Day One Stories
Cool little project I minutely helped Domani Studios and Droga5 produce with on my short return there.
Prudential and agency Droga5 seek out real retirees for a realistic picture of the first day of the rest of their lives.
Cool little project I minutely helped Domani Studios and Droga5 produce with on my short return there.
Prudential and agency Droga5 seek out real retirees for a realistic picture of the first day of the rest of their lives.
It seems like the common mindset on the internet is still that people will NOT pay for things and that all services need some sort of display advertising to earn revenue. Doing a quick audit of what I pay for online shows that it simply isn't true.
That is some serious money I spend monthly on online services that are more or less just hosting different kinds of files for me. I am happy to spend the money on all of them. I think people are more than willing. Sure beats paying a hot water bill!
As you guys know I am a nerd for facts and stats. So here are some stats collected from my trip from Boulder Colorado to Manorville New York.
Using a 2 door 6-speed 2011 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon I towed a 5x9x6 U-Haul trailer loaded with about 1000 lbs of stuff. The trailer weighs 850 lbs so figure I was towing just shy of 2,000 lbs the whole way.
The trip took 32 hours and 6 minutes to go 1,881.4 miles at an average speed of 58.6 MPH. Not counting the insane NYC traffic that held us up for 2 hours the average speed would of been 62.4 MPH. Not too bad considering gas stops and the fact I couldn't really take the jeep any faster than 65 mph without fearing for my wallet as my gas milage plunged below 10 MPG.
I spent a total of $462.55 on gas, and have slightly less than a half a tank left. Using my cool fuel gauge Android App I can tell you the following goodies:
My best gas milage was 16.02 this was actually driving behind a semi for a full tank around 63 MPH
My worse gas milage was 12.10 and this was when I thought going the speed limit of 75 was a good idea. Man did that that tank go fast.
Starting from a full tank I had to fill up a total of 11 times to make it to NYC. About once every 190 miles.
The average fuel economy for the trip was 14.3275 not horrendous considering I was towing something taller, wider, and longer then what I was driving and that the Wrangler is rated at 15/19 anyway.
Adding up the total costs:
Oil Change: $50
Gas: $465.55
Trailer Rental: $354.10
Hotels: $200.00
and I spent $1,069 to move about 2000 miles. The quotes I was getting from the moving companies like pods was around $1,700 without the vehicle. With them moving the jeep it was closer to $2,500. Plus the cost of airfare it would of been pretty close to $3,000 all in. So I saved just shy of $2,000 by driving myself and I got to hang out with my Dad which I haven't had a chance to do in a long time. I am glad I made the drive. It wasn't all that bad at all.
Check out my 10lb box of meat I just picked up from Sun Prarie Beef. It's looking to be a delicious next couple weeks thanks to some happy 100% grass fed free range cows. They even gave me an extra 1lb of ground beef to give to a friend. So if you are interested claim it now before someone else does!
We made it out of town just in time. If you take a look in the rear view there you can see dark thunderstorms approaching. I didn't capture it with the camera but there was plenty of thunder and lighting. Good thing we were going north away from it.
The picnic spot was just a little park off the road along a stream. As you can see it's not too shabby of a view. We brought our little picnic kit that Aimee's parents bought us for the holidays. It comes with a tablecloth, utensils, wine glasses, plates, etc and we had a nice little picnic. That was until it started to rain on our parade. No worries as good time's were had anyway!
Earlier this year I mentioned that I didn't think the cucumbers were going to pull through. When we transplanted them to the garden I had some serious reservation's about them continuing to exist. They didn't grow, aphids ate their leaves and no cuke's were forming. Well today that has all changed. After a week solid of afternoon thunderstorms cukes have appeared! We went for pickling cukes so these are small on purpose. We picked only one and ate it and it was delicious, organic, and picked only moments before it was eaten. Look how beautiful it is. A very nice surprise following a number of bad day's lately.
Usually in the summer we get some crazy thunderstorms in Boulder. Lately though they have been of epic proportions. Check out this little video of just how much rain came down, and how quickly the Barnes and Noble parking lot flooded. Pretty crazy.
Right before we were packing up to leave the office for the day it started to hail a bunch of pea size ice balls. Yout don't often see hail in NYC, let alone in May so it was pretty cool to see it 7 floors up in Boulder, CO. Needless to say the hail didn't stop us from making it to the happy hour.
Check out the video:
A rainy weekends and some free time on my hand while I wait to bottle my latest homebrew (more on that later) so I decided to work on the awesomeness that is Arduino and made this simple traffic light / walk sign. It is pretty cool check out the video.
And for those of you interested in the code:
Pretty cool stuff..
