Trailer Remodel

New trailers and RVs are stupid expensive. They cost like houses. This is because the people who buy them are nuts, having sold their homes and retired, they don't care that the RV is the same price. They want comfort and screw the cost.

I'm not that guy. I want affordable, because I work for a living. And I want light, so I can pull it behind a normalish vehicle, like a pickup truck or Uhaul. A Uhaul as a toy vehicle for a Trailer is a good idea, actually. A blinding flash of the obvious. Maybe I'll send that to my survivalist friend as the counter argument to the Bunker he prefers. This town is a tough sell if you're not rich to start with. Wages are low, jobs are few, the economy is largely retail, which only works if you have a market that's actually buying what you sell for more than it cost you to make, including wages of the employees. Iffy. Its very iffy.

Working at just above minimum wage in the real world means you don't have money to set aside, money to buy a trailer to move into and get out of a bad economic situation. Looking at my own situation, the smart move is to sell all my furniture, sell off my books and such, and most of the movies or donate them to friends. This ain't a suicide, just reducing the amount of expensive crap to move somewhere smarter or better than here. Every pound costs money, in the size of the truck, the gas to climb those passes. It won't be cheap, a move. I updated my resume but the so called "better economy" is still crap everywhere. Better is relative. How do you budget for living expenses when you can't find a job in the first place? Look at it rationally, this situation is going to last till I can land something better, and that won't happen so long as delusional people are in charge of the economy.

Really, with the job market this bad, the best I can do is save my pennies, stay busy without expending resources, and wait for life to stop kicking me in the nuts. Get some usable job skills which mean something in enough places that mobility still has value.

 As you can see, paying for a trailer is hard. You need a job, at least part time, with sufficient pay to cover rent, utilities, food, and repairs and fuel to move to your next town. When you live in a trailer, people assume you're trash, and they might be right. You might be choosing to be trash by refusing to stand your ground and die like they are, inch by inch as their town falls apart in this end of the world economy. Packing up your plastic lawn chairs, hitching up the trailer to the truck and driving away probably feels like you're abandoning them, and all their painful (and likely fatal) uses for you as things get tougher for them. Don't you want to stay and get raked over the coals, be exploited and enslaved into escape-proof poverty? This is why I always recommend living without debts. Better to be poor and free than poor and under the thumb of others for a few miserable little toys and their associated debt.

I wonder how good your insulation needs to be to get through a winter in Spokane? And a summer in Arizona or Bakersfield? Does the cost of a trailer exceed the operating costs of an apartment and income limitations? Is a trailer actually economically unfeasible? More research must be done. Probably with spreadsheets, and math.

Economics of Survival

The thing which tends to drive survivalists nuts is not the tinfoil hat theories or divisive politics. Its the economic costs. Stocking up a bunker, after buying the land, buying the building materials, building the bunker, becomes a huge problem because you want the ideal world where your bunker is built, just barely tested, all human comforts installed sustainably (survivalists are supposed to be sustainable) and then the apocalypse should happen, very quickly, then the survivalist should have just enough ammo and food to take over the surrounding area, impose law imperiously using guns and probably a bible and some kind of rhetorical manifest, and proceed to run things because everyone knows that surviving a disaster is the same thing as being a leader. Ahem. All this stuff is expensive, and quitting your job and moving to the boonies to escape the really irritating and dangerous humans also removes you from income, plants you in minimum wage, part time, employment country with the high costs of a long commute when the gasoline is running out, and the high costs of delivery of critical survival supplies (mechanical parts for labor saving devices, food, medicine) and no matter how smart you think you are, you WILL make mistakes on your forecasting.

Yeah, see all the logical fallacies? In reality, survivalists are frequently people who've been hurt by other people, usually socially but sometimes physically through violence, go into retreat and revenge mode and wait for everyone else to die. Its wishful thinking, the petulant pouty kind that adults shouldn't drag their families into, but sadly do, ending their marriages much of the time. And so far, survivalists just keep waiting. That's not to say a big die-off won't happen. Historically die-offs and invasions are common and frequent. If you wait by the river long enough, your enemy will push you in. (me)

Passivism is rarely the right answer to disaster. Waiting it out may be a satisfying form of schaedenfreude, and god knows Farmers love that, but survivalists just want to shoot people and get away with it, or lord over the blacked out countryside, pretending their property rights matter to the mob of officially authorized and deputized locals coming to take it for the Public Good. That's what happens in the real world, such as Albania did recently. When govt collapsed, they raided the local National Guard armories, and every male had a military weapon and magazines of ammo strapped to him within hours. Not legal hunting rifles, but full auto military weapons. Force multipliers. Any legally bound survivalist prepper would be fully outgunned, and the instant militias formed to seized horded food, generators, etc under direct police and mayoral authorization so it was legal theft. Shooting at them as they busted the door down just got you killed, not thanked. This is Not the fantasy that survivalists build up. Rights go out the window in a disaster. So does the very concept of Justice.

I try to teach them these realities and explain that poor social skills cost a lifetime, and that real survivalism requires community interaction, making your neighbors stronger without them necessarily noticing, paying extra for localized everything, and making contacts so folks in power during the collapse don't consider you a tasty meal, hopefully metaphorically. It means doing social things and endlessly paying for and supporting local charities. That is a lot of time and money, trying to buy your way into a community that you will STILL be sacrificed from first because you weren't born there. This happens over and over in the real world, in historical disasters the new folks, even generations back, get sacrificed first. Ergo, moving to a new town and trying to fit in probably won't work. I'm sorry, it just won't. And the social mistakes that drove you out of your own home town? Those linger behind you, and stay with you, coloring your perceptions of interactions, likely poisoning your future in the new place. In the end, there's no protection from your own failings but shallow relationships and permanent mobility. Telling yourself that you won't be sacrificed is nuts.

This is why I favor Mobility as the strategy, not dying in place. Don't be a DIP. This is a point of respected difference between my Bunker friend and I. He's building tougher and tougher bunkers, I'm going lighter and staying agile, mobile. There's a reason there were so many mobile tribes in the Plains and West when the settlers arrived. Yes, you can dig wells, and build houses. Those wells go dry. The houses blow away in tornadoes. How much futility do you want? Big piles of stuff is just a big honkin target for local looters with badges and a warrant. Be mobile, pay the travel bribes when you must, leave the bad places behind. We're dying out either way, willfully self destructive with our arrogant compassion, our false humility. This is no substitute for realism and courage.

The other point of reality to make to Survivalists is Bad Luck is always a factor, and it can't be controlled. You can reduce it, but sometimes you're just screwed. Insisting you have eliminated bad luck from the equation is madness, pure self delusion. I can often spot your security flaws as I'm walking up, and I'm not a professional burglar, just observant. Your bunker is not SAFE, any more than a trailer is bulletproof or unable to get a flat tire or jackknife in an accident. Stuff happens. You gotta roll with the punches.

The point is that you can't plan for disasters so much as survive them when they happen and reduce your dependence on fixed positions or bad mindsets. No amount of money spent will cure a bad plan. Since 1970, we're all unintentional survivalists or pending suicides. I've interacted with both kinds of people. Time will tell which is which.

Further GPS Device Research

So I've spent the last week reviewing GPSes and finding what folks say about them, and the companies that sell them. The most useful was a review of a Magellan model I'd liked till he pointed out that like me, he was in that industry, and the Magellan was locked down like an Apple product. Keywords there. His eventual recommendation was "get a Garmin". So I went and looked at those, starting with Costco, because they only sell stuff with a low return rate because their return policy is always a loss for them, so they only want to sell things once. That means it better be good, and discounted.

What I found was a bunch of car models with short battery life but reasonably priced and ONE hiking model, a Garmin Dakota 20. I checked reviews and price. Its small and good battery life and decent functions but its got a tiny screen. It reviews reasonably well... but for $40 more, I can get a screen 4x larger, all the useful features (altimeter, waterproof), similar battery life, and a higher rating of customer satisfaction. Why buy two devices when one will do the job? So looks like the Garmin Oregon 450T is the model to get for hiking and Geocaching.

I'm amazed and amused that the teenage daughter of a coworker who helped around my job last week along with her mom, is big into geocaching. We tried to get her Nook to do it. There's an App (of course there's an App), but attempts to get it to sync and locate were merely attempts. I hope its working for her now. She's a nice kid, and her mom is hot, despite complaining of being cold most of the time, while simultaneously displaying toned tattooed skin. It's possible there's a connection there. She probably LOVES this weather. It was 107'F in Roseville today, and 97'F here. Temp is dropping now, only 93'F at this point. She won't feel cold when its like this.

Since I now have a pair of hiking boots (thank you Big5 sales!), as my old ones were worn out, I can do some more strenuous rock hopping and clambering around again. Loch Leven Trail was hard on the feet. Painful. I recovered quickly, however, due to the application of adult beverage following sufficient hydration. Those two prevent muscle soreness and speed recovery. The adult beverage is a muscle relaxant, you see?

Formula One qualifying was in Silverstone today. Very exciting if quick compared to yesterday's practice session, which got rained out. Today was dry. Tomorrow for the race? Who knows. Silverstone is fun that way. Weather is a major factor. The race is at 5 AM PDT, so adjust locally, or just watch the replay later. I plan to get up for it early and watch live. With some hot coffee and a big smile because Formula 1 is fun!

Formula 1, ultramarathons (the Western States 100 is today), rally car racing, and hill climb sprints are sports I respect. I also enjoy America's Cup sailing, but haven't watched it in years. American Le Mans was fun, would totally watch that again. I did watch the 24 hours at Daytona. And I respect and admire "you Suck At Bicycling" expert Danny McAskill who makes the rest of us look clumsy. That's a sport.

I used to follow Tour De France, but its not on regular broadcast so lost in the noise, sad to say. Hardcore distance cycling? That's a sport.

Man and machine. See that pattern? Expert tool users. Not just brute force, but finesse and determination. I like that. I like seeing highlights from Paris-Dakar rally, even though its held in South America now because Africa Sucks. It WAS a bit focussed on sand, to be clear. The Rally should tackle more varied terrain as a proper test of drivers. It was probably better when it started in Paris instead of Portugal. The wrecks and upset were crazy in French traffic, so I do understand. I just don't like it.

I loved watching the Pikes Peak Hill climb, until the 3 people living there sued to have the road paved. Boo! You Suck! Now its ruined.

See? Pavement is wrong. Bad wrong. Badong. Or wrondab! Something like that. It was better with gravel and dirt all the way. 4 wheel drifting was legendary for decades. Now? Its just sad. Its like giving the Tour De France training wheels and speed limits. WTF is wrong with you? Losers!

Finally, a friendly shout out to California's best brewery, Sierra Nevada in Chico, for their tasty Pale Ale, with its excellent hops. Dad bought a case and steaks. They go well together. I feel sorry for vegetarians. You are missing out on the tasty delicious bovine flesh. And having grown up next to a cattle ranch, the very nicest thing you can do to or for a cow is to kill it, cook it, and eat it. They aren't content. They're mean, stinky, foul tempered and smelling beasts. Eating them is the best way to honor their pointless existence turning cellulose into protein and farting endlessly. Foully. Indeed!

Better Hobbies: Geocaching and Augmented Reality

So I like photography, and I like interesting places, but not so much with people. I like empty places better than full ones. Places with people have dangers that places without them avoid. And I just spent 3 days with relatives. Ugh.

One of my relatives has poor sense of direction. This is ironic because he's a small plane pilot and mountain climber... but he gets lost easily and, suffering from the family arrogance, doesn't seem to believe in owning a map or a GPS. I suggested, after he got seriously lost going from here to his hotel on Friday a mere 5 miles and 7 turns, that he look into just getting a GPS for his car so that doesn't happen anymore. He was not interested. I don't understand that. His son is a fireman, dedicated to rescuing people from emergencies. You'd think he'd want his Dad to be safe, knowing how lost he gets. To not CAUSE emergencies due to getting lost. This must be a sore subject between them to dismiss my suggestion so quickly. But okay.

In the course of reading up on GPS, something I used to make data for, I got reminded of a weird hobby people have of hiding little messages or toys inside waterproof boxes hidden in various urban and rural locations, called Geo Caches. A Cache is a sort of stockpile you leave behind for later when you're out exploring some wild place. They've been building cairns with meat inside them to dry out on the tundra for 40 thousand years now. There are still lots of them up in the Arctic circle, with 6 foot tall rocks. For whatever reason, bears don't seem to bother with them.

A geocache is simpler, usually not food, like a poem or a picture or toy, inside a waterproof box, and since GPS units are cheap, they are getting reasonably common. Apparently, registering them properly also means Cops don't freak out when they find them in public places. I rather like that.

So I read some reviews and the prices are steadily dropping, features and battery life rising. I really need to do more research to figure out what to buy, assuming I buy one. I did spend 5 years in college learning to read and make maps, and did it professionally for a few years too. I've denied myself the potential joys of owning a GPS of my own. I suppose I need to narrow down the features I need vs price, and then think about features which might be fun but aren't crucial.

Having traffic updates would be nice. So would weather warnings, since they're now sending data through GPS satellites. I like that they have ones that are waterproof and have altimeters, and a slot for a data card. Gives you a lot of room for map updates that way. It looks like I should be aiming at a smaller one rather than larger as you'd use for driving. The alternative is to buy a Nexus 7 with the app and mini-USB antenna running and use that instead, which gives me the advantage of data updates and continuing Jenn's abandoned work of correcting web page data in WikiMapia. I LIKED her scholarly interests. She just gave them up like everything else. She doesn't endure the boring parts to keep going. Of course, if I DO get a Nexux 7, I will want one of those tooled leather holsters from Robotics; Notes which were actually kinda nice. If only the show hadn't gone all evil. I did like the style of it, however. One of the few Cyberpunk anime stories since Ghost in the Shell and Denno Coil. Virtual Reality out in the world is INTERESTING, and its coming into Google Glass (complete steal of Virtual Light from 1990 by William Gibson). The idea is to use the camera on a tablet then display the virtual objects overlaid on reality. That's easy with GPS directions because its just a perspective line running down the street with colors and arrows. Its probably simple with Geocaching as well, which was a big part of the plot in Robotics; Notes.

If only they'd admitted the stuff they find is actually just part of a "game" rather than an actual vicious murdering conspiracy. Particularly since other elements of the show were actually very nice, including the fact that the island being so big meant kids rode around on Supercubs rather than bicycles and every kid had one to get to high school. Tanoshima is a pretty large island, very long. Its where Japan had its space program, a foolhardy venture due to basic physics. There are still ruins there, rusting, of their pride and joy. Japan loves science and progress. A pity it doesn't fix their economy.

Anyway, Geocaching is relatively simple for finding and placing caches. Same with publishing the locations, and the boxes used are cheap. Looks like the true art to it is linking the caches to what you find in the box. How the journey explains the contents. Now take that and combine it with some coding, which I generally dislike but might find use for, such as possibly building a geolocated unlock key so if your device says you're here, you can use certain software, like MP3 or a puzzle game or whatever, and allows results to register on a database, unlocking further caches and instructions to reach them. A treasure hunt. Might make for an unusual bit of novel writing. Combined with motorcycling I could see that being an interesting detail for the next novel.

I am going to spend some time picking the right device for my needs. No rush. Much like the motorcycle, get the right one so you're happy. Research is cheap. Fixing mistakes can be expensive.

Summer, Jonestown, and the Effect of Death on the Young

Its the Solstice. Summertime. It reminds me of things. Beyond the fact I'm dateless on a major Fertility holiday. You're supposed to get laid on Solstice. I am alone, again. Thanks Jenn. I hate you too.

When I was in primary school, first or second grade, towards spring I think, three of my classmates said their parents were moving them to South America, to paradise in Guyana. A few weeks later they were murdered with poisoned Koolaid. Helicopters filmed people dying on camera and put the footage on international news. 2200 dead, one of the worst cult mass killings in modern history. "Would you like some Kool-aid?" Yeah. That's where that phrase comes from. They were kids, Little Kids. They didn't have opinions yet. They were tiny, just like me. And they were murdered by a charismatic cult leader named Jim Jones and his "People's Temple" cult. One of its churches was in my home town, Santa Rosa. It attracts that kind of thing. Its a bit too permissive towards Evil (tm).

A few years later, classmates disappeared into a compound near Occidental, run by the Reverend Sun Young Moon, aka Moonies, who believed in separation from worldly concerns by giving Rev Moon all your money. And your family's money too, and live on his commune where you get brainwashed. He was filmed with his 27 Rolls Royces. I never saw them again. They may be dead. I don't really care anymore. Caring about suicides is counter productive. I would very cheerfully beat Rev Moon to death with a small stick. It would take longer, and hurt him more. He was Evil (tm).

The Moonie compound, still there, is about a mile from the Ultra Conservative gathering of the Bohemian Grove, where $20K/night hookers provide services to the ultra evil rich men, members of the Military Industrial Complex, each of whom  pays an obscene sum to get in, and make business deals to sustain them the rest of the year. Defense contracts were for useless Armored Personnel Carriers and Stealth Bombers were decided there. Evil incarnate, flying into an airport serving hippies and jerks seeing self actualization at EST, also in my county.

EST was in the other direction, up Warm Springs Road. Its become someone else's brainwashing camp, but back in 1970-84 it was the absolute definition of greed. Even the camp itself was evil. If you peed yourself, while being given coffee and being locked out of the bathroom, you were FREE. Free to hurt EVERYONE AROUND YOU, like some evil bastard. That's what EST's message was: You can Hurt People. And Its Okay! If I had time travel, I would go back in time and kick that guy in the nuts every day for a year. I would find that really satisfying.

I short, I am no stranger to cults. I hate them. Passionately. They murder people. They steal from the corpses. I would kill them all, if I could. Apple is just another cult. Same as the Hells Angels. Hells Angels at least admit your Purpose is to Die. Honesty, very rare in a cult. Most cults are about continuing the Con, using your money and any money you can scrounge, just to keep the lie going. Apple wants your money and your loyalty, sucker.

The biggest cults are governments. I think the biggest con of all time is Democracy, though you might argue its actually second to "Equality", because who's equal, really? If there were equals, we'd all have more friends. We don't. There's your proof, right there. QED. Govt is after your slavery, and wants you kept that way. Sucker. Love your country. Die for your country. Sucker.

I don't like Cultists. They're gullible suckers, and rant in favor of what's conned them, over and over again. I hate them for their deliberate self deception, for their ignorance. I prefer Atheists for company. Most have a more rational approach to living, and people, and know that Loyalty is self deception, its bullshit. Atheism doesn't make them better people, but it does make them less annoying, and I need that. Less annoying is better than more annoying. I need less annoying friends. Friends here. Who can think independently. The Hipsters are supposed to do that, but I don't know many of them, and the few I know are pretty annoying for other reasons, mostly arrogance and unintentional self parody. And really, ouch? C'mon.

Where To Live

During the Age of Oil, vehicles allowed us to live in many places, with distance between us and our neighbors, because we could drive to the job we wanted to do, and live near the people we liked or could stand to live near. Post Oil living shows that to be one of the great losses to our lifestyle. It has a huge impact on happiness, and on crime. Everyone is taking a step down in happiness in a big way. We either get to live near people we tolerate OR have the job we like, not both. The ever increasing costs of survival in the modern times have whittled down the Middle Class to nearly gone. The Optimists, being Insane, keep insisting that everything is okay, everything will be okay, and stop saying its not okay.

Its not okay. Our society is fragmented, poisoned, violent, and rebellious. We are not okay.

This is why I am obsessed with new culture, with the evolution into something that is trying to start something new, based on the limited resources of today, not fantasy flying cars and robots. New Culture is about finding some kind of happiness and style despite enduring poverty. The whole nation is turning into West Virginia. And Detroit. Ruins, death, decay, collapse. We're the end result of a Jared Diamond book.

Unfortunately, those who remain in power hate everyone, and they make life ever harder for those of us trying to adapt. They mostly attack us through cruel laws, meant to limit us, to turn us into Peasants with no option but slavery or suicide. Mobility remains the safest way to dodge the evil, since laws are usually enacted and enforced in locations, voting with your feet is a viable method of escaping exploitation. Until such time as an outside force topples the corruption ruining America we can only pay and pay and run away. Run away and try and stay off the radar of the latest oppressor and exploiter seeking bribes, profits, or selling their company on to the next sucker.

We're all trying to survive, hopefully with some small comforts and style rather than throwing our resources and time at vicious corporations that see us like a shark sees a seal: as lunch. I spend most of my time trying to find a niche which will support me before the collapse and still remain viable afterwards. As best I can tell, it needs to be mobile. This is frustrating because most of the valid post-oil careers require expensive equipment that shouldn't be moved, like machining. Machining of parts, especially parts of things currently only made in China, itself set for Bloody Revolution in a war between the growing industrial capitalist class and the Old Commies who still hold the guns and murder camps, this is a good reason to look at what they're doing and see if we can do it more honorably here. The cost of the equipment, and wear and tear, and supplies to enable it to work means flexibility costs even more, and takes longer to pay off, impossible as long as China keeps exporting and undercuts your contracts. You can be infinitely cheap when your labor force are literal slaves in China. Once in a shipping container, its 12 days of travel, plus customs inspection and delivery time before it gets here. Not long at all.

Modern industrial contracting in California is vicious and destructive and could be fixed if they followed Staged Approval rather than All or Nothing as they currently do it. As long as they use primitive contracts, they cause bankruptcies, and risk is unshared. You put a company under contract desperate to stay in business and make money when they had to underbid to get it in the first place. You get cheaters, and the result is the Bay Bridge (the new one) rusting apart before the first year of use. When you do business with Chinese contractors, you get shoddy work because they follow the exactly LETTER of the written contract, not the intent. Screwing people costs you. Unfortunately, our entire economy is unbalanced thanks to Chinese imports being cheaper than we can make it here, so there's no manufacturing jobs here. Except food. And ironically, drugs. Though most of those get imported from Mexico. Mexican drug smugglers are big fans of ATF/DEA enforcement. Cuts down on competition.

I'd be more positive about this only I've seen decades of people committing, financially, to a predicted outcome that doesn't happen due to unforeseen circumstances, and we end up with disappointed broke people, often heavily armed, eating spoiled food, who go nuts. Predicting the future is best left to stock traders. When they're wrong, they just lose money they could afford to lose. If they're right, they get rich. Sad world when becoming a stock broker is the sane answer to disaster?

Between contracting, investing, and the legal attacks on competitors through corrupt politicians, where does this leave you and me? Searching for a sane place to live, even for a little while. Maybe times will be settled enough to get rid of furniture and extra clothes and various media and get it down to fitting into a small trailer you can pull behind your car. Most people are too sold on the idea of Big Stuff to be able to do that, of Furniture as an Investment in the Future. Its not. Its furniture. It holds your clothes or your dinner plate or keeps your ass of the floor. We like nice stuff, but in the future of extreme Poverty, nice stuff is for Rich People and the foreclosure experts seizing it on their deaths. Nice stuff goes on E-bay to pay for the next tank of gasoline. Poverty is reaching its dirty fingers towards you.

As long as California is a destination for retirement, being Sunbelt, it will be too expensive to live in on minimum wage. Rich spoiled baby boomers move here because its warm so their arthritis hurts less in the winter. Its like a 24 hour party for the rest of their lives. They'll pay everything to enjoy that, dying in bankruptcy because who cares about the kids, right?

This state doesn't need poor people anymore, thanks to all these retirees moving here. Poor people need to accept that their value decreases the more of them there are. They are not important beyond their votes, and once they vote consistently, not important at all. This is why Black People are ignored by politicians. They ALWAYS vote democrat. Same with Jewish people and Catholics and Mexicans. They are all Democrat voting blocks, so their party don't need to do anything to appease them and keep them loyally voting for any Yellow Dog put in front of them. This is why California is a ripoff. It always votes Democrat. Politicians barely even visit here, send little funding, and steal from us. This means that if you live here, you pay more for everything, get less in return, and pay multiple times for the same things other state's residents get free. Like Civil Rights. Or roads. They get tornadoes and sometimes blizzards, but they get the to keep more of their taxes and freedoms than we do. States where Minimum Wage is a living wage, not like here. The upshot is California is bad for business and bad if you're poor and don't qualify for "programs", most of which are aimed at Minorities, which you don't qualify for. Almost always.

The other problem is the world is full of Con Men, pretending to be Business Men, but are really after either your money as an "Investment" (in their vacation or lunch or hobby) or your Time to provide cover as they prep for a bailout bag full of stolen bearer bonds or cash to a non-extradition country, or worse, to sell the business you build out from under you to a bigger investor, who then fires you (because that's legal here), not realizing there IS NO BUSINESS without you running it because the con-man was just the big evil smile everyone believes, not the nitty-gritty paperwork where the money comes from. And this is when there's a real business behind it. This isn't always so.

Pyramid Schemes always have honest people in their ranks, honest gullible people who can't believe they were fooled all along. These are the folks who eventually discover to their horror they got conned. It isn't nice, but it is how things work. How are you going to avoid con men when they're everywhere, and you're already gullible to start with?

Never invest your own money in a business owned and controlled by someone with the power to decide how you spend your day. Never work for someone you can't identify having some kind of work ethic of their own. Never work for someone (or date someone) who breaks their word. That sort of thing just escalates, and is a very bad sign. They are breaking their word because they don't think you matter enough to bother keeping it. When I encounter that in a vendor, I find another vendor. When I encounter that in a workplace? I find a new job. When I find that in a woman? I find a new woman. This is the right answer to liars. Learn to recognize the liars, and discard them as the trash they are. They won't try to keep their word. They'll try harder not to get caught lying. These are not the same thing. A lie of Omission is a Lie. Don't fool yourself.

Between evil laws and con men exploiting you, where do you go? I wish I knew. All Western States have crap economies. The South is crap. The Southwest has always been crap except during the Building Boom, no over.

It looks like the right answer is still Mobility. Leave the bastards behind. They'll hurt someone else after you go, but they won't be hurting YOU anymore, which is the right answer for your own safety at least. As nice a town as this is to die in, or even grow up in, its a bad place to make a living. The Central Valley has similar problems, only lots more crime and heat. I just don't know. This is one of those times where Mobility is the answer because not having a destination leaves you with a Method, at least.

Morning Coffee Electric Car Review

Sebastopol is home for OReilly Books and Make Magazine. Folks I spent a decade in school with are running Make blog and magazine. From my own graduating class, even. Kinda shocking, really. My home town is 55 miles from San Francisco, has that same fog, despite being inland about 15 miles, and is half cattle ranches and half vineyards, with the same oppressive totalitarian Democrats running things to the maximum state of corruption and Nerf-herding hypocrisy as you find in San Francisco. I eagerly await a plague to off them all. Then I'd move back. With a good water filter to strip out the Mercury, of course.

The roads there twist and turn around the monster oak trees, each individually stronger than the meanest muscle car frame or flatbed truck. Make a mistake there, you need prying out or just get buried with it. In my home town, your needed all independent suspension, not a big motor, if you wanted to survive your first year driving in the same car. BMW's were popular there for good reason. It wasn't just because idiots in Marin sold them after a few years to upgrade to the new model so they were locally plentiful. They also handle well on very bumpy roads. The roads up here are slightly less bumpy, but nearly as potholed.

I think, if there were more crafty persons teaching their kids instead of gutless retirees doing nothing but drink and brag about their stock portfolios, we'd have more Makers around here, but we don't. Things like Making requires both tools and visionaries, and we don't have either of those. This is why the locals complain they can't find machinists and its one of the few good paying jobs in this area. Ironic, I think. They don't teach it down in the Valley either, from what I can tell, and don't pay well down there either. Its like California is actively trying to drive away all hope of a future, and become nothing but headstones and burned ruins. WTF is up with that? Sebastopol, for all its faults, is doing something, perhaps against the grain, but something at least. Zap bikes is there, the electric bicycle company. For a while Zap was talking about a car, but then Tesla did it better and bigger and that's died down again.

Early on, after learning about Peak Oil, the group I belonged to did research into electric cars. The available pool of Lithium, worldwide, was enough for 2 million cars, and this included the dregs from Russia, the Lithium in Nevada, the salts in Bolivia, and trace amounts elsewhere. That pool has since doubled due to a find of Lithium brine in Wyoming, but that still only amounts to enough lithium for 4 million cars like the Tesla, which is the big reason I know their whole enterprise is a praying for a new battery type that hasn't even been discovered yet, much less ready for market. I think that answer is Thermite, with a catalyst to both slow it down and to reverse the reaction so its chargeable with electrons, not a one-way oxidation reaction.

Thermite is made of aluminum metal powder and rust, iron oxide. The iron transfers the oxygen to the aluminum, aggressively, which generates impressive amounts of heat and is VERY VIGOROUS, allowing anything the thermite is physically touching to melt. You can destroy a battle tank with thermite. Its usually listed with explosives, but its very easy to make and used to be used for field welding or other purposes before all this Terrorist nonsense started. Industrial processes are fascinating, after all. Thermite is an aggressive process of oxidation, and there are already types of one-way fuel cells that use aluminum metal and air, with big vents, for one-time emergency radios such as used for military weapons, like nukes. They're very light, very strong, and utterly reliable: once. After the metal is gone, they stop working. I've heard one working. They make a crinkling high pitched sound and the units get HOT and sometimes smoky, but they still work. There's no known way to reverse this process, since the cells oxidize and once powdered, it loses conductivity. Ergo, retaining conductivity is probably the crucial step. I suspect salt brine will be a key aspect. The eventual battery will be one of those bizarro "why didn't anyone think of that" things, like how the Mexicans never noticed the gold in California despite running cattle through those very rivers and streams. All they needed to do was Look Down.

A battery based on oxidation of aluminum has a nice energy density. Aluminum is so common its everywhere, not a rare earth, no need to fight over it. Everybody on earth could have an electric car with lots of range if this existed, cheap, because common ingredients mean cheap batteries. And aluminum is light weight, like lithium, and far less likely to catch fire and poison you or explode when the air gets damp. Lithium does that. So instead of only having 4 million cars for the whole world, a sign of the very rich and well defended Tyrant class, we'll all have electric cars, billions of them, all charged by solar panels. Meaning we don't have to poison the world or kill each other for industrial metals mining. That's a good step in the right direction. For everybody. See why chemistry is good?

So what does it take to enable a controllable reaction, keeping the heat minimal and putting it all into electrical current? It needs a catalyst, or a brine, probably a solution so the powder doesn't happen and the metals remain mobile not a one way reaction. Maybe Potassium Perchlorate? That's got a nice bundle of oxygen attached to it, and its a salt so it would brine nicely, and should allow aluminum crystal growth. The chlorine would be a strong channel for the electrons. You could get it from sea water. The potassium is common both there and in granite, like decomposed granite, granite dust, stream deposits in every river valley. Literally common as dirt. Like Aluminum. Another option would be Sodium Ferrite, maybe hydroxyl for pH bonuses. Don't think that's as common or as active, but it would probably still work.

Wish I had a chem lab to experiment. With I knew chemistry better so I could experiment with a simulator. Then run tests so I could find how well it charges and how many recharges before it fails. Once again, wish I'd changed majors. This time to Chemistry instead of my actual degree. I was encouraged, but there were no hot girls in Chem department. We had Ansley and quite a few other bits of eye-candy strutting around. Considering one of my classmates from High School majored in Chemistry, was our Valedictorian in college, and still ended up the Assistant Manager of a movie theater after graduation, I'm not sure it would have helped. We live in an Ffed up world.

Chemistry is the right answer, and we should stop listening to Rock Stars as our source of wisdom. Even Battery Rock Stars like the inventor of the Lithium battery. He's an old man, will die soon, and has blocked research into alternatives because only HE is the expert and everyone else is wrong. Same with Hawking insisting his biased model of Quantum Mechanics, without many experiments and poor explanation of linkage, insists only HE can define the universe. Bullshit. To both of them. Science will go on, after they die. I really hope we learn from this. Tyrants are tyrants. Both are tyrants. Both get slaves and keep them dumb and obedient. Don't invest in companies that require slaves to function. They fail when the tyrant dies.

Until we have a Thermite battery, we're stuck with internal combustion or pedal power. At least motorcycles are fun.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, all you dads out there. I don't have kids of my own. I envy you. You matter to someone.

Dad and I went to IHOP (his request) for Breakfast. We're going up to Truckee river bike trail today. It will be nice. Its a lovely day in the mountains, clear and sunny. Should be a really good time on the bikes. I will take pictures. Try and get some different from last time. Maybe the parking lot at Squaw Valley Road so folks can see what it looks like.

I still want to go to Sardine Lakes, but next week is Mom's ashes, so that's a weekend rather grimly shot through. Dad wants me to give a speech, an anecdote. I suppose I'll talk about stealing plants from the forest. We were both fond of that, and getting through the challenge of having a brown thumb. Its no worse than being a Perfumier with a poor sense of smell.

My boss is on vacation for the next two weeks, so my coworker Kate is full time for the duration. I suspect we'll talk about plants and soils this week. I'm pretty interested in that. Soils are all about finding out what kind you've got to start with, then checking for parasites or contamination. Then correcting it until you reach the soil that will support the plants you want to grow, and growing plants during the change. The initial step is a soil sample, followed, usually, by rototilling in the corrections. Around here, with most clay soils, we need lots of aeration material added, which is best done with rice hulls or gypsum or both. And they need to be tilled in a good 12 inches so the roots will drain, and further drainage pipe below the bed might be a good idea to you don't see the roots suffocated during watering. Or use raised beds if you're on rock. Around here, that's absolutely possible. And with the cost of wood, raised beds aren't cheap. In an ideal world... well nevermind ideal worlds. That's for video games and the dreams of Socialists everywhere. I'm not one of those.

The local woods change when you go from one rock type to another, and just down the road is one of those transitions. Since the original river, carrying the original gold bearing sediments ran north south, prior to the current drainage pattern of the Sierras which is east west, you get some odd shelves of red dirt and conglomerates. Those with gold in them were mostly destroyed by hydraulic mining, which then caused flooding downstream in the central valley leading to the current levy crisis. Serious flood events would break those, and so far they haven't happened. But they will. Its inevitable, like Inflation, National Bankruptcy, or Revolution.

I keep expecting one of those atmospheric rivers to come into play again, like in 1986 or 1997, but so far no dice. I would find riding a bicycle or motorcycle in that continuously wet, drizzling for weeks, moss growing on everything weather, to be very irritating. I'd need oilskins, and a lot of nerve and utterly paranoid riding style. With our luck, that will happen AFTER an oil emergency. Not before. So we'll be dealing with not being able to get to our jobs, standing in the rain with umbrellas waiting for our carpool or bus, or riding in shitty wet weather on two wheels with a combined tire contact patch less than a single wheel of a Toyota Pri(o)us. I still think its hilarious that the place where an Anglican Bishop lives is called the Bishoprick. They should be required to drive a Pious: a full electric version of a Prius that only goes golf cart speeds because that's what it is. A golf cart with windows. Maybe I'll put that in my next book.

Motorcycling in the wet is a bad idea, just as it is motorcycling after dark. You're less visible, have poor grip, tar snakes and manhole covers are utterly slick, cars pull out in front of you because there's no wipers on the passenger windows. Its a bad deal. And getting fired and replaced because you didn't show up for work just because its raining? A worse deal. This is something we'll have to accept and deal with, and people will die. But so what? That's life. It isn't safe. Nobody is getting out of here alive.

All my memories of whining cafe racer engines late on a Saturday night, or hot rods with the headers off try for a quarter mile speed record on the straightaway, most ending with a loud crash heard for miles, followed by sirens from the ambulance and the fire trucks officiating in the first place, well it was grim. The 1980's were Nihilistic. We expected to die suddenly by nuclear hellfire, with little or no warning. Why worry about drunk driving or being safe when death is a flash of light and burning to death or worse dying over hours or days from radiation poisoning? My whole generation lived through a couple decades of this terror, and then it was suddenly over and suddenly we have to be Moral and Upstanding when the people telling us to do it were the worst bastards in history? Really? I am looking forward to the end of the Baby Boomers. When the last one dies, or perhaps when their voting block is a minority, I will celebrate. Everything wrong with America today is their fault.

I admire my own generation and the later Hipsters for mocking the Boomers childishness and hypocrisy. They Hipsters are ahead of the curve, perhaps unintentionally, by embracing indifference to most materialism, and paring down their ambitions to extremely modest and achievable ones. They already know that Education is a scam because most have college degrees and can't find work. Most of what the Boomers want is probably a bad thing, and should be carefully examined for its unintended consequences. In the end, the Boomers were a destructive force. Their ideas were bad, their time is over. I suggest we leave them to their smug rest homes and wonder why they're ignored by their children, us, busy raising vegetable gardens and riding bicycles and motorcycles. We're the future. Time for us to step up.

Harley 72, Humor, and Cheery Vehicles

There is such a thing as too much efficiency. California is not meant to be a Sunny version of Germany under the Third Reich. Its about Farming and Tourism, not industry and efficiency.

On my drive home on Friday I followed a hipster on what I thought was a Harley 72 up East Main. Left side belt drive, narrow rear tire, larger diameter wheels. It's a new model that looks like a 1972 Harley Davidson. Kinda silly, and the guy nearly dropped himself on the pavement popping the clutch when the tire spun it to the right, but still, it was nice seeing a bike on the road with a narrow rear tire instead of a compensator fatboy tire. Now that I know it isn't that model after all, I'm very curious what it actually was, and wonder how cheap it will be when the current rider dumps himself on the road popping the clutch next time. It has more power than grip.

My feeling about bikes is 400 cc is just about perfect. Enough to get you to 80 mph, enough to pull the hills with traffic, enough to work properly as an Air cooled engine or better as a watercooled one, but not so much as to get you into trouble. These days your real world choices are higher pressure 250ccs or shorter stroke 650s to get you that displacement. They aren't actual 400s, scaled properly, machined properly for all the mechanical and chemical advantages. And that bites. A counterbalanced 400cc, properly scaled, would be so good you'd never buy another bike, right through the apocalypse.

And the apocalypse is interesting, way more than I ever thought. When I was a lad, graduating high school and increasingly paranoid about nuclear accidents and race rioting (Rodney King?) and increasing world terrorism, White Flight was the smart answer. Move into the boonies, setup a farm, grow crops to sell for taxes and essentials, return to a farm and cower in fear for the coming Golden Horde. That's what some of my contemporaries actually did. Others just threw up their hands and moved to Portland to retire.

No really. Half my high school graduating class moved to Portland, independently of each other. It seems they realized our home town sucked. Funny how that is. I wonder if they'll move back after the plague?

The apocalypse is most interesting because its so slow, most people think this is just how things are. They don't realize that schools weren't always death-match detention camps with students bombing the cafeteria or sniping each other or going First Person Shooter in their math class. That stuff didn't happen when I was a kid. We didn't have Wikipedia to help us learn things. We had to endlessly search and learn a lot of other stuff we weren't looking for. Now, wiki is so good schools are obsessed with citing references and plagiarism, not understanding that is a moot point and they've generation gapped themselves. You really can Just Fsking Google It. The answer is often there. Tends to make people lazy about remembering things, and helpless without data access, however. Super-Generalists like me are increasingly rare, but still not paid well enough to justify sticking with a company that undervalues us.

The apocalypse is reflected in inflation, laziness, and greed. This is probably how it was for the Anasazi too. Its not huge genocidal violence, though we do have disfiguring face piercings and tattoos in common use, but the hordes of motorcycle gangs seems to be composed of lawyers and trust babies, people with money rather than drug dealing cannibals wearing hockey masks.

We were taught to expect that, not smiling liars from the South or Rustbelt or Texas raping our Constitutional rights to enrich themselves. For the last 20 years, that's what we've gotten. That's apocalypse. As the Constitution falls apart from disinterest by voters too lazy or greedy or selfish to care as long as they have mass quantities and comfort and air conditioning, the youth are adapting to the post-American landscape. They're riding scooters and restored old bikes and living the Dream of the 90's, even if its really just poverty. Adapting to poverty is a real challenge. Adapting to poverty by discarding the marketing crap and base materialism the prior generation was so obsessed with is a major step. And finding humor in it.

I see these and think: why is California demanding such efficiency and safety from its vehicles when we could and should be goofy and have these instead? "It would hold up trafffic!" say the Angelinos. "So?" I respond. "Is Disneyland all about Efficiency and Traffic Flow or is it a major tourist draw?" They would have to admit I have a point. If the whole state got a sense of humor and operated more like Disneyland and less like Der Fatherland, we'd have more tourists and more money and jobs. If you want super-efficiency, go work on some factory-farm or get a job at Starbucks.

One of my coworkers, we'll call him Conor because that's his name, owns a fat-tired Yamaha V-star 1300. Monster cruiser with throbbing compensator engine. He says he's not compensating, but I point out that's what the bike says to everyone that sees it.

At least the Hipsters aren't riding Compensation Vehicles. They are happy to be on silly Mopeds, which interest me (wish I knew how to machine metal parts!) and old motorcycles without much power. Its not about power. Its about Vintage. These bikes are OLD. I'm amazed they work at all.

Conor and I want to put together a motorcycle ride at our company on a day off, all Vintage bikes rather than modern, and found ourselves wondering what people would ride, especially all the women we work with. They're all seriously individual so its quite difficult to figure that out. And one likes trucks rather than bikes so she'd probably show up with a Power-Master open top with a roll-bar.

Others would probably show up with Ural sidecars or Vespas. My direct coworker Kate would probably have one of these:

Mostly because these are cheap and efficient and she's a farmer. I like the terrain these work on, but I think I'd rather have something more vintage, with high pipes with heat shields on them. Like this Honda 350 Scrambler, only with the Disc brake installed.

Vintage, yet functional. And no plastic. Big enough seat to carry a woman on the back, rack under that, and able to run knobby tires if I raise the front fender an inch. The mirrors are functionally tall, not decorative. And the single round headlight and instrument cluster are sensible. All in all, a durable bike worth fixing up and keeping running forever. With good maintenance and engine rebuilds to replace worn parts it should last till all the fuel is gone, then accept modifications to run on alcohol. I like that. It will probably need a good alternator put in, and its signals replaced with LED versions. It won't be pure vintage if I do that, however. I'll have to ponder that once I actually own one.

An apocalypse where everybody riding motorcycles is going to work with a certain sense of style? That is not only sensible, but rather attractive. We need more cheerfulness. If we can't have motorized couches or potting sheds or garbage dumpsters, we can certainly embrace what the Hipsters already have: vintage bikes to replace our bubble cars and SUVs. Have some fritatta and fresh figs. Its all good.

Loch Leven

Today I went for a hike in the Sierras. Taking the Big Bend exit off I-80, turn East (uphill) and go about a mile to the trailhead, the only parking lot on the road with just a pit toilet building. The trailhead begins there, heading up the mountain.

And up.

And up.

And up.

That ribbon of gray is I-80.

Its around 1200 feet of climb. I recommend 2 liters of water, a full lunch because you'll burn a ton of calories, and serious hiking boots with firm soles because you'll feel every rock otherwise. My hiking shoes are done for. I need new ones. My feet ache from all those rocks and boulders I climbed to get to the lake. This lake.

Go ahead. Be jealous. And the water was warm too. People went swimming. I wasn't one of them.

I got bit by mosquitoes taking this picture for you. Be grateful. 

Notice the thunderstorms forming?

We headed back down the mountain after eating lunch.

These storms intensified as we dropped in elevation.

Yes, railfans, the Loch Leven trail climbs about 800 feet before suddenly crossing the main line through the Sierras. There's a lot of pretty spots on the trail, but the climb is really exhausting so you may not appreciate them completely. It might be a good idea to bring an Ace bandage in case you twist an ankle on the boulders and tree roots you'll be climbing.

Where the lines are close together? That means "steep".

Unsafe Riding

This is the mountains, and its summertime. It was 100'F yesterday. I had A/C and loud music to enjoy so I was fine. On my drive home with my expired license tags I was NOT stopped or even looked at funny. I did, however see several young lads going buy on motorcycles wearing a helmet and shorts and not much else. I understand why, in this heat, but I wonder: does safety gear really make that much difference? If you go down, you're going to get badly hurt anyway. Is it better to ride in comfortable clothing or very safe gear but risking heatstroke? In a state with 330 dry days a year, if not more, heat and such are really common for at least 5 months a year. Basically from May until October, its hot. Damn hot. Which is good if you're with a woman, but NOT in the jungle.

In honor of the drought, I wanted to offer this video from last winter predicting devastating flooding. Yeah. I find these really helpful for correcting a swelled head. I've lived through some of those atmospheric rivers, Pineapple Express situations with rain falling for weeks on end. Those really saturate the ground and cause massive flooding. Today? Its so hot I look around and worry about wildfire. The air is still, dry, never cooled off. I hope the predicted heat wave will end tonight.

The one time I rode a scooter, a Tomos cheapo like this one, I was wearing shorts and Teva sandals. The provided helmet would have saved me from a split melon, but not a trip to the emergency room for stitches and broken bones. Totally unsafe, but very comfortable in the 78'F seaside weather of Balboa Island, a lovely place 3 feet below sea level and filled with rich people and their cottages. If there were no cars, it would be like a tiny Mayberry, all crammed in together. Scooters and bicycles make sense there. They don't hog the one-way streets the way cars and SUVs do. So long as people are polite about their noise levels, a place like this works. If they can't keep it under control, things go sideways fast. The last place I lived was that crammed together, without the charm or high dollar rents to keep out the ingrates so instead of an experiment in good manners, I lived with examples of bad. The moral of the story is: don't live anywhere with Section 8 housing. Even if 80% of the section 8 residents are decent, the remaining 20% are criminals doing bad stuff. Like stabbing, mugging, raping, shooting, breaking into cars, all the bad stuff. Most of the police visits will be for that household. All that stuff was happening in the section 8 places in my last apartment. Never again. Thank you. 

I have to wonder if there's such a thing as an upscale trailer park? One better than this: 

As much as I enjoy Jaye Tyler's insanity, is she someone I want peering in my windows with a camera taking photos? Or the more realistic eternally skanky trailer whore trying to sell herself for rent or drug money. I have it on good authority that anywhere there's two trailers parked, one contains a skanky ho. Just... no. An upscale trailer park would fix a lot of this. One with... Standards. References. A proper gate to keep out the bad folks. Maybe, dare I say it, gardens. A community, only with the homes on wheels. Chasing the weather that suits them. People mock the Hipsters for being rich enough to enjoy things and cultures they claim but didn't earn. In my day, we called that Slumming. Rich kids dressing down and causing trouble in poor neighborhoods, then changing clothes back to normal when they get home. Back to their perfect privileged lives. Modern Slumming is with Hipsters trying to outcool each other. I get the Retro as modern culture is largely empty, nihilistic, dominated by trailer trash and black people assaulting each other. I don't see anything to identify with there, other than the sarcasm of Lily Allen and those like her. And she's talking about England specifically. 

America has bigger problems. We're going bankrupt (because dumb people voted) trying to fund socialism and make everyone equally dumb and poor. That never works. Some are just more industrious, have better taste, or God Forbid, more talent and luck. They end up winning. The losers always lose. Jaye Tyler doesn't win. Neither does Alexander Harris. The Hipsters are doing a service, even if its not on purpose. In picking their props to pretend their association with subcultures they aren't part of and didn't earn the rights to, they end up overpaying for vintage stuff, most of which they pay to restore to working order so they can be seen using it. Even my ex did this with vintage cameras, most of which will never see the light of day again. More's the pity. The duplex lens models were cool, even if developing the film with a total PITA. If those had a digital back, they'd be fantastic. The Hipsters have too much money, everyone agrees, but they also have time and a strong desire to follow trends of counterculture, even if they don't really know what that is. As an actual Nerd, with the distinction of being an Actual Cyberpunk from the Chatsubo, nearly 20 years ago now, and 7 novels under my belt making me a proper author, even if I never made a dime from them, I wonder if the Hipsters will ever graduate from self-mockery and actual Making, Crafting, or otherwise doing something with their skin-deep interest? Will Hipsters become competent Makers and build Digital Camera Backs for SLRs and Bifocal/Co-Ax cameras like a Rolleflex? 

Takes a 2.00 inch negative. 

Think about the quality photo for a 2 inch negative (replaced by a large CCV chip) and high quality lens that's over 80 years old. But your viewfinder is a mechanical flip top, inverted, and your manual focus relies on actual exposed gears. That's exactly the sort of weirdness that belongs in Hipsters if they actually turn Legit. 

The old school vintage motorcycle and scooter clothes? Nice looking, but needs better ventilation and proper safety armor. That's a growth industry, in tailoring motorcycle clothes to ride these: 

Doesn't that look like sex on wheels? And that's a converted Yamaha SR-650, so its still getting 40-50 mpg.  And costs less than a Prius, too. Doesn't require imported Lithium batteries that have travelled 27,000 miles before you even get a chance to buy them. This is an honest bit of stylish transportation. 

Post oil doesn't mean No Oil, it means it will be much more expensive, probably limited access (rationing), and competing fuels will be just as common. I fully expect people to visit their local moonshiner to buy methanol to make biodiesel, as that's part of the process. How do you make biodiesel, you ask? 

It's like that. Start with waste food oil, hit it with methanol to turn it into fatty acids, expose to lye, to change its pH, drain off the glycerin from the other half of the fatty acids (thus a biodiesel tank needs a bottom drain or a sump tube), and what's left at the end is a stable diesel fuel you can burn in any diesel engine. This necessitates owning a diesel engine, or converting out a gasoline engine for a diesel one with the appropriate fuel system, engine mounts, transmission, and computer so it still drives properly. Most people just buy a diesel to start with, like a Jetta or Mercedes Benz or Cummins diesel. Ford is going to be releasing its Eurodiesel engine here. I wish they'd put it in a non-bubble car, something with fenders and angles and made to look good, but no dice. There are already engines made for bikes in diesel, they just suck, so far. Eventually someone will build a 2-stroke diesel with a good enough power and revs well enough to matter in an ultralight vehicle like a motorcycle. This is likely one of the more popular fuel options in the near (next five years) future. 

With a scooter that's going 5 mph faster than I normally bicycle on flat ground, I feel like wearing lots of safety gear is counter productive. When you're up at 40 mph, though, proper gear had better we worn. Unless we've regained our disdain for safety in the modern youth, which is possible, and reset ourselves to more realistic expectations, we will have to muddle through as to what's the right amount of gear. 

That said, with Nevada City being too damned expensive to be an artist, I have to wonder if Gridley or places like it are the real future of artist communities. Housing has to be affordable. Jobs have to be present. And the law has to step back and let them create. Even Chico, with its frat boys, has local biodiesel thanks to Sierra Nevada Brewery turning their waste into fuel. Good SNB! I think that's cool. Nevada City isn't that place. Its too pricey. Too controlled. Too upscale to be a proper artist's town. 

Hot

The low last night was 75'F. That's not a low. It never cooled off. Today its supposed to hit 100'F here. It will be closer to 107'F in Sacramento down the mountain. Damn hot. I'm glad the A/C at work is functional. I will be using it and keep cool. The fan I've got in my bedroom is crucial for comfort so I can sleep. I don't know how I slept in this place before I got a fan. It's miserable in here without it.

Yesterday I saw a young man riding a Honda 650 enduro with his motorcycle helmet, shorts, and thongs. Not safe, but probably comfy in the 90'F heat of the late afternoon. He was moving very sedately in the traffic on Ridge road, such as it is. Likely the same guy I saw a couple days ago.

This morning I woke at 4 AM in the barest glimpse of first light, not sure why. Not even the birds were singing yet. Figured it was low blood sugar so ate a bowl of Raisin Bran before testing. It was low, but not superlow. I took insulin, read a little while, then went back to bed. Woke up again at nearly 8 AM. This is not a problem because work is at 9 AM, and my commute is literally 5 minutes. I think I should look closer at a Super Sherpa, as that's a  nice compromise between a Standard and an Enduro, assuming I can't find something that's a proper old scrambler, complete with chrome. I will look into it more.

Off to work. Have a good weekend.

Small Ambitions

My car needed smogging today, thanks to California law. Passed. I asked my Dad to help with that. Consequently, I rode my bike to work. The way there is a short climb up a hill followed by a fast 40 mph downhill which is probably very unsafe without health insurance.

The way home, after working all day, was in 87'F heat, up a couple steep hills, Richardson and Alta Street. I was passed by a couple big Harleys, which I mostly ignore because they're tacky, a big Honda Goldwing with huge matching luggage cases (tacky!), and a couple Honda 650 enduro bikes. Those I listened to putt-putt by. I think I would like that. A 650 is quieter than a 250, and in my neighborhood, quiet is important.

There are small engine bikes which are quiet, understand. Weird pipes make them loud, and that's just childish BS. While I like the style of the Enfield Bullet, Enfield is an Indian made bike famous for some pretty huge design flaws and very low quality. Ergo, my preference is the Kawasaki W650, which is a Japanese copy of the Triumph Bonneville. I probably won't be able to get one of those until this Winter, at the earliest. Until then, I ponder ugly Enduro vs prettier Scrambler. A Scrambler will be heavier due to steel and chrome, but being naked rather than plastic its also Worth More and can be restored infinite times. This is why I Booed the change in Vespa from steel to plastic. Plastic on a bike does the job, but its going to warp and get brittle and fall apart. It doesn't last. Steel Vespas are still around 50 years later. A plastic Vespa? Nope. Enduring quality is something I look for in a purchase. And since I happen to be certified in steel welding with TIG, steel is something I'm very good at.

So after I get a good quality motorcycle to commute with 4 days a week, fifth being the bicycle ride for exercise, I want to see about saving up for a TIG welding setup, complete with cooling and vent fan so I can do it safely. I do not like arc-flare. Its blinding and takes some time to heal from. It is important in welding to do so safely and effectively. With a proper welding setup I can build a proper tube frame, from steel or aluminum, for any engine I choose, with any suspension setup I engineer, and mount the wheels I want, etc, based on the simple stuff. With welding I can accomplish stuffing the 400cc engine from a DRZ into a bike that looks like a proper scrambler, complete with chrome covered exhaust shields that look so nice. I can do this because nobody else seems to. I can build a gas tank in a classic style, and fit a nice simple antique two-person seat, and upholster it. I can fit a proper progressive shock setup so its safe, and disk brakes front and rear. I can do this because its really not that hard. Look at the knuckleheads on TV doing this and still being famous. And if I'm good at it, I can do it wherever.

It would probably be a good test to see about building a nice looking metal tank on an ugly enduro with their tiny sub-2.0 gal tanks. Another good area to work on is a supplemental tank that goes onto a MadAss, and a replacement rear arm that's longer so the bike doesn't try to lift its front wheel all the time. I see that too often in videos. The guys doing it in traffic are suicidal jackasses. I feel bad for the people around them. I would enjoy building, eventually, once I understand CNC, a 3-cylinder 360 or 375 cc water cooled or oil cooled road bike. Not a monster engine. A nice grunty road bike. A triple has a nice aggressive sound. Need a fancy crankshaft and case, and a head for 3 rather than 4 cylinders. Lotta work. That's going to take years to get right, even in the computer model. That's a long-term goal. Perhaps starting with a counter balanced twin-500cc engine, like Honda claims, would do better. Its just bigger than I want. Really, 350cc should be plenty of power for both in-town and riding Hwy 49.

These are my small ambitions in transportation. Its not a lot. Its something to occupy my mind and hands after a day of stuffing boxes. That's my life now.

The Helpfulness of Labels

I have mentioned this before but I am a Lumper, meaning I accumulate scientific ideas for greater understanding of the whole rather than Split those ideas into specific parts. I am interested in opinions and decision making for the purpose of prediction. As a scientist and a science fiction writer, this is very important.

I rewatched the "You Might Be A Hipster" video and found the bit about Geeks and Nerds more appropriate a label for me than Hipster. I do see the videographer's point about Hipsters mostly being Reactionary, trying to gain status by wearing visible and often contradictory bits of cultural pastiche without putting in the work to obtain them legitimately like Geeks and Nerds do. I've done the work. So that's why I can't be a Hipster. It sounds like Hipsters are actually Posers, really simplified ones who use disdain as their secondary defense.

It is amusing to note that calling someone a Hipster is an effective insult. I like some of the things they like, but while they like them ironically, or as an attempt to seize status through vintage vehicles, I like these things because I respect old machines. Mopeds are kinda awesome. I got a response back from the motorcycle safety school. Once I deal with a few lingering issues I can setup an appointment, pay my fee, get my helmet and jacket, and take the class to get my license. After that, its a matter of picking a bike.

I saw the woman I like yesterday. She's like Kathleen Turner's voice and movements and dry sense of humor, only with tattoos, a lot slimmer, and a penchant for 4WD trucks and high heels. She's sexy and smart, things I find attractive in women. She's nice to me, but I'm not sure just how much or little that means. I keep examining whether this is legitimate attraction or some self destructive fixation of mine. Half the time when I imagine having a serious relationship with her, I picture having to defend her from the social situations I'm obligated to attend, thanks to who my Dad's friends are. If she had no tattoos or children this wouldn't be a problem. Why am I attracted to her? Is it physical? Is it just that she's polite to me and I'm reading too much into it? I really don't know if she even cares. At least I'm mature enough to question my own motives here instead of making a mess of this.

I was all depressed Friday when I learned she owned land in Hawaii, because I figured that meant she was working two jobs to retire there. I don't like Hawaii. It's a future Mass Grave, with an enormous population that requires food and fuel brought in from elsewhere and a prime location for frequent invasion by whomever controls the Pacific this year. Post-oil, China and the USA will be fighting over it. Even the current president has shifted most of the US Navy into the Pacific since Europe is a lost cause and the money in the Mediterranean is gone so there's not point having a Med Fleet. Going to Hawaii is only something to be done short term, and only by plane. When the planes stop flying, Hawaii stops making sense. You can be warm. Not to live or retire there.

Turns out that island people drive her nuts and she prefers the sanity of large land masses. She also says that despite being cold too much of the time, she doesn't mind cold so much as having the layers available to be warm enough. I suggested Chico and she said she'd develop a serious drinking problem if she lived there. I pointed out that at least Chico has several good breweries (Sierra-Nevada brewery is there). I asked her about Nevada. She hates that even worse, despite going to Reno often to visit her sister and new nephew. I would like to date this woman. I'm just not sure of myself, or her intentions as more than mere politeness.  Considering how badly my choices in women have been, I worry that any attraction I have will just lead to a self-destructive end. I really question my mental health if this is the driving force. Since I know that Ambition is a real poison in relationships I need to know just what the ambitions are of anyone I'd date, since a single encounter can produce a child and 25 years of child support payments, enough to outlast something as feeble as the initial attraction itself. Just because you find someone attractive doesn't mean it isn't a destructive emotion. And the instability of relationships is a big part of why Socialism is winning, why we're a post-apocalyptic society.

I also have to consider the pros and cons of continued loneliness and proper independence, even to the point of living in a trailer that I deliberately move every few months or a year, compared to sticking it out in a town with the inevitable discovery of murderous nepotism (how many sheriff's sons are drug dealers or serial rapists?), ruinous taxes, and ostracism since I'm not born there so get no advantages. Short of plague in my home town (correcting the problem that made me leave), anywhere I go will be like that. If I had a trailer I could spend a summer in Shasta City or fall in Ashland or winter in Ukiah. Whatever. There's interesting places in the world that I haven't experienced in their day to day.

The thing about a trailer is its a small space, likely to make my OCD worse, and a trailer for two people has to be much larger than a trailer for one. Trailers tend to be for pre-liberation couples, with the socially imposed friendly dominant codependency that Boomers liked so much and nobody else seems to do. The kind with pink fake fur, white patent leather belts, martinis, and Frank Sinatra music. It baffles me, but I grew up in a world destroyed before I was even born. Once we started importing oil, the First World was done for. What's left is a slow motion apocalypse, so slow its dismissed as mere cranksterism. Yet its still detectable if you have comparative photos. Post war, it only took one bread winner to provide for a family. Now? Impossible. We are enslaved and destroyed. The only dependable constant is we can count on things getting worse.

My alternative, which is probably a bit more expensive than a trailer, is moving from town to town, renting/leasing bungalows for the duration and hang onto more stuff than I'd be able to fit into a trailer. I suppose this would be less crazy and a lot more comfortable. This lets me have the welding rig, the CNC setup, and continue my work on transportation, something I've already put half a dozen years into. It would let me rebuild a trailer from a hulk, too, which will be a lot more affordable and give me the insulation level I want. Most trailers have a literal 1-2 inch thick wall with so little insulation its barely better than a tent. With more room I won't be going nuts so fast. I'll be physically more comfortable, with grid power and internet access.

My geekdom requires fresh anime every season. I am a Nerd, a Geek, not a Hipster. I could care less what others are doing. I have my own opinions and tastes. I liked Danger Mouse before the Hipsters found it. I got into vintage non-Harley bikes before the Hipsters did, and I have good reasons instead of "its popular". Small displacement bikes have excellent fuel economy. Wish I knew how to do machining because then I could keep one going forever. If I knew machining I could build the 360 triple with water and oil cooling, naked (no fairing), standard and cafe versions, in good colors instead of just black (boring!), with sensible suspension and tires capable of cruising over the Sierras with a sexy woman clinging to you. These are good things. Sensible things. With machining I could recreate or repair one of those British-type convertibles, the light and unsafe in crashes kind, only with working electrics, and a small engine and gearbox scaled to match so its fun but not fast. Like a Miata, but smaller. A Bugeye Sprite kinda thing. Hipsters wouldn't know how to start. Its too much working doing that yourself. They'd do something more flashy, less effort, throw money at it and pretend owning is the same thing as restoring, as Craft. I respect Craft. People without wives or children to love only have Craft, you know. This is the truth of my situation.