Hello!

We're all aware by now of the skyrocketing cost of fuel and the negative effect that it's having on economies right across the board from the West to the East. For months now, the pundits in the media have been hammering on the fact that these costs are causing the price of food to rise and having a detrimental effect on almost everything else that we consume. They look at the big picture and tell us that even many of the manufacturing jobs that we once held as a given are in jeopardy at least in part due to the rising costs of crude oil. This is especially true of the automotive industry.

They point to various factors on the international scale and tell us that the industrialization of once less developed countries like China and India have had an effect on the demand for the crude that seems to be running out anyway.

Still, all these macro issues quite often don’t impact on the average guy or gal when they need to fill the car up to get the kids to school or to get themselves to work. With an increasingly larger percentage of their income being spent on fuel and no relief in sight, the common man and woman is looking for ways they can maintain just to get by. They're looking for a few practical hints that can help them in the daily battle to avoid what's starting to look like a bottomless money pit to drive. Everywhere, people are looking for alternatives like mass transportation, smaller cars and even scooters, car pooling and even bikes. With the pinch on their wallets, vacation plans and even lifestyles change as the car sits idle in the drive.

Still, there are a few things that you can do to fight back and the first of these is to keep you car in good shape. Remember to that one of the best ways to save what you can on gas is to buy in the morning and shop around for the cheapest prices. You should also get in the habit of turning your engine off and on rather than letting it idle and remember to drive at a constant smooth speed wherever you need to go.

The people in Philadelphia are calling the empty holes a disaster waiting to happen. They worry that the children who play on the city and residential streets could fall into one of them and hurt themselves seriously or even worse be killed. The appearance of these holes all over the city had prompted the municipal government to assign crews of crack city employees to be especially vigilant for the thieves and to lock down the manhole covers that haven't gone missing. Sound like a scene from a horror movie where an average American city is besieged by something that comes to terrorize them from the sewer system? In a way it is. Except that what's happening all over the city of Philadelphia isn't a movie.

Someone has been taking the 30 pound cast iron manhole covers and making off with them. And not just one or two either. The City of Philadelphia estimates that thieves have made off with about 500 of the covers since last year. And beyond the dangerous situation that's left behind by the holes where someone could fall anywhere from four to six feet, there's the cost of replacing these covers. The bill so far is $50,000.

Of course the good people in Philadelphia are an enterprising bunch and they've developed a way to 'cover' their manhole covers so to speak. The city has commissioned crews to make sure each one has a lock placed on it from now on.