JP - Keep up the good work with the non-smoking. Smoking freaks me out, because it is guaranteed to shorten your life. Drinking isn't great, either, but some studies have shown that drinking a little bit each day can be healthy. But smoking is just bad. Problems everywhere - lungs, heart, bladder (Dad!), etc.

What also annoys me is my understanding that the tobacco people smoked 150 years ago was much less addictive. I have to find some hard sources for this, but I read somewhere that when the southern states lost their slave labor for the growing of cotton, they bred tobacco plants to find the most addictive ones, to create a new cash crop. So, its a big agribusiness conspiracy! (Though, like I said, I need to find out the facts on that one.)

Dad - I'm glad you had a good trip to Philly. I need to visit again, myself! Your hybrid is getting more commercial air time - I've seen the ad for it a half dozen times now. Ever since I drove yours, I'm warming to the idea. It has good pickup, and its cool to feel the electrical motor pull you along when you are just cruising. They have some gas/electric hybrid city buses here now in Manhattan. I don't know how much more fuel efficient they are, but they sure are quieter! And, you can fit some really big batteries into a city bus.
The Honda hybrid ads show it getting 47 mpg city and 48 mpg highway. I don't know how close to reality this is, though.

Well, sorry for the slow blogging - I'll post more though.

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 3/10/2005 02:20:00 PM