had half a tank of gas or more you were ejected and denied gas. To help speed up the line progress, a store clerk stood outside by the pumps and upon the OK by the police that the vehicle’s gas tank was less than half full, the clerk (with a pocket full of dimes to make change) would accept cash payments of $39.90 and you were allowed to pump 10 gallons of gas. No gas cans, boats or recreational vehicles were allowed gas. No one was allowed a second trip the same day.

I’m not sure what legal right these cops had to look at your fuel gauge and deny youthe right to purchase gas, but there were two of the Bubbas there in no mood to argue. So everyone did as they were told and spent 2 hours in line to get their 10 gallons of gas for the week.

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Still Out of Gas

Most people who normally just buy $10 or $20 worth of gas aren’t able to do that this week because of the gas shortage in this area. Finding a station that is open and actually has any gas to sell is becoming a sicko treasure hunt. When you finally find a station that is open you drive up behind the last car in a very very very long line and wait for up to 2 hours to get your turn at the pump. You aren’t going to go through all that for just $10 worth of gas – you are going to want to fill it up to postpone the pain as long as possible.

Most stations are out of everything – all grades and diesel. The station that are getting gas deliveries are not getting a full truck load and they are only getting that every 2 – 3 days. The typical truck brings 3,000 gallons of regular and then leaves. The average station pumps that out within 3-4 hours.

Tempers are starting to flare with line cutters and luxury items like fishing boats and recreational vehicles being harrassed for wasting gas. It’s getting ugly out there, folks.

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Out of Gas

As the millions of people in Texas and neighboring states deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, the rest of us – especially in the southeast – are sharing some of their pain by paying even higher prices for gasoline and going without gas. I have every confidence that the emergency response teams are doing an excellent job helping restore power and order to the areas devastated by the hurricane.

In a small way, there might be some comfort to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina that some of the painful lessons from Katrina were learned and applied here for Hurricane Ike. Of particular notice to me was that the animals of the area have been cared for this time.

But the gasoline situation is horrendous. The Texas refineries supply about a quarter of the country’s gasoline and oil. However, the Texas refineries supply over HALF the gas to the southeastern states, and these states are having to deal with spikes in the price plus shortages.

The gas stations around my house are out of gas. Not just one or two stations. I mean like 40 stations. They don’t know when they will be getting any more deliveries. Period. I drove around in ever widening circles for hour before I could find a gas station that has any gas at all, and all they have is premium grade gas. The cars were lined up in the parking lot and out into the street just to get whatever gas they could get from this station.

I hope with all my heart that the people of Galveston and Houston are safe and on their way back to a normal life after Hurricane Ike. And I hope that the refineries can reopen in the next couple of days and start shipping the gas out to the southeast. Because we are hurting, too.

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Garrison’s Rant

Personally, I try to stay out of politics and ranting about the lack of good candidates running for President this year. But others make politics their livelihood and some love to rant about the Presidential race, so I’ll read what catches my interest and not normally go into it here on my own blog.

Along those lines, I did read an excellent rant by a notable figure, Garrison Keillor. You may know Keillor from his “Prairie Home Companion” show. I just love reading his weekly column in the Chicago Tribune. If nothing else, Keillor will make me laugh at least three or four times – often more – as I read his column.

So, this week, he writes about the election, and whether I agree with his opinion or not, I think you should read what he has to say. I hope you get a laugh from it like I did, and if you want to leave me a comment with your thoughts I’d like to read what you have to say about his article, too.

The “bums” try for an end run – by Garrison Keillor

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Fusion vs Vista

I like Net Objects Fusion. I’ve used it for years in web site design and publishing. I also use it as a database of sorts – the organization tool makes it easy to keep track of multiple projects and little details like user names and passwords when you have a lot of different accounts. You can visually organize your data as if they were web site pages, and make changes using drag and drop.

So I always buy the next upgrade when it is announced. I also bought a new PC last year and it has Vista on it. But, evidently, the latest version of Fusion does not like Vista and I have a huge problem now. I like Vista – knock on wood – and have no desire to downgrade my Windows operating system. But I also need to be able to run my favorite programs on the machine!

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Happy Birthday, Google!

Wow – can youbelieve that it was just 10 years ago today that Goolge applied for incorporation? I’m not sure which day they are using to celebrate their birthday, as they applied on a Thursday but it was not accepted until that Sunday. I would think that it was birthed on the day that they applied and the real party started on Monday after it was approved.

Either way, the company is officially 10 years old and it’s amazing the progress they’ve made and the impact they have on everyone’s daily lives.

I use their search and their maps quite a bit, and I was one of the first users to sign up for their email. I also use their translate tool and Have bought a subscription to Google Earth.

This week they announced the launch of a new browser called, “Chrome.” I wonder what new goodies they have in store for us after this?

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Browser Wars

Another browser? Good grief! I was originally a Netscape fan, back in the days when you had to buy one on disk. They got muscled out and I reluctantly converted to Internet Explorer. Then my IT buddies turned me onto Firefox, and that’s where I plan to stay. Unless I buy a Mac, then I’ll have to use the Safari browser.

Now Google wants to get into the market and they have launched their own browser called, “Chrome.” The early testers are posting rave reviews, so maybe they’ve got something there. But for a little longer I plan on using Firefox and letting the new Chrome works the bugs out before I install it and give it a try.

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Labor Day Celebration

Everyone at the radio station wanted to do something to celebrate Labor Day, so we planned a group picnic at the Lake. We reserved a paviliion at the state park and the radio station agreed to ante up for everyone’s parking fee, which surprised the hell out of all of us. The Station Manager’s secretary passed around a sign up sheet for the potluck food. We think about 20 people from the station will show up at some point during the day, along with spouses, girlfriends, and a few kids. So we are planning on feeding 50-60 people altogether.

For some reason, Tony and I got volunteered to cook the hamburgers and hotdogs, so we have to get there a little early and fire up the big grill. That’s fine by me – I can cook anything on a grill and have a secret seasoning mix to put in the hamburger meat that will give it a little kick and extra flavor. So I went to Food Lion last night and bought 20 pounds of ground chuck and made up the burgers. Tony’s dealing with the hot dogs and the charcoal.

I’m concerned that my snow white legs sticking out from my bathing suit trunks are going to scare small children. I haven’t been to the beach even once this whole summer and have absolutely no tan. But that’s what happens when you work the night shift – you get so pale you practically glow in the dark. But then again, my skinny white legs won’t be the only ones in the crowd.