Pod Living in SF's Future

$700 buys you the top or bottom

If I were single and in my 20's, starting a job in San Francisco, and didn't care about having a social life, I would definitely consider renting a sleeping pod:

Brownstone’s model is different in that it’s renting out pods that are much smaller in size than a traditional bedroom and more akin to Japan’s capsule hotels, which keeps prices lower. It’s also not trying to program social gatherings for residents, as previous startups have sought to do.

The reported rent of $700 per month is a fraction of the cost of a studio apartment. Even if one can afford to pay much more for housing, being a pod person may appeal to finance or engineering types who work long hours in the office and just need a place to crash and wash up. (This recalls the 2016 case of the Google engineer who claimed he was able to build his savings by $6,000 per month by living in a truck.)

Your humble blogger claims to have no expertise in San Francisco commercial real estate, but pod living appears to be one solution to 1) high housing costs and 2) a way to attract some young highly paid professionals back to the City and rejuvenate its night life.

Converting excess office buildings to pod housing is much less costly than conversion to standard apartments and condos. The only holdup seems to be, unsurprisingly, San Francisco's disorganized, inefficient regulatory agencies:

But last year, city officials ruled that the pods violated building codes because Brownstone hadn’t gotten approval for the residential conversion and the building was a safety hazard, in part because the front door required a key to open from the inside.

James Stallworth, CEO of Brownstone Shared Housing, said the city’s planning department was unresponsive for around nine months as the company sought to bring the project up to code. He said, ultimately, only a few minor changes were implemented: A stove was installed in the communal kitchen, permits were approved for a shower that was installed and the front door access was remedied.

Dan Sider, the planning department's chief of staff, said claims that the department was unresponsive were “utter nonsense” and said Stallworth only filed an application in July after “months of noncooperation.”

Thirteen residents were allowed to continue living in the building during that time, but Stallworth said the city told Brownstone to stop accepting new residents. It’s now advertising the pods for rent again.

Dodgers Win World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2024 World Series by defeating the New York Yankees in Game 5:

The Los Angeles Dodgers won their second World Series championship in five seasons, overcoming a five-run deficit with the help of three Yankees defensive miscues and rallying on sacrifice flies from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth inning to beat New York 7-6 in Game 5 on Wednesday night

Personal note; A typical "homer," your humble blogger takes an interest in Major League Baseball only when the San Francisco Giants have a contending team.

But this is one World Series that any boomer sports fan had to watch. We remember when baseball was head and shoulders above the NFL and NBA, and the '50's and '60's Yankees and Dodgers had some of the most famous players ever to play the sport. In 2024 the Yankees and the Dodgers had the most glamor and the fattest payrolls--along with their storied histories--and this World Series would demonstrate whether baseball still deserved a place at the top of the sports pyramid.

This is the World Series that Major League Baseball has been dreaming about.

The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers are the most prestigious and popular franchises in the sport, loaded with enough star power to light up a small city. Shohei Ohtani is a once-in-a-century talent, now playing on the game’s biggest stage for the first time. Network executives are betting that it will be the most-watched Fall Classic in years.

“Baseball purists probably love it. I know MLB probably loves it. Fox definitely loves it,” Yankees pitcher Carlos Rodón said ahead of Friday’s Game 1. “There’s definitely some glamor to it.”

...There are five different players in this World Series—Ohtani, Judge, Freeman, Betts and Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton—who have won an MVP award, and that doesn’t even count injured Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. Assuming they all appear in a game, it will be an all-time record.

One of those players has been named MVP in six of the past seven seasons, a streak that is going to continue with Ohtani and Judge, the presumed MVPs for 2024. It will make this the first World Series since 2012 and just the second since 1988 to feature both MVPs from that season.

The business assessments have to wait on the viewership ratings and other financial analytics, but from this fan's standpoint the 2024 World Series had many interesting and suspenseful moments that showcased why baseball is unique and fascinating.

A Good Sign

It's the first time this has happened in this boomer's life; I cracked open an egg with a double yolk.

Eggs with two yolks are fairly rare: statistically speaking, you might find them in just 1 of every 1,000 eggs. These eggs typically come from two types of hens: younger hens whose bodies are still just learning how to lay, and older birds who are experiencing the natural course of reproductive changes as they age.

In fact, many egg anomalies, such as blood spots, follow the same pattern. Like humans, hens' bodies tend to go through their most significant changes during "adolescence" and late into adulthood, so it's during these two periods of time in a flock's life that we tend to see a higher rate of unique and irregular eggs.

In cultures as different as Islam and China's, a double-yolked egg is a sign of good luck. It would be pleasing and surprising if there's some truth to that superstition.

Haleakala Ride

Looking down at the clouds from the summit (Volcano tours)

Another activity that I enjoyed in my younger days may be outlawed.

A popular Hawaii tourist activity, Maui downhill bicycle tours offer visitors an opportunity to see stunning landscapes on a ride down the winding roads of Haleakala with little physical exertion.

The activity, however, comes with some risk, as bicyclists share the road with vehicles, whose drivers sometimes get impatient, and downhill speeds may cause a rider to lose control.

Throughout its history, accidents have happened. Some have died. Earlier this month, Jeffrey Hins, a 68-year-old visitor from Arizona, was killed while biking down Haleakala as part of a group. The Maui Police Department said Hins crossed the yellow double-solid lane into the oncoming lane and crashed into a vehicle.

A new law addressing the safety of commercial guided and unguided bike tours, Ordinance 5439, just went into effect last year to alleviate concerns about safety and disruption to local traffic.,,“There’s been some in the community who want an outright ban on this type of industry operating on the road,” Mike Molina told KHON-TV. Molina, a former Maui County councilmember, championed the new law...

Haleakala downhill bicycle tours started in 1983. Over the next 20 years, the industry flourished, as it was a way for visitors to see Haleakala National Park at sunrise, then do a fun experiential activity. By 2007, about 90,000 visitors participated in bike tours annually, and revenues were estimated at $11 million...

Last year was the first time in 15 years that a new law was enacted to regulate the industry. Ordinance 5439 limits commercial tours to 10 riders, requires a minimum age of 15 and restricts guided and unguided tours to between Mile Marker 3 and Mile Marker 9.5 on Haleakala Crater Road.

Only a handful of companies continue to operate the downhill bike tours today and have altered their itineraries to accommodate the changes.

Depending on the operator, guided tours begin with a van ride up Haleakala Volcano to 10,000 feet to watch the sunrise inside Haleakala National Park. Then, the van brings the group down to around 6,500 feet, where cyclists launch after a safety briefing. Bicyclists then descend on a winding road of 29 switchbacks, while the van follows behind.

Ordinance 5439 cut some mileage from the tours by prohibiting specific areas of road and excluding the town of Kula. Operators have improvised by adding a second bike loop of the switchbacks, a van ride through Kula or lunch stop in Makawao, before continuing on the bikes to ride down to Haiku or Paia, where the tour ends.

I've done the summit downhill a number of times, the most recent occasion being a corporate retreat in the mid-1990's. We watched the sun rise over the crater, then cruised to Paia without stopping. It was early morning, traffic was light, and this weekend bicyclist used the brakes often. However, it is easy to see how increased auto traffic, combined with unskilled bicycle tourists, made serious accidents inevitable. Like many things in life, I'm glad I got to do the Haleakala ride before it got regulated away.

Kamala Harris Goes to Church

(Atlanta Journal-Constitution photo)

Kamala Harris has had trouble attracting Christian, particularly Catholic, voters due to her pro-abortion stance, so she began the day at a Black church in Philadelphia:

Vice President Kamala Harris started her Sunday at services at the Church of Christian Compassion in West Philadelphia. She told the largely Black congregation that the “next nine days will test us—they will demand everything we’ve got.”

“In this moment, we do face a real question: What kind of country do we want to live in? A country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, justice, and compassion?” Harris asked, adding, “The great thing about living in a democracy is we, the people, have the choice to answer that question.” Harris is spending the day in the Philadelphia area as polls show a tight race in Pennsylvania, the nation’s largest battleground state.

Vice President Harris is also trying to counter the anti-Christian impression of her "you guys are at the wrong rally" riposte when hecklers shouted "Jesus is Lord" and "Christ is King." (Her campaign asserts that she was responding to cries of "Lies! Lies! Lies!").

Despite her warm reception by the congregation, I doubt her appearance changed anyone's mind.

Cancer: Too Much Information

We're lucky we live close to two research centers

This is troubling but not surprising: many oncologists can't stay abreast of new developments in cancer research. [bold added]

Cancer care is getting more complicated, thanks to a better understanding of cancer’s molecular underpinnings. Doctors now think of cancer as more than 100 distinct diseases, with cancers including lung, breast and bladder broken into subtypes.

That complexity is contributing to a divide in how patients fare depending on where they go.

Oncologists at magnet cancer centers that dot the U.S. develop expertise in just a few cancer subtypes. They draw from a rapidly expanding arsenal of new drugs for specific and sometimes rare cancers, including experimental ones that aren’t widely available.

But most people get treated locally to be near home and jobs. Local oncologists, faced with a range of cancers, can’t stay up-to-date on everything. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network updated its nearly 90 guidelines across cancer types more than 200 times in the past year.

A third of 120 patients who sought a second opinion at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York had their treatment changed, a 2023 review found. MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston said about one in five of its new patients are rediagnosed or restaged. Patients at academic centers have better outcomes for cancers including lung and multiple myeloma, studies show.

“It’s possible that one out of five patients in America is getting the wrong treatment,” said Dr. Peter WT Pisters, MD Anderson’s president.

I don't fault oncologists for finding it hard to do keep up with the research while treating patients by day. This is one obvious application for artificial intelligence, i.e., sifting through haystacks of information to find the needle that may apply to a patient.

Meanwhile, it behooves us all to stay alive as long as possible to give us the best chance for the science to cure the diseases that might kill us.

Dr. Bryant Lin

Bryant Lin teaching a class on Oct. 23 (Merc photo)

A member of our family has been seeing Dr. Bryant Lin at Stanford Health for years. Lately Dr. Lin has been unavailable. Now we know why; he has been battling lung cancer.

“If you look at the survival curves, you would give up. But you may be one of the lucky ones. You need to have optimism, tinged with reality,” said Lin, a beloved clinical professor and 50-year-old nonsmoker with two teenage sons who was diagnosed with advanced metastatic lung cancer earlier this year.

...Lin initially dismissed an annoying cough that started last spring. But it continued to worsen, causing him to wheeze.

“I’ve never had a puff of smoke of anything in my life,” he said.

In one week, he got stunning news. What he assumed was just a normal spring allergy was diagnosed as stage IV non-small cell cancer, which had already progressed to his bones and liver, with 50 lesions in his brain.

The diagnosis, about a month before his 50th birthday, “was so drastically different than what I was expecting,” he said. He was quickly hospitalized...

Lung cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer, with survival rates decreasing as the severity increases. While smokers make up the majority of those cases, 15% to 20% of people with lung cancer are non-smoking, like Lin. There is new evidence of an increase in the incidence of lung cancer in nonsmokers, although no one knows why. It is largely a silent disease that goes undetected for a dangerously long period.

The gene mutation that causes the cancer disproportionately affects those of Asian descent.

While not cured, Lin’s scans are strikingly improved after an innovative medicine called osimertinib, which targets his specific mutation. It blocks proteins that control cell growth and division. His cough is gone, and he is almost symptom-free...

With roles reversed, Lin says he is learning both how to be a patient and how to more fully be a doctor.

He urges doctors to not focus just on “medical science things” but the emotional and practical challenges of their patients. He urges patients to build tight community of support and deepen their relationship with their doctor, who can act as an advocate when things go wrong.

He’s not sure how much time he has left. “One year? Two years? Five years?” The class, he said, “is to give back to my community as I go through this.”

After receiving his terminal diagnosis, Dr. Bryant Lin continues not only to fight the disease but teaches classes at Stanford Hospital, including his own life experience in the content. None of us know with certainty how we might react to such news; character reveals itself in such moments.

SF Bay Area: the IncredibleTalent is Still Here

Using 192 laser beams, this Lawrence-Livermore apparatus ignited
a hydrogen fuel pellet the size of a peppercorn in 2022. The experiment
produced more energy than it consumed and showed fusion
energy was possible. (DOE/Chronicle)

In a man-bites-dog story an Austin tech startup is moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. [bold added]

Focused Energy, a startup specializing in laser fusion for clean energy, is relocating its U.S. headquarters from Austin to the Bay Area.

The German company announced plans on Wednesday to establish a state-of-the-art facility in the region, with an investment of $65 million. The facility will house some of the world’s most advanced lasers, crucial for developing commercially viable fusion energy, according to a press release.

Scott Mercer, CEO of Focused Energy, said that the move aims to leverage the “incredible pool of talent” in the Bay Area and benefit from established methodologies developed by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which achieved net energy gain for the first time in December 2022...

With over $175 million in private and public funding, Focused Energy is one of eight fusion companies selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for support under its Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.

The company has also received significant grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to further its research and development initiatives.

Although numerous California companies such as Oracle, Tesla and Chevron have relocated their headquarters to Texas in recent years, this case illustrates the opposite trend.

The new Bay Area facility will enhance laser efficiency and establish a global supply chain necessary for scaling commercial fusion operations.

Once fully operational, fusion fuel equivalent to “three soda cans” will be capable of powering a city the size of San Francisco for an entire day, Focused Energy said.

Startups' main objective is to demonstrate their proof-of-concept. Cutting costs and red tape will be prioritized later, and the company can then decide if California is where it wishes to be planted.

Meanwhile, it's nice to know that the Bay Area hasn't yet dissipated its “incredible pool of talent” that attracts tech companies around the world. Your humble blogger still holds out hope that we can undo California's status as the worst-taxed, most woke, and most over-regulated State in the Union.

Gate Lice

(Image from wheelchair travel)

This airport problem is getting worse: airline passengers crowd the gate and board ahead of their assigned group. [bold added]

American Airlines is piloting a new system aimed at curbing the phenomenon known as “gate lice,” an industry term used to describe passengers who crowd the boarding area ahead of their assigned group.

The initiative comes in response to growing frustration around travelers who often disregard boarding instructions, leading to chaotic scenes at the gate.

While the new technology won’t speed up departures, it seeks to restore order to the boarding process, said the airline, the fourth largest operator out of San Francisco International Airport.

The system involves a warning sound triggered when passengers attempt to board outside their assigned group. When a boarding pass is scanned, an “audible alert” will notify the gate agent, displaying the passenger’s correct group number.

Many passengers rush to the gate out of anxiety or a herd mentality, despite having designated boarding groups, according to psychologists who have studied the “gate lice” phenomenon. But for those who genuinely need early access — such as families or travelers with disabilities — airlines say the prioritization system is essential. They also cite the need to protect the revenue they receive from those who have paid for these privileges.

One of the cultural differences that used to distinguish Americans from some, not all, Asian countries is that Americans would stand in line and wait their turn, while non-Americans would push their way through to get on buses, trains, and elevators. In the U.S. the willingness to wait is still around, but it began eroding a couple of generations ago.

Your humble blogger applauds the enforcement of the old norm, although the term "gate lice" is a bit mean. But I suppose the cultural norm against name-calling has eroded, too.

The Subtlety of Politics

For the past month I've been watching the candidates for national office give speeches and interviews. I've been impressed with the ability of J.D. Vance to respond to questions, hostile or otherwise, and show that he has more than a surface knowledge of the issues. Of the four candidates I think he is the most skilled at dealing with the press.

Below is an example, albeit during a friendly interview with Fox News' Dana Perino:



At the 1:25 mark he says "You can't just walk into a McDonald's and sign a W-9 and actually go onto the payroll." (The W-9 is the IRS form in which a new employee declares his Social Security Number to his employer.) The fact that Mr. Vance knew the correct form number and stated it when he didn't have to was impressive to this career accountant.

Additional comment on McDonald's: there's a ridiculous controversy about whether Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's. She claims that she did, and her detractors say that she didn't; neither side has produced evidence to support their position, and McDonald's has no record of her employment. (The Harris campaign believes that she worked during the summer of 1983 at the McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda, California.)

There's an easy way to check. Just ask the Social Security Administration:

We can give you copies or printouts of your Forms W-2 for any year from 1978 to the present. You can get free copies if you need them for a Social Security-related reason. But there is a fee of $62 per request if you need them for an unrelated reason. You can also get a transcript or copy of your Form W-2 from the Internal Revenue Service. However, state and local tax information isn’t available if you e-filed your tax return.

How tough would it be for Kamala Harris to request a copy of her 1983 W-2 from the SSA or IRS and put the matter to rest? The fact that she hasn't done so is a strong indicator that she did not work at McDonald's, but of course yours truly is just a simple accountant who knows nothing about the subtlety of politics.

"Not First, But Best"

AAPL is 10X as valuable as it was when Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011

(Photo by Sakuma/WSJ)

Steve Jobs gets all the adulation, but Tim Cook deserves his own chapter in the history of American business. Steve Jobs rescued Apple from insolvency and transformed it into the world's most innovative consumer company; Tim Cook was handed the keys in 2011 and oversaw its growth into an international colossus that is worth ten times as much as it was when he took over. Perhaps we should focus less on what Apple products are in the pipeline than the man himself. The WSJ ran a profile over the weekend: [bold added]

There is one idea that encapsulates the approach to innovation that makes all of it possible—and it’s maybe the closest thing to a grand unified theory of Apple. It’s a philosophy of just four words that describe Apple’s past, present and definitely its future. Four words that help explain why this was the year the company plowed into spatial computing and artificial intelligence. During one of those epochal years when it feels like everything is about to change again, I heard them over and over, in conversation with Apple executives and Cook himself: Not first, but best.

...“We weren’t the first to do intelligence,” he says. “But we’ve done it in a way that we think is the best for the customer.”...He puts Apple Intelligence in the same pantheon of innovative breakthroughs as the iPod’s click wheel and the iPhone’s touch interface. “I think we’ll look back and it will be one of these air pockets that happened to get you on a different technology curve,” he says.

Tim Cook, 64, may not be as inventive as Steve Jobs, but he has arrived at the point where he trusts his ability to select that one "great" idea from the merely good ones that Apple considers every day. As a shareholder, I hope his tenure continues for a long, long time.

Making October Count

Currier & Ives, American Homestead Autumn

Forget about rebooting one's life every new year. The month for goal setting is October, according to the TikTok meme "October Theory":

October Theory is catching on partly because it sets someone up for success by the time January rolls around, say fans of the trend. Instead of picking up a new habit in the dead of winter—at the same time everyone else is trying to make it to the gym, for instance—it has already been in place for three months...

Others view October as a last chance to fulfill the goals and aspirations they set months ago.

October is the perfect month for recalibration. There's still time to complete the unfinished aspirations for this year and test-run the goals for the next. The busy-ness of Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas is still weeks away, and the weather is pleasant and often magnificent.

Metaphorically, we baby boomers (60-78 years old) are in or about to enter the winter of our lives, if indeed we are lucky to be still alive, and there are not many seasons left. Your humble blogger feels the fierce urgency and intends to make this October count.

Another Group That is Falling Through the Cracks

Elena Portacolone (research gate photo)

We are used to hearing about vulnerable subsets of the American population who need a lot of help in taking care of themselves. Here's another one that numbers in the millions: [bold added]

]Sociologist Elena] Portacolone got to work and now leads the Living Alone With Cognitive Impairment Project at UCSF. The project estimates that that at least 4.3 million people 55 or older who have cognitive impairment or dementia live alone in the United States.

About half have trouble with daily activities such as bathing, eating, cooking, shopping, taking medications, and managing money, according to their research. But only 1 in 3 received help with at least one such activity.

Compared with other older adults who live by themselves, people living alone with cognitive impairment are older, more likely to be women, and disproportionately Black or Latino, with lower levels of education, wealth, and homeownership. Yet only 21% qualify for publicly funded programs such as Medicaid that pay for aides to provide services in the home.

Increased longevity is a societal good, but smaller families, that is, fewer relatives to check on a person, and the decline of churches and other community organizations have resulted in millions of aging, cognitively impaired adults falling through the cracks.

Costco Napa - No Surprise

Selman Medina (Chron photo)

As further proof that its stores are not all alike, the new warehouse that opened in Napa today already is reputed to have one of the best wine selections among Costco's 140 California stores. [bold added]

[Selman] Medina is a Bay Area Costco legend. He spent 11 years commuting from Napa to work the floor of the wine section at the Novato Costco, widely believed to have the best wine section of any Costco in California. He’s one of 30 “wine stewards” employed at Costco stores across the U.S., and according to Bay Area Costco wine buyer Mark Kalkbrenner, he’s one of two wine steward program originals still standing.

Costco is one of the best-run and most popular retailers in the country. It doesn't go overboard on standardization and has a few products (e.g., surfboards in Hawaii warehouses) that cater to the local market. It's no surprise that its new store in wine country has an excellent wine selection, overseen by an expert buyer.

Watching a Subspecies of Money Men

Last month we commented about how the super-rich signal their wealth to each other without making it obvious that's what they're trying to do. But not all of them, or those trying to be as wealthy as they are, are into that game at least when it comes to timepieces.

WSJ: The Anti-Status Watch: Why Men in Finance Love Cheap, Cheesy Watches

Sponge Bob and Avengers watches worn by financiers
Patrick Lyons and Leroy Dikito (WSJ/Lyons/Dikito)

Though finance guys famously flaunt Rolexes or Patek Philippes on their wrists, an established subspecies of money men goes the other way entirely. In place of a sleek steel case and elegant ceramic dial? Mickey Mouse. SpongeBob SquarePants. Fanta-orange rubber straps.

Over the years, highfliers have made headlines for sporting Swatches. (See: Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman or former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.) That “wealthy guy, cheap watch” ethos continues to resonate in boardrooms and on trading floors, with men of all seniority levels embracing plasticky, offbeat designs, from superhero models to calculator Casios. Many resemble something you might win in a claw machine. Priced from $30 to a few hundred bucks, they’re a bit of fun and a different sort of flex, conveying an “I don’t need a Rolex” bravado that comes from having made it. Call them anti-status watches.

A practical reason for this anti-status affectation: cheap, everyday watches can be used as conversation starters in business conversations.

It's also possible to be viewed as truly wealthy, especially if everyone knows that a person is rolling in it, by not appearing to care about looking the part. The psychology of wealth, like the most important aspects of life, can be complicated.

Right Before Our Eyes

This happened on Sunday and was widely reported on all media channels. Your humble blogger had nothing to add, so initially refrained from comment.

Upon reconsideration, I thought that, of all the important events that have happened or likely will happen this October in a Presidential Election year, this is the one that will be remembered centuries from now.

WSJ: SpaceX Catches Huge Booster Back at Launchpad [bold added]

SpaceX caught a towering booster rocket back at its launchpad in south Texas, an engineering milestone for the Starship vehicle at the center of Elon Musk’s plans for deep-space exploration.

The Super Heavy booster, the first stage of Starship, lifted off from south Texas on Sunday morning and propelled the Starship craft into space. Shortly after the launch, SpaceX made the call to return the booster back to the pad from which it had launched.

A livestream from SpaceX showed the device zipping back toward the facility, and, as it approached a tower, its engines slowed the enormous device down, allowing for the catch around 8:30 a.m. ET. The vehicle latched down on mechanical arms sticking out of the tower.

It was SpaceX’s first attempt at the catch, a feat that the company and Musk, its chief executive, have said is key to reducing the cost of rocket launches...

Starship, which consists of the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft, stands about 400 feet tall when it is launched.

Elon Musk is that rarest of technological pioneers who prioritizes the economic viability of his product. After the Apollo missions NASA lost its funding because its programs were always viewed as nice-to-have, not got-to-have. Reusability of boosters will drive down the cost sufficiently to make space travel more accessible and perhaps even profitable in its own right.

Saving One Dollar at 99 Ranch

This year I've started to look my age. I've lost hair, and what I have remaining has turned white. Which is background to the following:

We've been shopping at the local 99 Ranch Market for 20 years. As I was checking out, the middle-aged Chinese man at the register said, "I'll get you a senior discount." I didn't even know 99 Ranch had one. Sure, I shrugged.

He put his hands on his hips and bellowed, "Senior....senior!" Several customers turned their heads. Apparently the senior discount had to be approved by the manager. She came over in less than a minute and scanned her cellphone over a reader, authorizing the transaction. So 99 Ranch does use current technology, except for the part where cashiers yell for the manager.

I studied the receipt. The vegetables, ramen, and pastries cost $23.59, and the 5% senior discount saved $1.18. After writing the check to the U.S, Treasury for our 2023 income taxes, every penny counts.

Procrastination Hits the Immovable Deadline

Your humble blogger spent most of Sunday night and Monday morning working on his 2023 income taxes. While there are some justifiable reasons for his procrastination, it's hard to utter with a straight face that he couldn't have spared some time in the six months since April 15th to finish the task. October 15th is the drop-dead due date for filing.

But that's water under the bridge. I completed the input forms and submitted them to the processor. The preliminary run came back this afternoon, and there was a $10,000 error that should be easily fixable. Tomorrow I'll phone in the correction, get back the final run in the afternoon and drop it off at the Post Office by 5 p.m. Easy as pie.

A Choice, But Not Really

The priest read from Mark 10:

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

It is true that most people---yours truly included---try to build up their wealth to a point where it provides protection against the exigencies of life. It's very difficult to "sell what you own, and give the money to the poor" and trust in God to take care of our future.

There are other examples in the Bible of how money is an obstacle to faith. Later in Mark, Jesus observes, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

However, it would be a mistake to focus on wealth as the sole impediment to faith. I have encountered people who claim that money is not important to them. Putting aside whether I believe them or not, I have observed that certain activities (cooking and dining, sports, grandchildren) are their highest priority--and just ask some young people to turn off their phones for a day.

It's very difficult to leave everything behind, though the irony is that we eventually will have no choice in the matter.

The Road Not Taken

Perhaps the importance of "which road
do I take" is not the decision but the fact there
are at least two roads (WSJ/Carole Hénaff)

In unhappy situations where we tell ourselves that there's no other option (e.g., staying in a bad job or marriage), we really do have a choice. It's just that we are unwilling to face the consequences of that choice. [bold added]

But the truth, though it often makes people indignant to hear it, is that it’s almost never literally the case that you have to meet a work deadline, honor a commitment, answer an email, fulfill a family obligation or anything else. The astounding reality—in the words of Sheldon B. Kopp, a genial and brilliant American psychotherapist who died in 1999—is that you’re pretty much free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.

Consequences aren’t optional. Every choice you make comes with some sort of consequences, because at any instant you can only pick one path, and must deal with the repercussions of not picking any of the others. Spending a week’s holiday in Rome means not spending that same week in Paris. Avoiding a conflict in the short term means letting a bad situation fester.

Freedom isn’t a matter of somehow wriggling free of the costs of your choice—that’s never an option. It means realizing that nothing can stop you from doing anything at all, so long as you’re willing to pay those costs. Unless you’re being physically coerced into doing something, the notion that you “have to” do it just means that you don’t want to pay the price of refusing to do it. After all, it’s perfectly possible for you to quit your job with no backup plan. You could book a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro, or rob a bank, or tell your social media followers your honest views.

The economist Thomas Sowell summed things up by saying that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. The only questions to ask about any choice is what the price is, and whether or not it’s worth paying.

The benefit of the I-really-do-have-a-choice perspective may have an effect on one's psychological well-being.

If a path you’d love to take is genuinely likely to leave you destitute, or seriously harmed in some other way, then you probably shouldn’t take it. But for most of us, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the temptation is often to exaggerate potential consequences, so as to spare ourselves the burden of making a bold choice. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre observed that there’s a secret comfort in telling yourself you’ve got no options, because it’s easier to wallow in feeling trapped than to face the dizzying responsibilities of freedom...

Whatever choice you make, so long as you make it in the spirit of facing the consequences, the result will be freedom—not freedom from limitation, which is something we unfortunately never get to experience, but freedom in limitation. Freedom to examine the trade-offs—because there will always be trade-offs—and then to opt for whichever trade-off you like.

Thanksgiving will soon be here, and, although circumstances stay the same, changing our viewpoint toward life is a glass half full instead of a glass half empty makes all the difference in our feelings about the world.

Humorbragging

(Illustration by Verplancke/WSJ)

Humblebragging (“I hate that I look so young; even a 19-year-old hit on me!”) has been around for years. Now there's humorbragging.

A team of researchers have found that “humorbragging”—referring to your accomplishments through a veil of humor—allows people to play up their skills without coming across as smug or conceited. And that makes them more likely to get hired or get their pitch accepted...

The researchers used a series of studies to test the impact of what they called humorbragging. In one instance, they sent out two résumés to 345 companies—but one version of the résumé added a dash of self-promotional humor instead of being purely serious: “The more coffee you can provide, the more output I will produce.” The résumés with the joke got an email or a callback by 156 companies, versus 125 for the others.

Another study got similar results when looking at humorous bragging on the first four seasons of “Shark Tank”—people who used humor to highlight their accomplishments were more likely to get funding than others.

Speaking from personal experience (okay, missteps) it's really tough to be funny, especially in a business setting.

Many subjects should not even be broached, or should be mentioned only within narrow constraints. It's advisable to test-run your humorbrag before a trusted confidant. Because of the consequences of a poor reaction to your humorbrag, follow the advice of grammar teachers regarding commas: when in doubt leave it out.

Santa Cruz Students Don't Know Why It's Popular

John Travolta wears the iconic T-shirt (SFGate/YouTube screenshot)

Most UC-Santa Cruz students don't know why its banana slug T-shirt is a sought-after item. The shirt's popularity is due to Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarentino's greatest film, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

“The Fiat [slug] is like the logo,” said [Jason] Cohen of the UCSC bookstore. “It’s a cartoon banana slug wearing glasses and reading Plato. It’s our best-selling logo, period. We sell it in many different capacities. I put that on academic planners and notebooks and all kinds of stuff.”

Among all the slug merch available, the Fiat Slug T-shirts remain the school’s top seller, by far, Ray Rideout, UCSC’s apparel buyer, told SFGATE. “Everyone gets it,” he said. “Anyone who’s seen the movie, it was the cleaner scene, right? When people — they find out where I work, they always send a picture of Travolta wearing it.”

Last month we noted how the banana slug has been named the official California state slug.

"Politics is downstream of culture" is a well-known saying. 30 years after it entered the culture, politics has recognized the cultural significance of the lowly banana slug.

Money and Happiness: Not So Simple

We've commented before on the 2010 study that asserted that more money does lead to happiness, but only up to a relatively modest level of income, i.e., $75,000 per year:

In 2010 Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton analyzed data from over 450,000 responses to a daily survey of 1,000 U.S. residents by the Gallup Organization. They found that money does influence happiness at low to moderate levels of income. Real lack of money leads to more worry and sadness, higher levels of stress, less positive affect (happiness, enjoyment, and reports of smiling and laughter) and less favorable evaluations of one’s own life. Yet most of these effects only hold for people who earn $75,000 a year or less. Above about $75,000, higher income is not the simple ticket to happiness that we think it is.

(WSJ illustration)

Since that 2010 study more research has been performed on the relationship between money and subjective well-being. Now it seems that more money in absolute terms does make higher-income people happier. [bold added]

A big raise provides significant boosts in happiness even at household incomes of $500,000, according to a new research report...according to a paper by Matt Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the bonuses and leaps in income high earners reap are so large that they keep adding to well-being in the same way that smaller pay bumps do at lower tiers of earnings.

“I think of this as a ladder across society. The rungs are separated by more and more dollars, but exactly the same amount of happiness,” said Killingsworth, who published his report on his Happiness Science website.

An academic paper in 2010 popularized $75,000 as the salary threshold beyond which earning more money didn’t make people any happier. More recent research indicates that there is no such plateau.

Killingsworth and other researchers stress that many things influence human happiness, including your relationships, your job and the country you live in.

“No single factor, including money, dominates the equation,” Killingsworth said.

Previous studies on money and happiness have consistently demonstrated two things: that richer people are happier, and that it takes progressively more money to keep generating a well-being boost of a given size.

It makes sense that more money always makes people happier, ceteris paribus.

However, as people age money's importance diminishes (caveat: as long as one has enough to provide for retirement and health care) and no longer is the measuring stick of one's life; family, legacy, and discernment of life's meaning become foremost.

I wonder if there's research being performed on that.

Michelin-star Chef Gives Up on SF

Peter Hemsley prepares a dry-aged blue
fin tuna steak (Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle)

Michelin Award-winning chef Peter Hemsley thought that he could both succeed in business and help revive San Francisco's South-of-Market area. He has given up. [bold added]

Less than two years after Aphotic opened and drew acclaim in San Francisco, the fine dining restaurant will close.

Aphotic, which won a Michelin star in its first year of operation, announced on Instagram that it will close on Dec. 21. Chef Peter Hemsley said despite the accolades, the restaurant’s location at 816 Folsom St. in SoMa proved challenging.

“The fact that we all did this at the ugly butt end of a desolate convention center suck hole in the post-panny apocalypse, is nothing short of a small miracle,” he wrote. “And I believe in miracles — I have to as a chef and restaurant owner in these times. But I also know that miracles do not last forever.⁠”

In an email to the Chronicle, he wrote, “The energy may come back to that part of town in the years to come, but it will be a long and painful battle. Longer, much longer than anyone expected.”

Aphotic's dry-aged blue fin tuna steak (Suzuki/Chronicle)

Hemsley, an alum of the Michelin-starred Quince, opened the moody Aphotic last March in the former home of Palette, his combination art gallery-fine dining restaurant. It served an ambitious, seafood-focused tasting menu and standout cocktails. Aphotic is one of the rare restaurants with a license that allows it to distill its own spirits, producing a seaweed-infused gin...

In an email to supporters announcing the closure, Hemsley wrote that he “stayed put where I am because I was always charmed by the architecture of my restaurant, and the potential it had as an exceptional dining venue from within." Yet he said he increasingly felt the city failed to address post-pandemic challenges in Aphotic’s neighborhood. In the message, he cited “fear of parking on the street due to broken windows,” construction and other issues, coupled with the rising costs of doing business.

Mayor Breed and other San Francisco boosters are trying to make us believe that San Francisco has put the worst of homelessness, crime, open-air drug use, and general filth behind it.

To get at the truth watch the behavior of Peter Hemsley and other business people who have their own money on the line.

Inflammaging

(Illustration: Jemal R. Brinson/WSJ)

Yet another portmanteau [a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel (from ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’) or brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’)], but the WSJ says this one is important for our health. [bold added]

“Inflammaging” sounds like just another marketing buzzword wellness companies are throwing around. You would be wise to take the condition seriously.

A combination of inflammation and aging, the term describes a simmering form of inflammation—the immune system’s response to a perceived threat—that is chronic and low-grade, and builds stealthily as you age. It is associated with an increased risk of heart attack, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other conditions.

Inflammaging happens to everyone to some degree as we age, and some people don’t develop much. But scientists say we should pay closer attention. More research is showing the damage it can cause...

High levels of inflammation have been linked to an increased risk of death from any cause—a seven times higher risk compared with those with the lowest levels of inflammation, according to one study examining blood samples from more than 160,000 patients.

Women with high levels of chronic inflammation had a 70% greater risk of a heart attack, stroke or death from a cardiovascular cause than those with low levels, according to a separate study published in August by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who followed the women for 30 years.

Finding effective treatments for inflammation/inflammaging is still in the early stages:

A drug has to tamp down inflammation without blocking the immune system. Some patients who have atherosclerosis or are at high risk of cardiovascular disease are treated for inflammation with a low-dose version of the drug colchicine, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2023 for that use. The drug has been used for years to treat gout, a joint-pain disease.

Researchers are studying whether other drugs, including GLP-1s, can lower inflammatory markers. And Novo Nordisk and CSL Behring are testing potential anti-inflammatory medications in patients who have cardiovascular disease or are at high risk.

Some people have experimented with taking medications such as metformin and rapamycin to target inflammaging. Both drugs, approved by the FDA for other uses, have shown potential to target inflammaging, but more research in humans is needed.

Otherwise, the best ways to ward off inflammaging today? All the things you should be doing anyway: exercising consistently, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and eating healthfully.

Some research suggests the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes nuts, whole grains, fish, fruits and vegetables, is particularly protective against inflammation. Red meat, by contrast, promotes inflammation.

Most important for brain health is seven to eight hours of sleep a night, said [Mass Gen's Rudolph] Tanzi. The brain gets rid of amyloid that triggers inflammation then, he said.

“Every time you go from dreaming or REM to deep sleep, I call it a rinse cycle.”

The good news for your humble blogger is that metformin (diabetes) and colchicine (gout) have already been prescribed. I'll continue to take them regularly because they may help to reduce chronic inflammation.

Because the upward trajectory of health advancement is so steep, the goal is to hang around until cures for inflammaging, cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. can be found.

Blessing of the Animals 2024

Today the church celebrated the Feast of St. Francis (the official Feast day is October 4th), who many regard as the greatest post-Biblical saint in the history of Christianity.

St. Francis turned his back on his family's wealth in favor of a lifetime of poverty and service. He is the patron saint of animals and the environment.

Pets and their owners came forward to be blessed at the altar. This afternoon, as we have for the past 20 years (interrupted by COVID in 2020 and 2021), the church set up a table at the Foster City Dog Park to say a prayer for pets and owners who came forward.

Included in St. Francis' legacy is the composing of the second most-recognized prayer in Christendom:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury,pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

HENRYs

In 1980 the "young urban professional" (YUP-py) was identified as a significant cohort, and ensuing demographic acronyms have never stopped coming.

DINKs (double income, no kids), BOBOs (bourgeois bohemians), WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) all have had their place in the sun. Now there are HENRYs (high earner, not rich yet). [bold added]

Fifteen years ago if you’d told April Little that she’d make $300,000 a year, she would have pictured a life free of financial stress.

“The white picket fence—I have the whole visual in my head,” says Little, 38 years old, a human-resources executive turned career coach in Rochester, N.Y. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but when I got to that proverbial mountaintop I realized there’s a lot of expenses. And I still don’t own a home.”

So go the plush-but-not-too-plush lives of the Americans who qualify as HENRY—high earner, not rich yet.

Little makes multiple six figures running her own business but carries $90,000 of college and grad-school debt. Child care and education for her three children would be so costly that she and her husband decided the better option was for him to leave his radio job to parent and home-school full time.

New census data show 14.4% of U.S. households bring in $200,000 or more a year, a near record. Yet the money doesn’t have the buying power those earners wish it did, partly due to the rising prices hammering us all and partly due to the supercharged costs of things like houses and cars. HENRYs describe feeling stuck on a hamster wheel—a nice one that other hamsters envy—but running in place nonetheless.

Oh come on, you’re thinking. You’re asking me to feel sympathy for Audi-driving, Chase Sapphire-loving, Whole Foods-shopping consultant types with kids in private school?

Well…not exactly. But what they’re feeling is a version of what a lot of Americans at every income level face—making more money but not feeling like there’s a surplus. The essence of being a HENRY is feeling a gap between what you have and what you think you need to be comfortable.

What these high earners consider essentials might be termed luxuries (or nonsense) by the rest of us, but it’s also true that it takes more money to feel rich these days. And their great fear is becoming a HENRE: high earner, not rich ever.

The outlays for housing, private schools, transportation, and health care, not to mention education indebtedness, are often underestimated by 20- or 30-year-olds who think they have made it with a $200,000+ starting salary.

Even HENRYs whose futures look bright can't relax, since the loss of their high-paying job could be disastrous.

Speaking from the experience of being a previous generation's HENRY, I had visions of being able to quit when I was 40 but didn't achieve that psychological comfort zone until I was in my mid-60's. Hard work and technical abilities, while necessary, were IMHO not as important as finding a trustworthy life time partner and keeping one's health. (Having a little luck helps, too.)

Tampa: A Cloud in Florida's Horizon

(Image from Google Maps)

Tampa was one of the most popular relocation destinations in the country. However, repeated flood damage in the last five years has prompted a wave of selling as homeowners want to get out.

In the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, which includes St. Petersburg, a real-estate boom nearly doubled median home values from 2018 to June of this year, according to Redfin data. Young people flocked to the region, looking for a coastal lifestyle at a relatively affordable price.

The Tampa Bay metro area was the fifth most popular relocation destination in the country, according to an analysis by Redfin last year. The population has soared to more than three million.

Hurricane Helene deposited more than 6 feet of storm surge in the Shore
Acres neighborhood of St. Petersburg, Fla. (Photo: Mike Carlson/AP)

But as Shore Acres’s young residents sorted through the storm’s wreckage, only one thing was on their minds: selling.

Ballooning home insurance costs and the perennial threat of violent storms are starting to undermine housing markets throughout much of the state. But in few places has the turnaround been more dramatic than in low-lying communities up and down the coast of Florida that frequently flood.

The Tampa Bay housing market had been softening even before Helene struck. While prices have been flat, the area experienced a 58% increase in supply in August compared with a year ago, and a 10% decrease in demand, according to Parcl Labs, a real-estate data and analytics firm.

About half the homes listed for sale in Tampa experienced price reductions as of Sept. 9, the third highest share of all U.S. major metropolitan areas.

...The area’s affordability, once a large part of its appeal, is also waning as insurance premiums soar. Jacob McFadden was paying $880 a year to insure his home when he bought it in 2020. That amount has since almost quadrupled, to $3,300.

Premiums will likely increase again now. Property damage from last week’s Category 4 storm could be as high as $26 billion, according to estimates from Moody’s Analytics.

Florida is the No. 2 favored relocation destination for Californians.

So where did Californians move to in 2023?

Texas is the top destination for departing Californians, with 13.71% of California moving interest toward the Lone Star State.

Florida is #2 destination for Californians with 7.49% of interest. This confirms other reports that Californians are flocking to The Sunshine State.

Generally speaking, California homeowners who move to Florida have cashed out with substantial equity and should be able to invest in flood protection measures, such as raising their homes on columns, piles, and piers. They can also afford to pay for the higher insurance premiums. However, the exodus of lower-income, typically working-class homeowners from Tampa is a troubling sign that Florida may be peaking,

The Laughing Heir

(For sale on Amazon): But will your cat take care of you?

We are personally acquainted with Bay Area millionaires who are over-60, never been married, and never had children. (They are millionaires primarily because of the houses they bought over 25 years ago.)

The recent growth in this demographic has resulted in the phenomenon of the laughing heir: [bold added]

Charities, distant relatives and even pets are benefiting from surprise inheritances. They can thank people without children.

Not having children is becoming more common, both among millennials and older people. A July Pew Research Center analysis found that 20% of U.S. adults age 50 and older hadn’t had children.

And many of these people don’t have wills. An AARP survey found half of childless people age 50-plus who live alone have a will, compared with 57% of others that age. Those without wills have less control over what happens to their money, which often ends up in the hands of people who don’t expect it.

This phenomenon of a surprise inheritance is common enough that it has a name: the laughing heir.

“All they do is get the money and go, ‘Ah ha ha, look at that,’ ” said Michael Ettinger, an estate lawyer in New York.

Having a significant estate when a childless person dies may be the result of rational decision-making:

Financial advisers say a far bigger concern than who gets what is making sure there is enough money and support for a comfortable old age, because clients without children can’t call on them for help...

Choosing an estate executor and who would handle money and health decisions on your behalf can be difficult when you don’t have children, financial advisers say. Using a promised inheritance as a reward for taking care of you when you are older isn’t a good solution, said Jay Zigmont, an investment adviser focused on childless people.

“Unfortunately, it is relatively common to see family members who are in the will decide to opt for cheaper medical care (or similar decisions) in order to protect what they will be inheriting,” he said in an email.

The old-age safety net, which many still subscribe to, is to have children who will have your best interests at heart. (I've seen enough murder mysteries to know that this is not always the case!)

The second-best option appears to be letting your distant relatives know they will be remembered in the will for some assistance today. The risk, as mentioned above, is that the aforementioned relatives may prioritize keeping the size of the estate as large as possible at the expense of the elderly person's care. And, as they collect their inheritance, they'll be laughing all the way to the bank.