thepedersons.net

Why do the people who make products make it so difficult for us to be & stay healthy? It’s our cosmetics, then it’s our plastics and canned goods, then it’s cookware (more cookware information), then it’s flame retardant chemicals in our pjs, our furniture, our mattresses etc! I long for the day when we can be confident that the things we are buying are not going to increase our risk of cancer or some other devastating illness; when I don’t have to do a couple hours of research to find a simple product, like a sippy cup or a pair of pjs for my kids!

Click here to see how

I filled up the scooter for the first time on Monday of last week.  I just filled up today (putting in 0.941 gallons of premium gas) and the final MPG comes out to 95.5 mpg!!!

I was really suprised because I figured the amount of time I spend going 35 - 40 mph is up there an that it would impact the MPG.  Well, it seems the scooter doesn’t mind running on the high end of the RPM scale.

Comparing our vehicles, the scooter is looking pretty good.  Now if I could only drive it in the snow.

One night, I was talking to my old friend Nat on the phone.  He mentioned that he was “tooling” around Kewanee IL on a scooter, getting about 100 mpg and loving every minute of it.  After that conversation, I got to thinking about all the money we could possibly save if I stopped driving my truck to work every day (getting 19 mpg at best).  Even better, we’d be doing our part to cut back on oil consumption.  So, I started doing some research.

2 months later, this is sitting in my garage!

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We’ve had our fair share of rain in South Central Wisconsin in the past month.  In fact, I think we’re 10″ over the norm so far this year.  Up until the last few weeks of August, the mosquitoes have been tollerable.  We actually ate outside quite a few nights and they never even bothered us.  In the past few weeks, they have been the worst I’ve ever seen!  You can’t open the door without 3 - 5 of them getting in and forget being outside without bug spray.

The other day I was working on Eric’s new play set and had soaked down with bug spray.  By 4:00 (after about 3 layers of bug spray) the mosquitoes didn’t care any more!  They were stining me regardless of how much of the spray I had on.

I’m glad we got some rain, finally, but could really do without the bugs.  In fact, tomorrow is Eric’s birthday party and we’re going to have it inside due to the unbearable bugs.

We were at Mom & Dad’s place in Lake Mills last weekend and saw that their neighbors had installed a solar powered motion light over their deck.  Perfect!  We’ve been wanting to install a motion light over the garage door for over a year now.  The problem is, there is no power there and getting power there will be a pain in the rumpus!!!  We ran to Menards last week and found the same light they installed and picked it up.  I just installed it today and am anxious to test it out tonight!

After a lot of debate, we’ve decided to hold off on buying a new car this year.  The Versa is a great little car that we both really liked, but it is just a little too small for us.  We need something with good cargo capacity (which it has, but not for a 100lb dog + bags for 3 people) and great gas mileage (which it also has).  We looked at other vehicles out there, but none of them were in our price range and didn’t have the same features as the Versa.

So, we’re going to wait until next year.  There are more models being introduced in the 2008 model year that might be a better fit (Jetta SportWagen diesel looks pretty promising)!

As part of the effort to reduce our energy use, I’ve been trying to find a way to reduce the number of computers we have running at any given time.  We currently have 4 computers, 3 of which are always on:

• K9 - K9 is the work horse of the house… or was.  He was where thepedersons.net used to be housed, until I got tired of trying to manage it
• Marvin - Marvin is our personal pc (iMac) which I spend most of my time on
• Taz - Taz is our other personal pc (iBook) which Deb spends most of her time on
• Gossamer - Gossamer is our PVR server which records TV for us

The other day I was digging around trying to find out how to either eliminate one of those machines or at least replace it with something that won’t consume a bunch of power.  I encountered this project which turns one of these into a super small, very low power consumption, server.  It is the perfect replacement for K9, which is a big Dell box that isn’t really doing anything.

This is my latest geek fix.  For my fellow geeks out there (you know who you are) this is a GREAT little project that will take a few days of tinkering to get working, but in the end, you’ll slow down that electric meter.

On Saturday, Lyle and I hit some car lots. The first one we went to was in Watertown to check out the Vibe. That is a nice little car! We took a loaded one (sport version) for a test drive and I was impressed. It has a TON of room for both people and cargo. The roof top carrier is a big plus.

After checking out the Vibe, we took the Infinity (boy, I wish we could afford one of those babys!) to Madison. The first place we hit was the Nissan dealer to check out the Versa. Again, a nice little car! We took a loaded Versa for a spin (the one with CVT) and again, I was impressed! The leg room in that car is AMAZING! The sales guy was 6′4″ and he sat in the back behind me and he had enough room. Again, there is a lot of storage space in the back, but not quite as much as the Vibe. Also, the CVT is different. No gears! It is like a snowmobile. The pickup wasn’t as good as the Vibe, but that is probably how the thing can get 36 mpg!

After driving the Versa, we went over to the Honda dealer to check out the Fit. Man, is that a TINY car! The back seat is almost non-existent and forget trying to get anything in the hatch back. We didn’t drive one of those, due to the size and the fact that they didn’t have any on the lot! The one we looked at was being prepared for delivery. The sales guy said that there is a 6 month waiting list to get one. Our name won’t be on the list.

The next step is to get Deb to drive the Vibe and the Versa. We hope to take Eric along and actually put the car seat in there and take him along. That should be fun. We’ll see how the sales guys like that one.

After looking at the Honda, Lyle and I went over to the Infinity dealer so he could check on a new car they are coming out with. The sales guy and Lyle got into a good discussion about handling, performance, etc. On the way home to Watertown, Lyle took HWY G out of Lake Mills to HWY 19 to Watertown. For those of you not familiar with that road, it has a lot of turns and hills. The discussion with the sales guy must have given Lyle the bug to do some driving… That Infinity can FLY!

Yep, you read that correctly.  Deb and I are looking for a new car that will get better gas mileage.  Here are our requirements:

• Room for Spencer and Eric in the back
• Good cargo space
• Excellent gas mileage (30+)
• Cheap (we don’t want to spend 20k on a car)

Believe it or not, I’ve found a few that meet all of those requirements!

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