Measure ‘R’, The Anti-Green Green Initiative.

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

I never write partisan political articles for my tenant newsletter, but I feel so strongly about this issue, that I am breaking my own rule. In November, Berkeley citizens will vote on Measure R ‘The Downtown Green Initiative.’ While the name of this initiative sounds very appealing, it is misleading. This measure will do precisely the opposite of what the name implies.

Subways or Freeways. The city of Berkeley should be encouraging real estate developers to build new apartments near subway stations and the U.C. Berkeley campus, not next to freeway entrances. This law will do precisely the opposite. Only one freeway goes through Berkeley, Highway 880, and it is choked with traffic every day. Berkeley has 3 subways stations. This city has never allowed high-rise residential buildings to be built near 2 of its 3 subway stations, Ashby and North Berkeley. That leaves the downtown Berkeley BART station, where a lot of new apartment houses have been built over the past decade. However, if Measure R passes, new apartment construction near the downtown Berkeley subway station will be severely reduced, probably down to near zero, while allowing unfettered construction of new apartments near freeway entrances. This is terrible environmental policy.

Real estate developers already have powerful incentives to build apartments near the freeway instead of downtown. Land in Berkeley near freeway entrances is much cheaper than downtown. It is also easier to get demolition and building permits near the freeway. Although apartments are cheaper to build near the freeway, rents are the same as downtown. This explains why hundreds of new apartments are now under construction near Berkeley’s freeway entrances. Consider Avalon Apartments, which just opened last month. It is 2 blocks from the University Avenue freeway entrance. 1 bedroom apartments start at $2,750 a month, and 2 bedrooms start at $3,400.

Measure R is opposed by many environmental organizations, including the League of Conservation Voters and the Greenbelt Alliance. Please remember on election day that ballot initiatives often have misleading names. Don’t vote for this measure simply because the word ‘green’ is in it’s name. Think about what this measure will actually do.

If we build housing at places where people have to get and drive cars in order to get to work or school, then that is what they will do. That is a no-brainer.

The Best College Swimming Pool.

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

The swimming pool at the RSF (Recreational Sports Facility) on the U.C. Berkeley campus is certainly much better than the average college swimming pool, but it is far from top of the heap. The best college swimming pool in the United States is probably the one at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Below is a photo of the pool’s indoor lazy river, which is lined with palm trees and passes under a waterfall. Students can also join an on-campus, resort-quality beach club called ‘Truman’s Pond,’ named after President Harry Truman, who lived nearby.

Don’t Invite Burglars Into Your Home.

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

What should you do if a stranger unexpectedly shows up at your front door and says that he’s a building inspector, health inspector, fire marshal, or wallet inspector and asks you to let him in? Just say “No!” Give him my phone number and tell him politely, but firmly, “Speak to my landlord.” Do not let him inside. Do not answer questions or engage him in conversation.

Criminals get into people’s homes all the time by posing as government officials, and they can be very convincing. Smart crooks come well groomed, wear business suits, carry fake I.D., and are polite. After all, a professional house thief knows that if he looks and sounds like a burglar, nobody is going to let him in! If polite talk doesn’t work, a criminal trying to get into your home may then try intimidation. He may threaten to have you arrested for refusing to let him in, but that is just proof that the guy is a phony.

You cannot be arrested or fined for refusing to allow a government official into your home unless he has a Search Warrant signed by a judge stating specifically what it is that he is looking for, and he is accompanied by a policeman. That’s in the Constitution. Keep in mind that I will never send an inspector or repairman to your home without contacting you first to let you know that he is coming.

The 3 Little Pigs

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

Have you ever seen the Walt Disney movie ‘The 3 Little Pigs’? Nearly everyone has. I just recently noticed something interesting in this movie that I had overlooked before. Below is a cell from the movie showing the 3 pigs singing ‘Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?’

Did you ever notice the picture on the wall? It’s a picture of the father of the 3 little pigs. I have shown this cell to people who have seen this movie many, many times, but none of them recalled noticing the picture on the wall. It seems like a rather odd and creepy picture for the 3 pigs to have on their wall.

Sorcery In Saudi Arabia

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

I am the vice president of the Oakland Magic Circle, the largest independent magic club west of the Mississippi. I recently sent the following e-mail to the other officers of my magic club.

In August 2014; 26 people were executed in Saudi Arabia. One of those 26 people was Mohammed bin Bakr al-Alawi, who was beheaded for ‘black magic sorcery.’ Evidence of his sorcery included ‘causing birds to appear.’ Causing birds to appear? So, how much would you charge to do a bird act in Saudi Arabia? (See photo below of Lance Burton doing his dove production act.) I don’t do tricks with birds, but I do a good ball vanish; however, it would probably be unwise for me to do it in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Gazette newspaper reported that in 2012, the government’s witch-hunting unit arrested 215 ‘magicians.”

Executions are depressingly common in Saudi Arabia, so common that cab drivers in Riyadh, the nation’s capital, refer to Deera Sqaure, where public beheadings take place, as ‘Chop Chop Square.’ Both men and women including citizens of foreign countries have been executed for sorcery and witchcraft. An Egyptian visiting Saudi Arabia was arrested, tried, and executed for casting a spell on a couple in an effort to break up their marriage. A man from Sudan was executed for making people sick using a talisman with Satanic powers. It seems hard to believe that things like this are still going on in the 21st Century, and in a large, rich, powerful country like Saudi Arabia.

Every American president in my lifetime has said that Saudi Arabia is an ‘ally’ of the United States and that the people who run their government are ‘our friends.’ When presidents say things like that, it reminds me of something that Harry Truman said. Truman said: “Always be sincere, even when you don’t mean it.”

Useless Kitchen Gadgets

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

Electric Fork. I find useless kitchen gadgets fascinating. Quite often, tenants of mine buy me absurd kitchen gadgets as gifts. One of my tenants recently gave me an electric fork. This fork has batteries in the handle. When you press a button on the side of the handle, the tines of the fork rotate. The box that the fork comes in says: “Why risk injury twirling spaghetti the old fashioned way?” Hmmm. I am suspicious about that claim. I have never heard of anybody suffering an injury by twirling spaghetti on a fork. If you know someone who was injured twirling spaghetti, let me know. I really doubt that anyone ever wound up in a hospital from twirling spaghetti.

The Strange Story of “The Indestructible’ Bobby Leach.’ You can never tell what will send someone to the hospital. Here is a story you may find hard to believe – –

Bobby Leach was the first man to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive. Several other men had tried before him, but all had been killed in the effort. Bobby Leach suffered terrible injuries going over the falls, including 2 broken knee caps, a fractured jaw, and serious damage to a number of internal organs, but after spending 6 months in a hospital, he recovered completely. Newspapers called him ‘The Indestructible Bobby Leach.’ That was in 1911. 15 years later, in 1926, Bobby Leach slipped on a banana peel on a sidewalk and died as a result. His leg became infected and gangrene set in. (No, I didn’t make up this improbable story. This actually happened, although according to some accounts, Leach slipped on an orange peel instead of a banana peel.)

Freebies Of The Month

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark

Broiler Pan. If your stove doesn’t have a broiler pan, or if your broiler pan is damaged or has baked-on crud that won’t come off, you can get a free new broiler pan from me. I always have them in stock. See photo below.

Maple Almond Walnut Granola. I am making granola again. My granola is a mixture of old fashioned oats, nuts, dark maple syrup, canola oil, molasses, and salt. A number of people have suggested that I should sell my granola, but that isn’t going to happen. I could never sell it commercially. It costs too much to make. The price of almonds and walnuts has gone through the roof due to the California drought, and my granola is 1/3 nuts. (80% of all the almonds in the world are grown in California.) Plus maple syrup is 10 times more expensive than white sugar, which is what most supermarket granola is sweetened with. You can pick up containers of my granola in the chocolate room.

Will California Become Six States?

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Mark

If am constantly amazed at the silly things that dot-com billionaires spend their money on. Most of these people are relatively young men who came into a lot of money suddenly, usually as a result of an IPO or a buyout. Once they get all this money, they go on spending sprees, buying toys – very, very expensive toys. For example, one of these guys bought a zeppelin, the world’s biggest zeppelin. You can see it flying around San Francisco Bay. The owner of the zeppelin uses it to fly his friends from Oakland Airport to the Napa Valley for dinner at pricey restaurants like the French Laundry. Other expensive toys purchased by internet billionaires include a Russian submarine, a chocolate factory on a pier near Fisherman’s Wharf, and one of the Hawaiian islands, and a populated island too! Can you imagine anyone having enough money to write out a check for a whole Hawaiian island?

This brings me around to Timothy Draper, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist. In July, Draper announced that he had collected enough signatures to qualify a state ballot initiative to divide California into six states. Draper paid people to gather 1,300,000 signatures, well over the 800,000 needed to put the measure on the ballot in 2016. Draper says he did it because: “California needs a reboot”, whatever that means.

One of the six states would be called Silicon Valley and would include all the counties around San Francisco Bay including San Francisco itself. Critics say that Draper’s plan is simply designed to cut off the wealthiest part of the state from the rest, leaving poor people in the Central Valley to fend for themselves.

California is not actually going to become six states. This ballot initiative is just another internet billionaire’s toy. It takes an Act of Congress to admit new states into the Union, and there is absolutely no possibility that Congress will allow California to become six states.

Aaron Levie. My nephew Aaron Levie started an internet company 8 years ago in my backyard called Box.com. Box.com now has over 1,000 employees and offices all over the world. I wonder what expensive toys Aaron will buy when his company goes public, which could happen soon.

The Lady and the Tiger. One expensive toy that Aaron might want to buy is the ‘Lady and the Tiger’ trick. When Aaron was growing up, we used to go to magic conventions together every summer. Aaron and I once saw the Lady and the Tiger trick performed at one of these conventions. In this trick, a beautiful young woman is put into a cage. The cage is lifted into the air and covered with a cloth. When the cloth is removed a few seconds later, the woman is gone, and a live 500 pound Bengal tiger is in the cage instead. Although Aaron knows how this trick is done, he has never done it. Aaron doesn’t have a tiger. Now – Aaron doesn’t like it when I reveal magic secrets, but I am going to reveal a secret about this trick. No magician can actually turn a beautiful woman (or even an ugly one) into a Bengal tiger. No. In order for a magician to do this trick, he has to have a tiger first. I guess that’s not really a secret. You probably already figured that out.

Houdini Magic Shop. There are a number of magicians who do the ‘Lady and the Tiger’ trick, but I have no idea where they get their tigers from. They don’t sell tigers at magic stores. I have a friend who works at the Houdini magic shop at Pier 39 in San Francisco. Although they sell professional magic tricks there, I know they don’t sell Bengal tigers. I wonder where magicians get their Bengal tigers from. I looked up ‘Bengal tiger’ on Google Shopping, but nothing came up.

Landlord Drones?

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Mark

The last time I saw Aaron Levie, he was speaking at a Box.com developer’s conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco. While he was giving his talk, a drone was flying around him on the stage.

It seems like everybody these days has drones. Private investigators are using drones to spy on adulterous spouses, parents accused of abusing children, and people suspected of filing fraudulent disability claims. People have gone to prison based on evidence obtained by drones. “Drones are a game changer” said one private investigator.

I saw a drone at a landlord conference last year. A drone was flying around the room. The drone salesman told me that: ‘every landlord should have a drone.’ I can think of several legitimate uses that a landlord might have for a drone. For example, a landlord might want to examine the condition of the roof of his building after a severe storm without climbing up a 30 foot ladder. However, I wondered if some of the landlords who were buying drones really wanted them just so they could spy on their tenants. As I was watching this drone fly around the landlord conference, I thought of all the tenants I have had in the past who were doing suspicious things that I wanted to know more about. A drone would have been handy at times; however, I am not going to get one. I suspect that my tenants would regard it as an invasion of their privacy if I had drones flying around their apartments just to make sure they weren’t doing anything naughty.

Changes Coming To My Chocolate.

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Mark

I am making 2 changes in my chocolate, neither of which will affect the taste.

1. Soy is out. All my chocolate contains soy lecithin. Almost all of the chocolate made in the United States and Europe contains soy lecithin. Lecithin is an emulsifier. It binds the cocoa solids and cocoa butter together so they don’t separate during the tempering process. Unfortunately, a growing number of people are allergic to soy beans, so beginning soon, I will be making my chocolate with sunflower seed lecithin instead. Sunflower lecithin works just as well as soy lecithin, but relatively few people are allergic to sunflower seeds.

2. Fair Trade chocolate. Also beginning soon, all my couverture and bittersweet chocolate will be certified Fair Trade. This is something that a lot of people have asked for, but Fair Trade cocoa beans are expensive and are sometimes in short supply.