Shrinkage (Range That Is)

The forecast is for cold.  REALLY, REALLY cold.  Tomorrow morning's low is forecast to be 13°F with a high of 20°F.  But that's nothing.  Both this coming Saturday and Tuesday morning lows are forecast at 3°F!  That's cold for here even in January.  Saturday is no big deal because we won't be going anywhere, or at least anywhere far.  Tuesday I'll need to make it to the office and back.

EV of the Day

I really hope It gets to the point where I can no longer play this game. The game where my daily goal is unfulfilled until I spot an electric car. I win the game most days by spotting Tesla Model S's, Mitsubishi iMEVs, Nissan LEAFs or Chevy Volts. If I excluded the Volts I'd have a much lower win-loss ratio but I include them because they run all-electric for 30 miles or so. Those are my rules. Your game can have its own rules.

When This Van's a Rockin'...

Just the Stats, Ma'am

It's All Relative

A Facebook friend asked me a very good question about range.  What about the other uses of electricity in the Nissan LEAF such as lights, wipers, heater, heated seats, power windows and charging iDevices?  He figured that we'd have to give up most of those amenities in order to save electrons for moving.  He specifically cited the example of running the wipers in a snow storm.  But, it's all relative. Sure, you might be able to run down a regular car battery pretty quickly doing that, but you have to compare moving a few ounces of snow every few seconds to driving a 3,300+ lbs car up a hill at 40mph.  Once you think about that you realize that everything else is pretty small stuff.

A Disappointing Day

Where to begin.  First, I couldn't get the SiriusXM app on my iPhone to stream to the car on my commute into work.  No ad-free Howard.  Then work was an unproductive stream of meetings and interruptions.  Nothing special there.  Pretty much everyone experiences the same thing every day. Then the electrician didn't show up to give us an estimate for the car charger installation.

High Score!

Kerry may be after green dots. I'm after pine trees.

Collecting Green Dots

I once heard that Jerry Seinfeld had a simple but strangely effective technique for motivating yourself to stick with some daily goal. He had a dedicated calendar for that goal and would mark the day with a red "X" each time he did his task. Then, as he explained, “after a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”