Fancy Cars

My nephew graduated from high school on Friday. Went to see him, back in the old home town. The place has changed in several ways. There's a lot fewer fields, a low fewer barns. A lot more apartments and houses crammed close together. Houses with room around them, even a little room are $700K or more. And ones with enough acres for a vineyard are millions. It is ridiculous, but with half again more cars than I remember as a youth, the roads are now too crowded to drive fast on them. Sad panda. I loved driving on those roads when I was young. You get very skilled driving multi-apex corners that even Jeremy Clarkson would respect because they routinely kill bad drivers. Literally kill them. There are lots of trees along Highway 12 that have taken lives. They arch over the highway, which also means a twitch the wrong way will wrap you around one at speed. My home town had rough roads, and they are still rough today. The county supervisors were always corrupt and seems they remain that way. Getting bribes and kickbacks for the re-paving projects.

The upside of being California's South of France/Provence that speaks English instead of French is there's so much money pouring in. People have good cars, fancy $100K cars everywhere. I saw so many Audi A8's, Teslas, Dodge Chargers, new Corvette Stingrays, various european supercars including McLarens, Ferraris, and Evos and Suby WRX STIs everywhere. Some of them were even driven properly, but I don't know for how long. Like I said, the roads are utterly ruthless. Many had lousy surfaces so full independent suspension is crucial or it will kill you. The roads are better back here in the Sierras. Straighter and smoother. I think the local civil engineers must be competent here. And not on the take.

It sure was interesting seeing so many really expensive cars, clearly well maintained, shiny, and very new. I wonder what the owners did to earn the money to buy them, and if the people they did it to lived? Not being so young or naive anymore, and having worked in businesses I know that there's WAY MORE WHITE COLLAR CRIME than I ever imagined. So many people wearing suits and ties are essentially serial killers who are less emotional about their crimes that those in prison, and get away with it in the name of profit. Bad people. And they get 22 year old hookers to ride in the passenger seats of their McLaren MP4-12C through the Sonoma Valley Wine Country and make appropriate cooing noises because of the money and the rumble of the engine. I couldn't live in my home town. Even six figure households are poor in Sonoma County.

It was interesting driving through and seeing how much had changed, and how much hadn't. And I still like the fog in the mornings. I grew up with fog, and its very pleasant to the skin. And I still know how to drive the roads without getting killed. I expect that will stay with me forever. But I am not moving back to that place without family reasons or a plague wiping the place out. There are too many people, too many jerks, crowding the place. Its great for tourism, but that's all it is. Once it is built up, the contractors will have to scrounge for remodeling jobs. And once they've found a niche in that, eventually the houses will get as nice as they can before the real estate bubble bursts, something it seems to not have done yet. $700K for a 1200 square foot hovel from 1960 on a street as busy as a freeway with no yard? Pass. No my home town does not make sense. Even fog isn't worth that kind of housing price. And the roads have too many cars driving badly. The politics are crooked. The newspapers are run by militant communists, the kind that plan death camps for re-education, very Pol Pot motivated, and I can only see the stupid when I look around. It does not make sense.