Mansion on the Hill.

"Hey, Don! I noticed you aren't living on the Mansion on the Hill anymore."

"Too much upkeep, Poindexter. I didn't want to be tethered to it any more. Besides, it kept getting hit by golf balls, and I kept having to see people in plaid shirts and white shoes walking by. It was hard on the eyes."

"But I thought you owned the golf course."

"I never wanted to actually OWN a golf course. Tell you a secret. They don't make money....you build them so you can sell houses."

"So you're selling houses?"

"Well, not really. But I got rid of the golf course..."

"You built the thing that doesn't make money first?"

"Of course! How else am I to make money?"

"Ummmmm.....where are you living now?"

"Glad you asked, Poindexter. At first, I was going to build on one of the lots. But then my partners wanted them, so I gave them up. Just as well. I mean it really hurt at first, but then I started liking it. I wasn't happy, but then I was happy...."

"Maybe you can stay in the overnight lodgings, Don. Be the caretaker."

"Oh, we gave those up. We didn't really want to build them anyway, and then the county decided that since our guarantee wasn't worth anything, they would lower the guaranteed money."

"The money you deposited to cover the possibility of failure was lowered because you were failing?"

"Well, I wouldn't quite put it that way, Poindexter. Besides, I can get an extension every 5 years ago, and the deposit drops in half.

"Doesn't matter anyway, I sold that hotel thingy to my new partners. Lovely folk. They specialized in taking over things I don't want anymore."

"So where are you living?"

"I found a cave in the middle of the desert...er, I mean, my property. I mean...their property...but I quite like it. Some of the weeds around the mouth of the cave are quite pretty. No upkeep, the payments are reasonable, and except for the occasion golf balls falling on my head, it's nice and cosy."

"Well, I'm happy for you, Don. Keep up the good work."

Fish eat fish world.

Usually Walmart hunts down, destroys and devours one industry at a time. They did a pretty good job on the toy market a few years ago, putting Toysrus in intensive care, and killing off FAO Scwartz and KB Toys.

This year they seem to be taking a scattershot approach, blasting everything in sight, and you'd better try to stay out of their crosshairs. So far, the potential victims are games, toys, DVD's and books, among others.

Big Bully.

Ironically, the damage to the specialty market has been so widespread and deep, that any Mom and Pops still surviving has probably figured out how to avoid being eaten. Like the big dinosaurs stomping around the Jurassic, little critters can hide in the rocks.

You know the old cartoon on one fish eating a smaller fish eating a smaller fish eating a smaller fish eating....you know? Retail has probably always been like that.

The big danger to specialty stores a decade ago or two were the 'category' killers.

Toysrus; Best Buy; Bed, Bath and Beyond, Barnes and Nobles; etc. etc.

Now they are being cobbled up by the huge megachains -- Walmart and Target, but especially Walmart. Already the second and third largest stores in each of the category killers have been laid out for the vultures; Circuit City: Bed, Bath and Beyond; Office Depot; Borders (and Waldenbooks); and the aforementioned KB Toys.

We're all going to end up working for Walmart.

But only for awhile.

Because while Walmart is busy swallowing up it's weaker brethren, behind it looms the biggest fish of all -- the internet.

Us minnows are watching all this with big, Disyneyesqe eyes from the coral reefs.

We're all in someone else's box.

I've started reading a historical novel by Robert Harris, Imperium. The main protagonist is a young Cicero.

Historicals are always tricky for me, because my image of major historical characters is so outsized. Cicero is young and callow, so I'm O.K. so far, but I'll be interested to see how he handles Caesar and Pompey and Crassus.

One of the things I loved about Talbot Mundy's Tros series is that he makes Caesar as crafty and cunning and tough and mean as I always imagined him. He also makes him brave and principled, but that's just a novelist's conceit.

On the other hand, I could never get into the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer, because characters like Mark Twain were just paper mache compared to my own vision of them.

I read a recent book by William Dietrich, Napoleon's Pyramids, that has Napoleon as a major character. Even though most of the words out of his mouth are historical, the characterization was still a little thin for me.

I've always thought the best Napoleon was the character Mule in the Asimov S.F. series, Foundation, conflicted and contradictory and unexpected and just flat out smarter than everyone else.

Gore Vidal's historicals bring down the historical characters to a human level -- I think that's their intent. Lincoln was flawed, Burr wasn't the villain and so on. Even there, they didn't quite flesh out as much as I hoped.

Doctorow does a pretty good job with historical events; but he keeps the major historical characters at a distance.

Caleb Carr is pretty good with a young Teddy Roosevelt; I'm thinking it must be easier to do the younger characters...

Of course, to me, the best book ever for conveying the magnitude of events was Killer Angels by Michael Sharra. Amazing book. (Did not care for any of the followups by his son -- again, paper characters....)

While Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty may not be real historical characters, I've never liked any other writer's interpretation of them. Meyer's Nine Percent Solution did a nice job with Freud and Holmes, but I've hated the books that have Holmes married, for instance. That's just wrong.

The best Moriarty I've ever read or seen was the one in Star Trek. Hands down my favorite Star Trek episodes.

"In fact, Picard has both of them encapsulated in a small computerized cube. And in the greater scheme of things, he muses to his staff, who's to say that they aren't caught in someone else's fantasy right now." Star Trek, the Episode Guide.

Too cool.

Our little Peyton Place.

So Tami Sawyer is the "Jane Doe" who "filed a malpractice lawsuit against the man whose lawsuit against her company nearly landed her in jail for contempt of court." Bend Bulletin, 11/7/09.

The lawsuit alleges that he had "consensual sexual relationship with her..."

Wow.

And to think this was all going on in Bend during the bubble years. Here I was innocently going to work everyday, and I had no idea of how decadent little old Bend was becoming.

Oh, I saw the McMansions and the big SUV's and the shiny clothes and all. But I didn't realize what was going on behind closed doors. People weren't just being screwed financially....

I also thought it amazing that Tami would exclaim, "I won!" and cry and 'Thank God' that she didn't have to go to jail.

You know, like every time I file for an extension on my taxes, I do the same thing.

I do a little jig over the fact that the IRS won't get my money. "Hey, Baby. I won!"

Then I quietly pay off on the next due date, but we don't need to talk about that.

Very revealing that Tami Sawyer "expressed surprise and said she had no knowledge of the ...lawsuit."

Damn lawyers. Filing lawsuits without her knowing.....

Boom and Bust.

Back about three years ago, when some of us were suspecting we were in the midst of a bubble that was about to burst, we were trying to imagine what would happen to downtown Bend.

There were some of us that remembered the early 80's and were fearful of a repeat.

I didn't think it would get that bad, though I thought it would take longer to replace the businesses, and that we would see some sort of progression like: 3 leave, 2 come in; 4 leave; 3 come in; 3 leave, 4 come in; 5 leave, 3 come in, something like that.

It hasn't quite happened. (I should say 'yet.')

38 businesses have left downtown, 37 businesses have arrived. Downtown seems to be holding it's own.

That's the danger in prematurely predicting shuttered doors and homeless on every corner. You kind of lose credibility when it doesn't happen.

That said, I think I'm starting to see more signs of distress. I actually AM seeing more homeless lately, and outside of downtown, the vacancies are becoming more noticeable.

I think that during the first winter of this Great Recession, there was some shock and fear, but mostly the consequences hadn't quite hit. Second Winter was worse, but people could still live off their savings, hope that things would turn around. I saw customers going from residential, to commercial building projects, then to sidejobs, then to working for friends and neighbors, and now just picking up any kind of building work they can get, over or under the table.

The string is playing out....

It's going to be a long, cold winter.

Commercial loans are going to be coming due over the next couple of years, but it looks to me like the banks will continue a 'pretend and extend' policy for as long as possible.

Muddling through.

Janet Stevens of the Bulletin has a nice little editorial about the boom and bust cycle of Bend. I like that it identifies what I think is the major Achilles Heel in Bend -- it's isolation -- as it's biggest boon and bane.

But such an editorial would have been much more useful 2 and 1/2 years into the boom, instead of 2 and 1/2 years into the bust.

In fact, she should just file it, and rerun it the next time we have a boom -- you know, in 5 or 6 years from now.

Hey, Wife! Leave my routine alone!

Every morning, I stumble out of bed, pour myself a huge mug (we bought in Joseph, Ore) of coffee, and go down to my office.

I turn up the heat, wrap myself in a cosy blanket, and lean back in my chair, and turn on the computer.

I check the headlines, then some local blogs, then my business oriented blogs, and then the economic blogs (not the same as business), and so on.

Every morning, my cat or my Linda barge into my office at least once each, meow at me or kiss me on the forehead. (Yes, the wife will meow if Panga is in the room, and Panga more like licks the end of my nose -- but same thing. I know, I know, ewww...I swore I'd never treat my cat like kid, but...there it is...)

Thing is, they really Barge into the room, throwing open the door.

Then they leave the room, leaving the door wide open, which kicks the heater into high gear.

Every morning.

They are doing it on purpose.

Anyway, the point of this, is that I love my routines. I don't like change. I was at my sister Tina's the other night, and she was talking about how she likes change, revels in change, change doesn't bother her a bit.

Well, not me.

At home, at least, I'd rather nothing ever changes. And Linda insists on making changes -- she calls them 'improvements'.... Like getting new headboards for our beds a few days ago. I've been banging my head against them ever since, stubbing my toe against the foot of the bed every since.

Hey, I was perfectly content with the old simple bed.

Meanwhile, Linda also goes on these cost savings benders -- buying house brands from the grocery stores. Some things should never be bought as a house brand; mayonnaise, Parmesan, and coffee.

Oh, quite definitely coffee.

Once a quarter, Linda will buy some slop. I mean, it's black like coffee, it has caffeine in it, but other than that...

After a day or two, I'll turn to her and say, "Did you change the coffee?" Or even more ironically, she'll turn to me and say, "This coffee really tastes bad."

Costco is a great company. But I never like the Kirkland brand. The last block of Kirkland cheese was completely tasteless, and we never finished it. (Cheese doesn't last in our house, either....) My stomach has a violent reaction to MSG, but it hasn't been a problem for the last 10 years or so, except some fish sticks from Kirkland. I mean, who still put MSG in foods?

So this last batch of coffee is Kirkland, and it sucks....

Random fodder.

It's nice that R.Crumb's Book of Genesis has become a bestseller. It would be even nicer If I Could Get Some Copies to Sell!!

**********

Up on the retailer Bulletin boards are requests for copies of Doom Patrol #4, with or without the rings.

I've yet to sell a copy.

Bend really isn't a city, though it thinks it is. A city has -- I don't know -- circulation and flow and cross fertilization of interacting communities. Bend sometimes is a lump of -- "Well, what do you know?" "Did you know that?" "What's happening?" "How about that?"

Hard to explain to newcomers how isolated we are, and weird demographics...

**********

Quote of the week, (Bulletin, 11/6/09) from "a longtime Bend real estate appraiser"...Kevin Halligan...who is "fighting three investigations...."

He is trying to "quietly and subtly slip into another profession."

You know, like, Nevermind.

I wonder if Tami Sawyer has tried that line. "I'm trying to quietly and subtly slip into Cobo San Lucas....."

**********

Another "Blink" reaction. The census worker with "Fed" scrawled on his chest. Probably committed suicide, which was my immediate reaction.

The Fort Hood shootings? Looked like the lone gunman. Sounds like they arrested everyone in the vicinity who looks suspicious, but it was pretty clear he was a lone nut.

Hard to stop mad lone gunmen, as long as there are loners, madmen, and guns. Which will be always. (No, I'm not anti-gun -- a women in Redmond probably saved herself a beating -- or worse.)

**********

So a homeless guy is assaulted in Pioneer Park and his cell phone is broken and is PS2 game system is stolen?

Huh?

Kind of reminds me of how hard it's been to give away my big T.V. It's not a flat screen and No One Wants It. Even the poorest of the poor don't want it.

Poverty apparently now includes cell phones, game systems, flat screened T.V.s, microwaves, and probably Nike's....

**********

Was watching Black Coffee, a documentary, and realized I've never bought from Star Bucks. Now I never will, along with never having bought from Walmart and Target. I'm not about to break my virginity now. (Also have never bought a bottle of water, or have a cell phone, or joined Face Book.

And I think YOU people are weird....)

**********

A reporter for the Bulletin was at the polling drop off, and he raised his eyebrows when I said I voted for the COCC bond. "I thought a curmudgeon like you would be against everything!"

Hmmm...I appear to have given the wrong impression. First of all, the jobs at COCC may be one of the few things we got going for us over the next couple of years....

Secondly, I'm a liberal, and I vote for most if not all measures. I'd even vote for the bus system, probably, if they made a decent case.

At the same time, I still don't care for boondoogles and governments and individuals living it up beyond their means.

**********

Played Ticket to Ride at friends Aaron and Char last night, and it was a blast. It's really fun to set at a table with compatible friends and play a board game.

Found it about as easy (or hard) to play as Settlers of Catan. I was building railroads all over the board, but couldn't complete my L.A. to Miami line, which cost me 20 points.

Came home last night, feeling refreshed.