In The Vortex

Author: David Drummond

  • Celestial Triplets 12/01/08 Moon, Jupiter & Venus

    As many are probably aware even if you took only a casual look in the evening sky lately, there has been something a bit unusual there.

    Jupiter and Venus have been very bright and close together and the last couple of nights joined by the moon in a rare celestial combination.  I hope everyone got to view this at least once.

    Despite only having a kit lens for my digital camera, I couldn’t resist giving some photography of this a shot.  I am rather please with what I got, even though I know with better lenses I could do so much better, as my chase partner Graham did with his better lenses tonight.

    At any rate, I am encouraged because it just shows me I am learning this “new” camera better and better.  Here are a couple of the best tonight.  This is with the standard Canon EF18-55 kit lens that comes with most of the Canon Rebel XTi series.

    This is one of the benefits of living in west Texas.  Endless skies and sunset!  Despite being cold it was quite enjoyable.  Be sure to click on them to get the somewhat bigger image.

  • Lubbock, TX Does Not Exist says Associated Press

    …or so it would seem they think so anyway.  Below is a quote of a recent AP story:

    HOUSTON (AP) – Texans hitting the road for Thanksgiving are finding retail gas prices at levels to give thanks for.

    The weekly AAA Texas gasoline price survey released Wednesday found self-serve, regular was averaging $1.75 per gallon. That’s 13 cents lower than last week.

    Nationally, the average price per gallon fell 16 cents to $1.86 per gallon.

    The most expensive gasoline this week was in El Paso, where it averaged $1.92 per gallon.

    The cheapest gas is in Amarillo, at $1.66 per gallon.

    AAA Texas spokeswoman Sarah Schimmer says the auto club expects 7.8% of all U.S. travel during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to be in Texas. Schimmer says 2.5 million Texans plan to be driving.

    Note the line I bolded there.  Currently gas in Lubbock, which is easily checked at texasgasprices.com, is averaging $1.50/gal.  So obviously Amarillo does NOT have the cheapest gas in the state.

    I could understand not checking lots of small towns, but Lubbock is at least as big as Amarillo, if not bigger, and certainly has received plenty of national attention in the sports arena lately.

    Normally I would have passed this off as a slip up or even rushing to do the report and not having complete facts, but every time they release one of these, which seems to be weekly, it’s the same thing.

    What gives AP?