Meanwhile ... over at Oracle Lake.

Oracle hosted parking for this years Maker Faire and I'd never been on their campus. It was pretty fun to see the giant sailboat. It as tall as a 10 story building! I'm not a sailing fan, and it wouldn't have been the same seeing it in the Bay with all the crowds. I didn't even know he still had it parked in his Lake. But where else is he going to park it?

I also found out that mowing and raking that lake is a job. A sucky job - but and job.

I knew you'd love this.

Tiniest house Eva! I'd like to see this guy lane split with that. Seen at Maker faire.

Hello darkness.

Maker Faire 2018. Part 1.

It's a Sharknado merry go round.





There was a hat theme this year.





If there is anything you should know about me - it's that I absolutely hate puppets. I just don't get them.







Portable backpack 3D printer. See the spool of plastic on the bottom?



]]
Giant skateboard.

Post it Art.

I was at a car conference today and I'm trying to figure out how to focus my rage into something interesting to read. But - I will give you this post it art that was on the Google building I was next to.

When will this car bubble burst already!

On the way home I drove by the Tesla plant. That overflow lot is as full as I've ever seen it. I'm starting to feel like them evacuating that lot and tearing down the fence was some voodoo crap. Because the fence is back up and that lot is FULL. I know they are in shutdown right now.

My route also takes me by another ghost lot. I forget what's in there. but it caught my eye today because it had two car carriers with Nissan Leafs they were unloading. That lot is now crammed to the gills. Leafs are tiny, so you can pack more in there. And remember I found that other lot of Leafs by the San Mateo bridge that I haven't gone back to reinvestigate.

The traffic was out of control so I didn't want to stop and take pictures. Maybe tomorrow or the weekend. I really just don't understand how long this can go on. Especially with interest rates this high.

Harambe 2016

A little late but just discovered today.

How many engineers does it take to connect a light bulb?

Take two.

A few days ago my vet called me with what I thought would be lab results for Lacy's E. cuniculi titer test. Instead she told me that the lab had changed how they ran the tests and now they were only sort of giving a pass/fail test. So, I couldn't really tell what her level of infection is. They only sort of give you a range. Not an actual number.

When my vet pushed back the lab said - well, what does she care what the number is - the bunny is positive. I think my vet managed to say something like - thanks professor obvious. We already knew that. And remember.... this is a 200 dollar test.

From the labs point of view I should stop testing because she was positive and will always be positive and I'm probably wasting my money because she is a throwaway pet. Which I could be. If she had "the diabetes" they wouldn't ask - well, what do you care what the number is? And clearly she doesn't understand the luxury of time when a rabbit is sick. You literally have one week to figure this crap out before the rabbit either lives or dies. And I would lean heavily on the latter. When a rabbit finally starts showing illness - it's almost always a fight to the death. That plane is in a tailspin and you have to get that rabbit out of it. Your success rate is gonna be less than 50%.

I mean, when she comes down sick (and one day she will) - she will be treated in a completely different way now because I already know she is positive. When a rabbit is in distress and you are force feeding them medication three times a day it can really be quite overwhelming for them. You are trying to get them to eat and take all the meds. Sometimes you are force feeding them.

So to have one less medication that you might need to give when that time comes is really valuable - I think. Keeping her non symptomatic positive is the goal. Most people only find out about this when the bunnies are symptomatic and by then there is a 50% chance you are too late.

The first thing Mr S. said to me this morning was that the monsters were back. I knew they were lulling me into a false sense of security. What kind of freaky animal is active in the morning? At any rate.... as soon as I get some bunny suits I guess I'm going under. If you never hear from me again.......find the video. Tell the world.

I'm just joking. It's probably mice.

Why would we want to leave?

This is what traffic looks like at noon on a Saturday getting out of Fremont these days. There are no non peak times now.

I guess I have become latently viral.

I've always tried to figure out what the demo is for youtube comments. Mostly I think they are trolls looking for something to do. So, I never really pay attention to comments at all. Except for the video below because I just don't understand it. The video is six years old. Never got a comment until a year ago, and within the last two days I've gotten a dozen or more comments all of a sudden. They keep streaming in and I keep getting email messages about them.

Now I wonder if the people who comment are just lazy and low information people. Because who comments on a video that is 6 years old? I don't have the heart to tell them they are expending all this energy for no reason.

All I know is that the internets would be infinitely better if people just quit spreading OLD information.

It's my nihilist Audi. (updated)

I thought this story would go differently. As soon as Mr S. got me this plate for my birthday I started second guessing it because I don't love a lot of attention. I kinda thought I would talk more about the possible unwanted attention it might draw. But this car will always be my nihilist Audi because we bought it when 11 countries had fallen into negative interest rates. I was sure we were not far behind at the time. And I wanted a place to cram cash. I didn't want to have it in my checking account. it was a crazy period in time.

But... it turns out the bigger story is that California has decided that all day DMV visits should be brought back. Because it took me 6 hours to pick up these places, and there were people there for longer than I was. The awesome thing about the "NEW" DMV system is that instead of walking in and getting a number, they now give you a "random number" that includes your initials and the last four numbers of your telephone number.

So you literally have no fucking idea how long you are going to be there. You can't even go to your car for fear of missing your number being called. And you can't bail out because you don't know where in the line you are. It is literally bedlam at the DMV right now. Some of the guys were going to come to blows. That's how serious I am. I'd decided that they were going to have to drag me out by my feet. I couldn't go to another DMV because my plates were in the city ext to me.

So yeah..... that old timey days of the DMV are back baby.

Updated with image. Normally I don't blur faces but it was a crappy day all around. That girl doesn't need it have it immortalized on the internet forever. But when is the last time you've seen people laying around at the DMV? That is how long people had been there. At about three hours I thought it was shitty. Then I had to go to the bathroom and find a new place to park my ass. With a new group of people where I found out people had been there since 8:30 in the morning. I got there at 10-ish. And I was already three hours into this thing!

Musical cars.

The weekend before last, when we drove by this site - pretty much all the cars were gone and they had torn down the fence. So you could imagine my surprise when this weekend the fence was back up and all of a sudden had a shitload of cars were there again. It looks almost as full as before. When I have more time I will get better pictures.

Fin.

We are finally done with the BBQ stand. It came out pretty close tot he CAD model. And yes... we have to CAD model everything around here. And it still took a lot of time to get through the deign process because Mr S. and I had different visions.

Next time I would do a few things differently, like use better wood and make the frame fit together so it hides a lot more stuff. But with this project I had to keep management happy. And by management I mean Mr S. He doesn't really manage me, but when he gets fussy that is what I call him.

You could even say...

Low low low low low.

If I'm being anal... ~and I am~.

I've been time splitting on a lot of stuff lately. And today we were back at the BBQ stand. The one piece of melamine I had stored in the garage was fairly beat up. Since this is suppose to be a throw away project I could have just sucked it up and put up with the  chips, but Mr S. knew they would always bother me.

So he cleverly found some seamfil that is basically white out or spackle for melamine/laminates. I'm not quite as impressed with it as I was with the iron on tape. But I guess it does look better. Expecially if you don't look too close. Next time I will cut the melamine differently.

The funny thing about seamfil is that a sheet of melamine costs something like 50 bucks. The seam fil costs 30. So you really have to have a particular bug up your butt to go to these lengths. Stuff catches my eye though.

Every since we heard what sounded like a cat under our house.... there have been no more sounds. Either the cat was the sound. The cat ate the sound. Or the cat just died. I mean, what kind of a retarded cat can't find it's way out of a place it got into?

I will have to go down there eventually but I didn't have to go down there last weekend.

Tank jeep.

I might have to go back and reshoot this one. It caught my attention because it looks like a tank.

What's with all these stupid cats?

Lacy is turning 2. So I took her in for her annual E. cuniculi titer test. Some people say that half the domestic population is infected. But no one tests except shelters. So, no one really knows the real number, but by the time they wind up there - half of them have it.

I took her in as a baby as soon as she was old enough to have blood drawn. And she was positive. Non symptomatic positive which is the best kind of positive you can be I guess.

I encourage anyone who knows someone with house rabbits to have them tested so when they get sick you can start treating right away. The test can take one or two weeks to get back and  you just don't have the luxury of that much time when they become ill. It is a really expensive test though. About 200 bucks. But hopefully that will save you some more expensive vet bills further down the line. People like to think as rabbits as cheap pets, and they are - until they get sick.

I can't tell if it's clickbait or not.

"A tiny San Francisco property is expected to draw a big price when it sells. It’s the cheapest house on the market right now, but buyers are looking beyond the tiny home’s outer walls. To really get an idea of how crazy the San Francisco real estate market is, don’t look at its ceiling, look at its floor. This house at 459 Ralston St. in the Merced Heights neighborhood is reportedly the cheapest single-family home for sale in the city.

Listed for $649,000, the two-bedroom cottage is less than 600-square-feet and every room needs a complete overhaul. Listing agent Robert Tao said, “We just did an open house this weekend for two days and so far we have about 100 parties walking through. So, it’s going to be very competitive.”

"San Francisco is unique in many ways -- it's small, bound by water on three sides and a wall of hills and a cemetery on its southern border with the Peninsula. There's no way it can expand and yet, as (formerly) one of the most desirable places to live in the United States, demand for housing sky-high. At the same time, however, its Leftist social policies are driving down the quality of life and raising tensions between the city's ideology and its tourist industry, which until the advent of the Silicon Valley baby moguls, is what kept it afloat. Something's got to give, and it won't be a pretty sight when it does." Source.

(Normally I don't snarf someone's full article. But I did this time. They can ask for it to be taken down if they want)

Mr S. sent me this link today and I'm sure he thought I would have a different reaction than the one I had.

The first thing is - I'm sick to death of people calling housing a bubble when there is not enough volume for anything to be a bubble. You all know what bubbles look like right? What is happening is a SHORTAGE plain and simple. Simple laws of supply and demand are in play. That is not to say people won't stop putting up with those prices. But this looks nothing like a bubble. It's a shortage!

Secondly... something quietly happened that no one noticed because it doesn't fit their narrative. The Mayor of San Fransisco died. The new guy they have in place could almost be considered a conservative by California standards. I mean - he's not. But he is actually trying to clean up the city in ways I haven't seen forever. Now these are still early days. Super early. But I think the jury is still out on San Fransisco for right now. I think it's reached peak crazy. But this guy actually doesn't seem to be a politician as much as a builder. I knew nothing about him before Ed Lee died, but so far he's doing some good stuff there.

All I know is that California is changing in little ways and people don't even notice it because they are too bus being petty. Now it's possible I will wind up being completely wrong and the status quo will stay. But at least people can even talk about being fed up with the homeless in ways that couldn't happen under Obama because they would just shame you. And that also fed down to the previous Mayor.

I don't know how Tesla earnings are going to go - but they tore down their overflow lot fence. So they have found a new place to hide them, or they got rid of a lot of cars. I'm doubting the second because car sales aren't that great right now.

Plus I found a ghost lot that is storing Nissan Leafs, but it's near the San Mateo bridge and I haven't quite figured out how to get there from the ground.

And you thought I was joking.

It was probably about three or four years ago I started making a whole bunch of posts about how real estate was about to get super expensive. You could see all the good land was gone and the only available land was near the railroad tracks. That land used to be a buffer, but no longer.

I even joked that they were practically putting up buildings in the clover leafs of freeways.

So last weekend when I saw this I knew I'd have to go back and get it. This plot can't be more than 90 feet deep and sits RIGHT on the freeway onramp in Hayward. I thought they were sticking condo's there, but it turns out it just an office building. But still!

I think this image exemplifies California right now.





I don't know how wide a caterpillar is - but this lot is about 5 caterpillars deep.