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A Trip To The Farmer's Market

Posted on May 25th, 2009 by Eric : Poet/Author/Entreprenuer Eric
Do you ever have one of those days where you feel as if the world around you is slightly eschewed and people are just a tad bit ornerier and distracted?  Well, yesterday was such a day.  We decided make a trip to the St. Paul Farmer's Market to buy the plants we need to finish our garden.  Keep in mind the trip is a short one, only six miles, but honestly it felt as though we were immersed the Matrix playing Grand Theft Auto.  

On the way there we were nearly side-swiped twice.  In both instances the drivers of the vehicles were oblivious to what was going on around them as they were talking on cell phones.  On the way back someone made a left turn in front of us at a light that had clearly been red for over 30 seconds.  If I had to venture a guess, this particular individual was probably in his eighties with the Orville Reddenbacher style white hair, so I can cut him some slack. 

As a result of this experience we decided that part of the driver's test should be a virtual reality exercise to evaluate a person's ability to multi-task while driving.  The first level would be to see if they can chew gum while operating a vehicle. Somewhere around five levels above the chewing gum test would involve a live cell phone call while driving through a congested urban area.   If unable to pass level five there would be a graphic of a cell phone with a large red, "no symbol" imprinted above it on their license plate.

This would, at the very least, give all others fair warning to give them the right away.  Until then my eyes will be peeled for people using cell phones and Orville Reddenbacher look-a-likes. 
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The Amazing Shrinking Automobile

Posted on May 26th, 2009 by Eric : Poet/Author/Entreprenuer Eric
The green movement is hip right now and all for it.  It's a little humorous to me how all of the big corporations have avoided environmental stewardship as long as they possibly could to join in.  They waited until the precise moment that they collectively realized, "Hey, there's piles of cash to be made off of these tree huggers!".  Like I said before though, the more the merrier. We're all better off for it. 

It seems everything is getting smaller these days, especially cars.  The Smart car, for example, is so incredibly tiny that one would have to shoehorn two bags of groceries into the back.  With a pricetag of nearly $20k, honestly, I'm not sure how smart they are.  After all they rig them to pass U.S. regulations they only get 40-45 miles per gallon, while managing to squeeze out almost twice the MPGs in Europe. I owned a great '86 Honda CRX with a carborated engine that got almost the exact same mileage and could probably have fit a Smart car into its modest hatchback.  

If you remember, just a few years ago big was "in".  Some of the gas guzzling behemoths were just as ridiculous as the tiny cars of today.  Some of these things could've had their own zip code and some certainly had their own mortgage.  For the moment, the pendulum has simply swung in the other direction.  Now it's, "eco-chic" to be driving the absolute smallest vehicle money can buy. 

Humanity just loves to take things to that "next level" it's in our DNA.  I just know that before long you you will see people unfolding minuscule little vehicles from their back pockets and riding them like clown bicycles down the road while wearing solar panel covered helmets.  Like I said before though, it's all good.  

For my next vehicle purchase, which I hope will be a very long time from now, maybe the pedulum will have rested somewhere in the middle.  I'm not picky, something with a backseat and room for our dog will do.  Oh and did I mention that it'll have to have an exotic engine that gets 100mpg and runs on mere tap water? 


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Tagged with: Eco-Chic, Smart Car