From: robert.sanford@gm.com
Robert W. Sanford
General Motors Corporation
"Proud to be an American Company" 

I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon..
                 
Here a t the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.
                 
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 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 other 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 ta nk 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. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.
                 
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.
                 
WHERE TO BUY USA GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON
                 
Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even be good for us! The Saudis are boycotting American goods. We should return the favor.
                 
An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.
                 
Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.
                 
Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends. I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.
                 
These companies import Middle Eastern oil:  
Shell...........................205,742,000 barrels  
Chevron/Texaco.........144,332,000 barrels  
Exxon /Mobil...............130,082,000 barrels  
Marathon/Speedway... 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco............................62,231,000 barrels
                 
Citgo gas is from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans. If you do t he mat h at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (oil is now $90 - $100 a barrel
                 
Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
                 
Sunoco..................0 barrels
Conoco..................0 barrels
Sinclair.................0 barrels
B P/Phillips............0 barrels
Hess.......................0 barrels
ARC0....................0 barrels  
 
If you go to Sunoco.com, you will get a list of the station locations near you. All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state
where they get their oil and how much they are importing. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do. 
                  

Navigation Through Fog: A Mathematical Analysis of Folder Path Propagation Authors: David H. Tofsted; ARMY RESEARCH LAB WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE NM

Abstract: The problem of navigation through fog was brought tragically to the fore during the summer of 1999 when John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crashed into the Atlantic off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The key factor here was the inability to determine the vertical direction due to the lack of visual cues. Less catastrophic, but of more concern, are frequent delays caused by fog at America's major airports. It is estimated that one major air package carrier alone incurs yearly costs measured in millions of dollars due to delayed or rerouted flights caused by airport fog conditions. Such delays would not be necessarily if alternatives to the current methods of handling fog conditions were available. The current method of coping appears simply to involve reducing the rate of aircraft arrivals and departures such that collisions are avoided. However, such an approach does not avoid the problems encountered by John Kennedy Jr., nor does it curtail the possibility of collision with obstacles on the runway. (Incidences of wildlife appearing on runways under low visibility conditions have also been noted in the past.) Though several methods for improving the ability to see through fog have been attempted, the one of interest in this case involves the use of stereoscopic vision devices coupled with laser illumination and realtime image deblurring software. But a fundamental question remains as to the capabilities of this technology when confronting real world fog environments. While models of fog scattering properties exist, the propagation models for use of these models have often relied on Monte Carlo analysis of scattering by fog particles. This analysis is usually incomplete - it cannot adequately address the spatial and angular structure of the radiation that reaches objects within the fog volume and the return signals from objects in the fog. In particular, if corner reflectors were mounted at the sides of the airways, could such reflective objects be viewed through the f7   9 August 2007 When heat, (i. e., energy), goes into a substance one of two things can happen: 1. The substance can experience a raise in temperature. That is, the heat can be used to speed up the molecules of the substance. Since Kelvin temperature is directly proportional to the average kinetic energy of molecules in a substance, an factor increase in temperature causes an equal factor increase in the average kinetic energy of the molecules. And if the kinetic energy of the molecules increase, the speed of the molecules will increase, although these increases are not directly proportional. The kinetic energy of a body is proportional to the square of the speed of the body. 2. The substance can change state. For example, if the substance is ice, it can melt into water. Perhaps surprisingly, this change does not cause a raise in temperature. The moment before melting the average kinetic energy of the ice molecules is the same as the average kinetic energy of the water molecules a moment after melting. Although heat is absorbed by this change of state, the absorbed energy is not used to speed up the molecules. The energy is used to change the bonding between the molecules. Changing the manner in which the molecules bond to one another constitutes a change in potential energy. Heat comes in and there is an increase in the potential energy of the molecules. Their kinetic energy remains unchanged. So, when heat comes into a substance, energy comes into a substance. That energy can be used to increase the kinetic energy of the molecules, which would cause an increase in temperature. Or that heat could be used to increase the potential energy of the molecules causing a change in state that is not accompanied by an increase in temperature. If anyone can take this info and figure out a way to make "mind over matter" help keep one's cool, please let me know.   5 July 2007 Subj:   Foo Fighters   All during 1944-45 Allied airmen over Germany encountered what B-17 pilot Charles Odom described as "crystal balls", clear, about the size of basketballs." They would approach to within 300 feet of the bomber formation, "then would seem to become magnetized to our formation and fly alongside... After a while, they would peel off like a plane and leave." Mostly they were seen at night but some airmen reported spotting them during daylight hours. Over the Rhine Valley early one November evening in 1944, Lt. Henry Giblin and his radar observer, Lt. Walter Cleary, sighted a "huge red light" 1,000 feet above them (they were flying at 1,000 feet). The object was moving at about 200 miles per hour. About the same time two other airmen encountered a "glowing red object" which shot up vertically, turned over, and plunged into a steep dive. The witnesses were sure the thing was under intelligent control. "In 1942 I was on a little island outpost off the southern U.S. coast. While on duty at the observation post one clear, moonless night, I saw a brightly glowing, unidentified object, like a flare in appearance, traveling horizontally over the sea at moderate speed; I can't even guess at its size, height or distance from where I was. "Possibly 30 seconds or a minute after my first glimpse of it, the object plummeted straight down toward the water and disappeared. I watched the area where it had vanished, and a couple of minutes later it reappeared, rising swiftly in apparently an absolute vertical line until it was out of sight." For more foo fighter info, see http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/newse/foo/foo2.html   25 July 2006 From Col. D.G. Swinford, USMC, Ret. and history buff. You would really have to dig to get this kind of ringside seat to history: 1. The first German serviceman killed in WW2 was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937), the first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940), the highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps. . . So much for allies. 2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress.) 3. At the time of Pearl Harbor the top US Navy command was Called CINCUS (pronounced "sink us"), the shoulder patch of the US Army's 45th Infantry division was the Swastika, and Hitler's private train was named "Amerika." All three were soon changed for PR purposes. 4. More US servicemen died in the Air Corps than the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions your chance of being killed was 71%. 5. Generally speaking there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane. 6. It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming. This was a mistake. Tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. This was definitely not something you want ed to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down. YOU'VE GOT TO LOVE THIS ONE.... 7. When allied armies reached the Rhine the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act). found the photo (hand tinted black and white) 8. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn't worth the effort. 9. A German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet. 10. Among the first "Germans" captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the US Army. AND I SAVED THE BEST FO R LAST.... 11. Following a massive naval bombardment 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. 21 troops were killed in the firefight. It would have been worse if there had been any Japanese on the island.