$$ Gas Prices $$

So, I've been thinking about gas prices lately and how much they have gone up. One of the things I've noticed is that the bands of variation in price fluctuations increases as the price is higher. For example last week, a gallon of gas at the local Delta Sonic cost $2.72, today a week later that price is up to $2.89. More than a $.15 hike in a week. Besides the price of gas continually going up, I think we will continually see major jumps like this. Oil prices depends on a number of things including supply, the world's demand for oil, and fear. That's right, fear is a signicant reason for the jump in price per barrel. Fear over terrorism, over lack availability contribute. Last I heard it was something like it adds $10-20 to the true price of a barrel of oil.

I'm also sure that the technology exists somewhere to make cars much more fuel efficient, getting much better mpg. However due to current political agendas and various lobbyist concerns (big business), people will never see this new technology. Its not until years and years after a known issue becomes a large problem, when the government may begin to seek change (such as what happened with the global warming issue). Scientists have known we are destroying the environment with fossil fuels and other hydrocarbon pollutents, but the true extent of the damage never really gets out to the public due to lobbyists agendas (comming from tobbacco, oil companies, car companies, etc...) All of which do not want things to change immediately because it may impact their business now.

I'm not really sure where i was going with this, just sucks that gas prices have to be so high. And I'm not really complaining that much cause my Saturn gets great gas mileage (about every 300 miles per refill), I feel bad for other people who dont have as fuel efficient vehicles. My next car will likely be a hybrid.

Plant Progress - Day 21

I didn't forget about the plant (in case you were wondering). It has been doing very well, and 12 days after my last update I present you with...Plant Progress Day 21!

whistling

I have been trying for a while to learn how to whistle using finger, you know the kind that makes a really loud noise. Well after many attempts, I figured it just wasnt happening. SO being the dork that I am, I looked it up online. Here's what came up in Google. I did manage to get a few whistles out of it...so i guess you can say today was a success!

new jersey

My roommates and I decided that we would take a little trip this past weekend. We went to see a few bands by the names Deathcab for Cutie, and Franz Ferdinand. I'm not big into either of these bands, though I have heard a few of their songs, which are for the most part good and enjoyable. I mostly decided to go on the trip for a chance to get out of Rochester for a while. The concert was in NJ. Getting to NJ was quite an adventure of its own. There was a freak snow storm, followed by hail in the middle of PA. This led to many accidents and turned-over vehicles, and general slowdowns. Once we pasted Philly, Camden was just a hop across some river (Delaware maybe?), then we had hours to kill before the start of the concert. This is what we did...

We parked near the Tweeter center, and across from our garage was this Aquarium. So we decided to check it out, at first we thought it would be expensive, which according to the main gate it was! It was like $16 per person, plus it said it closed at 5 (the current time was about 4). So we were like no way would we pay that much. So we went to the back and people seemed to be exiting a building. So we checked it out. This exit turned out to be the exit for the Aquarium, and other people were going in as some were going out. So we went in too. Man we're we suprised.

The first exhibit in the aquarium is the Hippo exhibit. Hippos are ginormous! They are also suprisingly very graceful underwater, which was a very cool feature of this place, to be able to see them swimingly underwater. We then checked out other things such as octupus, seahorseas, and jellyfish. But the coolest part was a walk through shark exhibit, where you walk through a tunnel, and sharks are literally swimming all around you! It was pretty amazing.

After that, we were really hungry, so we decided to get some eats. Frank saw a couple of girls and yelled "Hey, do you know where we can eat?" They said they were looking for a place too. So we tagged along, introduced ourselves, and made some friends. We searched for quite a while, because little did we know Camden is really really rundown. We walked down whole city blocks that were completly deserted and boarded up. We found one restaurant at the end of a series of deserted buildings. We went in and ordered some food. The food turned out to be not so bad, it was a small old fashioned Italian joint.

We then went to the concert, and continued to hang out with our new friends. We didn't go to our assigned seats, but it didn't matter. It was all fun. The ride home was pretty exhausting. We left NJ at around 11:30 and got to NY around 4 am. Around Syracuse I noticed TJ driving more erratic than he had the last few hours, he started breaking for no reason. When asked about this later he claims he saw "Arms growing out of the truck ahead of him" and "Shadows that I thought were people". So I drove the rest of the way home after that, we got back to Rochester around 5:45 am.

All in all, an awesome trip! I will put up some pictures as soon as I get them from TJ. Oh! And I was talking to someone later about the trip, and they informed me that they were from NJ and that they avoid Camden whenever possible. When asked why he said because it is America's Most Dangerous city. Camden Who knew we were risking our lives walking through Camden?

Plant Progress - Day 9

Plant progress - Day 9.

Today was fun, we went to a party for my grandma at my aunt's house. We played frisbee and hung out outside. We had a nice dinner, got to see family and it was a lot of fun.

Plant Progress - Day 8

Here it is again, another exciting episode of Plant Progress - Day 8