<rant>
At just about $4 a gallon it’s going to cost me $120 to fill up my truck!
</rant>

The one nice thing about being able to work from home as often as I do is that you can save a lot of $$$ by not commuting on a daily basis. If you can do it, I highly encourage it. Not only do you not have to deal with the high price of gasoline these days, but you get to see your kids a lot more. There’s nothing in the world quite like having your 4 yr old bring you a plate of lunch that Mommy made for Daddy. And of course, who can pass up the little surprise visits where they come running over to see what you’re doing or ask when you’ll be done.

But seriously, what’s going on with these gasoline prices? I consider myself to be fairly intelligent, but I can’t get my head wrapped around why these prices are as high as they are. I don’t understand the speculators, I don’t understand the record breaking profits, I don’t understand the discrepancies in price between here and Jersey or here and my inlaws, or the price at the station down the block as compared to the station one mile from here. Just like it has with many other people I’m sure, it’s jolted me into a state of awareness of how much we really depend on oil. Between the price of food, to shipping costs, to the drive down to the shore this summer – I’ve become a lot more conscious of how much of an impact these gasoline prices are going to have on our life – and I don’t like it.

It spurs thoughts of solar panels and wind turbines and re-usable energy sources… electric cars anyone? Hmmm.. how about a middle ground. What about the idea of installing solar panels on the caps of my truck and a D.C. motor that I can switch to while driving? I can’t be the only Avalanche owner who’s thought of that while paying $100 to fill up…

Here’s what a 19 month old can do to a laptop keyboard:

Took me about an hour to finally get all those keys back on. “Tab” is still a little sticky though.

This afternoon I racked the Chilean Merlot. I decided to do it in the kitchen this time, instead of my basement – and it worked out much better. Next time though, instead of seating the carboy on the chair like I have here in the photo I think I may just put it on the floor. I had to do this towards the end anyway, as the suction got wonky on me a few times as it got closer to the bottom.

Sugar reading at this point is 1.000. The stuff floating around on top of the wine is about a cup or so of oak chips. I also added about two cups of water once I was finished racking, just to top off the carboy.