By Colleen Rothe

Father’s Day is approaching soon. With gas and food prices eating away at what little disposable income that many working American families have, creativity is going to have to be part of what we pull out of our wallets, in order to significantly honor Dad on June 15.

Fortunately, most fathers aren’t too picky. They may not wear that silly Dr. Seuss tie you bought him back when your dot-com job was making you more money than sense. But he still fondly remembers that you gave it to him.

My hubby is like a lot of men. On Father’s Day, they really just want to roost high surveying their own little kingdoms, and seriously be king for the day. For many men, it doesn’t mean that the whole day will be spent on the couch – although some of it surely will. Instead, it’s a day to be king of the grill.

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By Colleen Rothe

Besides the cost of fuel to transport our food, there’s another hidden cost to our food that is overshadowed by $133 per oil barrel. It’s the domination of the big commercial farms.

However, for the last 15 years, there’s been a food revolution of sorts. Municipal parking lots or soccer fields are turned into thriving farmers’ markets for one day a week during the prime growing season months of April through October.

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By Linsey B. Knerl

I used to get my internet the old-fashioned way… you know, with a dial-up modem and a call out for family members to “hurry up and use the phone, I’m going online!” At the time, People PC internet service was a cheap alternative over the price-gouging tactics of AOL. We lived in the sticks, and there was no high-speed to be found for miles.

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By Gene Ayres

For those of you pondering the merits of renting vs. buying, the jury is in and it ain’t pretty for those of us who bought high, expecting those juicy appreciations to continue forever, as the National Board of Realtors still actually insists on having us believe.

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By Colleen Rothe

We have less than eight months before the great digital switch gets flipped. For those in the less-than-techno know, that means that on Feb. 17, 2009, all analog TVs, those using rabbit ears or another antennae device to receive a signal, will no longer be able to receive a signal. The switch will happen precisely at midnight. Imagine a great television Oz flipping a giant switch. At that time, all American full-power television stations are required – by federal law – to begin broadcasting a 100 percent digital signal.

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By Linsey Knerl

It isn't breaking hardcore news, but it's the first many have heard of a class-action lawsuit and settlement from 1995 that awarded over $1 billion dollars to homeowners affected by faulty plumbing pipe. The case (Cox vs. Shell Oil Company) was brought on behalf of homeowners with a certain type of pipe – known as polybutylene plumbing or PB pipe.

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By Gene Ayres

There have been some wonderfully enlightening reports, lately, about just how great a product Coca Cola (and its lesser kin Pepsi and so on) really is. Just today, Star Trek’s William Shatner, appearing on CNN, reported that he’d actually seen an automobile engine that runs on Coke! Let’s see. Assuming that works, is that cheaper than gas? One does wonder just what sort of effluents that might produce from your tailpipe, however. Maybe less Co2 and more syrup? Something definitely akin to farting, pardon my Turkish. Or smog that glues your lips together? Put that on your pancakes, why don’t you?

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By Linsey B. Knerl

You've probably seen the commercials for Blue Hippo during late night paid programming or after a reality court case. For as little as $99 down, customers with no credit or bad credit are given the opportunity for guaranteed approval of computer financing. The company touts itself as a last option for buyers who don't qualify for traditional computer layaway plans, and guarantees that no credit check is involved.

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By Gene Ayres

Now we’ve done it. We’ve built our entire culture, economy, industrial and transportation systems and complexes around an obsolete technology based on carbon and petrochemicals. (Never mind what this has done to and is doing to our planet.) We’ve passed the oil peak, by all expert accounts. We’re heading nowhere except upward in the cost of fuel, and thus, all other forms of transit including shipping. Investment banker Goldman Sachs now predicts $200 a barrel in the next year. Ten years ago it was $15 a barrel.

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By Colleen Rothe

Each week I try to find something really usable and relatable to the Dispatch readers. This week I was really feeling the pressure, because nothing was coming to me.

As usual, the grocery store is ripe with ideas for consumer awareness and advocacy. And when you consider that many of us have entered into a virtual house arrest, because gas prices are keeping us from doing any “unnecessary driving,” the grocery store is one of the few places we’re still traveling to at least weekly.

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By Linsey B. Knerl

Fuel economy is a hot topic these days, and with experts touting ways to save at the pump, many people are desperate to listen. When a product was sold and marketed under the brand name FuelMax, the FTC had to step in, finding that the marketers made false claims about the effectiveness of the gas-saving device. But what can buyers of this too-good-to-be-true item actually expect to receive?

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By Gene Ayres

As conscientious consumers, we are all aware (aren’t we?) of the importance of recycling. On the other hand, it can get confusing. Maybe recycling is what God had in mind, or whoever it was who said that “no good deed will go unpunished.” Granted, we’ve come a long way (most of us) from the days when “look out below” had real meaning, when hats were required for more reasons than just to keep rain and sun off your head when meandering the byways of London or wherever, when streets and waterways were repositories for all manner of refuse and filth, and the countryside was just a place to throw stuff. It wasn’t even that long ago that Arlo Guthrie took pride in dumping trash in a nearby landfill (i.e. the side of the road) and made a career move out of it.

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By Colleen Rothe

I’m in the middle of a meeting when I get a somewhat panicked text message from my partner telling me that “Sam’s and Costco are rationing rice!”

My stomach does a little flip. I’m thinking: Gas prices have hit $4 a gallon where I live and now they’re rationing food? The state of my nation, my world, is definitely worse than I thought.

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