Raining Finally

So the rain started last evening, late. Rained hard early this morning, 3 AM, and gave us 1.5 inches. In a wet year we'd have around 4 inches from a storm like this, there would be branches down and possibly blackouts from those shorting out the power lines. It is snowing up the mountain, around 5000 feet, just above Blue Canyon where 20 and 80 meet. There's snow plows operating through Yuba Gap and over the summit down through Truckee and towards Reno. This is a good thing. The ski resorts will be able to open.

Locals prep for rain by stocking up their pantries, filling their gas tanks, fueling and oiling their generators, getting a few movies rented and books to read, and cleaning out their gutters, drains, and ditches. Also, bring in firewood if you have a wood stove, which is the preferred method of heating during a blackout because a good wood stove really works. This is a huge downside of an RV. Their heaters suck or use lots of propane or electricity. A house doesn't care about the weight, and there's usually plenty of space so you can plant a stove in a good location.

There will probably be more rain today, though the bulk of the storm is south of here now. This is not a choice day for bicycling or motorcycling or scootering. This is a day for windshield wipers, heat, and defrosters on the ON position. I am glad I still have a car. Riding a scooter to my volunteer job in this iffy weather would seem a bit too risky. Yes, there are most of the months of the year that the scooter would be fun and just fine, but during rainy weather that's a NOPE.

I find myself baffled by the brave middle aged men who ride their bicycles when there is snow on the ground. True, most of those men live on the flatland, and clearly have chips on their shoulders daring cars to hit them when they ought to be more sensible rather than commit suicide-by-car. We all make choices, but try not to traumatize someone by killing yourself on some teenybopper's fender while you insist you have the right to take the lane. In the real world, that is a suicide, and the police will rule it as such. And then your family won't get the life insurance. Stop being such a rude pillock. Use your car when the weather is bad. Seriously.

I am off to the library today. It will probably be busy, which is great because I like it busy. Keeps me moving and happily distracted. I have decided to do the Cuesta College Library Assistant Certificate program after all, because even though there are no paying jobs now, by the time I finish I should be able to get one in Placer County or elsewhere which pays better. It will mean a commute, but for $10/hr more pay that is worth it. I recall a very nice branch in old Rocklin that would likely hire me once I have a certificate. I can't wait forever here, no matter how nice the people are. If I had a trailer, I could be cooped up in icy cold Truckee working part time at the library there and swap my wheels for spiked tires and steel wheels all winter. It is serious multi inch black ice up there. Reno has good libraries too, another option worth considering. I kinda like Reno. Its the last western outpost of the Great Basin, a huge and empty place where you are damned polite because there are too many places to bury you if you aren't. Also, it is run by mafia. Be very polite to the mafia. Unlike in movies, they DO own the police and politicians and courts. And its legal. They call bribes "campaign contributions". They themselves are "industry leaders" and "concerned leading citizens". You do not insult them, even by accident. It could be the last mistake you make. So, that's the downside of Reno. It IS pretty, and its a major hub to other places with good photography opportunities and I love being in quiet places. Its a thing. You do have to talk to folks in the library these days, but you use your inside voice, quietly, and ask the needed questions. With all my customer service experience, and no sales pressures, recommending books or assisting library patrons is a cake job. Super easy. I have trouble understanding why so many librarians get in a huff about this. The Masters Degree arrogance is really not impressing me, but I have personally chewed out PhD's for academic incompetence back when I was a physics major, using choice questions about their math while asserting magical girl levels of results without offering a real test to see if this outcome is valid. Physicists like coeds and scotch too, so they fake results with the best of them. This is a reality of academic life everywhere. Even Princeton and MIT have bozos. Its this truth which is why I caught onto the academic fraud behind most climate "research" which is really just fundraising and trolling for morons with cash, booze, and hookers to keep the game going, like all confidence artist games. Climate change? Its winter. It rains and snows in winter. This isn't change. Its normal weather.

Cycling Safety From Top Gear

Even as a cyclist, I do see their point. Cycling in traffic is a great way to get horribly injured or dead. Bicycle accidents are every bit as terrible as motorcycle accidents, since anything over 15 mph can be fatal, and motorcyclists wear far better safety gear. A flimsy helmet and gloves aren't nearly as safe as full leathers. I'm all in favor if people cycling safely, in safe places, but London traffic? Nope.

Of course, in a few short years you won't be able to afford a car. And your choices will be bicycle, walk, or stay home. Cheers!

Cycling Weather

The last three days here in California it was lovely and warm. Apologies to those with snow on the ground or freezing daytime temps, but it was 70'F here. Yes, that's right: 70'F. I dried laundry on the line. I wore short sleeves. I opened up the windows and let the gentle breeze drift through.

This is why people retire to California. There's a LOT of California which relatively far from San Francisco and Los Angeles crime and home prices completely suitable for retirement living, enjoying the good weather like this week has been, and smirking at the snow storms "back East". Neighbors were out riding bicycles. If I'd had a scooter, I would have ridden it around laughing to "Girl From Ipanema" on the stereo. We're expecting rain this weekend, but for now, and on Thanksgiving, we will again have clear and warm days. Are you jealous?

We do have our troubles, and the drought isn't over yet, but we'll have rain on Saturday and Sunday, and probably snow Sunday and Monday, at least in the high country. The Skiiers will like that. As will the people running the resorts. Ski resort staff make their living doing that all winter, and then go back to waitressing or growing pot when the season is over. A reality of modern California, I think.

Still we have better weather than the rest of America and they are jealous. And when serious winter blizzards blow into the Midwest, retiring folk think: Why do we keep living here where the winters are so long, so bitter, so miserable when we could be driving around in a convertible 10 months of the year in California? And its true. And they DO move here. And they settle in little towns rather than the big loud angry cities, and life is good. We have cheap good wine. We have many more kinds of lettuce that get out of state. Our sports teams often win. You can go on vacation to all sorts of different places without leaving the state or our weather behind, usually within a day's drive.

Thanksgiving is going to be sunny and warm again. I'll be doing lots of cooking for the feast, including the bird itself. I joined 2500 other people for the Turkey Trot this morning and probably again after eating so my body is all set to deal with the high quality food. And there's a 49er's football game afterward, against Seattle. All very traditional.

I am a fan of this holiday, celebrating family, immigration, and our history as Americans. It is one of our high points as a people. I hope the other Americans reading this enjoy their feasting and remember what makes us a good people.

Soul Food

I was fortunate, during an emergency trip to Riverside several years back, to stay at a hotel near a Soul Food restaurant. We ate there two or three times, and impressed the owners, who were NOT used to white people coming in. The cook even asked us what we thought of it, and I expressed happiness at the flavors, and particularly at how difficult it must be to cook fried breaded okra just right, and that they'd pulled it off. You still want a bit of crunch in that. Okra goes slimy like spinach does. I was also impressed with their sweet potato pie, which is a Southern Soul Food specialty and does not taste like pumpkin pie when done right. And this was done right. Even though the trip was very sad, and cemented in us our need to marry rather than delay any longer, a decision we came to regret, while we were together we embraced tasty food.

My wife and I were exposed to lots of cultures, and eating their foods was something we enjoyed. I have eaten the common ones (Mexican, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Cajun), but also Peruvian, English, Irish, Spanish, New Mexican (different from Mexico), Moroccan, Egyptian, Lebanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Turkish, Greek, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Taiwanese, Bulgarian, Canadian, Alaskan, Quebecquois, Afghan, Kurdish, Indian (3 different kinds), Midwestern, Texican, Memphis, St. Louis, Atlanta, Hawaiian, Philippine, Australian, Kiwi, Chilean, Brazilian, Basque (inventors of Hors d'oeuvres AND cocktails), Malaysian, Burmese, Korean, Mongolian, Kentuckian (not fried chicken either), West Virginian, Cape Cod, and Norcal Beach BBQ. And yes, there's a restaurant for each of those. Despite being white and middle class, I am not, after all, ignorant or afraid. I've also had Nigerian and Venezuelan and Colombian food. Oh, and Ethiopian which is very spicy but vegetarian since the population of that country is a particular branch of Jewish which doesn't eat meat. Eth E O Pya, as it is properly pronounced, still reveres Hailie Sailassi and I impressed those nationals by knowing his name. Africans, I will point out right now, have little respect for African Americans who are lazy and violent and have everything so easy. To escape Africa is a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, and they're glad to have arrived here and thrive once they do. This is a big difference, and proves the divide between Black people and African immigrants is social. Terry Pratchett describes the ghettos of his fictional London as a Crab Pot, which needs no lid because the other craps pull down any that try to climb out. Out of jealousy and petty hatred, mostly. Africa is a crab pot and in time the Chinese will own all of it. Especially if America continues to stand aside, ignoring it.

I really appreciate proper food. I am a foodie, but I can't afford to pay for other's cooking so I generally cook it myself these days. Despite it being a warm and sunny day, only a couple days from Thanksgiving, I made pea soup again. This time with hickory smoked sausage slices and more carrot than last time. After nearly two hours of simmering it was ready, and again, it was delicious. Dad and I had a bowl each on our warm back deck, under a comfortable sun and a bright blue sky. The Midwest and East are mostly dug out of their last blizzard, but here in California there are still people riding motorcycles and laughing. I spend days like this hiking the hillsides and staring at the views, raking up leaves, and making soups like the above split pea. And yes, the hickory smoked sausage really did add nice flavors to the soup. Didn't even need to add salt.

So many leaves to pick up, and the fig tree is nearly bare, but this is California, and our normal is really different from everyone else's. We aren't afraid to have restaurants for so many kinds of food from around the world. We can eat food that doesn't look exactly the same as we're used to. We like spices and interesting flavors. We discover the joy of experience. Rather than throw firebombs at our neighbors, like in say Ferguson. California is still in drought, but we'll have rain on Black Friday and all weekend, and that's fine. We might even see a few flakes of snow.

Never Argue Science With A Creationist

It makes you frustrated and them more insane. Its doubly frustrating when you're a conservative atheist because you run into religious Xtian people a bit more often. Liberals get everything BUT xtians because they hate xtians and welcome everything else, including cannibals. Must make for awkward dinner parties: "so whose baby are we eating tonight?" It just doesn't sound like something the Vegans are going to be comfortable with.

When I was in college, I worked several jobs to pay my books and car insurance. My folks covered the tuition, which back then was only a few hundred a semester, and I went to the local university so there were no food and housing costs. When I finished college I wasn't bankrupt, just useless like everybody else in my degree program. The most important lesson you get from college is academics exist to rip you off. Most of the Millenials know that now. When Gen X, Y, and the Millenials get the majority vote, we're cancelling medicare, defunding social security, and throwing the old people out of all their freebies, so quick your head will spin. We will bankrupt them. It won't be enough, but it will be a start. After that, we're publishing the books on why the Baby Boomers were bastards their whole lives. And we're going to get specific on their acts of greed and hypocrisy and corruption.

Gen X, Y, and the Millenials are the least religious in history. Any God that built a world like this one should have been fired. Most of the religious people I've met have been very blasé about their sins, smiling with insanity that God forgives them for their many sins, again and again, so its okay to sin again, and again. And more, God will forgive us too, for not forgiving the Baby Boomers for being ruthless evil bastards all their lives. Uh huh. Can you see how demotivational that is?

I was told by an Intelligent Design cultist today that he doesn't believe in RNA. This is a complex protein which evolved into DNA and still serves important purposes in cellular communication and control so you can have things like a metabolism and organs and be self aware. That's insane to deny something which exists and is easily detected. You can see RNA strands on a microscope. A powerful one, but they exist. Your body is full of them, along with DNA and cell walls etc.

In my experience, people run to religion this hard because they've just been told they've got fatal cancer and have weeks to live. There's no rationality in religion. Its abuses hiding insanity from reality, simple wrong answers to a complex world, and the more zealous the faith, the more violent the person who believes. Religious zealots are insane, and insane people should not be allowed to own guns, but that is a protected right. Thankfully, many religions insist that God protects them so they think they don't need them. Ironic that the Muslims are most likely to whip out the firearms invented by xtians for self defense against muslims.

Gen X, Y, and the Millenials are really all waiting for the crazy nihilist bastards to die off so we can fix our broken govt, our broken economy, and our broken civilization's public utility infrastructure instead of allowing the elder religious insane bastards to drop us all into an apocalypse. Good thing that zombies are just a fad. I've met Boomers who actually said: "I want the world to end when I die. I'm all that matters." And they meant it too! How should I respect a generation which feels that's okay to think and believe and use as their guiding principles into the future? This was a generation raised xtian, with good parents who loved them, and they are the worst generation in human history.

Baby Boomers disappoint me in humanity. I do hope my own generation behaves better when we are in charge. And hopefully ban religious people from having any access to destructive technology. People who think Intelligent Design is real should be banned from owning digital watches, cellphones, microwaves, gasoline, safe food, and modern medicine. Help those Luddites meet God directly instead of troubling sane people trying to look after the ones who aren't going out of their way to offend those of us doing the work to maintain civilization for the future. Which, as it happens, still exists despite the death of zealots who hate the world for existing. Just saying.

There are religious people who are quiet about it, and I respect their willingness not to trouble me. Its the zealots who insist reality is delusion and shout it from the rooftops who are begging to see the state mental hospitals refunded and reopened. And I think that's something my generation will do. Homeless is an euphemism for insane asylum patient, released to die. That was something the baby boomers did which was wrong and killed a lot of them with exposure or drug overdose. Really wrong. Good religious baby boomers abandoned crazy people to die. And that was really wrong. We should stop pretending these people can be cured, stop pretending their abandonment to die in the cold was "freedom", reopen the hospitals and put them back away. Maybe some of the religious zealots belong there too.

Totalitarianism: President Wants To Censor Internet In New Power Grab

After the incredible scandal of Gruber's bragging statement: "American voters are too dumb to know what they want, so we tricked them into the ACA" and got paid $2.5 million in combined fees from the Federal govt and 4 states, the President has turned his sights onto new targets of expanding his own power. After this scandal, which most of the big media are ignoring, the White House needs to distract people from their corruption and failure with a new attack on freedom. You'll love this.

 

The White House wants to censor the Internet. Only things they like will be allowed. Yeah. Say goodbye to social media, Wikipedia, youtube, online news, freedom of thought, freedom of expression online. Its all going away. The FCC chairman was interviewed about this and says its a terrible idea and would crush much of the new economy, as well as being a vast and unconstitutional expansion of power of the Presidency, an office which changes hands from political party to political party.

 

Do you want to live in an America which attacks your right to think out loud?

 

Do you want to be arrested as a communist 2 years from now because the Democrats lose the presidency after screwing around and hurting people for 8 straight years and the inevitable retaliation against the weak and loud means you are on the chopping block?

 

Or have your home broken into by storm troopers because you own a firearm, still legal at present, but not if the President gets his way as he becomes Der Fuhrer.

 

If you were completely evil, censoring the internet opens up huge vistas of campaign contributions from companies that want to buy back the right to operate while their competitors languish behind a censorship curtain and resulting bankruptcy. What's so bad about censorship? Depends who is in charge, doesn't it?

 

Censorship works for China. Anybody who objects gets arrested, tortured, and thrown into slave labor camps making iPhone components. What if we started punishing our conscientious objectors under internet censorship laws. Every blog, every bit of email correspondence, every network broadcast censored by a completely political, biased, and proved anti-American agency that's put 92 million people out of work. If you arrest them and put them into slavery camps for saying the President is a bad guy after all, that "reduces unemployment" and "gets America back to work." And if those workers are beaten or shot for refusing to be slaves, well, at least they aren't unemployed anymore, right?

Most of these guys at the WPA are working because they get beaten to death by the foreman if they don't. Victims of the Great Depression and stuck in Hoovervilles, they were rounded up and forced into the WPA work camps. Many of the things they built are still around. And the "wages" are "sent home" despite vanishing on the way often enough. Funny how that is. But its totally not slavery! And we totally totally wouldn't do it again, either. Nope. Trust us! Govt totally doesn't enslave people anymore. Ask anyone in the military, currently the highest suicide rate occupation in the world. This is the sort of world we live in, and the govt we deserve. There's long been talk about bringing back the WPA. Would you like to slave away for the WPA?

 

How do you feel about this?

Say no to Internet Censorship. Even the head of the FCC says this is a terrible idea. That much of our economy only exists because the internet is free and open. And closing down freedom will just destroy viable industries. Living where I do, I suspect probably half of those 92 million are doing underground jobs, probably in the drug industry, probably making meth and growing dope, and selling it to all the overworked, overstressed, underpaid suckers trying to survive on Minimum Wage. Its a Liberal Paradise, bringing back slavery because once you control the news, you can tell people what to think. Orwell warned us about that. So what if we've had 80 years advance notice. Its not like schools teach people how to think.

Try To Understand

I have been trying to understand the mentality of the local pot growers, because they are the only growth industry around here. I won't be joining them, ever, because I have too much to lose to bother with illegal stuff, but security and safety come from understanding the dangers, and for that I need to understand their motivations. What I've worked out through twice weekly observation, plus observation on my many hikes is this:

1. Pot gardens are all over the place. Any tall fence or thick brush with a tarp over it? There's a pot field on the other side. There are LOT of those.
2. Pot smokers have figured out how to be high without bloodshot eyes and sunglasses as telltales, but they ignore the stink on their clothes which is pretty strong even from 10 feet away, or 100 feet if they are smoking it at the time.
3. Both towns here seem to be accepting that they are a party center for potheads, however only a few places have worked out how to cater to this crowd and extract money. Previously, Broad Street worked out how to cater to Cruiser biker clubs that come up for the weekend and party, not harassing or ticketing their rows of bikes because they spend money and the city gets tax revenue from that. Surprisingly few accidents, too.
4. Both towns prefer to hire locals, despite locals often being high on the job because wages are so low and benefits rare. Slogging through a crappy job, and dealing with the mistakes being high causes seems to justify the low wages for their companies, and the mistakes eventually bankrupt them. This is why legitimate businesses keep closing their doors. Why they choose to hire locally is their prerogative.
5. North San Juan Ridge, on the North side of the Yuba River is a popular growing region for pot when working on larger fields than the local town gardens or using someone else's land. These fields are the reason that BLM has assault rifles and the sheriff has an APC. The ridge runs from the Sacramento Valley all the way to the Pacific Crest of the Sierras, just south of the Yuba Pass near the Sierra Buttes. Its 50 miles by 10 miles, and a genuinely rural and somewhat dangerous place, with lots of logging roads and survivalist/preppers growing dope and squatting in very primitive conditions. There are the people with tiny RVs or building cabins with camouflage netting over the outside. They live up there, growing dope every summer, harvesting every fall and selling to their dealer network. There are several risks. When the sales are done, that's the money they live on for the next year. This pays better than any job up here.
6. When they've got their money, they get to decide what to do next. Many prep for another crop, spending towards living standards comforts or personal security. Better RVs, generators or solar panels. Laptops and movies to help pass the time. Firearms, 4WD or enduro motorcycles for getting in and out of the boonies. There seem to be a fair number of couples doing this job, too. Lots of women with really serious dark tans and babies. I am not sure they're happy settling for this lifestyle, but with a degree in liberal arts or whatever useless thing they studied and no job opportunities in legitimate work, is growing pot better or worse than "appointment setting" which is code for telemarketing people during dinner specifically conning old people into convincing them they forgot about buying something they really didn't? How about indoor sales, which is also code for telemarketing. This is better than 1/3 of all the jobs listed in Sacramento, btw. Con men, absolutely and completely. Are drug growers worse, morally? These days they don't have to push pot. It is popular enough that lots of kids smoke it in the high school. Meth is a big problem at the local junior high, but the school seems unwilling or unable to arrest kids using it even though possession is a felony. Or was. Prop 47 took effect immediately, so the job market is flooding with released felons from the state prison system. This fixes overcrowding, but also releases experienced and motivated felons into the wild once more. There will likely be a crime spree. And those who don't want to be so obvious will drift into drug growing, including raiding their neighbors near harvest time, which could increase the violence there. How do the drug growers feeling about their job downgrading to a misdemeanor while gaining seriously dangerous felon neighbors newly released from prison? Ambitious prisoners who understand the myth of morality?
7. Some of the drug growers will likely want out of the whole thing, or perhaps be educating themselves into safer jobs they're more suited for, using the money they made growing crops, and their contacts in that industry and the associated black market, to find a niche they can fill which is less dangerous and still provides acceptable income to live on. Many of those are at the local library reading about associated skills, like welding, machining, engine repair, soils, agriculture techniques. Some are just looking to improve yields and get more out of their crops, but others are probably thinking about getting out of the business to reduce personal risk in the coming war with the Mexican drug cartels, an inevitable consequence of getting into their market share and reducing their profits. The Mexican Cartels murder people in really showy ways to try and scare off others from competing. Same as any mafia. The president says they're just folks and works hard to insure that border patrol is helpless to stop them. I wonder if the Mexican Mafia donates to Democratic party campaigns to insure that borders stay largely unguarded? If I were evil that is what I would do.
8. From what I've seen, pot growers are preppers, and around half the preppers posting questions or articles on the bulletin boards are pot growers. They have rural bunkers, supplies, and often start from a tent in the woods under camouflage netting and gradually build up to owning the land, digging a well, upgrading to an RV, then building a cabin with bulletproof adobe walls and pretending its really eco friendly when what it does is stop rifle bullets from rivals while sleeping. Rivals snipe each other, you see. Those stories rarely get into the local hobby newspaper.
9. The paper is pro-pot and thus biased against negative stories. They don't tell about the trimmers that get murdered, raped, or ripped off by the grower they're working for. Some raped trimmers end up having babies and being common-law wives with nowhere to go. Its easy when they've been drugged up with superstrong pot. After enough raw date rapes to insure a baby, they're pretty well stuck. I see these women with very grim and hopeless expressions at the library pretty often. The ones with two or three kids, each a different color from a different father are rather the most pitiful. Eventually they turn into the devil may care hags with all the tattoos and a belt to hold down their flat and floppy breasts, in 20 more years. Its really sad, but they chose this industry and all it meant. Being naïve can kill you. I think a lot of them talk themselves into pretending they love their rapist, but women have a special kind of masochism all their own. Ending up a trimmer is a direct result of the current poor quality college education today. Colleges do not teach how to start businesses, because professors do not know how. Corporations outsource jobs and pay the lowest wages they can get away with to maximize profit. College grads can't pay rent AND student loans, so they end up off the books and desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. Like break the law.
10. The pot growers happily use any technology that is cheap and durable enough to give them an advantage, including agricultural humidity sensors to help with water conservation. As many of the growers near the various forks of the Yuba River have to tend to pumps with jerry cans and rifles to keep rivals from touching them or stealing them, not wasting the fuel, and getting the most pot for their buck in an industry where sharing crucial details is disadvantageous to your own operations, there's serious motivation to get this right. During the summer months it is COMMON to find pumps running and water streaming up the canyon wall a couple of hundred feet in what looks like firehose then vanishing into the woods at the top. These are going to pot fields. That water is full of cholera, btw, from leaky sewer pipes in Washington, a small gold mining town 20 miles east of Nevada City. It is so deep in the Yuba River Canyon it is at the same elevation as Nevada City. Washington is pretty dull, but one of the places where gold panning and rockers are still in use today. It also has lots of pot growers, having access to the San Juan Ridge to its north via fire roads.
11. It is common to find growers squatting or renting access to water via a garden hose and long orange power cords off a nearby house. Some actually park a tiny trailer in BLM areas in the boonies and then commute down to Sacramento for one of those minimum wage jobs, while tending a pot field in their evenings. I have seen these setups personally, 12 years ago when mapping fire roads. Locals did not shoot us because we were NOT the building enforcement department, and not trimmers looking to home invade and kill everyone, which ALSO happens around here. 90% of home invasions are drug related. The other 10% were the wrong address. Very important to remember that.
12. Semi legality of marijuana means there is increasing competition, which lowers the price. Growers see their profits falling, and understand they have to either ramp up production endlessly or lose the money they've come to depend on for their lifestyle. I expect it will eventually become fully legal and regulated one day, in order to cut down on violence with the Mexican drug gangs. The Mexicans will try to fund efforts to stop legalization because they make a lot of money from pot sales through their black market network of contacts. They don't want to give up the profits either. This dispute is going to escalate as more US troops come home from the wars with battle experience, since the Mexicans hire them as mercenaries and they're very good at killing, at security, at booby traps and demolitions and even at recruiting. As war veterans coming back to an economy that only offers minimum wage jobs, some of them will take the mercenary work. Most of the more vicious killings along the US border go back to US military veterans. Its not the guns, its the veterans.
13. I don't know whether to feel glad or sad at the pot growers making money from their chosen crops. They are spending money locally, which extends the life of lots of local jobs. They are employed, so they aren't burglarizing houses in my neighborhood, at least. They aren't growing inside rentals anymore because they're growing in gardens and fields the Sheriff can't touch thanks to the flimsy license requirements for growing "medical". They aren't competing with me for work. And the local police arrest the worst offenders going into public high and violent, and there's some of those every couple days. Legalization has definitely increased crime. And the cities are dealing with it. Any that leave that life behind for a new job ARE competing with me for work, but they're also likely saving their own lives in the process. I should be happy they are choosing life. I just wish there were more legitimate jobs around here.