January 2009 Archives

A total bummer if you're a foodie that likes chocky. The corporate owner of Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt chocolates will be closing their original factories in Northern California and will be consolidating their production outside the state. Link here.

Although the official reason was to consolidate production at their Illinois plant, one can't help but wonder, could the cost of doing business here in California have something to do with it? It costs too much to run production here so the Hershey company moved production to a state that wants jobs from a state that feels entitled to them (and all the tax revenue they can squeeze)?

An unfortunate side effect is that there's a high probability that ingredients will be replaced by cheaper substitutes and the quality of the product (chocky, which is a serious thing!) will go down, thus cheapening the brand. Bummer. Totally.

Here's the word of the day: fasching.

Sounds like fun...!

When I mean a "stimulus package", I'm not talking about handouts to unions, such as what has been happening in the United States. I mean this:

20% personal income tax rebate, 40% property tax rebate

There will also be 40 per cent property tax rebate for owner-occupied homes in 2009.

The ordinary people are the ones who bear the brunt of the bad economy, not gahmen and their cronies, the unions. In Singapore, the people (not gahmen or unions) are getting tax relief, in the United States, the gahmen and the unions get the free money and the people are forced to pay for it. I mean, if you're giving out all that money, someone's got to pay for it. If you're a US passport holder, just look into a mirror. That's who's gonna pay. Sheesh.

During the recent holiday season, the temps here rarely went above 45 degrees. Nighttime was even colder. Not festive at all!

When this was taken, it was 62 outside. Not cold!

Right after New Years' Day that ended. It's been comfy in the 60s and sunshiney for the past few weeks. Yay! Which means...taking the motorcycle out! But before any road trips, I had to get the tires replaced. I wound up replacing the stock Bridgestone Trail Wings (which lasted all of 9000 miles) with a set of Metzler Tourances. Good for riding pavement and the occasional fire trail. Hopefully, I'll get more than 9K miles out of these.

I had the work done at Werkstatt and they did a great job, as usual. Besides the tires, I had some Givi racks (PL428) installed. One of them didn't fit right when I tried to install them. Turns out the footpeg that I was supposed to connect it to was bent a tiny bit, something that I wouldn't have known to look for. I picked up some soft bags from Craigslist that fit on the racks, but I think I'm probably going to hunt for some hard cases.

From the Marin Headlands, a tugboat going west.

Then it's time for a road trip! While the weather holds...

Well, the first week of January has come and gone and MacWorld has done the same. My reaction: "Har"?

Prior to this year, I've been to 12 of these shows. Strangely enough, nothing worth going for this year. All the buzz is in Vegas at CES where Palm (remember them?) may have a device (with a very dumb name) that will give Apple a run for its money (and incentive to improve features and lower its price on the iPhone).

Besides CES, there's another convention happening concurrently. In fact, the industry that this other convention is showcasing is asking for a bailout (as are the rest of American industry). I wonder if they'll actually get some?

I'm waiting for the "Legacy Airline Bailout". Once they get that, nothing will change, except the fares, which will go up. More of the same...