A New Theory

Thursday morning gas was $2.96.9/gallon for regular, $3.11.9/gal for midgrade. No coupon. (Sigh)

By evening the free-fall of gas prices had continued, $2.94.9... $2.93.9... except Family Failure ***, our main gas station, had leapt up to $3.01.9/gal. Is this a new correction? Were they helping pay for their two buck gas sale coupons? Who knows?

Friday things continued downward... $2.90.9... $2.89.9/gal.

But... I heard half of an NPR story, and so in addition to Dr. Phil's Pre-Election Gas Price Influence theory, I have a new theory as to what's going on. Oil is down to $85/bbl and this guy from OPEC was opining that with oil so low, it would be uneconomical to extract shale oil by fracking. In other words, is OPEC trying to stiff the competition? Or are they siding with the greens and promoting the environment? (evil-grin) Oh let's go out on a limb and select answer A instead of answer 2. (grin)

Election is on Tuesday... Based on past performance, if the Reds win big gains, gas should rise. If the Blue win big gains, gas will continue to drop for a while -- my theory is that this is to make it look like it's not connected to the election and to continue trying to influence downward demand by the public To Do Something In January.

Expect $3.63.9/gal by February.

Dr. Phil

*** Actually we like Family Fare in Allendale, the grocery store and gas station. The Family Failure is merely wordplay. Just like Office Despot and Bed, Bath and Beyond Belief. I've said this before, but sometimes feel I need to reiterate the point. So consider it reiterated.

Another Beautiful Day

After a day which saw rain, snow, wind, and scary costumes -- a wild Lake Michigan attacking Chicago with 65mph gusts and we were down to 40mph gusts in the area at the 11:15pm -- it t'were a gorgeous blue sky day here. At 2:50 I decided I needed to take the Nikon F4s and the 28-200mm out for a spin. We're past peak color season -- a lot of trees are bare for the top 40-50%. But I had blue sky.

Shooting film here, so nothing to post yet. But they're harvesting the dried field corn, so I got some nice views of partiality cleared fields. Also a pale afternoon moon rising over a barn and fields. And the horses about a mile from here were out.

I did get snowed on in Kalamazoo yesterday, just enough to put some white on the grass in a few minutes, but it had only started just as I got in the Blazer. Driving the first fifteen miles included a few stretches in Drive, not Overdrive, or even 4WD at one point. I am not going to voluntarily add myself to the carnage of those who have forgotten how to drive in winter.

Took me fifteen minutes just to get to US-131 from campus. Some of the lights have countdowns on the crosswalk signals. The big intersection at Drake and Main cheats, and goes yellow at 5 seconds, not zero or after zero. Surely you can get more that 3-5 cars through on a cycle. Then it struck me. All these cars were going to Target or maybe Meijer to buy candy. Maybe at 4pm the Big stores start putting it on sale.

Forgot once again to pick up the negatives and PhotoCD in town -- Mrs. Dr. Phil got them on her grocery run.

The saga of the gas prices continued. On my way through Allendale, I noted everybody was $2.90.9/gallon. Everyone except Family Failure, which was still 5¢ a gallon higher. When I can be through Allendale less than a hour later, Mobil had dropped to $2.87.9/gal, which put Family Fare up by 8¢/gal. Mrs. Dr. Phil brought home a 10¢/gal coupon -- will be annoyed if all or most is eaten up by a differential... Thanks, guys.

Dr. Phil

REMINDER: Clocks go back one hour. Those that need to be adjusted by human intervention, that is. Don't forget to tip your servers.