What the heck is hypermiling?

June 27th, 2008

You’ve probably heard it on TV or read about it in the news – Hypermiling.

But what is hypermiling? And how can I learn how to do it?

Simply put, hypermiling is the art of getting the maximum amount of mileage from each gallon of gas you burn in your car, truck or SUV.

It’s a collection of tips and techniques that collectively save you money by getting more miles out of your fuel, whether it’s gasoline, diesel, ethanol, or biofuel.

So what are these hypermiling techniques and where can you learn them?

Hypermiling methods include driving at steady speeds, without quick starts and lots of stops; coasting down hills with the engine turned off; “drafting” behind larger vehicles; and other techniques.

If you do even a little bit of surfing around the internet, you can find lots of websites that offer hypermiling tips and techniques. You can even find several reasonably priced downloadable eBooks on the subject.

Here are a couple of my favorite Hypermiling video sites:

www.HypermilingHowTo.com

www.BestHypermilingTips.com

Take a look and learn a few new hypermiling tricks that can save you money on gas right away.

Happy Hypermiling!

What’s all the fuss over The Golden Compass?

December 9th, 2007

The Golden Compass movie hit the theatres this week, and the accompanying outcry is popping up in newspapers, online, and on TV & radio.

So what’s the big deal? It’s just a kids’ movie… isn’t it?

The Golden Compass movie is based on a book by Philip Pullman, and it’s actually the first volume of a trilogy. The theme of Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series is that religion is the enemy of freedom and growth, and, in the books (and the movie), his child heroes must fight the orthodox powers.

It comes as no surprise that organized religions everywhere have come out against the movie. Pullman has been very public about his beliefs, describing himself as both an atheist and an agnostic. Others have tactfully characterized him as a “religious skeptic”.

Whether you buy into the arguments on either side of the issue, the movie (and the books) are intriguing. Watch the movie. Read the books. Decide for youself.

You can find all of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books, including reviews and more, at this website.

New GlassWEAR™ at our CafePress Store

December 1st, 2007

We’ve added a new design and a couple of new GlassWEAR™ items over at our Fledgling Studio CafePress Store.

The design, a very Art Deco Glassblower, comes from a rare vintage Cut Glass catalog. We’ve cleaned up and enhanced the original image, and put it on several different styles of T-shirt.

With the holidays coming and all of those gifts you need to buy, you might want to go take a look.

You can never have too many pieces of GlassWEAR.

Shop early and often.

Somebody likes me at Squidoo

November 24th, 2007

Somebody likes me at Squidoo. You have heard of Squidoo haven’t you? If not, go here now to see what it’s all about.

Anyway, I put up my first ‘Lens’ there about a year and a half ago or so, and I’ve added a few more Lenses since then.

In August I got the idea to take a small filler story I had sold to a national magazine a few years back and turn it into a new Lens at Squidoo.

It told the story of my Grandpa’s discovery of a technique for making crunchy apple chips in his home-built food dehydrator. I threw in a few links to the tools you need for the task, some books from Amazon.com and some other stuff listed on eBay.

Voila!

Grandpa’s Crunchy Apple Chips was born!

To my happy surprise, the site got a steady stream of views, anywhere from 20 to 50 a week. And it also got some clickthroughs on the links, making me a small commission on the resulting sales.

Apparently, somebody at Squidoo liked what I was doing, because on Tuesday of this past week, they picked Grandpa’s Crunchy Apple Chips as the ‘Lens of the Day’.

My traffic and clickthroughs went ballistic! From 24 visits the week before to 360 (and still counting) for this week.

Now, if I can just take what I have learned on that Lens and transfer it to some more Lenses…

We’ll talk later,

John R. Cumbow

First Post

November 22nd, 2007

Here goes nothin’.

This will be my clearing house for all of my web endeavors. Business, links, comments, you name it….

All of it will eventually end up here.

Watch this space.