FranceBlog in English

I just filled up my little Renault Clio with this nice expensive liquid called gasoline. 510km about 319miles were driven. The 43Liter Tank (11.2Gallons) needed 32.2Liters (8.4Gallons). That is a average of 6.3L/100km or 37MPG. Not too bad for the traffic to work. That is more than 4L less than the Cougar consumes. The Cougar has a average of about 10.5L/100km(22MPG). The specs of the Clio say that even 4.7L/100km might be possible (50MPG). So 13km each way (8.1 miles) that is 26km per workday or 130km (81miles) per week. With driving to work, shopping and sightseeing I might drive around 10000km (6125miles) per year with the Clio I can save about 420L(109 Gallons) per year. Right now the price per Liter is between 1.379 Euro and 1.47 Euro (about 8.30 USD to  8.80USD per Gallon) here in Montpellier. So I can save around 588 Euro per year more or less. I usually fill my car up at the elf Gas station in Montpellier. That one is the cheapest, 8 cent less than Total or other big brands. Only the Shopping Center Gas Stations are similar. My little 55HP Clio is not bad at all, accelerates pretty fast since it is a light car with only 850kg (compared to 1390kg of the Cougar). Driving „green“ is cool. A bientot

I am a internet addict. I know that. Since 1994 I am surfing in the Internet. Started with Mosaic as a Browser and I saw lots of good Search pages. Yahoo, Lycos. Then came Google and now everything is GOOGLE. Google Earth, google is everything. It is a part of our Internetlives. But some guys, former Google members, try to change that. The founded and released CUIL (cool), a new search engine that searches almost twice as much sites than Google, they say. 120 Billion pages. Thats really a lot. So I tried to test it. How good is it. My own Pages have just a few 10000 visits each, not a massive visitornumber. In Google the search results are fast and very accurate. I find what I was looking for. Cuil has a very nice display of the results. But some search words were searched without any result. Same word as used in Google, but no result. So the twice amount of webpages searched is not a sign for good quality at all. Just more. So my pages are probably not searched or indexed correctly. Google is still better, but maybe it will change. CUIL is a good tool, that is for sure. Try it out yourself. Either klick at the link under Blogroll or go to http://www.cuil.com  Good luck

Wow, my little Clio was pretty shy looking on his parking spot when a few cars away a dream red rested. A Ferrari 612 Scagliatti, 540HP, 12 Cylinders, 320km/h top speed. Thats 10 times more HP than the Clio, 3 times more cylinders and 2 times the top speed. But it’s a 2+2 seater, just like my Cougar. Almost a real Familycar. But many times more expensive. Anyway, it is a beautiful Ferrari.

Ok, I am typical german. I had to do the weekendcleaningmycarmania (long word, not a real word I guess). I like my car technically ok and clean. Dorion took already care for the technical part and partially for the cleaning. But I took my magic cleaning stuff, drove to the carwash and sprayed, brushed, rubbed, polished the car. Polishing is not really needed because there are lots of resin leftovers but it looks better. The dents and scratches are still there, but they look better now 🙂 That makes the car look younger at least a few years. If I wash myself I won’t look younger 🙂
So this was my weekendfun besides going to the beach. Take a look at the pictures before/after:

Our little Renault Clio is doing fine. He fits into almost every parkingspot. Runs smooth and pretty aggressive with his just 55HP at 825kg of weigth (excluding me as a driver of course). Fast enough for the local traffic. Gasmileage is not clear yet, just filled the tank, but it should be ok. Wipers are new and I had to replace the battery. The battery died yesterday, totally dead. Alternator etc. works fine, but I had to buy a new one. With the new one everything is good again. Engine starts immediately.I noticed something funny. On the driver side mirror is a little spider web. My High Tech integrated Webbrowser 🙂  It catches no spam, just pollen and flies and so on. The little spider is hiding behind the mirror and always reworks the web when it is destroyed during driving or so. Very reliable Webbrowser 🙂 Let’s see how long the spider survives.

A bientot

It is the 14th of July. French national holiday. I did not go to the big firework, since I did not want to go alone. But that is ok. I saw several fireworks, so I am not sad. In Montpellier was a lot going on at the Place de la Comedie. A parade with police and military was there, not as big as the parade in Paris today, but nice.

I drove with my little Clio to Montpellier. I met Clive in the Bar Vert-Anglais and had some drinks there with some of his friends and also Hans, who arrived today. It was nice to sit outside. The weather is great here. Clive left a little later. He had to get some sleep after having a party til 7am in the morning. Hans and I went to a small Restaurant. The rest of Montpellier was pretty quiet.

Only at Place de la Comedie was some party going on. A Stage, lots of people. The french flag was everywhere.

Before I went there I was almost stuck at home. A few minutes before I left a ugly smell was noticeable in my apartment. Not that I had some beans and Chili…Noo But exactly that smell was here. In the bathroom of our guestroom everything started. I turned the water on to let it flow down the drain, but the water did not went away. Even worse, yellow,brown smelly water came up and had a even worse smell. It was unbelieveable. I went to the front desk and told them my problem. After about 20 minutes I heard, blubb blubb blubb and the water disappeared. The guys were outside and opened the main-drain. Other Apartments had the same problem. So I was lucky now and everything is clean again.  Hopefully that was the last time.

A bientot

OK, the pictures of last weekends 2. SchwobaCup Old- and Youngtimer Rallye are online at:
http://www.schwobacup.de/Oldtimer/galerie2008.html

I will also upload a video soon, but so far the pictures should be enough. It is weekend again. Time flies by. Last wednesday some german colleagues came to my place foa BBQ. They were on Education and we used the time to eat some steaks, sausages, drink beer, wine, Pastis.

Since thursday I am proud owner of a 1995 Renault Clio. 1.2L, white, some dents and it runs. I bought him from Dorion and Jeanine. They were on assignment also and now return to the US soon. They got the car also from the assignee before. So we can call this car a traditional assignee car. Perfect for the french towns. I am not scared anymore to park on a parkinglot. This car already has enough dents.
I just need to park my Cougar on a safe place, before might returning it to germany. On friday I went to my local Bank to sign the insurance contract for the little Clio. Thanks to Jerome (a colleague) and M. Becamel vom the bank I also managed the paperwork to get a new Carte Grise (car papers with license…). I went to the town hall in Baillargues. Less stress than going to Montpellier. It takes 4 weeks due to the holiday season, but the old papers are valid for 4 weeks anyway. I managed everything in french and some english. I am proud. My level is rising from a 3 year old to a 4 1/2 to 5 year old 🙂

At least I understand more and speak more. I enjoy the sun and on Monday is July 14th, the french national holiday. I will go to Montpellier to see the fireworks. Without my family unfortunately. They are still doing vacation in germany. Anyway, they are back soon 🙂

A bientot