Work, Oakland, Burning

Today is the 20th anniversary of my first day working for Intel Corporation. Years ago, when blogging was all the rage, we hid our lives only a little less than we had in usenet. I was loth to allow the search term "Intel" lead to my page. I don't care about that anymore. Whatever reasons I had to care never really mattered.

I came in to the office on this auspicious day in jeans and a t-shirt. It is increasingly difficult to select a t-shirt for wearing to work. I don't want to go around emblazoned with Burning Man graphics or metal bands or wearing yet again one of my SF Giants shirts but the remaining collection is shrinking as I get rid of shirts that are old and ugly or don't sufficiently compliment my Adonisian physique. Ahem.

So I'm wearing a gray tee acquired on the MS Oosterdam seven years ago during one of its infinite perambulations through the inland waterways of Alaska. A nice enough shirt only I discovered as I sat down there's a rice-kernel-sized hole in the stomach. Well, I'm a class act.

* * *

WRT my previous post, I learned my concern over my mother's finances were a little too overdone. She won't run out of money. If she stays where she is, she will run out of the investment bloc that allows her to live above her fixed income. She actually pulls in more than I do. She just has a crazy high rent because it's a facility. She's seriously thinking of moving to a regular apartment, figuring I suppose that when she can no longer handle that, she'll be on her way out anyway and the long-term care insurance will kick in. But what I gathered of her fixed (i.e. permanent) income, she'll be fine. Just a little cramped after another shrinking of living space.

Benefits of working for the State. She has a pension etc. I worked in private enterprise, which can work out wonderfully, but can also leave you high and dry, depending on your life. A cautious and conservative life mixed with hard work always pays off come retirement. But the investments I was theoretically to retire on have been decimated by various life events reflecting a somewhat incautious approach to old age that I can't imagine I will ever regret, and I honestly can't imagine being 87 and having the same choices my mother has. I'm glad she does. But hers was near to the last really prosperous generation, the Boomers who managed to invest correctly in technology being the last. (Correctly is the key word. Conversely, I invested in Intel. Derp.)

* * *

I didn't know Frank Somerville when we were at grade school etc. except by loose acquaintance and reputation. I don't remember much about him. Now he's the East Bay news station's anchorman and judging by his Facebook page, a really interesting character. He recently wrote about Oakland, a town he loves and that many love to disdain. It has problems as reflected in its high crime rates. But I like the place too ... albeit at a distance. There is an artsy gentrification going on, and while people love to disdain that sort of thing too, by and large it's a good thing. I've visited some of the large-scale arts facilities in buildings that went empty as the Port of Oakland fell on hard times (can't compete with LA), and I like 'em a lot. Some of the big art at Burning Man came from there. But more importantly, they're teaching people how to weld and solder and paint and sculpt and have big visions and realize them.

Anyway, the real point of this is to bookmark a few articles for my future reference.

• Oakland is the new Brooklyn
• Sacramento is the new Oakland
• Sacramento is on the Rise (this one's much better once you get past the arena)

Oakland being the new Brooklyn is funny also because much of it used to go by that very name.

* * *

Why's that last article much better?

Near the corner of 11th and R Streets, CFY Development Inc., a Sacramento builder, spent $41.5 million to convert a six-story, 101-year-old concrete storage warehouse and construct a four-story apartment building next door. The result is the 212,000-square-foot, 116-unit Warehouse Artist Lofts, which includes 13,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

“Every great city needs great artists to live in the community and be part of the community,” said Ali Youssefi, vice president of CFY Development. “The goal for this project was to make it easier for artists to do their work and add that energy to our city.”

I've been in that building, and it's pretty interesting. But more on point, a growing interest in arts is a growing value for local artists. Sunya has been getting increasingly busy with her growing definition of herself as an artist, and I am really excited at the potential for work and recognition for the hardest working woman I know. I also believe a city becoming more interested in itself will appreciate a well-written well-selling fictionalization of its early days and I would like to earn some recognition for myself accomplishing that.

* * *

I've groused a bit about not having time for that. There are multiple reasons why. But looking at our families' needs, her career-building, my status as an aging technologist, and articles such as this one, I have a growing feeling that one step to take that will free up a lot of energy is the step that will start my journey in a life after Burning Man. I love the festival and will never get enough of it, but it is changing and so am I, and it may be I've already gotten out of it all I am going to get. I can envision a gentle divorce. That will free me up a lot.