203. Welcome everything

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A good day

For me it doesn't get any better than having a tricky problem to solve, and then quickly solving it. The other evening I received the HOA's utility bill and the electricity was 230% of what it normally is. We don't use electricity for that much, so there was no way this made sense. Because we have "Smart" meters, I knew the usage per day, so I could see that the increase started suddenly one day and remained constant after that. My first thought was the work we had done on our sump pumps, but that finished five days before the increase. 

I went down into the laundry room and became familiar with the meter. It turns out it gives the current usage in watts. By playing around with our lights and circuit breakers, I discovered the building is always using about 22 watts, for things like emergency lights and smoke detectors and timers and the washer and dryer while they aren't turned on. But, at that point, there was an additional 777 watts of constant draw that I couldn't explain -- until I tracked it down to the sump pump circuit.

I then got the other set of keys, and a ladder, and went down to the basement and discovered the pump was running. Continuously apparently. I shut off the #1 pump (the one we just replaced) and the #2 pump switched on. I turned that one off too and called the boss at our pump repair contractor. Together (he on the phone), we tested everything we could on the control board and he came to the conclusion that the board itself must have failed. (I suggested the alternate conclusion that the floats were in some impossible-to-imagine tangle, but he pointed out that that would have triggered the alarm that goes off when both pumps are turned on at the same time.)

They are coming on Monday to replace the board. I will have questions about warranties and the condition of that pump that was stuck on for about a month, but at least we should have a functional system again. By luck, the only residents with plumbing that drains to that septic system are out of town this weekend, so the only people inconvenienced are anyone who was planning to use the washer, which is officially out-of-order for the weekend.

I so rock. And while being so modest!

Stanley Saitowitz

I think I've written about Saitowitz before, but I need to write in more depth now. Most of his residential projects are in SOMA -- he can thus be seen as a tool of gentrification for South of the Slot -- but there are exceptions. His earlier work dates from a period when architects had more creative freedom working in SOMA than in other neighborhoods, it was the only place here you could get away with building the kind of projects you might see in Japan, for example. And as both developer and architect he had even more freedom. 

I was originally familiar with him because I happened to work on the little street where he built his home/office and developed two small residential buildings. 

His residence and office on right. Later project on left.

Another project on next street over.

As is so often the case when architects are driving, the buildings were visually interesting but, at least for me, un-livable (very little wall space for books or art). As his reputation grew, so did the size of his projects. The Folsom Lofts, also in SOMA,   

Folsom Lofts.

...and 8 Octavia, just north of Market Street on the corner of Octavia, are both obviously his work.

Corner of Market (on right) and Octavia (curving left.)

But 1080 Sutter is not at all similar to the others. And yet that's the project I want to talk about.

1080 Sutter meets the sidewalk.

1080 Sutter in context.

Even wider context.

I watched that building as it rose from a hole in the ground until it was completed, and never knew quite what to make of it. But today, as I was walking on Sutter on my way to pizza, I was finally struck by how well it fits on that street. On Natoma, in SOMA, he was creating an almost Japanese, anything goes, aesthetic. On Folsom and Octavia that modern look was made more sophisticated. But on Sutter he is, for once, creating a new look that blends with the existing, urban, look of the street.

And the building itself looks like something that could have started out École des Beaux-Arts and then Adolf Loos took a pass at striping it down to the basics. Not only does the fenestration match the granularity of the neighboring buildings, even the use of brick on the facade is consistent with building practices of the Tenderloin's Golden Age. (The brick is non-structural, of course, and I assume they took measures to insure it wont fall into the street during the next earthquake. The structure itself is steel reinforced concrete with the main structure several feet behind this facade.)

Welcome everything, push away nothing

From The Five Invitations
This is a concept I'm completely on board with. Did I learn it while my parents were dying, or did I just fall back on something I already knew? I think of hospitals as a special zone where you have no control over what's happening so you can only say "Yes" and deal with whatever comes your way.

But reading some of this reminds me of something else,

p82 Welcoming what is, as it is, we move toward reality. We may not like or agree with all that we encounter. However, when we argue with reality, we lose every time. We waste our energy and exhaust ourselves with the insistence that life be otherwise. 

p83 In spite of what we have been led to believe, which is that destiny rests firmly in our own hands, we often have little control over the external circumstances of our lives. However, we have a great deal of choice about how we relate to and learn from the cards life deals us. We build resilience by allowing ourselves to experience what we are feeling in any given situation, whether it's good or bad. Until we come to accept life with all its madness and inspiration, we will feel cut off, separate, isolated. We will view the world around us as a dangerous and frightening place.

Clips from the old TV show "Kung Fu" have appeared in my YouTube feed recently, and I've rewatched several of them. The fighting style Caine exemplified was based on this same theory. Caine would often receive or deflect the blows of his foes without counter attacking. He would accept the negative energy and sometimes turn it against the other person.

This was also the secret behind Admiral Spruance's uncanny success in the Pacific War. Especially at Midway, the Japanese counted on him to respond to their night attack, but he just went back to bed. He did respond, unnecessarily, at the very end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but by that time his enemy's strength was totally spent and there was no risk -- except of his planes running out of fuel, which did happen.

Even Patton's "Rock Soup" is a variation on this passive approach to warfare, probe until you discover where the enemy is weak and attack his weakness rather than his strength.

188. Meritocracy & housing

Problems with meritocracy

Besides the obvious problems (people who don't excel, for instance), another flaw of meritocracy is that, for the big winners, it doesn't stay a meritocracy. Once you're filthy rich it doesn't require that much merit to stay wealthy and to even build on that wealth. Which is not to say that everyone can manage this.

The descendants of the really rich simply become a new class of privilege you are born into -- in the same way that noble families in Europe started out as a kind of meritocracy in a much earlier era. Back when the Roman era was transitioning into the Middle Ages, positions of merit became inherited and a class system came into being. Now it's a system based on wealth (not just land) whereas then it was primarily a land based system. But this could change again.

The never-ending saga

Replacing our bad sump pump should happen next week, on their third visit. Given the difficulty of their getting a truck in here, I would have brought along a replacement pump "just in case." But I don't run the world.

In the end of our alley, there are two gates. One was replaced last year and now the other gate has been patched and repainted. It looks pretty good to me,

On the right.

This is the color of their other fences, so I guess they had some extra paint on hand. I would have painted it to match the rest of this fence, myself.

Profiles in crazy

Earlier today I was sharing a large table at Starbucks. The person on the end to my right was a somewhat disheveled looking older woman (at least as old as me) who sounded normal enough at first, but after an hour or so I became aware that she was probably crazy in a very similar way to someone in my building who imagines herself to be the subject of a huge conspiracy. 

This woman caught my ear as she kept trying to make an appointment for an ophthalmologist. In fact, from what I could hear -- casually eavesdropping while also working on something else -- she may have made several "emergency" appointments for her acute cornea problem. Between making these appointments she was calling regulatory or industry associations to complain about some doctor who had, to simplify, done her wrong. As I said, she sounded perfectly normal most of the time, but got quite emotional while trashing this doctor. 

I really wanted to look to see if she showed any sign of this emergency problem she complained of, but my angle was bad and it would have been too obvious. Insects, and even prey animals, have such an advantage when it comes to nonchalantly eyeing neighbors. No wonder horses don't miss a thing.

The Van Ness corridor

Had a number of things to do along Van Ness today so I got to review the latest crop of new development along Franklin/Van Ness/Polk. There's not one of them that turned out well. The hospital isn't finished on the outside -- and I still have some hope for it -- and there's a smaller building at Clay and Larkin that isn't bad, but the others are so bland that they look like boring commercial buildings even though I'm pretty sure they are all residential. I think they were planned at a time when the need for housing was so intense that the developers thought they would just be wasting money making them look interesting.

In fact, so much new housing has hit the market, or is about to hit the market, that rental rates and condo values are starting to moderate just a bit. Though, to be fair to the developers, this could mean that they are in a better position to drop prices since they haven't invested in features that would appeal to the high end.

Given the fairly desperate housing situation in SF, it's amazing to me how many units are sitting empty. At least one, and possible two of the small buildings on my alley are vacant. Virtually all of the subsidized housing in Chinatown -- and there's a lot -- is being renovated and has been vacant for a year or more. Who thought it was a great idea to do all those projects at the same time? It makes no sense from any perspective except that of the contractors who I imagine are getting a premium for their work.

I'm not saying that there will be a glut of housing on the market in 2018, but I don't see how all this new and renovated housing could fail to alter the market. 

187. Trump as Commodus

If you leave, they will come

Yesterday I was home all morning dealing with the sump pump and cleaning the building (while waiting for the pump guy). Then I went out a couple hours in the early afternoon for lunch before returning home. The United States Post Office figured early afternoon would be the best time to find me at home, to sign for my new Vegetarian Shoes.

Since they "missed" me, I had to walk to the PO on the other side of North Beach (so, past two closer POs) to collect the shoes that I'm now wearing. I'm still at the cafe across from the PO -- a place I used to frequent back when the Trader Joe's a block away was still the closest one to my house.

Making sense of the senseless

Someone shared on Facebook yet another interesting political take on what the Trump Presidency really means. This one is by Andrew Bacevich in The Nation (here). What is particularly frustrating is that I agree with everything he says to here:

STARTING OVER

I am by temperament a conservative and a traditionalist, wary of revolutionary movements that more often than not end up being hijacked by nefarious plotters more interested in satisfying their own ambitions than in pursuing high ideals...

Right after this he tosses Burke, and any notion that "the people" have consciously made the decisions they have made, out the window and comes up with an action plan for a commonwealth in the best of all possible worlds.

Previously, he points out something I hadn't thought of, that American Presidents have been increasingly "Imperial" since FDR, and that it's just the insane casting of Trump in this role that has shocked us into noticing this. So, rather than looking at an American version of the fall of the Roman Republic, we're looking at the American version of the end of the Pax Romana and the reign of the Good Emperors. Interesting.

But then he comes up with a Liberal view of what America stands for (something America has never stood for) and expects the people who voted for George W. and Trump to suddenly reveal themselves to be a -- momentarily confused -- philosopher electorate, and right our ship of state. What no one seems willing to acknowledge is that it is our form of democracy that is in question. Just as the Founding Fathers never imagined semi-automatic firearms, they never imagined such an irresponsible and ignorant electorate. (I wouldn't like the electorate they were familiar with either. If you admit that the Enlightenment was naive, then where do you go from there in establishing good government? I have no clue.)

The New Yorker

Someone dropped off a bag of New Yorker magazines the other day that ended up in my care. I've been working through the cartoons. But this evening I noticed a Qualcomm ad on the back page of one issue and thought it might be interesting to note the advertisers today, as compared to back in the 1970s when I was a regular reader. Only there aren't any. Or very few. Here's the list of ads for this issue: 

1. A full page for Citi -- but American Airlines and Master Card are also visible so it may be co-advertising.
2. A vertical column for The Metropolitan Opera
3. A full page for Accura
4. A full page for ehrmantapestry.com
5. Two vertical columns for The New Yorker Festival sponsored by mastercard and Land Rover
6. A vertical column for healthyish ("a new site from Bon Appetit")
7. A full page for New York Presbyterian Hospital
8. A full page for Qualcomm
9. Two vertical columns split between five advertisers (plus one small ad for the New Yorker. I haven't included self-advertising)

So all together seven full pages of ads out of eighty printed pages. How do they manage to stay in business? Though, with my original thought in mind, the only ads that would have puzzled me in the '70s would be the website and Qualcomm and I guess the Japanese luxury car instead of Lincoln -- who has the first two pages in the next issue I picked up. Maybe the first week of July is not prime time?

Quicker than the automat

I was sitting in the Bank Cafe when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something launched from near the Peet's counter toward where people were sitting and thought, "Wow, they have introduced an exciting new form of table service." But instead it was a crazy woman tossing things around the place. She was chased out.

186. Catching up

Previous - 185. Almost a holiday

Chinatown

I either live in or on the edge of Chinatown, depending on who you ask. I used to haunt the shops and buy things for my apartment and as gifts, but these days I may not shop in Chinatown from one year to the next. Today (that was), however, I was picking up a book at the Chinatown branch library which led to my shopping at the local Walgreen's which led to my visiting my favorite bakery for moon cakes (next door) which led to my strolling down Grant street looking for a new backpack.

It occurred to me weeks ago that I should get a smaller backpack just for greening events. Just big enough to hold my personal stuff, water, and bags. I had walked most of the way through Chinatown before I came upon a likely shop, and as soon as I walked it I recognized it as the place where I bought my cheap rolling suitcase. 

While I like supporting Chinatown merchants, I feel bad about buying schlock products, but I only use the suitcase every year or so (and it's holding up surprisingly well) and buying a "nice" bag for sorting trash would be silly. Anyway, I now have a $14 backpack that seems perfect. I think it's actually intended for kids, but I wanted something small and light. Before I found myself "shopping" in Chinatown, my plan had been to wait until nearer Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but now I can break it in over the summer.

Broken people

Something that keeps returning to my mind, is the notion, from either Perkins or Day in The Road to Character, that God loves broken people. That people like Dorothy Day are doing "God's work" when they serve these people. For one thing, this is distressingly similar to the notion that wives (or women in general) are only beaten because their man loves them so much.

I'm writing about this now because an hour ago I got hungry and so walked a mere two blocks to Bun Me, my favorite Vietnamese sandwich place. In that short distance I passed such an array of destitute and demented people that it even managed to surprise me. God must really love these poor sick bastards.


But then I thought, What if this is part of the bargain (Mephistophelian, of course)? You can only get great cities with innovative tech and wonderful tofu and carrot and onion and jalapeno sandwiches at the cost of a certain percentage of broken people you have to walk around on your way to lunch. Would you say Yes to that? I would want some clarification about the exact percentage and how the broken people were selected, but I'm guessing that in the end I would say yes.

Sump pump

The pump guy showed up this morning and I worked with him to diagnose our problem. As I predicted, I'm now familiar with the new electrical panel and I even documented it (with photos) for the HOA so I will remember, and so one of the others could step in and see to it if there were a problem in the future when I was unavailable for some reason.

I offered the service guy my headlamp, since there's no longer any light back by the tank and pumps, but he stuck with his hand held flashlight. Headlamps are so much more convenient for when you're working, but people seem to be remarkably resistant to using them for some reason. A couple years ago now I had a dental hygienist who used a headlamp instead of constantly adjusting the hardwired lamp that's part of the chair. Within a couple minutes I realized how much easier this was for her, since her head was always pointed where her eyes wanted to look. I mentioned this to the next two hygienists I got, but they were unimpressed and continued to use the big lamp. 

The only reason I have the headlamp is because we used to have to sort trash a fair amount in the dark. Now that we are usually done by the time the event closes, and work mostly in the summer, I rarely need it, but am carrying it in my new backpack. But when I need a flashlight (and remember I have it) it is so much better than using a flashlight and then only having one hand to work with. I will be using it for the final sort of the day at HSB since that is several weeks past the equinox. Which reminds me,

While waiting for the pump guy, I took a closer photo of the tree in a pot outside my window. The resolution isn't that good, but you can see a couple leaves that are changing color and one that is almost ready to fall. 

Next - 187. Trump as Commodus

185. Almost a holiday

Previous - 184. Our electric future

Almost a holiday

My life is snowballing out of its rut. First I decided to skip the gym today to give my back a rest. This was yesterday. Then I got a report that the pump alarm was sounding under the building. I went down to check it out but there was nothing obvious I could do, so I’ve scheduled a service call, but not before tomorrow morning, so maybe another day off. 

Back before I finally found contractors who know what they’re doing Re: our pumps, I was very hands-on and knew the electrical board better than the plumbers did. But now there’s a new board that I haven’t had any reason to become familiar with. That will change tomorrow. I ran both pumps manually and they sound fine. I imagine I could manually pump the tank clear until the alarm stopped, but if there’s a blockage in one or both pumps -- which is what I suspect -- that might not be the best idea. Also, I like the idea of the new owners down there being inconvenienced for a day or so to impress on them the importance of not putting anything down the toilet. Tough love.

And this is the first time the pumps have been serviced since the new shear wall was added, blocking light and easy access to the tank. I’m guessing I’ll have to help them get light over there and my extension cord may not be long enough. Should be interesting.



Since this is a non-routine day, and walking helps my back, I’ve wandered all the way over to South Beach, my old coding days stomping grounds. But first some photos I took on the way,

Detail of the entrance to what was once known as the "Birdcage" building.

And again. This is actually 166 Geary Street.

Final detail.

These images show parts of the building that either date to the time of the 1906 earthquake and fire -- when the building was a structural steel cage, still under construction -- or to the years right after 1906 when it was completed. I suspect they are doing some seismic retrofitting here, so, besides the structure not usually being visible, we will never again see this part of the building as it was then. When finished it will probably more closely resemble the Jimmy Choo shop next door.

But back to my old stomping grounds. I had my old favorite veggie Reuben sandwich (made by the same woman who always made it in the mid-’90s) and now I’m sitting in the garden at Crossroads Cafe. Crossroads is part of the Delancey Street program that trains ex-cons for work in restaurants and other service areas. I had forgotten how cheap their prices are -- half what you would expect for such a nice place, and the Delancey Street Restaurant at the other end of the block is the same -- but I had also forgotten that they don’t offer WiFi. 

I think I forgot about the WiFi because it makes so little sense. A familiarity with the routine of passwords and rebooting routers is as much a part of modern cafe culture as brewing coffee.

The last time I was here in the garden it had been torn apart and was mostly just dirt and a few trees. Now it’s back to being a fairly lush place with green grass for the kiddies to chase the pigeons on and flowers and ferns in addition to the trees. All this is surrounded by a rather nice fence (stucco-looking base with ironwork above. And beyond the fence is the streetcar tracks along the Embarcadero that are now populated by both our new LRV trains and the old style streetcars intended for tourist areas. And beyond that is the bay.

(I didn't think to take a photo.)

This area, formerly railroad yards, was redeveloped in the 1980s and 1990s and the warehouse area around it has been filling in ever since. Now virtually every lot is new construction or else remodeled over the past 20 years. With only a few exceptions, it is now fully mature -- in the sense that a forest is fully mature following the successful regrowth following a fire. 

This is an interesting new view of SF. In the foreground is the  South Beach redevelopment from the 80's and early 90's. The two tallest buildings from this perspective are newish residential towers on Rincon Hill, and behind them are even newer SOMA towers including the not-quite-finished Salesforce Tower on the left.

See the tiny brick building about the middle of the block? That's were I used to work. The building just beyond it with residential looking balconies is brand new. (It rises from a warehouse structure that is preserved as a pretty ugly facade.)

This is looking the other direction. The building behind the Stop sign is even newer and sits where there was a parking lot back in the day.

This is the other side of the block I worked in. The back of my little building looked out over another parking lot where the new brick building at the far end now sits. I'll give them credit for matching the existing, brick warehouse style of the neighborhood.

Now we are a block away at the edge of South Park. What is now a very busy Blue Bottle Coffee location was the original (I believe) offices of Wired Magazine. At least that was where they were when I first visited one of their early employees who had been a co-worker of mine at the Apple Multimedia Lab.

South Park has been tarted up just in the past year. I don't know why, as it looked fine to me before. Note that the very tasteful trash can is both too small and doesn't allow for sorting into the three usual streams.

Looking back toward the former Wired building from the middle of the park.

Caffe Centro, on the left, was the hub of this neighborhood during the dotcom bubble of the 1990s. I was there a lot.

Much too small.

The new play ground on the west side of the park.

The South Park Cafe predates all the tech changes to the area. I first came to this French cafe when a friend worked at an architect's office half a block away. The cafe is one of the few things around here that seems not to have changed at all.

Very shiny architecture in the center of the photo. I'm sure the architect had a wonderfully pretentious explanation for this.

My little alley is also getting close to being fully mature in this sense. Our building is as perfect as it has ever been, and the back four units have been remodeled over the past decade. The building across the alley that had been the neighborhood eyesore has been completely remodeled. The building next to it was gutted (inside and out) down to the studs and is in the process (over a year and hardly moving from what I can tell) of being renovated and turned into condos -- or so I’ve heard. The larger building next door to us is in the midst of a renovation process that started before it sold and has accelerated ever since. They are almost finished painting the outside but may still be remodeling units inside. And now the even larger building on the other corner is undergoing weatherproofing and repainting. Most of the units there were renovated under the previous owner.

The only building that hasn’t undergone expensive upgrades is the one directly across from us. This is where the previous tenant died after spending most of one winter smoking in the rain while coughing up his lungs. Some new tenants moved in but I haven’t seen them recently and for all I know the building could be vacant. (The main entrance of all these buildings is on other, bigger, streets. We are the only building with the main door on the alley.) 

I have no idea how much all this work on the other buildings has cost -- too much, I’d guess, for the one that has been in stasis for about a year -- but I know our seismic work, which you can’t even see, cost $100k. All this to point out how expensive it is just to keep modest sized buildings habitable in SF. People may complain about the high rents and high land values (and I think the city should take steps to reverse this trend) yet it is this increase in value that makes all this work viable. In Detroit, or even Chicago, buildings are left to rot because the upkeep is more than they are worth. Here, $2,700 per month rent for a small one bedroom apartment justifies all kinds of cosmetic, but also structural, improvements.

In praise of YouTube

Usually what I learn about on YouTube has to do with science or some field covered by a CrashCourse, but the other day I learned something about chickens. There’s a video of an outdoor cat in the process of stalking a mouse when a chicken swoops in, nabs the mouse, and shakes and kills it the way a dog would. I did not know this about chickens. But I bet Proust's Françoise did.

Next - 186. Catching up