Two Comments -- Unrelated

First off am I the ONLY person in the world that doesn't sit around and google the names of people I used to know or know now? It has happened again where a person I knew from years gone by all of a sudden emails me (or in this case makes a comment on the blog) having found me online. Not that I'm complaining or anything but apparently this is another one to be filed in the "Trendy and/or popular things Ernie is oblivious to until he's one of the last people to clue into" folder?

The other thing I want to cover is a rant on the disappointment of something being discovered by everyone else. My favorite Trader Joe's used to be a regular sized TJ's in a strip mall in Daly City with plenty of parking and just off the freeway. In and out, no worries. But as is with economic growth and development, TJ's built a new and expanded building in the same complex. This began the domino effect of subsequently having the Safeway get spruced up. Then parking lot space was eliminated the facades of the storefronts were all pastel and the complex was given a hip looking logo and now calls itself Westlake. But today, I went to TJ's and I got stuck in the parking lot trying to find a space. The secondary parking lot has been torn up and in its place will be a new Linens and Things. I eventually made my way to the other side of the mall and parked. I got out and saw the what will be the kiss of death of what made this Tj's efficient and effective as a place to buy food. I saw the half finished monstrosity that will soon become....HOME DEPOT. It's a "Design Center" Home Depot, which I think might be the superduper sized HOME DEPOT. I think the analogy would go like this:

SAFEWAY:COSTCO
HOME DEPOT:HOME DEPOT DESIGN CENTER

The pleasant and painfree Daly City Trader Joe's experience is dead to me.

A City Hall that is both beautiful and helpful

Can you believe that? I know, I know. As usual, there is background to be provided. Last year about this time, I got it into my head that I should see a financial planner to make sure that I was doing things right with my money and to get some objective outsider to determine whether or not I was going to meet my goals. The biggest piece of advice he gave me was to get my affairs in order. After he heard about my accident and how I had the accident and didn't have a will in place, he almost made me do it right in front of him. So a year has passed and I finally got around to getting all the paperwork together to have a will and also create a living trust of which I am the trustee of the trust until I pass. I'll stop with the morbidity. But the most important step is to actually legally change those things that I own from being mine, but instead being owned by the trust with me as the trustee who makes the decision. I've basically created a shell corporation for myself. The most significant item to be moved into the trust was the house. It required my housemates and I to change the deed of the house to have the two of them and the trust as the owners of the home. We had our form notarized and then it had to officially recorded by the San Francisco Recorder/Assessors Office. This office is in the large City Hall building. As you can see from the following photos (not mine but taken from the web) SF City Hall is actually an amazingly beautiful building. It's of the Beaux Arts style. (I have no real idea what that means but I know that the Beaux Arts is always used in conjunction with City Hall.)

Never in my wildest dreams would I have allowed myself to believe that the offices inside the building were actually efficient, functional and dare I say...helpful? The Recorder/Assessors office closes at 4PM so I had to boogie back to SF to make it in time before it closed. I got there and the line to record the document had no one in it. I walked right up to the woman clerk, but I had to get an official description of our property, so I was sent to the main line. After three minutes, where every single clerk was working with a resident, I got my form printed out. I asked another question about the homeowners exemption and my clerk called the guy who handles the exemption. Not only was he in the office on a Friday afternoon, but he came right over and listened to my question. He went away and a couple minutes later came back with the reason why there was a mixup and a solution. He gave me a couple forms to fill out and upon being returned in the mail, the exemption would be in place for the 2006-07 tax bill.

I moved back over to the first line. There were five people in front of me, but it became quite clear that each person's time with the clerk was less than a minute, and before I knew it there I was with the the clerk. $12 later, my paperwork was done. I had one more question, but she pointed me to the main desk again. I got another clerk who then called over the guy who's in charge of addresses and all that stuff. He too was in the office on a Friday afternoon and came right over and answered my question.

I was done. I walked out of the office and out of the building completely amazed at how easily the whole thing had gone. There really is something called a functional municipal government.

MOMENT OF HISTORY: This same Office of the Recorder/Assessor is the same office that issued marriage liscenses to all the gay couples that got married back in 2004 when the mayor of San Francisco decreed gay marriage legal in the city.

"Incorrect"

Tonight I served as a judge for the school Spelling Bee, think Spellbound. Because students can compete only until they are in 8th grade, the participants were all Middle School students. I wasn't the announcer so I didn't have to give the language or origin or have to provide the definition. I was the judge who, after the participant finished spelling the word and then said the word as an indication that he or she is done, said "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT".

My biggest fear was that there would be some controversy that I, and another teacher, would have to make a decision that someone would be unhappy with. A couple of near misses did come up. The first was when a girl spelled "CATHEDRAL" but her letter H was preceded by a very long sound that wasn't much like H but quickly became H. We gave it to her. The second occurred when the announcer mispronounced the word "SCOURGE". The boy spelled it incorrectly, but we gave him a second word, which he spelled correctly. In both of these cases the student was ultimately not one of the top three spellers in the competition.

The 3rd place boy went out on "TERCENTENARY" which means the 300th anniversary or its celebration.

The final two girls misspelled "EPISTEMOLOGY", "CENTAUROMACHIA" (a specific Greek battle) and "EREMITIC" (characterized by a ascetic solitude in life). The 2nd place speller missed "TROIKA". The winner correctly spelled it and then won by correctly spelling "AYATOLLAH".

You would not believe the seriousness with which the Scripps National Spelling Bee takes itself. There is an official booklet with 500 official 2006 School Spelling Bee words in 7 different categories. Every word has a pronuciation guide, language of origin, definition and a sentence using the word.

Some of the words on the list were new ones to me. Anyone know the definition of "DELTIOLOGY" off the top of their heads? Email me if you are lazy and won't look up the answer. The definition of the word is not one anyone of us would ever have thought of in a million years.

INCORRECT!!

Not much has changed since 1938

My housemate forwarded me this website address called Bernal Heights Preservation. If you poke around the site you might stumble across the area dedicated to the streetcars that were ubiquitous in this area and probably all of San Francisco.

The intersection of Cortland Avenue and Prospect Street in 1938

If you look closely, the second house from the left is 121-123 Cortland Avenue. The house no longer has pillars and the staircase now has a lefthand turn, but it appears essentially the same. The house to the left of my current home is the building I lived in when I first moved to San Francisco. It looks exactly the same. Great architecture breeds longevity!