Construction crash imminent.

 

I was at the lumber store a few weeks ago and noticed the wood section was looking uncharacteristically rough for Home Depo. It was super thin and heavily picked over. Then it occurred to me that if there is no wood, people don't have jobs. It freaked me out enough that I walked the whole store trying to spot a pattern. I would have thought maybe this store hadn't been stocked recently and maybe this was no big deal..... if it weren't for all those stories I've been reading about shortages from literally all over the world.

The shortages have been talked about a lot over the past months, but when you start seeing large gaps at Home Depo, the end is pretty near. They have one of the deepest supply chains on the planet. 

Since then I've been trying to figure out the real reason we have a shortage of wood. There are a lot of theories, but so far most of them don't make that much sense to me. They range from when Trump put the 25% tariffs on wood from Canada it decimated their milling industry which seems plausible. Apparently this put a lot of mills out of business.  Which I'm not sure I have a lot of sympathy for because Canada put our mills out of business. Which is why we can't recover from this quickly. Those tariffs were designed to help bring back domestic production.

People go on to speculate that those tariffs caused a cosy relationship between China and Russia because wood is now a global commodity. I am not sure exactly how this makes a difference to us but.....

Others speculate about the bark beetles. 

But the craziest theory I heard yesterday is that Mendocino is holding back supply to make the price go up. I have included a handy chart of the lumber futures at the bottom of this post, and you tell me if you think that's plausible. Prices are literally at a 40 year high. Why woUld you not make money hand over fist now, for the ~chance~ at a higher price tomorrow. More likely the price will collapse and you get nothing.

Yet another theory is that we are in a building boom. Which also seems not quite the reason either. I have included housing starts at the very bottom and we have just returned to the midline.

All I know is that while our country is seizing up, Biden is out fighting social justice. Career politicians don't understand supply chains, and I'm looking forward to this next chapter. People deserve what they voted for.

 

Even if there was wood, half the hammers are sold out.

 

This has gotten worse since last week not better.

 

Paint supply looks thin, but it's probably a Texas problem because of the chemical plants shutting down last month. But all over the store, the top shelves are starting to look SUPER thin. Normally Home Depo is packed to the rafters. And they are pulling product to the front of shelves to make them look fuller. I mean, it not quite Fry's electronics yet... but if they start moving shelves to make the store look less empty - things gonna get crazy.

And this ALL was from before Shippy Mcstuckface caused a traffic jam.

 

Hope you don't want a chainsaw.

 

Or a leaf blower.

 

This is the point Trump unleashed the firehose of money.

 

Historical lumber futures chart. Source.

Housing starts. Source. You have to hit the max button.

I'm pretty amazing in a crisis..... but afterwards I sort of fall apart. I was out all last year experiencing everyones fears and now I'm just sort of all used up.

No one was there in the housing crisis because none of us had ever seen that before, but I wanted to try and be a form of stability for people this time around.

I just need some time. Especially because IMO this isn't over by a long shot. This blog takes a lot of energy (as meager as it is), and I just don't have it right now.

Turns out my buddy who sold his house for 100k over asking is a chump because two towns over, houses are selling for 300k over asking.

I read an article claiming that some were selling for as high as 400k over, but I didn't find an example of that. But I did find a couple of them in the 300 over range.

I guess with a money printer everything is now possible.

You can definitely expect a bitchy post about this.

I have been mostly staying out of the reopening conversations because I have always advocated different places doing different things. (I can dredge old posts if needed)  If we all do the same thing, it takes longer to get through the mistake phase. I may not agree with certain things, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried. Everyone has enough information to make their own choices now. And honestly the fastest way to get through this is to nut up and let people go. They will figure it out.

Having said that - I just learned last night you can still get arrested in Texas for not wearing a mask. Which was quite a shock. For months every person ~not living~ in California was crowing about how WE had the strictest rules. Despite a simple google search would have shown we have been open many times. In the Fall we even had indoor dining.  But everyone wants to make a political point and made it seem like we have all been cowering in our houses the whole year. It's super frustrating because TWO days ago Fox News was still repeating this lie of us being locked down hard the whole time. It would literally take two seconds to see that is not true.

For MONTHS every news story has been about how California has the same numbers as this State or that STATE despite "the most severe restrictions." When in reality life is more nuanced. Right? We have all the mandates, but no one gets arrested! Look. Let's do a google search with exactly the same criteria. Here it is for Texas. And here it is for California.

The only way to get arrested in California for Covid is having a huge underground party. We have been ticket only pretty much the whole time. And I've never heard of ANYONE getting a ticket. But I have heard of hair dressers getting arrested. IN TEXAS!

So.... I would say that California has NOT had the strictest rules obviously.

Think you are haunted by customer service surveys?

A couple of weeks ago my husband created Five Star Husband Service. Now every time I ask for something he says - Can I count on you for a 5 star rating?

Oh FFS - yes.

Is "Temporary Inflation" A Real Thing?.

When it's printed out of thin air.  I mean, really - why do any of us need to work anymore?

Whenever I see a story like this I immediately think - oh..... you haven't bought anything lately. Because you can't believe the mundane shit you have to wait for these days. If you don't walk out of the store with it in your grubby little  hands,  you are gonna get "the talk". 

You can see it in their faces immediately. And they must be getting "the shit beat out of them". I've been making their lives easier by saying I know it's going to take forever. I've been going out of my way to be patient because I know everyone is just trying to get by the best they can. But even I am like - what the ehll., And I wouldn't even consider myself a patient person. But it doesn't help anyone to get a stick up your butt.

Either the vaccines work and we open wide up and relatively quickly we hit an air pocket., or the variants win and ....... I don't know.

 

It was only a matter of time.

This is going to be CES if they ever have an in person conf. CES always overdoes things. It was wall to wall Guitar Hero ~many~ years after it wasn't popular anymore. So I'm not even being sarcastic when I say - the next five years will be nothing but "mask technology".

I would even go as far to say that these masks will have bluetooth technology somehow.  I can't even think about all the sorts of buzzy shit they are going to put in them.  But I'm sure it's going to mostly make me mad. Unless they fill them with Darth Vader rebreathers.

Now that I think about it... if it is wall to wall mask technology, maybe it's the safest place to be,

Maybe I have achieved singularity.

I say this tongue in cheek because I think most of the hysteria about this is overblown. And yes - I have seen people with antennas implanted in their heads. Don't @ me.

I've been playing in VR for a couple of days now and my opinions have shifted ~slightly~.  The screen door affect is greatly improved with the higher resolution headsets. I really don't notice it anymore.

However...... motion sickness is still a thing. It been an interesting test study in the Snarkolepsy household this weekend. Mr S. is prone to motion sickness. I am not. I can count on one hand how many times I've thrown up in my whole life. I generally have a stomach of steel.

I have been in the headsets more recently and more often than he has in the past few years and have experienced motion sickness from time to time. I can't really figure out what triggers it. Sometimes I'm fine, others not. So far though, he hasn't experienced any motion sickness.

Since I'd only spent five minutes at a time in VR previously, I thought that it was just my physiology, but going through youtube, it obviously is not. Almost everyone talks about motion sickness to some degree.

We started out downloading DOOM VFR. Don't do that. It's s super crappy title in VR by all accounts. It doesn't translate well. But also - it gave me significant motion sickness which surprised me. It was bad enough I wondered if I was coming down sick. It wasn't until I went to the bathroom and noticed the floor was spinning like when you drink too much that I calmed down a bit. Once my brain saw the straight lines I started to feel better. But it gets a little .....weirder.

The way you move around in VR isn't always intuitive. So you are going to have watch some youtube videos. But when we did that, the television displaying VR was also giving me motion sickness. Which is fascinating because I have NEVER gotten motion sickness from TV.  We think it's because of muscle memory because I'd already been in the headset.

After we realized that DOOM is just a crappy title we downloaded Half Life:ALYX, and that was ~much~ better. But I'm still getting motion sickness to some degree just even watching youtube videos on TV. Now I think my brain is slightly broken.  I feel a little floaty like I'm still in the headset. Maybe I can't tell where the game ends and real life begins. Said in the most sarcastic way.

As it turns out - it's good I'm having problems because Mr S. is developing in this platform and obviously motion sickness is a very big deal. But wow. I can certainly see why it's adoption rate is what it is.

I liked the skull holograms in the window.

Soon, all of this will be gone like tears in rain.

I don't know how long these are going to last. I think it's going to be a short season. So I'm getting whatever I can. 

Close enough.

Because I'm an adult.

Explain to me how this works again?

 

The government prints a shit ton of money that clearly found it's way into housing. Then everyone screams that interest rates have to rise. 

I don't know if it's true or not, but someone I read says that 40% of all the money printed was done last year. It could be wrong.

Clearly anyone thinking this isn't a bubble is delusional. We are almost up to housing crisis highs. 

I guess there is one bright spot. Trump was finally able to achieve inflation unlike many of the others. I voted for Trump twice, but I'm super frustrated with his last year. No one can believe this continues. Right? During the housing crisis we said things that couldn't go on forever - won't. And they eventually didn't.

 

Temporary toy.

 

It's been a couple of years since I've been in a VR headset. Even before the pandemic I had become extremely germaphobic about trying them out. And I didn't see the need to buy one -still-.

But... Mr S. is working on a project. So, I guess I get to try out one of the highest resolution headsets on the market. 

A few days ago Mr S. said - what if we like it? I've been shitting on VR for so long. Which is funny because we met at an early VR company. It's not his first project. 

Lockdowns eventually will be one of the greatest benefits to humanity. Just not in the way you think.

Working from home is not exactly a new or novel concept in The Valley. It's been a thing my whole working career. Back in the day - your company would have a T1 installed in your house depending on how important you were. Generally managers or engineers. 

Working from home had actually become pretty ingrained.... I want to say about five years ago. Maybe a little longer. I thought it was really going to stick hard then. But IBM wanted to fire some of it's older workers and started taking away their work from home privileges. You know, in an effort to get people to quit on their own.

Then you could see the wave in The Valley. Everybody started bringing their people back in. And work from home waned a bit. So when the lockdowns happened I figured we would snap back to normal pretty quickly. Because you can't underestimate managements need to feel important.

A year into this, I'm starting to believe that a substantial change is underfoot. Companies that were resistant to the work from home situation are changing because they have had a full year to see if it works or not on a large scale. Not just select important people.

But this is not technically the reason humanity will benefit. The real benefit for EVERYONE is the reduction in traffic. Before the lockdowns people were spending two hours ~each way~ in traffic. Or MORE. Life in traffic had started to be a surreal situation. It really changed you. Working a full days then having to grind it out in traffic for a couple more hours. Imagine how much better your life is if you don't have to spend all that time just sitting in a car. And this benefits everyone from the white collar engineer to the restaurant worker who lives several cities over. In a way, you get a few hours of your life back every day. And this should not be underestimated.

And none of this would have happened without a forced lockdown sadly. Companies are going to trust some people and not others for working at home. But this made it so they had to take a chance on everyone. This is why I support the ~ability~ to lockdown, but not the lockdowns. I've sort of been going along with the rest because I've seen this cycle before.

Separately, I look at the world through the lens of - the population has doubled in my lifetime, and probably will double again by the time I die. Where are we going to stick all these people? My grandfather used to tell me that the whole Valley was cherry fields. That changed in one generation.

The same transformation that has happened with malls will now happen to corporate buildings. And we need it because we aren't making more land.

No shame in this game.

 

I only noticed this car because I know a guy that was doing this with his wheels. One side had one set, and the other side, a different set. I was never completely sure if it was for cops or not.

Do you think he gets half price on the wrap? 

If a lie gets repeated often enough.

"On Tuesday, we noted how California and Florida have strikingly similar COVID numbers despite polar opposite approaches to dealing with the virus; Florida has remained a largely open state without mask mandates or lockdowns, while California has imposed strict lockdowns that have devastated small businesses and contributed to a national mental health crisis." Source.

I'm sick to death of people trying to score political points. Like this article from ZeroHedge and others really. It's LAZY journalism and just completely false honestly.

Anyone can go to google and see that California was OPENED August 2020. Let me help you. Just type in "California business open 2020". Even Disneyland! And stayed open until the beginning of December., 

Every time someone says we have been on "strict" lockdowns is just lying. We have NOT been on strict lockdowns since last April. Our cases accelerated BECAUSE we were not locked down, and I just hate the way people argue about this shit.

They can't all be glamour shots.

When everybody gets tired of dragging Texas they can circle back to California. That should keep you busy all summer long because we are going into another drought.

We barely just turned green, and we are already drying out,. And I don't know what crop damage Texas had, but California isn't growing anything this year.

Masi's never make it to the blog anymore because they are too common and boring. Yes... I just said that. Snootie much? 

But the tail pipe cluster caught my eye. I don't remember that particular configuration.

Sad for Texas.

Man,  Texas is a mess. And I'm not gloating. No one deserves that. We only give Texas shit because they are the first to give everyone else shit. But I have never seen a disaster where so many pipes burst.

They are already saying this might be their most expensive disaster. And knowing how long it takes to get things right now - that all really sucks. Texas just spun the wheel of inflation.