The Ending of Summer

As the end of summer is nearing, we are reminded over and over again how truly blessed we are.  God has given us many things including two good jobs (with two good bosses), a comfortable apartment that is cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and a relaxing place to which we can come home, a dependable vehicle (and a motorcycle that we can ride in the summer just for fun), great friends, and family on both sides that we love to visit.  We have a great church to attend and we are constantly challenged to seek the Lord and to grow in our faith.  Yes, we are blessed.  By God.

We went up to Maine for a long weekend at the beginning of this month to visit Dad Gulstrom for his birthday.  We had a very enjoyable time picking the last of the green beans from their garden and washing, cutting and blanching them and freezing them.  We got to visit with lots of family and we had MUCH good food to eat.  We were loaded down with lots of good canned goods, the green beans we froze while we were there, and several jars of homemade preserves and sent on our way back to Ohio at 5:00AM monday morning.  Well, we got up and left on our own accord.  We wanted some time to unpack before work started Tuesday. :)

On a somewhat unrelated topic, i find that I am often wanting to collect data about almost every aspect of our lives.  This could be because of engineering tenancies in my thought processes.  Some educated individuals allude that people like me and Jake (and probably lots of other OCD type people) exhibit behavior that would put us inside one end of the spectrum of symptoms that begins to indicate autistic behavior.  I wouldn't disagree that I like to have some things just right.  Why do I insist that we collect all kinds of data each and every time we fill up the car with gas?  Because eventually, i would like to look at that data to determine if we get better gas mileage with gas from Kwik Fill or Mobil.  And who wouldn't want to know the average miles per gallon that they have gotten with a vehicle over the life of that vehicle. (FYI: our Toyota Corrolla = 34.1 mpg over the last 100 fill-ups; Honda Shadow = 38.5 mpg over the last 41 fill-ups)  Yeah weird.  Cool, but weird.  All of this is made much more possible by the iPod Touch or the Smartphone.  There's an app for almost everything.  OH.  And Google Maps is also very cool for the analysis of road trips.  Let me get back to the whole reason I got on this topic.  Our Trip to Maine.  It is a 10 hour drive up to Maine without any stops.  We can usually make it up there in 10.5 hours.  There are two routes on which we have traveled since we have been traveling between the Buffalo area and the Maine area.


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The first route is shown above.  This route takes us through Massachusetts and it is pretty much highway driving the whole way.  It is 583 miles long.  It takes us 10.5 hours including stops and approximately 24.50 in tolls.


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The second, and preferred route is shown above.  This route takes us on route 7 and 9 through Vermont and New Hampshire.  It is a mix of two lane, State Route driving and highway driving.  It is 537 miles long.  It takes us 10.5 hours including stops and approximately 12.25 in tolls.

Now, because we keep track of our gas mileage, i can tell you that we get the same mileage on both routes.  The only explanation for that is that I think our gas mileage is diminished on the highway when we are driving over 65 MPH.  Because of air resistance.  Anyway, to make a long story short, even though our miles to time ratio is slightly lower on the second route, it doesn't take any longer overall and it saves us over 10 dollars in gas and 25 dollars in tolls when you consider a round trip.  Also, we enjoy the trip better.  Some might say that there is no way it doesn't take us longer to take the second route.  But it doesn't.  Maybe its because we don't drive as fast on the highway as some and don't make as good of time as we might on the first route. LOL  Anyway, I find looking at these types of comparisons fun.  If you find it boring, then don't worry about it.  I won't always bore you with this analytical talk.

Moving on to more interesting things.  We bought a new tent last week for camping and got to try it out Friday night.  It was about 45 degrees F, and we had lots of blankets and....yes, a queen air mattress. :)  We were camping in Jake and Laura's back yard with them.  They had their tent and we had ours and it was quite fun.  When I woke up in the morning, I was so cozy that I had forgotten that we were in a tent!  I hope we get more opportunity to use our new tent.

Dad and Rose came up to visit Saturday evening.  They arrived in time to enjoy a cajun chicken alfredo dinner.  We also had some peach crisp that Rose had brought.  Everything was delicious.  They went to church with us Sunday morning and after a picnic in Chestnut Ridge Park, they went on up to Niagara Falls before they headed back to Ohio.  We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them and it was great.

As I am writing this, I am listening to some music that we have recently discovered.  http://theodesproject.net/2010/05/youtube-the-lord-is-our-mirror-dr-james-h-charlesworth/
The Odes Project is a really cool.  They have put the Odes of Solmon to newer music.  The Odes of Solomon is said to be the earliest Christian Hymnal.  The above link is a reading of one of the Odes of Solomon.  http://theodesproject.net/media/odes-accompaniment-tracks/  This link is a link to the accompaniment tracks that they have produced.   You can preview the music there.  We were able to download an album from iTunes.  You can also buy and download them here at their website if you want.

Also in my spare time, I did some work on our companies website. Sort of inspired by Melissa who did the same at her company. You can check them out here if you want.
www.mdaengineers.com
www.clearcreekls.com

Anyway, I better get going.  Have a blessed week.
Until Next Time....