Wonder how many acre-feet of rain are hitting the ground right now…
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Even though I’m a traffic engineer, I still have no idea how or where google gets this kind of detailed traffic info on local streets:
I mean seriously, is telegraph really backed up in only one direction between Elmwood and Temescal at this moment? I think they may have installed their own sensors, or in some way circumvented the cities. Either that or they have been able to convince each city to release their data and done all the work of translating and combining it. Either way, it’s an amazing accomplishment, considering that huge federal and state resources have been put behind the integration of traffic info for decades, with very little actual integration to show for it. Forbes recently published an updated list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. Not surprisingly, many of them have lost billions of dollars over the last year or two, but they still have a staggering amount of wealth. The list piqued my statistical curiosity, and led me to the following observations: Youngest Member – At 25, Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame, is 10 years younger than his nearest top-400-er, and is worth $2 billion. That’s approximately $7 per user, which seems a little high to me, but I guess that’s why I’m not a venture capitalist. Oldest Member – John Kluge, 95, is the king of Metromedia, a telecom/media giant that mostly works outside the U.S. but does operate a group of restaurants here (Bennigan’s, Steak and Ale, Bonanza, & Ponderosa are some). I haven’t eaten at any of these, but John evidently didn’t need any help from me to amass $6.5 billion. Least Surprising Most Interesting Micky Arison (Carnival Cruises), $4.3 billion, makes a fortune charging people $100/day to eat, sleep and breathe on a boat while hiring 95% of his employees from outside the U.S. so he doesn’t have to worry about pesky things like minimum wage, paying into medicare or social security, offering paid vacation time, or problems arising from requiring a 16+ hour workday. Way to go, Micky! John Paul DeJoria, who has evidently built up $4 billion in his (FDIC insured?) savings account by dealing in “hair products and tequila”. Bradley Wayne Hughes has cashed in to the tune of $3.5 billion on the fact that people have 5 or maybe 10 times more plastic, metal, wood, and glass than they need and they will pay somebody for a 5′ x 5′ box (at Public Storage) somewhere in the world in which to keep it safe, and out of sight. Ty Warner. $3.2 billion. Beanie Babies. ??? Ray Dolby, with $2.6 billion from Dolby Laboratories, seems odd to me. Who hires Dolby, what are they hired to do, and how is it so profitable? Henry Hillman, at 90 years old, has accumulated $2.1 billion dollars over his long life. With the number of people on this list who got their money from “leveraged buyouts” (17), “inheritance” (17), and “hedge funds” (25), I think Henry sounds downright honorable coming in as an old-school, hard-working “industrialist.” People on the list who work in “healthcare” (1) or “pharmaceuticals” (3). It gives me heartburn to think about how much money they have accumulated while being either in the business of offering “coverage” and simultaneously minimizing the amount of coverage they actually pay or in the business of developing and selling pills. I would go see a doctor and get a prescription for my heartburn, but, well, it just seems a bit circular. Stephen Bisciotti has earned himself $1.5 billion and a place on the list from, literally, “outsourcing”. Sounds a bit un-American to me, but at least he keeps some of that money in the States in the form of the Baltimore Ravens football franchise. Perhaps if he kept more of it here, they would be able to put together a solid playoff run? S. Daniel Abraham is the man (the $1.4 billion dollar man) for getting people to pay more for less (Slim-Fast). Christopher Goldsbury is someone I would like as my mentor; perhaps he could show me how to make $1.1 billion from “salsa”. (Pace Salsa) John Orin Edson is also my hero for rebuilding a small boat, sailing around Lake Washington, and consequently starting the Bayliner boat company and saving up $1 billion. Inheritors – Wal Mart and Campbell’s Soup have each added 5+ people to the billionaire column. This is especially staggering in the case of Campbell’s. They sell soup! In a can! And make billions!?!? Michael Bloomberg – He’s #8 on the list, worth $17.5 billion, and still finds time to manage the largest city in the U.S. Various Sports Team Owners – Owners of the Orlando Magic, Washington Nationals, Dallas Cowboys, NE Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, Houston Astros, NY Yankees, Washington Redskins, and Philadelphia Eagles all make a convincing argument that our culture values entertainment a lot. Probably too much. Each of these owners are billionaires (although I don’t think they all became billionaires solely from the NFL). Important Stats Just over 20% (83 out of 400) of these people live in CA. 63 live in New York (and 80 in NY/NJ/CT). Although 41 states are represented on the list, 12 of the richest Americans don’t live in the U.S. any more. The least wealthy person on the list (Sam Wyly of Dallas, TX) rings in at $950 million, reminding you that if you’ve made your first million, you’re going to have to repeat that process nearly 1,000 times to make it on this list. Finally, if every one of these 400 wealthiest Americans parted ways with 50% of their $1.27 trillion net worth into a common fund, that fund could make a one-time payment of 5% on the U.S. national debt. Awesome. Personal Testimony There are at least 36 people on this list that have received significant (to me) amounts of my money in the past. Thanks to Quicken (the owner of Intuit is also a billionaire, and #374 on the list), I can quickly see exactly how much of my money went to these companies and owners since 2002. The results are, well, frightening: Wal*Mart – $10,722 (ouch – didn’t expect this one to be first on the list) So what does it all mean? That will have to be the subject of another post. Last week I said goodbye to The Jeep. It deserves, at least, a good eulogy. Early History Moving East Growing Up Moving West The Golden Years The Jeep, in this incarnation, traveled approximately 35,000 miles and visited 33 states. It passed on September 22, 2009 with a mileage of 169,716. I don’t know exactly why, but sometimes I get a strong desire to ride my bike pretty much as far as I possibly can in a day, preferably on new roads or routes, and ideally not alone. Last Sunday, those three things met in one good, crazy, challenging, and insanely hot bike ride from Berkeley to Winters. This happened because my friend Paul is riding his bike from California to Illinois, and he was looking for people to ride with him on his first day. I wasn’t quite as sane as the other three riders who also showed up at 8am but joined him for only the first 4 miles before returning to enjoy a nice, cool day in the east bay. The breadth of my reduced sanity became clear to me only at the end of the 72-mile, 2,900-foot-elevation-gain ride. After sitting in the shade for 15 minutes at a lonely market in Winters, CA, a slight breeze came up and I felt a bit chilly and got goosebumps. Later, after standing inside the market in the air conditioning and then venturing back outside, I noticed that what had originally seemed to me to be a cool breeze was actually a stifling dry wind in solid 102 degree heat. I have no idea how hot my body had to be to feel cold in that, but, well, wow. The great thing about going on rides like this is that the accompanying fatigue, soreness, exhaustion, etc. makes things like going to work and keeping up with the general minutiae of life rather less painful than they typically seem. Oh, and I also get to see interesting things like abandoned scooters on a bridge (and the driver walking the path, before you assume the worst), ship graveyards, and vineyards in what I previously assumed was one of the most sub-everything suburbs.
Feast: the large stock market rally over the past two weeks, which, according to one friend, signals that “the recession is over.” Feast: Apple just reported one of their best quarters ever for both revenue and profit. They sold 5 million iPhones. In 3 months. Feast: Alberto Contador, who is cleaning house at the Tour De France this year, won a 25-mile time trial this morning, even though he is supposed to be just a climber. *even knowing this, I still want one. After buying a tv on craigslist in an attempt to get the most tv for the least money, I have learned some things: 1) Check, double-check, and triple-check all the various configurations on the tv before you buy it. Just because it works fine with one input initially doesn’t mean it will work using other inputs when you get it back to your house and set it up. 2) Pay attention to brand. I thought brand wasn’t a huge factor, but it turns out that the internet forums are full of descriptions of my tv (the Best Buy store brand: Insignia) that lament the low-quality components and multiple paths to failure which, incidentally, usually occurs immediately after the 1-year warranty expires. 3) Basically, you get what you pay for. That said, after my tv disappointingly failed to turn on over the last few days, I managed to get it to power up last night, which was very timely. My friend R was over, and to celebrate the now-it-works-now-it-doesn’t-it-works-again!!! situation, I hooked up the Super Nintendo and challenged him to a series of Battle Mode races in the original Mario Kart. The game music is terrible, the graphics are amazingly low-quality, but those things only add to the awesomeness of the experience. After warming up on Mario Kart, we popped in NBA Jam, which in addition to allowing you to perform amazing feats of dunking from beyond the free throw line also turns a blind eye on any fouls other than goaltending. Plus, if you get two dunks in a row, the commentator says, rather optimistically, “he’s heating up…”, and for three in a row, you get “he’s on fire!” and the basketball net literally goes up in smoke. By the time we made it to double overtime and my winning shot at the buzzer bounced around the rim for what seemed like hours before dropping through the hoop, I felt like the early ’90s had returned, and I was strangely ok with that. Utilities, apparently, are bored with their lot in life. Turns out sitting around and being utilitarian just isn’t what it used to be, and they’re out looking for ways to spice things up. Maybe even wreak a little havoc. 1) A little over a week ago, a massive branch of an old oak came down in my girlfriend’s front yard in the middle of the night, tearing down the power lines, starting a fire in the yard, and generally leaving a path of destruction. Everyone and everything is ok, but there were a couple near misses with really, really bad consequences (fire, electrocution, etc…). 2) A couple days after that, I stopped by my previous house to check on things in the garage which I had rented for an extra month, and met the new renters only to find that they were moving out after only two days in the house. They had smelled a little bit of gas in the laundry room on moving in, and when PG&E came out to check it, their meters showed a dangerously high level of gas in the house, and an explosive concentration under the house. After coming out three times to fix the leak, the renters still smelled gas, and elected to get out while the gettin’ was good, or at least possible. I wonder how long I had been sitting on that gas leak? 3) Yesterday, my microwave began to sputter like an old outboard on a boat that’s out of gas, and the lights seemed dim. I put a tester on my outlet, and it showed 107V. Not enough. Turns out it was a neighborhood-wide problem, and, according to the PG&E man (who showed up in less than 30 minutes from the time I called!), it required replacement of a $100,000 “part” at the substation. (Hope I don’t see the charge for that on my bill) Unfortunately (and fortunately – see number 4), while investigating the problem, the PG&E guy found a broken bracket connecting one of the main lines into my house, promptly disconnected the main, and told me I had to have an electrician fix the bracket. If something had caused the line to wiggle a little, it would have contacted another live surface, likely inducing a fire-causing explosion. The electrician is coming out next Monday or Tuesday, and until then one random half of my house is without power. Some outlets work, others don’t. I’m now running things like my refrigerator and toaster on a long, winding extension cord from another portion of the house. 4) Today, after coming home from work and getting some dinner ingredients into a pan and ready to cook, I turned on the gas stove and nothing happened. And the gas heater wouldn’t come on. And the hot water heater was silent. I called PG&E, and after the lady on the other end remarked “I see we were just out there last night for a low voltage problem…”, to which I responded “I didn’t touch anything, I swear!” she then proceeded to explain that it wasn’t clear exactly what had happened, but it was likely that my gas had been shut off by accident, and a repairman was on his way. It turned out that sometime between this morning and this evening the earthquake safety valve had been tripped, shutting down my gas line. I guess it’s good that the “earthquake” didn’t come a day earlier, bringing my electrical wires in contact with a new and exciting lively surface and, well, wreaking havoc. Today’s spot from the breakfast table is Treasure Island, and more specifically the huge hangar on the southeast corner of the island.
As it sat gleaming in the sun this morning, I couldn’t help wondering what it is used for these days. Evidently it (and the entire island) was built for the 1939 World’s Fair, and also intended as the major airport for San Francisco. The Navy possessed a far-off airport called Mills Field, and for some reason offered a swap to the city in return for TI. Because of this, SFO is now 13 miles from San Francisco and a perfectly good airport site (w/ hangars!) sits half-abandoned, polluted, and relatively unused only 3 miles from the city. Evidently in its heyday during WWII, the island “processed” 12,000 sailors per day for the Pacific theatre. Unfortunately, processing sailors wasn’t the only activity pursued on the island, and the federal government is still working to decontaminate the groundwater and air of leftover plutonium and radium. Once that is done, however, a developer is waiting in line to build this:
which actually looks like a very enticing place to live. If you trust that the cleanup was effective and complete. Even though it sounds like bragging (and it may well be, although before you envision me living in a mansion on a hilltop, let me clarify that the cottage is, at most, 400 square feet, and one room is practically uninhabitable because it has carpet on the walls!), I have to talk about how amazing it is to live somewhere with a view! So amazing, in fact, that I’m going to attempt to spot something new each day.
Today’s spot is the University Avenue Ped/Bike Bridge over I-80. As an engineer, I love this bridge for its look and the fact that it clear-spans both directions of the freeway. As a cyclist, I love this bridge for the access it provides to one of the best segments of the Bay Trail between Berkeley and Emeryville. The bridge cost approximately $6M, which explains why there aren’t other bridges quite this iconic elsewhere in the East Bay. In fact, I’ve heard that it was mostly funded by the city of Berkeley, which makes sense given the city’s unique combination of wealth and green leanings. Other pedestrian bridges in the corridor (and there are at least a few) provide similar functions but at half the cost, or less, and their appearances are, well, more pedestrian. The bridge opened in 2002, and the great thing about building a bridge in Berkeley is that you just know somebody is going to take everything they own across the bridge on opening day just because they can.
Good thing I didn’t live here in 2002, otherwise that would have been me in the picture. And I would have been towing a piano. |
