Just had an oil fill-up

[fabsroman]

Petey,

If I'm not mistaken, I remember you complaining about fuel prices a year or two ago, but I could be wrong. Funny how things are when the tables are turned. The oil and gas companies are no longer terrible price gougers when you are making making money off of them. Honestly, I am the same way. If I can make money off of it and it isn't morally reprehensible, I am all for it.

Dan,

My heating and cooling bill on my townhouse is rather pathetic. I keep the house at 68 during the winter now because of the baby. I used to keep it at 65 and we would just wear sweaters in the house. I refuse to let my daughter be cold though. Anyway, the townhouse is 1,600 sf with 4 stories above ground. The electric bill during the worst months of the summer is around $250 a month. Electricity is about $60 a month during the winter with the gas bill being around $250. Believe me, it is utterly nuts.

Maybe, a new house with 1/3 of it underground (i.e., basement), might not be that much more expensive to heat and cool than the townhouse. However, I am still planning on using wood stoves in the basement and first floor to cut back on some of the costs. I have already been doing calculations of how much it will cost in diesel fuel to go and cut the wood per trip with a truck bed and 10' trailer of wood per trip, and it comes out a lot better than paying $250+ a month for heating. We can keep the windows open during the summer.

[Dan Morris]

Counselor...another reason to get out of the east coast
Dan

Also, that wood needs to dry for about a year!

[fabsroman]

Even though I'm a CPA and an attorney, I'm not brain dead when it comes to wood, fires, cutting wood, and manual labor in general. I grew up the son of a construction worker/handy man that is an Italian immigrant. I was out using a chain saw as soon as I could hold one and not cut off my leg with it. Before that, I got to haul wood around and hold up logs while my dad cut it. In the first house I can remember living in, my brothers and I had the privilege of carrying wood from the driveway, all the way up the 15 plus steps of the driveway to the backyard, and then up another 20 steps in the backyard to the top of the hill by the shed. We had plenty of wood. I still go with my dad on occasion and cut wood; however, we go less often now and things are a lot quicker because I take my F-350 and a 10 foot trailer and my dad takes his F-150, log splitter, and chainsaws. Back in the day when we didn't have any money, we were splitting wood with an axe, a sledge hammer, and metal wedges. Life is much better with the splitter and it is worth the $1,000+ my dad paid for it. Now, in one trip we can get enough wood for him to get through the winter, and then some. By the way, when we were younger and my dad was cutting trees for money, we were cutting them in 100+ degree heat or 30 degree cold. My dad had a knack for picking the hottest or coldest days for doing the wrong work. On one job, we were cutting bricks with a wet saw and mixing cement when it was just barely above freezing. That was wonderful. My brothers and I often kid my dad about our payment back then (i.e., a sandwich, a coke, and a snickers bar, and on special occasions we got the 7-11 2 hot dog special with our choice of fixins).

If it wasn't such a pain for me to move out of the area (i.e., two licenses to practice law, my CPA license, my client base, and most importantly my family), I would be out west in a heart beat. I wanted to go to school out in Colorado, but my parents just couldn't afford it, and they might have also been worried that I would have been riding my bike too much instead of studying.

Anyway, I am stuck here for a while, but I mentioned to my wife that maybe we could buy a farm in South Carolina, Georgia, or Florida so that we can vacation somewhat closer to her parents. Of course, this was just after seeing 100's and 100's of ducks on the way to her parents' place from the Tampa airport. It will be much easier to sell the farm idea on the east coast to my wife versus something out west where neither of our families are located. Wish me luck.

By the way, I thought that if a wood stove was burning hot enough, it would even burn green wood in moderation. Am I right or wrong?

[Dan Morris]

LOL, I'm talking about initially getting the fire going...ifn it's already burning, the green will work fine. I've just let mine season for a year before using.
I've got a feeling if you'd have gone to school out here you'd have never left. Course, people are different.... I emigrated from Texas to Colorado 35 years ago and have never looked back...took the failures with the successes.
Hey, you and yours have a safe and merry Christmas! What's Santa bringing daughter?
Dan

[skeet]

There are certain woods that just don't NEED to be seasoned a year. Some that probably need more. Wild cherry and ash come to mind as ones that will burn pretty shortly after being cut..and split. Especially if they are cut after the leaves fall off the trees. Sour gum is one that probably needs to be cured for more than a year...under cover as it will rot in the open. It also is almost impossible to split. Burning wood for more than 35 yrs has taught me that when cutting this years firewood up...to cut the trees down for next years. Course I had my own woods back east. Out here in Wyoming I have been cutting some fire killed dottonwood for the stove. Burns good but the trees are somewhat large with the rounds being 30-50 inches in diameter. I load them in the trailer with the loader on the tractor. I also have about 40 cords of fair sized Russian olive to cut. Burns good but it really does need to be dried for at least 6-8 months. Merry Christmas y'all!!

[fabsroman]

Dan,

My training partner who was a year younger than me went to school in Boulder, Colorado, where I was trying to go. He is still out there 15 years later. Something tells me that if I had gone to school in Colorado and stayed, either my mom and dad would have moved out there, or they would have gotten a divorce so that my dad could move out there if my mom didn't want to.

Now that I am married, moving out west will be even harder because my wife has a 30 minute drive to the mall requirement for where ever we live. Funny thing is that she does not shop that much, if at all. I can count the number of times she has gone to the mall this year on one hand. Heck, I probably went to the mall more than she did this year.

After we figure out our house situation, the next thing on the list will be rental property and a farm. I'm going to be busy for the next decade or three.

We are currently at my in-laws, and my daughter's stack of presents is the largest stack of them all. I got her a personalized ornament that say's "Arianna's First Christmas" with a picture of a baby rattle in the middle and "We Love You, Mom and Dad, 2007" on the bottom and I got her a personalized picture frame. She already has plenty of toys, but I am sure that she is going to get even more of them this Christmas from her 3 aunts and 4 uncles, all of which are single except for 1 pair. She will also be receiving a sizeable contribution to her 529 college plan from her mom and dad.

I'm sure I'll post this again, but Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody.

[petey]

Fabs,

I'm sure at the time I was complaining I didn't have a lease signed and didn't also work for a drilling company
By the way, my company sure doesn't set the NIMEX prices... gotta thank those wonderful stock traders in NYC... Wanna blame someone..then blame the traders that run the prices up to $100 per Bbl and over $7 per MCF of gas. My company is publically owned, buy yourself a couple million dollars in shares are you can help control the costs..course if you had that much invested, I'm sure you'd be just like the rest wanting a quick turn around and want the prices to increase... buy low sell high, isn't that the rule?

Naw really.. we have no control on the prices, just drill and feed into distribution or supply. We have to pay for transportation on many pipelines even from our own parent company! Pretty ludacrice if you ask me. The whole infrastructure is quite amazing, and the prices aren't determined by some president of a Country or CFO of a big oil company.... just by those white collar dudes that wanna earn a quick turn from what I gather. I know we make our dollar off what the stock market says the oil and gas is worth

Anyhow...hope ya'll have a wonderful Christmas!

[fabsroman]

Petey,

I'm not complaining about gas prices because I think they will lead to innovation and a cleaner environment. Honda is ready to release a fuel cell vehicle in 2008 that will run on hydrogen and only emit water. If that car actually works and is feasible, they should outlaw gasoline like they outlawed leaded gasoline. If the rest of the manufacturers cannot keep up, they should be SOL. It really pisses me off that Ford will not be ready to introduce a fuel cell vehicle until 2012 at the earliest.

Some days, I ride 50 miles on my bicycle just for fun. I'm pretty sure I could build up a commuter bike, put some racks on it, and ride to where ever I need to shop at. Trust me, I'm really thinking about it. Not because I cannot afford the gas, but because it seems to be the right thing to do.

I am also willing to bet that the $150K my wife and I have in mutual funds is somewhat invested in oil companies. So, I do have a little stake in it already.

As far as the guys on Wall Street are concerned, I agree that they are to blame for the price of oil, but they are only basing their prices on what they think the world is going to need. Trust me, they don't want to get stuck holding a ton of expensive oil futures when there will be very little demand for the oil because they will have to sell low and lose money. Time will tell how this works out. I almost invested money in ArcherDaniels for ethanol, but decided against it. With that said, I'm going to check out that stock price after I review the board.