Everyone’s on the same page along Tramway Boulevard.
Way back in the Glory Days of Monday — remember that fabulous Monday? — a happy Duck! City motorist could gas up for $3.39 or $3.59 per gallon, depending on his/her choice of station.
On Saturday … not so much.
The going rate for a gallon of go-juice on Tramway today is $3.89, from Lomas to San Bernardino. Affordability is on the march, and soon the American public will be legging it around and about, too.
Just wait until Addled Hitler sinks Kharg Island, a small coral island off Iran’s coast that according to The Associated Press is “the primary terminal through which nearly all of Iran’s oil exports pass.” The Guardian has a nifty explainer, too.
Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute who calls Kharg “the main node” of the Iranian economy, said that if Iran were to lose control of the island, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island isn’t a military or nuclear target.
“It doesn’t matter which regime is in power — new or old,” Katinas said.
Oh, good. This is like blowing up a 7-Eleven and replacing it with a Circle K, only the Circle K has empty shelves, fuel pumps that don’t work, no employees, and an angry mob forming in the cratered parking lot with weapons in various calibers and configurations, craving a word with management.
Send Whiskey Pete Kegsbreath out to restore order. He can show them his tats. They can show him their rat-a-tat-tats.
Mad Blog Media 
No worries. Dumpster and his minions are on WADA’s shit list for not paying their dues. So, no FIFA or olympic locker rooms for cash mattel.
Amusing that ol’ Cash is a jock-sniffer. Addled Hitler’s banana hammock must be especially pungent.
Yep. Gas was under three bucks a gallon not more than a couple weeks ago up this-a-way. Was 3.89 here, too. My guess it will head north towards five bucks if this stupidity keeps on.
On the good news side for me, I got in a 101 mile week this week on the bikey-bike. Biggest week since I blew out my back! Left leg still complains a lot, but it grudgingly does the work as long as I keep the rpms up and not try to mash the gears.
Well done, sir! Way to bounce back. Spinning is the thing … I’d always been a masher until I discovered the joys of the 46/30T crank and deraillers that let me rock a cassette in the 11-34T range.
I’m no longer in a hurry, so why not spin those low gears? Sure makes for a quieter ride without all those joints and ligaments making their breakfast-cereal snaps, crackles, and pops.
I’ve got that 46-30 setup on two bikes and a 48-32 on another one, all coupled to a 11-34 crank.
One of these days I want to break out the Six-13 with the Campy setup but that has a 50-34 compact with a 12-30 on back, so was keeping that hanging on a hook until I got in a few more miles.
That’s the last Campy I’ll likely ever buy, as the boys in Vincenza seem to have made themselves irrelevant. Stuff sure is pretty, though.
“…11-34 cassette….” duh
Lost Angel-es gasoline is $5.50/ gallon for the cheap stuff. I’m using the basket bike to get around. It’ll probably get stranger before it gets better.
Yikes! I’d seen some prices approaching that out your way, in photos. And yeah, “stranger before better” seems likely.
We’re fortunate to be camped where we are. Only one of us works (Herself), and she wanted a short drive to work (9 miles). A Smith’s grocery is a walkable/bikeable mile north on Tramway, but we favor a Sprouts that adds a mile or so to the trip; more if I do it on a bike because I have to work around a couple multilane, high-speed, “Death Race 2026” thoroughfares that at the moment have been made even worse by a sudden craze for the fiber-optic cable that everyone else in America got about 20 years ago.
Herself’s YMCA is within walking distance. My gym is even closer (bikes in the garage, running shoes in a closet, weights in a spare bedroom).
We could easily be a one-car family if I wanted to do most of my errands by bike while she’s hunting down Death Ray owner’s manuals for the warmongers down to the Boom-Boom Room. But my 2005 Forester is cheap to operate and long ago paid for, and her 2011 CR-V is likewise.
That said, I’m glad I have the bikes, and the backpacks, and the stout hiking shoes, boonie hat, and walking stick. You never know when Cactus Ed Abbey’s “Good News” becomes less of an interesting novel and more of a survivalist resource.
Last year I did an Earth Day Tour de Shopping Via Bike Path up here in the People’s Republic. Might be relevant, the way things are going. I have a feeling that if this latest Trump Great Idea goes on for a while, we might think five buck a gallon gas is cheap. Just listened to an Ezra Klein 1 hr 45 minute episode predicting 200 bucks a barrel might happen.
https://labikes.blogspot.com/2025/04/earth-day-bike-ride-those-multiuse.html
Thank Dog for Soma Saga touring bikes, Ortlieb panniers, and Tubus racks, sez I.
Noting the age of your vehicles I’d say you’ve done a stellar job of making intelligent purchases last beyond our “throwaway “ culture ways. But it’s not easy to buy products that hold up or are worthy (or even able) to repair. About the only washing machine we’ve been able to keep running has been simple Speed Queens without any whizbang gadgetry. Lodge cookware, Champion juicer, Makita drill, RailRider pants, Scarpa Italian boots, Holland grill. All have stood the 20 year Herb field test and repair shop visit. I sure as hell got my monies worth out of all of these.
Just about my entire tool box is Craftsman stuff that I bought as an undergraduate or grad student in the 1970’s and ’80s. Rebuilt one ratchet while Sears still existed and it has lasted this long. Unless the garage gets hit by an asteroid, those tools will outlast me. The modern stuff sold these days seems to be designed to fail and not have replacement parts…like bike parts.
Ah hand tools (drooling). Scored some Snap On tools decades ago and they look almost new after many years of knuckle skinning jobs which Herb specializes in. Don’t know if they too have cheapened as so many others have. I remember when Black and Decker was top shelf but now…pffft. Even Klein and Felco have slipped from their former Best in Class rankings.
Ever see Tim Allen’s standup “Men Are Pigs”? His sitcom “Home Improvement” had its roots in that. His bit on Craftsman tools — “Crafts-MAN!” is killer. The whole show is killer. If you’ve never seen it, and can’t stream it somewhere, haunt the used-video stores until you find a copy.
We’ve done our best, Herb old value-seeker. I haven’t bought a new car since that 1998 Toyota Tacoma, which is the rig I traded for the lightly used Forester. And I don’t see anything out there that I want to buy now, so I’m taking care of the Subie. She sees the auto doctor twice per annum, and while there’s always a little sumpin’-sumpin’ that needs doing, it’s almost always a whole lot cheaper than a car payment. Plus I get to keep my five-speed manual. In the auto bidness, that ship has sailed, caught fire, exploded, and sunk.
Herself has been happy with her Honda CR-V, too, and sees that it gets regular checkups.
Meanwhile, I’ll never buy another Samsung anything as long as I live based on our experience with their famous exploding clothes washers. We replaced that hunk of junk with a front-loading LG that has performed flawlessly.