[Fat Charlie]

Just reviewing my fuel log tonight because tomorrow (or Thursday morning depending on how brave I am) I'm going to finish my second best tank ever. I started hypermiling in April. My life has controlled for a lot of driving variables- I've got a long commute that hasn't changed since I bought this car almost 170k ago. I know how to work the car, the road and the traffic. I've been driving for mileage instead of time for over 8700 miles, and I haven't managed to fully adjust the nut behind the wheel.

After 20 tanks, only one real tank has been below lifetime average (Tornadoes and Manhattan can be excluded for this discussion). It was my third tank, the first one that I faced rain with. That's pretty pathetic, when you think about it. I'm on a road I'm intimately familiar with in a car I'm intimately familiar with. I own both of them. Almost 9000 miles into this and I've still got room for improvement in a very controlled environment! WTF, over?

I stumbled across some Suabru wiring diagrams a while ago and I'm going to talk to one of the guys at work about it. That's going to help because it's getting to be headlight weather at my latitude during rush hour and my lights are controlled by the key. Thank you very much, Nanny State, now I really do need that kill switch.

Sorry, I just thought I'd have hit the "no hardware modifications" driver skill plateau by now. I'm happy to see the numbers increasing but am disappointed in myself that I have not learned how to most effectively drive my car yet. Most people don't even own their cars for this many miles and I'm apparently still trying to figure mine out, for Bob's sake!