Katrina and Gas

I have been transfixed by this hurricane, even before it hit. I usually am not. I don't know why I was this time... maybe I somehow knew it was going to be bad. I've never been to New Orleans. I hope the city recovers to some degree so I can see it once. If not, maybe someone will create a good VR of it.

I donanted to the Red Cross. It was all I could do; I have too many reponsibilities otherwise to be able to volunteer. I realized that I gave more money to the Red Cross than I have to all charities, alumni organizations, PACs, etc over the past 5 years. I need to change that. I have enough money that I should be donating to causes that I support. I have my life membership in Sierra Club, but that was done before that 5 year thing started. And I haven't donated to it much lately either.

I think I need to come up with 5-10 organizations whose efforts I want to support monetarily. I may volunteer at 1-2 others - another thing I have neglected since college.

In other news, in my drive from DC to Philly tonight I managed to average 38 MPG. That's roughly a 15% improvement from normal. With the rising price of gas, I'm going to do what I can to use less. Here's what I did with my driving style:
1. Slow accelerations & decelerations: roughly 2.5mph/second accel, and decel as gently as possible. Occasionally I had to speed up faster, but I tried to avoid those times.
2. No AC - I had the drivers window open ~2 inches, which was enough.
3. Slowed down. I still sped, but I was going 62 in the 55 zones and 70 in the 65. There was a HUGE difference in MPG when I was going 70 vs 62, but, if I went slower it didn't feel safe as so many cars were blowing past me
4. Used cruise control most of the time. Its hard when driving in traffic, but, I tried to use it and did for about 80% of the drive.