Learning From Our Neighbors

Our economic situation seems to be all we are hearing about in the media today. It can tend to be a little over whelming. In speaking with a colleague of mine, Victoria Bosa, the other day about the situation in her country, Ukraine, she told me that:

“The current financial and political situation in Ukraine is still in decline.
More than 35% of real estate companies went bankrupt, almost no transactions on
real estate market, though some experts say the market is getting better
comparing with Autumn and Winter. It's difficult to predict what will happen in
2009 though... The only good... Read More thing is that it is good time to
buy, but there is no mortgage and people can't get their deposits back from the
banks, so no cash to buy. My opinion the real estate market will be, so to say,
"dead" until the banks start working in their normal standard way.”

People are resilient and will work through this. There are some who will come out of this in much a much better position. We as human beings have the ability to look within ourselves and make the changes needed. We will survive and persevere and some will thieve. In my studies of the Ukrainian people, I have found they have been through many atrocities and yet they always come back, stronger. Their national pride and quest for wisdom is something I admire.

We have a lot to learn from our neighbors and a lot to share with each other. During these troubling times it is good to know that we can thrive with the help and networking of good people around us. There are incredible opportunities to be found.

Fill'er Up

Coming from a Gas Company family, here are some helpful tips for filling up:

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon.

In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger usually has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.

Another reminder. If there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

Hope this will help you get the most value for your money. Being a REALTOR, I have to watch carefully my expenses and my fuel costs for my Rover are becoming astronomical. See you at the pumps... or not?