socialy retarded

Your Prius is polluting my sensibilities.

Posted on 07. Nov, 2009 by Derrick.

During Halloween, of all times, I got into an eco-driven argument with a self proclaimed eco-friendly tree hugger. Like all eco-freaks he was a liberal eco-wienie that clearly wore his heart on his sleeve.  The conversation started when the effete snobbish Prius owner pointed out that his hybrid was better than my poor Honda Civic. I calmly pointed out that he purchased a vehicle with a larger carbon footprint than mine and he was simply a sheep for following the star fucking environmental Hollywood nazi’s.  I told him that he was a fraud and his choice was uninformed.  I also informed him that if he truly wanted to be eco friendly that he should commute to work on his bike like me.

Mr. Prius went into a triad, daring me to say more, rudely interrupting me, and making false statements. I thought at some point, after I questioned his manhood, that he was going to actually hit me. Just like religious zealots, eco-wienies have no cognitive dissonance. The possibility that Leonardo DiCaprio may be wrong, jesus, the humanity!

No one emits righteousness like an eco-yuppy behind the wheel of a hybrid. I had a hybrid owner almost run me off the road on a bike commute to just lean out of the window and yell “get on the sidewalk!”. I found it ironic that she was overweight and smoking, but she did remember the requisite Obama sticker on her bumper. I can only imagine due to the inflated costs, Prius owners  must think the extra five grand they paid is worth every penny in terms of the smugness it affords them. But do hybrids actually benefit the environment? Recently a report was published from CNW marketing research pitting a Hummer vs the Prius. The report, titled “Dust to Dust,” was cited in a March 2007 editorial in the Recorder, a student newspaper at Central Connecticut State University. The report goes on to say that you would be better off buying a Hummer than to buy a Prius.

Now I’m not going to quantify my argument by stating you would be better off buying a Hummer. I think that premonition is a bit of a stretch, but Later I’d like to make a more apples-to-apples comparison. Mr Eco-fraud claimed during our argument that I had no basis for calling him out, so I wanted to bring some facts to the table. Shed some light on his ignorance.

The nickel for the Nickel Metal Hydride(NiMH) Battery array, for instance, is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, and melted at nearby Nickel Centre, just north of the province’s massive Georgian Bay.

Toyota buys about 1,000 tons of nickel from the facility each year, ships the nickel to Wales for refining, then to China, where it’s manufactured into nickel foam, and then onto Toyota’s battery plant in Japan.

That alone creates a globe-trotting trail of carbon emissions that ought to seriously concern everyone involved in the fight against global warming. All told, the start-to-finish journey travels more than 10,000 miles — mostly by container ship, but also by diesel locomotive.

But it’s not just the clouds of greenhouse gases generated by all that smelting, refining, manufacturing and transporting that worries green activists. The 1,250-foot-tall smokestack that spews huge puffs of sulfur dioxide at the Sudbury mine and smelter operation has left a large swath of the surrounding area looking like a surreal wasteland.

On the perimeter of the area, skeletons of trees and bushes stand like ghostly sentinels guarding a sprawling wasteland. Astronauts in training for NASA actually have practiced driving moon buggies on the suburban Sudbury tract because it’s considered a duplicate of the Moon’s landscape.

According to the National Renewable Energy lab, the Prius contains 38 NiMH batteries connected in a series. The extra weight caused by this array has also been researched by Carnegie Mellon (one of the largest university-based environmental education and research centers in the U.S.)

“……. In contrast, a PHEV battery pack may contain 3–30kWh and weigh 30–300 kg plus the additional vehicle structural weight required to carry these batteries, and the vehicle must carry this weight even after the battery is depleted. Additional battery weight decreases the attainable efficiency in miles per kWh in CDmode as well as miles per gallon in CS-mode (once the battery is depleted to its lower target SOC). Thus, while increased battery capacity extends AER, it decreases efficiency in both CD- and CSmodes.”

But of course, environmental devastation of Canada’s pristine land is a small price to pay for a pious gesture in support of environmentalism.

Toyota does admit that because the Prius’ engine and battery are relatively complex, assembling the hybrid requires more energy than making a similarly sized nonhybrid vehicle. But the company has never quantified that energy premium. In order to do an apples-to-apples comparison, let’s pit the Prius against a car more its size. My car. The Honda Civic. (Caution Science and Math ahead)

According to the federal government’s 2008 fuel economy guide (PDF), a Prius averages 46.5 miles per gallon (assuming half of a driver’s time is spent on city streets and half on the highway). Beyond 172,500 miles, then, the Prius will consume 3,710 gallons of gas. Each gallon contains approximately 124,000 BTUs of energy, so that translates into 460 million BTUs’ worth of burned fuel. But it takes 113 million BTUs of energy to make a Toyota Prius. The Prius has consumed the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gasoline before it reaches the showroom floor. Think of it as a carbon debt — one you won’t pay off until the Prius has turned over 46,000 miles or so. The Prius will have to go 100,000 miles to achieve the same carbon savings as my 5 year old little Honda.

The scales could definitely tip in favor of my used Honda if you put the $14,000 you saved (blue book on my Honda is 8k) toward making some critical technological upgrades in your house—for example, converting your appliences to EnergyStar or buy some solar panels and get “off the grid”. The average American household uses about 600 watts on average. Over the course of 24 hours, you need 600 watts * 24 hours = 14,400 watt-hours per day. That’s a solar panel that measures about 285 square feet. That would cost around $16,000 right now.

You could use the money saved to buy yourself a top of the line commuter-bike with all the bells and whistles. Your carbon debt would be ZERO. I’ve calculated that over the time I’ve commuted on my bike I’ve saved over 4,000 miles or the equivalent of 120 gallons of gasoline (given the average mpg my Civic gets).

My Eco-conversant friend managed to get out, through his red-faced shrieking that, it was too much of an inconvenience to commute on his bike. It was to long (11 miles one way), and he would have to get up to early (5am). If he was that much of an environmentalist, no amount of inconvenience should stop him from his ultimate goal, saving the environment. He is a fraud.

That is the real reason for this blog, this was not ment as an indictment of the Prius. I actually don’t care at all if you buy a Prius. If your reasons are for the tax break in 2006, I get that. If it was for the economical gas savings, I get that also. What I dislike is the hand wrangling, soap box preening, holier than thou eco-cunt that claims that her over priced baboons ass for a car is better than mine.

I quietly go about doing my part to help the environment, I don’t make a fuss about it, nor do I command other people to follow my example. Just like my religious beliefs, I have no intentions of preaching to the masses.

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Week in review.

Posted on 19. Jul, 2009 by Derrick.

This past week has been action packed. So much so, that I didn’t have time to post any of this weeks events. So I’ll just do a day by day break down.

Saturday July 11th. Summer, Hyon, Theresa, and I had a road ride planned. The girls bailed, so the boys decided to do some mountainbiking. Not that I don’t love riding with Summer, but when its just the boys we have a tendency to go lickety split. Hyon took me to a place called Apex.

The trail in its self was difficult and challenging with multiple bike-n-hike areas. It was about 8 miles total with roughly 2200 feet in elevation gain.

At this point we were about 3/4ths of the way up (Hyon kept saying that at least)

On our way down we hit the Enchanted forest. An amazing decline, lots of roots and little hazards that made the ride just a tad more fun!

Saturday, July 12th. Summer and I rode 26  miles down the Platt river and back. We spent a good portion of that time chilling at a splash pool in littleton watch kids play.

Monday, July 13th. I took my mom out to the Westminster Open space. Guinness’ favorite place of all time. Mom was laughing at Guin and his antics in the water. Later that week we found out that they closed the Open space due to the plague.

Environmental Health Services submitted flea specimens to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for testing on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 and received results back this morning. The area is being closed to the public and posted with plague warnings signs today.

Dr. Jim Dale, DVM, MPH, Director of Environmental Health Services said, “There have been no reported human cases of plague in the area and if precautions are taken the disease is not considered to be a threat to humans.”

Apparently all the little prairie dogs are extremely susceptible to plague. It was odd because Summer and I were lamenting before the press release that we hadn’t seen any little faces around open space. We thought it was simply due to the grass being to high in areas. Its a good thing that our dog has given up on trying to catch those little guys.

Tuesdays, July 14th. Mom and I swung by my little gym and I swam 2000 meters. It was a good session, and the Total Immersion training is paying off. I can easily swim the 750 meters required for my triathlon. We then headed downtown so we can buy her a new rain jacket at REI. Then sat and shot the shit for a couple of hours while she was amazed at how many people used the bike paths in downtown Denver.

Wednesday, July 15th. Since my mother is visiting form Germany, I loaned her my car. I normally commute on my bike anyways. So I hit the road and had a uneventful commute into work. Most of my co-workers seemed concerned about it being in the mid 80′s, but I have been used to riding in the 110 degree heat of Phoenix.

I got a call from Hyon at about 7:40pm asking if I wanted to go do lookout mountain. I knew that I was going to have to ride again on Thursday and Friday, but I could never turn down an evening ride.

So decked out in my commuter gear (ie T-shirt and running shorts) We hit the bottom of the ride at about 9:30pm. It was a nice cool 70 degrees, and the darkness hid the hill climb. My legs were still a little sore from our ride just a couple of days ago, but I put my head down and we made it up in about 40 minutes. Respectible time but we decided to push it to the tippy top and ride another mile.

Bombing down the mountain with just some bike lights was fun. My heavy ass steel touring bike with 28mm wheels tends to handle the descent better then a normal road bike. So I had to slow down a bit for Hyon.

Thursday, July 16. Commuting only! Just good ol fashioned bike commuting.

Friday, July 17. I thought that since I had not swam since Tuesday, I would hit the gym after work. So I packed my panniers with my swim gear and headed off to work. After work I rode over to the gym and figured I would get another 2000 meters in. This time I wanted to see how fast I could get my first 750 meters done. 22 minutes! When we started this Tri-training, I was well over 30 minutes. My goal is to be in the 18 minute range before the tri.

So in review, the past week I;

• Swam 4000 meters
• Hiked 5 miles
• 67 miles of road riding.
• 10 miles of mountain biking.
• Rode just under a mile of elevation (5000 feet)

I think somewhere in there I worked. I’ll have to say though. With all that I did, my legs feel great. I’m looking forward to running 4 miles on Monday

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Two weeks off makes for fresh legs

Posted on 09. Apr, 2009 by Derrick.

Yeah, I took a little bit of time off due to our snow situation. I know I should suck it up and ride more but I’m not quite crazy enough to try and ride when there is snow on the ground.

Today’s ride home sucked. I had a head wind all the way home, which makes my 400 foot accent difficult.

I’m going to need to get some fenders for my bike soon. The summers in Colorado always bring random showers, you never know when its going to start pooring. I don’t mind a little bit of rain when riding, but I cant stand having the stripe up the butt.

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Commuting in the cold

Posted on 23. Mar, 2009 by Derrick.

Even though I’m reporting after the fact. the last two weeks have been cold as hell in the morning.

Most of you know that I started commuting on my bike in phoenix where right now, its 92 degrees.

with moving to Colorado, my commutes have dipped to 19 degrees in the morning and damn its cold. I would rather be cold then hot any day of the week. Sometimes when riding in phoenix, I would have to drink 2 liters of water from work to home. Now all I have to do is bundle up a bit.

I can handle layers. I can’t handle dying of heat exhaustion!

- Derrick

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Bad news on the home front

Posted on 04. Mar, 2009 by Derrick.

I hate being to young to get the job that you are qualified for but someone else gets it because they “look” the part. I like the guy well enough, but I’m more qualified. He’s 40, I’m 28. He can grow a goatee, I still grow peach fuzz.

Besides that. I had a great ride today. This is my favorite part to it, its difficult to see from my phone, but from this vantage point you can see all the way from longs peak to pikes peak, and down town Denver.

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Back to commuting (bonus skiing pics)

Posted on 03. Mar, 2009 by Derrick.

Now that our lives have officially slowed down and we are getting a routine set in place, I’ve finally been able to get back to riding to work. As most of you know that my former commute was 22 miles one way. This time around, my commute is only 8 miles one way.

The one noticeable difference. I’ve now got 400ft in elevation change from start to finish. That makes me have a 25 minute ride to work, but coming home is more like 40 minutes. I like the hills, but going from flat Phoenix to Denver has been a great benefit.

I’ll take a pic of my favorite spot in my ride tomorrow and post it.

I have a couple random pics from the last couple of times skiing. This next one is “game night” normally on saturday before. We happened to drink a little to much and played monopoly.

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