Well, folks, I've been wanting to start blogging for a while now. The main reason I chose to hold off is because I didn't think I had much to write about, but lately I have more frequently had experiences that I thought would be blog-worthy. And if I start posting, maybe this thing will take a certain direction. In the meantime, consider this blog a stream of consciousness from my brain.

Today I had my first true experience with gas shortages. I understand there was a gas shortage back in 1973 (see this page), but I have never experienced one of these in my lifetime.

I haven't filled up my gas tank in 12 days (yes, I walk to work), but it was getting low, so I set out this morning to investigate the situation. I found about 15 gas stations without gas and 1 with gas. The one with gas was a Marathon station, and I didn't feel like waiting in line for gas.

Later that day I decided I should suck it up and just go wait in line, so I drove back to Marathon and waited in this line that was wrapping around Northside Drive into 10th St. Here's a news guy filming the occasion:

The wait was only about 10 minutes, but when I finally got to the pump, I saw this:

Since I drive a BMW, I was a little concerned about putting this Octane Booster junk in my gas tank, but after calling a car-savvy friend, I went ahead and got the booster, which was in a scary hot orange bottle:

This ended up adding about 30 cents per gallon of gas, so it wasn't quite the price gouge I thought it was going to be. My car seems to have been driving okay since I put this jet fuel in my gas tank.