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Like everybody else who drives, you have been feeling the squeeze on your pocket book from the rising gas prices. The days of cheap gas for our automobiles are probably over. And now you need to know how to make buying that tank of gas less painful.

There are many things you can do to save on your gas bill, and one thing that may be overlooked is increasing your gas mileage through your tires. Yes, proper inflation will help slightly, gives a more comfortable and safer ride, but have you ever considered inflating your tires with nitrogen?

The newest ingenuity in automobile tires is nitrogen inflation. Automotive racers (such as NASCAR) use nitrogen instead of air in their tires because of the many advantageous, the least of which is improved gas mileage. You can increase you gas mileage by 5 to 15% simply by filling your tires with Nitrogen, which can be done at a nominal cost of $3 to $5, and you wont have to worry nearly as much about properly inflated tires.

Our air is made up of nitrogen, oxygen and other gases, but by filling your tires with nitrogen you eliminate the troubles oxygen has with our tires. Air corrodes aluminum and steel wheels, causing leaks through valve stems, wheel flanges and around the tire beads. Air also migrates through rubber. Air actually escapes through the rubber whether there is a leak or not. Plus, there is humidity in the air, which accelerates rust and corrosion. If you have ever wondered how one tire could look low this is why. You could be losing 2 psi a month with air, compared to taking 6 months with nitrogen. By maintaining better air pressures, you improve rolling resistance, have better tread wear and lower your fuel consumption.

Nitrogen tires will also run cooler then tires inflated with air, which keeps tire pressures more constant (wont increase or decrease with rising or lowering temperature). You are better able to keep your tire pressures at the recommended pressure, which will also improve tire life and gas mileage.

But how much can you really save? Lets say you add nitrogen to the tires on your full size, regular cab pick-up. You were getting approximately 15mpg average, and now you are getting a 16mpg average. Doesnt seem like much, but over time can add to substantial savings. It cost you $3 per tire, or $12 to fill your tires with nitrogen to get a 6 2/3% increase in your gas mileage, which equals a 6 2/3% savings on each gallon of gas you buy. If you are buying gas at $3 per gallon, you save nearly $.20 per gallon. You will save $3 with each 15 gallon fill or recoup your expenses after 4 fill-ups. And then you can begin counting the profits from you quick and easy investment in nitrogen filled tires.

If you want to save money on gas, just start driving less. If you cant do that, improve your gas mileage, and one of the easiest ways you can do that is ride on nitrogen.

Learn how to save more in our age of rising fuel prices at http://www.savingyourwaytosuccess.com/

Justin P. Ertelt is the author of Saving Your Way to Success and owner of http://www.savingyourwaytosuccess.com, helping others reach financial success. To learn more go to http://www.savingyourwaytosuccess.com

When Im writing, I like to have fun, be a little whimsical, tweak the reader a little bit, be playful. It also helps to keep the reader and myself awake. A little comic relief goes way back in the history of literature, eh, Shakespeare?

One of the ways I do this is my character conservation device. If I grow fond of a character in one of my books, Ill try to reuse or recycle that character in another work, to flesh out the character, and add new dimensions to the person. Readers may meet an old friend.

Naturally if you are writing a mystery series, you are going to reuse the hero or heroine, his family, lovers, cohorts, some of the eccentric witnesses, and even some of the bad guys. Often a writer will get sick of his own creation and will kill him off as Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. His fans got so teed off he had to resurrect him later.

In my terrorist thriller, Nine Lives Too Many, I grew fond of the Broadway character actor, Jake Sigman, so I am going to reuse him in the Denny Delaney sequel Clawed Back from the Dead. Hes funny, idiosyncratic, and readers have told me they like him.

When I talk about character conservation, I am also talking about stand-alone novels. In these I try to recycle characters that I know, that I like, or that have a certain depth.

These characters are recycled in two of my novels: Philip Croft, Robin, Hal, Paul, Fran and Lloyd Carr, and Dr. Ably. They are important characters who appear first in The Daemon in Our Dreams and later in The Rice Queen Spy. In an upcoming novel called Last Passage to Santiago I use Dr. Ablys niece, Stephie as the protagonist. In Daemon we only knew that the doctor was writing newsy letters to her.

I have plans for a future novel to be called The Pursuit of the Dream-Daemon. In it I will reuse Hal, Lloyd Carr, Robin, and Dr. Ablys niece, Stephie. I will also recycle some minor characters from The Daemon in Our Dreams such as the ships pianist Ron Hoover, and the peripatetic Alex with his totemic knapsack.

I also reuse the name of a fictitious cruise ship. In the revised edition of Nine Lives I am reusing the ship Global Quest which appears in several other novels.

Is all of this laziness on my part? No, its easier to use the familiar rather than to keep reinventing the wheel. Once you have found a good friend, do you want to abandon him or her?

In my writing I often use the names of real restaurants and hotels. Restaurant Row, Manhattans West Forty-Sixth Street becomes a real place to readers because I have used the names of the actual places. There are many ways to use the titles of your books within the texts of the books themselves.

A. Using the title in a tongue-in-cheek manner: In my terrorist thriller Nine Lives Too Many in a scene in a railroad coach my antagonist, the terrorist Felix the Cat, is riding into Grand Central Station. A woman across the aisle was reading the latest potboiler, Nine Lives Too Many. It gave me a chance to have a bit of fun and also to disparage my own work, a kind of disclaimer concerning its literary merit.

B. Attributing a title to a fictional character in the same or another book: In my latest book The Rice Queen Spy one of the characters, Hal, has written a book called The Daemon in Our Dreams which details the paranormal goings-on that took place on the trip Hal and his friend Paul made from Singapore to the Taj Mahal. And, of course, that is the title of my second novel.

C. Using a title of one book in another book: Ive done this often. It save me time and provides a ready reference for my readers.

D. Using a novel title as the title of a different genre: In The Rice Queen Spy a playwright writes a play with that exact titlea play that causes a great deal of anguish.

E. Having a character give the title of the book as a tag line: In all of my novels some character will give the title or tag line during the course of the narrative. In The Rice Queen Spy a character, Binky by name, gives to Croft, the protagonist of the book, his sobriquet: Philip Croft, The Rice Queen Spy!

What else is in the writers repertoire and bag of gimmicks? One of the sure-fire ingredients is melodrama. It can be gimmicky, but I like to write melodrama, and I do it shamelessly and unapologetically. Why? Because readers love it too. What else is Les Miserables if not melodrama? The battle and enmity between Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert are perfect set-ups for melodrama. Chases through the labyrinthine, scary, dank and dark sewers of Pariswhat could be more exciting, more heart-stopping? Duels to the death, pursuits, tying the heroine to the railroad tracksall are melodramatic gimmicks.

Melodrama has been the lifeblood of fiction and movies since their inception. It involves movement, action, derring-do. Think about the Harry Potter series. Certainly that is melodramatic as is Tolkien.

When you have the privilege of writing novels, you are creating your own world. Sometimes you are moving characters around like chess pieces and sometimes you are being led deeper into the story by the characters themselves. It is a treat to be able to create your own universe and watch parts of it intersect and interact. Writing empowers the author, makes him or her the master of the microcosm which that writer has created.

John (Jack) Rooney is the author of the terrorist thriller Nine Lives Too Many featuring his series detective Denny Delaney and the arch-terrorist Felix the Cat. His latest novel is the suspense novel The Daemon in Our Dreams which is a blend of the naturalistic and the supernatural. His work schedule includes The Rice Queen Spy which is due out in the fall of 2007, a new Denny Delaney effort and a novel about a sea journey from Buenos Aires to Santiago around Cape Horn. He was born and educated in Springfield, Massachusetts (Classical High School and American International College). He wrote book reviews and feature articles for the Springfield newspapers. After receiving his M.A. in Arts and Science from Columbia University, he worked for the Cunard Cruise Lines as a business correspondent at 25 Broadway, went on to serve in the U.S. Army as a military policeman in the Times Square detachment, in civvies in AWOL apprehension, and in Vienna, Austria. He still write travel articles including humorous travel guide stories. His website is http://www.senneffhouse.com

Simply put, BMX riding is one of the most popular extreme sports nowadays. BMX involves specially designed bicycles crafted for the sole purpose of being resistant while simultaneously giving the rider the ability to maneuver them with great ease. Of course, this doesnt mean that BMX is an easy form of cycling; in fact, its one of the hardest extreme sports along with skateboarding and sport bike stunting.

BMX bikes usually come with 2, 20 inch wheels; that is 6 to 7 inches smaller than the size of the wheels found on the more conventional bicycles. The bikes frame is focused and implemented around achieving maximum stability and resistance rather than keeping the bike as light as possible. Additionally, BMX bikes include extra features such as special systems that allow an unlimited number of 360 degree revolutions of the steering wheel.

The sport of BMX racing includes racing on sandy or hilly tracks (this is called BMX racing) as wells as stunt riding on wooden ramps / street objects / obstacles (this is called BMX freestyle). BMX races have duration of about 25 to 40 seconds. The speeds vary from 15 mph to 35 mph depending on the conditions of the track as well as the abilities of the riders. On the freestyle part of the sport, it is notable that it has grown far more popular than the racing counterpart.

Starting from California (United States) in the late 60s, BMX was the most popular way for teenagers to imitate motocross champions. The founder of BMX is called Scot Breithaupt while the motorcycle racing documentary On Any Sunday is widely accepted and credited for inspiring the whole movement nationally. Although the sport spread very quickly, it wasnt until the middle of the decade that the bike constructors started producing real BMX oriented bikes. Another very important person that needs to be mentioned here is Bob Haro; he is the person who merged BMX and skateboarding tricks together and without him the whole scheme wouldnt have advanced so far.

Although it is considered to be a mens sport, there have been times when female participation in the sport reached up to 4%! Thats quite a high number if you consider that nowadays the participation has dropped to 1% in the United States.

Finally, being an extreme sport that BMX is, its almost impossible to get involved without getting hurt. Although the damages generally tend not to get more serious than bone-breaking, riders need to always be careful and wear their protection equipment.

John Gibb is the owner of BMX Bikes extreme For more information on BMX Biking check out http://www.bmx-guides2k.info