patrick.net

Garage Company Says:

> So Red Whine you are saying that S.B. is the
> Aspen of California. Correct?

Then Red Whine Says:

> You are correct. You wouldn’t need to talk to very
> many residents to correctly conclude that it is the
> Ass Pen of California.

I’ve spent a lot of time in both Aspen and SB over the past 30 years (One of my best friends got shipped off to Cate at 14 and another friend has a family ranch just outside Aspen) and I don’t think that they have much in common other than then homeowners have more money than average…

I think I would like to create an environment like one of those hotels you used to be able to go to for about $14 a night in Baja like Rosarito or maybe Ensenada? My wife and I have talked about doing an "assisted living facility" for years, but I've always hoped to insert a little twist. The End of the Line. All guys (sorry girls). When I've fully explained trust me, you won't want any part of it. A lot of older males get really alienated from their families, former employers/employees, the community, each other and in the end, themselves. Think of it as Surfer X's "aging boomer hangout" only with no boomers, no "male enhancement", no "da kine". No nothing really. It's a place where we blatantly disregard the considered opinions of medically trained professionals and do exactly as we please. Primarily our "tenants" would work on their "beaters" in whatever shade they can find, the clerk at the front desk doesn't know anything and the maid may clean your room and maybe she won't. I'd like to have a coin operated pool table that periodically keeps your money and a vending machine that gives you Pepsi no matter how hard you push the button for Coke. Here, death is not feared and perhaps welcome, thus rooms are paid for a week in advance and check out is at noon.

My ideal house? hmmm... first and foremost, it would be one that was affordable. Secondly, I really dig log cabins. I'd have one that had 2 ft thick logs as the soul construction of the walls, oak roof shingles, and redwood shutters. The inside would have a massive fireplace, a kitchen with stone or brick flooring, a classic oven and the bathroom would have a clawfoot tub. That's the house. More importantly to me anyway is the workshop. I would have a two story roughsawn shop with a workshop for my wife upstairs complete with a place for her to paint, draw, and work on all her small projects. Downstairs I would have a full compliment of tools.The nice stuff, like an up to date diagnostic set, two large chests full of snap-on tools, and several old cars. The first car would be a 1929 Dusenburg Model J with a 2-tone black and grey paint job, and the other would be my ole' reliable mercury Monterey because she's been a good car and deserves it. Outside under a large shed would be a John Deere tractor complete with a brush cutting attachment, plow, and cart. I would also have an assortment of lawn mowers and garden equipment. There would be around 20-30 acres of land on which I would have 2 gardens- one for corn, potatoes, green beans, and cabbage while garden two would be my Wife's garden for planting flowers and stuff. There would be a ridge behind the property that we could hike up in and pick blackberries. I'd say that this property would reside in somewhere like North Carolina. Oh well.. guess one can dream.

SP,

"Wah wah, wakuh wakuh wakuh"

Ad lib solo with liberal use of harmonic distortion and feedback*

A van down by the river.

Newsflash!
Phase one of: Operation escape California is now complete!
My devious plan; create a massive agency-esque web site that'll either A: serve as a telecomuting business generating freelance site, or perhaps impress a few agencies or design firms of which I can possibly procure work.Nevertheless, the desire is to be mobile and independent. The site is chock full of bugs, but I'm working on it. For now, here she is!

http://tinyurl.com/l7n2y

Thanks lil!

Red Whine,

Your best work ever.

BillF,

Yes, that home would be around ~$900k in Sacramento, so your property tax would be about $10k/yr. Much more in the Bay Area though.

Those big Texas homes are kind of generic looking though.

Red Whine and DinOR,

Excellent!

All this talk of workshop space make me see a market there. Maybe high end condos should take out some of their useless conference space and make it into a workshop for guys.

Astrid,
Indeed I've noticed a lot of those Big TX homes are super-generic. Looking around Austin, Dallas and Houston, there are scads of these 2 story homes. On the other hand, most are in the 100-150k range. I'd be perfectly ok with a house at that price even if it was hideous. It would be a good starter home.

HaHa,

Did those scary clowns take some of your HaHas away?

WWII,

Yeah, my mom keep saying that she wants to retire to Dallas and I keep trying to convince her the superiority of a Northern AZ condo, once those start going for $50K instead of $250K.

Wow. Looks like we've found something Ha Ha and Surfer-X can completely agree on.

Let's not forget. They will be free till the appeal also looses. But it's a great start.

Ebbers - down
Kozlowski - down
Lay and Skilling - down
Quattrone - pending retrial

There is no perfect country in the world. US is as good as it gets. The justice system here works. This was a GOOD news.

HARM,

How about that? Never thought I'd live long enough to see the day!

Who cares about Enron. Who's getting prosecuted in the FNM debaucle?

DinOR,

I hope your retirement idea come true. A roach motel (and proud of it) that allow ordinary guys to live it up will be an infinitely more useful service than all those boomer operated middle-of-nowhere bed-n-breakfasts.

astrid,

Thank you so much for seeing that there just might be SOME value to this "business model". My oldest daughter works at a hospice for the "good sisters" and it will toughen you up in a big hurry. But somewhere between raising children, paying taxes and jumping through hoops for the man there has to be SOMETHING else? Our rinky dinky town of 7,500 must have (and I'm not kidding) 15 to 20 B&B's! It's just silly. Most are horrifically expensive, ridiculously over decorated (and promoted) and as far as I can see yield ZERO fun! I'm just being truthful here and I can say I wouldn't want my WAKE to be held there! I'm serious! Think of my retirement home as a citadel for guys that STILL like to squirt plastic army men with lighter fluid. Now we're talking!

Seriously though, the "model" would involve having able bodied seniors in a "shop and board" environment where they could be "1099" sub-contractors performing warranty work for various mfrs. It would likely be "piece work" and the shop expenses (starting with a roof) would be shared by the "residents" where it would be cost prohibitive for them as individuals. Any older building with shop space on the first floor and rooms on the second floor would likely do. Just for a goof!

Enron -- what a joke. Didn't they sell tulip bulbs? Mere months before it unravelled, Time magazine was shouting Enron's accolades from the mountaintops. At the time, I remember thinking "I will never ever buy a company whose core business cannot be understood by ANYONE." Their financial statements looked like a Rorschach test made from an investment banker's afterbirth. If Americans weren't degenerate gamblers always hoping to speculate on the latest thing rather than [gasp] SAVE anything, a stock like Enron would have had no buyers.

Justice? Hardly. True justice would look something like Alan Greenspan doing the perp walk.

"Think of my retirement home as a citadel for guys that STILL like to squirt plastic army men with lighter fluid"

:P Just remember to have them sign a waiver before they move in. Given the amount of destruction you guys did in your pre-teen years, I'd hate to think about the potential destruction possible with a working credit card and tens of years of real life engineering type experience.

That's one way to reclaim America's manufacturing superiority (I know according to Randy H, that never left, but it sure feels like it)

That retirement sure beats being greeters at Wal-mart or playing the same 18 holes over and over again in mosquito infested Florida.

That’s one way to reclaim America’s manufacturing superiority (I know according to Randy H, that never left, but it sure feels like it)

Just for clarification, I demonstrated that the US produces by far the largest amount of global manufacturing output, as measured by currency neutral value.

This does not mean that we are not losing manufacturing jobs. In fact, what has been occurring is a rapid (and ever increasing) rise in productivity as enabled by technology. Put simply, it takes ever less people to produce ever greater output value. "The man running the robots" if you will. The same thing has been happening in agriculture. This complexity is why meaningful macroeconomic statements are difficult to formulate, and seldom reported by the mainstream press or uttered by impotent, cynical politicians.

What this means for US labor markets is an altogether different issue, and one which isn't being dealt with all that well by our "leaders'. I suggest a read of "Player Piano" as a nice accessible way to conceptualize the manner in which these two problems interrelate.

DinOR,

Your idea would work even better for retired women. They can share a work space and work on hobby businesses. Someone onsite could organize the internet, shipping, and phone sales aspects...and if someone has a lot of work, there would be lots of hands around for hire on easy terms.

You could even situate the men's and women's retirement communities a couple miles from each other and organize dances and stuff, just like summer camp.

Golf- What a waste of time. I went and played a game, and liked driving the golf cart around more than the game.

astrid,

That's a good point! I got the idea from my wife's aunt. She would stop by the old Regina Vacuum Cleaner plant and load her up with vacuums that were being returned for the silliest reasons. She cleaned them up, replaced a belt (real technical!) and repackaged it for re-sale as a "blem" or (factory re-conditioned). She never got rich by any means but she had money for grand kids ice cream and bingo on Friday night. It was basically a "cottage industry". The reason it could potentially work (and really it's more about being occupied than anything) is that with drive toward doing away with benefits anyway these folks would be just doing it at their own pace sans health insurance, workers comp. etc.

WW2,

Uh........., gotta kind of agree? If you're golfing w/folks like me you'd probably have a pretty good time. It goes something like this:

18 holes? Check!

18 golf balls? (Figure on losing one per hole) Check!

18 beers? Oh yeah.

Now on the other hand if you go with people that are serious about the thing and actually try to "improve" their game and get frustrated (and then silently smolder) no, it's not fun. I have a friend that lives in Austin and sometimes even when playing nine he'll pull off to the side, drink a few beers and let others play through. Uh, I don't think that would happen at the Peninsula Club!

Ha Ha,

Even after Ferdinand Marcos was DEAD he got 4% of the vote so I guess it just goes to show you that some people will agree to anything!

SQT,

Thanks! Golf is a GAME. It is supposed to be played for FUN. No one is getting PAID here.

Hey, WW2

Playing horse shoes was a really big deal when I was younger. Is that still a big thing in TN? Austin? Talk about inexpensive fun! My dad was like the VFW champ. I mean it had to be invented by drunk blacksmiths b/c the score only goes up to 21, right?

Worried about 4% of people disagreeing with the verdict ? Must be some crackpots. 4% is nothing in such polls.

What I really wonder about is a LOT of people are still buying homes ! I mean what are THEY thinking ? It's amazing how far behind folks are on the information curve.

On a positive side. Cupertino. That last bastion of BA bubble is showing signs of cracking. Inventory has finally jumped over 100 and has stayed above for some time now. Went to a few open houses. Pretty quiet. Agents are willing to talk. One even admitted that business has slowed down. One has been leaving voice mails every day on my answering machine now.

If Cupertino falters, the psychological damage it would cause would be tremendous.

“I am wondering who are this 4% people — what are they thinking??”

Their friends and families? Their defense attorney? The "oops, I'm dyslexic and I can't tell yes from no" people?

DinOR,

Seriously, I can see a business for this sort of work space, even without moving to Mexico. You can buy a couple re-po McMansions in a retirement community and retool it as an "active adult" center. I bet lots of older people who move to smaller house/condos really miss the workshop/craft space. This is a way to help them feel productive and maybe even help them earn a couple bucks.

TBAONBA,

Funny you should mention that. David Lerah was being interviewed by Kathleen Hayes today and he had the most mealy mouthed, meandering conflicted explanation as to why this is a "soft landing" it just wasn't funny! Kathleen, who's normally very polite and upbeat had this look on her face that was priceless. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it but I imagine it was the look we have when a drunk asks us for directions. Kind of suprised, obviously repulsed yet not ready to abandon our composure?

Ha Ha,

As long as you do it in California, you're pretty much powerless no matter how you vote.

Let me be clear — I do not like GW but I will vote for REPUBLICAN party as long as DEMOCRATIC party supports ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION…

I can relate to this. Most of the Democratic officeholders in CA are the worst kind of smug, entitlement-promoting, race-baiting uber-Liberals. I tend to vote either third party or for moderate Republicans.

HARM,

Call them everything else, but don't call them liberals. That's desecrating the term "liberal".

Though I'd add that California Republicans are really no better. They exude just as much smugness, they are just as much into entitlement promotion, they do just as much race baiting...they just speak to a slightly different audience, that's all.