HinesSight

Bill Maher's criticism of the PAX3 vaporizer was misplaced

I love Bill Maher and his Real Time show, which always ends with "New Rules."

But the March 22 show missed the mark when Maher criticized the newest version of the marvelous PAX vaporizer -- which in my highly (so to speak) informed opinion is the best way to imbibe marijuana. 

(Note: I live in Oregon, where pot is legal, so don't bother notifying the police about my nefarious behavior.)

In the video below you can see that Maher claims that the new version of the PAX doesn't include a raised mouthpiece. Well, actually it does. Here's the photographic proof.

First, my gold PAX3, with the extra raised mouthpiece attached.

Second, the list of what's included with the PAZX3.

Third, a diagram of the raised mouthpiece, also from the contents list.

I'm glad that Bill Maher and I share a fondness for PAX vaporizers. I've used the original PAX, the PAX2, and now the PAX3. They aren't cheap, but they're easy to use -- without the complicated button presses that Maher correctly criticizes in the video below. 

You press a button to turn the PAX on. You shake it to see how much of a battery charge remains. And that's all I've ever done with it. Oh, other than put ground cannabis in the receptacle that heats up to what seems to be a perfect vaporizing temperature. 

And yes, I do agree with Maher that the raised mouthpiece is preferable to the non-raised mouthpiece. I just wanted to point out that PAX gives users a choice of mouthpieces.

City Club talk about Oregon demographics and 2020 Census pleasingly factual

We live in an age of opinionating.

For example, this afternoon the Mueller report was released to the Attorney General. Now there's a frenzy of speculation about what is in the report, how much of it will be released to the public, what the political impact will be, and so on.

So it was pleasant to attend a Salem City Club talk today by demographer Charles Rynerson, a Research Associate with the Population Research Center at Portland State University (my graduate school alma mater): "Oregon Demographic Trends and the 2020 Census."

Rynerson was low-key, highly competent, and almost entirely factual. His talk felt like a healing warm bath of concrete data that (temporarily) washed away the torrent of opinions from a myriad of news sources that typically flood my political junkie brain.

Here's photos of some of Rynerson's slides that I snapped with my trusty iPhone, along with commentary on each. I'll end with some additional things he told us. Let's geek out on some interesting info on how Oregon is changing demographically.

The flowing line is total population in Oregon, which is estimated to be 4,195,300 in 2018. The bars are annual increases in population form 2001 to 2018. The marked dip around 2010-11 reflects the recession that hit in earnest in 2008.

There was a decline in the rate of population growth from 2017 to 2018, but Rynerson said not much should be made of this, since the number of people added in 2018, 54,200, was still quite high.

Population growth is a function of net migration (# of people coming to Oregon - # of people leaving Oregon) plus natural increase (# of people born - # of people dying). This image shows these components in 5-year periods from 1960-65 to 2010-15. Remember: 5 years. That's why the numbers on the vertical axis are so large.

Net migration (brown bars) has always been greater than natural increase, except in 1960-65 and especially in 1980-85 -- which I recall was another economic downturn. The highest net migration was in 1990-95. Natural increase was at its lowest point in 2010-15.

This is a similar graph, but with the components shown in a single bar for individual years from 2001 to 2018. Natural increase in Oregon has been steadily declining since 2007, mostly because of lower birth rates. Net migration has increased a lot since low points in 2010-11.

Because population growth in Oregon has been greater than the national average, Rynerson said our state likely will gain a congressional seat after the 2020 census. He said that redistricting will start in April 2021, apparently because this is when requisite census data is available.

This slide shows that currently Oregon has a considerably larger population per seat in Congress than Washington, California, or the United States as a whole. Reason: Oregon narrowly missed out on getting an additional seat after the 2010 census. If we get a 6th seat, as expected, our population per seat will drop to about 715,000.

This slide shows the average number of people moving to Oregon (green bar) and the number of people moving from Oregon (brown bar) by age group from 2013 to 2017. Not surprisingly, those aged 20 to 29 are the biggest movers. In every age group, more people moved from Oregon to another state than moved to Oregon from another state.

This seems to be at odds with the positive net migration figures shown in a previous slide, so likely I'm missing something here. (Which is why Rynerson is a professional demographer, and I'm not.) I've emailed Rynerson, asking about this. 

Rynerson said there are 13 metropolitan areas in Oregon, with each area being a county. The other 23 counties are in non-metro areas. (All it takes to be a metro area is to have a population center with 50,000 or more people.)

Net migration has been greatest in the 5-county Portland Metro area, as has the natural increase. Which figures, since that area has by far the most people. The other eight counties have a large net migration, but Rynerson said almost all of this was due to Marion County. 

And in the 23 non-metro counties, which basically means rural Oregon, net migration has been very low -- along with a negative natural increase, with more people dying in those rural areas than are being born. 

This chart shows where people moving to Oregon come from. (The columns total to 100%.) Overall, 24% come from California. Rynerson said the SW Oregon and Deschutes column confirms his intuition that southern Oregon has a higher percentage of Californians than other parts of Oregon -- 34%. 

The Willamette Valley percentages are very close to the Oregon total, Rynerson noted.

This interesting chart shows by age group in 2016 the number of white/non-Latino people (blue) and all other people (brown). It shows that the proportion of white/non-Latino steadily increases with age: 63% for those under 15, 71% ages 15 to 44, 82% 45 to 64, 91% 65 and older. 

So demographically, the future belongs to people of color -- an oft-cited national fact that holds true in Oregon, though we have a smaller percentage than the United States as a whole.

Lastly, this slide shows the "baby bust" that's been reflected in previous slides. The blue 1990-2017 trend line is non-Latino total fertility rates, and the green line is Latino total fertility rates. Meaning, the total number of children a woman has. The fertility rates for both groups have been steadily declining, which is why the natural increase in Oregon has been dropping.

But the Latino birth rate has dropped especially fast since 2000. Now it is 1.96, not all that far above the non-Latino rate of 1.51. Rynerson said the replacement rate is 2.1, given that some children don't survive to adulthood. So couples need on average to have 2.1 children to keep the population steady, without accounting for net migration.

This shows that Oregon would be losing population long-term if it wasn't for people moving into our state.

Here's some other info Rynerson shared in his talk:

-- 70% of people will get an Internet-first 2020 Census survey, while 30% of people in broadband deprived areas will get a Paper-first survey. Those who don't respond to the Internet survey apparently will get a paper survey.

-- The Trump administration's attempt to add a "Are you a citizen?" question to the 2020 Census is still being adjudicated. Rynerson said that if this question ends up being included, and someone doesn't answer it, but completes the rest of the survey, likely there won't be a follow-up attempt, due to lack of resources. So I can see immigrant rights organizations advising people to leave that question blank. Heck, I'll likely do that myself, if the citizen question is asked. 

-- Attempts will be made to include homeless people in the 2020 Census. During a one-night event, census staff will go with local  people to try  to count the homeless.

Trump's tariff threat on foreign cars irks VW GTI loving me

Just when I think I can't get more irritated at Donald Trump, our (hopefully) one-term president does something that causes my Irritation Index to jump to a new high.

In this case -- imposing a tariff on imported cars that could reach 25% -- it's a threatened something that's raising my ire. But given Trump's oft-stated love of tariffs, even when they're a spectacularly bad idea, it sure seems like there's a good chance he'll go ahead with an imported car tariff. 

At my age, 70, obviously I've owned a lot of different cars. More have been foreign than domestic. And not because I've got anything against American-made cars. My wife and I have leased three Chevy Volts, a great car that sadly, is being discontinued by GM.

Foreign cars simply appeal to me more.

I've enjoyed my mother's '57 VW bug that I inherited and drove in my college years; a Toyota Corona that took my wife to the hospital when our daughter was born; a Toyota MR2 with flip-up headlights that I loved to turn on; a Volvo 850 turbo that proved station wagons can be really fun to drive; a BMW 325 ix that handled snow pretty darn well; several Toyota Highlanders, one hybrid and one regular; a succession of Toyota Priuses, or maybe Priii; a couple of Subaru's, a Legacy and an Impreza; and currently, a 2017 VW GTI that I'm enjoying even more than the GTI I owned in the early 80's. 

Oh, my wife and I also have ordered a 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, even though the hybrid version hasn't even been released yet.

It will replace our 2014 Toyota Highlander. The RAV4 Hybrid will be made in Japan. If Trump goes ahead with a 25% tariff, the car we're buying from Capitol Toyota here in Salem, Oregon would cost us about $8,000 more, at least. (We haven't gotten a final price on the car yet.)

Everybody who works at Capitol Toyota is an American citizen, I'm pretty sure. And Capitol Toyota obviously is an American company. Why Trump wants to endanger the financial health of all the dealerships that sell foreign-made cars escapes me -- along with so much else Trump does that makes no logical sense. 

I'm not sure what we'd do if Trump imposed a 25% tax on the 2019 RAV4 Hybrid. Likely we'll have bought the car prior to the three month window following the mid-February completion of a Commerce Department report that concluded tariffs could be imposed on foreign cars for national security reasons. 

The Trump administration won't release that report, probably because it is difficult to imagine how having the Toyota RAV4 built in Japan is a major threat to our national security. Likely the Commerce Department made crap up just to please Trump. 

So far few people with working brains in their head are saying "Yay!" to Trump's dumb tariff plan.

Even US automakers think a 25% tariff on imported cars would be a bad idea, in part because other countries would slap tariffs on American cars, and in part because American cars use a lot of parts made overseas that could also be subject to tariffs.

There's even a possibility that cars made in Mexico and Canada would be subject to a 25% tariff.

This would really irk me, since my much-beloved 2017 VW GTI was built in Mexico, and I'm looking forward to the release of the next-generation GTI -- which reportedly will arrive in the United States as a 2021 model sometime in 2020. 

Even with winter tires on steel wheels, I love how my VW GTI looks. And even more, how it drives. There's no better "hot hatch" made by any car manufacturer, foreign or domestic. 

So Donald Trump should let the market decide what cars are bought in the United States.

Believe me, if Trump makes VW GTI's unaffordable to those aficionados like me who adore this car, we'd rather keep our current GTI's until a smarter president takes office than buy a lower-quality domestic vehicle.

My fourth colonoscopy goes smoothly at Salem Gastro

First off, I just noticed the appealing slogan on the Salem Gastro web site: "What matters is what's inside." Nice mixture of philosophy and double entendre. 

The colonoscopy I had last month at the hands of Dr. Richard Brandes wasn't exactly appealing, but it went about as smoothly as possible.

This was my fourth colonoscopy.

Well, fifth, counting a virtual (CT) colonoscopy I had in 2006. In retrospect, that probably wasn't a great idea, since if a suspicious polyp had been found (maybe all polyps are suspicious), I would have needed to undergo a regular colonoscopy. But at the time it seemed like a good idea: simpler prep, no anesthesia.

Fortunately, I had a regular colonoscopy in 2009 after an occult blood test was positive, though a repeat test was negative. My family physician thought I should have a "real" colonoscopy, and it revealed a polyp that turned out to be benign.

Then I had another colonoscopy just two years later, in 2011, because the prep in 2009 wasn't ideal, and the doctor who performed the procedure said he couldn't see every part of my colon. Another wise decision, since another benign polyp was found in that location in 2011.

My first two regular colonoscopies were done at Gastroenterology Associates of Oregon in Tualatin, because I was turned off by what struck me as an overly lengthy prep period that Salem Gastro required at the time: no solid food for two days prior to the colonoscopy. Meaning, if your appointment was 9 am on Wednesday, you'd start the prep on Monday morning.

But in 2014 I was pleased to learn that Salem Gastro allowed a low volume prep solution, Suprep, that didn't require as much drinking on the night before my colonoscopy. And the no solid food time was a bit less, I believe. Again, three benign polyps were found.

As with my previous two colonoscopies, I enjoyed the propofol anesthesia -- which stimulated a quasi-spiritual 2011 blog post, "Finding enlightenment through a colonoscopy (and propofol)."

Five years passed before I was scheduled to have another colonoscopy in 2019.

Perhaps the longer period this time was because benign polyps were found the three previous colonoscopies. Regardless, my 2019 colonoscopy seemed to go the smoothest -- aside from some anxiety about possible snow being in the forecast, since I sure didn't want to go through the prep and then be stuck in our rural south Salem home because of thick snow or ice.

This time around I'd scheduled the procedure for early afternoon.

That meant I went without food for about four extra hours, compared to having an early morning colonoscopy, but I liked not having to get up early and head off to Salem Gastro at a time when retired me isn't used to fully functioning.

Interestingly, there were some differences between my 2014 colonoscopy at Salem Gastro and the 2019 procedure. Guess this shows the benefit of being an obsessive blogger. My posts function as sort of a diary. In 2014 I noted that it was nice to sit in a chair during the pre-colonoscopy preparation period. And I walked to the procedure room.

This time I reclined during the preparation period, and I was wheeled into the procedure room. But Dr. Brandes was still appealingly loose and joking around with the nurses, with rock music playing, as it was in 2014.

The nurse anesthetist told me before the colonoscopy that some changes had been made to the propofol. This time there was no counting backwards, or indeed any indication at all that I'd started getting the propofol. I was just out. Waking up, I didn't feel as blissful as the previous time. 

Meaning, no feeling that I'd been in a happy place, and now I had to deal with reality again. Instead, I had a vague recollection of what I thought at the time had been a dream. Now, though, I'm wondering if I was minimally aware during part or all of the procedure, and my "dream" was a vague memory. 

No big deal either way.

As I've noted before, it's unclear to me whether propofol truly renders you unconscious, or whether you forget what happened during the colonoscopy. I prefer the first option, so that's what I choose to believe, since it would bother me to consider that I endured pain during the procedure and simply didn't have a memory of it.

Dr. Brandes sent me a letter saying that the polyps removed this time (again!) were benign (again!), and I should have a repeat colonoscopy in five years. That seems a long ways off, but when 2024 rolls around, at least I'll have this blog post to refer to as a written memory of how smoothly my previous colonoscopy went.

The staff at Salem Gastro were wonderfully informal and pleasant. I had a great conversation with the nurse who handled my pre-colonoscopy preparation. However, I can't really recall when we talked about.

I like to think that's due to the propofol, rather than my age.

I'm a big fan of winter tires. Here's why.

I've had winter tires on quite a few of the cars my wife and I have owned over the years. They make a lot of sense, even here in western Oregon where sometimes it never snows all winter. 

I can't recall exactly what led me to start putting winter tires on in mid-November and off in mid-March, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with an experience I had driving our Volvo 850 station wagon to a cabin in Camp Sherman, Oregon that we were part owners of.

I'd just pulled off the main highway that leads to Sisters and was on the two-lane road that leads to Camp Sherman. It didn't take long before I realized that the road was icy. Really icy. So icy that I felt if I did anything sudden, my car would careen out of control.

I made it to the cabin.

But what I realized, after my heart rate returned to normal, was that if I'd passed a guy on the side of the road with a sign saying "Winter tires sold and installed here!", I would have (gently) pulled over and bought a set of tires for however much the guy was asking for them.

Western Oregon is notorious for snow and ice that falls onto roads that are close to freezing, 32 degrees. This makes for more slippery conditions than in places where the temperature is colder and the snow is powdery.

Winter tires provide a big dose of reassurance and safety. As noted in a 2012 blog post I wrote about winter tires, I've found that all-wheel drive doesn't cut it when all season tires are on a car.

I've owned several sets of snow tires over the years. Actually, they're better termed "winter tires" nowadays, because they're made out of materials which remain pliable under 45 degrees F., making for much safer handling in cold weather even when it isn't snowy or icy. 

(See here, here, and here for benefits of winter tires.)

Last year I put Bridgestone Blizzaks on our Hybrid Highlander SUV, which previously had all season tires. Even though the Highlander is all wheel drive, usually we couldn't get up our fairly steep driveway when it snowed. But with the Blizzaks, no problem. 

When I bought a 2017 VW GTI in late 2016, one of the first things I did was purchase four Michelin Pilot Alpin performance winter tires from Les Schwab -- after learning that Les Schwab can order whatever you want from any tire company.

I hate to put on tire chains. They're tough enough to install in our carport in good weather. Whenever I've had to put chains on by the side of the road in freezing weather the experience made me long for a better option. Which turned out to be winter tires. 

A New York Times article, "What's On Your Car? Winter Tires, We Hope," does a good job of explaining why winter tires make so much sense. 

There could be great dumping ahead of us, as there is almost every February and March. And for the most part, drivers will venture out, confident that modern drivetrain designs like front-wheel and all-wheel drive will get them to their destinations without drama. Electronic aids like traction control, stability systems and antilock brakes further bolster their self-confidence.

But I learned early that there is no substitute for winter tires in conditions with heavy snow. Their tread design keeps your car from skidding during braking and while making turns. You won’t slide through stop signs; you won’t continue going straight when trying to turn. Simply put, the tires give you more control of the car, help keep you out of accidents and avoid the skidding cars that don’t have them. All-season tires, despite their name, fall one season short if it’s a season of heavy snow.

If it’s just a dusting of freshly fallen snow, all-season tires will probably be fine. Driving gets trickier, though, when traffic packs snow to concrete hardness and parking spots get burnished to skating-rink slickness. Which is why you need to have tires that are up to the task.

This is even true if there’s just a little winter slop. Those electronic assistants built into modern cars can limit the amount of power going to the wheels or the braking force during a skid, but improving traction requires a better match of tires to surface conditions.

Yes, winter tires on steel rims are an extra expense. And there's some time involved in having them put on and removed. (Les Schwab does this at no cost if you bought the tires from them.) However, obviously every mile driven on my winter tires is one less mile driven on the all-season tires that came with my GTI.

So in the long run, there isn't a lot of extra expense involved with winter tires. The knowledge that I'm much better equipped to handle snow or ice is hard to put a value on, but it's considerable. 

Tomorrow I'm heading to our local Les Schwab tire center to have the winter tires replaced by the all-season tires. I enjoy the ritual of doing this. It starts with me staring at the stack of all-season tires in our garage. Les Schwab provides yellow covers that keeps the tires nice and cozy during their long winter sleep.

I've gotten to the age, 70, where my body doesn't like it when I make it do something unusual -- like lifting tires on rims into the back of my GTI. So I use a ramp that we got for an aged dog some years back to roll the tires into the back of my car. 

It's pleasing that every car I've bought winter tires for has been able to fit in a set of the tires. Even my Mini Cooper S (just barely). It seems that small cars have fairly small tires, so they can be squeezed in. Ditto with a larger car with larger tires, such as our Toyota Highlander, which also has winter tires put on in November.

I wondered whether I should have gotten black steel wheels to mount the Michelin winter tires on, since my VW GTI came with silver stock wheels. The black wheels now strike me as a nice winter change, November to March. When the silver wheels get put on tomorrow, it'll be (sort of) like I have a new car.

This is the tread design of the Michelin Pilot Alpin. After three seasons of winter driving, they have a lot of wear left. It just makes me feel good to head off in the GTI with these tires when snow is in the forecast. I know that I'll be a heck of a lot better off driving around with these tires, than with the all-season tires the car came with.

My "Return to the One" book gets a pleasing recommendation

I don't often plug my book about Plotinus, the 3nd century Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and mystic. Return to the One continues to have slow but steady sales, with good reader reviews on Amazon. 

Recently, though, my book got a pleasing recommendation from Christine McGinley, who founded a small book publishing company called Gleam of Light Press. Here's the email message I got from her.

Dear Brian, 

We want to let you know that the launch of Gleam of Light’s “Other Great Finds” is now up on the website: https://www.gleamoflightpress.com/ and we are pleased and proud to have Return to the One among our first offerings. 

One of the many things Emerson and the Transcendentalists have concretized for us is the recognition of intrinsic rewards as the greatest of riches. Please know that among the great rewards this project has yielded is the response from the authors and publishers involved – people who also appreciate intrinsic rewards.

We look forward to sharing many more great finds as we move forward slowly and thoughtfully.

Thank you so much for your graciousness and support.

Very best regards,  
Christine Mary McGinley

Gleam of Light Press has a web page called "Other Great Finds." Return to the One is in some excellent company there.

I enjoyed seeing my book's cover one row down from Emerson's Essays and Walden. Not that I in any way compare myself to Emerson and Thoreau. I'm just pleased to be on the same web page as them.

This is how Gleam of Light Press describes Return to the One.

Plotinus, the third-century Greek philosopher and mystic, considered himself a devoted follower of Plato. He has since been recognized as the ultimate Platonist and the embodiment of hundreds of years of Greek thought.

As scholars have pointed out, Plotinus shed new light on Plato’s philosophy minus the political and social elements. In other words, Plotinus dealt with the inner life, the life of the soul, and gave little attention to the worldly. This in itself is most telling of Plotinus’s philosophy, which many have described as an expansion of Plato’s mysticism.

As Brian Hines describes it, “Plotinus taught that no matter what we’re doing with our lives, it’s all pretty much worthless if we’re not yet in touch with our genuine beings.” And being in touch with our genuine beings has nothing to do with our outward identities or even the knowledge we accumulate over our lifetime. It has to do with the attention we give to the attainment of inner wisdom.

Plotinus believed that all of the urges we experience as human beings – to love, to create, to be moral – even to find our way as spiritual beings – are manifestations of the same primal yearning to “return to the One” – to be reunited with our true source, the source of all.

As Hines makes clear, Plotinus’s philosophy, which was a germinating force in major world religions, was in perfect alignment with the original root meaning of “religion”– religare – “to bind back to God.”

For those who wish to understand the spiritual teachings of Plotinus, Brian Hines’s Return to the One makes the “mystic Plato” thoroughly accessible. He explains Plotinus’s ideas about the nature of spirit, about the soul as the essence of identity, about the power of a contemplative life.

He also sheds light on the enormous role Plotinus and Greek philosophy have played in the formation of religious and spiritual thought throughout the world. He even explains why The Enneads, the writings Plotinus left behind, are impenetrable for those of us who have not spent years in deep study.

Plotinus wrote solely for his inner circle of disciples who were already deeply versed in his philosophy. He did not anticipate that one of those students, Porphyry, would one day publish The Enneads in their raw, unedited form.

Return to the One is a complete and inspiring introduction to Plotinus. One comes away from it with a deep sense of Plotinus’s philosophy, his unique presence in the evolution of spiritual thought, and the great value of his ideas for every seeker of wisdom.

The Gleam of Light Team

Return to the One
Brian Hines
2004, Adrasteia Publishing

If you have slower broadband than 6.25 Mbps, let me know

Misery likes company, as the saying goes. So if you have a "broadband" Internet download connection that's slower than my crappy 6.25 Mbps, leave a comment on this post. 

My wife and I live five miles from the city limits of Salem, the freaking capital city of Oregon.

But I have little doubt that people living in Outer Mongolia have a faster Internet connection than we do, since our DSL comes courtesy of the same copper wire that probably was used by the first telephones.

I'm especially irritated at the moment because I made the mistake of joking with some Tai Chi classmates this evening. I'd just made a nine minute video of our instructor doing a new form that we're learning.

I said, "I'll share this with everybody after I fire up our steam-powered Internet connection, which will only take a few hours or so to upload the file to You Tube." That led someone to ask how slow our connection was.

About 7 Mbps, I replied. Laughter ensued.

And not just from the people who live in Salem proper. Also from my instructor who, like us, lives in a rural area of small acreages. But he has Molalla Broadband, since he has the good fortune to live close to Silverton, Oregon. 

Here's a depressing screenshot of one of the Molalla Broadband fiber optic options. Geez, I'd pay a million dollars a month, or thereabouts, for 250 Mbps.

We have CenturyLink DSL. Frustratingly, our neighborhood of several hundred homes is just a few miles from Bunker Hill Road, where CenturyLink repairpeople have told me fiber optic ends and DSL begins.

Yet somehow CenturyLink seems prepared to let us languish in Slow Speed Internet Hell for eternity. Or at least until the beancounters at CenturyLink decide that they can make sufficient profits from our neighborhood to justify moving us into the 21st century of broadband.

I'm thinking of revisiting what worked for me back in 2007, when I managed to talk Qwest, the predecessor of CenturyLink, into offering DSL in our area. Before that we made do with satellite Internet, which had the annoying habit of cutting out whenever it rained hard, snowed, or a flock of birds passed overhead. 

OK, I made that last thing up.

But satellite Internet sucked even worse than our DSL does now. So I was hugely proud after I wrote a letter to the CEO of Qwest about our lack of broadband, which led to me being called by a local Qwest employee who notified me that, finally, DSL would be coming our way. 

My blog post, "I'm the DSL King of the World!," described my joy. 

That was 12 years ago, though. There's no joy now in 7 Mbps, on a good day. So if you're reading this and have even slower Internet than me, let me know via a comment.

I won't feel any better, but I'll get a mild bit of satisfaction from knowing that someone else is suffering with an even worse Internet speed than us and our neighbors have to put up with.

Why I'm not buying one of the first 100 Arcimoto FUVs

My Arcimoto pre-order number of #129 shows that I've been following the ups and downs of the company for many years.

Recently Arcimoto sent me an email with an enticing image of the Evergreen Edition FUV (Fun Utility Vehicle) that's being offered for sale to 100 people with low numbers on the pre-order list who live in Oregon, Washington, and California. (I live in Salem, Oregon.)

But I've decided to pass on plunking down a $5,000 deposit on the $19,900 Evergreen Edition, with delivery promised by June 2019. Here's my reasons, roughly ranging from most important to least important. 

(1) My wife hates the idea of me buying one. This isn't an absolute deal-killer, since my wife also heartily disliked me buying a Suzuki Burgman 650 maxi-scooter, which I happily rode for three years.

However, she correctly considers that an Arcimoto FUV is considerably more dangerous than driving a car -- though certainly less dangerous than riding a two-wheeled motorcycle. (The FUV is classed as a three-wheeled motorcycle, albeit one with seat belts and some other car'ish amenities.)

(2) No compelling reason to buy a FUV. I'm always looking for more fun. Though I haven't driven a FUV yet, I'm sure it's fun to zip around in. However, so is my VW GTI. And it is much more practical than a FUV.

I can go grocery shopping in the GTI and lock my car when I go from store to store. I can take our dog along. If it rains, I don't get wet. If it snows, I don't get cold. The FUV lacks the fun-factor of a motorcycle, while also lacking the features that make my GTI both considerably safer and more useable, given my daily transportation needs.

(3) I can buy a FUV later. I appreciate Arcimoto allowing early pre-order customers like me to pass on the Evergreen Edition while keeping their place in line for an opportunity to purchase a subsequent model. So there isn't a reason to jump at this buying opportunity, since I can always purchase a FUV later.

(4) The maximum range has dropped. We live in rural south Salem, about seven miles from the city limits, with hills in-between us and town. I was interested in getting the extended range FUV model when Arcimoto said it would have a 130 mile range. But now the reported maximum range is 100 miles.

My wife and I have owned a Nissan Leaf and have leased three Chevy Volts. So I'm familiar with how the range of electric vehicles drops in cold weather and going up hills. A 100 mile range might be enough, but I'd much prefer a FUV with a longer range -- which could be available one day.

(5) Lack of long-term reviews. Over the years I've engaged in some email exchanges with Arcimoto staff where I express my questions and concerns, and they reply to me. Here's a verbatim exchange I had in August 2018 where I quoted from a blog post I'd written, "Arcimoto should get some long-term reviews before retail sales begin."

I said: Hey, it never hurts to ask. What I'm asking for in this blog post is for Arcimoto to arrange for an independent long-term review of their vehicle -- "long-term" being at least a few weeks, and ideally a few months.

Nothing like this exists at the moment. I've watched lots of videos of people taking a quick test drive. However, I'd like to know what it's like to drive an Arcimoto in the cold and wet, and at nighttime on a dark hilly twisty road (I live in the rural south Salem hills), plus in a variety of other conditions.

Maybe this won't be possible by the time retail sales begin around the end of 2018. I just would find it really helpful if Arcimoto loaned a beta vehicle to a Eugene journalist for a lengthy "get to know you" period, during which the journalist would blog about their experiences, summing it all up in an online report.

A staff person replied: Great suggestions, so thanks for taking the time to do that. We agree, we want to get long-term reviews on the docket, and it's in the plan once we have more vehicles available.

Well, I'm not aware of any long-term reviews. Yes, a few people have reported on their purchase of earlier FUV models, but these  descriptions are hard to find.

Arcimoto gives lots of short test drives, as noted in my blog post. What I'm looking for, though, is what magazines like Car & Driver do: use a new vehicle for several days or longer, then tell readers its pluses and minuses. 

Since Arcimoto has chosen not to have any long-term reviews available before asking prospective buyers to fork out $5,000 for a deposit on the Evergreen Edition, this is another reason why I'm not going to buy one.

(6) Questions remain unanswered. In a November 2018 blog post I discussed several questions that I wanted answers to before I'd feel comfortable buying a FUV. To my knowledge, most remain to be answered.

I'm fine taking a leap into the unknown in some instances, but not when a product costs $19,900.

For instance, I'm still not aware of how Arcimoto plans to handle servicing, repair, and warranty issues. Who, specifically, is going to take care of FUVs bought by people here in Salem, Oregon? Arcimoto continues to say they are working on a servicing network. That isn't good enough for me.

I'll end by saying that I'm still a believer in Arcimoto and the FUV. Someday I hope to own one. There's a lot to like about the FUV. Our Chevy Volt sucks up the electricity in our Level 2 charging unit, so it'd be nice for me to have a small electric vehicle that could be charged on 110V. 

I'd just like more range, and more information -- as noted above. I'm rooting for Arcimoto to succeed, and will be paying close attention to how buyers of the Evergreen Edition enjoy their purchase. 

UPDATE: I forgot to mention another reason. There's something strange about Arcimoto spending from now until June to build only 100 Evergreen Edition FUVs. This strikes me as being close to another "beta" test vehicle, though I could be wrong about this.

But if this is the final FUV design, why are so few vehicles being made over the next four months? The low number of FUVs to be built caused me to worry that if I bought this model, a new and improved model would come out soon, and I'd be stuck with the Evergreen Edition.

Youth mental health focus of gripping City Club program

In retrospect, I was crazy to consider not going to today's Salem City Club program, "Oregon Youth: Crisis in Mental Health."

Fortunately I had the good sense to attend the meeting and hear two people from Liberty House, a child abuse assessment center, plus a South Salem High School counselor. 

I'll end this blog post by talking about my own long-ago mental health problems in my high school years.

First, though, here's some of what I remember from the presentations by Alison Kelley, CEO of Liberty House; Neda Grant, program manager of Liberty House's Hope and Wellness services; and Ryan Marshall, counselor at South Salem High School. 

I didn't take any notes during their talks, in part because they all were such great speakers, and had such compelling information to share, I wanted to listen wholeheartedly to them. So while I may not have gotten what follows exactly right, I'm confident that I've captured the spirit of their messages.

Maybe the most important thing I heard was this: if a youth confides in you, having the courage to tell you about a problem they're having, don't say "I'm so sorry." Instead, say "I'm here for you." 

Marshall said that often it isn't until 45 minutes into a counseling session that a student has enough trust in him to reveal what is really going on in their life. So keep this in mind if a troubled youth is willing to speak with you, even haltingly, about what's bothering them. 

Grant shared compelling anecdotes about what parents do right and wrong. She related a decidedly unhelpful thing a father said after his child talked about a problem: "Put your big-girl panties on and deal with it" (or words to that effect). 

We all know how obnoxious teenagers can be -- typically forgetting, of course, that once upon a time we adults acted very much the same. But often this seemingly recalcitrant behavior is masking an underlying mental health problem. Which leads me to break my intention to leave my personal story for the end, since I can offer up a good example of this.

My high school years (1962-66) included a period when my alcoholic mother was drinking heavily. Here's an excerpt from a previous blog post of mine that I wrote on a Mother's Day.

Since my clearest memories of my mother are from when I was older, the drunken, mean, angry moments that I can easily recollect got all mixed up with happier moments when I tried to ponder what my mother meant to me.

A pain in the ass. Like when, during my teenage years, she'd yell from her bedroom into mine when I was trying to go to sleep, muttering nasty alcoholic crap that I couldn't tune out even with a pillow over my head.

It got so bad, when I'd drive home from a date with my high school girlfriend, who had a pleasingly normal family, I'd pass a liquor store and think "I should throw a rock through the glass and steal some stuff, just so people would know that seemingly well-adjusted star student Me actually is screwed-up beyond belief but I do a damn good job of hiding it."

Even now, reading what I wrote brings some tears to my 70 year-old eyes.

Our teenage years are formative. We're struggling to make the transition from being a child to being an adult. A part-time guidance counselor in my high school, who also was my tennis coach, called me in to his office once to ask how my mother was doing.

Not well, I knew for a fact. But I said nothing about the pain I was in, and the counselor left it at that.

Students in the Salem-Keizer School District have more mental health services. However, the City Club audience was told that compared to other large districts in Oregon, Salem-Keizer doesn't have nearly enough counselors. Hopefully the 2019 legislature is going to address youth mental health by providing more money in this area.

After the program ended I asked Kelley if she considered that there actually were more disturbed youth now, or if mental health problems were simply not recognized previously. Her answer was clear: now is worse. 

And a big reason is social media and smart phones. The iPhone was introduced in 2007. Since, smart phone use among youth is ubiquitous. This produces problems that didn't exist before. Here's some examples that I recall.

-- "Sexting" (sending sexy/nude photos via text messages) begins as early as eight years old. A girl may be pressured by classmates to send a naked photo of themselves. Then they hear, "You're fat, ugly, and should kill yourself." Sadly, some students do. Or at least seriously consider this.

-- At a party, youth may communicate by text even when they are sitting next to each other on a couch. This seems decidedly weird to my senior citizen mind. However, at my athletic club I see young people obsessively clicking away on their smart phones while on a weight machine, while old folks like me have the quaint idea that exercising should be Job #1 in this setting.

-- Everybody wants to be popular in high school. Now, though, social media like Instagram make this quantifiable. If a student doesn't have 500 followers, they may consider themselves unliked. Or even worse, unlikeable. Too often, youth substitute distant relationships in cyberspace for intimate relationships in real life.

In her presentation, Kelley talked about how problems at home translate into youth mental health problems.

Divorce and death in a family, for example. More disturbingly, sexual abuse and drug problems. Some parents even give their children marijuana edibles to quiet them down. (But I have to note that legal weed apparently hasn't led to more marijuana use by young people in Oregon.)

Parents may expect either too little or too much of their children. Regarding the latter, it's important that youth be given sufficient time to relax, do nothing, enjoy free time. Too many students have almost every moment scheduled with either school or after-school activities.

Lastly, during the Q&A part of the City Club program a question about mindfulness training was asked. Kelley responded that this Eastern/Buddhist approach to being directly aware of what is happening with us, typically using the breath as a focus of attention, can be very useful for distracted/anxious/worried youth.

I heartily agree, having meditated every day for about 50 years. Some time ago I embraced mindfulness meditation and have found it helpful for keeping me mentally healthy.

More or less, at least. (A small dose of craziness adds spice to life.)

Netflix, like life, works in mysterious ways

I've used psychedelics, meditation, and philosophy to understand the mystery of the cosmos -- with decidedly mixed success. But now that I've reached what feels like the astoundingly old age of 70, I'm pleased to find wisdom any way it appears to me.

Such as, through the unexpected workings of Netflix. Which led me yesterday to a better appreciation of what is really important in life.

My mini-enlightenment began when I noticed that "A Star is Born" was available in our Netflix DVD queue as of February 20. So I elevated it to next in line and mailed back the movie we'd just watched, "The Wife."

However, I didn't realize that Netflix would send us our next request on February 19, when "A Star is Born" wasn't available. So I got an email saying "Dan in Real Life" was on its way to us. 

Damn, I thought. That's probably a loser of a movie, since it was released in 2007 and we've had no interest in seeing it over the past dozen or so years even though it was near the top of our Netflix queue.

So my plan was to return it as soon as it arrived, to hasten the arrival of what we really wanted, "A Star is Born."

Things turned out differently, though. Which, interestingly, is the central theme of "Dan in Real Life," as the Rotten Tomatoes synopsis describes: 

Widowed father and family-advice columnist Dan Burns, who is reeling from the heartache of loss, takes refuge by trying to maintain order with his three rebellious young girls, while dodging anything unexpected or outside the box.

But when Dan heads to Rhode Island, his miffed daughters in tow, for the annual fall weekend thrown by the large and boisterous Burns family, everything changes. Soon after his arrival, he runs into an alluring woman named Marie in a bookshop.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Dan experiences real, live sparks--only to have to douse them liberally when he discovers Marie is, in fact, the brand-new girlfriend that his brother Mitch is about to proudly introduce to the family.

As the weekend gets underway in the close quarters of a crowded house filled with quirky, prying relatives, Dan and Marie try to squelch and cover up their growing mutual attraction at every turn, leading to one comical situation after another. Yet, no matter how hard they try to do the very opposite, Dan and Marie can't help but fall in love.

Now, Dan is about to realize that no matter how wise safety might seem, when it comes to real life, he's going to have to break all the rules.

Good advice. 

Last night I told my wife, Laurel, that "Dan in Real Life" got pretty good critic and viewer reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, so we should give it a look-see rather than returning it without watching the movie. After all, if it sucked, we could stop watching it after half an hour or so.

But both of us loved the movie. Steve Carell was great in it, as was Juliette Binoche. This romantic comedy even made us laugh out loud several times, and we usually keep our amusement silently inside our heads.

The movie was short enough (98 minutes) for us to see it in one Wednesday night sitting.

However, it was long enough that we didn't have time to see any of our usual politically-oriented TV shows that pile up in our DVR for eventual watching. Like, Late Night With Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Real Time With Bill Maher. 

(Why is it all of these have "with" in the show names? Another mystery of the cosmos.)

What struck me as I headed off to bed after watching the local -- OK, Portland, since Salem doesn't have a TV station -- 11 pm news was how much calmer I felt, compared to our usual television-watching routine. Almost always my wife and I feast, maybe even overdose, on a diet of the above-mentioned politically heavy shows.

Given that the Mueller report appears to be coming out next week, part of me was wondering what Colbert, et. al., had to say about this important development. However, a larger part of me was feeling good about the, well, feel-good message of "Dan in Real Life."

Love is what counts most in life.

Not politics. Not the Mueller report. Not the 2020 election. Or any election. And love, no matter who is fallen in love with, can't be controlled, predicted, anticipated, or even understood. It is simply there, a mystery in plain sight.

If you haven't seen "Dan in Real Life" and want to get a feel for the movie, here's four clips from the last part of it.

Here Dan and his brother Mitch, whose girlfriend is the woman Dan is falling in love with, Marie, both sing to her in their separate ways. Marie likes what Dan did, yet also is confused by it.

I loved the bowling scene. Dan (Steve Carell) and Marie (Juliette Binoche) meet up after Marie realizes that she really isn't attracted to Dan's brother and leaves the family reunion. But she calls Dan and says, "I had to leave. But I didn't get very far." What they didn't know is that the whole family also has decided to go bowling.

Dan feels bad that he's been letting down his three daughters. They get him back on track with Marie, though.

And naturally there's a happy ending in the closing credits. Geez, I really like romantic comedies.