Aspies For Freedom

Kate Alvord wrote a book I bought (and read) called Divorce Your Car

Sometimes I wonder why I have a car.  I mean, it was Mom's and all.  It's a 10 year old Chevy Cavalier, it's paid for.  

But even a car that is paid for is an invitation to pay car insurance, gasoline, oil changes, tires every 40,000 or 50,000 miles, repairs, state registration, city property taxes, and the occasional parking or moving violation.

Do you really need that when you are 4,000 some feet from the office?

I complained to my therapist, my car is an excuse to get fat and lazy.

Why do I drive five miles to save $20 a week on dry cleaning?  Yeah, it saves $1,000 a year on dry cleaning, but if I wasn't paying $840 a year on car insurance plus everything else, I might come out ahead.

James Howard Kunstler has made quite an impression on me, too.  He's a naysayer that suggests we're headed for trouble, especially suburban living.  The suburbs are just too far from the jobs in the central cities, the houses are just too big, and gasoline is too expensive for driving and natural gas is too expensive for heating.   If gas multiplies in value, people may desert the suburbs (ghost towns).
He is suggesting in our lifetimes many people will be forced back to working in agriculture because it was fossil fuels, tractors, etc. that let so many farmers stop being farmers in the first place 100 to 200 years ago.  Deja vu.

We're not running out of oil or gas.  Some will be trickling out for a hundred years or more.  That is not the problem.  Demand given production is the problem.  Production is at an all time high, experts suggest, and may not get any better unless we find more oil, and if it doesn't, will only decrease.

Demand is only going to GO UP.  That is why prices are so HIGH now!

Thank you China.  They have 1.3 billion people and an increasing standard of living.
Thank you India.  Ditto, but slightly less people.
Vietnam and several so called "mini dragons" Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia also have economic growth over there.

And then you have the usual suspects, Russia and mainland Europe and Britain, the United States and Canada, and Japan.  

Look out for China.  China will need oil for its agriculture to feed its large population.  It is a matter of life and death.  Maybe also India.  War?  Conventional war?  Nuclear?  

http://www.kunstler.com/

What is the alternative then?

We have good alternatives in Alexandria, Virginia USA.

1.  http://www.Flexcar.com and http://www.Zipcar.com are one company.  Sign up for $25 down, $50 per month or per year, and different rates apply when you do rent a car by the hour ($7-9 and up) or by the day ($60-70 and up)
2.  hell, just rent from Enterprise, "they'll pick you up" ($25 a day), we also have Hertz, Avis, Budget because we are so close to Reagan National Airport
3.  Metrobus, DASH bus, Arlington Rapid Transit (ART) bus, and Metrorail subway
4.  Walking and biking
5.  Taxi

You could try the experiment--try not using your car for a week, and if this works, go for two weeks, etc.  Definitely, walking to and from work if you live less than a mile away might be a good idea!

I've only owned a car for two years of my life--for sure, it allowed possibilities that would have been much harder to actualize without it.  But before and after that time, I've had jobs and found places to live that work okay for being carless. One probably needs to live close to a grocery store, for example.  Now, I live in a city with decent public transportation and I walk about a mile and a half partly to and from work, and take a bus the rest of the way.  I'm exultant over the money I get to save by virtue of NOT having a car.  And the reduced stress is invaluable.

Chris, why don't you get a washing machine and do your own washing instead of sending it to the dry cleaners? That would save some money. Walking or biking to work would be an alternative to driving but it is handy to have a car to get places when you aren't at work. I think you might just be hitting the panic button a bit too hard.

The dry cleaners always press your clothes as part of the process.

My apartment unit has a washer and dryer in the kitchen.  I am not sure if my new apartment in October will, but the Forest 24 Hour Laundromat is walking distance, too, just like everything else in my life except Keisha.  I don't know if these garden style apartments have washer dryers in each building or not.

Now the clothes are machine washable, not "dry clean only", but the last time I tried pressing a week's worth, I burned my finger on the hot press, plus the time it seems to take.... if I am not very good at doing it quickly

I told you that pressing the office wear was very desirable (for them even if we don't care, they're NTs, their rules).  I used to cheat on it (Federal job in 1998).  

I absolutely love walking - it's free, fun and, if you have friends with you, highly satisfying as you can always share stories, jokes etc.

Plus the only pollution is farts and burps!!

I don't have a car anymore.  The true cost of having a car vs public transportation is much higher.  Since I got my car I actually go out less since I have to think that trip to the mall costs me bus fare, travel time (transit takes longer than car travel) and I am spending much less money.  

There are plenty of excuses to have a car that you can get over.  You have a car and you use if more often than other modes of transportation, even car pools because you think that all that insurance is just wasted when the car is sitting in the drive.  Car share is good when people say they just need their car for the weekend when they go shopping or drive to visit relatives.  

You could pay some neighbour to do your shirts and iron them.  

I would love to have a bike.  

I hate urban sprawl.  It uses up good farm land and makes more pollution with people commuting and not car pooling into cities.    I would like just a basic no frills apartment and some parkland nearby.

Some people say they need a car for grocery shopping.  Really they just need a cart.

I work downtown.  Better for my children to be taken from me forever than to let them attend any school within walking distance of my workplace.  Downtown has the worst school district in the state.

Divorce my car? *** me I can't even drive yet.

It would save you the trouble of learning.
And watch your f-in language.

We have a car but we're thinking of getting rid.
We drove down to London a couple of weeks ago.
On the way back the car started loosing power--we barely made it home (45-50mph up the M1)...usually drive considerably faster (it was very frustrating).

Never had one.

People keep telling me I'd get a sense of freedom.

Freedom...to pay road tax, insurance payments, get regular MOTs, keep it topped up with petrol and oil and water and brake fluid and antifreeze, replace tyres and the battery and spark plugs and windscreenwipers, find somewhere to park it, wade through the paperwork when someone steals it or crashes into it or vandalises it.

Did I miss anything?

Cry freedom!

Yeah, it takes me almost two hours to get to school from my house by bus, versus 30-40 minutes by car. I still would rather take the bus, though, even when it's someone else who drives and pays the car bills. If the buses were more efficient, it could take an hour and a half (including 10-15 minutes walking time).

I really don't want to own a car. Not only buying it, but insurance, plus maintenance, not even to mention gas prices...Just, I don't want to get one unless absolutely necessary at some point.

I also wonder if taking public transport would increase if employers would give employees certain "windows of time" that they could be acceptably late without penalty, as long as they took public transport. Maybe employers could pressure the bus companies and trains and such to have more efficient schedules, too.

Maybe this is what you need:

Who needs dry cleaners with the wash-in-the-shower suit?

Clean it in the evening, and it's ready to wear next day, manufacturer claims

It is billed as the first two-piece that can be washed in the shower each evening

By Susie Mesure
The Independent on Sunday
Sunday, 20 April 2008

Cary Grant once famously stepped into a shower fully clothed, in the 1963 spy thriller Charade. If only he had been wearing one of the new "wet-clean" suits carrying the name of John Pearse, London's tailor to the stars, a sartorial disaster might have been averted.

The suit, made under licence in Japan, is the first to pull off a long-sought coup that could spell the end of dry-cleaning bills for white-collar workers.

It is billed as the first two-piece that can be washed in the shower each evening and be ready to wear again in the morning – with no ironing required. And amazingly, after a rigorous road test, it appears to fulfil that pledge.

Konaka, a Japanese menswear retailer, and Australian Wool Innovation Ltd devised the suit as a solution to the problem of long, hot, sticky summers during which salarymen have to remain fully suited and booted. The lightweight woollen suit, made using a fabric blend that includes polyester, has two special finishes that help it to maintain its shape.

Our tester, IoS reporter Andrew Johnson, said: "The suit is surprisingly light and comfortable, although probably not too warm in winter. Nor is it very waterproof. It only takes moments for it to become soaked once in the shower. It's definitely a summer suit.

"Once hung up to dry, however, the miracle begins. The suit quickly drips to a damp state and the next day is bone dry with only one crease – where it should be, down the front of the trousers."

A spokeswoman for John Pearse, who has dressed clients ranging from Sir Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan to Jack Nicholson, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, stressed that the shower-proof suit was a world away from the company's usual "bespoke" offerings.

The bad news for office workers everywhere is that if they want to buy the suit now, they'll have to go to Japan to get it.