I just love to put up countdown timers. Since Conan is coming back to TV soon, I thought I’d share this with you all! I’m also hoping that Bathesda makes a Fallout New Vegas countdown like they did with Fallout 3, but so far there isn’t an official timer.
His show is going to be called: “Conan.” I’ve got my new TiVo ready to go!
About a week and a half ago I finally had my home assessment for the charging station for the Nissan Leaf. It was quick, the guy was here for about twenty minutes. The good news is that the installation shouldn’t take more then a day. All they had to do is add a breaker and install the charge station. So, I’d guess it would take a couple of hours give or take. I finally got the quote it it comes in just under $2500. Which isn’t too surprising since most people seem to be getting a similar quote. The government will pay for half the cost of the installation, so that’s about $1200 off. It will be a while before I can schedule the installation, probably in October.
On another note, I’m back from Hawaii, obviously! I also won my unemployment case against Blockbuster Video! So, it can be assumed I’ve get some needed stress relief. It’s nice to get a vacation, but I am really glad to be home again!
I’m officially announcing my trip to Hawaii! For this occasion I have created a special website: Hawaii Trip. The site is still in a basic form, but I will be updating it regularly once my vacation starts. I’m planning on doing some light updates to the site this coming week to get it ready for the trip. I’ll be leaving this Saturday and will becoming home on the following Saturday.
This will be my first time flying. I’m not really nervous about it right now, I’m just not looking forward to the long wait due to the security process. Oh well, that’s just how it is. It should be fun, even though I will be spending some of my time in Hawaii doing school work! And of course, you all will be able to follow along with my adventure in Hawaii if you choose to!
I probably wont make another blog post on this site until after the trip so this post should stay up top on this site. Just remember, the link is at the top of this post so you can easily access the new site. After the trip, I’ll probably not update my Hawaii site, but I’ll leave it up for fun.
That’s all for now boys and girls! I’ll see you in Hawaii! (Well figuratively speaking)
Happy Independence Day from GoDaddy.com!
Just in case I forget to post this tomorrow I’m doing this now. I know that often there are a lot of issues that polarize us in politics and sometimes we even feel frustrated with the government. But, I hope we can all still show a little bit of patriotism tomorrow. There is a lot of good still going on in this country and even if we have disagreements we are all Citizens of this nation. We have the same goals, to live the life that we see fit to live. Regardless of our political afflictions or lack there of we want the best for this nation. We have a rich history and yes as a country we have made mistakes. Though we are not perfect, we have an honest desire to help make the world a better place. We have had hard lessons to learn. We ended slavery, ushered in the civil rights movement, and gave women the right to vote. We have also done great things too. We helped our allies during the first and second World Wars, we have given aid to nations that need food, we have sent help to Haiti after the earthquake that struck there.
This coming Independence Day, July 4th, let us remember the sacrifices that were made to give us the freedoms we have and let us not take for granted what we have. Let us continue to be the proud and humble nation that I believe us to be! For liberty and justice for all!
“Scott, thank you again for your continued commitment to driving a Nissan LEAF™. you have reserved your place in history and will be one of the first in your area to own one.we are still finalizing some details of the order process, and we will be in touch later this summer with additional information on your order timing. rest assured, this will not impact your reservation status. we will continue to keep you updated with all developments as they occur.”
This was in my e-mail and yes it has my hopes extremely high. Especially adding to that is that my home assessment for the charging station states that I’m number 13271. There are 15,000 cars reserved for the U.S. in the first batch which leads me to believe that since I’m the 13,271 person to schedule the assessment (which is part of the process to reserve the car) I think I’m in a good position to be one of the first to own this car!
I know it’s not official, but it’s looking good. It’s practical to not get too excited until I hear more, but that’s not going to happen. I can’t help it.
You might be asking why go electric? I think for me the main reason is no more oil changes, no more oil filters, and no more gasoline. That’s big savings in the long run. It’s also to make an environmental statement too. I think in the wake of the BP oil disaster in the gulf, now is a good time for Nissan to release it’s electric car. So far public interest has been good and it seems the Leaf is off to a good start. There are limits to what an electric car can do, even the Leaf isn’t for everyone. A 100 mile range it’s going to be good enough for vacation trips or driving too far. Even with charging infrastructure the fastest re-charge time is just under 30 minutes and that’s with the level 3 charging station which is the most expensive to install. Most people who end up driving the Leaf or other electric cars as they come on the market will have level 2 charging stations installed. They are slower but still within an acceptable rate of charge. We’re talking around 8 hours to charge up from a low state of charge, basically on empty. However, most charging will probably be done from around half empty on up so that will shrink the re-charging time. Level one charging is your typical 120v outlet and from low charge to full would take about 20 hours to charge the batteries on the Leaf! Still, with public charging stations, people can drive around and charge while they go shopping or are dinning out.
If you can’t get your hands on the Leaf or you need better range then you might want to take a look at the Chevy Volt. It is technically a hybrid, but it acts more like a pure electric car for about 40miles, no gas is needed. Once you run out of battery power, a gasoline engine kicks in and keeps you going while charging the battery (as I understand it). You can plug the car in at home and charge the battery which would probably charge fairly well on 120v and probably only in a few hours on the level two charging station (240v). The system is what I was hoping to do with my Prius by having it converted into a plugin but I was never fully satisfied with the systems that are available. Still, you will see a plugin version of the Prius from Toyota in a couple of years. Toyota is also working with Tesla Motors so we may see some interesting electric cars from Toyota soon too.
And if you can’t pry yourself away from the ICE car then there is still some good news for you. Advancements in MPG continues and we may see some improved ICEs coming in the next couple of years that will help save on gas. Imagine your typical gasoline non-hybrid car getting 50MPG! It’s not just a dream anymore, but a possibility! Don’t forget that bio-fuel isn’t out of the picture or even hydrogen (though I don’t see that happening for a while).
I hope to see more and more electric cars out on the road in the next few years and here’s hoping the Leaf does well. Oh, and don’t forget about Ford, they have an electric focus on the way too!
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