Gas Saving Tips

With gas prices rising every week, everyone is looking at ways to save gas. As of this writing, we're now at P54/liter for Shell E-10 (ethanol blend of regular gas). Prices have risen by about P15/liter already since start of the year, I think. Industry experts are saying that it might go as high as P80/liter if wholesale crude from the Middle East hits $200/barrel. Bummer.

The Department of Energy recently announced some gas saving tips that I found interesting:

1. Don't drive -- ok... that's kinda obvious. I guess I have to consider walking to and from work more.
2. Fill-up your gas in the morning when the temperature is still cooler. You can fill up the tank by 3% to 6% more than if you were to fill-up during high noon. Interesting.
3. Don't leave the car running idle. Leaving a car running with aircon for an hour can consume as much as 2 liters of gas!
4. Avoid parking your car out in the sun. The heat of the noonday sun can evaporate gas faster.
5. Keep car running between the sweet spot of 70 to 90 kmph. Good luck trying that in EDSA!
6. Don't carry useless things in your trunk as it adds to the weight and increases gas consumption. So we finally dispatched the heavy playpen that we've been lugging around in our trunk since we never got around to donating it. So the driver brought it to the White Cross orphanage today and left it there.
7. Turning on airconditioning while driving eats up an additional of around 10% gas. Since I drive home early evening from office, I can live without airconditioning.

If all else fail, try out these crazy gas saving stunts from Kip Kay. Take the risk of putting acetone in your gas tank!

Second Try at Reyes Barbecue

I had lunch again at RCBC Plaza today. Even though my previous dining experience at Reyes Barbecue in RCBC was quite negative, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried it again. This time, I ordered their Chicken Barbecue Meal (at P69) with the optional iced-tea add-on (at P15). Total should be P84, but I was surprised that the cashier asked me for P94. Redoing the math in my head, I told her that it should be P84. Turned out that she charged me the iced-tea at the regular price of P25 instead of the add-on price of P15. Ok, so that's a minor boo-boo. No big deal.

Went to my table and waited for my order to arrive. It was quite a long wait. One would think that in a fast-food setup, with a fairly small number of items in the menu, that they would already have pre-cooked barbecues that they can quickly serve. I must have waited for like 10 mins before my food arrived. And when it did arrive, it came with an iced tea on a tall glass. I think they made a mistake and gave me the P25 iced tea drink. The guy across my table had a smaller iced tea on a plastic cup. I think that's the P15 add-on. Oh well, I'm not complaining on my iced tea.

Caitlin Gets Her Nosed Cauterized

Caitlin has been nose-bleeding again every day for the past 3 days. She's had this problem since she was a baby. But with school starting next week at ICA, it would be very difficult for her if she continues to nose-bleed while in school. So Cols decided to have her nose cauterized this afternoon. She called me up to accompany them to the doctor since they don't think they can control her if she freaks out.

Ilene called the clinic first to set an appointment. The clinic is in Quezon Ave. So by the time we got there, it was about 3pm. Caitlin did not seem nervous, although she kept asking if the nurse was already calling for her turn. When it was her turn finally, we walked into the clinic. I sat on the doctor's chair (kinda like a dental chair) and Caitlin sat on my lap.

When the doctor started poking on her nose, Caitlin started panicking and crying. I had to hold her real tight and wrapped my legs around hers just to keep her from moving. The doctor inserted his camera inside and showed us the thin lining of her nose and the visible blood vessels. Then he put some topical anesthesia on cotton and inserted in Caitlin's nose to numb it.

After a couple of minutes (which felt like an eternity for Caitlin), he pulled out the cotton and signalled us that he will proceed with the cauterization. Of course, he kept assuring Caitlin that he's just taking a photo of her nose. Deep-down, Caitlin is smart enough to know that he's really planning to cauterize her, I think.

The procedure looked very painful. Ilene stepped in to the clinic for a while but had to step out since she could not bear seeing Caitlin suffer. Her cries could be heard all the way outside. Even with holding her tight, she still managed to move her head a bit which caused the doctor to miss the exact target and accidentally brushed her cleft with the cauterization tool. So Caitlin ended up with a burned cleft. :(

View the ordeal by click here for my very first Google Video upload (this video was just taken by a Nokia phone so I had o convert the small 3gp video into avi for upload. The quality leaves a lot to be desired.)

Hospital and Party

Dad postponed his Europe trip because Grandpa was admitted to the hospital this morning. Grandma said he's been coughing hard and she was nervous that he might have pneumonia so they rushed him to Cardinal Santos hospital.

After work, I passed by for Cols and Caitlin so we could visit Grandpa at the hospital. We stayed there until about 8:30pm then we headed to Auntie Rosie's place at Talayan Village. They have a small party to welcome the arrival of Uncle Steve and his son, Matthew, from the States. They're coming home to attend Steve's mother's big birthday bash in Cebu.

Caitlin was happy running around the house "exploring". She was hyper the whole evening. She also enjoyed playing with her Aunt Samantha (who's only 6 months older than her).

The Northwest flight was terribly delayed due to engine trouble. So we stayed until almost midnight before they arrived. Caitlin was getting grumpy and sleepy already by that time. By time we got home, cleaned up and went to bed, it was past 1am already.

Caitlin's Birthday

Caitlin's been excited the whole week for her birthday and it has finally arrived. She's now 5 years old. Oh how time flies. And she'll be going to ICA already by next week! For breakfast, Cols made her "traditional" birthday noodles and eggs. The folks came a bit late so I did not catch up with them anymore as I already left for office by the time they arrived.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Cols took Caitlin around with her to do her errands. They bought a Red Ribbon cake for dinner. Then we just all just met for dinner at Rockwell with the folks. Dad was running late because he had to finish a lot of paperwork at CBN for his trip to Europe tomorrow.

Click the cake photo below to see the web album.

The World's Cheapest Tripod (or rather, monopod)

While reading PC World recently, I came across the Google Alerts service. Its a very neat service. Google searches the Internet for news and blog entries containing keywords that you want to track (eg. your company's products, your competitor's services) and it emails you the report on a scheduled basis. In my case for example, I track keywords like "picatoo", "digital music" and "online payments", to keep me abreast with what's happening out there.

This morning, Google Alerts sent me a summary of articles related to my "online photos" keyword. Its about stabilizing a camera using only a string as a tripod (or more accurately, as a monopod. The basic idea is to tie one end of the string to your camera and step on the other end on the floor. Pull it until the string is taut. Then your camera will be "steady".

The full article can be found here:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,145582-c,digitalcameras/article.html

Not Having Much Luck @ Tagaytay Highlands

We woke up a bit early because Ethan was making noises outside. He was calling for "Diego" (the cousin of "Dora" of Nickolodeon). I heard Cols wake up to check on Ethan, but I was still too drowsy so I stayed in bed. Since there was no TV in the living room, I heard Cols come back in to transfer the TV stand (with the TV on top of it) outside. After a few seconds, there was a loud thud. I assumed the worst, but since I did not hear any screaming, I figured maybe it was something else. After a few minutes, Cols came back to the bedroom and confirmed my worst fear -- they dropped the TV set!

The swivel where the TV set sits on top of is very slippery. A slight nudge of the TV can knock it off its perch. And it seemed that while they were setting up the TV at the living room, Ethan was being his usual busy-body. In the ensuing confusion, the TV fell down and cracked its side. Luckily, the glass screen itself was undamaged. But when we tried to turn on the set, only a bright vertical light appears in the middle with some audio. Looks like the video got busted. Hopefully its not the picture tube since that is like the cost of the entire TV.

I reported the incident to the building admin in the basement. They immediately contacted the clubhouse who, in turn, contacted the unit owner. After several follow-ups, I decided to go to the Spa & Lodge, where the main clubhouse management is located. Caitlin came with me since she was getting bored.

At the Spa & Lodge, Caitlin was not looking properly while walking and tripped on the sidewalk. She scraped her left knee but tried putting a brave face so that I won't get mad at her. But I noticed she was in pain so when I pulled up her shorts, I saw blood trickling in her wound. I let her rest a bit at the chair while I talk to the club manager regarding the TV. She said the owner wants to charge us P15k to replace the TV, which was supposedly just bought this past Feb! This vacation is turning out to be more expensive than we originally planned. After some haggling, the owner agreed to P12k. Still a bummer.

From the Spa & Lodge, I brought Caitlin to the sports center to be treated because that's the only place here with a clinic. The nurse (or was she a doctor) cleaned the wound and put gauze on top of it to prevent it from getting infected. Caitlin had to limp a bit in the meantime.

When we got back to our unit, we packed up our things and got ready to check out. For the checkout, we had to go back to The Spa & Lodge to settle our account (including paying for the darn TV). The checkout process was a bit slow. They had to call the building where we stayed so that housekeeping can check everything (if we stole anything, I guess). After a long wait, housekeeping told them that there were a couple of face towels missing. We checked with the maids, and turned out that Yaya Rose took home one as a souvenir. Grrr... We drove back to our place to return the towel, and pickup ours that was left behind.

Once we finally got out of Tagaytay Highlands, we drove off to Jollibee for a quick lunch. It rained a bit which dampened Caitlin's spirit since she was all set to go to Tagaytay Zoo. But after lunch, we drove towards the zoo. And by the time we got there, the rain has already stopped. It was hot again from there. We stayed at the zoo for about an hour, I think. Caitlin got to ride again on the miniature horse whom she also took a picture with when she was 2 years old.

From the zoo, it was time to go home. We arrived back in Manila around 4pm.