Morbid obesity.
Spotted in Sedona, AZ.
iPhone6 snap.
America’s disease
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.
A new year
Commencement Day at NMH.
A new year starts at Northfield Mount Hermon school, where my son returns as a sophomore. Set in the bucolic Berkshire Hills of central Massachusetts, some 2 hours from Boston, the school’s 1500 acre campus exemplifies all that is good about New England schooling – a gorgeous campus, outstanding faculty and administration and a caring and nurturing spirit. Academic standards, along with those in the seven other Ivy League New England prep schools*, are ne plus ultra. The matriculation rate to university is 100% for all these schools, reflecting early and aggressive culling of sub-par performers. Winston couldn’t wait to return.
A perfect azure sky is backdrop for the welcome tent, early morning. The Memorial Chapel, built from local Connecticut River stone, is at top left.
Winston registers for the sophomore year in the Forslund Gym.
The Gym sports two basketball courts, here covered for the registration process.
Blake Hall is the student center. Last year my son’s work-job duties included cleaning it! All students are required to participate in manual labor tasks.
* Hotchkiss, Andover, Deerfield, Exeter, St. Paul’s, Lawrenceville, Choate and NMH.
All snapped on the iPhone 6 which always does a number on azure skies.