Monthly Archives: September 2017

Life extender

Two wheeled bliss.

When it comes to Swiss Army Knife thinking, the idea of one tool to do it all, few fields of endeavor lend themselves less to this philosophy than two wheeled motorized transport.

The race track bike with its smooth tires and limited turning radius, not to mention 200+ horse power to speed it to 200+ mph could not take the corner into the supermarket parking lot, having first woken all your neighbors with its raucous exhaust note. And heaven help the rider if it starts to rain.

The Pig on his Hog may enjoy bellying up to his local bar, the better to display the tattoos on his body which accounted for several months’ pay, but suggest to him that you go for a nice 200 mile recreational round trip and he begs off, claiming that the Old Lady needs him at home for dinner.

The Squid, your local 18 year old on a 150 mph projectile which he prefers to ride helmetless while wearing tennies is not up for anything as he will end up as road kill, or in the Vegetable Patch at the local hospital before you can say ‘Speed Kills’.

Indeed, there is no other field of road travel which so lends itself to micromarketing for the manufacturers of vehicles.

Check out your local motorcycle superstore and you will find a bewildering array of variations on the two wheeled theme, this from an industry perennially claiming it’s on its last legs. If that’s the case they would do well to adopt the millipede as their mascot.

Now it’s no great secret that I want my son to learn to ride just as soon as it’s legal for him to do so. Thus I’ve given some thought to the matter over the past few months and finally plonked down very little of my not-so-hard-earned coin for a machine which redefines micromarketing. You really do not want to take it on the freeway to fight the bow waves from 18-wheelers, it’s about out of breath at 65mph, there is no protection from wind and weather and, well, it will get you faster to the grocery store or the local café than just about anything out there, the while delivering over 100 miles on a gallon of regular unleaded. And there are no gears to shift ….


Bliss on two wheels. A 7am run to the local greasy spoon on deserted backroads for a spot of breakfast, guaranteed to add to your life expectancy.

This little toy goes by the moniker ‘Honda PCX 150 scooter’ , and this 2013 charmer had been sitting forlorn and lost at the local dealer for 4 years since Mr. Honda made it, surrounded by machines thrice its weight and four times its girth which moved out the door like ice cream on a midsummer’s Phoenix day. This meant that Yours Truly got 25% off the retail price of the 2017 model which, surprise, is identical to the 2013 with the notable difference that the older machine was the last made in Japan before manufacturing moved to the Third World. Whose little fingers would you rather have on the assembly wrenches?

OK, so it’s just a scooter, right?

Wrong. The variety of technologies squeezed into this delectable package is breathtaking. The counterbalanced single cylinder overhead cam 153cc motor (because you need over 150cc to go on the US freeways) dispenses with carburetion, adopting fuel injection. Images in the rear view mirrors are crystal clear, testifying to the absence of vibration. There is no starter motor or kick starter. Rather, Mr. Honda cleverly uses the alternator to turn the engine which, as with all things Honda, starts immediately, the cold start enrichment process being – what else? – automatic. There is no warm up period. Touch the button and off you go, but you will have to listen hard as the motor is near-silent. Engine heat? Fughedaboutit. This motor is liquid cooled. The front disc and rear drum brakes are linked, meaning that the left handlebar lever works both. And the front disc brake has no fewer than three pistons. The transmission is continually variable, just like in some smart cars, so acceleration means twisting the throttle and just sitting there. And up to a city street legal 45mph you will leave all those disgusting single occupant SUVs in your catalytic converter dust. No clutch, no gearbox, no messing about at slow speeds while you try to avoid stalling the motor. And the instrumentation in this 300lb., 100mpg wonder could not be improved upon:


Crystal clear, right down to the dead accurate speedometer and the LCD fuel gauge. Delivery mileage. A high design aesthetic.

In contrast to that Swiss Army knife, this is a single purpose tool and its sole goal is to recreate that sense of simple bliss you first experienced on two motorized wheels when still knee high to a grasshopper.

And while the styling may not be to everyone’s taste, why you can see that Mr. Honda took an envious look at Ducati’s 200mph weapon, the Panigale, when he came up with the bodywork:


Honda’s PCS 150. Japanese fit and finish.


Ducati’s Panigale – not so great for grocery runs. And those ugly rivets are nowhere to be seen on the Honda.

Now I have to get my son off to some riding lessons because, after all, I bought this for him. Honest.

iPhone6 snaps.

One year in paradise – 2017

Scottsdale, AZ.

Twelve months ago I left the increasingly foreign province of California known as Silicon Valley and moved to a place whose life style is infinitely preferable. One where you are not competing with loud strangers in their new land for a place in a restaurant and where your neighbors speak English because that, after all, is still the nation’s tongue.

And the carefully researched decision to leave the chaos, cost and noise of the Bay Area for Scottsdale, Arizona has proved to be right in every conceivable way. The other short listed candidates included Boise – Idaho, Santa Fe – New Mexico and Reno – Nevada. Anything further east failed the test of climate. The first two were excluded owing to the absence of decent sized airports with non-stop flights everywhere, the last because – you know – Nevada, land of trailers and gambling.

The big building boom in Arizona, fueled by corrupt banksters whose lending bubble popped in 2007, has seen the three prime states of crazy lending – Arizona, Florida and Nevada – with abundant housing inventory at well below the late-2006 peak. As ‘second home speculation pain’ has set in these homes are either being repossessed by those same banksters, where they are hidden off the balance sheet to keep the regulators happy, or marketed by owners heretofore in deep denial. And, indeed, I paid fifty cents on the 2006 dollar for mine.


Typical price history of homes in my zip code – this one still unsold after 7 months of listing at 15% off the peak price of 10 years’ earlier. Other areas are even worse. Reckon on over $1000 per square foot in the Bay Area.

North Scottsdale, exactly 30 minutes from Phoenix International Airport, is not cheap as the Phoenix metro area goes, but nonetheless homes here sell for one fifth (yes, one fifth) of comparable properties in the Bay Area. I had dozens and dozens to choose from and any of my six shortlisted candidates would have been fine. In the event I chose one on the periphery of America’s largest nature preserve and what few changes were dictated largely involved the garden.


The garden when I moved in – bare minimum builder standard plants, there since completion in 1996, further enhanced with wretched battery powered landscape lights.


The garden today – a profusion of new plants, new irrigation, sculptures and a sun blind to enhance life on the patio. All new LED flood- and spotlights lend drama at night.

The surprising thing to me is that the previous two owners of the home cared so little for the spirit of place that these simple, obvious and inexpensive changes were not made 20 years ago. Life here centers around the patio with its outdoor furniture, mountain views and shelter from the sun. You might as well enjoy the garden while contemplating the meaninglessness of life …. But then, in contrast to western Europeans, Americans have never been high on the scale when it comes to appreciation of spirit of place, or for contemplative thought, for that matter.

What is wrong about Scottsdale? Well, one and all who have never lived here will point to three months of 100+F weather in the summer. Temperature without humidity data is meaningless when it comes to assessing climate quality and when I tell you that 100F in arid, high desert heat is not the same as 100F in the swamps of the Southeast you may understand.

But not for one moment would I suggest you move here. No siree! The hellish heat, the crowded potholed roads, the traffic – all utterly unbearable. I recommend the Bay Area for you.


Outside my little community in north Scottsdale. Hellish heat, the crowded potholed roads, the traffic, all those Rolls Royces, Bentleys and Ferraris, with Porsches for the lower demographic – avoid at all costs.

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Fallen giant

Windstorm victim.


Some 20 feet tall, this saguaro cactus fell victim to yesterday’s winds. Probably over 70 years old.


The beautiful structure is seen in this cross section. You really want to avoid those spines.


I carefully nudged this broken-off arm with a sandaled (!) foot. It weighed some 20 lbs.


The root structure is surprisingly shallow, so wind is a natural enemy.

iPhone6 snaps

iPhone X

A solution looking for a problem.


Say hello to the future, for it is broken.

Apple’s much hyped tenth anniversary iPhone, the iPhone X, was hyped to market yesterday in a presentation from Apple’s over-the-top palatial new HQ in Cupertino. I have long given up watching these hypefests, sick and tired of the sleazy, self-congratulatory tone and now follow them using online text services. And follow them one must for any market investor must be aware of what is happening to a company which constitutes such a significant proportion of the major market indices.

The feature most hyped in the new phone, not available for many weeks yet, is FaceID, replacing the TouchID fingerprint sensor. Not an adjunct to TouchID, mind you. A replacement. This is claimed to be far less likely to go wrong but casually denies some of the troubling Constitutional realities of the technology. And, by the way, where are all the complaints about TouchID which I find works just fine on my relatively old iPhone 6?

Constitutional realities? The fascist masquerading as a cop in your hometown doesn’t like your face at the rally protesting his relative in the Oval Office and applies his nightstick to your head. While you are down for the count he uses FaceID on your iPhone X to unlock your phone only to find that you are a fully paid up member of the ACLU and a routine opponent of trigger happy cops with guns. It’s off to the slammer for you.

Next he finds that you are a strong supporter of DACA after searching your emails, that as a civilized human being you desire peace and solace for immigrants whose only language is English and who came here as babes in arms. Remember that bit which goes “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? Well, there goes the gaol door key in the river. Fourth Amendment be hanged.

But other practical obstacles exist, none involving pigs with guns or oval offices. Sure, your identical twin can unlock your phone using FaceID but, let’s face it, that affects a handful of users, so no big deal. But you are a keen motorcyclist and actually like to protect the space between your ears, always wearing a helmet. FaceID? Fughedaboutit.

I suppose one should add, on a positive note, that the masked bad guy or gal using FaceID to call home asking how to set off that explosive vest will be at a loss, but most of these folks use burner phones from WalMart in any case. Why waste money on an iPhone when the savings can be put to work by procuring more C4?

FaceID is the ultimate solution looking for a problem and I expect it to encounter many.

But there’s an amusing, or troubling if you prefer, side note to these ruminations.

As I was following the live text updates yesterday, when a senior hypeman started the iPhone X presentation he picked up the new phone boasting of how it would recognize his face and unlock the phone …. only to have FaceID fail. Oily marketer that he is he smoothly switched to a back-up phone but it was too late. The market has priced in this technology as a competitive advantage over Samsung’s pathetic offering (FaceID uses 3D sensors so – it is claimed – that it cannot be fooled by a 2D photograph, unlike the Samsung system which can be thus fooled). The reaction of the stock, shown in the red rectangle below, was swift and brutal. It appears I’m not the only one who follows AAPL:

That’s a loss of market capitalization of exactly $22.02 billion in 30 minutes. Way to go, Apple. You need better carnival barkers, though your best has long departed this world.

As I said, a solution looking for a problem and finding one before the gadget was even in the stores. The key feature, and it fails. And they are asking $1,000 and up for the HypePhone. That’s more than even an Apple laptop. Pass.