Go Speed Racer

Seriously, Go Speed Racer...go away.

We moved into our house 6 years ago.  We had been eyeing this street for a few years before that and had not had the chance to buy on the street because the prices were out of our range.  Finally, the original farmhouse for the platt came up for sale at a reasonable price.  For good reason too, it was a renovation nightmare.  But, I noticed the house across the street was for sale and we checked it out.  It was listed as a rental with two units but was listed with 1 bathroom.  I figured it was a mistake and sure enough, there was another bathroom in the second rental.  The price was fantastic because it hadn't sold as a 1 bathroom house and just like stars lining up correctly, our other house got an offer the same day we put an offer on our house.  (Actually, it was weird, while driving to the real estate agent's offer to put an offer on our house she called and told us there was an offer on ours.)  The result was perfect and we purchased our new house on a quiet street with well manicured lawns.

The only problem with the street was that it did not have sidewalks but the speed limit was 20 mph and we looked at the house at several different times of the day, witnessing no major traffic concerns.  We moved in just in time for Halloween and were converged upon by a group of 10 or 12, mostly parents, who came by to check US out.  What they really wanted to know was whether or not we were going to rent out the basement.  They skipped away jubilantly when we told them we weren't.  Apparently, they took this as a sign that the neighborhood was going back to perfect harmony.

And then came the housing boom.  We're all familiar with this boom and our neighborhood sold houses with amazing speed.  Once the existing houses started to disappear like warm cookies, then developers started to add houses with infill projects.  This added more people to the neighborhood, usually younger people with no families because the infill houses were smaller and more attractive to DINKS (dual income, no kids).  This is where my blog topic steps in.

Over the last 6 years we have seen an increase of traffic on our street.  It wouldn't be so bad if everybody just heeded the speed limit.  Unfortunately, we now have about a dozen people who regularly speed down our 20 mph street at speeds well over 25 mph.  The number of more aggressive drivers that get to our house at speeds over 35 mph is alarming.  We asked the county for a traffic study.  They recognized we had a couple of bad apples but nothing that warranted speed bumps.  They did add a speed limit sign to the end of the street that didn't have one and had the home owner with the brush covering the original speed sign on the street, make the sign actually visible.

This might have changed a few driver's behaviors but there were still the bad apples.  The ironic part of the new speed limit sign was that a speeding driver lost control of their car and took out some bushes AND the NEW speed limit sign not even ONE WEEK after the new sign appeared.  The new speed limit sign was quickly fixed but it just highlighted the problem.

So, we still have the regular speeders down our street.  When our oldest child goes to the neighbor's house across the street, both moms have to stand by the street and make sure all sets of children get across okay.  We are on the ready to jump into the street at the mere sign of somebody not paying attention.

There is little we can do, except this one handy tool: our police department has an online reporting form we can use to report speeding drivers.  Believe me, we're not even bothering with the 25-30 mph drivers and instead only reporting the ones that are WELL above in the 35-40 mph zone.  You would think that there wouldn't be that many to report but I reported two last week and expect to report at least two this week.  The police cannot be everywhere at once so it is our job as neighbors to protect the livability of our streets by taking reasonable actions on our own.  We're not talking vigilante justice, just taking down the license plate number and filling out a form.

There is a real cost to speeding aside from just annoying and panicking moms and dads in residential areas.  A speeding ticket includes a fine, double if you're in a school zone.  Your insurance company then may start charging you a surcharge for having a damaged record.  In some areas one ticket equals an extra $150 per year.  Now, you're $50 fine is costing you $500.

There is another cost though.  In 2005 the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Association) reported 13,113 deaths from speeding related accidents.  The drivers were not impaired, just driving too fast.  See www.nhtsa.dot.gov for more information including a statistical analysis of 2008 driving fatalities.

The number of fatalities increases (obviously) when considering drivers who drive under the influence of any drug.  The NHTSA has a good pdf on children and cars.  Speeding with kids in the car or driving with kids while intoxicated amounts to child abuse and law enforcement is connecting many of those incidents with separate incidents of neglect.  The correlation is unnerving but it really just comes down to: if you don't care about anybody on the road except yourself then you probably don't have much esteem for your own children as well.

Here we get to my big piece of aggravation.  There is this kid on our street, we'll call him Timmy, and Timmy has some sort of mental delay.  We think it's related to fetal alcohol syndrome and his adoptive parents try to do a good job keeping him under control.  The truth is, Timmy bugs the crap out of me.  From April through October this kid regularly jumps in front of my car with his hand held up like a traffic cops.  When he's not jumping out in front of my car, he's riding his bike down the middle of the street without a care in the world and doesn't bother moving to the side of the street when a car approaches.  I call this my "Timmy Aggravation" and have yelled at him on more than one occasion.  This kid is going to get hit by a car one of these days and no matter how irritating this is, I just don't want to see a kid get killed on our street while I did nothing about the speeders.  It says something about a person who is willing to watch illegal activity right under their noses and can calmly go on as if nothing was happening.  If we want change, we have to recognize that change begins with us in all areas of our lives.

It makes a difference how you drive in residential areas.  There are Timmy-types all over the country.  Running over a kid is not like running over a squirrel.  There are very real repercussions for hitting a kid and they don't stop with legal ramifications.  The scars of killing or maiming a child while speeding carelessly on a residential street would haunt a person forever.  It is time we all make a difference in our neighborhoods by being more careful about how we drive and taking the stand that speeding is not acceptable for any reason.  If you have a true medical emergency that makes speeding required, you should call for an ambulance.  Speeding is just not acceptable.

Timmy still bugs the crap out of me but I'm willing to do this even for him.

Spring Training

Maybe you're not in the same league as Ty Cobb or Lou Gehrig but you still need to manage your home field grass.  The beginning of Spring is the perfect time to practice incremental environmentalism and change one polluting habit, how you mow your lawn.

You already know that you spend a decent amount of money on watering your lawn and finding creative ways to keep it green.  Most people are not aware that their lawn mower is a heavy polluter, worse than your car.  In fact, a small gas lawn mower spews a whopping 4 times the pollution than your car in ONE HOUR of operation.  It's the equivalent of 11 cars on the road for a big mulching mower and 34 cars for a riding mower all driving 55 mph for an hour.  These emissions include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and un-burnt hydrocarbons.  Did you ever notice you wreak after mowing the lawn?

So, why is the lawn mower a bigger polluter than your car and why do you end up smelling like Pigpen when you're  done mowing your lawn?  Your lawn mower doesn't have a catalytic converter.  The device, a standard on cars since the 1970's, lowers emissions.  It would make the lawn mower cost prohibitive and too big for the average consumer to add one, so figuring that they only get used once per week during the grass growing season, lawn mowers were never given a catalytic converter.

If that's not enough to make you want to second guess your lawn mower, then another shocking item is that each year Americans manage to spill 17 million gallons of gas when filling up our lawn mowers.  Don't believe me?  Watch any 13 year old fill up a lawn mower's gas tank.  Even I get drips down the side of the tank sometimes.  This wastes a precious fossil fuel and contaminates the ground water and soil.

The end result is a heavy polluter that most people don't think anything about because you can pick one up at the hardware store for as cheap as $150.

So, what's the solution?  

1.  Re-think your landscape without grass.  Grow edible plants!  Throw down rock; plant a flower garden or you can even invest in ornamental grasses that never require cutting and require less water than traditional lawn grass.  The downside is that grass helps cool down the planet unlike black asphalt or dark rock that can heat things up.  The other downside is that kids, swing sets and rock do not mix.  (Although, you don't need grass for a good playground.  San Francisco has a fantastic urban playground on the roof of the Moscone Convention Center.  The play surface is recycled from old tires, shoes and other discarded rubber items and it's thrilling to walk and run on.  The colors come in an enticing array of colors others than black.)
2. Buy an electric lawn mower.  The cost is in the same range as a traditional gas mower.  The downside is the power.  While it only costs about $5 a year to operate, you have to run an extension cord and you're bound to the grid for your power.  If the lights go out or you run over your extension cord, there is no mowing for you.
3. A push mower.  Yes, the kind your grandparents had.  No emissions, no fossil fuels and little maintenance (just sharpen the blades once per year and spray the works with a little WD-40 every once in a while). The downside?  If you have a really big lawn, you might have to start mowing again as soon as you finish.
4. Battery and solar powered mowers.  It's not too far off when battery powered mowers will be a mainstream item.  However, they cost a few hundred dollars more than an electric or gas mower so you probably won't find a battery operated mower at Home Depot.  The downside here is cost and they aren't as readily available.

While none of the solutions are without downsides I think we can all make a difference by employing several of the strategies to get us closer to shutting off the gas mower.

Here is what we did: we replaced our mower with a push mower.  It does require more work to operate but we found that we could mow our lawn and it only really added 15 minutes to mow our 1/4 of an acre of grass.  The best part is there are no fumes and little noise.  You can listen to your iPod at a safe volume while you mow.  The kids can be outside while you mow because it doesn't send debris flying off at eye gouging speeds.  It is great exercise, although I was easily able to mow the lawn when I was 8 months pregnant.  

Next we started chipping away at the amount of grass we have.  Wherever possible, we have or are in the process of replacing grass with gardens.  Some of the garden space contains drought resistant (low water) flowering plants while the rest of the garden is edible.  However strange it may seem, there will be tomatoes growing in our front yard this year.  The winter months might be a bit of a visual challenge but the grass doesn't look so great in the winter either.  We will probably have a lot of kale, garlic and onions planted.

The end result is the kids still have grass to play on, we have vegetables growing to save us grocery money and we are not spewing angry fumes when we mow.

Gas powered mowers are a real part of our pollution and energy consumption problems.  By changing our lawn mowing habits we are decreasing pollutants.  Reducing this particular pollution makes a huge difference, especially for vulnerable people like kids with asthma.

Whine? No! Part II

The 20% discount sale at Albertsons ends tomorrow at midnight (4/07/09); be there before midnight strikes.

Given this information, I went back for a THIRD wine adventure.  This time I went with all Columbia Crest Wines.  The rebate is for the Grand Estate or Two Vines collections.  I came to know the Grand Estates wine through a wine enthusiast who was head over heels in love with one of the 2003 reds.  Given his recommendation and my limited knowledge (aside from, "ugh, good, Nikki Like"), I have kept my eye on this brand.

To make life simpler for my blog, Albertsons not only priced the Two Vines merlot, cab and chardonnay all at $7.49 but also discounted them the same so all 6 were $6.58.  Okay, math time.  The 6 bottles at the $6.58 reduced price came to $39.48.  20% off takes $7.89 off the total price.  Cost after the 20% = $31.59.  Now take off the $18 rebate (remember the tag around the neck of the wine bottle?); my total cost was $13.59 for 6 bottles of wine.

New tip: if you want to do more than one rebate program with one trip to the store, ask the cashier for a duplicate receipt.  The rebate requests an original receipt but the head of the wine department at the Albertsons on 16th and State in Boise said they will accept a duplicate receipt from the register.  Remember to read the rebate instructions very carefully.  They're tricky.

Have fun.

Whine? No!

The other night I bought 6 bottles of wine for $7.92.  I am now and have been for quite some time, a coupon/deal freak.  I love going to the store and not paying full price for anything that I bought.  On this particular night, the only item I paid full price for were the popsicles that sent me to the store in the first place.

You're probably more interested in the wine though.  Most places will give you a discount if you buy enough bottles of wine.  Albertsons normally gives you a 10% discount if you buy 6 bottles, plus you get the free wine bottle tote bag.  However, on this particular occasion, the 6 bottle discount was raised to 20%.  A discount of 10% is good, a discount of 20% is phenomenal.  It has the power to turn a $20 bottle of wine into a $16 bottle of wine (or if you're rather like me, it turns a $10 bottle into an $8 bottle).

20% was too great to pass up so I set about looking for 6 bottles I would like to go home with.  My standards aren't THAT low but I confess it's easy to entertain my inner wino for less than $10 per bottle. My default bottle of "cheap and good" wine is Robert Mondavi's merlot.  It tastes smooth and nothing like rotting cabbage or vinegar.  It's a very drinkable wine with nothing that curls your toes, eyebrows etc.  You should be aware that this is the extent of my wine review abilities.  (ex. Does it taste like something that has sat in a horses stall for a month?  Is it sour, too sweet?  Does it make your face contort?)  Robert Mondavi's wine is mellow and tastes good.  One friend told us over a bottle of Mondavi's merlot, "I'm enjoying the shit out of this wine."  There you have it.  Don't give me reviews about the fruity overtones, I have no idea what that's REALLY supposed to mean.  I taste wine when wine is what is in a glass.

My bottle of Mondavi had one of those super irritating tags on the neck of the bottle.  I regard those like I do advertisements on windshields, assinine and not worth the effort to remove it intentionally.  If you look closely at those silly attachments sometimes they are an advertisement touting the benefits of a particular wine (fruity overtones etc).  In the last year, with the coming out of many fellow cheapwads, these around the neck pieces of paper have evolved into rebate coupons.  Robert Mondavi's merlot had a tag around the neck telling me that if I bought 1 bottle of their wine or any other pictures on the tag, then sent in my original receipt and the UPC code from the wine, they would send me $3.  If I bought 2 bottles of wine, they would send me $6.  This whole offer taps out at, coincidentally, 6 bottles of wine.  If you buy 6 bottles of Mondavi and associates wine, fill out this tag from around the neck of the wine bottle and send that in with the original receipt, these people will send you $18!

Okay, so now we have wine discounted 20% with a rebate coupon for $18.  I used this opportunity to try other wines in the Mondavi family that were approved for the rebate.  Low and behold most of the wines were on sale with a Preferred Discount card.

This is about how it went (the receipt is long gone on its way to claim my rebate already), I bought 6 bottles with an average price of $5.40.  Yes, ordinarily that would be unrealistic to buy any wine for $5.40 that doesn't make you cringe when swallowing but once again, most were on sale.  6 bottles for $5.40 comes out to $32.40.  Take off the 20% discount and you have a price tag of $25.92.  Turn in your rebate for $18 and your final price is $7.92 for 6 bottles of wine for a SAVINGS of $24.48.

A better example might be if your average bottle cost $7.  That's $42.00 for all 6 bottles.  With 20% off it comes to $33.60.  With the $18 rebate it comes in at a grand total of $15.60 for six bottles of wine, a SAVINGS of $26.40.

It's not just the Mondavi family of wines with this $18 rebate offer.  I found several different wineries with the same rebate offer of $3 per bottle.  There are some higher end wines with $4 per bottle rebates.  Albertsons will also special order a brand if they don't have it.  One of my favorite bottles right now when I'm feeling flush with money or horribly depressed, is Girasole from Mendocino, California.  It's an organic winery and it's difficult to find but at $12 per bottle it leaves me without family friendly words to describe how much I enjoy it.

Now for the best part?  Albertsons has extended their 20% off sale until 4/12/09.  Now go out and stock up your wine rack!

Cheers,

Nik