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.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
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 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.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
WINE: Rare Red 4 Grape Blend
$8.40/btl Rare Red.
Dry, red, lots ofmerlot and some zinfandel tempranillo, petite verdot, cabernet. Not sure what the 4th grape is. Probably (Petite) Syrah. It's not as stunning as Menage a Trois, but its good. A nice wine to sip. This would be a better wine if the grapes had some sharpness in them. They're all a little too bland. Good, but just a little bland. With development and a more distinctive blending I think this could be a very good wine.
Also: I bought gasoline after 45 days of driving only 5 miles a day (2.5 miles each way), 6 days a week (one day for errands to the grocery store). It was $57 and change. At this rate of 80 cents/day, I'll need to drive for nearly 10 years before a motor scooter makes financial sense. Of course, gasoline prices won't stay at nearly $4/gal for the next 10 years, and while 100 mpg sounds like a lot, because it is, a stronger engine such as found in a Honda CB360 with the disc brake installed would probably suit me better. Its a balance of vintage, slightly more power, bigger wheels, and a better suspension than the MadAss. It would be enough to cruise Hwy 49 if I wanted. Maybe even short bursts of 80 over the sierras back onto Hwy 40 again. I like old 40. Its such a mellow road, running next to the Yuba River on the way up, and the Truckee River on the way down.
Dry, red, lots of
Also: I bought gasoline after 45 days of driving only 5 miles a day (2.5 miles each way), 6 days a week (one day for errands to the grocery store). It was $57 and change. At this rate of 80 cents/day, I'll need to drive for nearly 10 years before a motor scooter makes financial sense. Of course, gasoline prices won't stay at nearly $4/gal for the next 10 years, and while 100 mpg sounds like a lot, because it is, a stronger engine such as found in a Honda CB360 with the disc brake installed would probably suit me better. Its a balance of vintage, slightly more power, bigger wheels, and a better suspension than the MadAss. It would be enough to cruise Hwy 49 if I wanted. Maybe even short bursts of 80 over the sierras back onto Hwy 40 again. I like old 40. Its such a mellow road, running next to the Yuba River on the way up, and the Truckee River on the way down.
California DMV Manual for Motorcycle Safety
Since folks are asking, here's the link: California Motorcycle Handbook
That's the direct link to the .PDF.
The info is specific to California but good for most other states.
That's the direct link to the .PDF.
The info is specific to California but good for most other states.
Ambition
One of the reasons I am ready to haul out of here is I keep running into a problem with other people. Their ambitions exceed their abilities, so they cut corners on morality to try and reach their ambitions. This is why people end up committing crimes and going to jail. Desperate people do desperate things. I avoid that because I got taught the lesson about hope always leading to disappointment and despair before I even graduated college. My ambitions are tiny. Almost non-existent.
And that's a real Truth of the modern world.
When I worked at that DNA company, getting poisoned every day, most of the people I worked with were either ambitious beyond their abilities, and hurting everyone around them, or had given up and were protecting what they had, meager and pathetic though it was. This described both managers and workers. The ambitious were dangerous because they would betray a trust to get a minor, tiny, advantage in the workplace and the managers would offer it and rarely reward it because it gave them an edge. They overestimated that edge, however. That's why the place is out of business now, or got bought for its patents and will be shut down shortly, anyway. The new owner doesn't need the building or the sullen overworked employees. They're all getting pinkslips. That's where ambition gets you: fired.
My friend That Guy(tm) says that Advertisers are responsible for the disgusting materialism that fuels ambition because they've had decades to perfect their art and they're very very good at it. I gave up reading gun magazines, for example, because they made me want to buy firearms despite having no proper range to shoot them at. Avoid the advertising, you lose the bad ideas that drive the materialism and ambition. The ambition that poisons your mind and makes you hurt people just to have THINGS. Advertising is about money. In the end, things are about Money too. And getting that Money takes all your time. When you give up Materialism, you get a lot more possibilities in your life, including the possibility or working a job you like that pays less than the one you don't, with lower pay or shorter hours. Its Portlandia, sort of. Trust Babies in Nevada City, probably Hipsters, are all about the Time to party, and work a PT job at most, wander around High the rest of the time, and often stink because they have no fixed address, couch surfing till they wear out their welcome. I suppose you could say they are a sort of anti-Materialism success story, only most are just junkies and die of STDs like that liver infection.
Ambition is a really powerful poison. I'm not very fond of Women's Liberation, coming as it did during my Puberty. Liberation made women largely indifferent towards men except as sperm donors and child support sources who get none of the benefits of parenthood, just its costs. Its made men bitter and angry, and Liberation more than anything else is responsible for destroying my culture for good. Rich men get Russian Mail order brides. Liberation never hit Russia. A Russian woman knows she's a sex toy and never tries to be anything else. This is what successful men want. Liberated women who get successful whine they can't find successful men to want them. Duh! If you want a happy marriage, you shouldn't have voted for Liberation.
Unsuccessful men either get Asian women or angry because white women hate white men today. I seriously considered an Asian girlfriend but she said I was too old. Marriage is over. My culture is going extinct. The Mexicans will have America for themselves in a generation because they don't have Women's Lib, and they still get married and have proper families. That other culture in America, Liberal Socialism? AIDS. Staying here in post-prosperity America with a socialist mindset but no white liberals to pay for it? Yeah, that will end in fire and blood. I won't be here to see it. I expect collapse before then. Without insulin, a post-collapse luxury I probably can't afford, I'll be dead. So may as well live in a trailer and keep fleeing the riots and finger pointing and Spanish I can't speak, Catholicism I don't believe in, and the final extermination of the pale skinned people like me. Grim? Probably. Wrong? I don't think so.
The women up here are mostly white, like me, but are largely divided between Cheaters, Druggies, and Ambitious but Misplaced. My ex was a cheater. I want no part of that. Druggies are worse than useless, and often diseased. No thank you. The Ambitious people around here will leave. There's no jobs for ambitious people, for people who want a future and are willing to work for it. They have to flee for better economies. The folks with money around here are just enjoying their twilight years, waiting to die. They don't invest in jobs. They don't care about the future. They have always been Narcissists and will die that way too. When they're gone, I imagine their homes will burn in the next fire. What's the point of mansions when there's no jobs to pay the mortgage?
Part of the problem with Ambition is the educational system is a Con. Older generations wrapped in Narcissism and drug abuse tell their kids "study whatever, the money will follow". Wrong. Dead wrong. Parents from the last 3 generations FAIL miserably at wisdom or guidance. They were terrible human beings who destroyed the future. We should stop being so polite to them, or at least remember everything coming out of their months is guided by essential Narcissism. I got that same poor guidance from my own parents, who had a good laugh at my employment prospects when the bottom dropped out of Govt Funded Research Geology. Thank you, Southern Bastard.
Left with nothing but my wits and the unintended education I managed to wrench out of my crappy Liberal Arts college of idiocy, I survived by doing what I must. But it hasn't been a happy life. Nearly every piece of advice or knowledge elder generations have passed to me turned out to be wildly wrong. I feel a great degree of contempt for them. I look forward to the obituary notices. Their Ambition was to destroy America. They have succeeded.
I can't help but wonder if China will invade once Fracking the Monterey Formation gets underway, and the pipeline to carry the oil is finished? It would be their style. They'll probably just buy all the operations and move in their own people, all very legal, and then sell the oil under contract back to China, leaving little or nothing behind. If California really is the next Saudi Arabia, thanks to Fracking, then its not a safe place to be. Places with oil get invaded, abused, suppressed, and genocide follows. If we can't get to the oilfields armed well enough to force them out, we can't exactly stop them. The Chinese army and Air Force will just slaughter us like animals. We're so obsessed with our water quality we can't attack the pipelines for fear of spills. Californians will end up like MEND in the Niger Delta. Man that's funny. It's what I would do if I were an Evil Overlord. That was how I predicted the decisions of my last employer you know. I just imagined I was evil and described what I would do, and that was how they decided everything. There was a good reason they didn't replace all the broken crap. They just wanted to sell the company. And they did.
This is the Real California. Narcissism personified. This is where untethered ambition leads. Death. I think I'll leave California when I hear China buys up the Fracking companies. They'll probably buy the pipelines, or setup shipping so that only their contract ships can use the ports, and then oil stops being a fungible product and becomes a controlled substance. Letting China control California's oil is too much influence in genocidal hands. It is the likely and probable outcome of oil here, however. This is China's century. We are on the way out. The rest of the world is kidding itself that China will respect their rights to exist. Genocide is far too easy an answer when you have 70 million unmarried men with no prospects and the options to enact compulsory military service on the whim of the People's Chairman. Think about that. Multiply those teeming millions of testosterone fueled anger with Predator drones and unmanned helo gunships controlled by AIs and remote viewing? Egads! Nowhere is safe. China's ambition is to make the world Chinese by owning everything and killing everyone not Chinese. Naturally they deny this, but that's not exactly an unusual claim from a growing military power. I wonder how long before the Chinese demand concessions from the USA and get allowed Naval bases here for their warships? Its what the USA did to Italy, Britain, Japan, the Philippines. How long before a world power like that gets a legal military foothold here? Maybe a base so they can refuel, then escort their tankers back to Shanghai? It would follow. That's Ambition too. We're kidding ourselves to think otherwise.
So where do you fall in this mess? When China takes California for its oil, and nobody has jobs to pay taxes and the roads are dust and weeds, what then? What will you do? Where's your Dream now?
Ambition is a luxury few can afford.
When I worked at that DNA company, getting poisoned every day, most of the people I worked with were either ambitious beyond their abilities, and hurting everyone around them, or had given up and were protecting what they had, meager and pathetic though it was. This described both managers and workers. The ambitious were dangerous because they would betray a trust to get a minor, tiny, advantage in the workplace and the managers would offer it and rarely reward it because it gave them an edge. They overestimated that edge, however. That's why the place is out of business now, or got bought for its patents and will be shut down shortly, anyway. The new owner doesn't need the building or the sullen overworked employees. They're all getting pinkslips. That's where ambition gets you: fired.
My friend That Guy(tm) says that Advertisers are responsible for the disgusting materialism that fuels ambition because they've had decades to perfect their art and they're very very good at it. I gave up reading gun magazines, for example, because they made me want to buy firearms despite having no proper range to shoot them at. Avoid the advertising, you lose the bad ideas that drive the materialism and ambition. The ambition that poisons your mind and makes you hurt people just to have THINGS. Advertising is about money. In the end, things are about Money too. And getting that Money takes all your time. When you give up Materialism, you get a lot more possibilities in your life, including the possibility or working a job you like that pays less than the one you don't, with lower pay or shorter hours. Its Portlandia, sort of. Trust Babies in Nevada City, probably Hipsters, are all about the Time to party, and work a PT job at most, wander around High the rest of the time, and often stink because they have no fixed address, couch surfing till they wear out their welcome. I suppose you could say they are a sort of anti-Materialism success story, only most are just junkies and die of STDs like that liver infection.
Ambition is a really powerful poison. I'm not very fond of Women's Liberation, coming as it did during my Puberty. Liberation made women largely indifferent towards men except as sperm donors and child support sources who get none of the benefits of parenthood, just its costs. Its made men bitter and angry, and Liberation more than anything else is responsible for destroying my culture for good. Rich men get Russian Mail order brides. Liberation never hit Russia. A Russian woman knows she's a sex toy and never tries to be anything else. This is what successful men want. Liberated women who get successful whine they can't find successful men to want them. Duh! If you want a happy marriage, you shouldn't have voted for Liberation.
Unsuccessful men either get Asian women or angry because white women hate white men today. I seriously considered an Asian girlfriend but she said I was too old. Marriage is over. My culture is going extinct. The Mexicans will have America for themselves in a generation because they don't have Women's Lib, and they still get married and have proper families. That other culture in America, Liberal Socialism? AIDS. Staying here in post-prosperity America with a socialist mindset but no white liberals to pay for it? Yeah, that will end in fire and blood. I won't be here to see it. I expect collapse before then. Without insulin, a post-collapse luxury I probably can't afford, I'll be dead. So may as well live in a trailer and keep fleeing the riots and finger pointing and Spanish I can't speak, Catholicism I don't believe in, and the final extermination of the pale skinned people like me. Grim? Probably. Wrong? I don't think so.
The women up here are mostly white, like me, but are largely divided between Cheaters, Druggies, and Ambitious but Misplaced. My ex was a cheater. I want no part of that. Druggies are worse than useless, and often diseased. No thank you. The Ambitious people around here will leave. There's no jobs for ambitious people, for people who want a future and are willing to work for it. They have to flee for better economies. The folks with money around here are just enjoying their twilight years, waiting to die. They don't invest in jobs. They don't care about the future. They have always been Narcissists and will die that way too. When they're gone, I imagine their homes will burn in the next fire. What's the point of mansions when there's no jobs to pay the mortgage?
 |
| How do you pay for this with 28% unemployment? |
Left with nothing but my wits and the unintended education I managed to wrench out of my crappy Liberal Arts college of idiocy, I survived by doing what I must. But it hasn't been a happy life. Nearly every piece of advice or knowledge elder generations have passed to me turned out to be wildly wrong. I feel a great degree of contempt for them. I look forward to the obituary notices. Their Ambition was to destroy America. They have succeeded.
I can't help but wonder if China will invade once Fracking the Monterey Formation gets underway, and the pipeline to carry the oil is finished? It would be their style. They'll probably just buy all the operations and move in their own people, all very legal, and then sell the oil under contract back to China, leaving little or nothing behind. If California really is the next Saudi Arabia, thanks to Fracking, then its not a safe place to be. Places with oil get invaded, abused, suppressed, and genocide follows. If we can't get to the oilfields armed well enough to force them out, we can't exactly stop them. The Chinese army and Air Force will just slaughter us like animals. We're so obsessed with our water quality we can't attack the pipelines for fear of spills. Californians will end up like MEND in the Niger Delta. Man that's funny. It's what I would do if I were an Evil Overlord. That was how I predicted the decisions of my last employer you know. I just imagined I was evil and described what I would do, and that was how they decided everything. There was a good reason they didn't replace all the broken crap. They just wanted to sell the company. And they did.
This is the Real California. Narcissism personified. This is where untethered ambition leads. Death. I think I'll leave California when I hear China buys up the Fracking companies. They'll probably buy the pipelines, or setup shipping so that only their contract ships can use the ports, and then oil stops being a fungible product and becomes a controlled substance. Letting China control California's oil is too much influence in genocidal hands. It is the likely and probable outcome of oil here, however. This is China's century. We are on the way out. The rest of the world is kidding itself that China will respect their rights to exist. Genocide is far too easy an answer when you have 70 million unmarried men with no prospects and the options to enact compulsory military service on the whim of the People's Chairman. Think about that. Multiply those teeming millions of testosterone fueled anger with Predator drones and unmanned helo gunships controlled by AIs and remote viewing? Egads! Nowhere is safe. China's ambition is to make the world Chinese by owning everything and killing everyone not Chinese. Naturally they deny this, but that's not exactly an unusual claim from a growing military power. I wonder how long before the Chinese demand concessions from the USA and get allowed Naval bases here for their warships? Its what the USA did to Italy, Britain, Japan, the Philippines. How long before a world power like that gets a legal military foothold here? Maybe a base so they can refuel, then escort their tankers back to Shanghai? It would follow. That's Ambition too. We're kidding ourselves to think otherwise.
So where do you fall in this mess? When China takes California for its oil, and nobody has jobs to pay taxes and the roads are dust and weeds, what then? What will you do? Where's your Dream now?
Saturday, June 1, 2013
High Desert, Shallow Needs
I am a writer. That's my calling. I write fiction and these articles. I don't write fiction often anymore, but I used to do my college homework, then spend the next 4 hours writing a chapter for my latest book. I did that for years till college ended and the urge to write went away. I would have kept at it if I'd figured out how to get PAID to write, but the paper-based publishing industry in New York? They're self defeating jackasses who despise and act like French waiters to writers they depend on for something to publish. No writers means no publishing. When e-publishing became a thing I did it, of course I put it on the Web before you could charge for that so I'll never get paid for what I already wrote. I would have to write new things. Book publishers deserve to suffer, and they do. E-pub just needs a server, not a printing press in Korea or 2 years of excuses. E-pub is instantaneous. They mocked me when I told them that. Turns out I was right. Music downloads well exceed CD sales. Web pages have done a good job killing magazines. Novels are written and published, often free, online. Who needs print anymore? Besides, $3000 royalty advance divided by 2 years of labor writing and trying to get it published is a tenth of a cent an hour. Who works for that? How dare the industry claim they're enriching writers? Its utter BS. So to hell with them. This is why writing is a Calling, not a Career. It doesn't pay.
I am also a geologist. Even though I have never worked as one, though I have worked as a cartographer, just not a geologist. I would still love to work as a geologist. I am a Lumper, not a Splitter, so I prefer an overview of what I'm looking at rather than infinite division, a reason why splitters get jobs in research and lumpers don't. In the right circumstances, I would work as a geologist even when I'm old and grey. I hate the sea, I love the deserts. I like seafood, but I also like steak and the smell of sagebrush and trout caught in a trickling stream flowing out of the eastern Sierras. Obviously, this means 395 (Hwy 395) is the place for me. I like June Lake and Bishop best. Those are beautiful places, with fantastic views, good fishing, and very peaceful. The tourists come cycling through on weekends or during holiday weeks, mostly up from LA. The air is clean in Bishop, and its got 13,000 high mountains on either side, so when the sun sets, it doesn't get dark for a couple more hours and you can watch the shadow climb up White Mountain to its 14,028 foot peak, capped by snow even in the summer.
In Big Pine, the next small town south of Bishop, there's a turnoff for the pass to the East, Westgaard, which at the top of the pass has a turnoff to the north which climbs to 10,000 feet to reach the Bristlecone Pine Forest, the oldest living things on Earth. The Methusaleh Tree was accidentally killed by a Botany PhD student who was taking a core sample. He drilled through the only living part of the tree. 5,000 years killed by arrogance and ignorance. He really should have known better. The trees are ancient because they are in really poor soil and get very little rain, so they evolved to just barely cling to life on top of that mountain ridge, overlooking some important and spectacular geology in Deep Springs Valley, to the Southeast.
It was in Westgaard Pass that I began to envy motorcyclists. I saw a bevy of young men on Ninja sport bikes racing up the pass, weaving through the S-turns in primary colors, buzzing merrily, and down the far side where they clearly hit 100 mph on the straight, heading for the Nevada border. Beautiful. A 600cc inline 4 Ninja is a race bike with just the right amount of power to weight ratio to haul a normal sized man, my size, to faster than he'd ever think possible on 2 wheels. It was seeing this, back in college while hauling a trailer full of camping gear and food for a geology field trip I was cooking for, that I came to understand why people ride dangerous motorcycles and what they see in it. I have since refined that interest to Vintage bikes, as I prefer to go faster than a bicycle but slower than a race bike because when you go fast, you don't see much more than the road in front of you. I doubt those young men even noticed the Poleta Folds they tore past, or realized they missed the turnoff for the oldest trees in the world. They were in a hurry to keep the adrenaline going. Understanding that I like the scenery is why I later realized that a scooter or a vintage bike was the answer for me.
Later I found out the Routing Problem, in that most of the Rides you can take require you to either get on and off the freeway, needing 70 mph minimum or be killed, or you have to go WAY out of your way to get around it. Up here in the Sierras, its hard to get around I-80. The sections of Old Hwy 40 was broken, and there are miles where you better be fast or you get dead from the person behind you running you down. This means a tiny 250 cc bike isn't good enough for many rides. Around here, I need a 500cc bike to climb highway 20 and then I-80 so I can get to Truckee and the many turnoffs. This is certainly possible. The new Honda CBR500F would do that just fine. And its got enough cowlings to warp the wind for stability through the fast bits. Probably. The wind does GUST hard through Donner Pass and the highway tends to funnel the gusts to the point that it can be interesting in a car with proper aerodynamics. It might be dangerous on a bike. Not that I need a new bike to climb the mountain or maintain proper speed on I-80. Any older and cheaper 600cc or 750cc bike you can think of would also work. The downside with fast bikes is you HAVE TO go farther to find the peaceful place in your mind from moving. I have noticed that about motorcyclists. They ride at the speed the bike can do till they're tired and exhausted, physically. Then they stop, get a room and a beer and a meal and have some laughs. Get up in the morning, get a leisurely breakfast and roar home again, perhaps a bit slower. That's why the Harley riders roll into town and park on Broad Street. Mixing with the Hipsters, the Hippies, and the Junkies.
The woman I wanted to hike with at work is pretty busy. Nicole hasn't had any time on the weekends so we haven't hiked yet. I suspect raising a child pretty well ruins any hope of time for yourself. While I was asking the generalized question of "Are we Hipsters?" of my coworkers, she denied this. Despite tattoos and weird vehicles, a high heel shoe collection in the dozens, she's working two jobs and saving for retirement aggressively, and owns land in Hawaii. Land she plans to build her retirement home on someday. I hope that works out for her. Hawaii is expensive, but if you're perpetually cold like she is, its a good place to stay warm. Post-oil, Hawaii will have a serious population crash, and its far enough off the beaten track it needs to farm its food supply or perish like Easter Island. She's lived in Hawaii before so its probably a great place for her. She asked our coworker to help fix her daughter's bike, so perhaps she and her daughter will go up to Truckee River like I did with Dad last weekend. I hope she has a good time. I offered to sell her the spare mountain bike. Its not fancy or light, but it is cheap and has a full suspension. She could ride with her daughter and not have to make excuses. For someone who exercises as much as she does, that would make sense.
I am not particularly cold, and I can take the heat, dry heat, the cold of frosty mountain mornings, and the altitude, and the dust doesn't bother me. I like the sharp dry air, and the chilly wet air. I like trout and sagebrush and I'm not intimidated by the tiny high desert rattlesnakes that look like 7 inch worms. Allegedly they get bigger but I've never seen one. I'd retire to Bishop if I could. They have really nice bungalows in town which are perfect for my needs and if I get an Enduro bike to putter around on the dirt roads running everywhere, I have it covered. Its not a completely rational place to live, being loved by Angelinos and ignored by NorCal since its on 395 far south of Carson City and the Walker River, so too far for a NorCal vacationer. If the hurricanes come back, there will be a lot more summer rain falling in the desert, including there, and the extra water will make the place bloom again. I'd love to see those dry lakes stay wet. Eventually all that salt will dissolve. It has nowhere to go, true, being internal drainage in the Great Basin, but sometimes there's a downstream, and it might end up in LA, which would make me laugh pretty hard.
My new coworker Kate likes hiking too. "Who doesn't?" she asked. Good question. Kate is working hard to find a way to use her degree, a Masters in International Marketing. This is tricky since our job only really sells domestically, to rich hippies and shop keepers smart enough to know that good smells make window shoppers come in and buy something. Hey, it works. The rich hippies are more of a mystery. Why do they exist? And for how long, since hippies are the very definition of Irrational. The Hipsters are more rational than hippies, and hipster priorities are codepency and trust funds, followed by rejection of solutions in favor of looking different. They do have upsides. They are re-examining old technology, like a sort of low tech steampunk with basic mechanical and electrical ability. They're history rhyming rather than repeating. Cyberpunks like me refused labels too, 20 years ago.
I need new hiking boots. My $30 hiking shoes from last October are wearing out pretty bad, mostly on the inside. Laces, linings. Replacement is not expensive. Maybe Saturday I'll do that. I haven't asked yet, but perhaps Kate will have more time to actually hike rather than vague promises.
I've asked her what she wants to do with her Masters degree. Kate wants to farm. Wants to buy land and farm. Thinks California is too expensive for that. She may be right, but I think the decision is hasty. The thing about farming is there's many places to do it, and many techniques and crops you can grow that will pay the bills. Its all about inputs and yields, and not overwhelming your time with stuff that doesn't pay. Doing the math, and leaving a margin for unexpected problems, is important. Getting off the beaten track, and having either irrigation rights or a well or both, those are key. Soil can be improved. And there are crops to grow while that happens too. Eventually California is going to be mostly farms, like England. We'll use our water over and over, and purify it each time, before releasing it to the sea. The impurities will be sold too. Eventually we'll have cheap desalination and water pumps to recharge our aquifers and provide for coastal irrigation for farms there too. Farming has a bright future here. The questions are how do you do it without going bankrupt, and how do you grow crops without taking hard losses sometimes. Not easy questions to answer. Not at all. Someday there will be mining operations pulling the Phosphorus from the mud below the Mississippi river in the Gulf of Mexico. Mining mud. Crucial for life, mud. Without phosphorus we die. Adenosine Tri Phosphate is our energy. Calcium Phosphate is our bones. So yeah, mining the mud is a career path someday. The upside of desalination is we can pull the phosphorus from sea water too.
Kate got her bike because she was thinking of biking down the mountain from Cedar Ridge to work, similar to my own commute just from the South rather than North. Same elevation change too. Trouble is, the route is narrow, twisty, treed, full of blind corners, and not terribly safe for a cyclist. I got all those lights on my bike so I'd be visible, but my commute is straight and wide so there's good visibility. But her ride home is a lot of climbing through narrow and twisty and you're likely to be hit by a car. That's no good. I've asked if she wants to bring the bike over and we can fix it up in Dad's garage. Probably take an hour for basics, two hours to do it right. I don't know the extent of the rust. I've got all the tools, though. I encouraged her, and I'm responsible for helping her get it working. If she doesn't ride it to work, that's fine. She can ride it for fun at Truckee River trail like I did last week. Good fun.
I am mechanically inclined. Not as much as my Dad, but enough. Bicycles are easy. I like technology I can understand. Every part on a bicycle makes sense. That's elegance of design. I really appreciate that. There's so much kludged together crapola in the world. It's why I like Vintage motorcycles. They are elegant. I don't yet appreciate Enduro bikes. Too much of them wears out, is cheap and expected to break and be replaced. I dislike that part of them. They weren't made to last. When I see rebuilt Yamaha 650s like the Deus Bali or this SR400TT:
Look at it. Nothing wasted. It is beautiful and simple and light. This is a machine of loving grace.
It seems I'll be going by Cedar Ridge this morning for a super-yard sale by rich people. Bring cash, buy stuff. Might want to stop by the cash machine in case I find anything extra good. Not sure if there's things I'd really want, but I should look, just the same. Might find something to replace something needing it. Or maybe a coffee machine since I've discovered Kate gets funny (snarky) when wired on caffeine. When you work with only two people in a carriage house the size of a 1 and a half-car garage, anything to make it comfy is important. Having to dodge each other so there's no bumping or injuries is key. Making that closeness fun and cheerful is really important to being happy at work. I play lots of music like this:
Since the neighbors at the Hairdresser salon next door complained about parking, and claimed their employees aren't parking there (they are, they take our spaces sometimes), we're trading off parking elsewhere on the 3-days a week there's 3 of us instead of 2. I'm going to bike to work on Mondays. It's the Summer now, being June, so provided I don't fall over and rip up my knees and elbows again, that should be just fine. All that exercise, and we're expecting 93'F Monday. Good times.
I am also a geologist. Even though I have never worked as one, though I have worked as a cartographer, just not a geologist. I would still love to work as a geologist. I am a Lumper, not a Splitter, so I prefer an overview of what I'm looking at rather than infinite division, a reason why splitters get jobs in research and lumpers don't. In the right circumstances, I would work as a geologist even when I'm old and grey. I hate the sea, I love the deserts. I like seafood, but I also like steak and the smell of sagebrush and trout caught in a trickling stream flowing out of the eastern Sierras. Obviously, this means 395 (Hwy 395) is the place for me. I like June Lake and Bishop best. Those are beautiful places, with fantastic views, good fishing, and very peaceful. The tourists come cycling through on weekends or during holiday weeks, mostly up from LA. The air is clean in Bishop, and its got 13,000 high mountains on either side, so when the sun sets, it doesn't get dark for a couple more hours and you can watch the shadow climb up White Mountain to its 14,028 foot peak, capped by snow even in the summer.
In Big Pine, the next small town south of Bishop, there's a turnoff for the pass to the East, Westgaard, which at the top of the pass has a turnoff to the north which climbs to 10,000 feet to reach the Bristlecone Pine Forest, the oldest living things on Earth. The Methusaleh Tree was accidentally killed by a Botany PhD student who was taking a core sample. He drilled through the only living part of the tree. 5,000 years killed by arrogance and ignorance. He really should have known better. The trees are ancient because they are in really poor soil and get very little rain, so they evolved to just barely cling to life on top of that mountain ridge, overlooking some important and spectacular geology in Deep Springs Valley, to the Southeast.
It was in Westgaard Pass that I began to envy motorcyclists. I saw a bevy of young men on Ninja sport bikes racing up the pass, weaving through the S-turns in primary colors, buzzing merrily, and down the far side where they clearly hit 100 mph on the straight, heading for the Nevada border. Beautiful. A 600cc inline 4 Ninja is a race bike with just the right amount of power to weight ratio to haul a normal sized man, my size, to faster than he'd ever think possible on 2 wheels. It was seeing this, back in college while hauling a trailer full of camping gear and food for a geology field trip I was cooking for, that I came to understand why people ride dangerous motorcycles and what they see in it. I have since refined that interest to Vintage bikes, as I prefer to go faster than a bicycle but slower than a race bike because when you go fast, you don't see much more than the road in front of you. I doubt those young men even noticed the Poleta Folds they tore past, or realized they missed the turnoff for the oldest trees in the world. They were in a hurry to keep the adrenaline going. Understanding that I like the scenery is why I later realized that a scooter or a vintage bike was the answer for me.
Later I found out the Routing Problem, in that most of the Rides you can take require you to either get on and off the freeway, needing 70 mph minimum or be killed, or you have to go WAY out of your way to get around it. Up here in the Sierras, its hard to get around I-80. The sections of Old Hwy 40 was broken, and there are miles where you better be fast or you get dead from the person behind you running you down. This means a tiny 250 cc bike isn't good enough for many rides. Around here, I need a 500cc bike to climb highway 20 and then I-80 so I can get to Truckee and the many turnoffs. This is certainly possible. The new Honda CBR500F would do that just fine. And its got enough cowlings to warp the wind for stability through the fast bits. Probably. The wind does GUST hard through Donner Pass and the highway tends to funnel the gusts to the point that it can be interesting in a car with proper aerodynamics. It might be dangerous on a bike. Not that I need a new bike to climb the mountain or maintain proper speed on I-80. Any older and cheaper 600cc or 750cc bike you can think of would also work. The downside with fast bikes is you HAVE TO go farther to find the peaceful place in your mind from moving. I have noticed that about motorcyclists. They ride at the speed the bike can do till they're tired and exhausted, physically. Then they stop, get a room and a beer and a meal and have some laughs. Get up in the morning, get a leisurely breakfast and roar home again, perhaps a bit slower. That's why the Harley riders roll into town and park on Broad Street. Mixing with the Hipsters, the Hippies, and the Junkies.
I am not particularly cold, and I can take the heat, dry heat, the cold of frosty mountain mornings, and the altitude, and the dust doesn't bother me. I like the sharp dry air, and the chilly wet air. I like trout and sagebrush and I'm not intimidated by the tiny high desert rattlesnakes that look like 7 inch worms. Allegedly they get bigger but I've never seen one. I'd retire to Bishop if I could. They have really nice bungalows in town which are perfect for my needs and if I get an Enduro bike to putter around on the dirt roads running everywhere, I have it covered. Its not a completely rational place to live, being loved by Angelinos and ignored by NorCal since its on 395 far south of Carson City and the Walker River, so too far for a NorCal vacationer. If the hurricanes come back, there will be a lot more summer rain falling in the desert, including there, and the extra water will make the place bloom again. I'd love to see those dry lakes stay wet. Eventually all that salt will dissolve. It has nowhere to go, true, being internal drainage in the Great Basin, but sometimes there's a downstream, and it might end up in LA, which would make me laugh pretty hard.
My new coworker Kate likes hiking too. "Who doesn't?" she asked. Good question. Kate is working hard to find a way to use her degree, a Masters in International Marketing. This is tricky since our job only really sells domestically, to rich hippies and shop keepers smart enough to know that good smells make window shoppers come in and buy something. Hey, it works. The rich hippies are more of a mystery. Why do they exist? And for how long, since hippies are the very definition of Irrational. The Hipsters are more rational than hippies, and hipster priorities are codepency and trust funds, followed by rejection of solutions in favor of looking different. They do have upsides. They are re-examining old technology, like a sort of low tech steampunk with basic mechanical and electrical ability. They're history rhyming rather than repeating. Cyberpunks like me refused labels too, 20 years ago.
I need new hiking boots. My $30 hiking shoes from last October are wearing out pretty bad, mostly on the inside. Laces, linings. Replacement is not expensive. Maybe Saturday I'll do that. I haven't asked yet, but perhaps Kate will have more time to actually hike rather than vague promises.
Kate got her bike because she was thinking of biking down the mountain from Cedar Ridge to work, similar to my own commute just from the South rather than North. Same elevation change too. Trouble is, the route is narrow, twisty, treed, full of blind corners, and not terribly safe for a cyclist. I got all those lights on my bike so I'd be visible, but my commute is straight and wide so there's good visibility. But her ride home is a lot of climbing through narrow and twisty and you're likely to be hit by a car. That's no good. I've asked if she wants to bring the bike over and we can fix it up in Dad's garage. Probably take an hour for basics, two hours to do it right. I don't know the extent of the rust. I've got all the tools, though. I encouraged her, and I'm responsible for helping her get it working. If she doesn't ride it to work, that's fine. She can ride it for fun at Truckee River trail like I did last week. Good fun.
I am mechanically inclined. Not as much as my Dad, but enough. Bicycles are easy. I like technology I can understand. Every part on a bicycle makes sense. That's elegance of design. I really appreciate that. There's so much kludged together crapola in the world. It's why I like Vintage motorcycles. They are elegant. I don't yet appreciate Enduro bikes. Too much of them wears out, is cheap and expected to break and be replaced. I dislike that part of them. They weren't made to last. When I see rebuilt Yamaha 650s like the Deus Bali or this SR400TT:
It seems I'll be going by Cedar Ridge this morning for a super-yard sale by rich people. Bring cash, buy stuff. Might want to stop by the cash machine in case I find anything extra good. Not sure if there's things I'd really want, but I should look, just the same. Might find something to replace something needing it. Or maybe a coffee machine since I've discovered Kate gets funny (snarky) when wired on caffeine. When you work with only two people in a carriage house the size of a 1 and a half-car garage, anything to make it comfy is important. Having to dodge each other so there's no bumping or injuries is key. Making that closeness fun and cheerful is really important to being happy at work. I play lots of music like this:
Since the neighbors at the Hairdresser salon next door complained about parking, and claimed their employees aren't parking there (they are, they take our spaces sometimes), we're trading off parking elsewhere on the 3-days a week there's 3 of us instead of 2. I'm going to bike to work on Mondays. It's the Summer now, being June, so provided I don't fall over and rip up my knees and elbows again, that should be just fine. All that exercise, and we're expecting 93'F Monday. Good times.
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