Notice that Moammar’s Chamber Of Commerce had the address wrong in the website. Should get a refund on the dues for that mistake.
It’s really at 612 Lighthouse. If your business is silly enough to bend over for Moammar, check what you are getting . .
Found in the basement. Remember when the house had the huge antennas?
Here’s today’s view:
Seemed that it could have made it with longer hours. Was only open from 11:00 to 4:00. Even with those short hours they never took down the “open” signs.
Bookstore Out Of Business
Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs:
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
Does the furniture business get any weirder?
This store often had pieces out on the sidewalk – free retail space at the cost of blocking pedestrian traffic. The list prices were insane – $400 for a painted wooden bench.
A typical retail furniture store must maintain warehouse inventory and a showroom, commission sales people etc. and incur a fairly high overhead. For this reason it is normal for a furniture retailer to maintain a high markup. A typical piece of furniture that has a “suggested retail” of $500 will usually cost the retailer $175 or so and actually sell for about $350. Ever notice how furniture is always on sale? That’s how it works. It is safe to say that notwithstanding sales and discounts, retail furniture prices are usually about double the wholesale cost.
And that other perpetual in/out of business furniture store down the block is open again.
Biggest northern storm to pass through in a long time. Many are still without electricity. LHAcom’s estate was eerily quiet without the hummings of machinery, electronics and other distractions. Totally hated it. Though it did not keep the cement-obsessed neighbors with gas powered leaf blowers away. Guess they needed something to occupy themselves with. How did we stay sane? Think camping.
Propane camp stove & lanterns. Those small propane bottles are 2 pounds when full, 1 pound when empty. Postal scale told me so. Don’t wait until dark to find them. Get them out before you need to read the labels.
Ground coffee. After a fling with whole bean coffee and a preference for French roast, no powered coffee mill could keep up. I now grind it at the store, and use it within a week. With that and the above stove I had coffee in the blackout.
Flashlights. I keep several in a picnic basket by the fireplace.
Candles. Be extra careful. Don’t leave a candle alone in any room.
Radios. Recommend the GE Superradio series. It is a sensitive radio with an old fashioned analog tuner. That means it can hear many distant stations and the batteries last a long time. Listen to KPIG FM 105.7 or KSCO AM 1080. There is little in the way of public information on Monterey’s local stations. There’s also a police scanner to snoop for hints of what those sirens a block away are, ours is a Radio Shack Pro97.
Cell phone. Call your loved ones, see if they are ok.
That’s about it. It’s not the maniac with the 10,000 watt gas generator and satellite phone, but it’s enough to get by with and not have to maintain.
Some pictures taken Sunday afternoon.
Broken poles in beach tract. Never touch low or downed wires.
Falling pine tree cuts through middle of house. (No one was hurt)
Add to the storm some exceptionally high tides and there was evidence of waves breaking over Ocean View Boulevard.
Waves flipped the ice plant neatly combed over like JW.
Surf And Turf!
Crespi Pond now looks like a Monterey Bay Aquarium kelp exhibit.
Men’s Tee, Ladies Tee and Hermit Crab Tee
The Fog Horn turnout was full of seaweed washed up by waves.
Costume shop, looks mighty empty. It was open less than 3 months.
plus rats, mice, gulls and other vermin. P.G.’s businesses try and keep costs down by not paying for trash bins large enough for all the garbage they create. Some even cram the sidewalk cans with their business garbage.
This is particularly bad
Must belong to Sea Breeze Motel.
Lots of garbage on the ground –
Juice N Java still sustains a fire hazard
And Lighthouse Cafe offers a little waste wheely loaded with 50% more than it’s made for, fire hazard bin and barrel of grease.
Long time tradition with no phony charm. Residents decorate homes with holiday flair. Beaumont, Morse, McFarland and Olmstead are the primary streets, with portions of Forest, Fountain & Fourteenth streets participating.
Closing the city’s library and museum, trimming office hours and cutting police, fire and public works positions are among the hard financial choices before the Pacific Grove City Council.
The council will meet Wednesday to begin discussing how to balance its budget in the coming year.
“Now we’re at crunch time,” said Mayor Dan Cort.
· Eliminating general fund support for the city library and Museum of Natural History, which would save $250,000 for the remainder of this fiscal year and $1.2 million in fiscal 2008-09. Museum donations have fallen to an estimated $5,000, down from a projected $60,000. Library programs brought in about $39,000 in fees, purchases, fines and other revenue.
· Closing City Hall on alternate Fridays, with a 10 percent employee pay cut, saving $85,000 this fiscal year and $350,000 next fiscal year.
· Reducing fire service, with three options ranging from annual cutbacks of $95,000 to $245,000.
· Reducing police service, with three options ranging from annual cutbacks of $97,000 to $353,000.
· Reducing the public works staff, with three options ranging from annual cutbacks of $122,000 to $410,000.
· Continuing to defer maintenance of city streets and facilities, responding only to immediately needed repairs; and reducing the frequency of parks mowing, trimming and similar work.
· Eliminating salaries for City Council members, saving $10,000 this fiscal year and $39,000 next year.
· Cutting managerial and staff positions in other departments.
Making all the cuts would reduce the city’s costs by $3.1 million.
Here’s a few ideas:
The city can sell bumper stickers “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted Yes”.
Axe funding for the Chamber’Ocommerce. Make them earn their funding and see if they work harder. Last TV pitch I heard from them was for a travel agency and a web advertising firm. Like that REALLY draws commerce to PG.
That tourist center $100K? Forget it.
Go back and re-visit the property transfer tax – hit the very turkeys that have helped ruin the family setting of the town.
Charge for ‘sign permits’ – $100 a month for open houses and other sidewalk graffiti.
Charge businesses that use the sidewalks as extensions of the store. That’s public property they are serving meals on . . .
Farm out parking enforcement to Monterey. They take no prisoners (or abandoned VWs).
Trim the brass at the PD and FD. Put more in uniform and on the street. Or think about joining forces with the peninsula.
Sewers? Charge the businesses that burden in the system more than the residents.