Tag: giveaway

How To Stretch Your Gallon of Gas Farther + Giveaway

This weekend I had got the cool opportunity to visit the seventh annual Shell Eco-Marathon in downtown Houston, a competition for high school and college students to see who can build the most fuel efficient car. Hundreds of student teams came from around the US and other countries such as Brazil and Guatemala, along with their Prototype and Urban Concept cars that run on gasoline, battery, solar power, biofuels and hydrogen. One car broke the track record and surpassed 3,000 mpg!

My whole little family of engineers and future engineers had a blast talking to teams, watching the cars race, and playing around at the interactive Shell Energy Lab.

Cars had to be pushed inside the GRB convention center.
The Big Ten was well represented. Engineers galore!
These are high schoolers!
Prototype cars lined up to race around the track.

Geekiness galore. My husband and I are both proud Penn State engineers so of course we visited with the Nittany Lion team and cheered them on from the balcony above the track with a “We Are!”

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Penn State only had a budget of $1000 per car, with no fancy corporate sponsors like the teams from other schools such as Purdue and Mater Dei high school.

I was especially taken with the all female “Shopgirls” team from Granite Falls high school. Check out this awesome video about them.

Drive Smarter and Win a Gas Card

Also launched this weekend is Shell’s Target One Million initiative to help people become smarter and more fuel efficient drivers. As part of that effort, Shell has developed a quick web-based game that users can play to help them learn how to drive smarter and stretch their fuel purchases farther. Over 300,000 people have already played the game, including me!

At the Eco-Marathon I got to spend some time with John and Helen Taylor, the world’s most fuel efficient couple. They are passionate about helping others who want to learn how to drive smarter and save fuel. They shared with me that they receive hundreds of emails from people thanking them for helping them save as much as $1000 a year! Changing a few driving habits have meant life-changing cost savings for some.

John and Helen Taylor drove around the world, 25,717 km, on just 24 tanks of fuel.
Shell’s newest research found that Americans, Houstonians in particular, really do want to learn how to drive smarter in order to both save money and environmental resources. Houstonians drive more miles annually than drivers in LA, San Francisco or New York! We waste 118 million hours a year just sitting in traffic…that’s 52 million gallons of gasoline! 
Blogger Melissa checks the tire pressure. 
After spending time with the Taylors, I was inspired to try a few of their tips to save fuel. I tend to be an aggressive driver, trying to get places in a hurry, but my personal values of frugality and stress-free living helped convince me to try taking it easier on the pedals. My car was also due for an oil change so I spent an hour cleaning out the trash and took it in for maintenance and detailing yesterday. It’s SO nice driving a clean and well lubricated car! 
Shell wants everyone to join the Target One Million challenge and play the smarter driving game, so they have generously provided me with some Shell gas cards to give away to my readers! Yay! 
To win one of seven gas cards worth $20 each, head to the smarter driving challenge and play the game. It only takes a minute or so. Then leave a comment here with your favorite fuel efficiency tip! 
You can get extra entries for Liking Water Water Everywhere on Facebook, subscribing to the blog, and following me (@MainlineMom) on Twitter! The contest will close this Friday, April 12th at midnight and I will email the winners about where to mail their gas cards. Easy peasy. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: Shell invited me to the Eco-Marathon and provided me with a gas card as well. I am a chemical and environmental engineer and I totally loved this whole event and as always my words opinions are truthful and my own. 

WMFW – Shutterfly Photo Printing {Giveaway}

works for me wednesday at we are that familyIf you know anything about me at all, you know I take a lot of pictures.  I keep my camera within reach most every day, and I try to capture the changing faces of kids often. At least weekly.  But I am not a scrapbooker…at all. I don’t get into cutting and gluing and making pretty albums. However I do print the vast majority of my photos and put them into albums, because they don’t do anyone any good sitting on my harddrive. 

I happen to love Shutterfly.com for printing my photos. I learned early on that printing at home is just not economical, especially in the huge quantity of photos I take. Not only do I love Shutterfly’s print prices, I love creating photobooks and calenders and holiday cards as well. I started creating an annual family calender in Shutterfly about four years ago and we give out fifteen of them every Christmas to our family members. My grandmother, in particular, freaks out over it.  She has never used a computer and can’t comprehend how I could make such an amazing thing. I put faces over birthdays and anniversaries, which makes it easier for me to see what’s coming up.

I also create our annual holiday cards, which get mailed to more than fifty friends, in Shutterfly.  I’ve done a lot of price shopping and I always come up pleased with their selection of holiday designs and prices.  Last year we switched from the glossy photo Christmas cards to a beautiful heavyweight card and I adored it.  They always have specials and discounts on various things like photobooks and notecards.

Since I love Shutterfly so much, I have decided that my FIRST EVER GIVEAWAY on this here six year old blog will be for ten free Shutterfly 5×7 flat stationary cards.  And since you all rock so much, I’m giving these away to THREE random commenters.  All you have to do is leave me a comment.  I’d love it if you’d share whether you’ve ever created something cool in Shutterfly or not. Contest closes at midnight Tues. I’ll draw three winners from Random.org on Wed.

Disclosure: In exchange for this post I will also be receiving the free notecards. But seriously, I have used this service extensively.