Andy's Blog

I drove 434.4 miles in the month of February. If I were to round, my car costs me $630.74 per month in fixed cost. If you add the $48.02 in fuel I used for the month, that brings my total operating expense to $678.76.

So, in the month of February, my car had what the airline industry calls a CASM - Cost Available Seat / Mile - of $1.45. In 2007, United Airlines had a CASM of $.11 on all it's flights. Flying a plane is approximately 13 times cheaper than my car last month.

Most of you are probably bored right now and are pulling up feelings you haven't had since 7th grade Algebra. For that I apologize.

But here is my question. Is Al Gore the only reason I am keeping my car?

The beauty of my location is that I do not live more than 1.4 miles from anything I need - except Jamba Juice which is 374 miles away. In the first map below, I have within the gray shaded box the following:

• My Office
• Super Target
• Kroger
• Chick-Fil-A
• McDonalds
• Pizza Hut
• Starbucks
• Blockbuster
• 22.3 Restaurants (I refuse to count Di Paolo as a full restaurant)

In case Miss South Carolina is having this blog read to her by Mario Lopez and is confused at this point, I have provided three map comparisons with the three most important places in the US (places I have lived) to illustrate my point:

Alpharetta Stomping Grounds


Azusa Stomping Grounds


Fort Wayne Stomping Grounds

The furthest thing from my home is my office @ 1.4 miles.

In comparison for my Fort Wayne readers out there: that is the distance from Homestead High School to the corner of West Hamilton Rd and Aboite Center Rd - I used to run that for Cross Country practice.

For my Azusa readers out there, that is the distance from West Campus to Alosta Place Apartments.

For Miss South Carolina, that is the distance from The Iraq to South Africa and such as.

For everybody else, well, come up with your own 1.4 mile comparison.

I guess my question is why am I so attached to a $7600.00 expense per year (not including fuel) when I clearly don't need one? People in New York don't seem to mind? Al Gore would be proud, wouldn't he?

But that is the problem. Al Gore has made it cool not to have a car. Like the White People of 1997 who made it cool not to have a TV, we have secretly grown to resent Al Gore and his kind because they have made the right thing to do the cool thing to do and as Americans we hate doing that which is cool. As soon as you do that which is cool, you are cliché and "that guy" - and nobody likes that guy.

I am 61% certain that fuel use increased 312% since the release of an Inconvenient Truth. It isn't that Americans have more places to go. It is that Americans don't like to be told what to do. I think it has something to do with Hitler telling the French what to do, and the American despisition of baguettes.

So it looks like I am hanging on to my car, unless God save the planet, Sean Hannity does a report on why owning a car keeps Osama from recovering from kidney stones. Only then will I be free from this bondage.