Category: Manny Kagan

Mr. Pollan used to live in a town in New England where he and his wife owned a small house on 5 acres of land. They were expecting their first child; and he realized that he needed more space to enable him to continue his writing career. He decided to build a hut with his own hands, without having any skills or dexterity for such a project. The book is a beautiful account of his experience. Like in his first book about gardening, he goes into minute details describing not only the physical, but the mental process he went through to realize his idea. In the process, he worked with an architect who suggested the idea that building a house is similar to reading a book. You start at the beginning and page by page, you learn the narrative as well as identity—yourself, with the process and the subject, by emerging into the process. I think this idea applies to many other endeavors in our lives as well.

Every new project starts with an idea. For instance, you come across a piece of land, a tear-down building, and then you want to build your dream house. But do you know what it takes to do that? “A Place of My Own” will help in many ways. One of the critical aspects of building a house is the cost analysis, or simply put, figuring out how much money one needs to realize their dream and avoiding the nightmare of running short on funds before the project is completed. In my work, I deal with these problems with my clients all of the time.

I often go up there to greet the sunset, or just to take photos of the expansive view of the city. But sometimes instead of the view, Mount Davidson greets visitors with the heaviest fog, which can be a great opportunity to take spectacular images.

When I reached the foot of the hill, I was surprised to meet another photographer. And then I heard voices coming from the top. A few moments later, out of the fog, emerged a group of young men and one woman, most of whom were carrying photo cameras. While I watched and listened to them greet each other, I was even more surprised that many were from out of town. To get here at 7am on this foggy morning was a really special effort. I found out that more than 20 men and a few women were drawn here by Instagram. The idea was to get together to photograph, or to create a video with the maximum duration of 15 seconds. Instagrams can be shared on a variety of social networking platforms.

When we stay at a timeshare, one of their features is to invite guests to an “informative” presentation that usually lasts a few hours. In return for your time, you are usually offered a complimentary perk of the resort. This time it was a buffet breakfast, 10% discount on all activities and food at the resort, plus 1000 pesos (about $70 US dollars), which can also be spent at the resort.

We bought the Mayan Palace in 1992 for about $7,000 US dollars. Since then, we have visited many different locations in Mexico, including Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas. The developers keep building new and more luxurious resorts and of course want to sell visitors yet another time share. In the past, we were suckers and bought more. But, this time we held our ground.

After the sales person failed to convince us to depart from our money, the manager stepped in. In his conversation, he told us his life story and hard work in the past, which was very similar to the woman from Boston’s story, whom I encountered on my beach walk. Santiago was born in Switzerland. His father was a doctor, who left in pursuit of higher earnings, traveled the world dragging his family along. Santiago graduated from a prestigious culinary school in France and his last job was an executive chef at the Ritz Carlton in Miami. There were two events which changed his life. He worked long hours at the restaurant. One evening, his (then) wife came and asked him to sign some papers. Since he was very busy, he did not even bother to read what he was signing. Only three days later, his mom called him telling him that he actually signed divorce papers. He also had a younger brother, who was planning to retire at the age of 40. To do this, he worked very hard. His dream was intercepted—he died at the age of 29.

“How many are the days of the years of your life?” Jacob answered the Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourns have been a hundred and thirty years” (Genesis 47:8-9). In other words, Jacob measured his life by his daily journeys—experiences. We age every day, but we also become wiser every day as we hopefully learn from our journeys.

There is a story about two little boys playing in the sand box. The bigger boy asks his friend, “How old are you?” The other boy answers, “I do not know”. “Do you like girls?” The other boy responds, “No.” “Then you are probably three, since I am already four.”

This past January 13^th, my life journey was measured to be 68 years or about 24,769 days. During my life, I’ve learned many things and I’ve had various experiences. Before becoming a mortgage broker over 31 years ago, I had ten different occupations. I’ve also had many years of schooling and have had great teachers outside of schools, starting with my parents. When I got married at age 20, I gained new teachers: my wife, her mother, and then our two daughters. I constantly learn from a variety of teachers in books I read or listen to in the car. Wisdom cannot be contained. Wise people always share their knowledge.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to read and listen to more books, but also to share with you some of the knowledge I acquire. I will start with Michael Pollan’s “Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education”, which I have just finished listening to on an audio book I borrowed from the library. Though we have a garden, I do not have time to be a gardener. I decided to listen to Michael Pollan’s book because I appreciate his wisdom. He is the best-selling author of “The Botany of Desire”, and many other books. “Second Nature reads like brilliant entertainment, but it is serious wisdom.” Wrote Simon Schama, Boston Globe.

This remark brought memories about a four-unit building we owned on Guerrero Street in Noe Valley, which we sold years ago. At that time, business was slow and we were struggling financially. The building’s roof was leaking and we accumulated $80,000 in credit card debts, and the mortgage was 11%. We were very happy to sell and pay off our debts. Today, the same building that we sold for $550,000 is worth about $3 million. Am I upset? Not a bit. In my view, the purpose of life is to have experiences and learn from them. If in the long run, we are financially ahead, it only means that after we die, someone will have a good time with their inheritance, after taxes are paid.

Actually, the reason that prompted me to write this story was what happened after the party. When we arrived at the Waterfront Restaurant on Embarcadero, there was a long line to the adjacent parking lot. The sign said $14 and I did not have enough cash with me. The rain had stopped, and I saw that across the street there was plenty of parking and I thought that after 7:30pm, it would be free (I temporarily forgot that we live in San Francisco). As we walked back to the car at 9:30pm, I was very happy that we did not have to wait in line again for the attendants to get our car out. I saved $14 bucks and my car was parked facing in the direction that I had to drive home. However, when I approached the car, I noticed that there was broken window glass on the ground and immediately realized that it was actually my car that was vandalized. The broken glass was all over the backseat. There was nothing to steal. My briefcase, which I “hid” in the back of the SUV was opened, but there were only papers. In addition, I also found a $66 parking ticket on the windshield. Literally, the rain stopped and we drove back with an open (broken) window with the sound of the wind in our ears.