Very interesting Brian. Always good to get another perspective. Randy
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Zoltan Finks Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 2:51 PM To: Mercedes Discussion List Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT going green Thanks, Randy, for your candor. I guess this whole being minimal thing comes easily to me so I can do it and brag about it. It just fits with my personality and lifestyle. I am pleased my simple things and living simply and minimally. Wastefulness just bothers me. And I think a major factor in this has been my poverty. For example when I was down to about nothing, and rolling dimes to buy food for the week, I started grabbing small handfulls of napkins from the fast food restaurants where I would get my $.99 burgers. I would use these napkins at home for everything, including toilet paper. So now that I (we - thanks wife) can afford toilet paper, I only use two squares at a time to stretch my dollar. This is just an example of the frugal aspect of my green-ness. And I lived without heat in Tucson. And it does indeed get cold there. No hot water either. So getting up in the morning for work and riding my bike in the 30 degrees sucked! And I only took showers after work when I was fully warmed up. Here again, I guess I was in training to be minimal. I don't mean to so much point fingers, I just share my rather extreme ways. I do recognize that there are limitations in peoples' lives. For instance, my wife was telling me how hot her 91 yr. old grandma keeps her house - she had the thermostat set to about 80!!!. I don't exactly feel she ought to change. I don't know what it's like to be that old and have my body feel cold all the time. And I know that not everybody can ride a bike either, for example. Before you expanded and explained that you need a vehicle to tow a boat and plywood, I was going to ask you, out of curiosity, why you need an F150. I think a lot of guys have a truck just because it's a manly thing to do. It does suck that when one needs a truck, one needs a truck and there's no getting around it. You either have one, borrow one, or rent one. I guess a second, more efficient vehicle is the solution. We have kept our Honda CRV even though it gets worse than 20 mpg around town. But sometimes we need to carry something big home from the hardware store or need to carry more than two people and dog which is not really feasible in one of our Benzes, unless that person really loves dogs and hair. What's more, it's been a lifesaver that we kept the CRV as my current job often involves delivering newspapers around this town which is made up largely of bumpy, windy, dark roads - some of them not paved and with big holes and dropoffs, etc. You almost need 4WD, and I wouldn't be willing to put the wear and tear of all the bouncing around and constant shifting and tight turns on one of our Benzes. So what do we do? I am forced to drive something around that gets 18 - 19 mpg in town and is bigger than I need. But at all other times, I choose the 25+ mpg-in-town or the 30+ mpg-in-town cars we have. That is IF I absolutely have to drive. If not, I ride my bike. But that's just me. I LOVE riding a bike, and HATE driving. So it comes naturally. Anyway, just more thoughts. Brian _______________________________________ 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
