My $8,000 Hybrid(or reasonable facsimilie)

Ok, so I tricked you into reading this posting. I don’t have an $8,000 hybrid but I did purchase a 2003 Honda Civic LX last year for that amount and I’m getting excellent mileage by using various hypermiling techniques and filling up with summer blend gas. My 1998 Plymouth Voyager was getting pretty high on the ODO anyway so we started looking for a more economical auto. Also, I have been carpooling with a co-worker whom drives a Toyota Prius and she has been getting about 42mpg. At this point I’m at 90% of the hybrid mileage benefit for a third of the car price. Since I purchased my civic, I have recorded 90%+ of all my trips and mileage and keep a regular pulse on my mpg.

Here’s a sample of my MPG readings since January 2008:

1/2/08 34.7 mpg
1/11/08 35.3 mpg
1/21/08 30.79 mpg
2/10/08 33 mpg
4/20/08 36 mpg
5/19/08 41.4 mpg
5/28/08 40.5 mpg

I believe that that there are reasons for the mpg improvement:

1) Switch from winter to summer blend gasoline
2) Improved hypermiling techniques
(You can learn more than what you ever wanted about hypermiling at http://ecomodder.com/forum/EM-hypermiling-driving-tips-ecodriving.php)

So far, I’m spending about $25 a week for gas with my civic and absorbing the fuel price hike(so far). Last fall when gas was lower, I spent about $25 a week with my minivan that got about 22mpg. This is certainly an improvement and just in time as petrol soars. I am still looking for ways to improve the feul economy on the civic and I’ll blog more about that soon. Our family have an active project migrating to better fuel economy cars and this is the fruit of these moves. Changing your behavior, your car, and improving your driving habits can make a huge difference in your fuel economy. This kaizen definitely has saved me some cash. Thank God for that.

The best dental hygenist ever.

My son Chip and I went up the stairs of the dentist office yesterday for my semi-annual trip to the dentist. After the check-in, we went back to visit Amy, my hygenist, in a patient room of Dr. Goldsmith's office. Amy is sweet as can be and she has the way of Kaizen in mind as she does her work.

I was questioning her on the best way to improve my flossing and Amy did something I did not expect. She had me hold a hand mirror and she adjusted lamp and I could see exactly how she flossed my teeth. In my 40 years of going for checkups, no one had ever shown me how to floss correctly in a visual way like this before. She was showing me the correct technique on my own set of chompers! Both Chip and I were very impressed. Her next step was even more unexpected.

She had me take that same mirror and show me how to examine the color of my gums. If the gums around the teeth were very red and then pink under that, there was an infection indicating that flossing and brushing were not doing the job. If the gums around the teeth were all the same "coral pink" color then I was doing the cleaning correctly. So, Amy gave me the proper flossing technique and the visual feedback loop to understand if my improvement in dental hygiene is working. Very cool.

Tomorrow I'll share Amy's next coming Kaizen and something she did for an elderly patient that still blows me away.