Rants of A Coyote

Has anyone else been watching as Gasoline Prices creep upwards? There have been mixed speculations as to how far the price of gasoline will go this year. IF the markets don't do anything screwy this year, than by this time next year we should only see an average price of $3.35/Gallon for regular unleaded. By this time in 2013: $3.60/Gallon.  This is only if you follow the historical data of Oregon's Gasoline prices since about June of 2009.

So, without going and buying a full electric vehicle or a Prius... What can you do to help keep that wallet padded?

Well, simply put: reduce the amount that you drive. How you do this is up to you, but the less that you drive, the less you have to spend on gasoline. In the PDX area, you can get a monthly Bus ticket for $88. For the Yamhil County Transit it is only $30 for unlimited use. If you are willing to work out  a little, you can save a lot.

Sure, you may spend a bit more time in transit by taking the public transit, but that is time that you can use doing other things as well. No one says you have to just sit there being bored.

Other things you can do to limit the amount you drive: If the stores you go to are only a few blocks apart, walk between them instead of driving just to make your car closer.

Aside from driving less, make sure to keep your vehicle well maintained. Keeping things up to date on your vehicle will keep things running better and longer, thus (hopefully) reducing the number of times that you need to head to the pump.

When you go grocery shopping, if staple food items are on sale, stock up! If you need to buy a small air-tight container to keep the food fresh, but if you can start a small storage area for food that you can go to instead of needing to always go out to the store any time you need stuff, then you will have saved yourself the cost of the time, and the cost of the fuel needed to get those few things you would have needed to get.

Also, if you are weird like me and like the taste of it, get powdered milk instead of fresh. It's great in coffee and in baking, and doesn't need to be refrigerated until it is mixed together!

Lastly, it is just about awareness. You will only start making a difference in your vehicle usage if you are aware of anything extra that you do in your vehicle.

Well, I heard back from Google! After only 5 days I got the response! It is always nice to see a speedy response to an issue, especially when it involves money.

Well, there it is. I am disappointed by the decision, but it IS their call, and the call was against me. This means that unless they decide to change their mind, I am blacklisted from the AdSense program.

So what does this mean beyond Google? It means that I need to start looking for other advertising means.  The almost $75 that I would have made from Google I will not be seeing.  I am currently checking out BuySellAds as a viable option.  The only thing I ask right now is that if you are currently reading my blog, please encourage others to start reading as well.

Buy Sell Ads (BSA) suggests 100,000 impressions a month, and I am not sure how close I get to that at the moment as all I see are basic visit stats. By building the reading base though I know that I would/will be a valuable asset for them, as they would be for me!

By the end of Feb. it would be nice to see even 4x the current number of readers that we have currently seen.  Currently we are seeing about 220 visitors a day, so if each visitor is even reading 10 of the articles, that would bring the impressions up to at least 50k impressions from my best guess.

Also, do not forget that if you want to advertise on here as well, let me know! As you all have seen there are many options to advertise on my site.

I thought about this article the other day when I was over at my Grandmother's house. I looked up at her lights and saw that there were quite a few cobwebs in the cans of her vaulted ceiling. The bulbs were off at the moment so I could see that they were just the generic Sylvania 65W Bulbs. I had forgotten that her lights were all on dimmers in the main room.

Since the 70's, most of the switch dimmers have switched over to electronic dimers. Before this point the most common dimmer was the electric rheostat dimmer, which other than dimming the bulb, did not offer any electric savings. In fact, all they did was change the electricity into heat.

The electronic dimmers however, have enormous savings potential. Especially if you are like me and don't always need the light to be at maximum output, you can save a lot, both in usage, and in bulb costs. Basically what the newer dimmers do is increases the delay in the amount of time that the current is actually getting to the light bulb. This happens so fast however that (especially on an incandescent bulb) we do not even notice it.

What does this mean? Well for incandescent bulbs, it means that (according to who you read or follow) if you dim the lights by 25% you will save roughly 20% of the electricity, and increase the life of the bulb by up to a factor of 4, especially if your dimmer goes from off-dim-on.  This would explain why cobwebs have been able to form in my Grandmother's lights.

Unfortunately, Compact Florescent Bulbs do not all take advantage of dimming, and those that do, do not do so very well, and can even cause life shortage in CFL bulbs. Newer LED bulbs have been showing some promise with dimming though, having close to the full dimming range as incandescent bulbs.

You know the saying: "A watched pot never boils." Sure, this can deal with the fact that times seems to go slower when you are actively watching something, but there could be something more as well.

Most of us that are waiting for the water to boil have solid metal lids. If we are watching the pot, waiting for boiling and are looking right at the water, chances are we do not have the pot covered.

First: Cover the pot! The steam builds up inside the pot instead of escaping out of the pot as readily (Remember, heat rises).

Second: Used the correct sized burner. Don't use a large burner for a tiny pot, and vice a verse a.

Third: Turn the heat as high as is needed for your pot and recipe. Remember, if you have gas burners, the maximum that the heat should be set would be just till the flames are at the edge of the pot. Not only will it heat the bottom of the pot, but in addition the sides will have more direct heat as well.

Using the above methods, you should have NO PROBLEM boiling 5-6 quarts of water in 10 min or under. Something tells me though that I may need a video to back this one up for you skeptics out there.

With the recent events of Google disabling Ad Sense (even if it might only be temporary), I am going to change the side ad from "Ads By Google" to "Ads By You!"

Basically, as you can see in the image, we have about a 200x200 pixel block to work with.

How this will work: Until a 200x200 block is filled, people can request at least a 10x10 block for $.01 per pixel. I do not expect that this area will grow too fast, but I will take paid requests for any site that does not violate my terms of service here.

When the entire block is filled up I will have a page created for AdBlocks to show past FULL blocks of ads.

This is a pretty fun way to do ads, as it looks more like a patchwork quilt.

Basic information needed for the ad:

• Image (Up to the size in pixels of your ad)
• Background Color (Optional, or in place of image)
• URL or EMail
• Hover over Title (Up to 100 Characters)

Either send the request to my email, through the contact form, or as a comment here.  Don't worry about the image at first. Once I have confirmed that I have received the request, I will contact you to fulfill the request.  Once payment has been received, your microBlock will be placed.

The funds generated from the Ads help keep this site going, and allow for upgrades to the site for the future.

Note: Obviously larger ads are more expensive, but they will not just go away.  It is not for "x" amount of time to show, it will show as long as this site is up (One Complete BLOCK will keep quixjote.com alive for 16 Months with StartLogic)