With the possibility of a job looming (I finally got an interview for a contract gig somewhere), I was thinking about my commute to the client location and how much carbon I'd be emitting.

The commute is about equal to the average MPG that my car gets in morning traffic, so I knew I could estimate it at 2 gallons a day. I Googled for a figure on the emissions from a gallon of gas and found the official EPA estimates. I was shocked, because they said each 8-pound gallon of gasoline burned creates 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO₂).

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So, on Sunday I was going through the mail and I found a letter from the Pierce County District Court. I opened it up and it was for a violation caught on a traffic camera. But there's a problem...

I haven't been in Pierce County in years, I've NEVER been to the specific part of Pierce County where the picture was snapped (Tacoma Narrows Bridge - the violation was a failure to pay the bridge toll), and the car in the traffic camera photo is one I sold to a Honda dealer 6 months ago as the trade in on my CR-V.

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As I flipped around the channels Sunday afternoon, I hit an HBO showing of The Blues Brothers Movie, coming in right at the end of the Cab Calloway "Minnie the Moocher" number. My son was coloring, but when Elwood and Jake got in the car, I called him over.

"Come watch one of the best car chases ever filmed."

He came, sat down on the couch, and I unpaused the movie. "It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, a half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses." And the fun began.

I have no idea how many cars got smashed in the process of making that sequence. I could probably look it up on IMDb, but I'm too lazy. "A lot" is an exact enough number for me. I also got to see the falling/flying station wagon. And I got to share it all with my son.

That was a good Sunday.

Just posted this over on the Honda CR-V forum over at edmunds.com. Thought I'd post it here too.

Last week, there was a Shelby Cobra, red with white rally stripes, in the parking lot at the supermarket. My 3-and-a-half-year-old was mesmerized. He spotted it the moment we pulled into the lot and said "Daddy, I want the red car." I could only second the emotion.

I'm turning 40 in a few weeks, have another kid due a few weeks after that, and I'm trading in my Elantra GT (which I bought because it looked like a Saab 9³) on a CR-V LX with AWD today.

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