A vacant home on 25th Street in Merced - May 2009.

My hometown of Merced was kind of ground central for the sub-prime mortgage crisis, which in turn helped to set off the freezing of the credit markets and the start of the financial crisis. Merced has never been a wealthy town, and truth be told, a significant portion of the town looks the foreclosed house in this picture. Between about 2002 to 2006, Merced kind of went off the rails. Home values lost all touch with reality, people from other places were coming in and purchasing houses in order to quickly "flip them".

Merced has long had structural unemployment, often around 14 percent. The ratio of jobs to home values didn't make any sense, and everyone kind of knew that a massive bubble was going on.

It popped in Merced long before the meltdown in the global economy and the bailing out of the banks. In 2009, I walk around Merced and kept seeing house after house like this, vacant and foreclosed. This house was located at 736 West 25th Street in Merced, not far from a place called Applegate park. I posted this picture here, originally.

Disturbing hot dog photo taken in 2009 in Merced.

I don't know what it is, but this image creeps me out. I've seen this image now in two states. As you can see, it's a hot dog. It's pouring ketchup on itself, and licking it's own lips. Is this hot dog excited about eating itself? Who finds this appealing? This picture was taken in 2009 out in front of a place in Merced called the "Dog House" on 16th Street.

Cows in a field.

So, out near where I grew up, there are lots of fields like this. This is looking towards the East. Sometimes, you can see the Sierra Nevada's in the distance. Oftentimes, however, there is too much particulates in the air to see the mountains. In these fields, there are often herds of cows wandering around. I took this picture in 2009 and I posted it here.

Bunny rabbit along Lake Road.

This is a picture of a bunny rabbit that I took in 2009. Out along this bike trail, near the house where I grew up, they have numerous rabbits like this one.

3 Cows lined up behind barbed wire fence.

This is a picture I took in 2009 in Merced. This picture was taken from the bike trail next to Lake Road, not too far from the UC Merced campus. This picture is of 3 cows, as you can see.

Cows with yellow and red ear tags.

Out near where I live, there are numerous fields. Some of these fields have wandering cattle, like these two. I liked their yellow and red ear tags. I posted this picture here, this picture was taken from Lake Road on the outskirts of Merced, Ca.