On the Path to the Pine Box

We have a fairly constant annoyance, with occasional bursts of much worse emotions, with a new “neighbor from hell.” The existence of this pack of goobers has convinced us it's probably time to move on. Mostly, our motivation to move is based in the fact that, at almost 80, we're probably not up to taking care of this third-acre yard on a hillside anymore.

But, also, the reason we're in this bad-neighbor issue is because the city of Red Wing is mismanaged by a part-time City Council and a full-time and grotesquely overpaid bureaucracy who don't do their jobs. The neighbor from hell property was abandoned for more than 15 years and, since it was abandoned with the whole back side of the house roof unfinished and a large shop roof that collapsed, it should have been condemned and destroyed by the city. It wasn't: because our city inspector is about as energetic as a block of wood and, as long as the absentee owner paid his property taxes, the county was bribed to do nothing.  As always, incentives are everything when it comes to humans.

We did some house hunting this past weekend. Two of my target cities are Rochester and Northfield, Minnesota. Yesterday, we spent several hours going from one listing to another, checking out the neighborhoods. We are looking for what is, apparently, an odd property: a small footprint, two bedroom and two baths, reasonably energy efficient house near a quiet downtown area. And pretty much everyone who has a house that fits that criteria ain't going anywhere.

Up to this point, you would be rational in assuming this is going to be a Rat's Eye View rant. But you'd be wrong.

There was one house on my list that ticked every single box and I was really looking forward to seeing it. As we approached the neighborhood, the bicycle trail that ran parallel to the street was almost packed with walkers, joggers, and bicyclists. Bear Creek runs next to the bicycle trail and it looked absolutely kayakable and easily accessible. Despite that “traffic,” the neighborhood is reasonably quiet.  My hopes were rising. The house is a four bedroom, three bath, brick home with a small, very manageable yard, and a really nice back deck with a fully fenced backyard. But I barely looked at the house before telling Ms. Day "this ain't it." 

The house next door was a large, white box building with a highly customized Harley piece of two-wheeled garbage parked right next to the front door. There are a few things on earth that are a bigger red flag than a customized Harley. I instantly knew why the house we were looking at had been on the market for more than 80 days and the price had dropped three times. I knew why the people who were selling that house desperately wanted to leave. I wish them good luck, but the only people they are likely to find interested in that house would be another biker gangbanger. And, usually, that demographic doesn't have enough money to pay rent let alone fund a house down payment.

And we're in a similar boat with our home. The people who bought the next-door hell-house instantly cut down a backyard full of trees and, because there is no equipment access to their backyard, decided they were going to use a wood chipper to grind up a small forest. This guy is on full Railroad Pension Disability, supposedly due to long-COVID.  In the meantime, the garage right next to our property has a collapsed roof and has been condemned by the city. And in Red Wing, condemning a property means absolutely nothing. They are still storing vehicles in the garage and it is obviously a fire trap. Neither the city or the county cares and won’t until it burns down and causes a major neighborhood disaster or someone wanders into that garage and gets injured.  At one time, around 2006-2008, the deceased owner’s nephews cooked meth in the house until . . . something, I don’t know what, shut that business down.  Supposedly, the meth chemicals still provide an essence to the house.  And, did I mention, there is a POS cruiser parked in the collapsing garage.  Of course, there is. 

California Is Coming for Your E-bike!

E-bikers around the country are freaking out over California’s attempt to regulate e-bike use.  Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-SD) introduced Senate Bill 1167, legislation that is aimed at “tightening California’s oversight of electric mopeds and other higher-speed electrically powered two-wheelers that fall into gray areas of existing law.”  “Gray areas” is putting it lightly.  Electric motor bikes (not necessarily bicycles) almost immediately became the insane wild west of US transportation.  The crowd who are promoting these electric scooters and motorcycles are about as technically adept and unskilled as the average US motorist, but they imagine themselves to be “special.”  Senate Bill 1167 bill hopes to “create a clearer regulatory framework for vehicles marketed as e-bikes but capable of speeds and performance more akin to mopeds or lightweight motorcycles.”

Since this is the United States, where we can’t even manage to keep high-capacity, military-grade automatic weapons out of the hands of kids, morons, and lunatics, I can only wish California “good luck.”  The law’s intention is not just rational, but worthwhile, “Faster and more powerful electric motorcycles are being marketed as e-bikes, which is dangerous to children and adults,” Blakespear said. “SB 1167 makes clear to consumers whether they are buying an e-bike, which has defined limits for power and speed, or something else.”  The problem is that the same people who happily elected a convicted felon to the Presidency are the ones buying electric motorcycles and whining “but it has pedals” when the fact is that they are incompetent riders, aggressive traffic hazards, and low-level criminals. 

Yeah, “low level-criminals.”

Like exhaust noise and pollution, most every state has laws defining bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles.  The definitions are based on horsepower and max speed under power and they are defined at the national level by DOT.  E-bikes, for example:

“Electric-assisted bicycle” means a bicycle with two or three wheels that:

• has a saddle and fully operable pedals for human propulsion
• meets the requirements of a class 1, class 2, or class 3 electric-assisted bicycle.

In Minnesota, a moped (motorized bicycle) is defined as having:

• Pedals or a seat,
• 50cc, engine max 30 mph.
• Requirements: Must be registered ($6 annually). Operators need a driver's license or a Moped Permit.
• Operation: Cannot operate on sidewalks or interstates.

   And motorcycles:

• Seat/saddle,
• 2 or 3 wheels, >50cc. Includes motor scooters (e.g., Vespa).
• Requirements: Valid driver’s license with a 2-wheeled endorsement. Must be registered, titled, and insured.
• Operation: Must use lanes, not sidewalks. Passengers allowed only if designed for them.

See how easy that would be to regulate?  Probably not.  If vehicle noise is beyond the capabilities of “law enforcement,” everything else is Crazyville.  Minnesota’s 325E.0951 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Systems rule provides police with clear guidance, even defining “motor vehicles,” “people,” and the parts of a vehicle’s “air pollution control systems” for the totally clueless characters in uniform:

• Motor vehicle. "Motor vehicle" means any self-propelled vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine and designed for use on the public highways, such as automobiles, trucks, and buses.
• Person. "Person" means an individual, firm, partnership, incorporated and unincorporated association, or any other legal or commercial entity.
• Air pollution control system. "Air pollution control system" means any device or element of design installed on or in a motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine in order to comply with pollutant emission restrictions established for the motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine by federal statute or regulation.

Minnesota’s law is clear about “prohibited acts” and the penalties, too:

• A person may not knowingly tamper with, adjust, alter, change, or disconnect any air pollution control system on a motor vehicle or on a motor vehicle engine.
• A person may not manufacture, advertise, offer for sale, sell, use, or install a device that causes any air pollution control system not to be functional as designed.
• A person may not sell or transfer a motor vehicle with knowledge that any air pollution control system is either not in place or is not functional.
• Subd. 4.Penalty: A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Spend a few moments on any major traffic route in the state and you won’t have a moment of trouble identifying misdemeanor criminals, but local and state cops are totally incapable of this simple task.  If there were ever a job that could be immediately performed better than humans, it would be “traffic cop.”  Put a decibel meter, a CO-sniffer, and a photon-cannon on a robot and advertise the “new rules” on YouTube (where all of the idiots get their “information”): “If your vehicle is stopped for noise or emissions violations, you will be given five minutes to remove your possessions from the vehicle before it is vaporized.” 

Likewise, if a Robocop sees a “bicyclist” cruising along at 21+mph on level ground without pedaling, the bike is obviously a moped (under 30mph) or a motorcycle and becomes the property of the city or state to sell at auction, or to crush for the recycling value.  Or provides roadside entertainment with the photon-cannon. 

Obviously, in every respect, e-bikes are the least of our problems today.  Our Constitution is so poorly conceived and written that it doesn’t prevent convicted felons from becoming President, although that same person probably couldn’t get a job at McDonalds flipping burgers.  That wad of slavery-protecting tissue paper doesn’t prevent Supreme Court judges from taking bribes or even require the Chief Justice to recuse  himself for having direct financial interest in a case. Thanks to the deadly blow to democracy from the Citizens United stupidity, every Russian oligarch, tech bro billionaire, and foreign interest can buy any political office needed to rape and pillage the nation’s credit and national security. 

The inability to competently regulate something as simple as electric bicycles vs. motorcycles is just a symptom of a nation that has spiraled into lawlessness and chaos.  At least from where I sit, it’s hard to see a path to anything resembling an organized, rational, law-abiding society.  Canada is looking better every day: and I hate winter.

How Idea “Compounded Interest” Works

 Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground

In the late 90s, I created three Google Blogger blogs: The Rat’s Eye View, Wirebender Audio Rants, and Geezer with a Grudge.  The Rat’s Eye view was, originally, going to be a repository for a collection of articles I had written in my position as a freelance manufacturing/management consultant with Productivity, Inc. (A long dead manufacturing consulting company out of Temecula, CA.)  That gig didn’t last long, mostly because I was disgusted by the executives I worked with as a consultant and moved on to other money-making ventures.  But I kept writing in The Rat’s Eye, even though it didn’t seem like anyone was paying attention.  About the same time, I had become a regular contributor to a regional motorcycle magazine, The Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly, and my column was called “Geezer with A Grudge.”  I almost always wrote more articles than the magazine could use and I started storing my “extras” in the Geezer blog.  A few years later, I started working, part time, at a music college, first as a technical support consultant and, later, as an instructor.  I also had three music-related one-man businesses that I called “Wirebender Audio Services.”  So, to promote those businesses, I started Wirebender Audio Rants.

I haven’t written much about motorcycles since I had to quit riding, last year, for reasons of old age.  So, I haven’t paid much attention to that blog’s statistics.  Today, I discovered that sometime ago the Geezer blog past 2 million views (2,028,204, as of today, in fact) and is averaging about 6500 views per month!  So, I checked the other blogs and found that The Rat’s Eye View, my least likely candidate for readers had 393,543 views and for the past year has been averaging 3500 views per month and Wirebender Audio Rants and averaged 9100 views per month and a total of 332,501 views for the blog’s lifetime. 

For a while, Google’s Ad Sense actually paid money for advertising links in the blog and the Geezer blog made me an average of $100/month for the advertising hits.  A few years ago, Google decided to keep all but a few pennies of the advertising revenue to themselves and I deleted Ad Sense from all of my blogs.  That was several (about 10) years ago and, since then I just write for the excuse H.L. Menken gave, “for the same reason cows give milk.” 

The point I lamely tried to make with this essay’s title was that many things that we do, creatively and without much hope of notice, can pay some fun dividends if you last long enough.  Way back in late 2020, I was still writing fairly regular Geezer columns and paying attention to the numbers.  I was pretty impressed with myself when that blog made it to 1,000,000 hits.  I know that’s pretty lame in a world where a Tik Tok or drunks-in-a-bar YouTube “influencer” can, apparently, easily gather 1,000,000 followers.  My most “popular” blog, the Geezer, has a grand total of 90 followers and The Rat’s Eye has 2 and Wirebender has 14.  I’d be embarrassed by those lame numbers, except that . . . I’m not. 

My comparatively new Substack page, “T.W. Day Stories and Rants on Random Subjects,” has 24 “subscribers” (all free) and that page has had about 6,400 hits since it started in December of 2023.  It has ben a slow, somewhat exponential, reader growth and I’ve made-little-to-no effort at promoting my page.  My “biggest” month had a little over 900 hits.  Every source I know of claims that reading isn’t something that many people bother with today.  My wife, more typically, gets practically all of her knowledge from YouTube, which is a sure way to drive me from any room or gathering.  I really don’t want to think about how many people use Tik Tok for that purpose.  I never expected to be read as much as I’ve been on any of my Blogger blogs and I’m delighted with the slow progress of my Substack page.  I’m incredibly grateful to everyone, even the critics, who has take the time, exercised the patience, and kept a rare skill alive by reading my essays. 

Gratefully,

T.W. Day