Coastal Flooding And FEMA Helpless

I am fortunate to live in California. We have mostly cliffs on our coastline so we're mostly immune to tsunami. We don't get hurricanes here recently since our water is too cold to sustain them, being chilled by fertile upwelling currents from winds out of Alaska. Its probably our fault people put anchovies on pizza. We did get hurricanes 100K+ years ago. It's possible we will again if the Alaska Current and Longshore Drift die for some reason. We do get secondary rains from hurricanes in Mexico during the summer and fall. That often leads to local flooding and lightning fires, like this summer gave us. Fires lead to mudslides and lowland flooding and levy breaks, but we accept and expect that and pay for the maintenance. We don't pretend there are no disasters here. That's an Eastern thing.

No strong hurricane effects like the East Coast and Gulf Coast do. They have long flat shores and get hammered by these events. It's really nothing new, but people are stupidly insistent on building as close to the beach as they can, then complain when the next hurricane knocks their house down. Then they demand we pay to rebuild their mansion through taxes or insurance company bailouts on homes that don't deserve insurance in the first place. If you're going to spit into nature's eye, expect to have your house knocked down. This is why we build out of Wood in California, instead of stone. Wood survives earthquakes better. We think of our homes are more comfortable and upgraded tents, temporary, rather than permanent fixtures for generations of family for past and future centuries. Its an extraordinary cultural difference.

So what is the East Coast going to do about Sandy to defend against the next one? A kinda goofy video segment from PBS suggests building trillion dollar movable barriers to block shipping into New York harbor and possibly cutoff the storm surge from another hurricane Sandy someday in the future. It's showy, probably ineffective, and the sort of dumb the Baby Boomers would vote to pass on the cost for to their grandchildren. There's little consideration given for the maintenance costs from coastal erosion or the loss of traffic to the harbor gutting income to New York City, money they can't do without. There was also no admission to the fact that engineers can get it wrong. Japan was heavily damaged on the coast because their levies were 5 feet too short to stop the tsunami a few years ago and a LOT of people died. They did their best and designed as well as they could predict, but nature upped the ante. I cried when I saw those people die.

There is one sure way to avoid coastal flooding from tsunami or storm surge. Live and work at a higher elevation. I make a point of living above 400 feet elevation. 40 feet is probably plenty. The city of Sacramento is 12 feet above sea level, or 10 feet below in some neighborhoods. The delta islands are 25 feet below sea level, more during high tides. Most of that land is just orchards so not actually very valuable. If it floods and there's no govt bailout it will likely be abandoned. The lower parts of Old Sacramento were already filled in after numerous spring floods. Most of the Old Sacramento shops are second floor, actually. The original street level is visible across the street from the train museum, 14 feet below the current street. The levy wall to the west keeps the Sacramento River from flooding into the city, and dams and other flood zones relieve pressure during big storm events or major meltoffs in the Sierras. We did our part. We gave up land and filled things in and levies are barely maintained in the places where it matters the most.

The homes wrecked on the Jersey Shore by Sandy, and the recent fires from corroded wiring immersed in salt water, and the continuing refusal by FEMA to condemn homes and apartment buildings under pressure from higher up, means there are people who can't start over with the insurance money, a year later. Power remains off in many of the buildings due to fried power transformers, which have a 3 year wait from the only manufacturer of them... in China. Abandoning New Jersey's storm damage for pennies on the dollar works to the advantage of developers who want to replace poor black apartments and rent control with big mansions sold to white people. This is open racism. Open racism aided by FEMA, which takes orders from the White House. Not cool.

The cure for coastal flooding is bulldoze and leave uninsured all properties less than 20 feet above sea level. This is bad for New York City, since Manhattan is built about 4 feet below sea level, due to local subsidence. Bad for the whole Gulf Coast, really, but is it my duty to pay for those clowns to rebuild in the same place and enjoy their luxuries? Let them take the risk and pay for the costs when that risk turns into hurricane flood damage. The East LAUGHS at California whenever we have fires, floods, and earthquakes. They're openly hateful against me and mine. And that take 60% of our taxes and never send them back. My state would be better off without the rest of you clowns. We already build smart, and we are unsympathetic when houses on the coast fall off a cliff. We say "Duh!", not "rebuild with my money!". Same response to people who refused to cut back the pretty trees in their rural mountain cabin so it burned to the ground in wildfire that they could have personally prevented through clearing brush. We say "go to hell". Californians are unsympathetic to deliberate stupidity. We've all seen examples of suicide and self destructive behavior by people who should know better.

I've read numerous stories of non-accidental fires in New Jersey, as arson offers a chance for an insurance payoff that FEMA refuses to do their jobs post-Sandy, a chance for the owners to take the money and start a life elsewhere. If I were in their shoes I'd get a place higher elevation or out of state entirely. Somewhere a little more rational about disasters and not so dependent on a federal aid agency that just doesn't seem to follow through. And maybe there's a funding reason behind this rather than pure political malignance. Maybe FEMA has been told that the federal govt can't afford to bail out the insurance companies behind those places and those companies have threatened bankruptcy over the cost. Rather inevitable considering the number of buildings wrecked. And the bigger issue: the federal govt can't fund rebuilding in many disasters while paying for wars overseas with no exit strategy, extended under the current president despite assurances in his first run for office to pull out. There is no money for more disasters, and maybe not enough money for Sandy victims. Is this the real reason nobody is really helping those people?

Say there's a big quake in New Madrid that levels four states, causes slight damage in 10 more states, and kills 10,000 people (best case, worse is millions of dead), is there tax money to rebuild all those brick and steel structures? Building materials aren't free. Neither is labor. Nor is replacing all the water pipes in the ground or the telephone poles knocked over or the dams that failed or the roads that sank in liquefaction like the last time that happened in 1805. Church bells rang from the shaking in Boston and what would one day be Chicago. There were aftershocks for the next 60 years, and the initial quake was followed a month later by one just as big, with another the same magnitude a few months later. New Madrid was a disaster when there were barely 10,000 people in the area. With 40 million homeless, how's FEMA going to handle that? How will the population react to the shaking when the new brick house cracks in the aftershocks and has to be demolished too? Will folks in Tennessee still be mocking Californians? Will Washington be able to budget for that? I don't think so. A New Madrid quake series will be so destructive that it will bankrupt the nation, and with so many millions homeless we can't pretend nothing happened. Its not like Sandy with a few thousand homeless staying with family nearby or moved out of state.

And that's where the big issue comes in. FEMA can't do much in a regional scale disaster. I've read their reports. Watched their videos. You're mostly stuck with what state and local aid is available and save yourself when possible. The smart answer is often to leave the area behind and find somewhere still intact. Somewhere with working utilities and a functional economy and power grid. One not overwhelmed by disaster. At least not yet. When the Big One hits in California, FEMA won't be able to deal with all the refugees. They won't be able to keep up with the utility damage or fix the water pipes or restore power everywhere. They'll basically give up like they did in New Jersey and New Orleans. Americans just don't care about their fellow man for long. We change the channel and laugh at a sitcom instead. We just don't care enough about our fellow man.

Murky and Grey

So it was supposed to rain, but barely did much at all on Sunday night, almost nothing Monday, and Tuesday its been overcast and damp and sometimes very light drizzle but not much. When the clouds came over on radar... nothing really. It has been in the low 50's and 70% humidity since Sunday, down to the low 40's overnight but no colder. The storm has been interesting in that it rotated counterclockwise out of Nevada, dropping 15 inches of snow at Donner Pass where I hiked a week ago. You wanna go there today bring snowshoes and a coat.

I have to say I really love having a wireless thermometer. Knowing the temp outside is nice. Instead of being irritated by the official one from Accuweather which is around 11-14'F wrong at any given time. A real thermometer which I know to be right? Not priceless, but worth the peace of mind at least. That Guy(tm) keeps sighing over the fact I report these things. They aren't interesting to him. I find them fascinating.

Its too cold to deal with leaves. The heat keeps turning on inside the house. Outside is pretty miserable. Can you imagine living in a tent with that kind of weather like the Gold Miners did? Going in and out of the river to check your rocker to see if there's any gold? And knowing that if you don't someone will sneak over and steal the contents. Claim jumpers. There was a lot of desperation, and a lot of opium drinks to keep away the aches and pains. Most of the miners died from this sooner or later. I can scarcely imagine just how tough you would need to be to survive gold mining very long. Between drug addiction and hooker diseases and the cold, there were many ways to die. Cave ins, gun fights, food poisoning, industrial accidents. Nasty business. And someday its going to come back because the price of gold is so high. It will be cleaner, at least.

So be sure not to watch the above at work. Its 99 minutes long. And some foul language and Wade Wilson's sexism. Its basically the whole game. I laughed a great deal. So be sure to watch it where laughter doesn't get you fired.

Biological Singularity

Obsessives love the Technological Singularity. They see artificial intelligence leading to a self aware computer smarter than us, able to upgrade itself and design technologies and software to fundamentally change our civilization. End work, end poverty, end war over resources. Its their fantasy.

Turns out that just because you can make a machine to think doesn't fix the inherent issues with resources. I still think we should keep working at it because it may lead to some advances, and probably do a great job ending call centers in Bangalore, so that has to be a good thing, right?

That's not the only singularity, however. There's one for high energy physics, one so important because it will allow us to fold space or step into the universe next door so we can keep walking away from the sun exploding and the heat death of the universe. I'd say that's even more important, long term. It will also get us free energy, probably, assuming that Dark Energy can be used since its proven to exist like the 95% of matter we can't see. That does offer one possible oddity, however. If we can't see 95% of the matter in the universe, that means there's 19 universes of matter than can influence this one with their gravity at the very large scale, on galaxies, but are imperceptible at the small scale down here. That's pretty odd, much like the ongoing weirdness of photons also being waves and relativity means we can actually see, despite it being really really odd if you stop and think about it a while.

But that's not the only Singularity either. There's another. And is particularly important because its got huge potential for abuse, particularly since we're a species of two year olds fond of tantrums and murder when we don't get our way. I'm talking about genetic engineering. We are an evolved species. We used to be homids a million years ago. About 133,000 years ago we became more self aware than animals and stepped up our tool using. We became modern humans. But we still evolved. Our reproductive plumbing is a ridiculously ornate and fragile bit of plumbing, yet it works. We share the same base pairs in our DNA with every living thing on earth, even in the black smokers at the bottom of 12,000 feet of water. The nerve that controls our voices runs down to our chests then back up. Our kidneys lose half their cells in the first year of life and are believed to not regenerate, yet we grow hair and skin cells all the time. Our spleens are fragile and braking them without medical care kills us. Our bowels can trap infections and kill us. There are parasites that crawl around through our organs but are too big for our immune systems to deal with. Our brains can't function safely without sleep cycles and we can literally die from it. Our blood only works right in the correct temperature range, despite our planet having frozen water over large portions of it. Terrible design. If God was an intelligent designer he needs to be kicked in the nuts for gross incompetence. Fortunately, we are smart. And we can correct these problems. We can go further and fix our DNA so we stop getting cancer and have perfect vision and women's bosoms don't fall after having a baby, and our skins don't wrinkle and our health is perfect, for ever and ever short of drowning or falling off a cliff or getting incinerated. Short of bad accidents or suicide, we could make ourselves immortal.

Pause and think about what that means. I know you're going to point to the babies problem actually insuring infinite war if everyone is immortal and starts breeding soldiers from age 12 on, and there are cultures doing that right now. They are despised and pitied, but they're doing that. The resource war that results can be delayed a little by using that same biotech knowledge to make crops grow in the desert without increasing water supply. There's a trick to it. The selenium present can be added to the plant fluids, just like in cacti, and drastically reduces evapotranspiration. This means the plant keeps its water in exchange for its fluids being a poisonous brine. If you throw an membrane on the fruit to only let pure water and sugars across into the fruit, the plant survives and the fruit is edible. Suddenly you've got a very hot garden growing across the Sahara and other deserts. Apply similar tricks to deciduous fruit trees so they can survive the cold without exploding like normal, and they can be planted right up to the tundra, opening up Siberia and Canada to massive population instead of huddling near resupply. That's a big deal. Its room for another billion people. Maybe two billion. There are mechanical methods for cheap desalination which would also allow for fish farming in the deep sea, like a floating reef. Cheap protein enabled by inexpensive inputs, deep water pumping of nutrients from below the thermocline layer to the surface, and suddenly you can grow tons of edible fish without needing the land very much. This frees up a lot of territory and also offers a large area for people to live. The tricky part is how much technology, how much biotech to make it work? I think fish farming barges/rafts are inevitable. Probably soon, too. The money is too good to ignore. Especially off the California coast. And Japan coast, assuming they can deal with the radiation from Fukushima better than ignoring it like they have been. Still, sea water into fresh water pumped in a pipe would keep alive Los Angeles, open up coastal Africa south of Morocco and north of South Africa, the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, plus everywhere inland via pipes and pumps. Those who invest in the infrastructure can make enormous changes. The brown parts of the planet would turn green.

So now we've got green deserts, winter forests full of fruit, artificial floating reefs full of fish to eat, coastal oases with free fresh water converted from sea water to grow crops and irrigate, and humans who won't die of old age. Probably all within the next 70 years. Even with the general incompetence and laziness of biotech scientists, and I wish that weren't true, that still requires some advances be made instead of catering lunch meetings for useless documentation on the correct way to write the letter I and the number 1. I suspect the real advances will be in hungry nations with something to gain. The Persian Gulf needs to feed its people when the world stops paying them for oil or the lunatics will set off their nukes screaming Allah Akbar and chanting Death To America. They've threatened that so much I figure its a foregone conclusion and we should treat the escapees from Iran with pitying looks because everyone in Iran is going to die in the retaliation strikes once they do it. A biological method for cleaning up radiation would be a needed thing too. Something to pull it out of the environment so its not poisoning fish or people. Do the same for industrial poisons. I bet China is working hard on that,  or will be, because they're spilled the most. I learned last week that barnacles are snagging the microscopic plastic particles in the Pacific Gyre, the floating plastic trash island in the north Pacific twice the size of Texas, and since few things eat barnacles, and they sink once they get heavy enough, the barnacles are cleaning up the water again. So that's a good thing. Given time the trash pile will vanish. I still hold that nature always wins. Abandoned cities often turn green if there's water for plants to grow. The vines tear apart buildings. Eventually its nothing but mounds of foundation concrete, shards of rusting rebar, tiny fragments of glass, and leaves covering every surface. Nature likes the special elements we build with. Roads vanish in 3 years, even paved highway. The plants we put beside them to reduce erosion can grow without soil and make it from air. That's enough for bushes to take root, and bushes help trees get in and wedge the pavement apart, even concrete slabs. Its surprisingly quick how it all disappears.

And that's if we do nothing but let nature take its course. With biotech, with us actively fiddling to make stuff grow, to clean our environment so we need less inputs, so there's more to eat everywhere, so we're tougher and more resilient to the natural weather? Really, we'll want to figure out what's an acceptable birth rate and stick to it. If we don't there will be biowar and the Chimera Problem will dominate us. With what we already know about gene splicing, it is possible to make a person that looks like us on the outside but is unable to breed due to many differences with other variations. This would be a sapient human in all the ways that matter, but can't have kids unless another similar being is created. We could easily end up with hundreds or thousands of humanlike species that can't interbreed anymore. A great way to control population, but a vicious one that could backfire because forcing a 1% birthrate would crash the population and make many potential mothers suicide. It also puts human reproduction in the hands of mad scientists who have never been very responsible in the first place and already show Sociopathic tendencies as a group. That's a hell of a nasty control system. Your ethnic group had better be the most obedient slaves or you get no children and the natural accidents will whittle you down, all controlled by your overlord who sends you to die or suffer endlessly in slavery. And don't say humans wouldn't do that. History is full of that sort of thing. We don't even need free populations to benefit from the slavery. It could be all of us as slaves and a few psychos in charge. We know they are the dominant rulers of our species NOW. They're the ones in Limousines launching drone strikes on weddings, just to hurt people. To scare them. To make them obey.

You can't ban or prevent the Biological Singularity. Its coming. Everything another animal can do, DNA can do for us. It can be synthesized. I have done that job for 4 years. Its really not that hard. Eventually we're going to tweak ourselves and the evil bastards in charge on the gear, running the scientists, LOVE feudalism and want to be Lords over all. They want more people under their power, more people to control like puppets. That will be our grandkids getting played with. Its already happening.

F1 Grand Prix of India

So I just finished watching the Formula 1 Grand Prix of India. Lotta smog. Disgusting amounts of smog. Like LA back in the bad old days. I am now feeling more sympathetic to CARB for cleaning up California's air quality. There was so much smog you couldn't see all the way down the track, and there wasn't shadows, just gray skies starting a couple hundred yards away.

India has been raising a stink about whether the race is a sporting event or entertainment and wants to change the tax rate on the tickets based on this. F1 is pulling out of India over this childish bureaucratic manuvering and the new Russian driver supports a Russian race. I know that Korea is getting dropped too, for too few fans attending, poor ticket sales, and 2/3 of the stands in India were empty. Not like the European races, which were packed. Japan too was very well attended.

Efforts continue towards getting a race in New Jersey, and the race in Austin Texas is well attended, popular with movie stars as well. Good tracks deserve good races. Abu Dhabi is next week, in the Persian Gulf, and is known to be a fast track with windblown sand to make it interesting, since that hurts the grip on tires.

The tire maker for all the F1 races is Pirelli. I used to have Pirelli tires on my BMW decades ago. Great tires. Really grippy in the corners. Pirelli had to formulate their soft compound tires on certain data and those only last a few laps. The medium compound lasts better, but the race requires use of the soft at least once, and its considered a bit of a sacrifice, more of an obstacle than an advantage other than during qualifying. This is negative advertising for Pirelli and they're demanding the right to test next years compounds on the new model car before the season starts and they get locked in on compound spec. If they don't get a test car, they threaten to drop F1 support and walk away. That's a big deal because providing the tires to all the cars should be good advertising, but due to the poor wear of their soft tires, its actually hurting them, thus the threat. I suspect we'll see one of the other tire makers step into this mess and get similar issues. That's the thing about racing.

The Ferrari team is having a hell of a time this year. In prior years with Michael Schumacher driving they were dominant, but this year not so much. Its mostly been Red Bull, which is running a Renault (French) engine but built in Milton Keynes UK, just to muddy the water. Renault racing is doubly amusing since their passenger cars are not reliable by reputation. From what I can tell, the racing team may as well be a completely different company. There's no filter-down of racing tech from Renault into the commercial/passenger vehicles. Honda and Toyota both take stuff they learn in racing and put it into their cars a few years later. Thus VTEC etc. And Fuel Injection is from racing originally. Its in all cars since the 1980's. Disc brakes, water cooling, power steering: all from racing. There's important trickle down at other car companies. F1 stuff from Mercedes gets into their high-end coupes, for example. You see those on Top Gear.

Note that McLaren has an F1 team, as does Caterham, both of which have well known sports cars. Lotus, as usual, is racing F1 and their various sports cars are good enough I'd want one. The Elise is a viciously stripped down pure racing car, the kind I grew up driving back in the day. No luxuries, loud, and all about the handling and power to weight ratio. I respect that. Its rather the opposite of a comfy luxury touring car. Its angry and it throws you around. What's not to like?

I really hope the new model cars based on the new engines for F1 next year make it more challenging. Vettel is very smooth and its hard to beat him. He just won his 4th world championship today despite being a bunch of races left in the season. He got it on points. He's just that good. The same way Schumacher was good: smooth is fast. Both drivers, both German, were very smooth. It makes all the difference.

Tis The Season

In most states, its already raining and snowing by now. Not in California. Its working its way to 80'F again. Maybe 85'F, realistically. Its been like that every afternoon for the last two weeks. No rain, few clouds, warm even predictable temperatures. Exactly what you don't expect from AGW. In the old days of my childhood, we'd have a steady flow of rains every week at this point, followed by a few weeks of Indian Summer (this warm weather) followed by more serious rain storms and some mild bits of flooding around Halloween and the rest of winter.

Because this is normally rainy season, motorcyclists put up their bikes for winter or polish them one last time, photograph, and sell them on CycleTrader.com or Craigslist or Ebay. This is the time to buy a motorcycle. What didn't sell since Spring is now on sale by the motorcycle shops for big discounts, because its dead inventory they have to store until next Spring, at which point newer bikes will be coming and they need to offload these to pay for those. Scooters are on sale too. This is a good time to be looking around, and make low-ball offers with expiration dates to dealers. They know they'll have to sell at a loss either way. Offer less of a loss, less of a hassle and they'll be more willing to part with a bike.

The same goes for RVs and luxury trailers. While there are some places where Fall is the big sales season, in most its the doldrums because most people use the RV in summer, and store it in winter, preferably somewhere cheap and with the water drained out so nothing breaks in those cold icy nights. I suspect this is when most recent Retirees buy their trailer or RV and pack up the house, take a trip to Yuma Arizona where its warm and there are close to 2 million other Snow Birds flocking to the warmth down there. Its really a pity that Mexico is so lawless and unfriendly, since these folks would go further South if Mexico were a safe country. Oh well. Maybe in the future. Anybody who likes living Western Gunfight lifestyles should totally arm up and move South, pay their bribes, and be the usual level of anarchist. Which works until an angry Mexican father snipes you, gringo. After that business with voter fraud in the last election for El Presidente, there were videos shot of armed compounds on the Yucatan for rich people to cluster together and hide from the rampaging mobs. The mobs got bored and the compounds are sort of backups I guess. Mexican oil is going to run out too, though I imagine they'd do fracking if they wanted, and there were source rocks, not a certainty away from the Texas border. And a million gallons of water per well, too.

Its ironic, but I suppose in the future you may be able to put a fancy RV onto a flatbed train car, like a low-boy, and haul it closer to your site, then tow it the rest of the way with a local rental/service. Not perfect, but Peak Oil is expensive, not completely absent. So expensive poor people can't count on buying it and it stops being the normal way to commute to work. That's Peak Oil. You could probably haul quite a few trailers or RVs from Yuma up to the Rockies or high alpine meadows for the summer, places like Grayeagle would be ideal. Lovely weather all summer long, good fishing, golf, very peaceful. Used to have a ton of restaurants and hotels but those could come back if the money did. The views and the recreation would sell the destination, though. I know that rich Baby Boomers lost quite a lot during the Dot.com and Housing crashes. Many have kept working in hopes to recover some of their retirement savings. Many are getting sick and need to retire. Most will end up renting or selling their homes in the big cities and getting away from it all. They're ideal candidates for trailers and RVs and a scooter on the back. Why not? Its fun.

Put an HDTV on the wall and a PC plugged into that, WiFi at your hookup site, stream Netflix, take "naps" with your honey, go out to dinner several times a week, enjoy the scenery. This is what people want from retirement. And if you get bored with the town, rent a Uhaul to drag it somewhere else. There's lots of mountain towns happy to get tourists, and lots of alpine meadows and good trout rivers and lakes. The airstream trailer above is top of the line, of course, for millionaires, but there are other varieties. Just clean them carefully and don't get frustrated if something breaks. Fix it, don't glare at it and hate yourself for months. Problems have solutions. So be sure you have the money to pay for them. And the tow-driver fees.

I doubt I'll ever have the funds to own one of these. The economy is too broken and looks to stay that way. For normal people, the scooter to get to work at a minimum wage, part time job, or series of them, will be the best we can manage. That's today's new college grads, guaranteed poverty through student loans. I pity them. Most are going to need to put many to a house just to cover rents and many will probably be working under the table to avoid debt collectors after their student loans. I suspect the Underground is going to get busy, and the finger pointing will be vicious. I've read about anti-Vagrancy laws during the Great Depression, and roadblocks used to keep them out of towns to cut down on crime. I could see those coming back, both the roadblocks and the vagrant laws. Not nice at all, but life rarely is.

Jamon

Spain is interesting. Its Gaelic culture, originally, then overrun by the Romans, then diluted by time, then overrun by those bastards from Africa, the Moors, who did the usual slaughter and slavery and rape and pillage stuff that lead to the Crusades, then Spain got freakishly xtian and we get the Spanish Inquisition in response.

Of course.

Time passes and Spain tries to take over England by cutting down their 500 year old forests to build the Spanish Armada and it sinks in a storm out of the North Sea. The Brits claim the Fairy Flag was waved and the Supernatural was called to their aid. In the Brits Defense, a similar thing happened in Japan when the Mongols boarded ships and tried to invade Japan. Sunk in a storm. I think the moral is: don't put horses on ships.

Anyway, the cuisine is the part I'm getting to. Spain is a Gaelic country at heart, deep down, and Jamon (Ham) is a national pleasure at bars. Carefully cured, dried nearly hard, and shaved off in mouth watering thin slices with a very sharp knife by an expert. You pay premium for that too. Like good sushi in Tokyo.

When I took a class in Spanish at Las Positas College, my professor taught us Spain spanish rather than Mexican or Central American or one of the more common derivatives. She also taught us Spanish cooking, which bears a strong Gaelic influence because while the language changed, the veggies didn't. The Gaels had a HUGE impact on the veggies grown in Spain, to the point that onions, leeks, parsnips (a relative of carrots) and beef get to be the same stew they eat in Britain, Portugal, and Japan is served in Spain. All those have Gaelic influence, Japan through the Portugeuse Catholic missionairies. Japan eventually tortured them all to death, btw. Japan was not fond of manipulators. I think this was short sighted, but the stew the Missionaries brought remains popular under the ridiculous name of Hot Pot. That's what they call it. No translation necessary. Meat and veggies with onions, leeks, parsnip or carrot. They don't seem to have celery so its not full French Trinity like you get as the base of most Provencal cooking that ended up dominating all French cooking. Again, Gaelic influence at work.

Any recipe that calls for bacon or even prosciutto (cured bacon) can be replaced with ham, even Jamon. In America, the closest approximation to Jamon is Virginia Salted and Smoked Ham, a meat cured to the point it will keep a decade. Of course, you want to eat it sooner because proteins break down over time, no matter how they're cured. Frozen avoids this and keeps literally forever, but at room temp, even salt cure won't protect the proteins from denaturing and lose their nutrition value. Eventually they're just filler and salt source. The Russians love America, even under Stalin, for air dropping Spam to them during WW2. No really. Not kidding. It is now part of their culture to eat Spam while drinking Vodka. Much like olives cured in olive oil. The fats react with the alcohol and you get less drunk. It also makes the fat more digestible so you can use the energy better. Better living through chemistry, even in Russia where horse rides you!

One of the really funny bits in learning about Spain is that the tiny pepper stuffed into olives, pimentos, which ground up become Paprika? Those are from Central America. Which means pimento stuffed olives and anything involving Paprika... those dishes come AFTER Columbus. Chile peppers are from America. They grow in many places, but they're from here. Like Potatoes. This is one of those things that you see even in Lord of the Rings that's a goof. Tomatoes too. There was no tomato sauce before Columbus. The Romans had pretty unpleasant cuisine. The high point was garlic and olive oil. It kinda goes downhill from there. Pasta came from Marco Polo, brought back in 1400 from China. Before that? No pasta. No idea. The soft southern wheat was low protein so made bad bread so Italy was stuck with mush. Flavored with garlic. And olive paste. How fun is that? Kinda like hell. Yes, they could put Jamon in it, and that helps, but after Pasta, Italian cuisine got so much better. We get fettuchini, lasagne, all those spiral and egg noodle and casserole recipes with butter and cream sauces, and throw in the nice herbs like basil and rosemary and life stops being so horrible and gross. It starts being good. Good life is measured in food flavor after all.

Which gets me back to Spain. Jamon is delicious. Thin sliced with good red wine, something spain has but rarely exports, and then you get to the bull fighting. Normally, bulls are for breeding cattle. About 2000+ years ago, the most dangerous animal you could run into in a forest was a wild bull. I am NOT kidding. They would happily rip your guts out and stomp on them. Incredibly vicious. Like Sharks without the diplomacy. Bulls were mean, often huge Auroch size (8 feet at the shoulder, 3000 pounds or more), and aggressively territorial. They killed any human they found, man, woman, child. Eventually the Spanish killed so many of them they started to regret the emasulation of bulls, of how meek they'd been bred. And they decided to start a eugenics program. They would fight them, and the bulls that were most vicious, capable of killing a man, would be bred, put out to stud instead of killed. Thus we get bull fighting. This is an incredible honor. Normally, when an animal kills a man (or woman), we slaughter it and its whole family and eat its flesh and dance on the ashes as a warning to others. In Spain, bulls are fought. The most aggressive that manage to die are bid upon in restaurants, fetching high prices and served, eaten by the viewers, honored in a very old way. The high levels of testosterone are also believed to be a local aphrodisiac so the women end up very pregnant afterwards. Whole generations are created after bullfights of great renown, and the feast that follows. This is a big deal culturally. Do Americans honor the cow that falls down a chute and gets punched in the forehead with a hydraulic ram before getting mechanically dismembered, perhaps still awake? NO. Our hamburgers are just meat. There's no honor there. When a bull dies in a bullfight, there are a thousand witnesses, and they joyfully eat and celebrate the animal's honor. And start 500 new children. Ponder that before you pretend to care about the bulls fate. That cow in a St. Louis slaughterhouse gets no honor at all and is just as dead. Some pothead is going to stuff that burger in his face and not give it a moment's thought. Spain is better. They know and very much care where their food is coming from.

I explained this to my Spanish class and my teacher gave me a C instead of an F for the semester because I get it. I may be terrible at new languages, but I understand foreign cultures and context quite well, thank you. This is the essence of anthropology, something place as my 3rd major if I were still in school. 2nd would be archaeology, fyi.

MP3: A Bad Idea

Piaggio MP3, 250cc, $7000 plus delivery charge, license, dealer prep, you look like a sucker, and first drive devaluation charge. Don't you want one? 

There's a scooter that costs $7K because it has two wheels in the front and one in the back and still allows you to lean around corners, yet locks you upright under 10 MPH so you don't have to put your foot down at stoplights. Because that's really terrible. It's called the Piaggio MP3, and while it's popular enough in Europe, where it costs half as much as they charge in the USA, its not a big seller here, mostly due to cost. Almost like they don't really want to sell them.

The MP3 has competition, another trike with a big engine for the Harley crowd, the Can Am Spyder. They're $17-19K and after often for sale used, the same way that MP3's in America are often for sale used, low miles. There's a good reason for this: they aren't popular. Probably because they aren't very fun or worth the money. In the old days of the 1970's, people used to take wrecked VW bugs, cut off the body, save the drive train, mount a chopper wheel to the front and fit a Barcalounger over the middle and a box over the engine and call it a trike. People still ride these. They're comparatively cheap too. The one in the video is a much fancier presentation, moving the engine up into the center. Not traditional. Probably safer though.

Speaking of tradition: nearly everyone has a bicycle or ridden one enough to have an opinion about them. Most say they're fun, just not that practical for transportation once you can get a car and start going actual distance to things like a job, a girlfriend, away from all the obnoxious stuff a bike is just a toy or for exercise. Fair enough.

I want you to imagine that the argument used by MP3 owners, that 2 wheels in front is safer, were used on a bicycle. Make it lean too. But charge twice as much. Would anyone buy this? Anyone who isn't as rich as Jay Leno, whom I approve of his car collection and enthusiasm because he has a huge place to store them and paid mechanics to do the work to maintain them. Jay Leno is rich. He's retired. He is allowed to have toys.

A normal person? Not so much. Would those who accept the argument about safety apply it to a bicycle too? Would they regret it because its slower and makes them look like a doofus? Its belt-and-suspenders. If they had a choice between the two front wheels on a bicycle or a (beater) car, for the same price, which makes them look better and which is actually more fun? And safe.

And if you got to choose between the doofus bike and say a motorcycle for the same price, which is better? I just finished reading an article about the number of bad accidents on bicycles, half of them self inflicted, are hard to track because bicycle accident statistics don't necessarily result in emergency room visits. If accurate statistics existed, would bicycles be regulated as viciously as cars and motorcycles? Would the ability to balance on two wheels be discarded as surely as the right to imbibe in nicotine by smokers before 1988? Yes smoking kills. So what? Living kills, eventually. I imagine these same Nerf Herders would conclude that we should THINK OF THE CHILDREN and bicycle accidents would be reduced by mandating (unpaid) dual front wheels for added grip. So imagine our present socialism takes this and mandates that 2-wheeled bicycles are "unsafe", riding them is a crime with criminal and civil penalties, just like they're done with self defense firearms or making your own choices about health insurance, or that time that they banned adult beverages and funded the Mafia back into political power back in the 1920's. It's not that hard to picture is it? They keep doing stupid things, after all, and blame the children for it.

Imagine if your two-wheeled bicycle was made illegal and you had to replace the front fork and wheel with two of them, and a fancy suspension but it made you slower, added weight, and doubled your front contact patch from 1.3 square inches to 2.6 square inches. Plus 12 more pounds to the bike frame. Wow! So helpful. Since you never ride in the rain anyway. We will call this the BP3, the Bike Power 3 (wheels), a sort of reverse leaning trike.

Well, what's so wrong with that aside from weight and cost and being slower. Its got double front grip and takes up twice as much space on the road so you're far more likely to get side-swiped in traffic but you don't have to put your foot down at a stoplight. Because that's a huge hardship on a bicycle. Major. A total deal breaker for cyclists everywhere. And if you see a bump in the road, you're going to hit it. No more dodging stuff like you did on two wheels because the contact patch is barely an inch or two wide and now its two and a half feet and you're halfway into the lane and cars are honking at you in town and right up against your rear tire. Because cars are really respectful to vehicles that move slow enough to be pedestrians. And always see them, the which is totally why recumbent bikes are so popular in traffic and have to carry flags to avoid being smooshed. Where do you park this huge thing? You can't just hang it on the garage wall anymore. It's too big.

Because all bikes use designated trails and bike lanes are totally wide enough as it is and nobody ever parks in one and roads don't narrow, ever, and shoulders aren't rough and full of broken glass. Yep.

These are problems that the MP3 can avoid, sort of, by having a motor. They're still as invisible as any other motorcycle and have small wheels like a scooter so potholes remain a huge danger which big wheeled scooters and motorcycles can roll through more safely. And cars just find annoying rather than dangerous. A car that costs the same or less than an MP3 does.

I get that there's a market for MP3 scooters in Paris, where streets are crowded and wet and the city is so dense it predates cars so there's no parking anyway, thus on-sidewalk parking of scooters is sensible, and the rain makes that double front grip much safer, and the puddles and dog crap are things you don't want to put your expensive barista/banker loafers in, in Paris. What about the rest of the world? Maybe this is why the MP3 doesn't sell in the USA. And why they don't bother lowering the price, and why the WHO isn't publishing statistics on bicycles injuries and deaths to enflame the shrieks of "What about the CHILDREN!!" from the sad lonesome Nerf Herders who need to save everyone from free choice and fun.

Maybe insuring nobody buys an MP3 is a good thing? After all, it could lead to this:

Do you really want to share the road with that? Or ride one in a rain storm with a cross wind? And no heater. So thank you Piaggio. You're doing us all a service by keeping these things off the road.

Scooters, With Reasonable Parts Supply

The motor scooter, and the automatic transmission that makes it work, has been around since 1925. The scooter with a manual tranmission, a moped, even longer. Modern scooters mostly have their engine attached to the swing arm of the rear wheel, adding weight to the wheel and making the ride bumpy. This gets commented on by commuters who actually use them. The most common users of motor scooters come in two varieties:

1. Rich people
2. People who lost their license from a DUI

These kinds of people are usually not the same. In most states, a 49cc scooter does not count as a motor vehicle so you don't need a license, registration, or insurance to ride them. You buy it out of pocket and just ride it, usually to work. Its a vehicle of humiliation in most states, especially The South, where they're the best possible warning advertisement against drunk driving.

It is important to remember that this is not going to be the case for much longer. In 2014, Obamacare seems to be very expensive and will remove the sort of income that would pay for a car, leaving barely anything to live on for the average person, even one with a fresh college degree. Poverty is the New Economy thanks to the last 6 years of bad economic policy and printing money like it was going out of style. The New Poor, who were so hopeful when they entered college a few years ago, can't afford cars. Scooters are their future. 

Cheap Chinese Scooters are around $500-900, sometimes more, and are built as cheap as they can be. Like bicycles, the parts are of various quality and like bicycles, the secret to riding a scooter is both picking the route and keeping it running. Scooters are made to be fixable by any shade tree mechanic and those are everywhere. If you want a low paying occupation, that's one. Right now scooter mechanics only work on expensive scooters owned by rich people who buy Vespas with full warranty so they get paid real money to fix them. This won't always be true. Someday we'll run out of oil enough to make that impossible to sustain and the cheap scooters will be the dominant ones on the road. The ones that break and have no warranty and fixing them is a $5/job proposition. After all, a new scooter engine from China is literally $35 on Ebay. If you burn up the engine, buy another one. Many poor scooterists do exactly that. They also buy a 49cc model and swap the engine for a bigger one, hoping they won't be stopped by a cop and checked. And they mostly aren't. There are even companies that will drop-ship you a crate with a scooter in it for $600. You'll notice I don't have one. There's a good reason. Most of these will only last a couple hundred miles before something fails and you can't get parts unless you know what's the same. And China isn't great about documenting stuff. Its a $600 scooter, not a marriage. 

On the flatlands 49cc is enough to get around and enjoy 100 mpg. Many riders commute on a few cups of gasoline a month. There's no gas gauge because: "why bother?". That kind of fuel economy is better checked by pulling the filler cap. Most modern scooters have a hook to hold the handles of your plastic shopping bag and a storage space under the seat to park your helmet so you don't have to carry it around with your shopping. They're practical, if the engine can pull the hill and you're flexible about what route to take. Around here you need 125cc engine rather than 49cc, and while two-stroke is the way to get a 49cc's power, in California that's likely to get banned at any time so I consider it a bad investment. Get a 4-stroke of sufficient size to stay legal long term and pull the hills you may find yourself on someday. At least in California, anyway. 

A recent travel photo in Saigon showed a broad line of modern scooter commuters and a few cars at a stoplight. Most were on big wheel scooters with multiple headlights. Modern and effective and able to deal with crappy roads rather than tiny wheeled and vintage looking Vespas not suited to suburban or rural roads in the real world. 

These sorts would be popular in the USA now, considering the economy, except the industry is still pricing them thousands too much. You can buy a lot of gasoline for $3K name brand scooter (Honda, Yamaha, Piaggio), and your car keeps the rain off. You don't have to worry about driveway gravel spilled across the road, and you are safe. You're also big enough not to be last described as "I didn't see him. He came out of nowhere" in the manslaughter trial of the driver that killed you. Human perception is used to big objects like cars and SUVs. Not people on scooters moving faster than a bicycle. To a car, a bicycle is a pedestrian. A scooter looks like a bicycle, so drivers perceive them as pedestrians, then at the last second, probably too late, realize they're moving too fast or misjudged the distance and have pulled out in front of the scooter and maybe get nailed broadside. This a common crash type. Really common. The scooterist should have been nailing the brakes early so the inevitable pull-out was merely rude rather than injurious or fatal. 

The exchange of risk for fuel economy should be a bit more advantageous, and scooters should cost a lot less, like they do in China or Japan: dirt cheap. And this would be possible if the Cheap Chinese Scooters had a better parts database and local parts were sold at Automotive chain stores. If your local Napa auto parts had scooter brake pads in stock, suddenly they become viable transportation. If AutoZone carried upgraded alternators which can run your GPS and a better headlight? Great. If you can be prepackaged universal LED turn signal kits? Great. This is why I think American should have some scooter brands built here, with proper parts available in common car stores rather than "dealer network" because car stores are everywhere and dealers are a hundred miles away. Its not transportation if you can't fix it. Considering that 100 mpg is the future since we don't have magic car batteries from the Jetsons, a parts network is needed. 

So imagine you can buy a scooter from a car parts store or hardware store or motorcycle lot and fix it with over the counter parts from your local auto parts store. Great. You can get tires there too, and they'll mount them cheap, just like any other tire. Now you've got common cheap efficient transport that's miserable in the rain, but beats walking or pedaling right? Now you've got some people in fashion who want to sell you safety clothes which are comfy to work in and look nice. 

A scooter is really for the barista who needs to putter down to the coffee shop at 3:30 AM and open the place up for the early crowd while she gets her legal assistant degree in college. For the young nursing assistant saving for the full degree costs of medical school and worried that Obamacare will destroy nursing wages so is saving to avoid student loan debt, just in case. For the burger flipper who missed too many exams and flunked out of high school so this is the best job they can get. For the web designer who can't afford a real car and mostly works from home anyway, just needs to get groceries and meet with their contract employers from time to time. 

Scooters are a sign of poverty yes. I'm not denying that. But they're also freedom to get around and not be trapped in a world where you can only work where you can walk, or where public transit goes, and when. Sometimes public transit stops are in bad areas after dark, or don't run often enough. A scooter avoids the issue, allowing point to point transit on your own schedule. Not great in the rain, but better than being a victim at a bus stop in a bad neighborhood. 

What should a scooter cost? A basic Chinese crate scooter is $500-700. This is fair. It just needs full parts support to keep running. A knowledge base of what parts fit what scooter should be in every auto parts chain store: Kragen, AutoZone, NAPA, PepBoys, etc. You might need to bring the part with you to verify it, but have it available. 

A better 125cc scooter, as sold in Italy, Taiwan, and Japan also needs part support, but their prices need to drop from $3500 to a more sane $2000. The parts to build them are cheap, and $1300 markup for a bigger engine and only slightly better brakes? That's profiteering. If these sold for $1500 they'd sell a lot of them. Scooters need to be ubiquitous to help offset the New Poverty caused by Obamacare costs. I wish I was joking about that. Not so much. 

Off the shelf upgrades to scooters will allow the emergence of creature comforts: heated seat and grips, a windshield, better tires, upgraded brakes and suspension to improve ride smoothness and speed, larger engine, brighter lights, all sorts of stuff to make them a little better, when money allows. I see us drifting into the Greater Depression in a fairly permanent sense. With no magic electric car battery and fossil fuels will run out, costs of transportation are going to be high, and building renewable infrastructure expensive, to say the least. Electric trams are not cheap, even running from thousands of solar panels. We're going to need scooters during the transition. We'll need them and need to get used to them. We need to admit our poverty and accept the consequences. And deal with it. 

Once I have a job, I'm getting my motorcycle license. Then I'm going to put some money into this and get my own answer working. It will probably not be a scooter, thanks to the crappy roads here, more likely a used Enduro motorcycle, but I will deal with it all and report my discoveries. Around here we've got hills like San Francisco and engine braking is a very good idea. 

Why NOT Electric Cars?

Electric cars are a great idea whose time hasn't come. Henry Ford wanted electric cars, but the problem then is the problem now. Why are electric cars so great? They can use electricity to power them, so they're renewable. So why aren't they the dominant transportation? Batteries.

• Lithium used in the Tesla comes from very few places, some of them hostile, and is only available in small quantities. It also gets damaged if its discharged halfway, losing 20% of its total capacity. This means a lithium battery is really about half what it says, until you use it hard, then its even less. Worse, until a year ago, the total available lithium on earth would have been enough for nearly 2 million Tesla electric cars. As there are 7 billion people this is a problem. Recently, more lithium was found in Wyoming so we might have enough for double that, which is still the same problem. If you don't have enough battery material for every single person, you have provided a motivation for crime and war. 
• Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cad) get charge memory (chemical crystallization) and Nickel is nearly mined out. More will probably be found, but its just not good enough. 
• Nickel Iron can be charged more times than Ni-Cad but discharges slowly. These batteries end up in Golf Carts, which can do as much as 15-20 mph. 
• Lead Acid is very heavy and wrong for powering a car. We use them to start our cars and they weigh 20-30 lbs for one with little juice in it. 
• Aluminum Air fuel cells hold lots of power but can't be recharged so that won't work.  
• Hydrogen gas to run a fuel cell unfortunately leaks through solid metal like its barely there and is a fire and explosion hazard, as well as costing more power to make then is generated by turning it back into electricity. 

The solution eludes us. Until we can get a common material battery with ingredients available to absolutely everyone, electric cars are just a fantasy. 

125cc Motorcycles

Jared Hayter mentioned wanting to know about what 125cc motorcycles are available in the USA so here's the short list:

1. Honda Grom is a 125cc EFI monkey bike with scooter wheels and a bike perched above them that makes a normal person look like a circus monkey on a bicycle, thus the name. Its $3K, new, and meant as a starter bike for a college commuter. 
   
2. Sachs MadAss 125. $2500 shipping included, carburted, electric start. Engine mounts with 4 bolts and can be swapped for a bigger one and other things like an oil cooler can be added to help reliability and performance. 16 inch wheels get it into normal motorcycle tires and good suspension travel and manual transmission make this a motorcycle rather than a scooter. The rear tire is pretty close to where you are sitting so its famous for wheelies... which is not what I want. They will ship it to your door in a crate, however. There are suspension upgrades as well, since I've read many comments that the front suspension is too soft. Apparently that can be fixed with a heavier fork oil. 
   
3. Aprilia RS125 is available at Aprilia and Piaggio dealers. They're sort a niche thing, since they allow learners in countries like Spain to ride a fast bike through high revving engine. In the USA you'd just buy a Ninja 250 and forget about it. We don't have that particular legal restriction here. And the RS125 is expensive because its a legal loophole race bike with high end components. The inverse means its technically illegal on the freeway despite being fast. 
   
4. There ARE loopholes to import other bikes, including a fee and form. There's also loopholes to allow converting a dirt bike to street legal with signals and a mirror. You can even ride an ATV on the roads if you get the signals, mirror, fenders over the wheels, and a license plate at DMV. All legal and not terribly expensive. This opens the door for things like the Honda Wave 125 EFI, which should be sold here but isn't because Honda has no imagination. Aho! 
   

And that's it. While it is possible to bring them here, there are often legal restrictions for freeway use, such that 125cc machines are illegal on California freeways, but any displacement is fine on highways, which have stoplights rather than onramps. California sometimes has the same road change designation back and forth, too, such as Hwy 70 and Hwy 50 and Hwy 99. There's a bunch of roads like that. Hwy 395 goes back and forth depending on economics and traffic. I think its very realistic. 

Considering the cheap price on used 250cc bikes and used 600 and 650 machines, there's little point owning a 125cc motorcycle when there are so many 250cc options which are nearly as fuel thrifty. 

1. Ninja 250 gets 70 mpg when driven sanely. Its also highway capable, and legal. Just don't break the fairing. They're ugly when the plastic comes off. 
   
2. Suzuki DR200 SE is a 200cc enduro bike that gets around 90 mpg, not freeway capable, but known for being good exploration bikes because they're slow and light and can tractor up a hill. 
   
3. Yamaha TW-200, with its fat rear tire is made for farm work and fire roads. Some people even run cheap ATV tires on the back, though those aren't safe for highway speeds and will tear apart. Used, this is a cheap and functional bike, if a little clunky looking. They will go anywhere in the dirt, however, being geared right for slow steady progress offroad. 
   
4. Suzuki TU250X, not available in California due to a fight with CARB over their "crash and destroy each model" requirement, a very effective way to hurt advances in technology, particularly since I love this bike. It's an EFI version of the Volty, a standard naked thumper UJM* that will go all day at 45 mph and get 75 mpg doing it. Great! So why isn't it sold here? Apparently they can't seem to make enough in Thailand to export them to the USA for sale. Rare as hen's teeth. I've given up on it. I can get a nice W650 for the same price. 

   

   Kawasaki W650

5. Yamaha XT-250 is an enduro with air cooling, about $5K new, and rather good at offroad riding, with lots of parts for repairs since Japan is only 10 days by sea. 
   
6. Yamaha Super Sherpa 225 was famously good. So good they discontinued it because people would just keep fixing it instead of buy a new bike. This was just not right for motorcycle companies which keep their doors open building new bikes and selling them. 
   
7. Suzuki  DR-350 has been around the world (Mondo Enduro), with cameras, and is a workhorse predecessor to the DR400Z. 

   

   DR350

These aren't 125cc bikes, obviously, but they're the same price and offer better hill climbing. If you live in the flatland, this means you can get up to freeway speed, legally. Probably not a lot of fun at stoplights, since the Enduros often have 35 inch high seats, meaning tippy toe or fall over if you're small or medium sized. The Super Sherpa has a 29 inch seat height, btw. It is much loved for being a comfy ride, reliable, and largely bulletproof, discontinued because it was too good. From all I've heard I'd probably be very happy if I had one.

I should also note that Kawasaki has Enduro bikes too, including the KLR250 and KLR650 which is very cheap but needs lots of thread compound* to limit how many parts get dropped on the highway each trip. Friend had one. Great stories about bolts falling off it all the time. The KLR250 has a supermoto version, factory, and a low seat height but famously lies about its HP output being 19 when its really more like half.

A note about horsepower and torque. Your average 125cc scooter engine will get you around 9 HP, and maybe get you to 45 mph but will likely overheat and wear out the engine in time. 250cc is around 19 HP and gets you to about 50 mph. 350cc and up will get you around 30 HP will go 65 mph and is full freeway capable, though possibly uncomfortable. Since 400cc typically gets you 30 HP, its popular for a reason. 500cc motorcycles are making a comeback for this reason too, as they balance fuel economy and torque to pull hills or zip up the onramp so you don't get run over in the slow lane.

A cautious person could start on a 500cc and never need to upgrade. Incautious people need to update their will and life insurance policy and have a DNR* card. The easiest way to avoid dying on a bike is to remember that drivers rarely see you, so assume you're invisible and always be ready to brake. That and don't drink alcohol. Alcohol and fearlessness are the two biggest causes of accidents on motorcycles. Go into a corner fast because it was clean a week ago doesn't mean its clean today. There might be pea gravel at someone's driveway and boom, you go down. Be cautious and you'll live longer. And if you can't be cautious, drive a sports car instead. Its got four wheels and won't fall over if one gets loose when you're apexing a turn. Strip out the weight and comforts, put in a stiffening frame and 5 point harness, it will be lots of fun and just the right kind of uncomfortable. You can even wear a helmet while you drive, like on Top Gear. Fun!

Glossary:

* UJM = Universal Japanese Motorcycle
* DNR = Do Not Resuscitate
* Thread Compound = a sticky paste put into nuts or bolt threads to prevent the nut rattling loose from vibration or stress. This is often a sign of poor build quality and poor general design. For example, the M-16 rifle requires 4 different kinds of thread compound to become reliable. 

Motorcycle Wish List

I don't do Materialism much, mainly because my Ex was all about Stuff, to the point that Hoarding tv show looked like a program about our apartment. I will make an exception for motorcycles and scooters because I've spent years trying to pick the right one. There are factors which narrow the choices in helpful ways, but usually increase the cost. Here's what I've learned, for those who idly wonder if they should buy into a scooter before Iran blows up tankers in the strait of Hormuz like spoiled children demanding attention. Some day, we'll be dropping bombs on Iran and cheering all over the world about it. This is what bad behavior gets you. Ahem.

I live in a place with hills, rough roads, pea gravel at driveway exits, and its California so a scooter requires the same license and costs as a motorcycle. There's no 49cc loophole here. We also lack contiguous frontage roads. The freeway is often the only pass through various mountains so any bike you plan to take out of town better be able to hit 55 uphill or you may die, or worse, get arrested for blocking traffic. Finally, there's a simple financial limit to be aware of: Used Ninja 250 bikes are around $1500 in good condition, and a used Mazda Miata is about $4K in good condition. Any scooter or bike more than that is a statement rather than transportation, which is the reason I don't have one yet.

I like the look of Vespas, however a 2 inch suspension on these roads with pavement seams and potholes is just asking for a wreck. So forget about that. They're great in flat places with very smooth roads, like college towns, but even then expect to spill it over pavement seams and on manhole covers, which are utterly slick and offer no grip. Even weird bikes like the MP3, which has two front wheels for twice the grip, just isn't going to work on California roads, not enough to justify the $7000 cost of one. Vector math favors bigger wheels to avoid wrecks in potholes.

While I've ridden a Tomos underbone with its very poor automatic transmission in Newport Beach, about 10 years ago, and liked the experience, with big hills I know I'd need good brakes and at least 125 cc engine so I'm not run over from behind. I also know that bikes end up on their sides eventually and the big downside of a Ninja is the plastic fairing costs nearly as much as the bike itself to replace, a good reason why people sell cheap fairings on E-bay.

Another aspect of motorcycles and scooters I have a problem with is a new bike has about $500 markup for "dealer prep" which usually means unboxing, changing the oil, adjusting the handlebars and mirrors and testing the brakes and various bolts to make sure its all tightened down. I can't see that justifiable. And it doesn't help that repair rates are the same as a car. Its a scooter. You can buy a new Chinese scooter for the cost of a basic tuneup on an out of warranty Vespa, for instance. Forget about warranty on Chinese scooters, btw. They won't do it here. China pays about $2/hr and no mechanic will work for that, and no shop will honor those. Another little problem I discovered is repair parts. There are scooter companies which can't find the airport to ship parts (Kymco and anything from Taiwan) to the USA in less than 6 weeks. That means if you want to fix one that's broken you'd either better be an expert mechanic than can jury rig the wrong part or avoid anything from China or Taiwan because they're disposable without repair parts. That narrows down the options, leaving Italian and Japanese scooter brands.

That's not to say those are bad choices. The Japanese are 10 days from California by container ship and one day by international express mail. And Japan knows where the airport is. Unfortunately, despite all the cool scooters in Japan, only Honda and Yamaha sell scooters in California. Honda scooters are about $1500 too much and often come with baffling engine choices. Why would they think the 49cc scooter would sell in California, land of fast mountain passes and freeways? No, just NO. Try AGAIN. They desperately need to be struck with a clue hammer and gain some sanity at their scooter division. In Japanese "aho" is the appropriate word. It means dumbass.

1. Honda Metro is 49cc, small and vintage looking, but can't climb a modest hill in San Francisco which is their primary buying audience. Fail. 
2. Honda Ruckus is also 49cc, same problem. Fail. 
3. The 108cc EFI motor would fit in both above frames but isn't offered. Fail. 
4. The Honda SH150i is $4500 and would be a good scooter at half that price. However it costs as much as a proper 250cc motorcycle new so it doesn't sell. Fail. 
5. The Honda Rebel 250 is a popular starter bike, sold once new and used a dozen times. Honda only makes money on that first sale and any replacement parts. As they sell for about $1200 used, its cheaper and better than nearly every scooter, will pull the hills and even ride the freeway legally. It does have a manual gearshift and is a cruiser bike rather than a scooter, but its more economical and functional as transportation than a scooter. They recently upgraded the engine to EFI 250cc, which makes it more powerful and reliable while warming up and if it were a standard instead of a cruiser, I'd buy one. I may anyway. Its a better deal than the above scooters. 

See how that works? Its really tragic that Honda motorcycles division is encumbered by all the dumb. Aho. They are often mocked on forums for sport and adventure bikers for losing the plot. Honda used to make some nice bikes, which are getting rescued, at a loss financially, from the 1970's and 80's and even 60's, with new electrics and a lot of rust scraping rather than deal with the prices and nonsense today. 

Yamaha has a lot better selection of scooters, though its got some dumb ones too, mostly for out of state markets where the 49cc loophole means no license or registration required to operate. In other states, a scooter means you got a DUI and lost your license. Or are an ex-con drug dealer with pot or meth on board. Its rather the opposite in the PRK, since they cost so much here only rich people ride scooters and they're relegated to toys because used motorcycles are better and cheaper. If Honda had put its 500 cc commuter engine in the 1200 cc standard they re-released it would sell like mad. But they don't. Instead that nice engine is hidden in fairings on a race bike. Harley doesn't make a 500cc, nor do they make a Cafe Racer, and so Ninja 300 is the only entrant there. Which is ironic since a Cafe Racer, a pro racer in Australia, spec'd a bike for 375cc, with a triple that got engineered by Rebel Motors in Tennessee, then built in China before the bubble burst killing bike innovation for the next 5 years. A pity because it has potential. These days if you want a triple, you have to spend on a Triumph Daytona and that's a 675 and fast enough to be dangerous. I don't want to be dangerous. I want to keep up with traffic climbing the hill to Tahoe up 20. Why a triple? Twins vibrate, an inherent problem mechanically. Fours are heavy, but smooth. The Ninja 600 is a 4 and very smooth but costs like a car. $13K is typical for that bike new, and don't buy used because those are race bikes and they get revved high and probably damaged engines, thus they get sold broken. There are cruiser 4's, of course, which are even heavier. The Honda Goldwing is a very heavy bike. Great for freeways but costs like a Civic and weighs 500 pounds or more. What is the point? All that weight on two tiny tire contact patches. No thank you. Yes, I wish there was a Triumph 375 triple, water cooled, minimal fairings and exposed engine and that basic 1960's round windshield and club bars like Steve McQueen would ride. Sell that for $6K and you'd have a lot of buyers. A nice looking bike that can ton-up when pushed but is best carving canyons and long straight country roads. Might kill the rider, but everybody has to go sometime. 

Anyway, the Yamaha bikes I liked are the following. 

1. Vino 125, which has minimal suspension but nice vintage look and enough power for 40 mph all day cruising. Probably a good choice for California provided you keep it in town and off the freeway. Small wheels, however, so potholes are a real concern. 
2. Virago 250 V-twin, only I wish it were a standard instead of a cruiser. Might be a good buy even as is, used, since the twin has lots of torque for hill climbing and still gets 80 mpg. There's one used at a local lot, if the ad isn't lying (and it could be). 
3. WR250X-SM. The WR is a fuel injected high performance, very light weight Enduro bike, made for offroad. The SM is smooth supermoto wheels, for fast road riding. I have read of adventure bikers taking these on fire roads and over White Mountain (near Bishop). The SM option means the long travel suspension can deal with crappy road surfaces safely, including big potholes. The EFI means it is ready to go after hitting the start button and gets better fuel economy. For $7K, that's a lot of money, but it will go places that a Jeep can't and if you really want to explore the boonies, this is a great option with the knobby tires mounted. Just go with friends. Adventure biking is dangerous solo. 
4. Zuma 125 is EFI, kinda ugly, but functional. It would be a good buy if it were a little cheaper. $3400 is a lot for a scooter. 

Finally, I come to the Italian scooters. Aprilia, Piaggio, and Vespa are all the same company, just different brands. They're also very expensive since I have seen videos of them being made and it takes 20 minutes from start to finish. And the fairings are soft plastic, not sheet metal, so they won't last in the sun. They're also about $3000 overpriced, particularly since most models are made in Asia and a badge is slapped on when it ships out. Maybe the quality control is better than average, maybe it isn't. But it sounds like pure profit to me. 

1. The Piaggio Fly 150 is $2900 for a $1000 scooter that's still 500% markup because the parts cost $150 and labor is about $40 to assemble it in China. If this sold for $1100 it would be the dominant scooter in the USA. Pity that Piaggio haven't got a clue how to price them to sell. I almost bought one till I found they wanted $600 delivery charge. FAIL. 
2. Vespas have crap suspension, are $3500 over priced, and won't allow you to change your own oil without violating their warranty. I don't like that. They are reliable toys, but only for rich people. Fail. 
3. Aprilia SR-50cc racing scooter, that's EFI and direct injection 2-stroke if you can believe it. Kymco has a 125cc 4-stroke for $1800 which looks the same and passes CARB certification. 
4. Aprilia SportCity which has a suspension with enough travel to cross cobblestone streets, an impressive feat in heavy traffic in Italy. Their 125 would be a good seller in the USA if it were $2000. It seems to be discontinued because it cost too much. Their 250 cc SportCity is award winning, but costs $4500. That's new motorcycle money. 
5. Aprilia Scarabeo 200 is a big-wheel scooter with 16 inch tires to handle crappy roads, but costs like a Maxi-Scooter, which I'm ignoring because Maxis cost like motorcycles, have frames and engines like motorcycles and are basically motorcycles with the downsides of automatic transmissions (no engine braking on hills). The Scarabeo would sell if it were cheaper. As it is discontinued for costing too much, and with primitive suspension, there are better options. The Kymco copy sold better by meeting their market. 

Why am I so mean about pricing? The obvious profiteering doesn't work in the modern economy. Scooters are priced for Rich People, but Rich People buy cars on Top Gear, not scooters. Here's some examples of better alternatives. 

1. Kawasaki Ninja 250. New these are starter bikes for $4400. Used, they sell for less than $2000 and often $1500. They rev to 13K RPMs, can do 100 mph, and get 70 mpg when driven normally. They are freeway capable commuter machines and still fun in canyon carving and scenic roads. Their big downside is if laid down the fairing cracks and your dealer replacement is $1800 for a bunch of plastic. Ebay for something cheaper. 
2. Honda Rebel 250 (234cc actually). Highway capable but not fun on the freeway, these are $4000 new and $1200 used and generally a better price and safety than any scooter. The parts are cheap and widely available. Most people only own them for a summer to learn on, then sell in the Fall. 
3. Suzuki DR400Z, used. This Enduro can be fitted with street wheels and tires and suspension stiffened with progressive shocks and it becomes a reasonable road bike below 50 mph, since it has no fairings. With its standard knobby tires its the go-to bike for farmers meandering their fields and ranches. Cheaper than a horse, and a lot less trouble. Tons of cheap aftermarket parts too. If the roads get worse, this is the one to have. 

If you opt for an old 1970-80 bike, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Honda had some good ones. While the 1970's bikes are a hundred pounds heavier than modern bikes, they're also built out of steel so they can be repaired. Most old 70's bikes had crap electrics so those need to be replaced but once that's done the engines are a good size and can pull the hills. The exhaust pipes were low slung, chrome, and often 2 into 1 or 4 into 1 as the case may be, but clean and balance the carbs and you can get a nice outcome.

1. Honda CB360 with low pipes or scrambler pipes is a nice looking bike. The front brake can be swapped for a disc brake kit, the parts are cheap, and Common Motor Collective has info on restoring them. They're also popular with Hipsters in Mission District San Francisco because they're vintage bikes and relatively cheap. Hipsters are fans of reusing vintage stuff. Its not fast but its nice looking. I would like one of these, since the Suzuki TU250X isn't sold in California due to Suzuki's feud with CARB. 
2. Suzuki had a nice GS450 twin, a naked street bike that would be a good buy. I would buy one if I knew how to repair it so it always starts. They're a nice power for hill climbing. Just hard to start in cold weather, which is every morning for about 5 months a year here. This is why the newer model was discontinued. Without a reliable way to start, it wouldn't be worth the trouble. This is a machine they should correct and re-release, perhaps with Water Cooling and EFI. 
3. Kawasaki had many models of UJM before they failed to compete with Harley on big displacement cruisers and largely gave up the UJM models. A shame since their W650 of the late 1990's is a beautiful machine and near the top of my dream bike list. Since they're discontinued they're also pretty reasonably priced. 

The downside of the motorcycles listed is they don't have automatic transmissions. The upside is they go through bumps better, are safer than scooters because of this, and parts and repairs are cheaper. 

WINES: J. Lohr 7 Oaks Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon

Wow. This may be the best cab I've ever tasted. Cabs are sturdy grapes so grow almost anywhere and they don't mutate so they always taste the same. The opposite of a Pinot Noir, which mutate if you look at them funny. Cabernet is a go-to wine. You can screw them up if they get too much water or you ferment them too hot or too cold, but if you do your part and grow them right, you get a cab that tastes like every other competent cab. Most vintners sigh at this. What's the point of making a competent cab that can't get awards because a good one doesn't stand out? See the problem?

And then you get this one, which has gone above and beyond to be smooth, fragrant, fruity with blackberry and black cherry hints and a nice dark color. This would be good with expensive cheese, with lamb, with smoked salmon and gouda, with roast beef or prime rib, with filet mignon which I normally pair with Zinfandel for the pepper notes. Its so good I'm flitting it around in my mouth to taste it better. And it improves as it warms and breathes.

England used to have wines like this, during the Medieval Warm Period from the dark ages to the start of the little Ice Age in 1250, around the time of my many greats grandfather was bedding a lot of Welsh maids after winning jousting tournaments (no, that's not exaggeration or a joke. It happened) and fathering what is now over 150,000 named descendants. Probably quite a few more. Wales does inheritance based on the father, irrespective of marriage. All are considered legitimate under Welsh laws, the opposite of English law. If you think that's nothing to brag about, I remind you that Catherine Zeta Jones is welsh, and widely considered to be one of the more beautiful women alive. Imagine her multiplied by a few thousand times with slight variations, all pining for the same guy who is as popular in Jousting as Michael Jordan was to basketball. And just as rich. So yeah, lots of children.

Anyway, there used to be wineries in England, in Devon and the lowlands where it is warm enough. They had cabernet grapes so made lots of good wine. Then the weather changed after some big volcano erupted in Indonesia or South America and climate chilled for the next 600 years. The grapes died, the wineries went under, and English wine ceased to be good. They imported from France instead. Its a pity that climate is completely out of human control. If it warmed enough, they could replant the vineyards in England and Top Gear could complain about it, since they love to complain about farmers and fields and stuff on the road in front of them. Wine Tasting tourist would irritate Clarkson something fierce. I however, grew up around wine tasting tourist and I learned how to pass, a crucial skill for any proper driver. I do hope he learns that. If it gets warm enough to get vineyards again.

While I remember my sexy coworker, a woman with curls and dimples and a significant sex appeal back when I worked in the wine industry, whined about J. Lohr being an absolute stickler about appointment times for wine pickups (better be within 20 minutes of the appointment or they lock you out), this is a very good wine. Wine rewards finicky sticklers. It may annoy the buyer, but the wine maker is all about getting the details right. And this one has.

5 stars.