Friday, September 29, 2006

what do you want to be when you grow up?

I remember the first time I was asked this question in school, in first grade --
What do you want to be when you grow up? with the following trailing statement... YOU can be ANYTHING.

I'm not sure how the rest of the class answered, but I remember my own answer... I want to be an astronaut and go to space! As a kid, I often dreamed of flying.. of being able to walk on ceilings, of being on top of the world higher than the highest mountaintop--

Anousheh Ansari took it to the next level. She is the first non-astronaut to say, "I'm going to space". Opening the doors for future people to say, my dream is to one day go to space, and it is possible, and has been done.

I recommend reading her blog, hear some of her stories and insights -- She's inspiring us, our youth to dream bigger -- our leaders to think globally, to understand that borders although real in our world, from space do not exist.

We are one earth, one people, under a sun. Enjoy life, and be who you want to be.

Monday, September 11, 2006

from oil to wind

Did you know that there is enough wind energy potential in North Dakota, Kansas and Texas alone to produce enough electricity for the entire US?

Now is the time that you can start to make an impact and reduce our dependancy on non-renewable fuel sources... With oil prices rising, contributing to global warming, our troops in foreign conflicts which we are mainly involved in over oil,
YOU need to do something...






www.renewablechoice.com


The company I mentioned above is taking an interesting approach.. look at your last few electric bills... are you using less than 200kwh per month? for 5$ per month, this company will put that amount of electricity (Generated from wind) back into our nations power-grid... using more than that per month? you can opt to pay more... This money goes towards expanding our wind-turbine infrastructure, and with advances in wind-turbine technology and your contributions, we do have the ability to put a great percentage of our power usage into our grid.

Feeling like it's a great idea? but can't spare 5$ per month? Think again. And if you still can't bring yourself to contribute, how about a discount from Whole Foods or a Colorado Ski Resort? Both companies are offering promotions (they both are big partners and contributors to Renewable Choice) such as gift cards and free lift tickets...

Would you like to read more about Wind Power? Check out this article...

Friday, September 08, 2006

flying on the cheap

When planning a long distance trip in advance, one of the first things you consider are the prices of airline tickets. But how do you know that the price you are looking at today is going to be better or worse than the price a few weeks from now? Experience. But of course with the internet, comes data, and historical data on flights... So you could start to track trends in pricing, and start to make estimated forecasts on what you think the flight prices may go up or down to...

I'm flying out to Colorado in January, and looking to book my flight... and it got me thinking, what is a 'fair' price for an airline ticket?

There seems to be plenty of competition out there on the internet for services which help you to find the cheapest flights, with Travelocity, Expedia, Cheaptickets,
Priceline all players competing for your attention to book through them and offer the best value... A new site called Farecast, is offering limited forecasts based upon historical data of where they think the prices are going.. it's a good concept, as long as they can earn peoples trust and forecast somewhat accurately -- With oil prices and security costs rising, maybe they'll just recommend that prices are most likely going to go up, so buy now? They probably account for typical volume increases around the holidays, when a lot of people fly to visit family -- but I wonder if they consider external news events into their calculations? Another question is how do airlines themselves structure their pricing model so that they can remain profitable? The airlines must be forecasting demand based on historical data as well to best serve the customer base? It's an interesting concept...

I'm thinking of how to develop my own formula for determining what is a fair price to pay for a ticket... this may be a good start...

Miles Traveled * Cost per Mile = Fair Price of airline ticket.

In a car, lets say that I get 20 miles per gallon, and the current price of a gallon is $3.00. 1000 Miles * $0.15 = 150$. Time is money though, mainly because I have to take vacation time to travel, so how do I add this to the model?

1000 Miles at ~ 75 mph = 13.3 hours of driving....
1000 Miles at ~ 500 mph = 2 hours of flying...

Since flying is roughly 7 times as fast, (more direct and no stops) How much is that worth? With the average american making ~20$ per hour, and the average time spent by flying vs driving a 1000 miles, that's approximately 220$ of personal time value.

But what about capacity? The average American vehicle seats 4+ comfortably, so should we consider this into the equation somehow as well? And if the trip is more than 1000 miles, food and lodging prices come into play... I'll have to think about this more during my commute and continue this post another day....