A Short Ride

Today I went on a ride with the local chapter of the US Military Vets MC, that is us parked in the middle of the highway. It was my first ride with a large group. We were part of the motorcycle escort for the Dignity Memorial Wall.




It was a pretty good ride, though I think I will avaid the large groups. I forgot how much the slinky effect is when you get that many people in a row trying to move as a group. Overall the ride was something like 250 miles for me, with the escort portion somewhere around 20 miles.

I am now somewhere around 2400 miles, and enjoying every mile.

Happy Birthday Update

Here I am, I just got home from my initial 50 mile break-in ride. Man was that fun.

Happy Birthday to me

I turned 40 earlier this year. My lovely wife completely surprised me with her gift to me. She gave me the cash to put down a sizable down payment on a new Harley Davidson.

After several weeks of looking around I have settled on this. A Dyna Low Rider.

Dragonfly Green Pearl/Vivid Black paint and the optional Chrome Profile Laced wheels.

Persistent little bastards

I am noticing a few things around here I didn’t have in my old home. I mowed the lawn yesterday, and wandered around in shorts and a tank top, couldn’t do either this time of the year in Moscow.

I have a leaf cutter anthill in my back yard; they have a trail running around to the front of my house, across the front, across the neighbor’s front yard, then around to his back yard where they cross the fence line and into his neighbor’s yard where they finally reach their targeted tree. Then they retrace their steps back around to my back yard, quite a parade to watch, which I do while drinking a cold one and on occasion smoking a cigar – again not something I would have done in March in Moscow; much less January or February as I have been doing for the past couple of months.

The length they go to to get their leaves isn’t the persistence I am talking about. As they cross the front of my house, they cross the concrete walkway at my front door, each holding a piece of a leaf looking much like a sail. And a sail it is. When the wind is blowing, which it constantly does, these ants go sailing across the concrete dutifully hanging on to their little sail often ending up several yards away, where they struggle to find the track and get back on their little journey.

Persistent little bastards.

Mohammed Flap

I can't be the only one who finds the irony in Muslim protests rich. Some Danish cartoonist draws mohammed (in one cartoon he is wearing a turban bomb), so to protest Muslims are running around vandalizing, threatening to kill and threatening to blow stuff up trying to claim "Islam is a peaceful religion."

Okay call Alanis I am not sure if it truly irony, but it is symbolic of why the west sees many muslims as unstable dynomite waiting to go off at the slightest jostling.

Amazingly the French have not run up the national flag, (a white cross on a white background).

I'm in Texas

It took a few days but after a couple of unexpected events we arrived in Kingsville. We are almost done cleaning, unpacking and settling in.

It sure is nice to not have to shovel snow or deal with freezing rain. It is taking less time than I expected to get acclimated. During the drive down I was ready for shorts and a tank top when the tempurature hit 50 in Utah. The other noght we went to the Cactus Bowl, and left early becuase it was too cold at 65, and we were wearing sweaters. I guess I won't be tossing out all of my winter coats.

Fair Prices

Inspired by a post over at Cafe Hayek

"fair prices and fair profits" can be objectively determined? How? Consensus of subjective opinions?

Any artificial construct introduces subjective definitions of "fair" price levels. Fair in and of itself is a subjective modifier.

Prices are derived from individuals acting in their own self interest. They decide what is subjectively fair to accept. Any outside entity determining "fair" is merely imposing a subjective value judgment, whether it be a single dictator or an aggregation of many it is a subjective judgment call.

The ultimate consensus of subjective judgment calls is the unfettered market, where each individual is allowed to make their own judgment on fairness in price accepted.

Any time the government "dips into profits" it is an ill effect on the person earning those profits, but denied the use of said profits. You may want to argue there is some general welfare gain between confiscated profits and re-distributed wealth, but you are making a grave error.

Utility is subjective and ordinal not cardinal. You can say this util I lost is less than that last util I enjoyed. You can say the util the recipient of my $ is more than the previous util they enjoyed. But you cannot subtract my lost util from their gained util and say that it is a greater amount of util enjoyed than the status quo would have been.

You may be able to quantify that I lost x $'s worth of util's and that this group gained x $'s of utils, but you cannot say my lost utils are of =, < or > value.

You may ask if the amount utils forgone with the payment of taxes is balanced with the utils enjoyed by the amount of government service I receive. (no, but my alternative, my utility of avoiding taxes is less than the benefit of paying taxes plus receiving government services and not being jailed for tax evasion.) In democracy I vote to bring government benefits closer to tax payment dis-utility, modified by what I think the social contract ought to be. Too bad too many voters don't seem to agree with me on what the social contract ought to be, if they did social security and Medicare would be welfare for the poor elderly rather than all the elderly - the wealthiest age group in the nation.