Riding the Paria

Saturday morning Leslie and I got up early and went 4-wheeling with our buddies, Robert and Palma. Originally we talked about going out to a place called “White Pockets,” which is supposed to be very pretty, but at the last minute Robert suggested we go back to the Paria River (which we’d done last summer) because some environmentalists are proposing to close it off to vehicle traffic, so we opted to go to the Paria, potentially one last time. As we were passing Kanab, Robert asked if we wanted to stop in at the rally. ??? Then he explained that all the 4-wheelers in southern Utah were going to ride the Paria that particular day to protest the potential closing of the area. We opted to not stop and listen to the speeches, but rather to hurry to the river and get ahead of the big group – we didn’t want to eat their dust all day. As we unloaded our 4-wheelers at the old Paria movie set site, a ranger came by and told us that the river had technically been closed for over 20 years but that the closure just hadn’t been enforced, that there were hordes of environmentalists looking for a fight already in place, media ready to document any clashes, and that there were other law enforcement officers up the river who might want to talk to us if we proceeded. We decided to go anyway. So we buzzed up the canyon a ways and came across a group of park rangers who chatted with us for a while, tried to talk us out of proceeding by telling us that we were seriously outnumbered, and then let us go on our way. Then, a bit further up, we came across another group of park rangers, dressed in full riot gear, who took photos of us and our vehicles, but let us proceed. Shortly after that we passed a meager dozen or so environmentalists sitting in lawn chairs off to the side of the trail and holding signs telling us to “Obey the law;” they also took our photos and we waved as we went by. The rest of the way up the canyon was very pleasant and relatively isolated. On the canyon walls we saw Indian petroglyphs and pioneer writing; the pioneer writing (seen in the attached photo) is dated 1888 and was put there by the Hancock family as they used this route to migrate from Payson to Arizona. As it was the last time we rode the canyon, it was beautiful with red, pink, and purple colors, the water was refreshing, and the ride was a ton of fun. It was a 30-mile ride through the river up to Cannonville (named after George Q. I’m sure) where we ate our picnic lunch and gassed up our 4-wheelers. On the way back down we passed dozens, if not hundreds of other 4-wheelers, who were still going upstream. When we got back to the south end of the canyon, the protestors and law enforcement had all left. We came home, tired and sore and glad we’d made the ride, especially if it’s our last opportunity.

You can read the media’s view of events, including some photos, at the following websites: http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=6442676 and http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12334760.

Note: the main voice in the on-line slide show at sltrib.com is of Mike Noel, who was our bishop when we lived in Kanab, and is currently in the Utah state legislature.

I also signed an on-line petition to request that this route be kept open to the public; they sent me the following letter to share with you all:

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"CITIZEN’S PETITION OPPOSING A FEDERAL TAKING OF OUR PUBLIC HIGHWAYS IN KANE COUNTY"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/paria/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Colin

What am I doing?

What am I DOING besides complaining?

Very good question, and thought provoking too. Let's see:

1. Read as much information as possible, including re-reading the U.S. Constitution
2. Share information with family, friends, and colleagues
3. Write letters to Senators and Congressman
4. Participate in neighborhood caucuses - I was elected as a State Delegate
5. Participated in countywide Tea Party
6. Serve on advisory committee to County Commission
7. Regularly testify before Public Service Commission
8. Regularly meet with local representatives of our Washington delegation
9. Donate money and time to state-wide and national lobbying organization
10. Vote in every election

Short of armed insurrection, I don't know what else to do.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

As I was driving in to work this morning, the president was speaking at the National Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting and it was being carried live on the radio. My commute is thankfully short so I only heard a portion of his speech, but what I heard was very troubling. Among other things he said:

"Today, of course, we face more complex challenges than we have ever faced before: a medical system that holds the promise of unlocking new cures and treatments -- attached to a health care system that holds the potential for bankruptcy to families and businesses; a system of energy that powers our economy, but simultaneously endangers our planet;" (You can read all of his speech at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-the-National-Academy-of-Sciences-Annual-Meeting/)

What this, along with his other speeches and the bills currently in congress, tells me is that this president has set his sights on not only nationalizing (and thereby ruining) our health care system, but also our whole energy industry. I personally only work in the electricity industry, but I’m sure that engineers in the oil and gas industries heard the same thing I did. I’ve got to say that, after more than a decade of working in the power industry overseas and in many countries with nationalized power companies (see the attached photo of the government power system in the DR), if the government takes over the energy industry we’ll learn what it’s like to do without – the same as they do in those distant third-world countries. No government on Earth has ever yet run a successful healthcare system, energy system, or any industry for that matter (check out the former Soviet Union.) I have to wonder, how far are we going to let this go? Beyond the point of no return?

aRe We rEady?

I bought this kit a while back, but finally got around to assembling the parts – see the attached photo - and there were a lot of little parts. This will make a nice addition to my small collection (less than 10) of personal firearms. So, “aRe We rEady”? (RWE)

What does "RWE" mean, I've been asked? Let me ask you:

Are you opposed to illegal immigration? Do you oppose abortion of live babies? Are you a veteran of the U.S. Military? Do you support the 2nd amendment? Are you stocking up on guns and ammo? Do you stockpile food? Do you believe in a strict and literal interpretation of the constitution? Do you believe that the American Constitution was inspired by God? Are you a Christian? Are you clinging to your religion? Do you feel like our government is spending too much and will consequently have to tax us to death? Did you attend a Tea Party on Tax Day?

If so, then you too may be an "RWE" or “Right Wing Extremist” according to our Department of Homeland Security, as detailed in a memo released on April 15th to all of the law enforcement agencies in the country. And whereas Arizona’s former governor Napolitano has ruled out the use of the word “terrorist” when referring to people who are suicide bombers or attack innocent civilians, she was quick to apply it to nearly every Conservative/Republican (except the turncoats John McCain, Jon Huntsman, and Colin Powell) in the United States.

Didn’t you get the memo? If you want to read it, you can see it for yourself at: http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

Chile Santiago South Mission reunion

On Friday I took the day off from work to go up to my mission reunion. A group of former missionaries from my mission live in Idaho near our old Mission President and they decided to get us all together for one last reunion, thinking our old president won’t be around for too many more years. So Friday morning I took the day off and drove up to Layton, north of Salt Lake City. It was nice and warm in St. George when I gassed up, but it was raining just north of town, and starting at Cedar City it was snowing. It snowed all the way to Provo, which cost me an extra hour of travel, so I got to the reunion an hour later than planned.

It was kind of funny: I pulled into the parking lot and saw some old folks walking into the Stake Center and assumed that either I was in the wrong place or they were holding a funeral in the same building. Actually it was neither – those fat old bald folks were just my former mission companions. Oops. But it was a ton of fun getting together and chatting the day away, reminiscing about funny old stories and catching up on what everyone has done since coming home. I won’t bore you with the whole story – I’ve written three pages on the subject in my own journal. The attached photo is of me and my last companion, along with members of our zone at the end of our mission.

That night after the reunion (we left at 11:30PM) I took up one of my former companions on his offer to stay the night with him at his summer home in Park City. I’m glad I took the 4-Runner because it was snowing like crazy in Park City and my old companion’s house is built on the side of a mountain, mixed in with the ski runs, so I needed my 4WD. We stayed up chatting until 2AM, so we slept in a bit on Saturday. I stayed long enough to see the morning session of General Conference, had breakfast, and then headed south. In the afternoon session of General Conference, when they named the new General Authorities, they called one of the former missionaries from my old mission, who just got home after serving as president of our old mission, to be an Area Authority Seventy. That’s pretty wild, I’ve got to say. He must be MUCH older than me (although the Church website lists him as only 48.)

And speaking of General Conference, the talks were all very good, as usual. I’m always impressed by how positive and upbeat our leaders are, no matter how dark and dreary the world is being this year. I especially enjoyed Elder Allan F. Packer’s talk on hearing and following the Spirit. In the Priesthood session Elder Uchtdorf gave a wonderful talk – I think he may be developing into my new favorite speaker – his Sunday morning talk was very good also.

My turn on the soapbox

OK my friend, YOU were the one up on the soap box; now it's my turn:

I agree that Obama inherited a HUGE mess, one that dates back many decades. I'm just an engineer and not a historian or economist, but I can see its roots in the New Deal, which started the shift from "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" to entitlements that we couldn't afford. Then we had Nixon taking us off the gold standard and we started borrowing money instead of living within our means. From there we went to Jimmy Carter and his "fair housing" and "energy independence" for which we're just receiving the bill. We can fast forward through Reagan's deficit spending and Clinton's gutting of the military and semi-"privatization" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Then we had Bush Jr. running two simultaneous wars on credit cards and leaving office "giving us the bird" with a trillion dollar TARP.

So yes, Obama inherited a HUMONGOUS mess, and one that he is apparently intent on worsening. He spent more money in his first quarter in office than his predecessor managed to burn through in two terms. Now he wants to socialize our banking system, industry, and energy sectors?! Oh sure, because that's worked so well in the other communist countries who have already tried that formula. Our dollar is so battered that we bought our own bonds this week (if you or I did that we'd be arrested for check kiting) and China has just called for getting off the dollar for international trade (and can you blame them?). So now that we've had our credit cards cut up because we've been so irresponsible for the past three decades, we're printing money with no backing. That can only mean we're in for hyper-inflation and total financial collapse, probably before the end of this calendar year. And all I see Obama doing is throwing gasoline on this fire stoked by his predecessors (there being NO substantive difference between presidents and congresses of either party in my lifetime.) So, I'm in the process of divesting my stocks and bonds and hoarding food, garden seeds, fuel, firearms, and ammunition; and I recommend you do the same my friend.

OK - I'll get off my soap box now and desperately hope you can tell me why I'm wrong and why Obama is going to fix a problem that has only mushroomed after being planted and fertilized for at least 80 years. I would really prefer to going back to "life as usual" and I'd like you tell me that's going to happen and how.

Wind Turbines Cause Bats to Explode

Wind projects have been encountering a pesky problem – exploding bats. (Not kidding). The environmental sciences have come up with an ingenious solution – shut down the wind turbines! (Really, I’m not kidding). So now that we’ve solved that problem (saving bats by shutting down wind turbines) we’re all set to mandate more wind energy. (Huh?) Here’s the article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/23/wind-turbine-advocates-test-a-solution-to-explodin/

Personally, I'd prefer the bats over the windmills - at least bats are useful in that they eat bugs. But what the story really exposes is the disconnect between legitimate environmentalists (those trying to save the bats) and the illegitimate environmentalists (those trying to peddle windmills.)

Wind power, like solar power, in the power industry, is considered a joke; it only generates energy around 15% of the time in the best of circumstances (whereas power customers expect 24-hour service) and almost never during the period of peak demand, and is many times more expensive than conventional energy sources (gas, coal, hydro, nuclear, etc.)

So, as the engineer for a non-profit cooperative, whose main concern is to provide the best service to my customers for the least cost, it galls me to be asked (or worse, forced) to buy unreliable but expensive energy and then in turn force the members of my cooperative to pay extra for it. It is simply immoral.

As for creative painting, my experience is that paint doesn't stick to steel poles very well, so it's much better to leave them either plain galvanized or self weathering. I'm attaching a photo that I took of a power line with steel poles to illustrate that very point. As you can imagine, not very many people are volunteering to get up on the steel pole between the wires, energized at 345,000 volts, to repaint the structures.

The "Controversial" Topic

If you are shopping for a gun safe, you don't have to spend thousands of dollars, although you can. I purchased a very nice, medium size gun safe at Sportsman's Warehouse for just $300. It gives me a place to park the guns that I'm not keeping out for an emergency. I have some trigger locks that came with various gun purchases, but I don't use them; either the gun is in the safe or it's out and ready to use.

For an emergency around the house, nothing works better than a 12 gauge pump action shotgun. The sound of the action being pumped is distinctive enough to dissuade most invaders. I had worried that my wife would need to go down to a 20 gauge, but we have found that she is very good with a 12 gauge - she can hit more clay pigeons that I can and I've been shooting all my life. (But I'm still the best shot with a rifle.)

As for other calibers, there is something to be said for "caliber consolidation" - which is to choose guns with a common caliber so it is easier to find or trade ammunition. Following that line of reasoning, you should know that the military and police use .40 caliber pistols (usually Glocks), .308 rifles for sniping (or hunting, if you're a civilian), and .223 for assault rifles (for crowd control.) For my assault rifle I chose a 5.56 NATO caliber which will also shoot a .223 - that gives me two rounds to choose from, just in case.

Ammunition and guns have become very scarce and expensive since the election back in November 2008, BUT I keep asking myself: when the dollar becomes worthless and all of my "electronic funds" (like savings accounts, CD's, money markets, stocks, bonds, retirement fund, IRA, 401k) evaporate, what will I wish I had spent my money on back when I had the chance? Certainly food is at the top of the list. So are real property, vehicles, and guns and ammunition.

The attached photo is of three generations target shooting together. "The family that shoots together..."

Spring Break at Disneyland

We drove to Anaheim after church on Sunday the 15th of March. The traffic between Las Vegas and Barstow, California was absolutely brutal; stop and go the whole way. So our six hour drive turned into eight. But early Monday morning we got up and hit the park right at opening. First thing in the morning the park is pretty empty and we RAN from ride to ride, doing all of our favorites before the park got busy and the lines got long. So we hit “Pirates of the Caribbean” “Haunted Mansion” and “Indiana Jones” a couple of times first off, and then over to “Buzz Lightyear” (my personal favorite.) We also collected Fast Passes all morning so that by the afternoon we had a collection of passes that got us on to all of our rides without a wait. We had the three-day park hopper passes, but we spent the whole of Monday in the Disneyland park. At the end of the day we hit some of the big motion rides, like “Space Mountain” and “Star Tours”, and I ended up pretty green around the gills.

On Tuesday we got up early again and did our one early entrance day to Disneyland and executed our speed round of our favorite rides before heading over to the California adventure land when they opened a couple of hours later. There they had a new ride, “Toy Story 3-D”, which is my new favorite in California land. Mom and the girls did the roller coaster, but my stomach was still out of sorts from the day before, so I sat and held their purses for them. We lazed around the California land, hitting the “Tower of Terror”, “Monsters Inc.”, and “Bugs’ Life” until it closed that evening and then we went back to Disneyland for seconds on our favorite rides. Wednesday we did a combination of the two parks, hopping back and forth and hitting our favorites all around. All three nights we stayed until after the evening fireworks, almost until closing. I’m attaching a photo of us in front of Tomorrowland just before the fireworks. And then on Thursday morning, but not too early so as to avoid the rush hour, we headed back home to St. George where we found everything just as we’d left it. So, this was another successful family trip.

Misery Index

Back in the 70’s and 80’s, when we compared the economy to past years, to decide if it was getting better or worse, we talked about the “Misery Index.” It’s simply the sum of the unemployment, inflation, and interest rates. No one is talking about this index these days because they prefer to talk about the “worst economy since the Great Depression.” Just as an intellectual exercise I decided to recreate the Misery Index back to 1960 to see where we really stand. You can see on the chart that we’re not even half as miserable as we were back under Jimmy Carter. We’re not even as bad as we were under Nixon. Yet.

Where do we go from here? I’m guessing that the economy is going to get superheated by all of the deficit spending and we’ll see the inflation rate go from its current rate of zero to something HUGE. Then the government will drive up interest rates, to try to get inflation under control, and then we’ll WISH we had a misery index of only 40%. That’s my bet. So, I’m doing what the (LDS) Prophet says and I’m getting my year’s supply and planting a garden.

OK OK

Dear Friend,

Let me apologize for piling on. I will no longer inflict my conservative e-mails on you (or at least, I will do my best to remember not to do that - my capacity for remembering is somewhat diminished of late.) I would feel bad if you were offended by something I did or said.

And just for the record, I am also offended by the hypocrisy of the Republican Party - probably more so than you are - they really can't have it both ways. All of this deficit spending was just as bad when W Bush was doing it as it is now with Obama doing it - it's just that Obama is making Bush look conservative by contrast. And no conservative would ever be in favor of any bailout, nationalization, or abridgement of civil liberties, all of which proves that we have precious few conservatives in the Republican Party. In fact, the Republicans have NO claim on conservativism; and, as a conservative, I am shopping for a new party (and not finding one.)

I hope you will at least remember that while I am currently extremely unhappy with Obama and everything he is doing, I was equally unhappy with W Bush before him (see: http://powerletters.blogspot.com/2006/03/president-george-w-bush-and-iraq.html one of my first posts from back in 2006,) Clinton before that, and Bush and Reagan before that. Well, now that I think about it, I wasn't happy with Carter either. And since my first political memory is of Nixon resigning, I never really had a first-hand opinion of him, but in retrospect I don't like him at all - he was entirely too liberal (do the acronyms EPA and OSHA ring a bell?).

As far as I can tell, all of our presidents during my lifetime have been exactly the same - they just change party labels to make it sound like change is happening, just to make the voters feel like their opinions mean anything. Our political machines seem an awful lot like professional wrestling, where someone unseen behind the scenes is pre-determining who is going to win the match, while the match itself is just for show.

Can you tell that I'm disgusted with the whole thing? 8 years of W Bush were painful enough, and now Obama is just more of the same - a LOT more. Sorry to bother you with my politics - my wife gets tired of it too.

My trip to New Orleans

I started my trip on Saturday the 14th of February (leaving my wife home with the girls for Valentine’s Day.) On Saturday afternoon I drove myself up to the airport here in St. George and caught a plane for New Orleans, via Salt Lake City. I traveled with management and directors from my co-op, as well as a bunch of other managers and directors from the other co-ops in Utah. We were in New Orleans for the Annual Meeting of our national organization; they hold it in a different major city each year (last year it was in Anaheim and the year before that it was in Las Vegas.) When we got in to our hotel late Saturday night we were informed that they’d overbooked their rooms, so we were all doubled up in rooms for one night. So I ended up bunking with our Board Chairman; we had separate bedrooms but shared a bathroom in a large suite.

On Sunday morning I got up and met with some salesmen for a breakfast meeting, and then headed over to the big Expo, where I spent four hours chatting with salesmen and checked out all the latest in the new technology. It was fun to chat with my buddies from Abilene, TX where I used to work back in the early 90's. While I was there I bumped in to my old colleague from Bolivia and chummed around with him for a couple of hours. We ate lunch with the group up from Guatemala; it was fun to reminisce with them about our project there back in 2000-01. One of the guys was from one of the towns for which I built power lines, so he was appreciative of my efforts. I also ran into my colleague who is currently managing the project in the Dominican Republic. It was lots of fun. You could tell that New Orleans was smack in the middle of Mardi Gras week because they had parade floats lined up all along the street outside our hotel on Sunday morning and ran parades all day that day. I didn’t see the parades because I was in the expo, but I assumed that I’d have lots of other chances to see parades because when I was last in New Orleans, back in 2004, they had parades through the French Quarter every night I was there. Unfortunately for me, I found out too late that after Sunday they weren’t going to have any more parades until the night after we left New Orleans. Oops. That evening our billing software vendor took us out to dinner; it was a pretty lame meal, which is especially sad considering that we were in New Orleans, which is famous for its great food. So after the disappointing dinner I went on a walkabout with my CEO and his wife; we strolled through the French Quarter and down Bourbon Street looking for souvenirs (I found my typical round of souvenirs.)

On Monday morning we started our main meetings; it was a bit discouraging to hear from our national organization that “resistance is futile” and that there WILL be a carbon tax imposed on electric utilities this year. No surprise there since the democrats, who swept the elections this past fall, all come from states that will be the least impacted by the carbon tax, so it’s the best way for them to poke us in the eye here in Utah and around the west (except the left coast.) On a positive note: I ran into a gaggle of my buddies from the international program at the main meeting, including my pals from Yemen, Sudan/Nigeria, the DR, the Philippines, Guatemala, and from Afghanistan (but no one from Bangladesh.) I also met the two new engineers that they’ve hired for the main office, who both told me that they “knew” me from having to study the manuals that I’d written on how to do international rural electrification projects. That evening I met my buddy Eric for dinner. He’s honchoing the new big project in Yemen for which I did the feasibility study. That night we went to one of the restaurants recommended in my Lonely Planet guidebook and the food was wonderful.

On Tuesday we had more of our big meetings, and again we were told that we just had to reconcile ourselves to the impending carbon tax and that the best we could hope for was to get some funding from Obama’s $3T “stimulus” package; sad days – they’re trying to nationalize the utilities, like they have the banks and auto manufacturers. Around mid-day I went with my CEO and his wife out to the lower 9th ward, the area that was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. We asked the clerk at the front desk of our hotel if she could give us an address in the flooded area and she gave us her own home address. She also told us that she was neither helped out by her insurance company nor any governmental agency. So we plugged her address into our GPS and drove out there; we found her home still ruined (see attached photo,) along with most of her neighborhood. There were very few homes that have been fixed in the four years since the big flood, but I’m not sure why anyone would fix their home in an area that has proven to be a flood hazard. We stopped for a yummy lunch a Cuban place, also recommended in my guidebook. That afternoon I didn’t have any meetings to go to, so I wandered up the neighborhood to check out the Civil War museum, but it was closed. So I toddled back over to the French Quarter and checked out Royal Street and the “Historic Voodoo Museum”; Royal Street was very pretty, but the museum was disappointing – two small rooms of dusty junk and a few pictures on the wall. That night a group of eight of us from our co-op went out to dinner together to one of New Orleans’s famous restaurants (the chef has a famous TV show;) the food was very good, although the dessert was bland.

On Wednesday we wrapped up our conference on a high note: our final speaker was Chris Gardner, the subject of Will Smith’s movie “Pursuit of Happyness.” He spoke to us for an hour or so and it was very enjoyable. So I bought his book and a video and had him autograph it. I’m looking forward to reading the book and seeing the video (not of the movie – I think it’s a video of his lecture.) After that talk we all headed back to the hotel to check out and mosey over to the airport. From New Orleans we flew to Salt Lake City via Atlanta GA; we had to make a big detour around an active storm front. We were fortunate – the other group from Utah, which were on the later flight, got stuck in Atlanta for the night when the storm blew into town and stuck around for a while. And yes, a week in New Orleans saw me put on three new pounds.

The official party line

After hearing time and time again that my friends and colleagues were being forbidden to talk to me any longer, I've decided to publish the "official" party line.

Repeat after me:

“Everything is fine. The bailout will work. Buy lots of stocks. Do NOT store food, fuel, clothing, ammo, or gold. Go back to watching TV. These are NOT the droids you’re looking for…”

Keep chanting that until you believe it.

The Fate of Paper Money

As time goes by, the past becomes clearer than it was when it was still the future. What I am seeing now is that the government is not going to allow Social Security to go broke, nor will they allow lines of credit to close – instead, our government has decided that they have NO spending limits. So if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about losing Social Security benefits nor your house – there appears to be no need nor benefit to pay off any debts early – in fact, it looks like there is a real possibility that the government will start paying off people’s mortgages and credit cards. Clearly, our government has decided that there’s no limit on their spending; if Ronald Reagan broke the bank with $8 billion for the S&L crisis, then what did George Bush Jr. do with $800 billion for the banking crisis? And Obama seems to be just getting warmed up as he blows through his first trillion dollars in his first month. With our runaway spending I can only see two potential outcomes three or four years down the road:

Option 1. Hyperinflation ala post-WWI Germany where the mark shot up from 4 marks to US$1 to 4 trillion marks to US$1, which makes all of our life savings, IRA’s, 401k’s, stocks, and bonds worth less than a slice of bread. In that eventuality only our year’s supply will have any value.

Or… Option 2. The government corrects their mistake by taking all of our money out of our accounts, like Argentina did back in 2001 – I remember it well since I was working with a semi-retired Argentine man on our Nicaragua project when it happened. The Argentine government had been cut off from too much credit by the World Bank and so resorted to printing money with no backing (like Germany did post-WWI or like the US is going to do later this year.) But Argentina didn’t want to go into hyper inflation, like Germany had, so they froze everyone’s bank accounts mid-week and no one could use the bank, write a check, tap their ATM, or anything until the next Monday morning. In the meantime the government divided everyone’s bank balance by the amount that the country was overdrawn (I don’t remember if it was by 10 or 20 or what – I should look that up.) So, a semi-retired man like my buddy Aldo, with whom I was working in Nicaragua, might have enough money to retire on in the bank one day, and then suddenly wake up the next day with a tenth or twentieth of that amount.

One of those two options seems to me to be the only possible outcome of our unrestrained spending. Unless, of course, George Bush and Obama are correct and there really is unlimited money for the US government to spend.

And just for fun, I’m attaching a photo of my Argentine buddy, Aldo, on the left, along with my other colleague and friend, Daniel, on the right, from NM. We got one day off during one of my stints in Nicaragua and so rented a car for the day and drove down the coast and found a little local seaside resort where we played in the surf for a while and then enjoyed a lovely lunch of fresh lobster.

Anyway, so what am I going to do? My plan is that I’m going to temporarily suspend my 401k contributions. That frees up $16,000/year to put toward a new house, new cars, more years’ supply items, and my kids’ college education. Then, when we have things in stock that we’d need in the case of either outcomes 1 or 2 above, then if things still haven’t come clear apart, then I’ll return to my regularly scheduled budget of maxing out my 401k and investing in the stock market. But for now my overarching strategy is to ask myself: “If all of my electronic assets suddenly became worthless, what will I wish I had bought when I still had money?”

So, for what it’s worth, that’s what I’m doing. I’m not recommending my strategy, but it’s what I think will work for me.

Whites need not apply

I guess it’s official now – I have lost all hope for the future of America: it is obvious that white people are no longer welcome here now that we have a black president. Obama and his minions exposed their divisiveness and belied their promises of unity and hope. See the video from the inauguration yesterday here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRf4tOP05fA. I knew that these people were flaming racist fascist socialists, but I didn’t think their ideologies would be so flagrant in the inauguration bacchanal – I had expected that they would ease their way into their party line. I assume that this means that they don’t need or want my tax dollars, because I’m guilty of being white and can see no solution to my transgression.

But wait, there's more: this administration just keeps getting better and better – at this rate we’ll only have to tolerate them for four (very long) years – this great and Obama-nable farce keeps rolling along, stream roller-ing everyone who is not a minority. I was shocked and appalled, but not surprised, to hear Obama’s chief economic advisor say out loud and for the CSPAN cameras (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opxuUj6vFa4) that he doesn’t want skilled, white, male construction workers building any of the bridges or power lines in Obama’s infrastructure stimulus plan – he wants those projects to be built only by the unskilled, chronically unemployed. Boy, that’s what I want – to drive my family across bridges built by people who never wanted to work a day in their lives. I hope they label them clearly so we can make an informed decision before driving our car across them. At least this is likely to stimulate the ferry industry in our county – we’ll have to hire some ferry experts from Bangladesh, where they also don’t have bridges. Bangladesh also doesn’t have electricity for large spans of time each day – something else to which we can look forward – I’m glad I had a few years living in Bangladesh to get used to that, because that’s our future.

Hobgoblin, again

Saturday, January 17th, was an all day 4-wheeler excursion to the “Hobgoblin” down in Nevada. We’d been there once before in December of 2006 (see: http://powerletters.blogspot.com/2006/12/trip-to-hobgoblin.html.) It was fun; it was a gorgeous sunny day, with temperatures ranging somewhere between 60 and 70F all day. All together we were 13 people on nine 4-wheelers. Our 4-wheeler ride started out at “Whitney Pockets” in Nevada, about 30 miles from Mesquite on a barely paved road; one of our new riding buddies was the grandson of the rancher who settled all of that land. We found many of the trails that we’d taken a little over two years ago now blocked off by the BLM which claims to be restoring the land. I’ve attached a photo of the group of us on a rock formation.

That night we got home just in the nick of time to change out of our dusty clothes, shower, get dressed, and dash up to Desert Hills H.S. to watch Kat play in the County-wide Honors Orchestra. She said that it was way fun to play in an orchestra that was really good.