Photography with the Left Eye

When gas prices zoom, the car section of the newspaper is full of fuel saving tips and fuel efficient cars. For about a month.

When the price of electricity or natural gas or home heating oil zooms, the newspaper is full of weatherization strategies and fuel saving tips. For about a month (watch for some of those soon–the price of home heating oil tracks crude, and guess where crude is compared to last year?)

For those who travel, renting fuel efficient cars has finally become something worth paying attention to. I have rented cars for years through EV Rental, which, curiously, was not covered by the New York Time article today about how….uneconomic…it is to rent fuel efficient cars. Of course the big rental companies, smelling a new profit center, are charging a premium. I suppose they might someday read the memo about how they need to “green” their operations. And part of the way to green an operation is to help people do the right thing, rather than assuming that rich people are the only ones who want to do the right thing. In a generally execrable article, one interesting point snuck in:

The offer of free upgrades — a perk that once delighted customers at rental counters when the smaller vehicle they booked was sold out and they drove off in a large, often cushier car, for the same price — is now backfiring on rental car companies. “It used to be that many customers would purposely book a smaller car knowing that they could likely get an upgrade at the counter for free when the car they reserved wasn’t available,” Chris Payne, a spokesman for Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, wrote in an e-mail. “Today there are a lot of objections to the larger vehicle and a lot of times the consumer’s perception of a car being a ‘gas guzzler’ doesn’t match up with reality.”

Remember how I wrote a bit ago how the press is happy to say that SUVs are a really good deal? Here it comes again:

TO show customers that the difference in gas cost when upgrading isn’t as great as they may think, the company is introducing a chart at rental counters with vehicle fuel cost comparisons based on 100-mile trips. For example, an upgrade to the sexier Ford Mustang from the Toyota Camry LE will add $4.39 to your gas bill on a 100-mile trip, according to the chart. Moving up from the Toyota Prius to the Chrysler 300 will cost $12.16 extra in gas.

I didn’t quite know what to title this post–perhaps “lying with numbers,” perhaps how short term views hold out over long term views. But in the end it just seemed dismal. Apologies to the honest economists out there.

Kamileon, in a difficult arch.

We have become a nation obsessed with ID. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that a ne’er do well with really good counterfeiting skills is more worthy of admission to our innermost sanctum (or our most mundane locations, depending on mood and caprice).

What does this tell us? What does ID mean? I’m not sure if it’s an emotional reaction to the paternalistic state, or the feeling that we have to do something to be safe, even if that something really amounts to nothing other than more intrusion into our privacy.

Kristi. I saw her ID.

Here’s what I said to several generations of Scouts:

I was an Eagle Scout. I believe that the values that I learned as a Scout have influenced me greatly in my adult life. Values such as fairness, care for the environment, public service.

I am very proud of one of my nephews, who became an Eagle Scout.

On the other hand, another nephew could not have become an Eagle Scout, because he is gay, and the Boy Scouts have decided to discriminate against him, and everyone like him. These are not the values that I learned as a Boy Scout. I am ashamed of what the Boy Scout organization has become. It will change. I hope that change comes soon.

TD.

I recently flew out of SFO. Going through “security,” I was asked for my boarding pass four separate times. I’ll post later about why even once is wasteful, but four times? I’m not sure if it was the result of a bored TSA crew (traffic was light at that moment…and, silly me, I thought that would accelerate my progress), or some sort of covering of their collective asses, but that is a new record. Part of my frustration is that TSA is clearly underfunded for some of its core mandates, and has a reputation for very high turnover. This is one very small data point, but one that indicates to me that TSA management has a poor sense of priorities.

Twilight Daze

Understanding lighting.

Knowing about shapes, perspective, the rule of thirds.

Having a clue about color.

Knowing how to sell.

I think I’m pretty damn good at 1-3, though I always need to improve. I didn’t really understand how important, and all encompassing the last one was until recently. That’s the hardest for me. I didn’t grow up learning how to sell (myself, my skills, my art….). I’m learning, but it’s damn uncomfortable.

I’m taking a short break…expect another post in about a week.

Deluxious, last week.