Sunday, March 29, 2015

Sorry. Nothing today. I'm in tax hell.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

I got a Pagani today.



Today was one of those days where it might have been better if I never left the house. My city was hosting a half marathon, and even though they had signs all over they city saying you should expect delays - none any of those signs said anything about road closures. So it took me about a half an hour to get out of town.

It wasn't too long after that I realised it was going to be "one of those days" and decided to slow my roll and just accept this day would be rough in all sorts of annoying ways. Some days are just like that. However......

We made our way out to San Jose to the Santana Row car show where I melted down post imminently. The crowd was nothing like I'd ever seen before at this show. There were so many people the cars had a hard time getting out. People were complete assholes. You'd have a shot lined up and someone would come and stand right in front of you. I had to say something to a couple of guys and I don't normally do that. I normally impatiently wait them out. At car shows I kinda get a stick up by butt because sometimes the guys linger so long, I'm sure they are hoping I will take a shot with them with it. I refuse to do it honestly. One guy came and parked his babysuv right next to me then stood right in front of me.

It was around this time I realised Mr S. and I had gotten separated. Which shouldn't be that big of a deal since we had our phones, but this time he'd really taken off. So I was pissed. Mr S. have a pretty written in stone rule that we keep about 100 feet radius of each other. We can go look at different stuff if we want to, but we have to keep each other in the line of sight if at all possible. This was mostly Mr S.'s rule because we'd go to a store and I'd vanish "Taken" style. I figured we had our phones! But he didn't find that funny. Finally he got tired of hunting me down, and put his foot down. You wouldn't think it would be that hard to find each other, but I'm short so I can hide in a lot of places. Did I tell you I'd already started melting down?

Later Mr S and I were talking about the assholes and he told me they were even getting to him. He was standing somewhere looking at a car, and a guy taking photos who must have been bending down to get low shot backed "it" up right into my husbands crotch.

I was like - what did you say? I gave him the stink eye, and he was like - what are you up to dude?

The whole thing was just irritating. You thank the people who stop and don't get in your shots profusely, because the other people just grind you to the nubs. And it's always the same thing. They walk right in your shot. You give them the stink eye to which they mimic - what! Like they don't get what you are beefing about. Additionally it only takes two seconds to do a quick sweep behind you to see if you somehow have walked into someones shot or are backing your ass up into someone else's crotch. Just have some fucking awareness there are people around you.



The Pagani is at very the front of this line. I wound up using Mr S.'s shots for the photo above because he's tall and could get high shots over the crowd.



This is a La Ferrari.





That La Ferrari is in this crush. You can see a small speck of yellow on the left hand side.



I've been getting McLaren's a lot, but this one was parked in the back right by the trashcan.





Spyker C8.







R8.



BMW I8.





Some time back, Mr S started playing this game with himself while we are at car shows. He has a lot of time to wait around while I get all the shots I want. So I guess he found an extra way to amuse himself. It's called daughter or girlfriend? He sees all these old guys with much younger women and he tries to figure out if they are his girlfriend or daughter. I wasn't into the game very much at first, but I can see now how funny it can be. This turned out to be a daughter. But I waited for a few minutes to see if they showed any affection to each other to resolve he girlfriend or daughter game.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Down down baby.

Cushing is at 56,314 thousand barrels today. On March 24, it was 54,403 barrels.  Alleged max 60,000 barrels. At this rate it could be full by next week.

China's storage capacity is said to be full. Here. They have been sopping up excess since August.

This party is going to get started pretty soon.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The things of technicolor dreams.



I had to run out today to get these shots because the rain (if you can call it that) only gave us a very short reprieve. Peak for the pink flowers was probably two days ago, but it's been overcast. It's hard to tease out the colors at this point in full sun. And the conditions change fairly quickly. We only have about a week before the hills go brown. Soon you will start getting effed up trees. You can start to see the stuff that is really suffering now. Que the screaming about food inflation, because if conditions do not change fairly quickly I don't think California will be growing much stuff. It is dryer than last year at this point. I'm trying to pretend like this is not happening.

I had to work for these. I only started out to get some elevation and wound up going to the top of the hill. Through that crevice is a freeway.



This one is overexposed. But I'm posting it anyway. I think I got this barn from the other side on the road.





You can see the brown starting to come here.



New homes sales hit most awesome since 1991.



Source.

Everyone is shitting all over the new home sales numbers - but I think they could be true. When that is your only market, I'm guessing the numbers will start to look pretty impressive. It's obvious the Fed is chomping at the bit to raise rates. Good luck with that.

As you can see, this blowout number is not really very impressive at all. Unless you are super impressed with recession level sales. If you expand the chart to 1976, there are only three times when new homes sales were this shitty.

But compared to the last 7 years, hey - lets celebrate and raise rates. Said in the most sarcastic way.
Remember a few months ago when everyone was saying the US was an island and immune from what the rest of the world was experiencing?

Oh yeah. Those were good times.

Of course it defied logic then. You could see how collapsing oil prices were taking out any growth from one country after another. I guess people really do believe in American exceptionalism after all if they believed that crap.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

All Around the Mulberry Bush

I haven't talked about the economy much lately because what difference does it make? I did find this article entitled Sorry, but there was never an oil storage crisis super funny. I mean, I don't know what oil is going to do - but I'm betting the asshole that wrote this article is wrong.

He concludes that oil is not going to crash because companies haven't started utilising floating storage yet. I talked about this a couple of months ago and concluded that companies must not be expecting oil to rebound like it did in 2009 and that is the reason they are not using floating storage. It mean, it's very costly to store oil that way. If oil doesn't rebound very quickly, you will eat into your profits.

So, I had to go over and see how Cushing was doing today. And they are at 54,403 barrels. They top out at 60,000 barrels. I mean, you can look at the chart and it seems imminently obvious this is a steeper build than any seen since before 2005 by an insane margin. If this were a stock I would tell you to run like the wind. That is a moonshot chart and that never ever ends well.

When I wrote that article just one month ago - Cushing was at 46,261 barrels. This place doesn't have even one month left at the current build rate.

Update -  I just remembered that the government took 5 million barrels off the market to replenish the strategic oil reserve. So this build would have been even steeper if it weren't for that. That might have put Cushing at full.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

You never knew a gourd could be so interesting.



I saw this artist Betty Finch at the SF Flower Show. She absolutely makes the most creative uses for gourds don't you think? I love when people make something new with something as boring as gourds. At the show I think she was more selling a book entitled: The Immortal Molded Gourds of Mr. Zhang Cairi. 

I tried molding square watermelons one year after it was all the rage. It's really harder to do than you would think. I love the fact she can mold gourds into such interesting shapes.

















Saturday, March 21, 2015

Thank you policeman obvious.

Today, the world somehow thought I didn't have enough excitement because I lost a tire on the San Mateo bridge. Bridges are the most frightening places to have to change a tire. There is almost no place to pull over. I was watching traffic while Mr S. was jacking the truck up. All the while I'm hoping a cop will pull up and turn his lights on so we had some cover.

A bike cop finally did arrive only to tell me my tire is super flat. He also tells me I'm in a super dangerous spot. I should keep my eyes peeled towards the traffic while Mr S. works on the tire. Then he takes off.  Seriously! I'm sure in his head he said - see ya, wouldn't want to be ya.

My tire only had 6000 miles on it. I didn't even know a tire that new could fail. I thought the rubber was so thick they are almost impervious. But, learned something new today. A new tire can run over something sharp enough to pop the shit out of it. I'm also several hundred dollars poorer because I clearly punctured it and it's not under warranty. That is always a good day. Said in the most sarcastic way.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Almost a distant memory.



They say we are going to get spit on this weekend. Though they've said that a lot this year, and we've barely gotten any measurable rain. Maybe it will be enough to perk up the poppies and I will get to stage three! Go stage three. I almost picked some of these chivey looking wildflowers to plant at the house.









Those lupines are really putting on a show. I might try to go back and get them again this weekend.



I thought it was funny how hard this turkey was having to work. I mean, shit - he couldn't have found her a prettier place. AND it's right next to a super swank neighborhood.

Because people are just this stupid.

Probably every week the solar nazi's blanket my neighborhood trying to get people to sign up. I tend to listen to their bullshit because I like to see how much stress the market is under. I think it's a complete ponzi scheme. And - I thought about buying solar before the government got involved! It is a viable sector for some people.

Anyway, this time I was out front and was completely captive to this guy.  If you are behind the door you can indicate you are getting done with their crap. But this time I let him go through the whole thing. He was trying to convince me that it was not a rent to own system. You completely owned outright the panels. Yet they find out how much you use to pay for electricity and put that towards the "panels you own outright".

So... I was like - what if I default in three months? The kid is like - I don't know. But he did go on to explain that their model is exactly like when you buy a car. You put a down payment down and then you make payments. To which I laughed.

Me - You don't own that car until you get the title. You are renting that car from the bank until you pay it off.

Then he tried to convince me it was the same as buying a house. You own that house. To which I laughed even more.

Me - I can assure you that you do not own that house until you get it payed off. The bank owns it. They just let you live there because you keep up with your payments. I had to finally say I wasn't trying to be an asshole. But his system WAS a rent to own system.

I'm surprised they don't have me on the blacklist yet.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Is this the future?



I ran across an interesting product yesterday from Robotbase. I have to admit I haven't seen anything like this before. Frankly I'm not sure how I really feel about it. At first I was intrigued by the integrated desktop avatar. I saw it mainly as something preteens would enjoy. But after watching the video I'm just not sure I see people forming relationships with avatars. Kids I could easily see being into this, but adults? I could be wrong. What do you think? It is an interesting concept though. Video at the end.







Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Strati 3D printed car.



I got the 3D printed car today. I can't say I'm crazy about my shots. It was in a poorly lit section of the exhibit hall and it has all those striations which makes a camera go wild in low light conditions. I didn't lug a low light camera today. And that is all really I have to say about it.

Oh wait! I do have something else to say about it. Previously I didn't know who made this car. When I plugged it into Google to write about it - it came back from Local Motors which I actually recognized from CES. I don't know if it's the same company and I don't want to look it up right now because it's been a crazy day. But the Local Motors from CES made a street legal rally car. Here.







She ran calling wildflowers - close to final.



This years unprecedented wildflower season is absolutely telling us we are all going to die. And I'm not being dramatic. Moisture content in the soil is ZERO. This morning when I left I thought I had until the weekend to squeeze all the joy out of this. By the time I got home I assessed I better make time in my day tomorrow to get the rest of it because in a half day - the tops of the hills have already gone brown. I'm hoping some fog will roll in tonight and give them just a little more time.

I thought I would get to stage three, which is California poppies, but I read this morning that the heat wiped out the bloom in Southern California. By the way things look I don't think we are going to make it to stage three. At this point I don't think we are going to make it. And this is the most dramatic I've gotten about the drought the whole time. I'm seriously freaked at this point. No one knows if it will rain until some time in .......November? I think we are going to have to nuke that heat bubble from space.









I wonder what will happen when the Fed figures out that raising interest rates will make the dollar stronger. Wait. I wonder what happens to oil when the Fed figures out raising rates will make the dollar stronger?

What am I saying? This is all theater.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Why do I keep insisting on putting things "somewhere I can find them"?

100% of the time I can't find it, and it makes me super cranky because "putting this *thing* somewhere I could find it" was the whole point and I apparently suck at that. I know I suck at it. But I keep doing it!

Sunday, March 15, 2015

She ran calling wildflowers. Stage 2.



Most of the yellow flowers have faded, only to be replaced by a carpet of pink. This is what we initially went out to photograph today. Iffy photos's at the end. But, two things happened.

We've been in overcast skies for a few days now. It won't rain on us, but will throw up tons of clouds. So, the pink flowers had to wait because the lighting was crap. Which was good because we got distracted on these purple wildflowers.

From the freeway we couldn't tell what they were. They just looked like a giant black hole. But when we got up to this development we were delighted to find small patches of these wildflowers. I'm in a foot race with a drought right now - so I just have to warn you I'm going to wring the most amount of joy out of this I can. Before long the hills will turn the familiar brown that I've grown to not love. Maybe I'll post these wildflowers every single day until I'm done or they are done! I don't know. But for right now it makes me happy because I'm not sure how we are going to make it through this year. I'm pretty sure all this crazy wildflower action is a warning us we are all going to die. And I'm not even joking. By the end of last year - it was pretty rough.

I don't know how many pictures you'll get because I don't know how long this will last. It's never happened before.

Click here, here, here or here to see the yellow stage.