All Posts Tagged With: "tolerance"

I saw this headline on MSNBC: “Obama defends his overseas trip.” My simple question is, “Why?” Why should he have to defend it?

Obama’s opponents have, prior to this trip, criticized Obama for not having visited Iraq or Afghanistan recently and for being weak on foreign policy. Obama answer the challenge and his opponents are not criticizing for visiting Iraq and Afghanistan and Europe.

This election season is literally making me sick to my stomach. I’m just plain tired of it.

I’m now actively avoiding news programs and any shows that might cover the candidates. I’ve stopped reading blogs and websites that are consumed by the daily grind of the campaign. I’ve restricted myself to culling my news from online news sources, but find myself having to dig through all the oversaturation of election coverage to find out what else is happening in the world outside of politics.

This is the last post about politics that you’ll read for the foreseeable future — or at least until the VP picks are in and I weigh in on that. Seriously, I am beyond my tolerance of the political coverage, and I have a pretty high tolerance (and appetite) for this type of stuff. This election cycle has been as exhausting and absurdly extreme as I’ve ever experienced. And I’m disconnecting for a while… for my sanity.

“Are we there yet?” is the question that keeps running through my mind. Election Day couldn’t come fast enough.

It’s really a sad state of affairs when you get excited about a $3.61-per-gallon gas price. Yesterday morning I filled up my Honda Odyssey at the 7-Eleven at 15th and Boulevard in Edmond. I knew that they would be cheaper than the closer Conoco station at 15th and Broadway, but I was pleasantly surprised that they were 20 cents cheaper! It pretty much made my day yesterday — at least it made for a more pleasant drive to work!

It amazes me and certainly doesn’t seem like good business that the Conoco — a mere one block away from the 7-Eleven — was so much higher. Oh well, their loss!

I typically don’t go out of my way to price shop for the lowest gas prices because I figure that if it’s not on the way or nearby, then any potential savings of a few cents per gallon will likely be offset by the amount of gas it takes to get there. If I find something 5 cents per gallon cheaper, I will only save about 80 cents filling up there, but may spend twice that much or more in gas getting there.

However, finding a gas station with 20 cents per gallon cheaper within one block essentially meant I got nearly a gallon of gas free!

Oh how far we’ve come in the last couple of years. I remember getting upset that gas prices were approaching $2 per gallon. Now, we keep flirting with $4 per gallon in our area (while others around the country have long since blown by that milestone). That’s a big adjustment in such a short period of time, especially when you have a larger vehicle like my minivan. I’ve looked at the feasibility of trading it in, but with a family of four plus three canines to haul around on family trips, smaller wouldn’t work quite as well.

Indeed, our tolerance for pain at the pumps has increased. When Hurricane Katrina resulted in the jump in gas prices to $3.25 per gallon, I was trying to figure out how we would afford it and looking at ways to cut back on travel. Now look at us. $3.25 per gallon would seem like we hit the lottery!

After paying $3.89 per gallon last week (for a total near $68 to fill up), $3.61 seemed like I had hit a small lottery. The downside is that $3.61 will likely be near the bottom end of what we pay for gas going forward. The upside is that maybe all this pain at the pump will finally force the government and automakers to actually come up with real solutions. But I won’t hold my breath.