Honestly… this proposition system is awful. I spend a lot of researching this stuff, and still I get somewhat confused. Take a look at Proposition 80 for example:

Proposition 80: Electric Service Providers. Regulation - California State Government

Proposition 80
Electric Service Providers. Regulation
State of California
Initiative Statute

Should the state expand its regulation of the electric industry?

Summary Prepared by the State Attorney General:
Subjects electric service providers to regulation by California Public Utilities Commission. Restricts electricity customers’ ability to switch from private utilities to other providers. Requires all retail electric sellers to increase renewable energy resource procurement by 2010.

Fiscal Impact from the Legislative Analyst:
Potential annual administrative costs ranging from negligible to $4 million, paid by fees. Unknown net impact on state and local costs and revenues from uncertain impact on electricity rates.

Meaning of Voting Yes/No
A YES vote on this measure means:
The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) would have broadened authority to regulate electric service providers. The PUC’s current policies related to the electricity procurement process, resource adequacy requirements, and the renewables portfolio standard would be put into law. Small electricity customers in existing buildings could not be required to accept time-differentiated electricity rates without their consent. The current prohibition on new “direct access” for electricity service would be continued beyond 2015.

A NO vote on this measure means:
The PUC would not have broadened authority to regulate electric service providers. The PUC’s current policies related to the electricity procurement process, resource adequacy requirements, and the renewables portfolio standard would not be put into law. The PUC would determine whether and how small electricity customers in existing buildings would be required to have time-differentiated electricity service. New “direct access” for electricity service would continue to be prohibited until 2015, after which time it would be allowed.

Alright… I’m stumped. Ii’m pretty much set with all the other propositions, but just not this one. How should I vote on this one? Thoughts?

Hello Mr. Cheung:

La Avenida will be closed to eastbound traffic (between Shoreline Boulevard and the new road only) but open to westbound traffic during construction activities that will permanently turn La Avenida into a one-way street for westbound traffic.

The reason for the change in access is to accommodate the new off-ramp configuration of Shoreline Boulevard. The new connecting road is scheduled to be named at the next Mountain View City Council meeting on Tues., Oct. 25.

To access La Avenida, northbound Shoreline Boulevard traffic should turn right on Pear Avenue and right on the new road. Southbound Shoreline Boulevard traffic should turn left on Pear Avenue and right on the new road.

For further questions, please contact me directly. Thank you!

That sucks. Now my commute is lengthened by another 3 minutes as I have to go 3 blocks further and make a left turn. Expect Pear Ave to become a major speed trap.

According to the IRS, it now costs 48.5 cents per mile to drive. (Most people falsely think that driving is only the cost of gas. That’s like saying the cost of using software is only buying it. Three letters: TCO)

Well, let’s add the usual Bay Area markup of 15% to that, because everything (not just housing) costs more. So that’s 55.775 cents per mile.

Now, let’s look at the 33.5 miles round trip that I drove this morning to an appointment that was scheduled incorrectly, and now I must return to tomorrow morning instead.

What a waste of $18.68, and an hour and fifteen of my life.

So tonight I had dinner in the Berkeley Hills with a grad student in Material Sciences at Berkeley, a law student at Yale, a union organizer for the SEIU, a student in Statistics at Stanford, a graduate student in Astrophysics at Berkeley, a graduate journalism student at Berkeley, and more that I can’t remember now. It’s not that often that three people from Great Neck South High get together in California I suspect.

Interesting points noted:
-Having a professional quality TV studio (with blue screen technologies, and a TV truck) is not terribly common for most middle schools, like it was for us.
-Dave really likes Cory Doctorow. Dan and I, not so much.
-In Resident Evil, the Umbrella corporation developed the T-Virus.
-It’s hard to explain what happened at Ashokan. Really hard.
-Few of us know what BDL stands for.
-I know too much about blogging.

Thanks for inviting me Dave and Jenna! Great place, great time. Wish I could’ve stayed longer, but you know… that working thing.

Dan, we’ll have to meet up with Saiwing one of these days.

MSN Money - Extra: Gas up 20 cents in three weeks

Regular Mid Prem Diesel
California $2.76 $2.94 $2.99 $3.12

Congratulations California for having the highest gas prices in the nation!

Now, to take on the Europeans!

Even at $2.50 a gallon, U.S. gasoline prices remain less than half of those paid in Europe. In early August, a gallon of fuel would have cost you $5.74 in Belgium, $5.95 in the United Kingdom, and a startling $6.50 in the Netherlands.

Come on California! I know we can do it!

On money.cnn.com, they had one of those cheesey Top 10 Best Places to Live. And so of course, I clicked on it.

Here is what the entry for Mountain View, CA (a finalist) looks like:

Nothing surprising there… so then I checked out the places in the Top 10 Coldest Places. Unsurprisingly, all the places listed were in Minnesota. I did notice something a bit peculiar about them though - check out Andover, MN for example:

Did you notice that? Let me recap in this table:

[Note that this doesn't cover the higher taxes, the higher auto insurance, the higher sales tax, and higher everything (higher housing prices naturally translate to higher labor costs) in California.]

So… to all you Andover, MN readers - I must ask this question: What the heck do you do with all that extra money?

Is there some secret in MN that I don’t know about? That everyone has gold plated ice scrapers? Go to Aruba every winter? Where does it all go?

UPDATE: Err… nevermind. Apparently I could just ask my parents since they live near this town which has stats like the MN town above. And that’s in NY!

A friend of mine used to live in the unit below this one:

Wow! $975,000 for a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom condo!

Now, let’s say that you wanted to buy this unit, the final price comes out to be $1,000,000, you put 10% down, and you use an interest-only loan. A quick web-calculator says this:

Interest-Only Payment: $4,687.50
Fully Amortized Payment: $5,541.45

But here’s the catch - that friend of mine living one floor below? Well, he and his 2 friends were only paying a combined $2600 a month.

So here’s the deal - you buy this condo, rent it out for $2800 a month ($200 more because its on the next floor), and then chip in another $1887 a month… and… well… uh…

Yeah.

UPDATE: Oops the actualy rent amount was $2500, not $2600. This makes recouping your mortgage costs even harder. Maybe a negative amortization mortgage might work better…

So I saw this property online:

3 bedroom, 3 bath, 26 years old. $675,000 asking. So this will probably end up being sold at $700,000 and will likely require at least $25,000 worth of remodelling since it was built 26 years ago. So… that’s $725,000 for 1694 square feet. That’s only $428 per square foot.

Not too bad right? I mean, still it’s better than the $502 per square foot studio that’s being listed, right?

Wait a minute… it’s on Whisman. Whisman… hmm.. that seems familiar. Why back in 2002… yes yes… now it comes back to memory:

Oh that’s right - there’s a Parkinson’s cluster in that neighborhood. Oh that’s right, it’s a few blocks away from a SuperFund site where they are cleaning the soil by pushing using the chimney method. Ah, the joys of TCE.

No wonder this is such a steal.