Michael's Blog

As New Year's Day Rolls along, it becomes time to start submitting your daily entries int the HGTV Dream Home 2009 Contest.

I will try to remember to add links at the bottom of all my blog postings until contest ends.  I hope that all other Active Rain Bloggers also provide a link to the contest at the end of each of their blogs as well.

I am excited about the Dream Home contest this year.  it's on the outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area in the wine country in the town of Sonoma.  Many of the past Dream Homes have been located in the State of Florida.  One of the Dream Homes was in Colorado in a Ski in and Ski out location.

Here is a link to the contest page from the HGTV website.  Since this posting is before the New Year's Day launch of the contest, the page with the actual contest entry is not activated yet.   I am sure that after January 1st this page will contain a link for you to fill out your information.

http://www.hgtv.com/dream-home/kitchen-hgtv-dream-home-tour-2009/index.html 

Good Luck to you all.  Remember to bookmark the contest page and enter daily for more chances to win.

If you win and you read about it from my page let me know.

In Oakland if you travel along, let's say Fruitvale Avenue you will come across the cross streets East 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on.

When you get to what should be East 14th Street you will notice International Boulevard.  East 14th was renamed to reflect the political correctness movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s.   International Boulevard was thought to better reflect the different neighborhoods the street past through.

So Viola, East 14th Street became International Boulevard.   Did this move increase business along the corridor?  Just by looking at the vacant businesses up and down International Boulevard, my guess is that the name change did absolutely nothing except spend millions of dollars of city and private money to change all the addresses of the businesses and residences along the entire route.

At the San Leandro city limit when you cross over Durant Avenue, the name East 14th remains and stays strong and vibrant until you get the the San Lorenzo - Hayward borders.  East 14th Street then becomes Mission Boulevard through parts of San Lorenzo, Hayward, Union City and into Fremont.

It's quite ironic and I find extremely funny, is that the city that has all the East 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on streets does not have the East 14th anymore and the city that never had the East 1-2-3s retains their East 14th Street.

San Leandro does retain some of the numbered Avenue Streets.  138th Avenue near San Leando high school is one of the recognizable streets.  150th Avenue that goes into the Bayfair Mall area is also a better known numbered street.  164th Avenue is an exit off of Interstate 580.  The last of the numbered streets is 173rd Avenue is tucked up against Interstate 238 at the San Lorenzo - San Leandro - unincorporated Ashland district.

San Leandro has a weird naming convention near the Marina District and Mulford Gardens.  The numbered Streets are preceded by a West or W then the Avenue designation comes in, so in that part of town you will have some W Ave 133rd, W Ave 134th, and so on.

So like the song "Istanbul not Constantinople" goes

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul...

The same can be said for East 14th

Every gal on East 14th Street
Lives on International Boulevard, not East 14th Street
So if you've a date on East 14th Street
She'll be waiting on International Boulevard...

"Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way"

So If you're looking for East 14th Street just come to San Leandro we still have ours! 

San Leandro is full of fall color everywhere you look.  Who needs trips to Vermont and New Hampshire to see fall foliage?  You can get a blast of color on every street in town.

Bancroft Avenue has some brilliant yellow Ginko trees with Pops of color that cannot be ignored.

The Crepe Myrtle trees also have a wide variety of colors from green, gold, red, yellow and orange.

 Ginko

 Crepe Myrtle Crepe Myrtle Decorative Pear?

If you are interested in moving to the East Bay, give me a call and I will be more than happy show you around.

www.dunsmuir.org is the website to go to.

Located at the Oakland San Leandro Border is the Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate.  Each year at this time of year the home and all the out buildings are all decorated for the Christmas holidays.

The mansion and grounds are open for weekends during December for the Holiday Show.  Stop on by and say hello if you see me up there.

The high tea at the Dinkelspeil house located at the north gate is a must for anyone wanting a relaxing break from touring the mansion and gift shopping.

I've been volunteering up there since 1987.

Fa-la-la-la.

Enjoy a spot of tea at the Romantic Storybook Normandy Tudor.....Dinkelspeil House.

The Mansion at the Dunsmuir - Hellman Historic Estate Oakland, California.

Dunsmuir Hellaman Mansion

Long time volunteer and good friend Teresa greets you at the front door.

Here I am volunteering at the mansion.  I've already done two Christmas party evening tours this season.  I will be hosting a children's school tour comming up soon.

When I'm not selling real estate I am volunteering.   I love selling historic homes and architecturally significant homes.  Give me  a call.

***update, just back from volunteering again this morning.  We had two bus groups that came through the property.  The first group as a retired teacher's group from San Jose.  The second group was an early alzheimer's group from Fairfield***

The other day someone from a sub-contractor for Pacific Gas & Electric came by my neighborhood and replaced all the old spinning dial meters with a new one that transmits the data directly to their billing offices.

An example of the old style spinning dial meters where someone would have to go home to home and read and document the readings.

An example of the new SmartMeter.

 The install the new meter is only a matter of removing the metal ring around the meter and unplugging the old meter.

The new meter is then plugged into the socket, the metal ring re-installed and the installer moves on to the next home.

A few weeks later this same installer came back and added a similar SmartMeter for my gas meter.

PG&E is making this change so it can layoff or redirect the meter reading staff.  A future cost cutting measure for the utility company.

It blows my mind that PG&E will spend millions of dollars to lay people off when they are still using Civil War technology.  I am talking about the Telegraph poles up and down the streets that clutter our landscape and have wires dangling over our streets and yards.   I understand that the telephone company, cable company and power companies all use these poles as their common delivery method.

(photo: sxc stock exchange)

But really, how ugly are these things, let's keep the meter readers and get rid of these sources of blight in our cities.  It's time these utility giants do something to give back to the homeowners who have been paying for service for the last many decades (some addresses have been paying over 100 years) it's high time for an upgrade (or below the grade) undergroundnig of utilities.