Take 5

This is perhaps the scariest video I've ever seen. It's not one of those trick videos where you're watching a peaceful scene and out of nowhere a mummy pops up full screen. This one is real. Not the mummy, but the fright, the emotion, the realism. Produced in Canada, it's a video about distracted driving, specifically driving under the influence of something. Please, please, please... If you have ANY doubt whatsoever that you are completely capable of driving a multi-ton bullet, whether you are under the influence of anything, or too tired, or too stressed, or for any other reason, don't get in the car! If you witness someone that you are not completely confident that they are competent to drive - take their keys! Don't let you or your loved ones, or even a complete stranger, be the subject of the next video.

Take five minutes and watch this video. I know it'll be hard, but so will losing someone if you can prevent it. Use this as a wakeup call and reminder.

Save on Gas

I think it's pretty safe to say that we're all trying to save money in one way or another nowadays. As things continue to get worse on Wall Street, and unemployment rises, and foreclosures continue, and gas prices continue to remain high, every little bit helps. But we can't always cut out the trips and errands that still need to be done. One thing you can do, though, is to combine all of your errands into one trip (or fewer at least) and make that trip the most efficient you can.

I wrote about the Travelling Salesman Problem a while ago, but now it has an even more direct benefit -- saving gas! One of the sites I mentioned in that post, the Optimap site, can help you get all of those errands done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Tell it the locations of the pet store, the grocery store, Johnny's football practice field, the recycling center and the oil change shop and let it calculate the best route.

Do you hear what I hear?

There are many radio stations to listen to, plus satellite, plus MP3 players, plus CDs, and more while driving in your car. Tonight I happened to be listening to the radio and looked back to see the girl driving behind me dancing around and singing. That's not the unusual part. Though I listen to 2 of the top 4 radio stations in this market and have for as long as I can remember, I have never caught someone listening to the same station as me... This time, though, I was able to match her singing (or the movement of her mouth anyway) and bobbing to the song on my radio. That's a first for me. Nothing that notable, but a first nonetheless.

Have you caught this before?

Ice, Ice, Baby

Here's another one from Day Tipper. Actually, I heard about this on the Internet, the news, from friends, from radio, and I'm sure the little kids on the corner selling lemonade last summer as well, but Day Tipper offers this reminder about adding ICE (In Case of Emergency) to your phone.

Simple and effective, and something that is apparently not an urban myth from the Internet - mark one for the good guys! And you know what? Even if someone thinks it is a myth, enough people know about it that it might work anyway...

Basically, you put an entry in your cell phone with the name "ICE" (maybe followed by the person's real name) and then put in their phone numbers as well. Now this ICEy person is not just anyone, it's someone that if you're injured or otherwise incapacitated, you'd want Emergency Services to contact. If they can find your cell phone, they'll look for ICE first and contact them to let them know you're injured, etc. It doesn't cost anything and it just might come in handy...

Can you hear me now?

I had a totally different thought in mind when I went to write this post (it was a parenting thought), but I'll come back to that one later.

My new car came with a hands-free option for a bluetooth phone. Only one problem -- my phone doesn't do blue tooth. Not yet anyway. My wife's phone works, but not completely in my car.

Our cell plan is up in a couple of months so we're looking into what our options are. I'm ready to switch carriers too. The BCC car site has a list of phones that they've tested with my car and the features that work/don't work for each phone. Now I just have to find a phone that's inexpensive, and has all of the features that I want...

Does your car have a hands free option? What do you like about it. When do you use it most? Does it use your phone's phone book or do you have to create a new phone book? Did you find that you use it more in your car than you did before the built-in hands free? Does your phone dial by voice or just have a speaker? Does yours allow you to speak the name of the person you want to call, or just the phone number? I've not even read that part of the manual on my car yet 'cuz I don't want to know all of what I'll be missing when I get the phone that's not the top of the line...

Maybe I'll compare some of the phones BCC says work well on a site like PhoneScoop.

I've got gas...

Come on. You think I'd be THAT revealing to the world?! :-p

Actually, I should've titled this entry - MPG. Now that I've made sure that I've said I got a new car, I can talk about one of the reasons. Not the only reason, and actually not the biggest reason, but an important one nonetheless -- fuel economy.

It's important for a number of reasons -- personal cost, environmental cost, national independence, etc. Would I have liked to buy a car that gets 100 MPG? You betcha. I would have settled for 50 MOG if I could afford it right now. But, alas, I couldn't. I know that in the long run, we would've all been better if I could, but a small step is better than no step. I'm doing a part to help, even if it's not as big of a part as I'd like.

I am very aware of the fuel economy of my new car. In fact, the car helps me stay that way. It has an automatic average MPG display. It's not the real-time display I would like, but it's certainly helpful (and pretty accurate based on my calculations). It's had an impact on the way I drive already, too. My car and I play a little game called "How high can I get the MPG readout..."

I pay attention to things like starting off too quickly from a stop. I coast to stops when feasible so that I don't have to stop in the first place. I use cruise control as often as I can, knowing that automatic means are more efficient than I at keeping an even speed. I gain some ground on the way to work, but lose most of it on the way home due to construction. I still get 50% better mileage than I did in my van, but I want to do better.

It's funny though. Even as we all pinch every penny we can just to survive nowadays, I bet you know exactly how much you spent per gallon of gas last fill up. And I bet you drive sometimes way out of your way just to save a couple of pennies per gallon. And I don't blame you. But I realized a while ago that to save 3 cents per gallon on a 20 gallon fill up, only saved me sixty cents. Sixty cents is sixty cents, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot more money to be saved (and many other benefits) by conserving the gas in the first place. Even a single mile per gallon increase in fuel economy will save you dollars per fill up instead of pennies. That's worth changing a few habits, I think. Hypermilers have a lot of other useful ways to get more per gallon from your car as well.

And, on the subject of saving money, personal finance blog Wisebread wrote an article recently comparing the cost of a gallon of gas to a gallon of other common consumer products. Might want to start thinking about cutting back on some of those items as well after seeing their list.

The fuel jokes have arrived...

Here are a few comics circulating around the Internet that might take a bit of the pain out of your next fill up -- or not!

Seen another good comic about the insane cost of gas? Leave a comment with a link to the picture for all to enjoy. We gotta get through this somehow...

National Gas Price Heat Map

What color are you?

I tried to add the actual graphic, but size constraints prevented it... Gas Buddy has an up-to-date Gas Price Heat Map showing average gas price by county.

OUCH!

Another one for your phone book

I wrote a while ago about several phone numbers you should have in your cell phone. One service that I had been waiting for was one that allowed you to perform an Internet search via a phone call (versus on a web-enabled cell phone). Well, wait no more... Not sure where I found this one, but ChaCha has arrived!

The site works by submitting your speech to text query to an army of modestly paid surfers who do the surfing for you and then text you the answer. It's not perfect, but if could help you out of a jam. You can also log in to the site when you're back in front of a live Internet connection and see who fielded your query and the site that they used to get your answer.

I'm not sure of the business model, so I'm not sure how long they'll be around, but it's worth checking out while you can. Just call 800-2ChaCha

Driving on Google Maps

Another interwsting mashup of Google's StreetView maps will automatically drive for you. Check out this beta StreetView Driver available at MapChannels.

Take a hike!

It's been awhile since Google released it's StreetView data. I've bounced around a bit in there, but this is the best use of the recently released API I've seen. Not only does this site provide directions, it actually drives it for you! I wish that there was a way to control the speed, but cool nonetheless.

Gas prices

I came across this widget the other day that will automatically display your local gas prices based on your computer's IP address.


Disclaimer: All prices are approximate :-)

Give'm the finger

One custom of small town North Carolina that's kinda growing on me is the obligatory raise of at least one finger, if not the whole hand in a greeting gesture as you pass someone on the road. Depending on the placement of their hands (you still drive at 10 and 2?), whenever anyone passed me while in my mother-in-law's neck of the woods, they would raise at least part of their appendage in greeting.

One funny thing that I noticed about this custom was that it only applied in the most rural part of the countryside. As we passed the town of Joe (population 2) and Trust (population 16) and moved toward Asheville (population 70k+) the greetings diminished greatly. Funny thing is, as you pass up to the cities with populations nearing 250k+ and up, with traffic jams, road rage and too much extra-caffeinated Lattes, the gestures reappear... Though not in the same friendly kind of gesture I experienced. :-(

Back from vacation...

... or starting a new one. :-)

Vacationing with the family is always a fun time, but the disruption of schedule, including sleep, is a hard one to deal with sometimes. I'm not taking about the kids. For the most part they're back to their ol' happy, normal selves. I, on the other hand...

While my employer was shut down last weekend, we took the opportunity to head down south to North Carolina for a visit with my mother-in-law. After a 12 hour ride in the car, we were all exhausted. The kids compensated for this exhaustion, by exerting any last remaining adrenaline they could muster and stayed up for another several hours before crashing, and then waking up at, as my wife would say, "the butt-crack of dawn."

My mother-in-law lives almost as far from civilization as you can go without falling off the edge of the globe. Well, OK, not really, but she lives far up in the mountains, quite a distance from any McDonald's, Walmart or other store you might know by name. The last 15 miles to her cabin is literally switch-back after switch-back after switchback. That's all fine and dandy. But all this seclusion comes at a price -- actually a rather reasonable one if you're interested in renting her cabin apartment as you travel. But I digress... The price, as far as I'm concerned, is the several days it takes me to get over the fact that if something happens, the nearest hospital is who knows how far away. It takes me quite awhile to fall asleep. "Did we remember the Epi-Pen for my son?" "Did I set the parking brake?" "Was that a branch or a bear shadow I just saw?" All of these "non-sensical" things kept shooting through my mind, preventing sleep. I often would have to drown those thoughts with mind-numbing television (thank goodness for satellite TV) and pure exhaustion before I could fall into at least a fitful sleep. So much for using vacations to rest and rejuvenate.

It's all good, nonetheless. I'm glad for the time with family.

Gas prices

GasBuddy has an interesting graphic (called a heatmap) that shows the average price of gas around the nation. I would think that, in general, the further you are away from the source of the product (the Gulf mostly) the higher the price would be because of transportation costs. Obviously there are other things in the mix here too though based on this picture; Supply and demand issues and local taxes come to mind.

Another interesting use of heatmaps is shown by some research done by EyeTools that tracked where subjects eyes looked while looking at a Google results page.

Cell phone support numbers

Not everyone has a fancy iPhone with all its applications and connectivity. For those of us still hobbling along with a plain old cell phone that just makes phone calls, there are still some resources available to help you get along a little better in life...

Here's a list of phone numbers that you might want to add to your cell phone. All use voice recognition, so they're (fairly) safe to use while you're driving -- hands free of course. I took a ride in a friend's Sync equipped Ford Fusion the other day. These kinds of resources are a perfect fit for that system!

Directions – spell out "DIRECTIONS" on your phone (347-328-4667) and tell it where you are and where you want to get to and it will send you text messages from MapQuest with driving directions. It uses voice recognition. You can ask for a specific address, a business name, or an event. See http://www.dialdirections.com/. Synch could even read these text messages back to you!

Free 411 – free directory assistance – 888-373-3411. It uses voice recognition, but has live-operator backup if needed. See http://www.free411.com/.

Google's free 411 (Goog-411) – 800-466-4411. Directory search. It will connect you to the number you're asking about as well as send a text message or map link if requested. See http://www.google.com/goog411/

Jott – allows you to send email reminders to yourself and others. You must configure your account first via Jott, but then when you call it will ask you who you want to Jott (including "myself") and you speak the message that is transcribed into an email (with link to recorded voice for backup). 877-568-8486. I use this to send reminders to myself, either to my regular email account or to my blog site to remind me about things to post about.

MS Live Search – 800-225-5411
From Press Release: "Call 1-800-CALL-411 (1-800-225-5411) and say where you are and what you're looking for. You can also get text messages, maps, traffic maps, and text-based driving directions sent to your mobile phone.

We've built Live Search 411 to go beyond just finding business information. Because our goal is to help you complete your task, we've included features like:
· Connect to any business listing you find-for free
· Receive SMS links to maps, driving directions and traffic conditions (just say "text me the info")
· Get movie showtimes and even buy tickets over the phone (via our partnership with Fandango)
· Share text messages of business details with friends so they can easily meet you there
· Hear the current weather conditions and the forecast
· Quickly access travel resources like airlines, hotels, and rental cars
· Remember your personalized locations for movie theaters, weather and traffic, and your preferences for receiving text messages. "

Tellme – Also recently acquired by Microsoft. Call 800-555-8355 (800-555-TELL) and get weather, news, sports, stock quotes, business search, driving directions, movies, horoscopes, etc. They used to allow you to set up favorites (stock symbols, sections of news, etc). Can't seem to verify that this is available any more.

My Traffic – 866-698-7232 visit http://www.traffic.com/ You Can also set up alerts via email from the site for your common routes.

From Site: "When drivers call 1-866-MY-TRAFC, they receive a detailed traffic report that includes a Jam Factor(R) rating (a traffic scale that grades traffic conditions from 0-10 with 10 representing the worst possible traffic conditions); travel and delay times; accident reports; construction delays; and more.
Registered users of the http://www.traffic.com/ Web site can access their saved, personalized drives via the hotline; unregistered users will be prompted for their city and the roadway on which they are traveling. The driver will then receive the real-time traffic report for that particular drive or road."

What other voice-based systems do you use?

Traveling Salesman Problem

Salesmen have existed for thousands of years. In the early years, they traveled from cave to cave selling sticks and stones and tried their hand at up selling their clientele on "fire." The plight of the traveling salesman has not changed that much in the past millennia though. They still travel door to door trying to sell us products and services (thought a lot of perennial d-t-d sales have moved to the Web). As they travel door-to-door, they must do so in a way that conserves their time (the more potential clients they can see, the more fruitful their labors), and increasingly, their gas.

Though the price of gas wasn't at issue hundreds of years ago, efficiency still was. From that quest came the Traveling Salesman Problem. According to Wikipedia, the problem can be summarized as: "Given a number of cities and the costs [mileage] of traveling from any city to any other city, what is the least-cost round-trip route that visits each city exactly once and then returns to the starting city?"

For a small collection of cities, it's relatively easy and can be done by hand. As the number of cities increase, the computational power increases to compensate for all of the new permutations. Hundreds of people much smarter than I have battled the problem for ages trying to come up with the optimal (read: least cost) path.

All that aside, there are two things I wanted to get out there in this article. First, a Google Maps implementation or the TSP available for your personal travels this holiday season. As the Nuclear Family has exploded and we have so many more holiday family gatherings to attend, this site could help you get it all done in one day -- efficiently!

For a little more (geeky) fun, try your hand at some simple TSP games for yourself.

Happy travels...

Traffic Alerts

As the snow starts to fall in many part of the country, many of us will end up with longer than normal commute times. That's bad. Especially with the price of gas still so high. Wouldn't it be nice to be alerted to traffic slowdowns before you leave work? With that knowledge you could 1) leave early to account for the extra time needed, 2) leave later once things are clear, or 3) mentally prepare yourself for the long ride home. Traffic.com to the rescue!

On Traffic.com you can set up customized routes that will be monitored for traffic snares. You build your route by identifying the metro area, then the major road, then the entry point and exit point for that road, then rinse and repeat adding more roads to the trip. Save your route and then set up your alerts -- daily, regardless of delays, only if delays exist beyond a threshold, only on certain days, certain times, etc! The alerts can be sent to your phone, or an email address. You can click through to see the specific portion of your trip that's going to be slow, but the email itself will identify a delay in minutes, travel time and average speed.

I have my alerts set to notify me at work an hour before I normally leave when the Jam Factor (their custom 1-10 rating) is a 5 or greater during the week. I'm not in a position to be able to leave early, but I can at least psych my self up for the trip.

If you have a local blog or personal site, you can add a sticker (read: widget/gadget) that will show the jam Factor for your route, or metro area real time for all to see.

Truth in Advertising

According to a Diet Mountain Dew ad, Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu is a place in New Zealand.

The Maori name translates into English as "The hilltop where Tamatea with big knees, conqueror of mountains, eater of land, traveller over land and sea, played his flute to his beloved."

Wikipedia claims that the mount is "the longest officially recognized place name in an English-speaking country."

Pets Welcome!

I had lunch with a friend of mine over the weekend. It had been a while since we had talked so it was nice to catch up on happenings, and rumors, and just spend some time chatting. He's changed quite a bit since last I saw him. He's lost over 100 pounds (intentionally) and has adopted a rigorous exercise plan (just finished a half marathon). This guy is light years ahead of anything I'm working on personally right now. I envy his dedication and persistence. He's even trying to get into the Police Reserve Corps.

His current job has brought him to Michigan several times in the past couple of years, some times for week-long (or longer) stays. He got married several years ago, but states emphatically that their "kids" all have 4 legs and always will. He commented that he wished it was easier to find lodging that accepted pets so that he might be able to bring his "whole" family on a trip with him next time maybe. He couldn't dream of leaving his pooch in a pound.

It can be difficult to find hotels that accept non-human family members. But, once again, I have a site to ease the pain... Pets Welcome is a searchable database of pet-friendly lodging locations. Search by state, city, lodging category (hotel, bed and breakfast, etc), even route! My mother-in-law's site gets a lot of referrals from this site, so I know it's being used. It may not have every city in there, but if you find a location not listed in there, encourage them to get listed -- for FREE!