So I have been in a studying cave for the last week, and I intend to continue to be in a studying cave for the next week and a half…so blogging is taking a backseat. 

However, despite the studying cave, DB and I have become mildly obsessed with the Somali pirate story…as DB said this morning, “If they had an entire TV station devoted to pirates, I would never leave our house…”

It’s been a while since we’ve *both* been obsessed with the *same* news story.

And…here is a question for you all…we got this new car in December/January, right?  Well, it has the gas mileage prominantly displayed on the dash – both overall, and at any given instant.  When we were test-driving the thing, the salesperson told me that I drove rather…aggressively.  I kind of brushed it off.

Well, the stupid gas mileage summarizer-thingy would apparently agree with him, and DB has pointed it out to me on multiple (MULTIPLE) occasions.  My gas mileage is, like, MANY miles/gallon worse than DB’s.

Apparently I am like the world’s most wasteful driver.

So recently I have decided to embark on a campaign to reform my driving habits.  I know, I know, I tried hypermiling over the summer, too, and I was a dismal failure (too lazy to find those posts now, but suffice it to say, it was a dismal failure for both MY mileage and the presumed safety of everyone else on the road) – but this isn’t hypermiling, this is simply not driving sub-20 mpg when the car is rated at 25 mpg in the city.  (Or something in that ballpark.) 

Any ideas?  I *think* it is tied to my gear-shifting habits (this is a stick-shift car).  Until, um, yesterday? – I started the car – ALWAYS – in second gear.  First was just such a PITA.  But then I started noticing that I burned a lot of gas starting in second, so back to first.

But…contrary to what you might think given the first/second observation, DRIVING in a lower gear seems to blow through gas.  So cruising through the city in 3rd is WAY more wasteful than shifting to 4th or 5th.  (Which makes no sense to me, because on that token, starting in 2nd should be awesome for mileage, no?)

So…any ideas?  And I do not want to google this, so really, these are ideas that can fit into a small comment box… 🙂

I am determined to beat DB somehow.  The gas mileage is going to magically become amazing.  Ha.