Wednesday Wats.

There was some amusing talk last week about "spring."

Can always tell a newbie.

We've got at least another month of this up and down weather, maybe even into May.

I think Fred Meyer and Costco and all the other chains get a double boost of profits from gardening supplies. Once in April, and then again in June to replace all the plants that froze from the first effort.

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An ambitious program for the Parks and Rec.

I'll vote for these, because these things are the very things that will keep Bend alive over the next decade or two. We need to face up to the fact that we're a tourist destination, and we must do everything we can to tidy up the region.

Not that the measure has a snowball's chance.

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"Region's Recover is Slower Than After 80's Recession." Bulletin, 3/21/12.

This may be true statistically, but I can tell you as someone who lived through the 80's recession, it felt much, much worse.

Especially from the perspective of a downtown business owner.

I don't think it was just because I was younger, though time seemed longer back then.

It seemed to take forever to come back.

Exactly what my little brain required.

I rather liked the Hunger Games books. I enjoyed the Harry Potter books. The Golden Compass trilogy was cool (though I don't think this was so much a kid's book as a book where the protagonists were kids.)

I say at the store: "Why should the kids get to be the only ones to read these good books?"

Anyway, I've been trying to branch out, and I've been mostly disappointed. Young adult is actually a pretty broad category, covering a pretty wide range of maturity. So the Dave Barry Peter Pan books lost me after one try, so did the Cornelia Funke's 'The Thief Lord.' A little too simplistic.

I liked the first chapter of 'Time Stops for No Mouse' (femme fatale mouse entices a clockstore mouse to adventure) but it was really way too young.

More than once, movies have driven me away from trying. I'll probably never read The Lightning Thief because the movie sucked, for instance.

I'm trying to remember how it worked when I was younger. There was a Children's section in the library, and then everything else. So as an adultish kid (big reader, 17 years old), I would still dip into book like the Narnia series.

I think Heinlein and Asimov and most S.F. was de facto 'kids' books, even when they weren't.

I see a little too much subdivision by parents in my store, (in my opinion, I don't say anything unless asked.) That is, parents won't pick out books that might be slightly too mature for their kids.

My parents felt that if I was ready to want to try to read something, I was ready to try to read it.

I remember a whole series of overreaches when I was young -- books that were too complex and mature, but either I read them anyway or gave up on them, and it didn't do any harm.

And sometimes an overreach turned out to be a turning point. A book that might have appeared too complex was exactly what my little brain required.

Killing baby cougars.

I mean, what are you going to do?

You've got an aggressive species moving into a new space, a species that is completely overbreeding and has no regard for life or limb.

I mean, as a species, we humans are a nasty lot.

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Ordered a trillion books. (Well, 400 or so.)

I stocked up on Game of Thrones and Hunger Games.

Now to find room for them all.

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Heh. The Pronghorn added 3% to its room fees and called it a "tax?"

Oh, sure. Blame the government for everything.

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Why, you, yellow bellied marmot!

The picture on the front page. So cute. So hungry.

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The Walking Dead season finale was great.

****SPOILERS!!!****

Very well staged and directed, lots of action. I liked the character trying to escape through the woods, running out of ammo, running out of weapons, running out of energy, and finally down to the last zombie but losing...and then the hooded samurai girl. Cool.

I like Rick, standing at the exit, half in and half out of the group, daring everyone to leave.

I liked the zombie hunt using the cars, and the mass of zombies backlit by the barn fire.

I didn't like the inexplicable turning on Rick at the end by characters who should know better.

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Whoa, Nelly.

The Bulletin has an editorial this morning which portrays the underlying thinking I think our political, economic, and media leaders have here in Bend.

The opening paragraph: "Now is the time to start thinking about a return of rapid growth in Central Oregon. Did we do it well last time around? What can we do better when it returns?"

"When it returns....?" Not if, but when.

If you look up the definition of an economic bubble, one of it's features is extrapolating future growth based on past growth.

I doubt we'll ever see the kind of growth we saw in the late 90's and early 2000's, because it was based on inflated housing prices. We'll probably never see that kind of bubble again in our lifetimes.

In all the bubbles I've been involved in at my store(fads, if you will), not one has ever returned. Once they burst, they are gone. They may come crawling back, taking years to cover the same ground that once took months.

It wasn't long ago, that most of the economists were worried about a deflationary spiral. A negative feedback loop. Which is also a feature of burst economic bubbles.

The Bulletin asks for "smart" leadership, "thinking about increased infrastructure."

But what if the smart move is to wait to spend on infrastructure until you actually have a need for it?

H. Bruce had this comment:

"Did you see the Bulletin editorial this morning telling us we need to get ready for the next growth spurt? Bend will never get off the roller coaster of boom-and-bust because the powers that be -- the Builder-Developer-Realtor Axis and its toadies in the media -- don't want to. They'd rather have the chance to make a killing during the booms than have sustainable prosperity. Why? Because they have the resources to ride out the busts. It's only "the little people" who lose their homes and livelihoods when the bubble bursts."

I don't think we're going to have another boom for a long time to come. If we're lucky, we'll take baby steps toward small growth. I'm thinking a decade, not a few years.

I'm not saying we shouldn't plan. The Bulletin is right about that: but I think the planning needs to be more in the nature of contingency -- instead of outright spending on infrastructure we may not need for years and years.

The one thing they probably should do is probably the one thing they won't do: make growth pay for growth. Put into place fees that make whoever does the future development pay for the development. I predict that the trend will be the opposite, just like last time. The pressure will be to lower the fees to spark development.

Thus creating the very problems the Bulletin is warning against.

Mostly, I just wanted to point out that I think even thinking about "rapid growth" is way too premature. Any growth would be nice.

"Rapid" is relative, I suppose. But I would be willing to bet that we'll never again see the rate of growth we saw during the boom years.

It's like an addiction. It will also take years for those who experienced the boom to realize it ain't coming back.

Ri - dic-u-lous.

Lots of movement in downtown stores which I'm pretty sure are going to happen, but I'm waiting for official word.

I've decided the point of my Comings and Goings list isn't breaking news -- but being accurate and a record of what's happened. I won't post rumors.

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The latest statistics from the Bulletin about the local economy are interesting.

Simply put, we're still going sideways.

My own business seems to be on a bit of an upswing, but these ups and downs have more to do with internal dynamics than local dynamics.

There was some mention in the article of things maybe turning upward later in the year.

Ridiculous.

I think we're in such a stagnant position, that any real improvement is years down the road.

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The U.S.A. today has an article about how one 'needs' 150K per year just to live a 'good' life.

Which, as far as I can tell, is about the top 3 or 4% of Americans.

Ridiculous.

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Had me looking at household net worths' again: the mean average is something like 450K. But the Median average is something like 90K.

That other 360K is owned by the billionaires.

Ridiculous.

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There is simply no way the rents should be going up in Bend, if we truly had a free market.

We have tons of housing sitting outside the market.

The housing manipulations around here are ridiculous.

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Everything is ridiculous. Heh. I know, real insightful. I just wanted to sound out the word. Ri-dic-u-lous!

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Being judgmental about a business I know nothing about.... I hate that.

But here I'm going to do it anyway.

Linda and I were visiting Sunriver awhile back, and dropped in on a co-op art gallery.

I don't get the economics of galleries -- plenty of stuff I'd buy at much lower prices. Nothing I'd buy at the marked prices. Now, I understand that art must be paid for. There is probably justifiable reasons for such prices. Maybe I'm cheap for not wanting to pay them.

But, really?

I've been looking for years for a painting or photograph that I simply MUST have, but it hasn't happened yet. (I have a blank spot in my study that I'm just waiting to fill.) The thing I was noticing about most of these gallery photographs is that they are manipulated, photoshopped and altered to a ridiculous extent. Landscapes, and especially animal pictures are just a little too cute.

Now I know that the appearance of the photo depends on all kinds of factors, natural and unnatural, but there seems to me a level of interference in these photo's that turns me off. Mostly it's to make them prettier or more exotic.

I've kind of wanted a photo of the central Oregon mountain skyline. I wouldn't mind if they squeezed the mountains slightly closer, but basically I'm looking for a fresh, untouched silhouette.

Though, when I think about it, it's kind of weird that I want a picture inside the house that is a duplicate of what I could see walking outside....

For the price of some of these gallery pictures, I could buy myself a nice camera, take tons of pictures until I get one I like, and print it up myself!

Of course, I know it isn't that simple. But with digital cameras --- it almost IS that simple.

Friday fuds.

There must be a "Pain of Death" injunction for Hunger Games, since I know they've already had a "premiere" and there have been no reviews. What are they afraid of?

But, like I said, I'm not going to speculate anymore.

It's not like I'm not going to go see it.

(O.K. they are starting to trickle out. Mostly positive.)

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Cash mobs? Descending on small businesses?

Eh.

Hey, good idea! I wonder who we could target? Let see...a small business, maybe in downtown Bend, selling nice things.

Who could we pick?

Someone who sells fun stuff, or good stuff (like books -- books are good, right?)

So.....who should we descend upon?

Ah, hem.

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When I finished my manuscript of I'M ONLY HUMAN, I still hadn't read about 5 chapters at writer's group. Since then, I've read 2 of those chapters, and they pretty much shredded them.

Methinks I've still got work to do.

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I have assembled a huge book order.

I've been very patient over the last 2.5 months, ordering only moderate amounts of books.

Almost all the books on the order are either books I have already sold before or books I'm pretty positive I can sell in the future. I always try to add a classic author, who I then keep in stock. This time, it's Saul Bellow, and adding to Dostoevsky.

Bringing in all the Terry Goodkind books, some more of the Patrick O'Brien books, and so on.

I think it's working.