Month: January 2009

80,000 miles!

80,000 miles

On the way to work today, I hit 80,000 miles on my 2004 Prius!

I snapped a couple pics as it changed over.

A little math…

80,000 miles at an average of, let’s say 46 MPG (it tends to be around that), that works out to about 1,739 gallons of gas. Damn, that’s a lot of gas! Not sure what the average price of gas has been over the past few years, let’s say $2, that works out to about $3,478 in gas.

If I’d had a lower MPG car, let’s say 25 MPG, the gas would have been $6,400.

So the Prius’ higher MPG has been a savings of $2,922 so far.
Plus the emissions are lower on the Prius, so there’s that, too.

I’ve had the car for 5 years, so that’s 16,000 miles a year, or 43.84 miles per day.
Which about matches my daily commute, so no surprise there.

I’ve already paid it off, so here’s hoping I can get another 5 years out of it!

Feedback loop failure

When I get things done, I feel good. When I don’t get things done, I feel bad. This is a feedback loop with both positive and negative reenforcement.

So why do I hardly ever seem to get things done?

I spent most of the weekend sitting on the couch or staring stupidly of piles of stuff that needs to get done, but taking no action.

Uno Chicago Grill… alignment: LE?

Uno’s nutritional info looks like they are gaming the system to make the numbers seem good…

http://www.unos.com/kiosk/nutritionUnos.html

For example, the chili looks like it’s 260 calories…
until you notice it is 1.62 servings. 1.62 ???

In other words, it’s 421.2 calories.
A bowl of chili is not more than one serving, bastards!

Someone needs to officially redefine $servings as INT instead of FLOAT.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

2010 Pruis

Toyota unveiled the new 2010 Prius.

What’s new? A lot of little things, but nothing major.

Standard:

* slightly (4 mpg) better gas mileage
* higher horsepower
* slightly redesigned exterior (a little more angular)
* redesigned dash
* slightly larger cargo area (0.4″ longer, 2.2″ wider)
* more airbags (one for the driver’s knees)
* different brakes (4 disc brakes vs. the old front disc, rear drum)
* 3 drive modes: electric-only, eco (better gas mileage), power (more horsepower)

Optional:

* backup cam (has been available since 2007 I think, but not back in 2004)
* moonroof
* solar panel (can power A/C while the car is off, to keep it cool in the hot sun)
* “Safety Connect” (Toyota’s OnStar)
* LED headlights
* radar system (aids cruise control, hits brakes when crash is unavoidable)

So overall, some nice enhancements, but nothing as dramatic as the 2003-2004 redesign.
Seeing as I have my 2004 paid off, I think I’ll stick with that for a while.

I currently have almost 80,000 miles on my Prius and have had very few issues, I figure it’s good for quite a while longer.

Maybe one of these days I’ll install a backup cam kit. Marco had a cool option on his Toyota minivan, side cams that allowed him to see around corners. Europe gets all the cool options. =)

Here’s a breakdown of all the updates on Jalopnik:
http://jalopnik.com/5128101/2010-toyota-prius-design-dissected

Goal Setting

I set myself a goal of losing 6 pounds in 3 months, which should be easy. Realistically, I should be able to do it in a month or less. But I figure, start with a really easy goal, that way I can feel like I’m ahead of the game when I exceed my goal.

I’ve been doing the stairs at work, which is hell on my calfs, but will hopefully get easier.

This morning I fired up Wii Fit for the first time in 121 days (so the little animated balance board tells me). I promptly scored a Wii Fit age of 25 and easily beat my old high scores on several games. Yay! What was wrong with me 121 days ago? Maybe my gall bladder was throwing off my balance… =)

I’m going to do stairs and Wii Fit at least 3 times a week each.

Now if I could just work in going to the gym once and a while… maybe I’ll go on Saturday in the morning.

Feels good to have some motivation for a change!

Alarming

LiveJournal is not looking so healthy as of late.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5124184/the-russian-bear-slashes-a-social-network

Time to back up your journals, people!
Have to research the best one, but here’s a Python script to do it:
http://hewgill.com/ljdump/

The stairs are a harsh mistress

As part of getting in shape, I figured I’d start doing stairs again.

A year or two ago, I would routinely do 10 sets – where going from the sixth floor down to the first and back is 1 set.

Today I decided I’d start of light and only do 5 sets.

Man!
I forgot how much of a workout stairs are. After those 5 sets, my legs were burning, my heart was thudding, and I was breathing heavy and sweating.

I’m going to make it a regular thing, though. I just have to remember to wear a t-shirt and do it at the end of the day, because of all the sweat.