socialy retarded

Your Prius is polluting my sensibilities.

Posted on 07. Nov, 2009 by Derrick.

During Halloween, of all times, I got into an eco-driven argument with a self proclaimed eco-friendly tree hugger. Like all eco-freaks he was a liberal eco-wienie that clearly wore his heart on his sleeve.  The conversation started when the effete snobbish Prius owner pointed out that his hybrid was better than my poor Honda Civic. I calmly pointed out that he purchased a vehicle with a larger carbon footprint than mine and he was simply a sheep for following the star fucking environmental Hollywood nazi’s.  I told him that he was a fraud and his choice was uninformed.  I also informed him that if he truly wanted to be eco friendly that he should commute to work on his bike like me.

Mr. Prius went into a triad, daring me to say more, rudely interrupting me, and making false statements. I thought at some point, after I questioned his manhood, that he was going to actually hit me. Just like religious zealots, eco-wienies have no cognitive dissonance. The possibility that Leonardo DiCaprio may be wrong, jesus, the humanity!

No one emits righteousness like an eco-yuppy behind the wheel of a hybrid. I had a hybrid owner almost run me off the road on a bike commute to just lean out of the window and yell “get on the sidewalk!”. I found it ironic that she was overweight and smoking, but she did remember the requisite Obama sticker on her bumper. I can only imagine due to the inflated costs, Prius owners  must think the extra five grand they paid is worth every penny in terms of the smugness it affords them. But do hybrids actually benefit the environment? Recently a report was published from CNW marketing research pitting a Hummer vs the Prius. The report, titled “Dust to Dust,” was cited in a March 2007 editorial in the Recorder, a student newspaper at Central Connecticut State University. The report goes on to say that you would be better off buying a Hummer than to buy a Prius.

Now I’m not going to quantify my argument by stating you would be better off buying a Hummer. I think that premonition is a bit of a stretch, but Later I’d like to make a more apples-to-apples comparison. Mr Eco-fraud claimed during our argument that I had no basis for calling him out, so I wanted to bring some facts to the table. Shed some light on his ignorance.

The nickel for the Nickel Metal Hydride(NiMH) Battery array, for instance, is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, and melted at nearby Nickel Centre, just north of the province’s massive Georgian Bay.

Toyota buys about 1,000 tons of nickel from the facility each year, ships the nickel to Wales for refining, then to China, where it’s manufactured into nickel foam, and then onto Toyota’s battery plant in Japan.

That alone creates a globe-trotting trail of carbon emissions that ought to seriously concern everyone involved in the fight against global warming. All told, the start-to-finish journey travels more than 10,000 miles — mostly by container ship, but also by diesel locomotive.

But it’s not just the clouds of greenhouse gases generated by all that smelting, refining, manufacturing and transporting that worries green activists. The 1,250-foot-tall smokestack that spews huge puffs of sulfur dioxide at the Sudbury mine and smelter operation has left a large swath of the surrounding area looking like a surreal wasteland.

On the perimeter of the area, skeletons of trees and bushes stand like ghostly sentinels guarding a sprawling wasteland. Astronauts in training for NASA actually have practiced driving moon buggies on the suburban Sudbury tract because it’s considered a duplicate of the Moon’s landscape.

According to the National Renewable Energy lab, the Prius contains 38 NiMH batteries connected in a series. The extra weight caused by this array has also been researched by Carnegie Mellon (one of the largest university-based environmental education and research centers in the U.S.)

“……. In contrast, a PHEV battery pack may contain 3–30kWh and weigh 30–300 kg plus the additional vehicle structural weight required to carry these batteries, and the vehicle must carry this weight even after the battery is depleted. Additional battery weight decreases the attainable efficiency in miles per kWh in CDmode as well as miles per gallon in CS-mode (once the battery is depleted to its lower target SOC). Thus, while increased battery capacity extends AER, it decreases efficiency in both CD- and CSmodes.”

But of course, environmental devastation of Canada’s pristine land is a small price to pay for a pious gesture in support of environmentalism.

Toyota does admit that because the Prius’ engine and battery are relatively complex, assembling the hybrid requires more energy than making a similarly sized nonhybrid vehicle. But the company has never quantified that energy premium. In order to do an apples-to-apples comparison, let’s pit the Prius against a car more its size. My car. The Honda Civic. (Caution Science and Math ahead)

According to the federal government’s 2008 fuel economy guide (PDF), a Prius averages 46.5 miles per gallon (assuming half of a driver’s time is spent on city streets and half on the highway). Beyond 172,500 miles, then, the Prius will consume 3,710 gallons of gas. Each gallon contains approximately 124,000 BTUs of energy, so that translates into 460 million BTUs’ worth of burned fuel. But it takes 113 million BTUs of energy to make a Toyota Prius. The Prius has consumed the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gasoline before it reaches the showroom floor. Think of it as a carbon debt — one you won’t pay off until the Prius has turned over 46,000 miles or so. The Prius will have to go 100,000 miles to achieve the same carbon savings as my 5 year old little Honda.

The scales could definitely tip in favor of my used Honda if you put the $14,000 you saved (blue book on my Honda is 8k) toward making some critical technological upgrades in your house—for example, converting your appliences to EnergyStar or buy some solar panels and get “off the grid”. The average American household uses about 600 watts on average. Over the course of 24 hours, you need 600 watts * 24 hours = 14,400 watt-hours per day. That’s a solar panel that measures about 285 square feet. That would cost around $16,000 right now.

You could use the money saved to buy yourself a top of the line commuter-bike with all the bells and whistles. Your carbon debt would be ZERO. I’ve calculated that over the time I’ve commuted on my bike I’ve saved over 4,000 miles or the equivalent of 120 gallons of gasoline (given the average mpg my Civic gets).

My Eco-conversant friend managed to get out, through his red-faced shrieking that, it was too much of an inconvenience to commute on his bike. It was to long (11 miles one way), and he would have to get up to early (5am). If he was that much of an environmentalist, no amount of inconvenience should stop him from his ultimate goal, saving the environment. He is a fraud.

That is the real reason for this blog, this was not ment as an indictment of the Prius. I actually don’t care at all if you buy a Prius. If your reasons are for the tax break in 2006, I get that. If it was for the economical gas savings, I get that also. What I dislike is the hand wrangling, soap box preening, holier than thou eco-cunt that claims that her over priced baboons ass for a car is better than mine.

I quietly go about doing my part to help the environment, I don’t make a fuss about it, nor do I command other people to follow my example. Just like my religious beliefs, I have no intentions of preaching to the masses.

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T-day 9-20-09

Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by Derrick.

“You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you…I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

All the training, all the sweat, all the early mornings. It was finally the day of my Triathlon. I had done everything I could do. I learned how to not only swim, but swim long distances. I learned that I suck at running. I learned that riding with Hyon up mountains helps with any ride. This summer was fun training for this tri, but its time for a bit of a break.

Floyd and I arived to the tri at about 6:45 for our body marking and to set up our bikes. Soon after our cheer squad showed up. Annika, Summer, Pet, Will, and Austin all showed up to cheer us on our first swim/bike/run.

Wetsuits make me look fat! Here are more pictures from the race.

I took John’s advice and I’m all the way on the right. Way way out of the way. Open water swimming with a bunch of people gets me all fired up. For the first 300 meters I cant catch my breath, I’m almost hyperventilating. Not till my muscles went into auto mode did I finally settle down and just swim.

Floyd had a completely different experience out on the swim. Some dude kicked him in the head. He went to the rest boat and asked to hang out for a second because he was “dizzy”. The minute he said that word they pulled him from the race and had a paramedic check him out. Floyd’s race was done for the day.

You may not be able to see from this picture but people are still going out to the closed 4 mile course when I was coming in from finishing that leg. That fact didn’t register in  my brain until my third lap when wave 4 was just entering the bike course as I was trying desperately to keep my bike times low. I had managed to do the first 8 miles in 20 minutes. Then out came the parachute. Wave 4 consisted of all the slower people who were going to finish the race nearly an hour after me, they mostly rode mountain bikes, or comfort bikes. I honestly don’t have any issue with people like that doing a triathlon. I have a problem when the don’t understand proper trail/biking etiquette. “On your left” does not mean “Go left”. I almost drilled grandma bunn several times because she decided to play bumper bikes. My 3rd lap was 15 minutes long. UGH!

Yay, cheer squad!

I don’t know why I’m such a snotty person. I have to farmers blow my nose at least 8-10 times when I train. Any bike ride, any run, even under the water. I get snot everywhere. Even Snowboarding/Skiing I get snot on my pants, gloves, and jacket.

I had a ton of fun on the race. It was a new experience that no mater the amount of training you do, nothing will prepare you for open water swimming with 40 other people. I was disapointed with my time as I came in 10 minutes slower than my fastest time trial, but since this was my first “official” tri, I can’t complain.

Now that I’m done, its on to my next goal. Brandon made the suggestion that, since my run times are like a hippopotamus on xanex, that I try for a half marathon in San Diego in January. So I’m now going be training on running, crossfit, and lifting.

Joy!

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Glacier Riding

Posted on 18. Sep, 2009 by Derrick.

When we were checking out the glaciers above Jasper lake on our backpacking trip. I decided that instead of trying to climb around the glacier. Which would have taken an extra 20 minutes. To take the easy way down. On, my, ass….

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Backpacking Jasper lake.

Posted on 17. Sep, 2009 by Derrick.

Every Labor day weekend Summer and I go backpacking. We originally had planned a car camping trip to Crystal City Colorado. My procrastination unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it changed our plans to backpacking instead.

I hadn’t backpacked in Colorado for 8 years, and I went a little overboard with preparation and equipment. Once again, I’m a former Boy Scout. I’ve had years and years of  “be prepared” drummed into my head. Even though we were only going for 4 days 3 nights, we were set for a 7 day’er. As Summer can attest. I’m an absolute wreck before trips, and until we actually hit the trail head, I’m like  a Schizo without the Haldol.  We left mid-afternoon and I had hoped to be at the trail head by 4pm. After a couple of wrong turns and a semi 4 wheel drive up to the trail head, we finally made it by 6! I was on red-allert, but all was well, we were finale backpacking.

On our way up to our first night at Diamond lake. We ran across several waterfalls that Guinness took advantage of.

A couple of small wrong turns and we were only about a mile away from our destination. But first we had several water crossings that are tricky to do with a Dog and his backpack.

When we made it to Diamond lake, we had to hustle to set up camp, eat, and hit the sack. We planned on getting up early so we can get over to Jasper lake for the duration of our stay. Guinness loves his backpack, but is an uncooperative bastard when trying to get it on.

Once we finally got our asses in gear we were on our way to the other lake. Since we kinda thew this trip together I wasn’t sure what to expect going from one lake to the next. I sure wasn’t ready for another 1000 feet in elevation though. Its a good thing that I didn’t know because Summer constantly has to be in the “know” on how many miles/elevation a hike or bike ride is. So when she asked me. I got to say “I don’t know” without lying to her.

We took our time and smelled the wild flowers, and we found so many cool things on the way.

Some of the items we found. Owl Pellets, which are the masses of animal bones, and fur that after digestion, an owl horkes it up. Animal droppings that could only be Coyote or Mountain Lion. And one of the coolest moments was when we saw a pair of red-tailed hawks hunting.

And then from the majestic to the bizarre. We came across these really fat grasshoppers on the top of the pass. They were the size of my thumb and when they kicked around they flopped around like drunken gymnast. Later we googled it and found out it was a cricket called the sagebrush grig (Cyphoderris strepitans). They appeared to be eating the elk poop. I apologize for the poor picture, but they wouldn’t stay still and the lighting wasn’t great.

After getting to Jasper lake we relaxed and took it easy. The hike from Diamond lake to Jasper lake is mostly technical terain and has a decent elevation gain. We explored a little to the end of the lake after eating a little to much.

The next morning I decided to show Summer the water falls and natural glaciers that fed jasper lake. But before we headed off, Summer watched the sunrise on her “warming” rock.

and then let Guinness swim a bit

Once you get to the end of Jasper lake, follow the water up the trail/game trail. It will take to three naturaly occuring lakes with glaciers feeding into them. This is what we saw on the way.

Once we got to the top the weather started to whip up some nasty wind. Summer said that she had seen enough of the little lakes and wanted to go back down. From this picture you can explore about another 3/4 of a mile up.

Once we found a nice place shielded by the wind we decided to eat a light lunch and do what we always do, take a family picture.

On the way down from our little day hike we came to discover two things that was going to make the rest of the trip interesting.

Guinness’ was having trouble sitting. I didn’t think much about it until the light bulb in my head went off. A co-worker of mine has Labs and she told me about “Cold tail” syndrome. Its when a Labrador over exercises or swims excessively in cold water. Both of which our dog did. It appears as though his tail doesn’t work at all. We could no longer tell if our dog was a “happy” pup. So for the rest of our trip we called Guinness “Broken Tail”

Notice I have food in my hand, and his tail isn’t wagging. This is positively the oddest thing I’ve ever seen a dog go through.

Summer had her own problems. Like I said. I’m an Eagle Scout. I always have an over abundance of gear. Ready for everything from a minor wound to a full on leg amputation. The scouts never covered menstrual cycles in their handbook. It never occured to me to always have tampons with us. With all of our hiking/biking/backpacking that we have done, In the 3 1/2 years we’ve been together, we have never been on vacation when “aunt flo” was visiting. The literal meaning of “on the rag” is officially going to be changed to “on the sock”

Lets just say that I’ve never been so happy to have extra cotton socks with us. With Summer using her backpacking rendition of a maxipad, she wanted to get home on our last day. So we put our head down and did the 6.2 miles home in just about 4 hours.

Aside from our minor afflictions, we had an excellent time. One of our best trips to date.

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Mom visit number 3

Posted on 30. Aug, 2009 by Derrick.

The tour of moms concluded with Mary coming to visit. Summers Mom made her way out in June, my Mother in July, and my Mom^2 in August.

Just like all our other visits, we did the Colorado thing and went to ball games and went hiking.

The trip wasn’t all fun and games as Mary was here on some official business. My father passed away from complications of prostate cancer in March and she was coming back to Colorado to drop off some of his ashes. We spent some time on Sunday spreading some ashes around. It was kind of an emotional day, so Mary Summer and I did a little drinking that lead me to having a nasty hang over the next day.

I truly love Mary. It wasn’t easy for her to have come here. Just loosing her husband and to have come here and put on her game face for the benefit of my sister and I. I thank her for that.

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Apex one more time.

Posted on 29. Aug, 2009 by Derrick.

Hyon and I tackled the trail one more time with our MTNBK’s. Hyon looked liked he was going to fall a sleep. I was having my own mechanical issues. Watch the video for more details.

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