Since 2006, Bellevue has actually cut per-resident spending from $5,741 to $4,653 — a 19% decrease. Seattle? It’s ballooned from $5,997 to $8,677 — up 45%. Seattle now spends nearly twice as much per resident as Bellevue for the same basic services.
What’s that money buying? On violent crime, Seattle logs 542 incidents per 100,000 residents. Bellevue: 99. Property crime: Seattle racks up 4,100 cases; Bellevue about 2,200. Seattle residents are also earning less — median household income is $120,000 v. Bellevue’s $160,000.
But here’s the number that stops you cold. Life expectancy in Seattle’s downtown core — Belltown, First Hill — is 71.6 years. East King County, where Bellevue sits, comes in at 84.2. That’s a 13-year gap. Thirteen years of life, separated by a bridge.
Seattle could start by not electing admitted socialists and communists to the city council and as mayors. But they probably won’t. They will, almost for certain, advocate for Bellevue to become more like Seattle so as to stop attracting the jobs out of Seattle. Just like in the early days of the USSR it was always the fault of the capitalists. The solution was to confiscate the property and send the capitalists to the gulag and/or a mass grave.
Even with San Fransico and Detroit as examples of their path of folly, Seattle will have to attempt learning the bad lesson for themselves. I just hope they actually do eventually learn. With the contrast of Bellevue just a few minutes away across the lake you would think they would learn quickly. But I expect they will be more successful in exporting their mistakes than importing real solutions.
Just in the last few years a homeless shelter was constructed within walking distance of our home in Bellevue. And in March of this year, Sound Transit completed a “high‑frequency light rail service” connecting Seattle to Bellevue and Redmond. That will make it easier for Seattle criminals to do business in Bellevue and Redmond.
Barb and I will enjoy Bellevue while we can. I see storm clouds in the west coming our way. I’m so glad I have an underground bunker in Idaho we can retreat to.
Many years ago, I worked at Data I/O. Initially it was as an electrical engineer. I later migrated to software. And then a while after that Randy Shulman and I were co-workers. We become friends, our wives met and we all sort of clicked. There were huge differences in our backgrounds. Randy and his wife from Los Angles while my wife, Barb S., and I were from Idaho. Me from a farm and Barb from the small town of Orofino nearby. We graduated from Orofino High School together. The population was at its peak then at between 3,700 and 3,800. The county is huge* with a very low population density. * That isn’t the only contrast between Randy and I. Other than extremely rare use of alcohol, I have never used recreational drugs. Randy once told me, “I have never tried a drug he didn’t like.” And he tried a lot of different drugs. I sing so poorly my children forbid me from singing Happy Birthday in their presence. Randy was a very talented musician and singer.
Randy described himself as a Los Angles Jew married to a Chinese (Taiwan) woman. ** She used the English name of Jan. We just happened to have our first children within a few months of each other. The two families occasionally went out for a Sunday lunch or other activity together and the children became friends too.
Barb S. and I soon moved to Sandpoint Idaho but frequently returned to the Seattle area to visit friends such as Randy and his family. And once Randy, Jan, and their children us in our home in Idaho. Visiting North Idaho was a bit of a concern for Randy and before coming he ask if there would be any problems for them. Him being a Jew and in a mixed-race marriage with mix-race children. I laughed and told him there would be no problems coming over and staying a few days. However, I told him with a wink, getting out alive might be a different story.
When Randy and Jan’s oldest child Julie ** and my oldest child were maybe four or five years old they decided to marry when they grew up. My oldest was probably almost in High School before, with grave concerns about the ethics of going back on the agreement, asked me if it would be okay to have a change of mind.
Still later I started commuting from Moscow Idaho to Redmond to work on Windows 95 video drivers for Direct X. Randy was soon recruited to help. His band wrote a song about our experience at Microsoft that summer. I is pretty accurate: Mister Bill’s Machine.
Randy and his friends had a public television show and I was invited to present a skit. I wrote and performed it solo.
I still cringe seeing this and cannot watch it. But I have been listening to Mister Bill’s Machine on repeat while writing this.
A frame from that skit was on one of their album covers.
It was during this time that I taught Randy to shoot.
After working in “Mister Bills Machine” on Windows 95 I probably only saw Randy a half dozen times. Barb S., and our kids had dinner with his new wife once. I would occasionally get a call or an email from him. He moved to Austin Texas and was adapting to yet another culture.
Tonight, I got a message, from my middle child, telling me that Julie posted on Facebook that Randy had died yesterday.
Somewhere around 1990, post-Cowboys and a couple other bands for me, Randy Schulman and I were working at an eastside software company, where coders like us were somewhat affectionately called “Swine” while the marketers were known as “Weasels”. I think the names came from a children’s book that someone had brought to the office.
Randy is a witty songwriter and the master of many instruments, including his 1940’s Gibson L-5 on which he strapped on a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece. It was sacrilege to purists, but he was immensely proud of it as we were anything but conventional.
We started playing together and rapidly formed a band, with my wife Deirdre on bass, Glenn Philips on a slew of twangy instruments, and drummer Duff Drew from a previous band of mine, Reckless X. Randy’s daughter Julie would occasionally join us as the Sixth Swine, a nod to the Fifth Beatle.
Glenn, incidentally, was a part owner of the New Melody Tavern in Ballard, which became the Tractor Tavern during our tenure.
We naturally called ourselves The Swine and played an acoustic mashup of grunge, bluegrass, folk, and blues, writing a bunch of songs but also injecting humor by combining unlikely musical pairs – like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with Flatt & Scruggs’ “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” (which we called “Smells Like Pork Rinds”). That helped us become a fixture through most of the 1990’s on the mainstage of the annual Northwest Folklife Festival.
We’d write a bunch of songs from politics (“Politically Correct”, “I Didn’t Inhale”) and pop icons (“Shirley’s Song”, “I Saw Elvis”) to predictions (“The Future Has Hit”) and life at Microsoft (“Mr. Bill’s Machine”). Now, in retrospect, “The Anteater Kingdom” eerily describes our current political situation, even though it was written over three decades ago.
We’d satirize anyone from Bill Clinton to Bill Gates. No one was safe.
We got connected with Pete Cusumano who was producing TV shows on Channel 29, the Seattle Public Access TV station, and in 1994 launched “Swine Before Pearls” (a play on “do not cast your pearls before swine”), sharing the cable space with programs such as “The Goddess Kring” and “Bong Hit Championships”. Parts of all these programs can be found on YouTube.
Public Access was the Wild West with few rules, but with lots of room to be creative, we had a lot of fun writing, producing, and performing on the series.
Our weekly half-hour show featured skits, political humor, newly-crafted topical songs, viewer call-in, and guest bands. Eventually, we moved to a monthly, one-hour format to make production easier, and released a CD compilation of songs from bands that performed on the program.
Through all this, we found time to record a bunch of our songs at Conrad Uno’s Egg Studio. These have sat in the vault for some thirty-odd years – until now.
We hope you will enjoy this collection, now available for download or streaming on your favorite music service. (We really wanted to include “Smells Like Pork Rinds” but the licensing hurdles were too high. You’ll find it under Randy’s solo releases on the major streaming services).
–Paul Brownlow, Seattle, WA, March 2026
Randy will be missed. As I commented on Julie’s Facebook post announcing Randy’s passing, “I am so sad. He is a major bookmark in my life’s journey.”
* Clearwater County, Idaho covers 2,488 square miles, has a population of roughly 9,000 people, and is known for rugged forests, the Clearwater River system, and key Lewis & Clark expedition sites.
📏 Dimensions & Area
Total area: 2,488 sq mi
Land: 2,457 sq mi
Water: 31 sq mi (≈1.2%)
If you want to explore more about the county area or geography, I can go deeper.
👥 Population
Different sources give slightly different current estimates:
2020 Census: 8,734 people
2025 Estimate: 9,118 people
2026 Estimate: 9,087 people
Population density is extremely low at ~3.5 people per square mile
Interesting Things About Clearwater County
1. Lewis & Clark Expedition History
The Weippe Prairie is where the Corps of Discovery met the Nez Perce in 1805 after crossing the Bitterroots. They recovered there before building canoes and continuing west. Learn more about the Lewis & Clark sites.
2. Dworshak Dam & Reservoir
Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater River is the third tallest dam in the United States. The reservoir is a major recreation area for boating, fishing, and camping. Explore Dworshak Reservoir.
3. Idaho’s First Gold Discovery
Gold was first discovered in what is now Idaho at Orofino Creek in 1860, sparking the region’s early mining boom. Ask about Idaho gold history.
4. Remote Forests & Outdoor Recreation
The county is heavily forested, with access to:
Clearwater River system
Lolo Pass
Bald Mountain ski area If you want, I can list outdoor activities.
5. Very Low Population Density & Rural Character
With only ~3.5 people per square mile, it’s one of Idaho’s most sparsely populated counties—quiet, remote, and heavily wooded. Learn about rural living in Clearwater County.
Paul worked with a client who became suspicious of her husband after noticing unusual times he’d brush his teeth. She had installed a smart electric toothbrush app to help encourage their kids to brush properly but the app also tracked every session for the whole family.
“Over time, the client noticed their partner’s brushing history was being logged at odd times, times when they were supposedly at work,” Paul explained. At first, it didn’t seem like much, brushing late in the morning on Fridays didn’t raise immediate red flags.
“And in that time he had started an affair with a work colleague and used to have her over the family home on a Friday when the wife and kids were out of the house,” he added.
I no longer work in the Cyber Threat Intelligence group at work, but when I was on the team our analysists would sometimes track down bad guys over the course of months of collecting “breadcrumbs”. The bad guys would post things that in of themselves were essentially useless. But cumulatively they added up to positive identification and location of perpetrators who had defraud the company and/or our customers of millions and some cases of tens of millions of dollars.
One example I participated in was as follows. The analysts noticed large numbers of nearly identical messages would be posted on multiple Telegraph channels by a criminal claiming ability to defraud our company and his willingness, for a price, to teach others how to do the same thing. I wrote a program that would find all the users names associated with publishing these nearly identical messages. It turned out that occasionally the same message would be posted by two different users names within a few seconds of each other in different channels. One user would post the message in one or two channels. The other user would post it in 20 channels. The one channel posting username would “drop off the radar” at the same time as the new username posting in 20 channels appeared. It was, almost for certain, the same person changing their username over time.
Hence, we could track the same person over a year or more even though he changed his username every few weeks. This allowed us to find a lot more breadcrumbs to narrow the search.
These perps would drop social hints such they were at a party, but they had to leave soon because it was 2:00 AM. By comparing the stated time to the UTC timestamp in the channel, we could determine the time zone they are in. They would post a picture holding something in their hand proving they had defrauded the company. Now we know their skin color and perhaps the color of their watch. When searching social media posts for information about the party we could use the skin and watch color to tie the fraudster username to a social media account. If the electronic object they posted had a clock on it and it is outside, from the shadows we can get an approximation of the latitude they were at. If they would post the social handle of their girlfriend, now we have more breadcrumbs to collect. The girlfriend would post a picture of a scenic site. Now we can do reverse images searches to find that landscape or better yet, a famous building. Now we have their residence or vacation location within a few dozen miles. Or that identical picture would show up in a social media account. Bingo!
The smallest things add up.
People have concerns about electronics in their homes and vehicles spying on them. Yes, this is a concern. These things can be firehoses of information and the smallest things add up.
But keep in mind that it is possible to create an Internet of Things (IoT) enabled house without leaking information to everyone. It is more work than using Amazon’s Alexia or Google Nest, and you probably have to be a geek of some sort to push through some of the issues. * But you can completely isolate a “Smart Home” from the Internet and still use it for monitoring and controlling your home. You would have to be home to access the data or change the programming, but you can do some amazing things. Or you can pay a few dollars a month and access it via https (encrypted) connections from anywhere you have Internet service.
Because I am away from my underground bunker most of the time, at least for now, I chose to pay a few dollars to access it remotely.
I have hundreds of sensors in my underground bunker. Walking through you probably would only see dozen or so at most. But that thermometer also has a humidity sensor in it. That makes twice as many sensors as you first thought and the measurements they report give you more information than you might guess. I could tell what room a contractor was working in because the humidity and temperature would rise if they spent more than a few minutes in a room. When a contractor would paint, then the humidity would go way up. I set up leak alarms (the alert would be on my phone, not in the room) based on high humidity and once the painting done by the contractor set off the leak detection logic.
For people who can’t imagine why they would want their house instrumented, I know two homes that were severely damaged due to leaks. One summer home was completely destroyed because it sat for months with the basement overflowing with water. Brother Doug’s home had the tubing to the toilet rust out and spew water for several hours in an upstairs bathroom. That destroyed drywall on the main floor and basement and flooring on the upstairs floor and main floor. A few years later a second flood was caused by squirrels nesting in the drain leading water from around the basement. A heavy rainstorm put about two inches of water in the basement and even though Brother Doug was in the house he did not notice for over a day because he did not go into the basement. With leak sensors and/or high humidity alarms he and his wife would have saved thousands of dollars and many hours of time.
I use temperature sensors to optimize the use of a geothermal heat pump, the buffer tank, the hybrid water heater, and secondary electrical resistance heating in my underground bunker. With remote access, the outside door light can automatically be turned on when you are driving home in the dark and get within 100 yards of the door. That probably isn’t that much interest to city dwellers, but when there are no streetlights, a little extra light getting into the house can be quite welcome. Motion sensors and door opening sensors can be used to detect someone moving around in your home when you are not there and send an alert to your phone.
If you don’t mind being spied on by your appliances** you could get alerts if you left a refrigerator or freezer door open. You can get an alert the drier has completed its job, and you should get your clothes out before they wrinkle, and you get notified with it is time for the water filter in youf refrigerator to be changed. You don’t remember if you turned off the oven and you are a block away from your house on the way to work? The app for your oven can tell you whether you need to return home or continue to work without worrying about it. You can open the garage door remotely and watch on a webcam as FedEx delivers a large package. And/or you could get an alert if someone else opened the door when you did not expect it.
Barb is pretty vehement about not wanting her house to spy on her. But after Brother Doug’s second house flood, she put something like ten leak sensors in various places around her house.
Depending on which leak sensor gets wet, my underground bunker computer will do more than just fire an alert. If appropriate, it will turn off the water supply, the water heater, and the water conditioner.
Operated by five-year batteries, leak sensors can be discretely placed in out of the way places and provide peace of mind without significant information being leaked. There is a remaining battery life sensor and a binary “wet”/”dry” sensor. Even if they were hacked or the manufacturer collected usage data, what do you care about that information being obtained by others?
The underground bunker is more fire resistant than most homes. But I can remotely turn on outdoor sprinklers to protect the backup generator, electrical meter, well, bunker doors, and windows. Short of deliberate human acts, the bunker exterior complex should be fireproof.
Yes, the smallest details can add up to useful knowledge for an adversary if someone is willing to spend the time. But a lot of life is about tradeoffs. For me, I was able to get good enough privacy and significantly improved quality of life and improved remote security of my underground bunker by creating a “Smart Home.” Your mileage will vary.
* Check out Home Assistant if you are interested in going down this path.
** GE appliances require you to connect them to the Internet and use their app to utilize the “smart features”, other appliances may vary.
Many years ago, my Great Uncle Walt used to tell a story. I think it was about a brother of his whom I never met. Let’s call him “John.” It went something like this:
John ordered and paid for a car with the exact feature set he wanted. After a few weeks the dealer received the car and offered to deliver it. John said they could deliver it that afternoon and he would be home to receive it.
Sometime later John got another call. It was the dealer telling him, “We are so sorry. While driving your car to your place the driver had an accident and totaled your car.”
John’s response was, “No. That is not what happened. Your driver totaled your car.”
Last Friday Barb and I drove to see a movie in my car. As we pulled away from a traffic light the car barely moved even with the engine at a fairly high RPM. It was almost as if the car was not really in gear. After a few seconds, the car behaved normally long enough to get us to the movie. On the way, Barb made an online service appointment for the next day with the dealership. We dropped the car off later that night.
On Saturday, I received word that the torque converter, transmission, rear differential, and battery needed to be replaced. I knew the differential was occasionally making an odd sound and maybe a sort of thumping vibration during some turns. I had been wondering about the battery too. The car computer would notify me via the phone app that it was shutting off communications to save battery after just a day or two of not driving the car. The total would be about $23,000. The Blue Book price of the car is about $15,000.
I found a newer car I liked at Jess Ford in Pullman, Washington for considerably less than I could in the Seattle area. They had two other cars that, while not my top choices, would be good enough to do everything I needed to do for Boomershoot 2026.
On Tuesday of this week, I took a flight to Pullman to look at the car and probably buy it. The salesman met me at the airport, showed me the car, and after looking at the numbers I agreed to buy it. He programmed the door unlock feature with the same code I used for my last two cars, and he set up the app on my phone to communicate with the car. He then directed me to the finance manager to sign all the paperwork and write the check for the total price of the car. As I was doing that, someone else would take the car to the gas station and fill the tank.
I filled out all the paperwork and had filled out most of the check when the salesman came to the office and asked the finance manager if he would come out to talk. From the tone of his voice, I knew something was wrong. I stopped writing. What could it be? Did they suspect I was a con artist or something? Did they think my check would bounce?
A minute or so later they came back into the office. They told me the kid who was to fill up the tank had wrecked the car. They didn’t know how bad, but if I didn’t want the car anymore that would be understandable. “We’ll make everything right on this.” Further discussion ensued and I told them that if it was just a dented fender or something they could pay for the repair and I would be fine with that. They appreciated that and said someone was going out to find out how bad the damage was.
After about 15 minutes they came back and solemnly told me that I did not want that car. It was probably totaled. Remembering my Uncle Walt’s story, I told them that I was glad it was their car and not mine.
I asked about the two backup cars I had seen online. Both of them were out as loaner cars. There was nothing else on the lot that I was interested in.
As it was late in the day, they offered me a loaner car, offered to pay for a motel, and offered a free dinner if I would come back the next day when they had one or both of the backup cars on the lot again. I accepted the car, drove to my underground bunker, spent the night, and came back the next morning. I purchased one of the backup cars and drove it home Wednesday afternoon in time for dinner with Barb.
On Thursday the salesman sent me a picture of the car:
“Did he roll it?” I asked. His response: “He rolled it twice.” *
The driver was taken to the hospital, examined, and released. Other than being badly shaken, he is okay. The salesman told me he has been a great employee and will retain his job.
* Chat GPT, Copilot, and Grok are skeptical of the two rolls. They claim there is no evidence of that in the picture. Claude suggested a complete roll and landing primarily on the driver side rear wheel. Multiple rolls are judged unlikely by Claude. Chat GPT claims a tripping like event caused the wheel/tire damage and the roll.
This is the most repeated claim in American tax politics and one of the least supported by actual data. The top 1% of earners take in 22% of total income and pay 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 10% earn about half the nation’s income and pay 72% of its taxes. The bottom half of earners, collectively, pay roughly 3% of the tax revenue. The United States, in fact, has the most progressive income-tax system in the developed world.
Idaho was a 2020 move-to darling, and it’s back in the spotlight. Since its high of 320 searches in for every 100 out 6 years ago — the state has taken a backseat to the headliners. It’s not that move-ins stopped, in fact the state has maintained positive inflow and sustained a steady rise of interest year after year.
And the proof is in the pudding. New U.S. Census data shows that 80% of Idaho counties grew their populations in 2025 and Idaho was among the top ranked inbound states of 2025 with a survey from United Van Lines showing family as the #1 driver.
One reason may be increasing Californian exits. A California Policy Lab analysis found that in the last five years net moves from California to Idaho increased over the last five years and that for each Idahoan that moves to the Golden State, it receives more than two in return. moveBuddha data backs that inflow story; of searches made early in 2026, 24% of moves to Idaho are from California. Additional analysis finds that housing costs are a driving factor.
I have mixed feelings about this. I know what happened to Colorado with out of state invaders. I’m tempted to suggest we build a wall to keep the rats from California out. This is even though my brothers and I were born in California. Of course, none of us stayed there for more about two weeks. And I have lots of relatives there.
On the hand, there is some confirmation that my choice of Idaho as the number one place in the world I want to live is the right one.
So, about all I can do is:
Encourage the right type of people to move and buy the property close to my little spot and give me a little bit of a buffer.
What kills me is as I get older and find myself yelling at clouds more, I’ve come to a greater empathy for conservatives. Now my wife texts me from the grocery store and says “The full-grown adult in front of me is wearing a tail” and I just think “these fucking idiots. No way we survive this. The answer to Fermi’s paradox is that the high order civilizations destroy themselves….”
John Schussler Via email April 13, 2026
I understand what he is talking about. But I’m an optimist and am not as fatalistic as John. But I have an underground bunker in Idaho. Also, last month ago I added another ~50,000 pounds of dirt on top of the bunker. Just in case.
You might think I’m joking (well, maybe I am a little bit).
This is the blend from the field to the north edge of the bunker:
This is the bucket loader I used to move the dirt. The ground was a little wetter than it should have been, but it got the job done:
If you attend Boomershoot this year, I’ll give you a tour of both the inside and outside. Friday evening at 6:00 PM.
On Dec. 1, 2025, Washington reported 706,046 active CPLs. On April 1, that number had plummeted to 696,015. The alarming decline has been explained by many gun owners, saying they’ve either left Washington for more Second Amendment-friendly environs in Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere, while others have decided to carry without a CPL because they refuse to pay the state to exercise their right to bear arms, which is specifically protected by both the state and federal constitutions.
I think the Washington state gun laws will be straightened out by the Federal courts in less than five years. But the taxes and crime situation will probably continue to deteriorate. So, with that in mind I am working on an escape plan. I can’t leave right now because I need to save up money for retirement. Underground bunkers in Idaho are expensive.
The underground bunker be completed soon (only a few more days of work). I will then start counting the days until I can retire and have the option to leave Washington state as well.
Are you thinking of fleeing the tyranny of your state too? I’m giving free tours of my underground bunk to people attending Boomershoot this year (the first weekend of May). It would give you something to think about…
Barb and I visited Japan earlier this month. We were impressed with their attention to detail in what seemed to be everything. Everything was very clean. The public transportation ran on time. But we have seen that sort of thing in other places. I particularly noticed it in Germany. In Japan it seemed to dominate their entire culture.
On a larger scale there was this pond at Nijō Castle, just east of Ninomaru Palace in Kyoto. Just the maintenance of the pond must require the employment of many full-time people:
The guide told us of the buildings on different sides of the lake. Depending on the impression Tokugawa Iemitsu — 3rd Shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate (Title: Seii Taishōgun (征夷大将軍) — “Great General Who Subdues the Barbarians”) wished to make to visitors they would view it from one of four directions (via Copilot):
🏯 1. The Shōgun’s View — Absolute Central Authority
From the shōgun’s formal audience room, the pond presents:
A dominant central stone grouping
Subordinate stones arranged in stable, supportive positions
A broad, calm expanse of water
This composition symbolized:
The shōgun as the immovable center of the political universe
Daimyō (feudal lords) arranged in proper hierarchy
A peaceful realm created by Tokugawa rule
This was the view shown to high‑ranking daimyō — a visual reminder of their place.
👑 2. The Emperor’s View — Tokugawa Supremacy in Kyoto
When the Emperor or imperial envoys were received, they were seated in a different hall. From their angle, the pond emphasizes:
The breadth of the water
The scale of the garden
The controlled, disciplined arrangement of nature
This communicated:
The shōgun’s wealth and power surpassing even the imperial court
A world ordered by Tokugawa authority
A subtle assertion that the shōgun, not the Emperor, maintained national stability
It was a polite but pointed political message.
🛡️ 3. The Daimyō’s View — Harmony Through Obedience
Lower‑ranking lords were positioned so the pond’s islands and stones appear:
Balanced
Interdependent
Harmonious
This was intentional symbolism:
The realm is peaceful only when all lords support the shōgun
Each domain has its place, and disorder is not tolerated
It reinforced the Tokugawa vision of a tightly controlled feudal hierarchy.
🌄 4. The “Public” View — Nature Tamed by Authority
For less formal visitors, the garden presents:
Carefully pruned pines
Asymmetry that still feels controlled
Water that appears natural but is engineered
This view conveyed:
The Tokugawa ability to discipline nature itself
A society where beauty comes from order
A world that looks effortless because power is absolute
Even the casual visitor was meant to feel the shōgun’s presence.
🎯 In short:
The pond was a political instrument. Each viewpoint delivered a different message, tailored to the status of the person looking at it:
Viewer
Intended Message
Shōgun
“You are the center of the realm.”
Emperor / Court Nobles
“Tokugawa power dominates Kyoto.”
Daimyō
“Harmony comes from obedience to the shōgun.”
General Visitors
“Order and beauty flow from Tokugawa authority.”
In between the large and the small was the Air BnB in Kyoto we stayed at. There was not a shower as we know it. There was a room with a bathtub and shower. The entire room was the shower with a drain in the floor. The toilet was in a different room and had a heated seat (with its own fan to dry your bottom after washing it). When you flushed the toilet the water to fill the tank came from what look like a faucet and dropped through a hole in the top of the tank. You could rinse your hands in the water to be used for the next flush. There was a separate washroom across the hall next to the shower room.
I bought some grapes. Instead of on the stem as you would buy grapes in the U.S., they were individual grapes. Each grape had about 0.1″ of stem still attached. I hypothesized it was to preserve freshness. Here is what Copilot reports:
🍇 Why Japanese grapes keep a short stem attached
🌱 1. It prevents juice loss and slows decay
When a grape is plucked cleanly off the cluster, the point where it detached becomes an open wound. That exposed tissue:
loses moisture faster
oxidizes
becomes an entry point for microbes
Leaving a short stem stub seals that wound. The grape stays firmer, juicier, and lasts longer. This is the same reason Japanese guides recommend cutting grapes from the bunch with scissors rather than pulling them off.
🎎 2. It preserves the “perfect” appearance
Japan’s premium fruit culture prizes flawless skin and shape. Pulling grapes off by hand can tear the skin or leave ragged scars. Cutting them with a bit of stem avoids:
torn skin
bruising
juice weeping
cosmetic blemishes
For high‑end varieties like Shine Muscat or Kyoho, appearance is part of the value proposition.
🧊 3. It helps maintain freshness during storage
The bloom (the white powdery coating) and the intact stem both reduce evaporation. Japanese storage instructions explicitly say to cut grapes at the stem and avoid washing off the bloom to keep them fresh longer.
🎁 4. It aligns with Japan’s “luxury fruit” handling standards
Japanese fruit is often treated more like confectionery than produce. Individual grapes—especially large, premium ones—are sometimes sold separately, each handled gently and inspected. The short stem is part of that careful, almost artisanal process.
Copilot finished up with this:
Since you clearly appreciate the little cultural engineering quirks Japan sneaks into everyday life, the grape stems are just the tip of the iceberg. The whole Japanese produce ecosystem is full of these micro‑optimizations that seem fussy until you realize they’re actually elegant solutions to real problems.
If you’re curious, I can walk you through other examples — like why peaches are wrapped in foam nets, why melons are sold with the stem trimmed into a perfect “T,” or why apples are sometimes individually bagged on the tree to control sunlight exposure.
The smallest scale we noticed this attention to detail were with the toothpicks. We saw our first in a small (perhaps 6 tables) restaurant in Nagasaki, then again in an even smaller (a bar that seated about a dozen people), but much fancier restaurant in Tokyo. The toothpicks were identical and looked like this:
Individually wrapped, the surfaces were so smooth, the point straight to a square end, and with the precise grooves on the other end. I immediate thought these toothpicks must have been made on a lathe. And how different they are from the flat toothpicks in this country that you buy 750 of them in a box:
This is a classic modern Japanese toothpick (called tsumayoji or sometimes “kokeshi toothpick” after the traditional wooden dolls whose shape the grooved end resembles). The grooves aren’t decorative—they’re a clever hygiene feature invented in Japan around the 1950s.
Purpose of the Grooves
The blunt, grooved end is designed to be snapped off at one of the notches after (or before) use. The broken-off piece then becomes a tiny stand you can rest the sharp end on, so the used point never touches the table. It also signals that the toothpick has already been used. This is why you’ll often see them in Japanese restaurants, hotels, and convenience stores.
How It’s Made with Such Precision
Modern Japanese toothpicks like yours are mass-produced on highly automated woodworking lines (mostly in Japan, though some are now made elsewhere using the same methods). Here’s the step-by-step process:
Raw material — They start with white birch logs (very straight-grained and smooth). The logs are softened, then peeled into thin veneer sheets on a giant rotary lathe (similar to how plywood is made).
Forming long rods — The veneers are sliced into uniform 30 cm (about 12 in) rods and dried. These rods are perfectly round and consistent in diameter.
Cutting to size — The long rods are chopped into individual toothpick lengths (usually ~6 cm / 2.5 in).
Shaping the point — Automated machines sharpen one end to a precise point using blades and sanding.
Creating the grooves (the “kokeshi” end) — This is the key to the precision you noticed.
Originally, manufacturers tried to smooth the blunt end with a high-speed rotary grinder because the cut surface was rough.
Someone had the idea of using a grinder wheel with an uneven notched surface instead. It cuts clean, uniform grooves in one quick pass while the toothpick spins.
The grooves also act as a deliberate weak point for easy snapping. This notched-grinder technique has been the standard since the 1950s and is what gives the end its perfectly even, professional look.
The entire process (except the highest-end artisanal versions made from kuromoji wood) is done by specialized machines that can churn out thousands of toothpicks per minute. That’s why the grooves are so consistent and the wood looks polished and smooth—no hand-carving is involved in the packaged ones you bought in Japan.
Some premium makers (like Kikusui Sangyo) still offer versions without the grooves to reduce waste, but the grooved style remains the most popular because of the built-in stand feature.
So the “magic” is a combination of clever Japanese industrial design from the 1950s plus high-precision automated woodworking—exactly the kind of elegant engineering Japan is famous for!
With just a little bit of effort we could see the design and attention to detail everywhere we looked.
Then you go to the grocery store, and it’s like 90% of the people are just in a pack. They don’t know. They have no connection to food at all. And so it’s very nice. You know, we were raised with it to know that thing that you took is gonna be your dinner meal.
As I have said before, seeing how food is grown and harvested on the farm is an alternate reality. The same applies to the harvesting of domestic animals and wild game. I work in an office overlooking part of a city. There are nearly 200 people in a large office each with huge computer screens each doing their part to prevent, track, and stop bad guys attempting to gain access to our nation’s critical infrastructure. I then visit the farm in Idaho and find the differences incredibly profound.
“White people have never built their own houses, farmed their own farms, worked manual labor in the history of the United States. So when all the workers are deported and there's no one else here to fulfill that role, because… pic.twitter.com/pYjV3imZCk
How can she believe this? Is it something she was taught in school? Is it something her communist handlers told her to say?
If I knew how to contact this person, I would invite her to visit the farm I grew up on. If she were to show up, I would then introduce her to all the neighbors. Then she would visit a bunch of my classmates who were or are loggers and/or worked in the local mills. Then the construction workers and contractors who build the homes and commercial buildings. What she would find is that 99.5% of the manual labor in Clearwater County is done by white people.
But, of course, she would not visit. And if she did visit, it would be unlikely to change her mind. For some people facts and evidence are independent of their belief system. Almost for certain, she is one of those people. She is living a delusion that she finds comfortable. As Heinlein said in a different context, “Delusions are often functional.” But reality will someday have the last word.
Last Monday, I saw this flock of wild turkeys out the bedroom window of my underground bunker in Idaho:
Turkeys are not native, but they have become quite common at the lower elevations and now at my elevation. These turkeys are about 3,130 feet above sea level.
The swift expansion of US military forces in the Middle East has reached a stage where President Trump could authorize military strikes against Iran as early as this weekend, according to administration and Pentagon officials, The New York Times reported. The development presents the White House with critical decisions about whether to move forward with diplomatic efforts or shift toward armed conflict. There is no “confirmation” from Trump about how to proceed, but efforts to build a military force able to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missile arsenal, and related launch sites have continued this week, even as second round of negotiations took place on Tuesday. During those talks, Iran requested two weeks to return with more detailed proposals aimed at reaching a diplomatic solution.
Translation: Iran requested two weeks to prepare for the attack and a counter strike against the U.S. I could also see them using the time attempting to get commitments from Russia for assistance. After all, Iran has been supplying Russia with war materials for several years now. Isn’t it time for Russia to help them?
I’m glad my underground bunker in Idaho is habitable. It is not finished and it needs to be stocked, but it is a far better place to be than in the Puget Sound area in the case of things getting really spicy.
Barb and I spent our first night together in my underground bunker on Friday night. Barb stayed until Sunday evening when she caught a plane to come home. She had to be back earlier than me for work.
The QOTD was said sort of embarrassed, with her face partially hidden under a sheet. For years she has been very skeptical about my expensive and years long project. After actually spending a night in a comfortable bed, with a functional kitchen, and full-sized bathroom (as opposed to a camping trailer) she far more receptive to spending time there.
This is a huge change in attitude.
Having this for a view on our morning walk helped some too:
I thought I had posted a picture of the pump daughter Jaime and I put on her well. I can’t find it now, so maybe I remember sharing it with people at work.
The back story is that last May she had a well drilled on her property in Idaho (she currently lives about 45 minutes southeast of Seattle). As it typical she stressed some about finding water. She bought the property without knowing for certain there would be water. All the neighbors have good wells without going too deep. But that didn’t mean she would find water.
She called and gave me updates as they started drilling, they were down 100′ and there was nothing. None of the neighbors had to go below about 150′. They were below 150′ and still nothing. She wanted to know if she should have them drill in a different place on the property. “Keep going for a while longer. That isn’t really that deep yet.”
It wasn’t too much longer before she called back. I could tell from the tone of her voice it was good news. “Guess how many gallons per minute they have!”, she demanded. “80?”, I replied. I knew it was up there from the excitement in her voice. “100!”, she crowed. She went on to say they hit water at 220 feet, drilled to 240 feet, and the driller said it is an artesian well. I always thought an artesian well is when the water comes completely out of the ground. But apparently that is not the definition. The water was five feet below the surface.
Nice!
Sometime later, probably about July or August she wanted to talk about the well again. Since she doesn’t have electricity on the property yet, she asked if we could put a hand pump in and she could have water to irrigate a few trees. At five feet below the surface, it would be trivial to pull that water on up and fill buckets with a hand pump. So, we put a pitcher pump in with a ten-foot-long pipe and she had consumable water.
Recently she started talking to a local architect who went out to the property to look at the lay of the land, etc. and reported the pump was leaking water. What? Really? Yup. He sent her a picture.
Ten days ago, I visited to see it for myself:
I have never seen anything like this before. That’s awesome!
Laugh, and the world laughs with you, weep, and you weep alone. For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth, but has trouble enough of its own. Sing and the hills will answer, sigh it is lost on the air For the echoes bound to a joyful sound but shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice and men will seek you, grieve and they turn and go They want full measure of all your pleasure but do not need your woe. Be glad and your friends are many, be sad and you’ll lose them all There are none to decline your nectared wine but alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast and your halls are crowded, fast and the world goes by Succeed and give and it helps you live but no man can help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure for a long and lordly train But one by one we must all file on through the narrow aisles of pain
Ella Wheeler Wilcox Solitude February 25, 1883
Over 40 years ago I wrote a program to give me a random quote every time my computer booted up. I still use that program. Instead of on boot, it runs when I start up a new instance of a command prompt. The quote above appeared a few minutes ago. I don’t remember putting the quote in the collection. But like a lot of others in the collection, it resonates with me. Perhaps, in these troubled times, it will resonate with you as well and give you some direction to better days ahead.
I asked Grok for the original publish date and received a little more than what I asked for:
It was first published on February 25, 1883, in The New York Sun newspaper. (Some sources note slight variations like February 21, but February 25 is the most consistently cited date across reliable references.)
The poem later appeared in her collection Poems of Passion, released in May 1883, which became a major bestseller.
The inspiration came from an incident on a train where Wilcox observed contrasting emotions—a joyful group and a grieving widow—leading to the insight that joy is shared, but sorrow is often solitary. She reportedly earned just $5 for the initial newspaper publication.
I received an email about three months ago I kept meaning to answer but never got around to it. And since it is probably of general interest, I’ll answer it here. This is body of the email:
I’ve appreciated the info you’ve provided on your Idaho bunker, how you’ve approached the design and construction problems and solved them.
But….I’ve concluded you committed a tactical error in not just acknowledging your bunker exists, but also a strategic error achkowledging that such a thing as “bunkers” could even exist. OPSEC and all that.
<heavy sigh>
It started out that I was going to keep things as quiet as I could. But it turned out to be unrealistic. Here is the sequence of the information leakage slippery slope:
Permit for septic system (state)
Permit for well (state)
Permit for road access (county)
Permit for and inspection of electrical panel to connect to the electrical utility (state?)
Permit for construction (county)
Complete and accurate plans
Inspections at certain milestones
Permit and inspections for HVAC (state?)
Permit and inspections for plumbing (state?)
So, basically the county and state government know pretty much everything about my place. Well, at least the general public doesn’t really know, right?
Shortly after the first concrete was poured one of the workers told me, “Everyone in the county knows about this. People I barely know ask me if I’m working on your place.” I would go to the local builder’s supply store to buy some tool, wire, or some sort of construction material and they saw the credit card or picked up on my name some other way I would get asked, “Are you the guy building the underground house?”
Okay. So, essentially all the locals know about it. At least the feds would have to ask around to get a bead on it, right?
Well… the Boomershoot ATF explosives license is coming up for renewal and the ATF, wanting to inspect the magazine before it got to muddy or there was deep snow blocking access, gave me a call. Nearly the first thing out of the guy’s mouth was, “I hear you are making good progress on your underground house.”
It turns out that other license holders in the area mentioned it.
So, who am I really trying to keep this from?
At this point I am having fun with it at work. I can “work from home” one day a week and I mostly just go into the office because it is close enough to home that the commute doesn’t really make much difference. But about once a month or so I “work from Idaho” on a Friday and the following Monday. If asked how my weekend was, I will drop a hint like, “I moved about 100,000 pounds of dirt.” After a few seconds of silence my manager asked, “Was this for fun or something else?” My reply was, “I needed more dirt on my underground bunker.” There were no more questions.
One of my managers asked me what I do when I go to Idaho. At that time my standard response was, “I’m a little private about that so I just tell people, I’m working on my underground bunker.” A few months later after getting a similar response and mention of all the snow I had to get through to camping trailer and the difficultly of keeping the trailer warm and the water running, he said, “I think I’ll call it your ‘Fortress of Solitude.” That works for me.
Another guy asked when I was going to retire and I told him I can’t retire for a while, “Underground bunkers in Idaho are expensive.” Silence for a few seconds then he laughed, “That’s funny!”
One weekend I was on call while in Idaho. While underground the cell signal is extremely poor or non-existent. I didn’t yet have Wi-Fi on the inside so there was no cell over Wi-Fi available. Mid-morning on Saturday, when I just barely had signal, I got a call for help. I told the guy I was underground and to hold on while I went outside to get a better signal. A couple hours later after the emergency was under control I told the people on the call I was taking a break to go check to make sure I had closed the door to the underground bunker when I got the call. People laughed.
When the place is ready for visitors, I plan to have an open house and invite everyone from work so I can get one last laugh out of it.
* The night of January 1st, 2026 was the first time I spend the night in my underground bunker in Idaho. It’s not really ready, but for this time of year, it is better than the camping trailer. While it will not be completed, I expect that within a month Barb and I would be comfortable here should the need occur. It is not a minute too soon.
Things like this end up in third world wars. And I told that the other day, I said, ‘You know, everybody keeps playing games like this, you’ll end up in a third world war.’ And we don’t want to see that happen.
