Hypermiling has been a big talk on a lot of social news sites (like digg). Its techniques do lead to better gas mileage, but sacrifice safety and vehicle longevity to do so. Turning the ignition off (think: no power brakes or power steering, and possibly no airbags) while drifting meters behind a semi on the highway? No thanks.

So, you won't find rules like "Don't drive in headwinds/crosswinds. Stay at home those days." And while compact cars do have higher MPGs than trucks and SUVs, your choice of vehicle is often influenced by your lifestyle, and I won't try and change your mind. (I personally drive a 4WD SUV for the cargo room and safety during Canadian winters.) I'd rather preach two simple rules to live by:

1. Drive Reasonably.

Don't get me wrong... I break these rules from time to time. But some rules that can easily be followed are:

• Accelerate at a reasonable pace. (Keeping the tachometer under 3000RPM is a rule of thumb.)


• Anticipate stops and slow down smoothly.


• Don't tailgate (see previous rule).


• Don't speed excessively (10km/h / 5MPH over the limit is plenty).


• Shift up as soon as you can (manual transmissions).


• Use overdrive on the highway (automatic transmissions).


• Use cruise on the highway (automatic and some manual transmissions).

2. Maintain your vehicle.

Whether you take it in to be serviced or do it yourself, follow your vehicle's maintenance schedule (check your owner's manual or buy a Haynes or Chilton's manual) . The most important is undoubtedly oil changes every 5000km / 3000mi / 3 months (longer with synthetic), but don't forget about all the other filters, fluids, and other replaceable components.

For one, a well-maintained vehicle will give better gas mileage. Even something as simple as maintaining the correct air pressure in your tires can make a 10% difference in your mileage.

But perhaps more importantly in the long run, the vehicle will have a much longer lifespan. It can be the difference between having to replace a vehicle after 7 years or 15 years. If you have to replace you vehicle twice as often, that's a lot of money to be throwing away that could have been saved with $250 of maintenance every year. And for the ecologically-minded, that's a lot of energy to be wasting in manufacturing two vehicles compared to one.

It's been a while since I've made a blog post. Almost a full year. Geez. Oh well.

As a lot of my friends and family know, last November I bought an SUV. Pictures are in the gallery if you're interested. However, some recent debate over on Fane's blog led me to dig deeper into facts and figures. Mostly, gas mileage and insurance premiums. To a lesser degree, environmentalism, but I'm not overly concerned about that.

To the point: I have two vehicles. The first is a 2003 Nissan Pathfinder (aka "Pathy"), a mid-sized SUV, which I currently drive. The second is my 1995 Chevy Lumina, a mid-sized sedan, which has been sitting in my parent's front yard ever since I bought the Pathfinder. The milage on the Pathy is 15/19MPG city/hwy, with an average of 17 in mixed driving. The Lumina gets 21/30MPG, averaging 24MPG.

Some quick number crunching and an insurance quote later, I've found that if I added liability insurance on my Lumina, it'd cost me an extra $45 a month. However, if I used my Lumina to drive to work instead of my Pathy, that's a savings of $51 a month. Note that this:

(a) assumes I will drive my Pathy everywhere else,
(b) reflects that my Pathy takes premium gas, the Lumina doesn't,
(c) only includes liability insurance on the Lumina, not collision or comprehensive, and
(d) assumes gas prices will remain stable (ha!).

The more I drive my Lumina, the more I save. Driving the Lumina to my parents every weekend instead of the Pathy will save an extra $20/month, for example, and I rarely need my Pathy out there.

Two things go against my plan, though. For one, the engine and transmission in the Lumina is fine, but in the last two years I've done a lot of "reactive maintenance" (my fancy phrase for fixing or replacing parts as they break). That's time, money, and insecurity... but I do enjoy fixing things, and have AMA just in case things go bad while I'm on the road. Also, parts for an old, domestic car are cheap and plentiful at the pick-a-part lot. In addition to fixing things as they break, I'll now have to do preventative maintenance (e.g. fluid and filter changes) on two vehicles instead of one.

Secondly, the Lumina's tires aren't completely bald, but are worn enough for me to deem it unsafe on snowy or icy roads. And new tires on a 13-year-old vehicle is out of the question in my books. Incidentially, this is the main factor that "drove" me to buy an SUV -- a safe 4WD vehicle for winter. So, I'd only be driving the Lumina from March - October (that being an optimistic estimate). I'd also only give these tires 15,000 - 20,000km of life left (adding a bit of generosity in).

An extra third issue is that I still owe money on the Lumina, so driving it instead of selling it will cost a bit. The Bank of Mom and Dad are usually generous with their loan terms, however.

If I'm able to juggle insurance coverage so (a) my Lumina only has fire/theft coverage during the winter, and (b) my Lumina is my primary vehicle (and Pathy pleasure-only) during the non-winter months, this could be a feasible plan.

Disclaimer: This all assumes I'm able to start the Lumina. I haven't used it since late November and was unable to jump-start it last month (granted, in -20*C weather).

As many of you may recall, I was let go from my job six weeks ago. Well, after six weeks of jobhunting, I finally landed a position. I'll be working as a "Programmer Analyst / Systems Administrator" at CIRG, an international group that focuses on cancer research and clinical trials. My job starts Thursday (as per my decision); I have one more day of freedom to enjoy.

I'll be working downtown, off of 109th and 99th ave. Parking there is a lot more expensive than parking in the ghetto east side of downtown, so I'll likely return to using the LRT. Ah, driving to work was fun while it lasted. At least this should minimize the number of homeless people I encounter during the course of a day. Not that there's anything wrong with being homeless, of course.

...

Going off on a tangent...during my rare act of not playing goal during drop-in hockey, I was hit in the mouth with a puck today. It wasn't too fast (I tried to prevent a slapshot attempt by pokechecking the puck away), and it didn't swell up too bad (and I have all my chicklets); hopefully a bruise doesn't show up for my first day of work. On a side note, I took off my visor a few shifts beforehand because it was fogging up way too much. I guess one could say that I was pretty lucky...

One final rant...it should be noted that, over my six weeks of unemployment, I didn't receive a single cheque from EI, nor will I in the future for this period of unemployment. EI sucks. End rant.

I'm fairly certain that aspartame is a safe alternative to sugar. That being said, I'm going to try and go aspartame-free for the next week -- then returning to it -- and seeing if there are any ill effects.

As a replacement, I'll be switching to sucralose (Splenda). Since the vast majority of diet beverages use aspartame, though, I'm going to be making a lot of my own drinks for this experiment.

Take, for example, iced tea. Here's a simple recipe for it that I found on the web. It tastes great, is really smooth, and since it's just tea and Splenda, has barely any calories.

Ingredients
4 tea bags (I use Earl Grey)
2 litres water
Sugar or sweetener (to taste)
Lemon juice (to taste)

Procedure
1. Unwrap and remove all paper from the tea bags (if necessary). Tie them together and put them into a 2 litre pitcher.
2. Boil 2 cups of cold water. Pour the boiling water into the pitcher and allow the tea to steep for at least 20 minutes.
3. Squeeze out the tea bags into the pitcher, then discard. Fill the pitcher with cold water to the 2 litre level.
4. Add sweetener and lemon juice to taste. Refrigerate, then serve.

I'm going to play around with making iced coffee tomorrow. It'll likely have more calories, though, since most recipes have heavy cream in them.

Watching the Sens-Pens game this afternoon, I've noticed something come to surface again: booing the visiting team's best player. In this case, it's whenever Sid Crosby touches the puck.

The NBC announcers said that the Ottawa crowd was booing "out of respect". Perhaps that's the case, but what about when people boo Bertuzzi? Or Chelios? What differentiates Bertuzzi booing from Crosby booing?

Am I a Crosby fanboy? No, though you wouldn't know it from all my RBK gear. I just hate it when people boo superstars from the visiting team. It happened all the time whenever Pronger touched the puck in last year's playoffs. It's happening now. It's not showing "respect"...it's just a cheap shot.

Will the booing ever stop? Probably not. I just think it's a childish thing to do. I'll save my booing for cheap hits and bad calls, thank you very much.

I woke up at 4:30am Tuesday morning. I intended to play hockey, but I was just too tired...I haven't adapted to waking up that early again yet. (On a side note, I returned to the game Monday at 6:00am, and later that day at 12:00pm).

I slept in until 9:00am. I did the usual...sit around, watch TV, occasionally look for jobs. I dropped by Gateway Lanes at 6:30pm for my usual few games of bowling with Aaron and his brother. We returned back to my place afterwards to play some NHL2K6.

Around 2:00am, I decided..."I'm going to play hockey this morning". I wasn't tired yet, so it didn't seem that out-of-the-question. 3:00am, 4:00am, I started to yawn a bit. I put on some coffee.

5:00am, I left for the Glen Allan rink in Sherwood Park while Aaron went home. I arrived there at 5:15am but sat outside and talked to another goalie until 5:40, when the doors finally opened. Then I peed a lot (remember the coffee?). I went again after putting on my lower-body gear...the classic, yank-your-hockey-pants-as-far-down-as-you-can maneuver. But I digress.

The game went fine. I thought I'd be falling asleep, but I guess that's impossible while playing hockey -- especially when guys are shooting pucks in your general direction. The game finished around 7:00am; I drove home and finally went to bed around 8:30am.

Is this unusual? For me, yep. Though I know of other people who do this regularly. I don't know how they do it on such a regular basis.

Maxim's Favorite NHL Cheap Shots

A great collection of violent hits...which is a big reason I watch NHL hockey, after all. I've seen quite a few of them before (and it was Kent Nilsson, not Glen Anderson, Maxim!), but here's one of the favorites that I haven't seen before:

I heard today that Wednesday's Lotto 6/49 jackpot is $38 million. So I bought a ticket with the Extra.

Is this news? Considering that I spend about $10 a year on lottery tickets...yes, yes it is.

If you're a regular and/or know me personally, you probably know that I sprained my quad (thigh) a few months ago...and then resprained it two weeks after that. The second injury has been lingering a lot longer than the initial one, so I've been taking my time and making sure it's fully recovered before trying it out.

The soreness in the leg went away early last week, and since then I've been working on regaining the flexibilty in that leg that I lost. At this point, when I stretch it for 60 seconds beforehand, there's no pain when I test out my leg with, say, squats.

To test things out, I had a game of racquetball tonight. I took it slow to start with, but once I did a few sprints and ducked under a few balls, it finally felt like I could use my leg without worry. Hopefully that's the case.

I'm planning to finally return to goaltending next week, after the Easter long weekend. If I reinjure it again, I have no idea how long it's going to take to re-heal again. I might have to see a physiotherapist. Here's hoping all's well.

I received a notice a few days ago that my monthly rent is going to increase from $665 to $800. The first thought through my mind was "hmm...fair enough", since the housing market has completely exploded in Edmonton. And this place was a steal of a deal anyways when I first moved in.

Regardless, I did some research into rates in the NE end of Edmonton. Most two-bedroom places are going for $1000 or more. Most also have no vacancies.

So, I think I'll be staying here. I've grown to like the place. Renovated before I moved in. On the top floor with half-decent neighbors beside and below me. Close to the Yellowhead and Hwy. 14 for quick drives to most of Edmonton, Sherwood Park, and my parents'. Maybe the best feature is the large balcony with a storage room...an ideal place to dry my stinky goalie gear.

Also, moving furniture and cleaning the place spotless is hard work. :P

So I guess I'll sign another one-year lease. I like the place, and with the housing market like it is (plus my unemployment), I don't see myself buying a condo or house anytime soon.