I know I’ve disappeared from this blog again. No, it’s not from some post-election depression or Obama-induced rage. My marketing class is just eating up so much of my time. Right now I should be reading five chapters for my midterm this Saturday. I would be reading too but my head is killing me; it has all afternoon so today has been a wasted day.

It’s such a shame too because I’ve been bubbling with ideas and commentary. I’ve completely skipped the prop 8 controversy, not out of lack of interest, but lack of time to write. I missed my usual California ballot proposition round up. I stopped in the middle of a whole long screed about the Fed and interest rates because I’ve been too busy to finish. I was even looking at switching the US dollar to a form of the gold standard! Yet all these ideas continue to bounce around my head because I have no time to think them through.

I can’t wait until this class is finished. Next week will be busy, but that’s all leading up to the 24th. I have a big presentation to do on that day. Once it’s finished, it’s mostly smooth sailing. I’ll have to turn in a paper on December 1st, but writing is far easier than presenting for me. I think I’ll actually have time to get some posts up on here. Shame though that by the time I do, it will hardly be topical anymore. Ah well, it’s not like anyone reads this anyway.

I finished my first MBA class last Tuesday. On the last day, since we had no work left and no final, so the professor gave us a networking exercise. We had to exchange business cards with everyone and talk about what each of us got out of the class, plus whatever else we wanted.

The whole thing got much more interesting to me when I met one woman who sat on the other side of the classroom. I took her card, we chatted for a couple of minutes, and she gave me props on my presentation. I appreciated that. My mistake was not actually looking at her business card. If I had I would have found she worked for Whole Foods in community relations. I found this notable because she looked like she fit perfectly with the stereotype of Whole Foods culture. I wish I could articulate this better but everything about her spoke to that granola, organic, earthy vibe – her clothes, her smile, her wide eyes, her slightly wide hips.

And if only I took a second to read her business card, I would have been able to ask her about her job. I was just too focused on maintaining eye contact. Stupid me.

It just seems so unlikely to me that a random granola girl would end up working at Granola Central. Now I’m left with a chicken or egg question. Did she seek out a job at Whole Foods because of her lifestyle choice, or was it peer pressure from the Whole Foods environment that turned her into one? I’m quite fascinated. I hope I see her in a future class.

I’ve been away from this blog for much too long and it’s entirely school’s fault. I just finished my third week of Business Communications and tonight was the first night I didn’t come home completely haggard. I’m not sure if the class itself is difficult, or if I’m having a tough time because I’ve been out of school for seven years, or I’m having a tough time with the subject matter.

Scratch that. I knew it was wrong the moment I finished it. I’m just having a tough time with the subject. Business Communications is nothing like I expected. There has been way more participation than I expected. The first week we had to introduce ourselves to the entire class. The second week I had to partner with a classmate and conduct a mock job interview. This week was the first time I didn’t have to put on a show. Maybe that’s why I came home relaxed.

Business Communications has the lowest class code in the program so I assumed it would be a simple class where textbook knowledge is spoon fed during lectures. That seemed like a good way to ease myself back into school after so many years away. Turns out the class is anything but that. I’m not saying it’s bad; just unexpected. I understood when I applied to the MBA program there would be some group work and some presentations. I just thought that would come later; maybe in the second year. Now, only three weeks into the program, I’m writing a business plan. I’ll be presenting it in five weeks.

Tonight I feel okay, so I’m writing again. I hope that I have learned to balance this new stress from school, or at the very least, my professor lets up on those classroom projects. Hopefully I’ll be writing regularly again.

I whiled away my Saturday afternoon with a very new experience. I visited my first auction. About a week ago I saw a flier in the mail announcing an IRS seized property auction. I’ve seen similar announcements but I always dismissed them because they were inconvenient to attend. This time though the auction was being held at a hotel that was a mere five minute drive, so I could hardly resist. I kept tight lipped about it this week because, frankly, I was worried I would jinx it. What if I overslept? What if some work emergency came up and I couldn’t go? I was way too excited to risk missing this.

Fortunately everything was fine today. I arrived with friends at about noon, in time for the pre-auction preview. I had never been inside this hotel, but I believe it underwent a renovation about three years ago. It’s across the street from a Wendy’s I visit every so often. The hotel management must not have renovated the meeting rooms because the whole area looked very tired. It wasn’t filthy or dingy. Rather, the materials simply showed their age. The popcorn ceiling had some stains. The paint looked faded. The halls were very dim. ‘Shabby’ conveys it all. But who cares! I wasn’t there for the amenities. I wanted to see some bargains!

I wasn’t totally sure what sort of merchandise to expect at auction. The ad was clearly geared towards jewelry and watches, but it did picture other items like electronics. I guess I expected a mix; Maybe a handful of electronics and miscellaneous items, but mostly jewelry and watches. I didn’t seriously expect to find the drug boat of my dreams. I arrived to find the auction was almost entirely about jewelry. The handful of watches they had were all Rolexes, and only half were men’s.

The items were displayed in the standard glass display cabinets you see in any department store. They were chockfull of rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and the few Rolexes they had. For an hour we circled tables, looking over the items and checking their descriptions in our auction book (really just a stapled printout). The vast majority of items were so gaudy. The most hideous item was a ring made of different colored sapphires that looked like a rainbow version of the Cadillac crest. It had to be 2 inches across at a minimum. I can’t believe someone would wear that.

The items chosen for auction actually depended on people showing interest. The auction company didn’t bring every single item up to the podium. During the preview, you had to request items be brought up. A staffer would affix a green sticker to items people weren’t interested in. After the preview, those items were brought up.

Most of the people there looked as shabby as the hotel. Like the Cadillac ring, there was one couple that really stood out. To start with, they were elderly. I feel very sure the man was German. Something about his face told me so. He was short at around 5’6″ with a potbelly and gray hair. He wore a stained t-shirt that was a size too small, and the sleeves looked like those on a football jersey. He also worse some nylon athletic shorts that did a poor job of hiding his bright blue underwear. His wife was in a similar disheveled state but instead of looking at her clothes, I spent most of my time trying to figure out if she was Asian. I still don’t know. Clearly, as a friend whispered to me, these were trailer park people. No one else really stood out as much as these people. Sitting in front of me there was a middle aged couple. I suspect the woman was a bit of a golddigger. The man, who I suspect was from Eastern Europe, said nothing that I ever heard. The woman though sounded rather aggressive when she spoke to him. She also sounded pretty demanding when I stood near her at the preview tables.

The auction itself started out fine. The auctioneer, Julian, was a funny guy. He told some good stories and kept everyone very entertained. This was at the beginning when he was auctioning the loose gemstones. Then we got on to the set piece jewelry. Things went downhill there. He started off with the Rolex watches. I never realized how ugly Rolexes are. The most hideous one at the preview was a gold watch with a red face. By the way, having diamonds in the wrist band is tacky. Also at the preview I noticed a black guy, probably in his 20s, admiring a different Rolex. I’m pretty sure he put one into the auction. I guess he was as surprised as me to find that the minimum bid for a men’s Rolex was $14,000. I suppose when you consider a new Rolex can be $50,000 or more, you can argue it’s a bargain, but i was expecting a bargain under $10,000. I remember not too long ago I watched an episode of the Suze Orman show where one guy called in asking if he could afford a $5000 Rolex. What does a $5000 Rolex look like?

I guess that was the first sign this crowd was not full of big spenders. One Rolex didn’t sell. Then a second didn’t sell. When the third one up for bidding elicited no response from the crowd, the auctioneer put three together in the auction and said the winner would have their choice of them. Still no response. This seemed to leave the auctioneer slightly shaken. He said this was the first auction he’s held where he hasn’t sold at least one Rolex. If that’s true, I’m pretty damn surprised. Every auction actually has one person willing to spend over $10,000 on a watch?

I think another two pieces went by without a bidder when Julian brought out a really exquisite piece. It was a diamond and ruby tennis bracelet. It was really beautiful jewelry. The diamonds and rubies sparkled so brightly. I don’t care much for rubies but I was really taken with this. Well with a starting price of $30,000 of course no one bid. Soon after, three necklace/bracelet sets of emerald, ruby and sapphire were brought out. Julian combined these into a single auction, lowered the start bid to $8000 and still got no response from the crowd. His annoyance was pretty clear. No one bid on these sets, so he takes out the sapphire set to show us “how to break down jewelry”. As he said, the necklace is long so he could easily remove a link containing one sapphire and turn the stone into a ring. How much would you pay for a sapphire ring? $1000 would be cheap, while the bracelet alone had eight stones. Eight stones could make eight rings which should cost $8000. That would make the necklace practically free. Well no one bought that argument or a jewelry set.

It was painfully obvious no one was buying today, so Julian decided to cut to the chase and have people call out the item numbers they were really interested in. Also, that trailer park couple had left and he said they must have put stickers on half the stuff they had up for auction. I guess he was hoping the silence was a problem of demand. People weren’t interested in what was being offered. As it turns out it was a problem of sticker shock. I guess no one in the crowd expected jewelry at these prices. I sure didn’t. Even the item numbers called out didn’t sell. One really nice diamond ring came up for $20,000. Someone shouted out $5000, but of course Julian wouldn’t take that.

Finally the one item my friend was waiting for came up. This was a “Cartier-style” (whatever that means) ring with diamonds, amethyst and aquamarine. The diamonds were collectively only a half carat so we were hoping this would be a relatively cheap ring. Our max bid would have been $500, but the item started at $1500. No one bid and we left after that.

I know it sounds like a disappointing day, but it wasn’t. It was tremendous fun! Everything you hear about the auction atmosphere is true. It’s exciting and thrilling. Even today when no one was buying, you could still sit there and talk about how no one was buying. I had no intention of bidding on anything but it was still a great experience. I will definitely be on the lookout for more auctions coming to this area. It’s a fantastic way to spend a day!

I have been very absent from this blog, and the reason is simple. I’ve started working a normal 9 to 5 shift at work. In the past I would do my writing around 11 pm or later. Now, I’m getting ready for bed at that time. I knew the shift change would cause disruption but I thought it would be over with by now.

Although the new hours are killing this blog, working normal hours isn’t all bad. Everyone at the office has suddenly become much friendlier to me. The change was like flipping a light switch. People chat with me in the kitchen now. The receptionist, who I never spoke to, is completely friendly now. She even yelled “boo!” at me in the hallway as I stepped out from the doorway. I never had this sort of playful banter before.

I am finally getting a taste of the rush hour traffic everyone complains about. I’ve been hitting 101 North at around 8 am, and I must say it’s not nearly as bad as I expected. I imagined it would be an LIE-like parking lot. On most days you can still cruise north averaging 45 mph or so. I have been ducking out of work early for two weeks, but today I actually experienced the evening rush hour. It’s slower for sure, but I still got home in a half hour. I did notice the carpool lane was full though. The Bay Area could really use more highways.

So who knows where this will go. I don’t really feel like writing much now, but maybe I’ll change my mind in August. It’s a shame though. I have a huge list of material I wanted to comment on. I guess it will all go to waste.

I have nothing but sympathy for all service workers right now. I saw the most ridiculous thing at Jack in the Box an hour ago.

I don’t normally work on Friday, but today I had to fill in for someone on sick leave. I came into work early so I would have time to stop at the Jack in the Box across the street for lunch. It was crowded but otherwise uneventful. I was standing near the counter waiting for my food when I listed in on this disheveled, scruffy looking guy placing his order.

Now if you visit Jack in the Box with any sort of regularity, you are aware they sell that sirloin burger where you can specify the type of cheese and onions you want on it. This guy took it a step beyond. It wasn’t enough to choose between cheddar, American or Swiss. He wanted one slice of American on top, and one slice of cheddar on the bottom. The guy behind the counter froze for a sec and slowly looked up at him. The order taker was a total professional though. Trying to accommodate this ridiculous request, he told the customer he would have to shout that instruction to the cook. Perhaps this only emboldened the customer, or maybe he intended to ask this all along, but then he decided his burger must only have iceburg lettuce. As he said, “I don’t want the romaine lettuce. I want iceburg lettuce. That pale kind.” The counter guy just went with it. I, for one, had no idea Jack in the Box even uses two types of lettuce, and I eat there about once a week.

I don’t understand what possessed that customer to be so fussy. Is he really going to taste the difference between one slice of cheddar and one slice of American? The lettuce substitution really knocked me for a loop too. Food service workers, I know you have to put up with weirdos like that everyday. I doth my hat to all of you.

I don’t know how important the South Street Seaport is to the average New Yorker, but I know I have a lot of memories of the place. I remember as a kid spending many summer days there with my mom. Naturally this was before I grew into an annoying teenager who was embarrassed to be seen with her.

Most years we didn’t have air conditioning at home, so we would spend a hot day in that Pier 17 mall browsing the stores and mooching the a/c. We would always stop at The Sharper Image first. I know that sounds strange but remember back in the 1980s that store was cool. There was always a long line of people to get in. That only built frustration and anticipation in a child. Once inside I would run around and look with wonder at all the useless gadgets. The food court at Pier 17 was also the first place I ate Hawaiian pizza. To a nine year old, pineapple on a pizza is the most exotic thing imaginable. As the afternoon grew long, we would sit out on the third floor deck in those heavy wooden lounge chairs and enjoy the strong breeze off the East River.

Oh but I skipped over the start of the day. We would always take the E train to the World Trade Center and walk across town. The A or C would have been closer to the Seaport but for whatever reason we never transferred to them. Walking by Trinity Church always made my imagination race. The building was so out of place in lower Manhattan. I wanted to get near the ancient gravestones. The stones were so thin and worn. They were so different from any cemetery I had been to.

I think it was Fulton Street that we took to walk to the Seaport. We would browse the little junk stores as we walked. I remember there was a Burger King built next to a basketball court. It always stuck out to me because the Burger King was built in a single story building that was set below street level. The apartments and offices that surrounded it really towered above it. Because the building was such an oddity I always wanted to eat there, but my mom only allowed it, maybe, twice in all those visits. Closer to the Seaport there were these two alleys off of Fulton. That really got my mind racing. There aren’t that many alleys in the street grid anymore. Every time we walked by, the history nerd in me would blossom and I would imagine New York City back in the 19th century when shit would actually go down in alleys.

And when I got older, I didn’t visit the Seaport much, but I did have some interesting memories of the area. There was one winter Saturday I spent the whole day shopping in lower Manhattan with my brother. We literally walked for hours, it was nighttime and quite cold, and we ended up near the Seaport. That’s when my brother got the idea in his head that it would be fun to walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge. So we walked from the Seaport to the bridge and then across. I remember the streets being oddly empty that night. Manhattan without people is quite eerie. That only heightened the tension for me when we crossed the bridge. On the Brooklyn side the area was totally dead. To get to the street we had to walk down this narrow concrete staircase whose overhead lights had burnt out.

It shouldn’t be surprising to learn the Seaport has the plumpest roaches. I think it was during my senior year of high school when I planned to meet friends there one night. I got there early and had a seat on one of those concrete benches near the elevated FDR at the edge of the pier. I sat and people-watched for a bit when I happened to catch some motion in the corner of my eye. I looked down, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to focus, but there I spotted a fat roach crawling around at the edge where the concrete bench met the cobblestone street. Horrifying! Later that same night when I was with friends hanging around the wooden pier in the back of the Pier 17 mall, I kept my eyes open for more roaches. Wow, did I find them! Of course they were there the whole time, but since I wasn’t looking I never noticed. Once I knew what to look for, I saw them everywhere!

Why am I babbling like a man on his deathbed? Well it turns out the South Street Seaport isn’t the draw that it used to be so a real estate developer is going to step in and redevelop the whole site. The Pier 17 mall will be razed. It’s going to be replaced with more retail space, a boutique hotel and a big condo tower. None of this bothers me. The South Street Seaport isn’t a museum. Buildings come and go but I’ll always have my memories. What bothers me is the hideousness of the new architecture. The new buildings are eyesores.

Let’s start with the obvious change – the new condo tower. The first thing that pops into my mind when I look at that permanent scaffold-like structure is the 1970s. That scaffold is a throwback to an era of rounded corners and cheap, plasticy surfaces. It’s hard to be certain from this rendering, but I strongly suspect that is exactly what it will look like close up in real life. I’m also a little skeptical of its placement. I would rather see it on the other side of the FDR.

Now let’s take a look at the boutique hotel. If I didn’t know what this was supposed to be, I would guess ‘College Campus Library circa 1975′. That irregular orange monstrosity may actually be worse than the tower. By the way notice the choice of pavers in this rendering. I hope that’s just lazy artwork and not accurate to the plan. The Seaport should have cobblestones, not whatever those hexagons are called.

I have no objections to redeveloping the entire seaport. I just don’t want it to look ugly. This design is adding some big eyesores to the skyline. That scaffold building is going to be right next to the Brooklyn Bridge too. You can’t ignore that. Community Board 1 seems to go apeshit at the idea of anything with the slightest bit of height to it, so I think this plan is going to end up being killed. I don’t agree with that attitude, but hey at least these horrid buildings won’t go up.

The Freakonomics blog tackled the emotional issues raised by locovores. I’ve never heard the word until last week, but I’ve been familiar for years with the concept these people follow. These are people who refuse to eat anything that wasn’t produced locally. “Locally” can vary according to the whim of the locovore. It may include everything within a 100 miles or maybe just 50, or may be as large as only within your state. The point of all this is to lessen the amount of greenhouse gasses produced in industrial agriculture. If food has to travel less to get to you, less fuel was burned.

I can’t completely agree with that Freakonomics post because it mostly skirted the issue. It concentrated on the question of whether it was helpful or not for everyone to produce their own food. That’s not really what locovores are about. However Freakonomics did cite a very interesting statistic. Transportation only accounts for 15% of the greenhouse gas emissions of a unit of food. Eleven percent is spent on transport from the farm to the store, and 4% is spent getting it from the store to your house. So locovores are only fighting a battle against 11% of emissions. Does that really seem worth the effort? It doesn’t to me if it means losing any variety in my diet. Not that I’m completely against this idea. I just don’t think it’s useful in terms of reducing emissions.

However if more people want to buy locally or do some gardening themselves, I’m all for it as long as you’re doing for the right reasons. You’re not going to change the world by gardening, but you may just have some fun and get some exercise. I actually would like to do some myself. I don’t really care for bothering with commonly available vegetables or fruits. Ever since I found that there are different varieties of corn, I’ve been a little obsessed with growing these obscure varieties. Why bother growing the same orange carrots or yellow corn you can buy at the store for a few cents a pound? If you’re going to put the effort in, then grow something special.

With that in mind I cannot get these Moon & Stars watermelons out of my head! Look at the rind – it’s yellow and purple! Who knew this existed?!?! I sure didn’t. For all I knew, watermelons were green on the outside and red inside. Sometimes you could find those freak yellow ones but that’s it. I would love to be able to bring these home. I have been thinking since last weekend about buying some seeds and attempting to grow them. But I don’t have a lot of space on the patio and I really don’t know if Northern California’s climate is any good for growing watermelons. Still though, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Not only would I grow the Moon & Stars watermelon, but on the other side of my patio I’d plant Dragon Carrots! They have this metallic red sheen to them that seems so alien. The Seed Savers Exchange says they have a slightly spicy flavor too.

This is all just so exciting to me. Seed Savers has red potatoes and purple potatoes and apple green eggplants and the True Lemon Cucumber. Where was this years ago when I had a huge backyard in Brooklyn! Seriously I wish I had the Seed Savers catalog when I was a kid. I would have spent a lot more time gardening with my dad. That would have been some nice quality time. Of course now when I want to garden, I’m deprived of soil.

But back to the locovores. You guys obviously care about the environment otherwise you wouldn’t make a fuss over buying local. If you’re going to start a garden too, grow some unique fruits and vegetables. Doing so will preserve biodiversity. Agribusiness will keep the standard vegetables alive. Don’t duplicate their efforts. Keep these varieties alive and make your dinner plate a little more interesting.

So two days ago I decided to play with the gas price statistics I had collected from two years of filling up my car. It wasn’t anything serious. Just goofing around really. Well Shell seems to have made me look completely stupid. I predicted my local station would peak at $4.49 on July 24th.

Pffft! I wrote this up on Sunday night when the highest price was $4.35. On Monday, 87 octane was selling for $4.46 a gallon, and believe me I felt it as I filled up my tank that day. I almost paid $50 to fill up a Mazda3! Today, as I drove by to go to work, the price of 87 octane was at $4.56. In just two days the price shot up 21 cents! My prediction was shattered and it isn’t even July yet. Oh the shame of it all!

And speaking of our economy, has anyone noticed gas prices are a tad high? I was on my way back from Bed, Bath and Beyond when I noticed a gas station had diesel fuel priced at $5.17 a gallon. That was the first time I ever saw $5 for anything at a gas station, and of course I couldn’t help but wonder if regular gasoline would reach that height. Then I came home and saw NBC News use a gas station in Arcadia, CA as a backdrop for yet another report about the rising price of oil. This station had 87 octane priced at $4.99 a gallon.

When will gas finally stop rising? I’ve been keeping track of what I’ve paid over the last two years. Maybe we can use that as a guide.

• In 2006, gas prices rose from March 5th to May 2nd. That’s 59 days with a 76 cent, or 31%, rise.
• 2007 had a similar run up from January 29th to May 8th. That’s 100 days with a 94 cent, or 37% rise.

Now we’re in 2008. Gas prices have been rising steadily since February 7th. Over the past 122 days, that’s a $1.22, or 39%, rise. Can we predict when it will start to fall? Probably not accurately, but let’s do it anyway. Let’s start with the number of days. There was a 41 day increase from 2006 to 2007. That’s a 69% increase from the 2006 period. Assuming 2008 will also have a 69% increase from last year, we will have a 169 day run up in gas prices. The peak should hit on July 24th. I guess we can expect a 43% run up so that means the price on that day should be $4.49.

But remember that’s really unscientific. This is just an exercise in following a trend. I didn’t examine any of the causes of these price rises. Still though, I’m going to pay attention and see how far off the mark this ends up being.