Hope you enjoyed my moving to Australia posts, cause just after posting those I moved back to Sri Lanka. I won’t get into “moving back to Sri Lanka” cause its pretty painful and I’m sure no one will want to read it.
Why move back? Well although its a bit crappy here most of the time its home, and with the end of the war one can hope again. Here are a few first impressions of Sri Lanka for someone returning after a few years.
Driving has got worse and kind of easier. Before there were only a few idiots who drive bad, now everyone does, so you go with the flow and try not to hit anything.
Everything is more expensive. The quality of products are lower. A bar of soap has been carved in so many creative ways now its about half the weight at the old price.
There seems to be a few new local products trying to fill in the gaps of more expensive imports so that’s kicked off a bit of business.
Everyone seems to be doing more business than going to a 9 to 5 job.
2009 has been a decent year. I’m still working so I survived the recession. I thought coming down in time for the holidays would be a great idea, but this season was a bit damp and low-key. Not my kind of Christmas.
Most of the time I feel very few reads this. Since I got down I’ve spoken to a few people and it seems a few more do. So I’ll try to post a bit more often even if its not too technical.
By the way if anyone is hiring Java people drop me a line I know a decent J2ME developer looking for work.
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I’ve been chugging through almost impossible traffic for the last 2 days. I changed routes each day (like a true scientist) but had more or less the same result.
It takes about 1 hour in the morning and almost 1 1/2 hours in the evening to get home. Its just a waste of time and money. Think of all the petrol we can save if we could go at about 60 kmph straight home in about 15 minutes like it does on a holiday or around 4am.
And to top it all off I have to look forward to the weekend cars. Don’t know what they are? Well those are the cars that sit at home all week and go out in the weekend. Its a good fuel saving strategy but more cars on the road doesn’t help.
At this point I would happily pay a toll if there was a highway or expressway, but that’s also wishful thinking in a dump like this.
Happy Weekend!
Update: I think part of the problem was the Highlevel road color lights in Nugegoda was out for the last 2 days, hope its fixed today.
You know all I want to do is write about technology. I don’t enjoy writing rants. Its very difficult to separate what you like from what you have to deal with on a daily basis. I will try to get over this crap and write about tech again, I promise 
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Looks like my problem with coping with fuel hikes goes hand in hand with driving green. I found a few related articles on TreeHugger.
Proper Tire Pressure For Better Mileage
New Cars to Check Tire Pressure Automatically
Green Your Drive Without a Hybrid
1. Reduce your air conditioning
2. Change your filters at scheduled intervals
3. Check your tire pressure regularly
4. Use a fuel additive in each fill-up to increase engine performance
5. Get fuel injectors cleaned
Tony’s Guide to Fuel saving seems to have a lot of useful information, thanks JL.
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I got another Monday morning shocker as fuel prices were hiked up again. This is the 6th time this year according to my fuel log. Here are a few ideas on what you can do about it.
- The right tire pressure is a small thing but you might be wasting fuel on drag if your tires are under pressure.
- The quality of the fuel varies from shed to shed. If your drive is not smooth chances are there are impurities in the fuel. Change the shed.
- Check spark plugs and the fuel filter.
- Look into fuel and engine oil additives that claim to increase fuel efficiency. I’ve tried X1R which seemed to improve performance but no change in fuel efficiency.
- I’ve heard that nano tech fuel saver has some savings but no direct experience on it yet.
- Tinting helped me a lot by cutting down the air conditioning usage.
- Alloy wheels might help a bit but wider tires would counter any efficiency gained.
- A high pass air filter might help, then again keeping your current one clean would also help.
- Driving style has a lot to do with fuel economy. Accelerating and breaking too fast gulps down a lot of fuel.
Any more tips?
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