Next time I go, I should plan on stopping at the senic view on Route 3.

I said that I would mention Dar Williams' appearance at Clearwater. She wasn't there as a performer this year, she was there more of an activist. She was encouraging people to participate in the NY Energy Challenge. The main premise was to reduce our energy consumption by 2,000 Mw state wide. Accomplishing this would allow for the closure of Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. Or, according to others, it will allow us to close down havy polluting fossil-fuel powered power plants.

While I don't think we'll be able to exactly accomplish either, I support the overall goals of energy conservation. While I'm already pretty energy efficient, I think I can find a couple of bulbs that can be replaced with compact-flourescent bulbs.

Along those lines, I've been thinking of buying a new car. I'm trying to decide between a few different cars. The VW Jetta is nice and pretty good fuel efficiency. The 2003 model looks a lot nicer as a compact sedan than the 2001-2002 model. (It's much less boxy.) The downside to the Jetta is that it was named the #1 gay mens car by Car Talk.

The other car that is sitting near the top of my short list is the Honda Civic Hybrid. While the car is more expensive than a comparably priced Civic Sedan, the Federal Government is offering a $2,000 tax credit, New York is offering a $2,000 state tax credit, and exempting $3,000 of the purchase price of the car from sales tax (about $250 in taxes). Taking $4,250 off the price of the car really does make it much more comparable to the regular version.

So, I've gotta do my homework on that.