Well, I guess you do anyway. I paid $3.229 this morning. It's heading in the right direction, as it usually does this time of year.

I remember when gas first hit the $2.00 mark. My wife, and not-quite 1 year old infant and I were heading to my cousin's high school graduation party. If my daughter was not quite one, then that was June 2003. $2.00 seemed like the most extremely exorbitant price imaginable. Now that would seem like peanuts.

Around the time my wife and I graduated college, and were just starting out (1997 or 1998 timeframe) gas was around $1.20. I knew that was extremely cheap and wouldn't last, because I also remember when I was a young kid in the '70s that gas was around $1.15. But I never imagined that gas would triple or more over the course of the next dozen years.

It just seems like gas is volatile with wide and dramatic swings. I know that there are a lot of geo-political factors in effect (Arab Spring, demand from China and India, and world-wide markets all playing a part), but it sure would be nice if we could reach some sort of stable price point.

We turned our furnace on Friday. That's Firday, September 30. I usually like to wait until Oct. 1, but, it was cold Friday.

It would have been turned on Thursday, but our two young boys had thrown a number of toys, sippy cups, bottles, and other assorted items down into our duct system. I reached down and grabbed out everything I could from the ducts, and my wife screwed the register covers down on Thursday, solving half the problem. There were still some items that had to be recovered from the far end of the ducts in the basement.

So, on Friday, I bought some of the very large zip strips that attach the flexible ducts to the main. When I got home from work on Friday, I went down to the basement, and cut the existing zip strips, removed the various debris from three different ducts, reattached them with the zip strips, and turned on the heat.

Hopefully we have enough fuel oil to last through the end of December. We'll probably need another two $750+ fill-ups before heating season is over.