Tuesday, November 3, 2015

A little Economy Information

Speaking of Global Warming for those who insist it is man made .. This is truly man - made

Taking the temperature of the economic "climate" with Greg Hunter and Doug Casey 
.... for those who tell me this is too complicated.



 

Monday, October 12, 2015

Mark Dice .. Man on the street



With Snowbird Season fast approaching .. 
a Mark Dice video of the folks we encounter during our winter stay ....


Mark Dice Channel

Reports every Monday

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Dog Days of Summer (Photos)

Lonely Track Switch
Lonely Restroom & Water Fountain


A Little Drag Racing



A little flavor of Funny Car Action
(58 sec)
Not so Lonely Traxxas Girls
Sunset with Sun Dogs
Blue Moon Rising




Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Sightings from the Village

At times I try to seek out the unique and rare objects:

The old mail box next to the relatively newer mail box
Econoline
1929 Model A 2 door Sedan (wonder why I like this one)








Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Escape from the BIG City .


After major repairs and mods
We have finally left the Matrix of the Big City for the quite surroundings of Southwest Nebraska.

We endured wet weather challenges in the months of March, April, May,  during that time while trying to work on the trailer it rained 36 out of 43 days..

During that time projects completed were:

Straighten the frame from being stuck this last snowbird season (long story)
Lower the axles approx. 4 1/2 inches , and separate them another 3 inches.
Replace the tires and wheels .. Going from 14 inch to 15 inch and much higher load rating
Build new wheel wells
Manufacture a new spare tire carrier
New electrical line to accommodate USB locations for devices  
New electrical circuits for inverter power in the kitchen and bathroom
Build supports for trailer floor out to the edge of the body
Build new boat hitch mount to the frame ..
Replace all lower tin-work, and belly pan aluminum
Reposition water drain line to no longer hang below the bottom of the frame.
Move the LP supply line into the frame .. No longer hanging below the frame.

Remove the furnace (quit working) found it needed a new motherboard (a 2 day delivery took 2 weeks thanks USPS )

Pack the wheel bearings, adjust the brakes

THEN... the day we are finally ready to leave...... (wait for  IT ) The radiator for the suburban decided to leak all over the place .. So another day replacing a very large radiator.

Below are a few photos of  the process:















Saturday, May 23, 2015

Gratitude

So far with my feeble attempts to time lapse videos using an app on my smart phone, and learning of a friend who has had a stroke ...

This video has extra meaning:

 Full screen this one :)

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Fishng .. 1st time this year

Yeah

View from Longmont , Co Union Res. looking to  Longs Peak


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

More events during a walk

Made about 4 passes overhead about 50 ft off the deck ???

New Greek Money coming soon?
 Drachmas

Company stock in Canada who prints stuff


Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Traveling Bar Tiki Bar


To our friends and past attendees of The Traveling Tiki Bar Events

A little slideshow...


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Trailer Mods


It's spring time in the  Rockies time for mods

Trailer work continues lowering the axles to gain more ground clearance
 With my NEED to stay in more remote areas



Oops
I have gone up 4 sizes of tires and wheels from a 205 75r 14 size tire to a 225 75r 15 tire with new wheels, as you can see, I will need to move the axles again so the tires will not rub.

Now ...  waiting for the weather to clear,  more work will continue..






Sunday, April 26, 2015

Things are a changing


Rambling thoughts on rainy spring day...

For those who think change happens to everyone else ......


Disruptive technology :
is a tiresome cliche, as every Twitter/ AirBnB/ Uber/ Skype/etc. wannabe start-up declares itself disruptive.
 That the vast majority of self-congratulatory start-ups are over-hyped and derivative should not distract us from the larger reality that some technologies do in fact disrupt how things are done.

Fossil-fueled mechanization, for example, turned an overwhelmingly rural farming society into a highly urbanized services-dominated economy.

In the more recent past, CraigsList single-handedly turned the newspaper industry from an immensely profitable license to print money (via costly classified ads) to a struggling sector with an unclear future.

Digital file-sharing turned the $14 billion music industry into a $7 billion industry.

And now driverless vehicles are poised to disrupt the taxi and trucking sectors in ways few predicted.

The core idea of Disrupt or be Disrupted is that every sector and industry that avoids being disrupted just becomes a fatter target for disruption.

Higher education is a prime example. The industry has successfully staved off disruption by maintaining a lock on credentialing/accreditation--the famous signaling value of a college diploma, which verifies nothing about what the student learned or knows.

Now that student loan debt is $1.3 trillion and the administrative bloat of higher education can no longer be obscured, the industry is becoming a fatter, juicier target for massive technological disruption by the day.

As I outlined in my book The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy, it is not that difficult to lower costs by 90% and improve the actual education process.

Employers should receive more than an increasingly worthless signal--they should be offered an accreditation of each individual's actual skills and knowledge. This is self-evident, but impossible in the current cartel-state arrangement.

Healthcare is another sector with bloated costs and protected fiefdoms that is ripe for fundamental disruption. Reductions of 50% or more that lead to better overall health do not require whizbang science fiction advances; simply eliminating the paperwork and cartels and making patients responsible for their care and the costs of their treatments would be enough to unleash a disruptive revolution.

What few in these protected industries dare admit is the state/cartel cost structures are now so burdensome, the nation can no longer afford these services.Healthcare has risen from 5% of GDP to 19%. The more burdensome and intractable the systemic costs, the greater the gains to be reaped from disrupting the status quo.

The Military-Industrial/National Defense Complex is another sector ripe for massive disruption and reduction of costs. Compare the troubled $1 trillion F-35 aircraft program (which is increasingly looking like the most expensive weapons system failure in human history) with increasingly effective and cheaper drones: A Drone Has Never Linked Up With a Refueling Tanker Until Now.

In other words, protecting unaffordable, ineffective fiefdoms and cartels will be a losing strategy in the next 20 years. These costs will come down, one way or another, either by the erosion and collapse of the funding sources or by tech-enabled socio-economic disruptions.

That leaves everyone depending on any existing sector/industry that hasn't yet been turned upside down with a choice: either join the disruptors or prepare to be disrupted.

A little more along these lines ..

The Old Models of Work Are Broken

Any employer who pays humans to do work that can be automated or performed elsewhere for a fraction of the cost will soon go broke as competitors eat his/her lunch. Employers that want to survive recessions and competition can only pay for the value their employees create in the marketplace. Consumers don't pay for blue sky, and so neither can employers.

The government is currently immune to such pressures, but since the state is itself dependent on taxes skimmed from profits and wages, the erosion of the old model means the state's revenues are doomed to shrink right along with profits and wages.

No sector will be immune to the changing nature of work and value creation.

 



Here is an example of the old guard trying to hold on to the old ways, and keep their control.


Great! Now you never really “own” your car either

GM thinks that because they hold a copyright to some software, that somehow gives them ownership over what you do with the copy you legally purchased with the car itself. Once that purchase is concluded, the vehicle owners should be seen to have given up any proprietary interest in the single vehicle you bought. But thanks to copyright and Section 1201, that’s an issue that faces “uncertainty.” And that’s a problem.
From the comments section;  “The logical next step is to disallow the use of the car without a software-license from the manufacturer, rendering most cars unsellable on the second hand market without paying large sums to the car-maker.  Further steps: yearly license payments to operate your vehicle & payments per designated allowed driver.”
Here’s the GM statement:
Proponents incorrectly conflate ownership of a vehicle with ownership of the underlying computer software in a vehicle…. Although we currently consider ownership of vehicle software instead of wireless handset software, the law’s ambiguity similarly renders it impossible for Proponents to establish that vehicle owners own the software in their vehicles (or even own a copy of the software rather than have a license), particularly where the law has not changed.

First, EMP can knock out your car. Now, this. When were computers first put in cars?  Mid 1970’s?  I wouldn’t be surprised if one day there isn’t a huge demand for pre-1975 vehicles.  Really, who needs this shit?

 

Friday, April 17, 2015

Between Seasons = Projects


In the Mobile lifestyle there are times where the weather extremes make it difficult to enjoy the outdoors every day.

This year we have left the snowbird season in the middle of March returning to the Rocky Mountain West to prepare for the spring hunting and summer fishing seasons.

We have taken advantage of this "down time" to do modifications to the apartment on wheels, upgrades to the equipment for communication,  (cell phone, internet, computers) so much so, I need to keep a list so as not to forget them before leaving from the home base..














One of the major upgrades this year is the installation of larger wheels and tires.
Going from 14 inch wheels & tires to 15 inch wheels & tires that increase the carrying capacity by approx. 1000 lbs each.
A big improvement, to eliminate, flat tires every 1000 miles.














Along with the larger tires we are raising the trailer (lowering the axles) by 2 1/2 inches to enable us to access more remote areas we love to be in










The boat is not immune to upgrades either.
A custom cover sewn up by Rusty's Originals Upholstery will help keep the boat cleaner on the dusty dirt roads, and keep it dry during the rain storms. 









A little before / after photos..










During the trips to Denver we find a few unique things to notice while setting at the zillions of traffic lights .. Great art work on this truck









A weather delay happening

So far over 2.5 inches of rain over the
last 2 days..
High temps in the 40"s
Wind gusts around 40 mph




Charlie, Libby and Cody pass the time with their new favorite treat bolo's from Costco















Looking forward to BBQ Season