Well, it keeps working. Four days, four poems, so far. (See the first one two days ago.)
Closing in
on both sides of the old gravel road
armies of firs
impenetrable by gaze or gun.
A harsh welcome to nowhere,
desolate summit gusts bend the tall pine king
and I teach myself to see
as I head
into
the wind.
Got my car gassed up for further lessons. Don’t know why, but I need this.
Got upset watching a motor journal on TV today. Of course, 99% of all cars tested in these types of programs are gasoline guzzlers with roaring V8s – they apparently think people would watch reviews of cars they will never afford to buy, rather than affordable, sensible, smaller cars. Not that there is a single gasoline or diesel driven car that is a sensible buy with regards to the environment.
Or, put so succinctly with this quote, infamous by now because of its source:
You know, we don’t have a problem with global warming, it’s just getting hotter.
The motor journal promoted LPG, which stands for Liquidized Petroleum Gas. That means it’s the same old oil product, only in gas form, which has been liquidized in order to not blow your car up if you crash, and converted back into gas when injected into the same old inefficient petrol engine. Sound complicated? Nooo, it’s the technology of the future! (scornful laugh)
Right now LPG is just above half of the gasoline price, but the engine consumes 30% more fuel. ‘A lot of money to be saved’, you say. Don’t be fooled. I remember just 10-15 years ago when diesel was 25% of gasoline. Now it’s about the same.
‘Government grants’, you say. Yes, it’s insane. The UK government gives a 60% grant to people that can show that their car is more environment friendly with this product. This rules out most people’s cars: LPG only works on gas guzzlers like jeeps, high-end BMWs, and the like; the gains are not sufficient for cars with already more efficient motors. Those cars then run on the equivalent of 60-70% of gasoline.
It costs £2,000 to convert your car to LPG. The UK, at the time the program was shot, had 1,100 gas stations that had LPG. 100 garages qualified to work on LPG converted cars.
There’s only a couple problems with LPG:
1. Keep the oil dependency
2. Keep spewing CO2 into our atmosphere
3. Keep noisy engines that are marginally more inefficient at turning gasoline into energy than those made in the 19th century.
I simply don’t understand why people want to live in the stone age. General Motors has already proven the viability of commercial electric cars with the EV1:
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Well, I don’t know if I’m becoming a kook or were a closet kook to begin with, but I’ve started a habit. Don’t worry, the only white powder it may involve is snow. :) Anyway, as soon as I get up I have breakfast and coffee and drive out to Nowhere. Plenty of that around here. The worse the grade of the road, the better.
When I get there, I park the car and go for a short walk. Suddenly, poems spring to mind. It seems completely automatic. Here’s the first one:
Ascending road ahead
every fork an upgrade.
Gaping gravel pit wound
boulder ridge raped silent
the corpse of a car door tells a story.
It’s funny, I haven’t seen a single animal yet, not even a single bird in the sky. Maybe they know a kook when they see one and steer well clear. ;)
Perpetuum Immobile 