Let's keep it local for a moment, maybe next month I will touch on our Federal Bureaucrats. When I look up at utility poles everywhere I now see solar panels. There are or soon will be about 180,000 of them. OOOO-hhhhh, FREE electricity, how green, how wonderful, how mandated by our State of New Jersey but paid for by you and me in our utility bills. What is not to like? On a good, bright and sunny day, those 180,000 rectangles generate 40,000 watts, enough to power 6,600 homes! Wowee, that will do most of Ridgewood, NJ's 7,000 dwellings. It does not do much for the other 500 + municipalities, which account for about 3,472,000 more private homes. The "good" people who foisted this on us for our own good are not even scratching the energy reduction surface. Another thing, in New Jersey, the phrase" basking in the sunlight" isn't quite the case: we have about 94 sunny days a year. Yuma, AZ gets 242. The panels don't work so well when it is cloudy or rainy or when they are dirty. But, you say, solar power is free and that is true. I won't put you through the math but here in New Jersey each of those puppies will save about $15.81 per year in electricity costs. Unfortunately the panels and installation are not free. Each panel costs about $800. The estimated life span is 25 to 30 years, a long time but not long enough. Let's see, the $800.00 cost divided by $15.81 in savings a year is ------  50 years to pay them off! We will be paying for these long after they and me are defunct. When it looks too good to be true it probably is. Or maybe I don't have the Big Picture?

        Want another example of this? Let's take the price of registering a New Jersey motorcycle. Two years ago it was $39.50 and you got a license plate sticker and had to go through inspection for lights, brakes, exhaust, even my helmet had to be approved! (Did you guess that I am one of the bikers your mother warned her daughters about?) Now it is $65.00 per year and you get nothing. NADA! At this juncture I must add a personal note. My renewal form never got to me from Trenton this year. I called and got a blank one in the mail with a Post-it stickee that said to return it with my check for $65.00, so I did. After two weeks I got my form and check back with another stickee saying I should pay $58.00! Rats! The NJMVC website says $65.00 and I am running out of time before the registration expires so I go to Lodi, the MVC from Hell, which I wrote about last December. This time, I went to the Registration and Title Renewal line outside.  I did not have to wait for more than two minutes and went inside. In another five minutes I was in front of the MVC clerk, handing her my documents and $65.00 check. Mere seconds later she handed them back saying my check should have been for $58.00. Before my blood pressure popped off the top of my skull, I asked why. She leaned over to me and said confidentially, so no one else could hear, "Senior Discount". Oh. OK.      

       They still don't want to see you or your motorcycle at the Inspection Station and my license plate is sticker-free. Maybe I should not complain, paying $25.50 more (or $18.50 for us Seniors) to avoid the trip to the Inspection Station is worth it to many but originally there was a point to official motorcycle scrutiny: safety. I am beginning to think that the only thing the MVC cares about is the money. Yes, shocking, isn't it? Even cars only get checked for emissions now, because they have to be per the EPA. Bad brakes, bald tires, wheels out alignment and cracked windshields are no longer issues that anyone cares about, just what comes out of the exhaust pipe. What am I missing? Is it that darn Big Picture again?