Starting fresh rather than responding to some of the earlier posts again. I do feel guilty about polluting the environment etc and down deep I'm a frugal person so I would like to reduce the amount of fuel I use for vehicles and home etc. I also recycle everything that I can through the blue box and freecycle etc.
However, I'm getting old and therefore a bit set in my ways and don't want to ride the bus etc. I like the freedom that a car brings to me. I drive to work even though I am close enough to walk because I can run errands during the day if I need to and can go home for lunch etc. I also live in a harsh climate area where it is very often real cold or real warm or raining or . . . and the car protects me from most of that. I have moved my office closer to home 4 or 5 times in the period since 1988 and am now almost within sight of my house. There is a hospital accross the street and down a block that blocks my view or I would be able to see the house from my colleague's office at the front of our offices. It would be a mile to two accross a field at the University to the house. My wife works at the University so she is close to home too. I think about selling my house and building a new one that would be super insulated, and at least somewhat passive solar and have enough land to permit me to install a ground source heat pump so that I could heat it for next to nothing and use no fossil fuel. I think about retrofitting my existing house with additonal outside walls and insulation to accomplish the superinsulation of what we have so that we could reduce heating costs and thereby use less natural gas. I think about changing my furnace to a newer one but am unsure of what direction we should take with that and have therefore waited a bit. I think about swapping my F150 for a diesel powered pickup in the hopes of improving the fuel economy. I think about getting a Honda Civic and driving it around town in the winter so that I wouldn't be using the pickup for the short runs around town. I think about swapping our old 2 stroke outboard motors for newer 4 stroke motors to reduce the amount of fuel used and reduce the amount of fuel dumped inot the water when we run the boats. I think about the possibility of an electric boat that would be quiet and not use fuel. However, any of these would cost and arm and a leg and cannot be justified from an economic standpoint. It also may be a bit early in some cases as technology is ever changing and I think will change even faster if the global warming thing proves to be a real threat. I don't really want to move and my wife would object so building a new house will be difficult to accomplish. We are heading toward retirement ages and my sons will soon be gone from home. A larger lot would likely mean moving out of the city and that carries other problems like good water and sewer and increased commuting costs etc. More land would be needed for the ground source setup to work unless we want to drill deep and that has other issues too. We would need a site with a southerly exposure. Superinsulating the existing house is do-able but would change its character somewhat and might cost more than it would return for a long time. The house is only 1800 square feet and was built in 1981 and added onto in 1987 so it is reasonably tight and has 2X6 walls etc already. Adding inside would be messy and we would lose space. Adding outside means reduced roof overhangs and sunken windows etc unless one makes major changes to the roof and moves the windows etc. I don't think I can go diesel in the pickup unless I go to an F250 and I don't really need a heavier beast. We also have an F150 with the V6 and a manual 5 speed and the fuel economy on it is very little different than the Supercrew with the 5.4. I could get a small car to run around in but that is what I use the 300D for from about April through October so my gain would be fairly minimal and I would have another vehicle to maintain and insure. I wish the insurance people would let me have a set of plates that could be swapped car to car so I wasn't insuring a bunch of them. I don't use the boats much. The bigger one wasn't in the water at all last summer and the smaller one was only used on the July long weekend by my son and his friends so probably 20 gallons of gas used in the boats for the whole summer. Not likely to save the world by reducing that to 10 gallons usage per summer. So, I sort of feel like the Al Gore's of the world are pointing fingers at me and saying that I should do my bit to fix the world by changing my ways but that they are not being able to tell me how I should proceed. I hate those silly compact flourescent lightbulbs. They don't make enough light and they don't fit well in most of my existing light fixtures. I'm not going to switch to public transit because it wouldn't work very well where I live and work. I'm not going to switch to a SMART car because I don't like them and they are not versitile enough. I need something that can launch the boats, haul sheets of plywood and 4 or 5 people when the need arises. I could carry on for pages but you get my drift. I'm a middle aged overweight middle class white collar guy who likes cars, boats, and his house and I don't think that the fact that the world is going to you know where in a handbasket is my fault. Most of the significant things that I could do would cost me a lot of money and might have debatable benefits so here I sit doing not much different but wondering what I could or should do. Randy _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
