Chris,
I know that stupid section of freeway well. I HATE that section too! People can't figure out what lane to get in, when to speed up, when to slow down, etc....I've about gotten squashed quite a few times right at that point too....

Man, kudos to you for keeping your cool too. You did the right thing (remember Super Dell's blunder?) (FOR THE REST OF THE FOLKS: In Utah there was a guy who owned a bunch of computer stores that happened to have a Concealed Weapons permit. He was hauling butt through a neighborhood one day and a local resident came up to his car & got in his face. He did have his daughter with him and was getting worried so he "brandished the weapon".

The media had a hay-day with it. "Local business man brandishes weapon on resident trying to slow him down in a neighborhood" etc....it turned into a circus.

Anyway, it's been emblazoned into every concealed weapon permit holders memory in Utah as it's still pretty recent.

So, Chris, dude, here's a toast to you for keeping your cool to the A$$hole on the bike.

Man, I'd look up the idiot's license & send him a bill for the mirror (but that's just me). If he doesn't pay it, send it to collections.

That guy was just asking to become a hood ornament too....

-Graydon
(Knows that exact stretch of death lane on the freeway well).

quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:
I had a similar experience last year but it was with as car, every morning for like a month I would be in the middle of my commute on a two lane blacktop county road and every morning for several weeks a blue and silver ford festiva would come up behind me and get so close I couldnt even see the hood of the car.
Well one morning after about a month of this I sorta got up on the wrong side of the bed and sure enough here comes the rollerskate idiot, well after a mile or two I just said F it to myself and took my foot of the gas and put both feet on the brake pedal and stomped as hard as I could.
And I'll be damned if that entire festiva did not dissappear under the tail gate of my F250, I was expecting to hear the crunch at any second but it never came and I accelerated and the thing was still there in a cloud of tire smoke, but after that I never saw the roller skate again, and I am here to tell ya an F250 can create an impressive cloud of rubber smoke going from 60 to 0 in a hundred feet or so.

And this is why I now drive a truck!
In fact, I just sold the Honda Accord the other day & I'm now done w/ the small cars.

I hadn't driven it in over a month & drove it around to get it ready to sell & forgot how small that thing was and how low to the ground you are in it (You can't see CRAP ahead of you because you're so low).

I thought to my self, "Self, if you keep this & ever get hit you're a dead man!".

So, within 48 hours the sucker was sold (cars that get 30 MPG in Utah go FAST!!!) and now I've got a "new diesel" fund building up.....
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/93accord/

Someone once asked why Americans like big SUV's & Trucks. Well, come out here & play on our freeways with the A$$holes that drive around here for a while & you'll see really fast why we like lot's of big steel surrounding us (even if they're expensive to drive, surviving a crash with some idiot driver is worth it!)

-Graydon
Completely sold on owning & driving a truck!

Got an interesting email today....
http://www.pickensplan.com/media/

I've had a lot of respect for T. Boone Pickens for quite some time. He successfully predicted the rise of oil prices to almost the dollar as the price of crude has risen over the last year.

He's wanting to supplant electricity produced by Natural Gas with Wind power & then transfer the Natural Gas over to vehicles...

Take a look.

I've had a little experience with Natural Gas already (my dad & two brothers all own CNG trucks). Wind will be interesting as well.

I saw huge wind farms in Wyoming on my way home w/ my Tundra.

Should be interesting to see how it'll work out.
-Graydon

CNG would be the easiest, simplest, and most economical way to reduce imported oil from overseas. Way better than H2 or ethanol, and it does not require any major investment in research or infrastructure. CNG, LNG and LPG have the lowest embodied energy of all the alternative motor fuels.
Note the chart on page 18 of this study
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~serl/ITEE%206-11-03.pdf

We have the technology already developed to solve our immediate energy problems.
Only greed and stupidity stand in the way.

This was interesting as well...
http://www.pickensplan.com/media/?bcpid=1640183817&bcli...862&bctid=1646075906

-Graydon

Yep. Agreed on CNG.

I gotta tell ya, I've driven in a CNG truck and man, you really can't tell the difference. It accelerates slightly slower than gas, but man, for $0.85/gallon, who cares!

I liked his statement on Ethanol. Basically, his jist was that if "the powers that be" would promote CNG, Wind, & Solar as much as they promoted Ethanol (which I believe is a joke, that's my own opinion by the way, but I think it's just a flat out joke...ok, back on tangent).

If the powers that be promoted CNG, Wind, & Solar as much as they promoted Ethanol I think we could see a major dent soon.

Man, $700 billion exported every year. That's just amazing! (and coming from an oil tycoon too!).

The C-Span thing was interesting too.

Anyway, as one that's driven CNG, I'm all for it. Biodiesel, CNG, Wind, Solar, etc....I'm behind all of it!

-Graydon

That $700 BILLION PER YEAR that leaves the country for oil is the biggest single chunk of the US negative trade balance, and it just gets worse every day...

The total trade balance is about 3 BILLION per DAY in the RED!!!

...just an update on my Mac....
My only gripe is that they make this thing so darn nice looking that I'm scared to scratch it (it has a beautiful aluminum case).

So, I picked up a case shell for it (InCase) and a palm guard (moshi) and stuck it on the thing and now it's stylin'...

Man it's quick! And so far it runs Windows really well too! So for those of you coming to Colorado I'll bring the new toy & show it off...

So far so good!

OK, back to our bar room discussion of how to keep some of the $700 billion we're spending on oil in the country somehow...

-Graydon

quote:

I saw huge wind farms in Wyoming on my way home w/ my Tundra.

Wind? in Wyoming ? No, really ?

There's a huge wind farm just outside Barstow Calif too, up on the plateau, hundreds of the twirly things. I got the same email.

quote:

We have the technology already developed to solve our immediate energy problems.
Only greed and stupidity stand in the way.

Yup, and biomass generation is nothing more than natural gas, so there is no good reason (other than those mentioned above) why places like Alberta,Florida and Nebraska could not run their entire States on it given the bovine population of those places and let's not forget Iowa and Quebec with the porkers too.

Ethanol, when not produced using the glycerine by-product of the biodiesel production is a looser as it encroaches on foodstocks.Hydrogen, unless using fuel cell technology is a net energy looser as well.

Biomass, on the other hand, is viable, especially in places where there is a high percentage of cattle/grazing animals like Canada,the US, Australia, New Zealand ect.

We'd be far better off dumping ethanol from corn, hydrogen fom conventional hydrolisis in favour of biomass generation, but that requires a political will to actually do something positive.

quote:

That $700 BILLION PER YEAR that leaves the country for oil is the biggest single chunk of the US negative trade balance, and it just gets worse every day...

Of course taking the caps off those 32 wells in The Gulf of Mexico would help alleviate this ... but it would take the political will to do it. The export of so much $$ is voluntary, not obligatory.

quote:

Of course taking the caps off those 32 wells in The Gulf of Mexico would help alleviate this ... but it would take the political will to do it. The export of so much $$ is voluntary, not obligatory.

Expanded offshore drilling is no answer to our energy crisis

The Washington Post recently quoted a report last year by the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration saying that “access to the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880715066
• published July 16, 2008 12:15 am

President Bush’s action Monday lifting a presidential moratorium on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf represents the worst kind of pandering and yet another attempt to rewrite history....

Instead of pandering and political expediency, America needs more leaders like Shuler who recognize that we’re running out of time to develop a real, sustainable energy policy.

Well, I don't mean to be repetitive, john, but if you're gonna post the same article in 2 threads, I'm gonna have to post my response in 2 threads just to be fair to the readers.

quote:

The only real hope of energy independence for the United States is to aggressively develop alternatives.

And what is the #1 thing lacking when trying to aggressively develop an alternative to anything? TIME!

quote:

it would satisfy U.S. demand for somewhere in the neighborhood of two to two and one-half years at present consumption rates

More drilling is not a solution, its a stopgap until the solution can be developed.

Set-up, drill, drain, buy time, and make sure an ecological reconstruction is part of the lease. All nuclear plants are required to have a complete plan and budget for decommission of the plant at the end of its life before it is even built: why would drilling in "sensitive" areas have to be any different? As the company getting the drilling lease, you have to show you have planned and budgeted, and then sign the contracting saying you will do so, to remove and drilling platform, cap the well, remove the access roads, and replant. Simple.

OH, WAIT...were talking about convincing the NOPE's to agree to something...logic and commonsense are useless.

(Note: NOPE's is a fairly new term referring to those groups who's only allowable solution to energy development is Not On Planet Earth. Those who think there are lots of good energy solutions which should be pursued, but refuse to allow any of them to be built or pursued in their neighborhood, city, state, or region. The classic example is the energy beauty of the Wind Farm, but then no neighborhood will allow them to be build because they don't want to look at them.)

quote:

Originally posted by Legal Eagle:
Chris;

You did the right thing. Part of the responsibility of having the right to use lethal force is deciding not to, although having the means at hand allows you to stay cool enough to use your head while making that decision.

Holy Cow, you hit the nail on the head. I have been in some pretty tense situations before, but I have always kept my cool. I think that in a few of these situations, I would have wet myself had I not had the means at hand to protect myself.

I believe that if you decide to excersise your 2nd amendment right, you better take the time and money to get yourself trained. And practice often enough that the use of your weapon becomes automatic. My firearm is a tool, to me, to protect me, my sweethear, or my babies. Not my truck. A broken mirror is a nuisance, nothing more.

quote:

Originally posted by Graydon Blair:

Man, I'd look up the idiot's license & send him a bill for the mirror (but that's just me). If he doesn't pay it, send it to collections.

That guy was just asking to become a hood ornament too....

-Graydon
(Knows that exact stretch of death lane on the freeway well).

Good idea, Graydon. How would one "send it to collections"? I have a neighbor that is a Murray City detective. I will see if he can help me get some satisfaction first. If that comes up bubkiss, then I am open to any suggestions.
And I hate that little section of freeway. Very poor design. They have a lane merging into freeway speeds straight off from a 25mph loop! I about get run over every day at this point.

I just figured it out! If you recall, I just bought this truck for super cheap because it got repoed. I bet the psycho motorcycle man was the old owner of the truck and he's pissed because I was driving his truck!!

Yeah, that's it.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris Farley:

quote:

Originally posted by Graydon Blair:

Man, I'd look up the idiot's license & send him a bill for the mirror (but that's just me). If he doesn't pay it, send it to collections.

That guy was just asking to become a hood ornament too....

-Graydon
(Knows that exact stretch of death lane on the freeway well).

Good idea, Graydon. How would one "send it to collections"? I have a neighbor that is a Murray City detective. I will see if he can help me get some satisfaction first. If that comes up bubkiss, then I am open to any suggestions.
And I hate that little section of freeway. Very poor design. They have a lane merging into freeway speeds straight off from a 25mph loop! I about get run over every day at this point.

I'd pull his information (from his plate) and just send him a bill for the damages to your mirror. Be sure to include the police report and a picture of the mirror. I'd then see if you can hunt down the guy's insurance company & report him there as well.

Technically, it was a "hit and run" (in more way's than one) and since you have his information (license #) I'd track down the jerks insurance info & send them a bill for damages.

If they don't pay, Bonneville Collections can be really mean on the phone as a collections agency.

The way I figure it, he damaged your truck, you have his license #, go for it....worst you can do is not get anything out of it...

You could also get a lawyer to write you up a really nasty letter that will go with the bill indicating some legaleeze to scare the bejeepers out of him & force him to pay (half the world can't understand legaleeze & gets scared spitless when they get something like that so they just pay up).

Like I say, worst thing is you never hear from the guy....

-Graydon

Four thousand miles no fuel stops; that must take close to a 300 gallon tank, eh?

I've seen big 5th wheel RVs with the pick-up bed pretty much devoted to a huge fuel tank of diesel which they fill up before they head north into Canukland.

My Jetta goes over 1500 miles between fillups, thanks to the 25 gallon SVO tank in the trunk.

The worst part about driving on home-made fuel is bugs on the windshield. I haven't stopped at a gas station in years, and that's where the bugs used to get cleaned off.

Cheers,
JohnO
Life member of the MGNOC, over 200,000 miles on my 1971 Moto Guzzi Ambassador.

Here's something for you guys like me who are a bit fumbled fingered typing.
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/disable_caps_lock/

Here is an interesting article. It seems someone may actually have made bio diesel from algae.
Graydon you may end up paying...
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=2569

Note that the article is about commercial-scale HARVESTING of algae, not extracting oil from algae at commercial-scale. To be fair, the article does mention that as the stumbling block that needs to be figured out.
Cheers,
JohnO
See ya at SolWest