Hail from the Chief

By Trish Bargman

Well, have you taken the insurance off your car yet? We haven’t yet, but I guess it’s that time. This time of year we could leave for a drive and not be able to get back in our driveway when we got home. Our driving days may be numbered, but we can still get together. We will have our meetings and some date night/afternoons. As a matter of fact we are having a movie and dinner this Sunday the 4^th. If I hurry up and get this article to the editor in time you will know about it before it’s over. Connie sent out an email so if we have your email address you already know about our date.

Our next meeting is going to be at the 5 & Diner in Idaho Falls, November 8^th, 7:00 p.m. We also have the Christmas party all set. It will be at the Stockman’s Restaurant, December 8^th, 2:00 p.m. It is very hard during the holidays to get a date that works for everyone. I hope having it at 2:00 p.m.

will help. That way if you have a company party in the evening you can still make it. Should we do a gift exchange? Should we just have a ‘money tree’ and give the money to the food bank. Should we have a gift exchange and bring food for the food bank? So many questions! We will decide the answers at the November meeting.

We have $5,100 in our license plate fund. At the last meeting it was suggested that we make a donation to the Goodfellow Fund. Also, at the DARE drive to school the end of September it was brought up we could have t-shirts made up for some of the DARE graduates. Both of these would have to be approved by the committee in Boise. We will talk about it at the meeting. While we are talking about money we have $6,635 in our account right now.

We have new members Jo and Vicky Martinez from Pocatello. Welcome!

Save the wave!

Happy Birthday

November

Tim Walsh 11

Susan Whitfield 16

Yvonne Krah 17

Brian Allen 23

DID YOU KNOW

By Egon

 As you cruise down the interstate have you ever thought how much an improvement it is and how nice?

Back in 1919, eighty-one US Army vehicles went from Washington DC  to San Francisco. That coast to coast trip took them 62 days.

We can thank Pres. Dwight D Eisenhower for today’s interstate system. He took a look at the German Autobahn and began to think about how fast he could transport troops in the US if we had such a highway system.  On January 29, 1956 Eisenhower signed into law the Federal Highway Act. That started the Interstate Highway system.

Today there are 62 separate Interstate highways, nine transcontinental or border-to-border routes, 55,500 bridges, 15,000 on-and-off interchanges, 104 tunnels, and not one red light.

They carry more than 40 percent of all highway traffic, 75 percent of truck traffic, and 90 percent of tourist traffic.

 As an example, it’s just a short drive to Salt Lake and back in a day. Try to find your way to SLC on the old 191.

 Next I want to say something about the “hot rod” Corvette fans . Some just can’t accept the original power supplied by the factory, and want to increase the performance by adding such things as turbo system or high output cams and heads. Be careful if the car is still under the new car warrantee. The manufacture could void the warrantee just like that. Now, say if the window regulator breaks that will still be covered, but not the “hopped up engine” and maybe the transmission and rear end. They will say it failed because of the high HP engine.

Just a word to the wise.

 Last. When you store you Vette for the winter, only close the doors to the first “click” and the trunk, to the first click. That lets the door seal rubber to expand during the winter and then next summer it will seal good. It’s also a good deal to change the oil before storage, then come spring you will be ready to “hit the road”.

Learn something

new

everyday!

I've been in petroleum pipeline business for about 31 years, currently working for the Kinder-Morgan Pipeline here in San Jose, CA.  We deliver about four million gallons in a 24-hour period from the pipeline; one day it's diesel, the next day it's jet fuel and gasoline. We have 34 storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons. Here are some tricks to help you get your money's worth.

1. Fill up your car or truck in the morning when the temperature is still cool. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground; and the colder the ground, the denser the gasoline. When it gets warmer gasoline expands, so if you're filling up in the afternoon or in the evening, what should be a gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and temperature of the fuel (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol, and other petroleum products) are significant. Every truckload that we load is temperature-compensated so that the indicated gallon is actually the amount pumped. A one-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for businesses, but service stations don't have temperature compensation at their pumps.

  2. If a tanker truck is filling the station's tank at the time you want to buy gas, do not fill up; most likely dirt and sludge in the tank is being stirred up when gas is being delivered, and you might be transferring that dirt from the bottom of their tank into your car's tank.

3. Fill up when your gas tank is half-full (or half-empty), because the more gas you have in your tank the less air there is and gasoline evaporates rapidly, especially when it's warm. (Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating 'roof' membrane to act as a barrier between the gas and the atmosphere, thereby minimizing evaporation.)

4. If you look at the trigger you'll see that it has three delivery settings: slow, medium, and high. When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to the high setting. You should be pumping at the slow setting, thereby minimizing vapors created while you are pumping. Hoses at the pump are corrugated; the corrugations act as a return path for vapor recovery from gas that already has been metered.  If you are pumping at the high setting, the agitated gasoline contains more vapor, which is being sucked back into the underground tank so you're getting less gas for your money.