Odds and ends from this week:
On Monday, Bob drove to Mammoth Lakes, CA to prepare for a job start next Monday. I need to mention the price of gas around here. Sunday, in Incline Village, NV, we saw regular gas at $4.53 per gallon. Bob called me Monday while he was on the road and said regular gas price in Bridgeport, CA was $5.09/gallon!!
Holy smokes, when will the gas price climb insanity stop. What has caused this? Are the gas companies raising prices just because they can? We have got to stop being so dependent on foreign oil. I thought we had plenty of gas coming out of Alaska and South America. So what gives? I know there are speculators who drive the price of a barrel of oil. Is the only cure to stop driving? Comments anyone?
You never know when it's going to snow around here. One day it was 68 degrees, the next day 36 degrees and snowing. The snow took form of small pellets. They didn't stick but with the high winds that accompanied the snow, we had cool snow patterns blowing around on the freeway.
On Monday, I got my hair cut. Tuesday, I went to see "The Secret World of Arietty," an animated film. It was cute and got good reviews, but the only thing I truly enjoyed was the artwork in the movie.
Unfortunately, Bob was sick most of the week with fever, achiness, loss of appetite and a deep, dry cough. He barely ate anything for three days, came home, coughed and slept. His cough was so bad, his abdominal muscles hurt. On Thursday, he decided it wouldn't be good to travel eight hours each direction to do a run he hadn't properly prepared for. We called off the trip.
I came down with a milder version of what Bob had with only one day of chills and coughing, no loss of appetite. Today I felt fine except for a full-fledged attack of vertigo in the evening. It passed and I am feeling better.
This afternoon, I cooked spaghetti sauce, steamed asparagus and zucchini and made a huge salad with mixed greens, red cabbage, chopped pecans, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, red peppers and avocados. Yum! I like to make sure Bob has lots of good food around while I'm gone. Tomorrow, I will cook the spaghetti noodles and make some hard-boiled eggs.
This evening we watched "Shark Tank," our second favorite show after "Amazing Race."
Tomorrow, I will do laundry and pack for my trip.
My plan for next week was to drive to Portland on Tuesday and spend a week or so with Mom for her birthday. However, with the cancellation of our Vegas trip and looking at the weather forecast for the upcoming week, I decided to head to Portland on Sunday. I want to beat the incoming snowstorm which is scheduled to hit the high passes after 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. I'm trusting NOAA's forecast on this one.
I will leave around 8:00 a.m. on Sunday and should be through all the passes in California and southern Oregon before 4:00 p.m. If all goes according to plan, I should be in Portland by 7:00 p.m. Wish me luck.
You have to remember that even though the US is only one country, we consume about 20% of the worlds oil production. The US reached it's "peak" oil production (meaning the easily extractable petroleum) back in the 1970's. We currently import a majority of our oil and natural gas from Canada. It is predicted that their capacity will peak soon if it has not already. Add to this that petroleum is used for more than just fuel, plastics, chemicals, fertilizer, etc. China is now the second largest importer of oil and will soon outstrip our demand. They are competing for the same sources as we are (Middle East, Russia, etc.)
ReplyDeleteEconomic growth is tied directly to energy consumption, in other words, without growth in energy production there is no growth in the economy. So we have an expectation of increased economic growth based on a depleting resource, one of which the cost of extracting is becoming costlier. This is what the whole "fracking" issue is about, for example... a process to extract the difficultly obtained oil. Sorry, brief explanation for a very very complex issue.
On your travel note, we are still having snow getting to the valley floor, and it even snowed at the coast this week. Surprising weather for mid-March.