Midnight Cheese

Today I decided to download the 30 day trial of After Effects CS3. Of course, this meant navigating the Adobe website which always results in some type of unpleasant experience. Well, today was no different.

This time I was unable to download the trial because “Product trials are unavailable until July 1.”

“Why?” I asked myself. Surprisingly Adobe had an answer for me, although I’m surprised they were willing to admit their rather embarrassing mistake:

“During the month of June 2008, certain product trials that are launched for the first time (regardless of when they were installed) will function for only one day instead of 30 days, due to an error in a line of code that counts down the remaining days in a trial. You will not experience this issue if you have launched your trial before June 1, 2008, or do not launch it until July 1 or thereafter.”

And so, rather than taking the time to fix the problem Adobe would rather let it expire by not letting potential customers try out their product for a month. Pretty amazing.

According to the letter (PDF) we received yesterday, this is actually a continuation of the same EPA violation from September of last year.

The La Vergne System is currently in violation of the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for total trihalomethanes (TTHMs)…

From what I’ve gathered, this means there is too much chemical by-product from the chlorine used to breakdown and treat organic matter in the water supply. THMs are considered carcinogenic.

The Daily News Journal goes into detail about past issues with the city of La Vergne and its water supply, including failing to notify citizens of problems.

With the NY Times reporting a surge in riders on mass transit systems, I decided to research the feasibility of riding the bus from La Vergne to work.

Driving distance using a car is 15 miles leaving at 8:10am taking roughly 25-30 minutes in the morning, 30-45 minutes in the afternoon. (Leaving around 5:30pm.)

The bus requires driving my car 3 miles to get to the nearest stop in the morning. Once on the bus, one transfer in downtown Nashville is required, adding on an extra 5 miles for a total of 20 miles one way. I would have to be at the stop at 6:30am in order to get to my final stop at 8:15am then add another 10 minute walk after that, putting me at work at my normal time of 8:30am.

To get home I would have to leave work at 4:00pm to catch the last run back to La Vergne arriving at my final stop at 5:45pm. This results in a 6.5 hour work day.

So, riding the bus results in a much longer commute, and assuming my calculations are correct, fare costs nearly twice as much compared to driving. $3.50/day vs. $6.13/day. That’s using a 31 day pass for the route in Nashville, plus the special fare to ride the Murfreesboro/Nashville line(96X) from La Vergne into downtown. The 96X fare isn’t included in the 31 day pass.

Driving into work this morning I noticed a car some distance ahead with these tail lights that were terribly unique in their circular appearance. I sped up to catch the curious vehicle and as I hoped, came right up on not one, but two brand spankin’ new Nissan GT-Rs cruising down Murfreesboro road. One red, one a grayish color.

The cars had Tennessee Manufacturer/Dealer plates and judging by their route I’d guess they must have been shipped to the Nissan plant in Smyrna and were being driven up to Nissan North America Headquarters in downtown Nashville.

What amazing looking cars. The large diameter on the exhausts is unexpected, but noticeably imposing. The cars were being driven ultra conservatively (40mph in a 45) so I was unable to hear much from the engines.

I caught just a brief glimpse of the front of the red one, but not enough to really form an opinion. I followed behind them for several miles but ultimately had to turn off as they continued into downtown.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my good Nikon with me, but here are a couple shots from my camera phone.

I’ve had a set dollar amount in my mind of what would be too much to pay at the pump. Today I hit that limit. I paid $3.50/gal., filling my tank at 12 gallons for a total of $42.00. That’s $2.00 more than what is acceptable in my mind.

The last few weeks I’ve been consciously trying to limit diving time. Planning out errands more carefully and trying to let up on the accelerator after coming to a stop.

Prices are brutal. Another dollar, maybe two per gallon, and I think we’ll really start to see some noticeable effects. Prices of goods climbing even higher, maybe even less people on the road.

A lot of people keep pointing to the high prices in Europe as a way of saying “We don’t have it that bad at all!” I know European fuel prices have always been higher than U.S. prices. My question is, have their prices tripled in the last few years like ours have or have European prices stayed level?

Regardless, even though Europe pays more, they also consume differently. A very large percentage of cars sold in Europe have diesel engines, which automatically doubles(or more) your fuel economy. Supposedly public transportation is also far, far more advanced than what we offer ourselves here.

We had a giant moth hanging out near the receiving door at work today.

Metro Police have been pulling over reject drivers the last few weeks on Murfreesboro Road around the airport.

This morning, dude in front of me in a Caddy decided to whip around from the far-right lane into the far-left lane cutting people off in the process. All for no real reason, of course. Metro just happened to be the car behind me at the time. The police car slowly and calmly made its way from the right lane over to the far-left and proceeded to pull the Caddy over.

A couple weeks ago in the same stretch I was riding with the flow of traffic when someone flew by at about 70 (45mph speed limit on a six lane highway). At the bottom of the hill was Metro(not running radar) but saw what was happening and proceeded to bust the guy.

This instant vindication is quite nice.