Trying to “fill in” for Mike…and solve the energy crisis

I thought I would try to help Mike out while he was “gone fishin” so that he could enjoy his free time but I see he beat me to the punch.  I was naked on the beach talking to Mike on Wednesday telling him my issue of “Xcitement Atlanta” magazine had hit the shelves and would he please pick up some extra copies and he said that the fishing gods weren’t cooperating with him (he said he wasn’t going fishing).  I’m glad to see after the hell of his surgery he and his dad decided to get away…he deserves it.  I just hope he knows I expect some of those snapper and Amberjack filets to be on his person the next time he comes out to shoot.  And Mike, btw, just for your edification, I finally figured out the camera…sort of.  In the coming weeks we will be shooting a lot of new content, I hope we make something good for everyone, my goal is to put at least one ass in every seat.

I now want to get to the “meat” of my post.  I have been thinking about this for a long time but never got around to putting it into words.  I have a solution to the worlds energy crisis..seriously.  I was driving back from Miami to St. Pete last night and got off I-275 in St. Pete and drove down Gandy Blvd. towards Reddington Beach.  This is a stretch of road that runs about 10 or 12 miles, and like every other developed beach area, or any developed piece of suburbia for that matter, it has red light every 4 and a half feet.  Now ordinarily, when I am at home and driving through the “urban sprawl/chaos” that is Atlanta traffic, I am always perplexed, and often times infuriated, at the absolute lack of common sense used in urban planning.  Not only is there a strip center on EVERY available square inch of dirt, there is a red light in front of it.  Now I do not have the time, nor the energy, to discuss the lunacy of that practice..I am quite certain that these lights ain’t cheap, and there are municipalities and cities all over the world that are wasting billions on unecessary lights..(hey..there’s another blog subject for another day).  But can’t they at the very least figure out a decent system for timing them?  The thought occurred to me last night as I drove the 10 or so miles off the interstate towards the beach, and caught all but ONE light, that WTF…here’s how we solve the world’s energy crisis in one fell swoop: time the GD lights so that all the N-S bound and all the E-W bound lights are on the SAME schedule.  Wow, that’s brilliant isn’t it?  Fairly simple to enact, and it would prevent us all from driving to and fro in our daily endeavors and feeling like we are the guy from the opening credits of “Office Space”, you know what I’m talking about…the guy creeps forward at 3 feet per minute, catching EVERY red light on his way to work, and as soon as he changes lanes to the one he THINKS is moving then that lane comes to a screeching halt.

Now admittedly, I’m no economist, nor an expert on cars and fuel economy, but don’t you think that if people didn’t spend so much time stopping every 100 yards at a red light, JUST after accelerating from the last light 100 yards back, that we would save an immeasurable amount of fuel?  If you could run down a stretch of road unimpeded for several miles without stopping wouldn’t that be preferable to what we have now?  So imagine in a polyanna world, where there aren’t as many unecessary red lights, and the ones that are there are actually timed in some type of common-sensical fashion…on every road, in every city, town and hamlet..all over the world.  How much gas would all the drivers in the world save on just ONE calender day?  Who knows, I can’t even fathom a number that large…now multiply that number by 365.   I believe we could solve the energy crisis in 3-5 years.  Just my humble opinion.