Random Thoughts

[Max Rockatansky]

The insect situation in the Central Valley of California is just as bad if not worse than what i experienced in Florida.  I ponder over this every Spring since moving here from Orlando in 2016.

When it comes to indoor pests, South Florida gets you into the habit of being a clean freak in kitchens and dining areas, or anywhere one eats. Bugs of all varieties, anytime. The Tennessee Valley is very forgiving in comparison, just more spiders.

Got that little reminder when leaving some food out in Kauai; the ant situation was just like being in Florida again, if you were careless about leftovers.

The centipedes randomly on my floor was enough to ensure I never walked around barefoot in the Keys.  That was fun stepping on several at night when I first moved there.

[Henry]

I was watching the series finale of Bob Hearts Abishola last night, and thinking up a crazy scenario reminiscent of the way Newhart ended:

Bob has a second heart attack (probably after reading his mother's unfinished manuscript for a memoir she's writing), then wakes up as Mike and tells Molly about the strange dream he had about being married to a Nigerian nurse and owning a sock company in Detroit. Molly asks Mike "Where the hell was I?", and then (after hearing his jarring explanation) tells him that she's cutting him off and that they're going to clean the kitchen of all the junk food tomorrow. Then, as the end credits roll for the last time, I See Love (the Mike & Molly theme) plays. So, in a nutshell, the show would've been all a dream from Mike all along.

But maybe it was all for the best that it never happened, in particular since Melissa McCarthy was fired from the show (Mike & Molly) for losing weight (or so I heard). The actual ending to Bob Hearts Abishola was much better anyway.

[jgb191]

I was connecting at Hobby Airport yesterday and at the gate next to where I was boarding for my onward flight back home, I overheard this:

Southwest Airlines gate agent (calmly): "Good Evening sir, what airport are you flying to tonight?"
Southwest Airlines Passenger (upset):  "I'm going to California ma'am."
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "Okay, do you know which airport?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (irate):  "I just told you, California!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calmly): "I understand sir, but which airport exactly?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (angrily):  "What part of 'California' do you not understand ma'am?!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "There are a lot of airports in California, I just need to know which one."
Southwest Airlines passenger (blows fuse):  "I need to speak to your manager, NOW!!!"

I felt really terrible; it seems that airline agents are kicked in the head way more than any other customer service profession.  I wish airlines would provide trauma assistance every week for their employees.

[Scott5114]

I was connecting at Hobby Airport yesterday and at the gate next to where I was boarding for my onward flight back home, I overheard this:

Southwest Airlines gate agent (calmly): "Good Evening sir, what airport are you flying to tonight?"
Southwest Airlines Passenger (upset):  "I'm going to California ma'am."
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "Okay, do you know which airport?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (irate):  "I just told you, California!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calmly): "I understand sir, but which airport exactly?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (angrily):  "What part of 'California' do you not understand ma'am?!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "There are a lot of airports in California, I just need to know which one."
Southwest Airlines passenger (blows fuse):  "I need to speak to your manager, NOW!!!"

I felt really terrible; it seems that airline agents are kicked in the head way more than any other customer service profession.  I wish airlines would provide trauma assistance every week for their employees.

They're lucky they didn't get me. I would have just picked one at random at that point.

Hope y'all have a good trip to Daggett!

[formulanone]

I was connecting at Hobby Airport yesterday and at the gate next to where I was boarding for my onward flight back home, I overheard this:

Southwest Airlines gate agent (calmly): "Good Evening sir, what airport are you flying to tonight?"
Southwest Airlines Passenger (upset):  "I'm going to California ma'am."
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "Okay, do you know which airport?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (irate):  "I just told you, California!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calmly): "I understand sir, but which airport exactly?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (angrily):  "What part of 'California' do you not understand ma'am?!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "There are a lot of airports in California, I just need to know which one."
Southwest Airlines passenger (blows fuse):  "I need to speak to your manager, NOW!!!"

I felt really terrible; it seems that airline agents are kicked in the head way more than any other customer service profession.  I wish airlines would provide trauma assistance every week for their employees.

Props to that gate agent for trying extra hard to hold back laughter. Maybe more for just laughing that pax's face.

The only suckier job would be the ones which deal with missing/damaged baggage. You're never getting pleased customers at that point.

(Yeah, the one that clean the lavs; but that's usually contracted out.)

[Rothman]

Moral of the story: Never think you've encountered the epitome of stupidity.

[jeffandnicole]

I was connecting at Hobby Airport yesterday and at the gate next to where I was boarding for my onward flight back home, I overheard this:

Southwest Airlines gate agent (calmly): "Good Evening sir, what airport are you flying to tonight?"
Southwest Airlines Passenger (upset):  "I'm going to California ma'am."
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "Okay, do you know which airport?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (irate):  "I just told you, California!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calmly): "I understand sir, but which airport exactly?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (angrily):  "What part of 'California' do you not understand ma'am?!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "There are a lot of airports in California, I just need to know which one."
Southwest Airlines passenger (blows fuse):  "I need to speak to your manager, NOW!!!"

I felt really terrible; it seems that airline agents are kicked in the head way more than any other customer service profession.  I wish airlines would provide trauma assistance every week for their employees.

Campbeltown Airport in Scotland it is then. (IATA code: CAL)

[JayhawkCO]

I was connecting at Hobby Airport yesterday and at the gate next to where I was boarding for my onward flight back home, I overheard this:

Southwest Airlines gate agent (calmly): "Good Evening sir, what airport are you flying to tonight?"
Southwest Airlines Passenger (upset):  "I'm going to California ma'am."
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "Okay, do you know which airport?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (irate):  "I just told you, California!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calmly): "I understand sir, but which airport exactly?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (angrily):  "What part of 'California' do you not understand ma'am?!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "There are a lot of airports in California, I just need to know which one."
Southwest Airlines passenger (blows fuse):  "I need to speak to your manager, NOW!!!"

I felt really terrible; it seems that airline agents are kicked in the head way more than any other customer service profession.  I wish airlines would provide trauma assistance every week for their employees.

Campbeltown Airport in Scotland it is then. (IATA code: CAL)

At least you'd be able to drink some Springbank.

[jgb191]

I was connecting at Hobby Airport yesterday and at the gate next to where I was boarding for my onward flight back home, I overheard this:

Southwest Airlines gate agent (calmly): "Good Evening sir, what airport are you flying to tonight?"
Southwest Airlines Passenger (upset):  "I'm going to California ma'am."
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "Okay, do you know which airport?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (irate):  "I just told you, California!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calmly): "I understand sir, but which airport exactly?"
Southwest Airlines passenger (angrily):  "What part of 'California' do you not understand ma'am?!"
Southwest Airlines gate agent (still calm):  "There are a lot of airports in California, I just need to know which one."
Southwest Airlines passenger (blows fuse):  "I need to speak to your manager, NOW!!!"

I felt really terrible; it seems that airline agents are kicked in the head way more than any other customer service profession.  I wish airlines would provide trauma assistance every week for their employees.

Campbeltown Airport in Scotland it is then. (IATA code: CAL)

At least you'd be able to drink some Springbank.

So you're proposing the following:

Houston Hobby to Atlanta Hartsfield via Southwest Airlines
Atlanta Hartsfield to London Heathrow via Delta Airlines
London Heathrow to Glasgow via British Airways
Glasgow to Campbelltown (CAL) via Logan Air

Sounds good to me! 

Hope y'all have a good trip to Daggett!

The closest airport to Daggett, CA is Las Vegas McCarran Int'l Airport.  I don't know about sending him to Vegas at his raging state of mind.

[hotdogPi]

Would this be a good state law to fix the housing market, or is it kernals-style bad?

If a property is not used for at least 60 days of a calendar year, it immediately goes up for auction on January 1. ("Used" includes things like Airbnb as long as there's a customer.)

[JayhawkCO]

Would this be a good state law to fix the housing market, or is it kernals-style bad?

If a property is not used for at least 60 days of a calendar year, it immediately goes up for auction on January 1. ("Used" includes things like Airbnb as long as there's a customer.)

Outside of being completely unenforceable, I guess it wouldn't hurt.

[Max Rockatansky]

K12 being the forum defender/advocate of hyper liberal urban housing was certainly not something I was expecting.

[hotdogPi]

I might not have been clear enough (although you do seem to have deleted what caused me to make this clarification). It checks for 60 days of use to consider it occupied, not 60 days of non-use to consider it unoccupied.

[JayhawkCO]

I might not have been clear enough (although you do seem to have deleted what caused me to make this clarification). It checks for 60 days of use to consider it occupied, not 60 days of non-use to consider it unoccupied.

Yeah, I was thinking being unoccupied for 60 days at a time. Hence I deleted my post. But I would still maintain that there are reasonable explanations for a house to not be occupied for 60 days of a year. What if you bought a fixer-upper that needed a whole lot of work and you wanted to do it in phases? I have family friends that have been building a house themselves for three years now. Never once slept there.

[CoreySamson]

I feel that such a law would have easy loopholes. What counts as "using the property?" Stepping inside the door? Being in the property for a certain amount of time in a day? Using the building for its proper purpose (but then that goes into the weeds as to what "proper purpose" means)? Also, how would the government track that the building is being used or not? I could see privacy issues with that.

I think the idea is good in theory, but in practice I don't think it would work, and I think it could be abused.

[Scott5114]

The closest airport to Daggett, CA is Las Vegas McCarran Int'l Airport.  I don't know about sending him to Vegas at his raging state of mind.

They've got that general aviation airport with the AWOS the Weather Channel used to inexplicably show on their weather maps back in the day. Put him in the back of a Piper Tri-Pacer and send him out there.

Also, it's Reid now, since McCarran was a dirtbag.

[Scott5114]

I feel that such a law would have easy loopholes. What counts as "using the property?" Stepping inside the door? Being in the property for a certain amount of time in a day? Using the building for its proper purpose (but then that goes into the weeds as to what "proper purpose" means)? Also, how would the government track that the building is being used or not? I could see privacy issues with that.

I think the idea is good in theory, but in practice I don't think it would work, and I think it could be abused.

Some places have a vacancy tax that kicks in if a property is deemed vacant (I don't know what determines whether a building is vacant enough). The effects that I see from five seconds of random uninformed Googling seem to indicate that while a tax does sharply reduce the number of vacant properties, demand is usually so great anywhere a vacancy tax is implemented that it doesn't really make enough of a dent in it to actually reduce housing costs.

[kkt]

Would this be a good state law to fix the housing market, or is it kernals-style bad?

If a property is not used for at least 60 days of a calendar year, it immediately goes up for auction on January 1. ("Used" includes things like Airbnb as long as there's a customer.)

How do you establish whether it's been used?  Send the Housing Police around to every house every week and see if it looks vacant?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Also, what about cabins and other vacation rentals people have that they use during the summer but very little in the winter? They have no intention to cease using these properties even if some (at least those who don't ice fish or snowmobile) are not actively using them during the winter.

[mgk920]

How would life in the USofA change if someone with standing sues and gets the USSupremes to overturn their 1926 ruling in the case of 'Ambler Realty Company v. the City of Euclid, Ohio', which legalized municipal land use zoning nationwide?

Mike

[JayhawkCO]

How would life in the USofA change if someone with standing sues and gets the USSupremes to overturn their 1926 ruling in the case of 'Ambler Realty Company v. the City of Euclid, Ohio', which legalized municipal land use zoning nationwide?

Mike

You'd have a lot more liquor stores right next to schools.

[mgk920]

I would think that the development patterns would be much the same as they are now, but far more dense and compact.

Mike

[formulanone]

Would this be a good state law to fix the housing market, or is it kernals-style bad?

If a property is not used for at least 60 days of a calendar year, it immediately goes up for auction on January 1. ("Used" includes things like Airbnb as long as there's a customer.)

How do you establish whether it's been used?  Send the Housing Police around to every house every week and see if it looks vacant?

Who else is going to enforce bedtimes and whether they really brushed their own teeth?

I might not have been clear enough (although you do seem to have deleted what caused me to make this clarification). It checks for 60 days of use to consider it occupied, not 60 days of non-use to consider it unoccupied.

Yeah, I was thinking being unoccupied for 60 days at a time. Hence I deleted my post. But I would still maintain that there are reasonable explanations for a house to not be occupied for 60 days of a year. What if you bought a fixer-upper that needed a whole lot of work and you wanted to do it in phases? I have family friends that have been building a house themselves for three years now. Never once slept there.

Not pretending to be an expert here, but I suppose those are edge cases; though I've heard of some weird real estate deals whereby corporate ownership turned into residential ownership. These residences were missing required items like working plumbing to the bathrooms and a kitchen without electricity, which would likely mean much more than 60 days turnaround to make the property viable (or even "legal" in some jurisdictions, if sold as real estate). In both cases, squatters and vagrants turned a place into unlivable squalor. We had a chance on a cut-rate property in a great neighborhood in one of those conditions, but would have had to commit to the fixer-upper expenses beforehand....too much to lay out on our budget two decades ago after penciling a few estimates with an indefinite timeline.

While the concept of making things free and available to the public sounds rosy and idealistic, there's a lot of oversight required to make sure these properties aren't trashed over time and kept up to an acceptable standard.

[jeffandnicole]

Would this be a good state law to fix the housing market, or is it kernals-style bad?

If a property is not used for at least 60 days of a calendar year, it immediately goes up for auction on January 1. ("Used" includes things like Airbnb as long as there's a customer.)

How do you establish whether it's been used?  Send the Housing Police around to every house every week and see if it looks vacant?

The normal IRS standard of a house being used as a principal residence is 2 out of the past 5 years.  There are also state standards, many of which require a residence to be lived in for 183 days out of a day to be considered a primary home.  Along with tax purposes, this includes voting rights for the state.

Proof of a primary home includes bills with the occupant's name and address, a driver's license with the address, or a voter registration card.  Other receipts showing the person has lived there also can support the number of days one has lived in a home.

There's also rental restrictions when people have second homes.

So for all of this, a 60 day rule is extremely unreasonable.  Many people may have a second home in a beach town or resort area. Those homes won't be used for a good 6 months out of the year - October thru April.  Maybe they have a second home in a retirement community in the south, living there in the winter, while in their primary residence further North in the summer. 

For many people with 2 homes, their situation will clearly show which home is their principal residence.  Kids go to school, their workplace, etc are all near their primary residence.  But for others (ie: people way richer than us), they're going to need to nitpick Starbucks and deli sandwich receipts and document where they spent their nights to determine if they meet the residence thresholds.

[jeffandnicole]

How would life in the USofA change if someone with standing sues and gets the USSupremes to overturn their 1926 ruling in the case of 'Ambler Realty Company v. the City of Euclid, Ohio', which legalized municipal land use zoning nationwide?

Mike

You'd have a lot more liquor stores right next to schools.

A company could build a 20 story commercial high rise next to a residential house.

A strip club could be built next to a playground.

A prison could be built next to a church.

A chemical plant could be built next to a farm.

Take any of the above 10, and put it next to any of the remaining 9.  Many of those combinations would be no good.

There are some examples of the above in older cities and suburbs of those cities, but for the most part there's 1,000 feet or more of separation between extremes.