John Wise

Someone parked this old truck and left their air-conditioning on. Har, you got me on this one, there is no air-conditioning in this old jalopy, ain’t no radio either, or much of anything for that matter. Maybe that’s why the truck is open windowed and ready for stealing because if you were to grab this truck, you are not going far very fast and you surely won’t be very comfortable. I wonder if the button on the left is for his NOS unit?

Storm clouds approaching. Right about now I almost relish the thought that our housing market is on the brink of a meltdown disaster. It’s just another hour of TV about to play out as a kind of reality show where the poop is gonna hit the fan and pumped up consumers are going to be disqualified, kicked off the stage, rendered not as survivors but as giant losers in a game where some will win big and others will lose large. Yeah, we could take part in this American dream, yeah, we could forego vacations, books, exotic foods, so we could be slaves to our credit cards and a mortgage, but instead, we keep our heads in the clouds where even if a storm approaches the views are simply incredible, and free.

Continuing on a theme, Scottsdale, Arizona, is on a roll. Around the corner, a bit down the street from the waterfront condos I told you about the other day, is this mid-rise condo development. Lots of glass but no canal-side views have knocked the price of these units down to the $500,000 and up level – prices mere mortals can afford – sort of. If your income is hovering around $9,000 a month, you too can call this home, and if you are really bringing in the money, let’s say, oh, about $18,000 a month, you can afford one of the penthouse units with a mortgage payment of about $5.500 a month. Let me put this into perspective for anyone making minimum wage in America. If you are an individual working at McDonald’s, making $5.15 an hour and working 12 hours per day, six days a week,  your extended family would have to drum up 12 people, all working 12 hours per day, six days per week to qualify as having enough income to nab one of these luxury units. Or, to put it another way, you would simply have to work 3,000 hours per month (there are only 720 hours in a month!) to make enough dough. You kids better start taking college seriously.

Views like this one of the head of Camelback mountain were a large part of the attraction of Phoenix, Arizona, that so enamored me into wanting to make the desert my home. Some twenty-five years ago, this isolated desert city still featured dirt roads, unapproachable mountains, views of gorgeous sunsets unmarred by electricity lines. Today these locations are reserved for the super-wealthy, while the population is pushed further outward as we progress on joining our community to that of the Tucson area. Mountain sides that were once protected from development so all the citizens of the Phoenix metro area would be able to enjoy the views, are now sporting guarded and gated private enclaves of four to eight million dollar villas. On the bright side, these wealthy corners benefit from better shopping, less crime, posh office space, and an abundance of car washing facilities.

After decades of sprawl, an intelligent step in the right direction is finally coming to the Valley of the Sun: high-rise condos. The desert is rapidly disappearing as Phoenix and its surrounding communities envelope an area approaching 60 by 60 miles square (97km x 97km sq). This waterfront property near Old Town Scottsdale is built next to a canal that brings drinking water to our community, so we won’t be seeing water taxis any time soon, but the location is definitely a prime choice. The condos start at $1.5 million and there are only 5 left.

This is Phoenix local Don Capp towing his newest handmade custom motorcycle trailer. Don has long been in the business of custom fabrication and with occasional help by his wife Keli Capp runs their own small company called Magic Metals. Working from inspiration with 25 years of experience behind him, Don built this Red, White, & Blue trailer weighing in at about 100 pounds in under three weeks. The custom vinyl work is courtesy of a local company that combined road images with the stars and stripes for this one-of-a-kind wrap, making Don’s creation a true one-of-a-kind motorcycle trailer. You can CLICK HERE

to see Don’s masterpiece from a different angle. I met Don a while back after introducing myself to his dogs who were guarding his open gate and workshop area, I can’t wait to share the custom Christmas trailer with you that he’ll build this year for the annual toy drive he participates in with his wife.