Going for a Ride

Have you ever heard the term “jump ship?”

Generally, if you jump ship, you leave a job or activity suddenly before it is finished, especially to go and do something for someone else. I think that this term has a lot to do with commitment. A person that is committed to what they are doing, will stay with the task till the bitter end. Someone that is committed will see and understand the difficulty they will face in their commitment and prepare for it.


Back in the days when I worked at Lakeside Shopping Center, there was a tunnel under the mall. The tunnel was used as a loading dock for all the deliveries to the stores. The tunnel was built poorly, so water from the parking lot would drain down into the tunnel. This water would almost never dry, and therefore contributed a nice thin layer of scum that was very slippery. (It also contributed a very strange odor, but that’s a different story)

We would often use this slippery surface for our enjoyment. Lakeside shopping center had a golf cart, for plowing sidewalks, doing trash rounds, and just getting around the massive 40 Acre piece of land. If you could get the golf cart up to top speed on the down ramp into the tunnel, by the time you hit the water / scum, with some careful braking and steering wheel maneuvers, the golf cart would do a perfect 360. While this could be potentially dangerous, I had done it enough times, that I was quite proficient.


One day, one of my friends came over to Lakeside, so I could help him work on his car. I was still on the job doing trash, and offered him a ride down into the tunnel… I saw the water… The temptation was too great. I was at top speed at the end of the ramp, and I told him to hang on! “We’re going to do a spin.” Before I knew what was happening, he jokingly said “no way” and promptly jumped off the speeding golf cart.


The next few seconds happened so quickly that I’m not quite sure what all happened. I am sure of one thing: a person can’t instantly start running 20 MPH. I stomped on the brake and looked back. A cloud of dust enveloped a still rolling human figure. When I arrived on the scene, blood was dripping from his scraped hands, as he said… “Well…. that was kinda stupid, wasn’t it?”


My friend wasn’t committed to our golf cart trip.

Jurisprudence!!!

AAaaaannnnnD! the winner is!

Sure, I could use a laugh. 7 votes @ (58%)

NO, PLEASE NO! 5 votes @ (41%)

HENCE THE POST!
Well, if you didn't want it, it is too late now.





Laws are the threads that hold our great nation together. First and foremost, God’s laws: Thou shall not murder, Thou shall not steal, and so on. Next, we have the common law: don’t speed, don’t steal, and don’t invest in stock. The fact is that everyone subjects himself to the laws and government, or he pays the consequences. An interesting point is that we accept the laws that are mandated upon us because we are either enjoying the benefits of them, or we are not affected by them. Jurisprudence: keeps the strong from overpowering the weak, protects those that subject themselves to it, and benefits society as a whole. (generally speaking)





We as citizens make the laws that govern us, we should be happy with the law; the unfortunate fact is that far too many uneducated and ignorant people have the right to vote. We hear the call “GO VOTE” but if we aren’t educated enough to understand what we are voting on, then should we really vote? The obvious problem here is that the common masses are not capable to understand the consequences of their actions if they don’t understand their actions. For example, if a man votes at random because he doesn’t understand what he is voting on, he will probably never know the outcome of the law he voted on.




The problem is that too many laws are created just because they sound like a good idea. The main idea is that people may decide on what sounds good before they know the end result. The basic principle of the cell phone law is to get drivers off of their cell phones. I highly doubt this will actually solve much of the problem. I think more likely, more drivers will be fiddling with the wires on their “hands free” devices, trying to untangle a cord, or trying to figure out how to make the Bluetooth connection. This will be an undesired effect of a new law. It won’t solve the problem, nor will it keep people from dying.


I personally would love if laws worked the way they were supposed to. I would like a communistic government. It would be really nice to have everything equal, right? I mean, just think, how many times your sibling has got the iPod YOU deserve! This actually happening in reality is a joke. Power corrupts, and any governmental system is a good show of that. No, I’m not an anarchist, nor do I honestly want a communistic government. I believe that no government can exist without being ordained by God. I follow God, and I believe that he has put this government over me, so I can be subject to it. This doesn’t mean that I follow every law to the letter all the time. I mess up; I am a hypocrite.


A government that does so much to protect the innocent, yet allows abortion, is a government with conflicting interests. Our government is obviously messed up. This shows the duality of government; I.E. what government tries to accomplish with law VS. what they actually achieve.



All that to say… I believe that some laws are good because they protect me from others’ stupidity; however, what laws are going to protect me from the government’s stupidity? Laws are good, but laws that are implemented because of their wonderful “potential” are mostly worthless.

What?! a post with more than 20 words?

Well, here is some stuff. I had to give this as a speech, so I figured I'd post it. (mostly because I'm lazy and I didn't want to create a post this long from scratch)


If you saw a quarter on the ground would you pick it up? What about a dollar? What about 20 dollars? What If I told you that you could save around $60 or much more per year? The high cost of gas affects anyone who drives. The distance I can drive on each gallon of gas directly effects how much money I will be paying at the pump next time I fill up. For example, if I am able to drive 25 miles on one gallon of gas, my cost for those 30 miles is divided into the cost of the gallon, so if I pay four dollars for that gallon, I will be paying about sixteen cents per mile. Saving money at the pump is important to me, and I hope to show how to save a little extra money on gas.

With most cars getting around 25 miles per gallon, and trucks getting about 12 to 17 almost everyone feels pain every time they fill up at the pump. With this kind of agony, some turn to gadgets promising more miles for less money, while others, look to old tips and tricks to improve mileage. Many products are on the market, to increase gas mileage and improve performance. Some spin air, some inject water, and a few are dropped into the gas tank. With so many products, which, if any, will get me more mileage? We’ll look at the claims of one of the most predominate products out on the shelves of many stores, and examine the best ways of gaining fuel mileage.

Most devices that claim to help increase gas mileage are very similar, so for the sake of time we’ll only pick on one of them. The Tornado is a device made of stainless steel with thin metal blades. Versions are sold for both carbureted and fuel-injected engines. Most of the fuels saving devices currently for sale are like this one. The Tornado is basically a fin that goes into the air intake hose between the air filter and intake manifold. This has the effect of spinning the air and making the fuel mix more completely with the air resulting in a claimed 30% increase in fuel mileage and horsepower. Effectively, this means that if the vehicle is getting 10 miles per gallon before, then after the device is installed the vehicle will instantly be getting 13 miles per gallon.

Many of the fuel saving devices have problems in backing up their claims. For example, there is a flaw in the theory for the tornado; there is no fuel in the intake manifold. Fuel is injected into the cylinder at the intake valve; this simply means that any air that the tornado “spins” won’t carry all the way into the cylinder where the fuel would have a chance to mix with the air. Other products claim huge increases in the effectiveness of an engine’s ability for burning fuel. According to Wikipedia, the gasoline engine is 99% efficient, if this is true, then how the products can retrieve more than 1% is quite strange. That’s like saying “I can make a gallon of gas out of thin air!” it simply can’t happen.

So which of the fuel saving devices work? Consumer reports magazine tells us: “We installed the tornado in a Ford Ranger pickup truck and a Volkswagen New Beetle. We ran our standard acceleration and fuel economy tests with and without the Tornado installed. The Ranger saw no improvement in acceleration, while the New Beetle saw slightly worse performance. Neither vehicle showed an improvement in fuel economy.” Consumer reports magazine tests many of these fuel saving devices and says that it’s just better to stay away. “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” The Tornado and others like it rely on perception. You do something to improve your vehicle and you 'feel' the improvement. Nothing has actually improved; you just believe it has. It's the same feeling you get after an oil change, nothing has changed. It just feels better. Less than 3% of the devices actually increase mileage, so consumer reports suggests to stay away from them.

So what does work? Here are some simple steps that can be done to increase fuel mileage.

• Check your tire pressure; Tires and low tire pressure can attribute up to about three percent loss in fuel mileage.
• Keep your engine tuned; a poorly tuned or poorly running engine can use more than twice as much gas as a well tuned engine!
• Trim excess weight: every 100 lbs of extra stuff that is carried around attributes to about a one percent loss in gas mileage.
• Consolidate trips; Think “do I really need this right now? Or can it wait till tomorrow?”
• Avoid quick acceleration; quickly accelerating after being stopped can use about three percent more gas than accelerating to the same speed slower.
• If going faster than forty miles per hour roll up the windows and use the A/C; this one might sound odd, but the drag created by open windows uses more gas than using the air conditioner.
• Shut the engine off if you are going to idle for more than a minute or so; this simple practice can help reduce pollution, and save you money.

These simple steps can easily get you up to 3 more miles per gallon. If you drive an average of 12000 miles, (that is the statistical average) and based on a fuel cost of $3.00 that's a total savings of more than $150.00. Just think about this next time you go to fill up.