Summer is a time for road trips and if you’re among the many American families taking hitting the highways, add “fuel costs” into your vacation budget.

Crude oil prices have been increasing lately and that tends to lead to higher gas prices at the pump.

Depending on where your travels take you, you should be prepared for what your vehicle’s fuel will cost you.

The southeastern part of the United States is averaging around $2.90 per gallon, while some parts of California are averaging $3.50 or more.

Those are average figures, of course, which means some locales are even higher.

GasBuddy.com is a handy Web site for gas price information. It’s Gas Temperature map is especially helpful. Notice how the areas closest to refineries have the least expensive pump prices?

GasBuddy.com also has a “mobile feature”.

Text or email gas@gasbuddy.com with the city/state or ZIP code as the body of your message. Within seconds, you’ll get a reply containing the five gas stations with the cheapest fuel in the area.

Even when you’re on the road, you can use GasBuddy.com to save.

The eco-friendly movement is all around us — have you seen the Green Earth concert? — but did you know that “going green” can also be a dollar-saver?

For example, 85% of the energy used by your washing machine is used to heat the water? Simply changing to cold water washing can be a real money saver — and yes, it works!

Here are a few other dollar-saving, eco-friendly tips:

• Heating and cooling your home accounts for 45% of your home’s energy bill. Don’t heat or cool your home unnecessarily while you’re at work, or on vacation. Use programmable timers to manage thermometers.
• 15% of your home’s energy bill is used to heat water so don’t run the water while you are shaving or brushing your teeth. Take short showers instead of long showers.
• Keep your window treatments drawn in the summer to keep the sun’s rays out and the cool air in. In the winter, keep your window’s uncovered so the sun will help heat your home.
• Change your air filters monthly. Furnaces with clogged filters consume more energy than units with new filters.
• When replacing appliances, use ENERGY STAR appliances; they can save you up to 30% off your energy bill.
• Replace light bulbs in your home with CFL light bulbs. CFLs cost more, but last longer and consume much less energy than comparable “old” light bulbs.

Being environmentally-friendly doesn’t have to mean major changes in the way you live — it can be about making small changes in your everyday life. If everybody makes small changes, though, it can add up to a big difference.

Source
“Watts” it worth?
Maryland Office of the Attorney General
http://www.oag.state.md.us/consumer/edge123.pdf

When you’re in transition between homes and your life is in boxes (literally), sometimes all you want to do is find a live Internet connection, login and check your email.

Over the past year, a plethora of restaurants, airports, hotels, and parks added free wi-fi access for their customers and the Web site wififreespot.com is trying to catalog them all.

Wififreespot.com hosts a growing list of wi-fi-friendly businesses that includes:

• Doubletree hotels
• Panera Bread
• Office Depot

There are many more listed at the site, of course.

Remember that access to a wi-fi “hotspot” requires a wireless card and a laptop and you can buy both at CompUSA — also a free wi-fi provider.

It’s a natural tendency to relegate “junk” around your home to the garage.

But, when selling a home, don’t forget the buyers pay as much attention to garages as to most other rooms in a house.

When touring your home and viewing your garage, these are just some of the questions that a buyer may have:

• Will I be able to pull my over-sized car into this garage?
• Will the doors open on both sides of the car so I can put the kids in their car seats?
• Is there room to hang a bicycle from the ceiling?
• Is there room for an extra refrigerator in here?
• Can I build out this garage for a workshop?

To help buyers visualize their own garage arrangement, keep your garage as clean and organized as possible — just like every other room in your home. It's hard to imagine the garage as their own space when there is so much of your stuff around.

Keep the garage clean as clean as the rest of the house whenever you can. A garage is a big selling point, so you want it to looks its best as much as any other part of a house.

New sealer and a coat of paint might also be in order, but more than anything it should be clean.

In honor of Independence Day, here are 13 little-known bits of trivia about the United States constitution, courtesy of constitutionfacts.com:

1. The first constitution was not known as the Declaration of Independence. It was called the Articles of Confederation.
2. The U.S. Constitution has 4,400 words. It is the oldest and shortest written Constitution of any major government in the world.
3. There are spelling errors throughout the Constitution, but the misspelling of the word “Pensylvania” above the signers' names is a notable one.
4. Thomas Jefferson did not sign the Constitution. He was in France during the Convention, where he served as the U.S. minister.
5. The Constitution was “penned” by Jacob Shallus, a Pennsylvania General Assembly clerk, for a fee of $30.
6. The entire Constitution is displayed in public just one day a year — September 17. This is the anniversary of the day the framers signed the document.
7. Patrick Henry was elected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, but declined, because he “smelt a rat.”
8. The oldest person to sign the Constitution was Benjamin Franklin (81). The youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey (26).
9. When the Constitution was signed, Philadelphia was the nation's largest city, with 40,000 inhabitants.
10. Because of his poor health, Benjamin Franklin needed help to sign the Constitution. As he did so, tears streamed down his face.
11. The first time the formal term “The United States of America” was used was in the Declaration of Independence.
12. There was initially a question as to how to address the President. The Senate proposed that he be addressed as “His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.” Both the House of Representatives and the Senate compromised on the use of “President of the United States.”
13. The word “democracy” does not appear once in the Constitution.

Have a safe and happy July 4th, everyone.

Source
Fascinating Facts about the U.S. Constitution
http://www.constitutionfacts.com/index.cfm?section=constitution&page=fascinatingFacts.cfm

What if you called to get a home showing and the listing agent turned you down? It’s happening in Aspen, Colorado.

Well, to be clear, it’s not happening to just anyone – only the world’s wealthiest people that want to tour the most expensive single-family home listed for sale in the United States.

Listed at $135 million, the 95-acre estate was originally built in 1991 for the family of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to the United States from Saudi Arabia.

Only 11 of roughly 1,000 requests for tours have been granted, says broker Joshua Saslove.

The buyers market for the ranch is relatively small — Forbes puts the world’s total number of billionaires in 2007 at just 946.

Source
Millionaires need not apply
Kirk Johnson
Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-house_02jul02,1,3056301.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed