Ah, environmental politics

I must admit that since moving in with my father, I have become quite the little political thinker. Today I wrote my first letter to the editor. I hate myself. (just kidding) Now I feel like expanding on the subject.

Last friday (March 28, 08) The Duluth News Tribune's cover story was about the 2 hybrid transit buses that the DTA had purchased, and how they planned on replacing all 44 buses with hybrid equiped machines.
Great, lovely.
Each hybrid bus costs $500,000. Uh, what!? Come again!?
Yes, ladies and gentlemans, for 3.6x the cost of the average Duluthian home (http://www.city-data.com/city/Duluth-Minnesota.html) you too can purchase ONE hybrid transit bus.

Okay okay so the government (read- tax dollars) pays 80%. That still leaves $100,000 to be paid directly by the Duluth tax dollars. Which is they change out the entire fleet of buses equates to 4.4 MILLION dollars directly to Duluth, or $22 MILLION to the tax paying general public.

I can hear the greener of you out there thinking to yourselves "Well you can't put a price on saving the environment." Right... But we can minimize the cost imposed to us by the philanthropist government. But i will touch on this again towards the end, hold on through my fiscal analysis please.

The article states that the hybrid bus saved approximately $3500 per quarter, which means $14000 per year.
If we look at this from Duluth's perspective it is good. The buses will pay for themselves in 7-8 years. BUT if we look at the total cost of the bus it will take about 36 years to even come close to payoff. These calcs don't even touch on maintenance costs or intrest payments or anything else. If you are not from Duluth or the upper-Midwest let me tell you about the roads: SALT. My 20 year old BMW that lived it's life here should probably be illegal to drive because of the rust damage from road salt. A 20 year old transit bus should look about the same, if not worse. So how in the world are they planning to get 36 years out of these buses? Perhaps that should be the DNT's next cover article? LOL

Back to the environment.
Me and my father discuss the environmental/green FADS at length when we get bored. People are gullible seems to be our common conclusion. I would apply the same here.
Why do we, the environmental concious public, HAVE to spend $500,000 x 44 to "save the environment"? Why don't we refit half the fleet with hybrid units $170,000 x 22 and reduce the bus routes? (I do see people waiting for the buses here in the west end...but rarely downtown, and pretty much never in the east end)
How about spending $200,000 on bike and walking trails/paths? Spending $100,000 on offering incentives to car-poolers? Or to businesses that use more fuel-efficient vehicles?

Hybrids are not the golden egg, the holy grail, or the golden fleece. So get over it, folks. Learn about what effeciencey actually means before you give in to the "social norm" and the environmental fashion. Please?

Romney anounces new countrys under his presidency.

During Romney's "happy speach" after tonights FL primaries he let our this priceless gem: "Jobs going to other countries...like Asia and India."

oh my lord. me and my dad laughed for a while on that one!! hahahahaha

and it wasn't the only one...but i'll leave the others for other people.

-Gabe :)

Finally!

I was beginning to worry that we were gonna have another winter like last year.

Rally is now officially back-burnered :(

Yesterday evening I registered for classes at Hennepin Technical College In Eden Praire, MN.
That both excites me and dissapoints me. Happy because I am moving on with my life and getting an education. Sad because I am not going to be able to do everythign I want for the next couple years. I will be hard pressed to afford even attending Rallyes for a while, much less building my car.

Still unsure about life in general...but I will try my best I guess.
On a more upbeat note: the E30 lives! Everything Is back together and operates as well as It can right now. The lack of power steering kinda sucks; but makes driving that much more raw and entertaining. I do need to get it patched up though. Possibly a new steering rack as it appears the fluid is simply flowing out the ends of the rack. A factory stereo bumps the tunes and the electrics are sketchy and the thing smells bad. What a car!!

LOL
-G :)

Why are apartment prices so messed up?

Okay so I am reporting live from the Midwest city of twins: Minneapolis...actually New Brighton at the moment. And I spent the last couple days looking over apartment prices and then driving around and actually physically going out to look at a couple this sunday. and...This stuff is ridiculous!!

I went through Hopkins and Eden Prairie to look at places and here is what i got: I will not be living in a half-decent 1 bedroom apartment for less than $600 a month. and could likely pay $750. That is for ONE MONTH of living. That is incredible. Is housing really at that much of a premium that stuff costs this much? Right now I make $11 an hour living in a dinky town in Northern WI and I could afford that if I had too...but that is me living in a rent free house not anywhere near minneapolis. It's crazy and i really don't understand it all.

Its depressing. I'm sure my brother will laugh at this since he has lived in A^2 for a long time...but I also don't know how he affords it either! so ha! :(

so it looks like I will definatley have to up the ante in my life very soon and take on both full time school and full time work just to have a roof over my head. I hope I have it in me.

As for the cars: The Bronze car will hopefully be running again soon now that I have all the head parts to put it back together. Hopefully the rest of the car is in good enough shape for it to run after all this!!!
The red car still is gathering dust. Zero status change.
The Silverado has brake problems, likely warped rotors. Still has a clunk up from somewhere. And the Vent distribution knob froze up...no idea whats up with that.
The KZ is on the eBay Auction block. and if that falls apart then it's parting out time! woohoo. and the remainder goes to Reubens. yay.

Okay, Gabe- out! :?

May the car Gods SMITE the moron!

oh pitiful misery of disaster. May you call on "GLI_ryan" and smite him badly for being such a stupid guy.

So, after a massive injection of money into the E30 prerunner project car; I broke 4 rocker arms and bent at least 4 valves in the head. So obviously I had to find out what went wrong. I discovered the timing marks were off, and after I thought about it I realized they had moved since I first tried to change the timing belt.

and tonight i finally discovered what happened this whole time. There was no key holding the timing gear to the crank. Seriously; that is the stupidest thing EVAR!! It hadn't fell out (they can't) and there was zero evidence of there having been a key in the correct slot any time in the recent past. Gawd I just want to drive up to Duluth and smack that kid for overlooking something that important and then selling it to me! (or maybe I should smack myself for buying the car off him when he was obviously a sub-par mechanic)

so, hopfully tomorrow my valve spring tool will arrive and I can rebuild the head and get it all back together some time before next week! in time for Ze Rallye!!! woohooo!!!

oh look there goes the time!

okay so it has been a forever since I posted on here! whoops. Well I'll give a little recap.

I bought another bmw. a 1989 325i 2dr. So far I have blown up the valvetrain once, and...thats about it. Haven't even driven it out of my driveway! It was supposed to be a cheap daily driver for when I move to the Twin Cities this winter.

Going back to school is still in the plans, so Is moving to Minneapolis area to pursue those dreams. It is becoming very aggravating to keep my life on track but I am trying hard.

So that is the last several months in a nutshell.

In two weeks Leann and myself are headed to Da UP for POR (Lake Superior ProRally) for some rallying action. I hope I can get her a ride in a car!

I'm also debating what to do with BahntechnicII since I will not have enough space for three cars in an aparment complex :( Who knows. Nobody wants to buy it as is...so It might go to the crushers. if thats the case I'm taking some of Dad's garage for an engine stand and tranny storage! heheh.

okay thats it for now. more later some time.

-Gabe :)