93 Chevy Lumina Mileage

Earlier this summer we bought a 1993 Chevy Lumina as a 3rd car, mainly for our daughter to drive to school. Well my Prizm was in the shop this week so I drove the Lumina. This was my first chance to check the mileage.

Most of my driving was to and from work, and to and from soccer games. I drove 345 miles and filled the tank tonight with 13.41 gallons. My calculations show that I'm getting 25.7 miles per gallon. Not bad!

Gas For $1.99 / Gallon!

Gas was down to $1.99 today, the first time in recent memory that it has been under $2! I didn't go to my other job today so my only driving was for delivery (plus to the store and back). I bought 1.874 gallons and drove 45.5 miles so my Chevy Prism got 24.3 miles per gallon.

The reason I missed my day job was that my wife went to the Sarah Palin rally in Lakewood this morning. I just needed to get the kids onto the bus before I left for work. Well the flaw in the plan was that "Jay" threw up twice right after eating breakfast so he had to stay home from school. And I had to stay home with him.

On a positive note, this allowed me to get in to my pizzeria an hour earlier than usual, so I drove for 6 hours, unfortunately we were not busy at all and I took only 9 deliveries, all singles! I made $21 in tips and drove 41 miles.

Stiffless!

I drove tonight from 5:30 - close (1 am). For the first time that I can ever remember, I took over 20 deliveries (21) and got $1 or more on every one! No stiffs all night long!

I made $57 in tips and drove 72 miles.

Talk of the night, at the local hospital (where I took a late delivery) and also at the gas station after my shift was a "riot" that took place at a local weddng. Ed at the Speedway said there were 8 local and 4 county police cars!

The Minivan Squad

When I got home from church this afternoon I noticed my Chevy Prizm had a flat tire. So I had to deliver tonight in my wife's Mercury Villager. The ironic thing was that I was working with Steve, who drives a Ford Windstar.

The villager got us 18.6 MPG on this tank of gas.

I worked 5 hours, took 11 runs, drove 48 miles, and made $28 in tips.

I'm having minor surgery tomorrow and will be off work for a few weeks, but in the meantime my wife Victoria is starting as a pizza waitress. Hopefully she'll be able to post a few times in my absence.

Wisdom From Speedway

Ed, an older check-out clerk at Speedway gas station, laid this pearl of wisdom on me tonight. "The broker this city gets, the meaner people act."

I actually had a pretty good night. I drove 5 hours, took 15 deliveries, drove 50 miles, and made $40 in tips.

Unfortunately I didn't have any interesting stories tonight.

The only things close were the guy in the exclusive development asking how much I make, tipping me $2.43, and then coming back out the door to give me another $1. And the lady later in the night, who had been drinking I'm pretty sure, who told me that our hot-bags were the best thing ever invented.

Tips Explained

Two customers made comments tonight to explain or justify their tips. One gave me $3.56, commenting about the price of gas. Then on my last trip of the night, a woman said "Well it is Saturday night, just keep the change," leaving me with $3.91. Only thing was, by that time it was actually Sunday morning.

I drove for 7 hours, took 18 runs, drove 63 miles, and made $47 in tips.

Speedway Gasoline

There is a Speedway gas station right across from the pizzeria where I work. It is very convenient and the prices are good. As a pizza driver (who also has a 20 mile commute each day for my day job and a 40 mile commute to pick up my kids when they are at their mom's) I use quite a bit of gas!

I use the Speedy Rewards cards to earn points. Also, since I buy most of my gas with cash, I always use a gift card. Each month Speedway has a different promotion, right now you get 1000 bonus points when you make a $50 recharge on your Speedway Cash Card. Since 17500 points gets me a free $25 gift card, that is like getting $1.42 free with each $50 recharge. That may not seem like alot but when I recharge 6-8 times each month, it adds up!

Tonight the girl working the register remarked that she was always meaning to get herself a gift card so she could take advantage of the points. Then she told how she almost ran out of gas 3 times since she started working there.

"Hello! I work at a gas station!" she exclaimed.

I worked 6 hours tonight and took just 10 deliveries. I didn't write down my mileage but I think it was around 35 miles. And I made $24 in tips.

Late Start

I was held up at my day job for about an hour today, trying to get a database view working properly, so I didn't start driving until around 7 PM. Still, the cold snowy weather and a new tv promotion we are running kept us pretty busy. And we were 2 drivers short, as Desiree was having car trouble and Todd was a no-show.

So it was Ted, daytime driver Mark (staying late), and manager Nick until I got there.

I drove 4 hours, took 10 deliveries, made $24, and drove 35 miles. Pretty decent 4 hours. Of course our volume of business and shortage of drivers (on buffet night) meant there were another 1 1/2 hours of dishes to do, plus most of the frozen dough prep for Thursday night. I didn't get out of there until after 12:30 AM.

Then I was frustrated getting gas. I always get whatever gas-card deal is the best at Speedway. For the past month the deal has been "Save $1 on a $25 Gas Card." In other words I get a $25 gas card for $24. Tonight I asked for my $25 gas card recharge and it cost the full $25. But the sign was still up and nobody knew when it ended or what the new deal was.

I didn't have any interesting deliveries tonight except for 2 personal pizzas to Pudge's Place, a downtown bar. They were for a patron and (apparently) the barmaid, as I had to later take a rerun as we messed up the toppings. The patron was nice enough to give me $1 for my 2nd trip, even after giving me only $1.18 the first time.

I'm Baaaaack!

I wasn't on the schedule tonight, even though I hadn't requested off. I had told Kristie last night that I would come in and close for her. So when I got home from my day job around 5:30 I called to see what was up.

Manager Rosa let me know that driver Chris did not show up for work today and they needed me as soon as I could get in. I feel like, after several weeks of not working much, I'm back in the swing of things.

The night started off well. The weather was rainy and we were busy. I took 4 deliveries in the first 1 1/2 hours and had collected $11 in tips before it got dark. Then business slowed down and tips got even worse.

I ended the 5 1/2 hour night with 8 deliveries, 38 miles, and $13 in tips.

We had a new guy, Todd, who also has a day job as a substitute teacher, and a new waitress, Tiffany.

Then after we closed, while I was getting gas at Speedway, 2 interesting things happened. Waitress Jeanette was there, with her boyfriend. She's been on medical leave and I haven't seen her in about a month. Then while we were saying hi, a guy came up to ask for money.

His story was that he and his mom were from Toledo and ran out of gas. Well, I know that asking for money at the gas station is one of the biggest scams going, and I told him to get lost.

Crash!

No, luckily, it wasn't me. I wasn't even there. But this crash happened around 11:30 last night at the Speedway gas station where I fill up each night after my shift.

I'm glad I wasn't there at the time.

I wonder what that woman was thinking???

"I have a line"

We had a pretty slow night tonight. I worked about 5 hours, drove 39 miles, delivered 8 orders, and made $13 in tips. Only 1 of my orders was over $18. Four of them were $13.58 ($11.99 plus the $1.59 delivery charge). Low orders lead to low tips.

One of my customers opened the box and said "It looks like there's a piece missing." I promised her that her pizza must have just slid around in the box, as I certainly didn't eat it. All the slices were there, it was a medium pizza and we always cut them in 8.

We had an extra pepperoni pizza for some reason. I took it over to my friends at Speedway who sometimes will trade me some Krispy Kreme donuts for pizza. Unfortunately the donuts were out but I gave them the pizza anyways.

One of them was on the phone with their significant other and said "Hey baby, I've got to go, I have a line." The other gas clerk said "We do?" I was the only customer in the store. He was just making an excuse to get off the phone and chat with the pizza guy.

I went back about an hour later and there was a line about 5 deep at each register.