Refined

I got an email from our Representative yesterday touting the fact that the House Republicans have put forth H.R. 3089, The No More Excuses Energy Act. Among other things, the bill would "allow the issuance of tax exempt facility bonds for the financing of domestic use oil refinery facilities." Since this amounts to a subsidy for constructing oil refineries in the US, it is probably at least worth considering if this would have any downward effect on the price of gasoline.

As shown in the chart to the right, there isn't much correlation (coefficient of correlation is 0.05) between the level of refinery utilization and the price of gasoline, at least for the three years of data I could lay my hands on at the EIA.

Another data point is the current profitability of companies that refine oil. Since the price of gasoline is high, they must be making a mint, right? Wrong. Demand for distillates is down as Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April 2008 than in April 2007 earlier, according the Department of Transportation. Since the primary profit driver for a refining company is being able refine as many barrels of oil as possible, the reduced demand is killing them.

Although this analysis is full of holes (what about imported distillates? etc.), it does indicate that the cause of high prices at the pump now is probably not due to a shortage of refining capacity. If I can figure this out with 15 minutes of work, why is the US Congress still trying to subsidize refining? Could it be lobbying influence? Nah.

6 Cents

Almost unbelievably in this time of hysteria surrounding gasoline prices, the Virginia Senate passed a bill to raise gas taxes by $0.06. That is 1.5% of the retail price of gasoline right now.

According to the API (pdf), the surrounding states all have higher tax rates currently and this increase would bring us into line with them and still well below the national average of $0.494. Considering the funding shortfall in Virgina's transportation budget, this seems like a small price to pay. I'd rather pay the money to VDOT than Saudi but I'm sure politics will rule and we will do without new roads instead of forcing politicians to go on the record favoring a tax increase that is probably in our long term interest, no matter how small.

Frame

A couple more weeks and we have almost complete framing. Everything looks good and I like the way it is turning out. It makes the house look huge, even though we aren't adding that many square feet. We should be under roof next week and start getting the windows and doors in.

The next thing is to pick out a tub for the bathroom and other plumbing fixtures.

Shrinkage

There is some consternation out and about on how food and beverage manufacturers are trying to sneak one past the American consumer by reducing the sizes of their packages (and presumably charging the same price). While I'm not too happy about getting less ice cream, maybe this is a good thing? The last thing Americans need to be doing is eating super-sized vats of Country Crock.

I recently read that Australians are fatter than we are (good on ya, Aussie!) Maybe the shrinkage at the grocery store will help this trend continue.

Letters

I stumbled across FontStruct the other week but didn't have a chance to take a look at it until recently. If you ever wanted to make your own font, you now have no excuses. I hope to have a chance to make a few of my own and post them out there.

Numbers

I stumbled across this report (pdf) about the Roanoke region recently. It isn't thrilling reading, but if you are curious about the demographic and economic data about the area, it is worth a quick glance.

Population of Roanoke City in 2007: 90,902
Decline since 2000: -1.5%
Roanoke City median household income 2005: $33,501
VA median household income 2005: $54,207
Roanoke City with at least Bachelor's degree: 18.74%
VA with at least Bachelor's degree: 29.46%

The fact that the ratios between the income numbers and the Bachelor's degree numbers are just about proportional is telling. We don't need no education.

Hiatus

I've been crushingly busy with work the past couple of weeks and we've been in our typical early summer busy mode which limits my extra energy for writing anything on this weblog. Just to keep it from gaining cobwebs, I'm writing this quick post.

Part of that early summer busy mode was the Bath County Triathlon. The race was a lot of fun. We did it as a family team with my wife swimming, me cycling and my daughter running and finished in a respectable time. The weather was absolutely perfect and we had fun at a friends post-race party at the family farm in the beautiful countryside. The only downer was that a friend came down from NYC to do the race and had to scratch due to a rib injury.

Floor

After another few days, we have a floor and some of the framing of the interior walls is starting. We need to start picking the finish items soon (tile, bathroom fixtures, etc.)

The past two weekends, the people working on the project have put in at least a few hours on Saturday morning. I don't exactly need to hear it six days a week, but I'll trade a few quiet Saturday mornings for a project completion before the kids go back to school.

Uneventful

I took a business trip to Peoria, IL this past week and it was absolutely uneventful. Delta was on time both ways and the weather was cooperative. Pleasant, even. A very nice contrast to my last trip there.

The only mild surprise was how crowded the flights (all four were booked solid) and the Atlanta airport were. With all the recession talk and airlines cutting back like mad, I half-expected it to be a ghost town.

Walls

Another week and we have the beginnings of a wall. The project passed inspection on Monday, so it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the framing. My thoughtful wife sent me this picture today of the latest progress and it looks good. I missed all the fun of having the power turned off to move the circuit over to the left hand side of the house.

We did our first (and hopefully last) change order this past weekend to screen in the new porch instead of leaving it open. It should be really nice during the outdoor season. Last weekend, we went to a party hosted by some friends who have recently added on a screened-in porch and it was a very nice space. I'm looking forward to it and the price wasn't all that bad (I'll just have to drive Goldie, our 1999 Subaru wagon, for another year or two).

Wood

Here is the progress to date on the home project. They have started to frame in the floors over the crawl space. To do that, they had to relocate the downstairs heat pump unit. After the move, the system works fine. So, that is good (especially since it is hot right now).

They have been pulling out some of the bricks to reuse them, thus the gaping holes in the exterior brick facing. This is not a quiet process. It makes the same sort of sound as cavity drilling at the dentist. I spent a lot of time working at Starbucks and Mill Mountain Coffee this week.

Hot Dog

This is the first day this year that I've felt hot just being outside. L10 and I went on our 1-mile walk today around noon and it was warm and sunny out there.

There was a great deal of of storm damage and many downed trees not half a mile from where we were walking due to an intense microburst storm last night. Where we were, there was absolutely no damage. Strange.