Recently I was having a phone conversation with my father and the subject of old friends came up. During the discussion the thought occurred to me that I’ve never made any attempt to contact any of the three in the past nine years.

Did any ever do me wrong?

Nope.

Am I holding a grudge against any of them?

Nope.

I’m not going to get into extreme-detail specifics of why I drifted away from these people, but I will say my reasons were weak at best.

I don’t want to give off the impression that I had no friends after these guys. Not by a long shot. There were other people I knew (some still to this day) and yes, I’ve burnt bridges with a clear conscience with some - however the deal is with these guys is that they never did any wrong on me.

I’ll also note that there wasn’t any grandiose parting of the ways. I just decided to stop calling and visiting. They decided to do the same. Yeah, I know.. not a very entertaining read but that’s the truth.

For whatever reason I have the itch to make contact again. Why did it take nine years? I’m not really sure.

After a little whitepage searching on the internet, I found two of the three. The third I couldn’t locate because I forgot how to spell the guy’s last name (it’s a long French thing that I could never remember other than pronunciation).

Then I asked myself, “Geez.. what do I do now?”

I thought about calling. No way. Too awkward.

Instead what I’ve decided to do is go old school and write letters. I figure that’s the safest way to go. And I have the physical addresses so I’m hoping they’re accurate.

What I will write is more or less an apology followed along with my contact information. The apology part is going to say that I’m sorry for waiting way too long to return contact and hope their holiday season goes well for them (and I mean that sincerely).

Maybe I’ll get a return letter.

Maybe I’ll get a call.

Or maybe I’ll get nothing.

No matter what the result I’m writing anyway.

I figure it this way: I trade e-mails and speak on the phone with a girl who I knew fifteen years ago. She found me, and heck, if that can happen, nine years isn’t too much of a stretch, right? :-)

More info after the photos.

Riverhills Park is here. It “joins” with Scout Park. Riverhills is on the north side and Scout on the south.

There are three interesting things about this park.

First, probably the most interesting thing about Riverhills is the fact it’s so unbelievably close to industry and retail buildings. You could never tell from the photos above that there is in fact a highway directly north of it bustling with cars and business.

Second, when in the park you don’t hear the business to the north whatsoever. It literally is stepping into nature from business.

Third, it’s true - Florida does actually have trees that change color as evidenced by the last photo.

I consider it this way: Florida does have an autumn season except it’s roughly two months late. Whereas in the north this happens in September, it happens in November here in Tampa Bay.

Oh, and that’s grayish/white stuff from the third photo? It’s some kind of moss but darned if I know what the name of it is. You will see this stuff periodically in and around the area - usually on larger trees. You can touch it but people tell you not to because of “jig” bugs (similar to fleas from what I understand) that can get on you.

Small note: If you were to pit rock girl vs. country girl, the country girl is always hotter. Always. Without fail.

Anyway we stayed for about 10 minutes because we just wanted to scope the place out to see if we could gig there or not. We might.

Another place - which is admittedly a dive and has been called as such in the local paper - is very friendly to rock bands. In particular, death metal bands. We’re not obviously of that ilk but we play a classic rock set currently, so chances are if we play there nothing bad will happen. However I will admit I don’t like the place. I mean it’s okay and all that but the entire inside of the place is BLACK - as in colored black. Jet black. Black everywhere. Did I mention it’s black? Yeah I think I did. Black walls, black floor.. black everything.

Needless to say I like Pegasus a whole lot better. I’m certain we’ll be there again soon.

In addition I made the suggestion we should switch to a more modern rock set and play some of the newer stuff. We play all old stuff now (we’re all over 30), and while people dig that, the newer stuff is what the tweens like.

Obviously I’ll be learning some of the newer songs. But no emo. I’m very anti-emo. :-)

Above: Playing with the band. I’m on the right.

Our band finally decided “WE’RE GONNA DO IT” and decided to play an open mic night @ Pegasus Lounge in Tampa. I personally thought it was a nice place.

We did 6 songs and it went well. They were all covers because we haven’t written any originals yet (but that’s on the to-do list).

Before continuing here’s some more photos:

Above: That’s my “rock face”. Well not really but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. :-)

The Pegasus place itself as I said is cool. Even the front door is cool looking.

You can see the rest of the photos here in a set.

Why this is such a big deal for me…

This is actually the very first time I’ve done a true gig. Yeah, I’ve played house parties and school talent shows before, but this one was a real-deal thing.

In all the years I played at the stomping grounds, I never got to this point. At the stomping grounds I’d hear nothing but talk, talk and more talk.. but the gigging just didn’t happen. In the extremely rare instances when it did it was a crappy outdoor thing, somebody’s basement or other crappy affair.

Yeah, the crowd may have been small (it was a Monday after all) but who cares? It was fucking cool. :-)

More on this later. Tired and going to bed.

Thru that story and other research I found out about hypermiling, rat running and shunpiking.

What is hypermiling? It’s when you purposely do things when you drive to save gas. You are a successful hypermiler if you beat your vehicle’s EPA MPG estimate. For example, my 2005 GMC Canyon has an estimate of 15 city/21 highway. I have easily beat this estimate many times. If I go into true hypermiling “mode” when I drive, I can eke out 30mpg on the highway - all stock with no modifications.

What is rat running? It’s when you purposely avoid main roads and take side streets to get wherever it is you’re going. I’ve been doing this ever since I started driving. If there is a way to get somewhere that does not use any major roadways and is roughly the same amount of distance, I will do it.

What is shunpiking? This is similar to rat running but slightly different. When you shunpike, you never use highways or interstates based on your own personal principle. You don’t do it for speed or efficiency (that’s rat running) but rather just because you either hate paying tolls and/or just hate the highway in general. I do shunpike periodically because the drive is better overall. Everything looks nicer and you don’t have to drive as fast.

How I hypermile

Feather-pedal. I don’t stomp the gas pedal but feather it lightly.

Coast. An example of this is that if you’re approaching a red light, take your foot off the gas and coast to it. There’s absolutely no reason to accelerate up to a red. Why so many people speed up to a red I have no idea (and people do it often).

Brake as little as possible. Example: When you take an exit ramp off the highway, don’t brake unless you have to and coast it out until you have to stop.

Idle as little as possible. When you idle you’re getting 0 miles per gallon. If the engine is running, keep moving. For example, I used to put the seat belt on after I started the engine. Now I do it before I turn the key so I can get moving sooner.

The “Under 2000″ Club. When you accelerate I can guarantee you routinely go over 3000rpm. Keeping it under 3000 is relatively easy on most cars, but keeping under 2000 requires more effort. However when you do you’ll be shocked at how much less fuel your car or truck uses. To note, the “sweet spot” for staying under 2000rpm is usually cruising at 45mph.

How I do rat runs

There are three things I do to use side streets instead of major roadways.

1. Find alternative roads just by driving around and remembering them.

Rat running is usually only for those that truly know the area where they live. It does take study and learning - but once you do it’s great because you know ways other people don’t.

2. Use GPS.

Stupidly easy. Instruct your GPS to avoid highways when going places. From this you learn the roads and figure out alternative routes.

3. Use Google Earth with Street Views to study the roads.

Almost all of where I live is shown easily as a photographed Street View in Google Maps or Google Earth.

For example, recently I found an alternative way to get to my local Dunkin’ Donuts using roads that specifically do not have speed tables (those large humps used in some residential roads, i.e. a “long” speed bump). I mapped it out, found the roads I like better, plotted it in my GPS and now I know how to get there avoiding the tables, most stop signs and only have to deal with a single traffic light.

How I shunpike

The easiest way to shunpike is to follow step 2 from rat running above, use GPS. Instruct it to avoid all highways and it always will.

Alternatively you can have it just avoid tolls but still use other highways.

Garmin GPSes are awesome like that. :-)

~ ~ ~

It turns out that I’m a mix of all three. I do hypermile every so often, I’ve always done rat runs and also shunpike when I don’t feel like using highways.

Why do I do it?

Because it makes driving a lot more fun. Each can be used as a game of sorts to figure out how cheap you can go with gas, find ways to get places off the beaten path and enjoy the scenery.

Being that I’m a road nerd I did some research about these cams and found that yes, there are those who feel they do more harm than good. More on that in a moment.

I learned a new driving term today called “platooning”. This is a made-up word (albeit mismatched) that describes the following scenario:

This has to be drawn out else it’s difficult to explain, follow along with my crappy diagram below. :-)

The green box is you. You are stopped and waiting for the green light so you can cross.

The yellow boxes are cars that legally took a left turn while the directional light on their side was green.

The red boxes are morons who continued to follow the other cars after the light turned red again and made an illegal turn. These people are platooning.

Your light is green but you have to wait until the “platooners” get thru because they’re directly blocking your way.

I said a moment ago that platooning is a mismatched word to describe this way of driving - and it is. A more proper word would be stampeding because it more accurately describes what’s going on. A “herd” of cars is following the line and the last few stragglers stampede their way thru. Makes more sense to me especially considering one of the definitions for stampede literally is “To flee in a headlong rush.” Yep, that pretty much describes it.

It also should be noted stampeding isn’t just for directional lanes. Some fools stampede on thru lanes.

~ ~ ~

Stampeders are a very common occurrence in Tampa, so much so that people just expect it. Under normal conditions you’ll get one to two stampeders. During heavy traffic, three to five. It happens at any major intersection.

The stampeder does what he or she does for no other reason that they can get away with it every time. Nobody on the other side of the intersection is going to stomp the gas head-on into a stream of other cars, so said stampeder deems the risk of an accident minimal at best.

But that’s not a correct assumption. Check this out:

Photo from this article

The guy in the red car pictured above almost directly hit a school bus’ front quarter. He didn’t but darn near did. You can watch the video of it here.

There is never a “safe” time to run a red-light. Ever.

~ ~ ~

Back in March an article ran that said a USF study found that red-light cams increase accidents rather than prevent them.

Is this true?

Yes it is - but only for two very specific reasons.

1. The locals aren’t used to the cams being there so yeah, they’re going to be hesitant when going to an intersection. This increases accidents, no question.

2. The red and yellow light times are way too long. The red-light wait causes people to get anxious and pissed off, the yellow-light times give a glimmer of hope that you’ll maybe make it thru the intersection, so of course people are going to stomp the gas to try and make it thru.

The solution to this isn’t red-light cams because they just don’t work. Instead what should happen is that the times set on the lights should be made shorter. If you shaved off just one second for each time (the red, yellow and green) it would keep things flowing a lot better.

Looks pretty darned good if you asked me. And it’s a great video besides.

This is no longer the case.

Today I canceled my Verizon wireless plan, bought a Tracfone and was very happy to do it.

The phone was only 10 bucks and comes with 20 starter (what they call “bonus”) minutes that expire in 60 days. To keep the service active, all I have to do is spend 20 bucks every 90 days. This is fine by me because I barely use 15 minutes monthly.

If you were to boil this down to monthly cost, this service only costs me just under 7 bucks a month.

Seven bucks a month is quite nice on the wallet.

The phone I got is a Motorola W175g. It is “slab” style and not one of those dumbass flip phones (thank God) which means it can take a pounding without breaking. In addition it has a mini-USB port for charging which is also cool because proprietary chargers suck. I’m also happy the phone is black because silver-colored phones just look stupid.

Concerning the screen, I can read this better than my previous RAZR V3m. The fonts are larger, the backlight is better and it’s just a better all-around phone for daily use.

This Moto is about as plain as cell phones phones get. It’s small and it has only the most minimalist of features. I don’t have a problem with this because all I want it to do is make and receive calls without complaint - which it does.

Compared to people who say “My life is in there!” when it comes to their cell phone, I’m definitely not like that whatsoever. I hate cell phones and pretty much always have. The only reason I have one to begin with is for emergencies or if I’m on the road and need to make a quick call.

Now at least I have a phone that doesn’t anger me just because of the bill. If I don’t re-up the minutes, the service discontinues and that’s that. No termination fees, no b.s., none o’ that.

This is my kind of phone. :-)

Jeans usually last me 1 to 3 years and I will only buy generics or whatever is on sale because I learned my lesson the hard way with brand name Levi’s. Years ago I had 2 pair under 6 months old and both developed rips in the you-know-where section. That royally pissed me off because they were close to $40 a pair.

Now I spend $20 or less a pair and they last three times as long. My current brand of choice only because it’s cheap, fits and lasts is Wrangler 5-Star.

Fine by me.