Growing up poor was the best thing that ever happened to me.

When I look out at the landscape this world has become - all I can see is a generation robbed of their wealth. It really is a deeply painful thing for me to watch. Each and every day fills me with a level of sadness I can't even describe. I've seen so many people lose their houses. But that isn't the part that makes me so unhappy. Some times things happen in life. These are the choices people made. The part that gets me, is that so many people were so easily conned out of them. Like lemmings jumping off a mountain.

Almost everyone I know either lost their house or gave their house back to the bank because every idiot on the face of the planet convinced them that houses would never be worth anything. I would actually have conversations with myself trying to figure out if my whole entire life was an anomaly, or this period of time was the anomaly.

Week after week I saw pundits and commentators force doubt into the minds of normally reasonable people. Some of these talking heads obviously had never owned anything in their entire lives. Yet they were screaming at the top of their lungs that real estate was a suckers game. I believe this is why more people defaulted than normally would have been expected for the depth of the financial crisis. Even I woke up every day to wonder if I was insane for not joining them. Many times I thought I would. Every single day it felt like I was running into a burning building when everyone else was running out. It really fucks with your head honestly. But I fought to save my houses because I grew up poor.

Growing up - all I wanted was a house. I was also very aware how easily it was to lose them. To me - houses meant freedom. Growing up poor you move a lot. And I didn't understand it at them time, but I've grown to understand the rent trap. Landlords raise your rent all the time making it almost impossible to save for a house. Owning a house to me basically meant I didn't have to move every year. It meant I could own a dog if I wanted. Or a fucking fleet of dogs. I could knock down a wall, or a fleet of walls@!

For as long as I can remember I needed to find out how people could afford a house, so I could afford one. Growing up poor, you don't have family who can give you a great start in life. You are constantly searching for the key to unlock that door of home ownership so you can rest.

Some people might think the obvious answer was to marry into wealth. And I probably could have. But Mr S. and I were about as poor as you could get when we married and I liked it that way. To this day we still play who was poorer when we grew up.

Last week I was talking to my oldest friend in the world from childhood. She was the only person in my circle pre-recession to still have a house. And she was getting ready to give it back. It really put me in a funk that I'm still in today. I'd ask Mr S. - how could she so easily give her house back like that!? The whole entire time I've been alive - the only way most normal people got ahead in life was by owning property! Sure, you could work three jobs - but how people really got ahead in life was from owning something you could sell to someone else. Usually that was property. And this whole generation was just willing to give it all up at the drop of a hat. It's breathtaking. Some of these people will never own a house again. Not because they don't want to. I believe there is an evolutionary drive to own a house. In nature - it doesn't matter how many times your nest is destroyed. You build another one. There is an endless need to own your own home. Despite all of the phony rationalisation bullshit people say.

The only thing that kept me sane was knowing how much my grandfather paid for a house in his day. It's all I do now when I run into someone who has owned their house for 20 years. I ask them how much they paid. Oh yes I do. It's the only thing that brings me comfort because I believe President Money Bags plan is to turn this country into a dependant country. And there is no easier way to do that then tell them they are wasting their money providing a safe stable environment. He's a proud renter you know! Which only reinforced my belief that I am right and he is wrong.

Crony capitalism at its finest.

The fleet has really expanded since I was here last week. I'd say close to 100%. Now they are parked about 90% of the way to the mall entrance. This is on top of the two story parking deck that I've mentioned previously. 

I have a bank on this block, so when attending to business, I do a little driveby.

This is what I predict for Tesla. Elon will "step down" handing this off to some other CEO.  He will say that he wants to concentrate on other things like Starlink, and SpaceX. When it fails, he will blame that CEO. 

Tesla is a fully mature sector, so, offloading this inventory will be hard this time. This lot is not even in Silicon Valley proper! 

I've been watching ghost lots for a loooong time. They are now bigger than when they first started years ago. It is not only Tesla. I even know of a city bus ghost lot. They all are getting larger than I've ever seen them.

Starlink helps him burro into governments, helping offset losing his carbon credits when he leaves Tesla.

SF Flower and Garden.

Things have been crazy hectic around Chez Snarkolepsy this week. But I'm also aware I need to feed the beast that is my blog. I have to keep reminding myself that this is winter and I wouldn't be getting much interesting anyway. The constant shining sun makes it feel like summer, and normally I would be getting cars and other interesting stuff in summer.

The SF Flower and Garden show usually has some interesting sculptures for the blog. I went this year because they were advertising "low water" alternatives. I was slightly excited to see what they'd come up with. Which turned out to be the least inventive alternatives ever. Cactus. It does achieve the goal, however - most of us like to touch things and not be poked constantly. I ripped out a fleet of rosebushes just because getting attacked by them outweighed their beauty. And bunnies LOVE roses! I think when I bought my place it had something like 25 of them.

Anyway....

I walked away from the show with an immense feeling of lost opportunity. I'm the opposite of an environmentalist. I love the smell of old timey gas. I once fantasized about making a car that got negative gas mileage just to piss off the environmentalists. I will cut down a tree so fast it will make your head spin.

Having said that - I could not believe how many water features that were there. Not that I don't think you should be able to have whatever the eff you want in your yard. It just seems to me when you are in the epic drought we are - I'd be selling the hell out of the Xeriscaping. Which are basically plants for a more Mediterranean climate. Like prairie wildflowers. I've never actually heard anyone use the word Xeriscape in California. Which surprises me.

I can't remember how many years ago I ran across this. There are always parts of a house that it's almost impossible to get water to. And I still want stuff to be pretty. I've been buying plants from High Country Gardens longer than I can remember. And I was hoping there would be more of those types of companies at the show. I did find one out of Watsonville, but their website sucked so hard I couldn't believe it.

Apparently Colorado owns the trademark on the Xeriscape name, and that is where I get most of the plants for hard to water areas. Low water doesn't have to be ugly cactus. Most of the stuff they sell for Xeriscape attract butterflies and humming birds. They look delicate and pretty. And who doesn't love that?

I'm gonna need a fleet of these!

People should listen to themselves.

Chinese Lockdowns Expand, Raising More Questions About Beijing's Motives For Shutting Down.

"The three scenarios I floated for the potential reason China was “overshooting the mark” with its draconian lockdowns were:

1. The CCP may be trying to usurp more power

2. There may be something about Covid that China knows that the rest of the world still doesn’t know

3. China is looking for an excuse to slow its production to put pressure on the Western world at a time when it is trying to separate further, economically, from the West"

The writer of the article of course chooses #3 as the reason for the shutdowns. I'm choosing number 2.

Let's say this author is right. It is number three. China doesn't have to shut down entire cities to achieve this goal. The financial toll China is taking is not logical. With all these cities shut down, China isn't making money. Now, why would China injure themselves that way to prove to the West that we need them? China already hold ALL of the cards. 

Additionally - people are not just being locked down. They are being bussed to isolation cities and forced out on the daily for tests. One day an entire fleet of busses will show up and take a whole building away! ALL OF THIS COSTS MONEY! The entire cities being built to isolate people.

I genuinely watch this every night and think - China is going to collapse. When the Ukraine thing happened and everyone was was like - China and Russia are going to team up. I just laughed because China is no position to team up on ANYTHING.

If you don't believe me..... just take a stroll through China's Real Estate situation. Our media isn't covering it, but property developers are defaulting left and right.

But.... it is funny what the brain will try to erase when it doesn't want to deal with reality. China knows something about that virus because it was made in their lab!

Round and round it goes. When it stops nobody knows.

I haven't been out to Vallejo in a couple of years. But this area of Benecia always catches my eye because it used to house the Mothball Fleet. The used to have maybe 50 ships there, but they have all finally (but a couple) have been removed which I guess is good. Some people would try to sneak on the ships and take pictures at night. Which I always thought was pretty cool.

Back when I first started my career I dated a small plane pilot and he flew me over the top of the ships and I still have the pictures of when the ships were all there. It was kinda neat in a way. A ghost ship memorial. But they were leaching stuff into the Bay so they had to go.

Anyway...this area ~is~ right next to rail tracks, but they are storing a ton of cars there. Back during the recession I used to make it up this way pretty often, and even back then I never saw this kind of car build up in this spot. But they have been storing them there for so long they are showing up on satellite. So take this for what you will. But the peculiar thing was they were starting to park them up in the oil tank storage area as you can see on this google sat map. You have to pan to the left to see the tanks. Sat doesn't pick up the cars being stored up that high.

I was going to try and do some follow up shots on the way home but decided to go to San Jose instead. I swear I could do a whole day just doing a rescan of my ghost lots. But this is starting to get super 2007 crazy. My local Toyota dealership is double parking cars now. Just a week ago they were emailing me trying to get rid of 2017 models! It's JUNE 2018.

This whole carpocolypse is way far from over. I think a bunch of people are going to go bankrupt. Which is fine by Silicon Valley because they don't think there is going to be car dealers in the future. All these new car start ups are doing direct to buyers. So there's that.

But just look at any car lot these days. They have a massive amount of cars on them.

It's going to be super painful.

Update -  Now that I've had a few hours to digest this whole thing,  I'm speculating that all these carriers are there to move his fleet when a new building comes up for rent. It is really strange that he is storing cars at all on tech campuses. But he must be getting a cut market rate, and when the landlord wants to raise the rent or the building gets leased - all of a sudden the word goes out to pack this crap up and move it.

Tipsters welcome. You know who you are. I am generically naming my video's for the moment.



That ~was~ securitay coming to shut me down. That's why the video abruptly stops.