Fred Sandsmark's Blog

New Owners at Hayward's Book Shop

2009-07-01T15:32:00.001-07:00

I popped into The Book Shop today, the first day of its new ownership. I met Carl, and bugged Renée for a bit.

Haywardites and other East Bayers should (yes, should) support our local shop. There's plenty of other stuff you can buy from Amazon now -- I just bought two microphones, a toothbrush, and a TV antenna from Mr. Bezos -- so buy your books locally.

Bouncing emails?

2009-05-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

I've heard from several people that emails to fred (at) marblepub (dot) com have been bouncing back. I don't know why this has happened, and am sorry it's happened. The email address hasn't changed. If you need to contact me and encounter this problem, you have two other options: email me at fredsandsmark (at) gmail (dot) com, or call me at 510-582-3733 (landline) or 510-331-9734 (mobile). Thanks!

Writeup on Berkeley FTC Hearings

2009-05-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

I recently completed my first assignment for the Berkeley Law / Boalt Hall website: a report on FTC hearings held in Berkeley on the patent system and the intellectual property marketplace. A few other pieces are in the works.

Recent Brush With Fame

2009-05-18T23:26:00.001-07:00

I just discovered that, a couple of months ago, I was quoted in the comments section of Brad DeLong's blog. (And no, I didn't post the quote myself.)

My quote ain't about politics or economics, though -- it's about wild turkeys. And alas, there's no link. Still, one takes whatever brushes with fame one can get.

Lee Grabel's 90th Birthday

2009-05-18T17:37:00.001-07:00

I saw an article article in today's paper about the 90th birthday of magician Lee Grabel. The San Francisco Chronicle story, by Carolyn Jones, is terrific and illustrated with some wonderful photos.

I got to interview Grabel and write a profile (much shorter than Jones's, alas) for Diablo Magazine in 2006. My favorite bit from it:

Grabel retired in 1959 and went into real estate. The transition was initially rocky; he recalls an exasperated loan officer asking for a reference “who isn’t a magician, musician, or dancer.”

The entire profile I wrote is here, but the one by Jones is better.

End of the Line for Pontiac

2009-04-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

GM announced today that the Pontiac brand will be eliminated. This has been rumored for a while so it isn't a surprise, but it's a little sad personally. My Uncle Art sold Pontiacs, and so a number of them have come through my life. These are the four that I got to drive:

First was the Ventura that my had starting in the mid-1970s. It looked like this.

This image comes from here.

Our Ventura had a straight six and an automatic transmission. The car was surprisingly slow and heavy for its size, and not much fun to drive as I remember. It was also a horrifying putty color, like the one in the photo. I got in my first crash in this car, rear-ending a big old Lincoln on Second Street in Hayward. I was 17 or 18, and the crash was entirely my fault; how embarrassing. Fortunately we weren't going fast. The Lincoln sustained almost no damage, but the front of the Pontiac was creamed.

Second, my uncle (or maybe by that point my cousin Dale) loaned me a Trans Am for a week following high school graduation. Maybe he thought I was going to take my meager scholarship money and put it down on the car; fat chance. It was a black car with gold trim, looking exactly like this.

This image comes from here.

It was a fast and fun car, but I was not a fast or fun driver. What I remember most about the car, of all things, was the dashboard -- it was about a mile wide, smooth and flat, black. You could fry an egg on it on a sunny day. I was relieved to go back to my beat-up Toyota Corolla after the week was up.

Third was the T-1000 my dad handed down to me. I read somewhere that this was the worst American car ever made, but it actually served our family pretty well. It looked more like this than I care to admit. (Sorry, that's a Flikr link and I can't embed the photo -- but click over if you dare.)

It got to be quite a rattletrap over the years, but the engine kept running in spite of all sorts of problems. (I remember a mechanic telling me that the car had an unkillable "Iron Duke" engine, but I'm not so sure.) I was driving it 20 miles each way to Sunset in the late 1980s and I remember that eventually my carpoolmate insisted on driving his car all the time; unstated, that was because he didn't trust the Pontiac or feel safe riding in it. My dad traded it in on his next Pontiac -- the TranSport below -- and my cousin Tom drove the T-1000 back and forth to Tahoe for years more, even when two of the four gears (manual transmission) didn't work. (I don't think reverse worked either at the end; I remember vaguely helping Tom push it out of a driveway after a family gathering.)

Finally, there was the magnificent Dustbuster.

See the full-sized image here.
My dad thought the Pontac TranSport was about the best-looking car ever made. To me it looked like the Space Shuttle in a funhouse mirror. But it was practical; we could carry lots of folks and lots of stuff in it. It sat up high, so you had a good view. When I co-chaired the Speakers' Bureau at CSUEB (we brought speakers to the university for talks and debates) I borrowed the Dustbuster to pick up VIPs at the airport. And, of course, the vehicle was made famous as the "Cadillac of Minivans" in Get Shorty.

A Crabby Post

2009-04-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

I don't know Craig Crossman, but he claims to be host of "the No. 1 daily national computer radio talk show, Computer America." I came across one of his articles, syndicated by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, on PhysOrg.com. This is the opening paragraph:

One of the really great computer applications is the ability to record audio and save it to a digital file. One of the more interesting recording applications these days are podcasts. Making a podcast is fairly straightforward. Besides the computer, all you basically need is the recording software and a microphone. As far as the recording software is concerned, deciding what program to use can be somewhat daunting in that there are so many titles available from which to choose.

Holy moly. This reads like a basic copyediting test: "How many mistakes can you find in this paragraph?"

Has McClatchy fired all of its editors?

Doctors and Patients

2009-04-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

An article in Monday's New York Times told about a radiologist who experimented with attaching a digital photograph of a patient (the outside of a patient, that is) to the patient's digital CT or MRI scans to see how doing so affected radiologists' interpretation of those scans. The abstract of his findings includes these results:

All radiologists felt more empathy to the patients after seeing the photograph. The photographs revealed medical information such as suffering or physical signs of disease. Out of the 30 cases which were presented twice, in 80% the incidental findings were not reported when the photograph was omitted from the file. All radiologists involved reported that the addition of the photograph did not lengthen the duration of the examination, however did render the interpretation more meticulous. All recommended adopting this idea to routine practice.

The Times article also implied that attaching a photo could have a similar effect on "pathologists and other doctors who rarely have contact with patients."

This reminded me of something that happened not long after Jane was first diagnosed with her brain tumor back in 1998. Our monthly support group at UC Davis Medical Center followed a format in which we'd alternate between open discussion one month (we called it "sharing") and a guest speaker the next. One month, the neuro-pathologist who had prepared Jane's initial pathology report -- a report that was quite dire in its prognosis -- was to be the speaker. (I'm embarrassed to admit I don't recall his name, but I remember that he looked like a guy who spent his days in a dark room performing experiments and looking through microscopes -- pale, rumpled, hunched.) We listened to his presentation, and learned a lot about how brain tumors were identified and classified. After the talk, Jane approached him, pathology report in hand.

Never a shrinking violet, she asked him to read and autograph the report. He was startled but polite; he looked at the report, looked at a very healthy and alert Jane, and said, "Clearly, I didn't know what the hell I was talking about." A huge smile broke across his face, and he autographed the report with a flourish.

We related this story a few times over the years, and the reaction was almost always the same. Our fellow travelers were happy that we had beaten the odds, proved the expert wrong, and got to tell him to his face. (One person was not amused, saying, "I would have sued his ass on the spot.")

I'm pretty certain that that pathologist learned as much that day as we did. By connecting a face, a personality, a person to that tiny "rat bite" of tissue on his microscope slide, he learned that his work exists in the context of real lives and that his words matter. This wouldn't mean that he should be overly optimistic in his reports, but it did mean that he had an obligation to be as precise, accurate, and honest as possible. It's a lesson that the radiologists in the above-mentioned study also seem to have learned.

Another reason to come to the SFBACC concert

2009-04-01T13:05:00.001-07:00

I've been baking Madeleines for the reception after the Saturday concert in Alameda. I dipped a bunch in chocolate today.

Full concert details are here.

Food Fun

2009-03-26T16:52:00.001-07:00

I have two bits of fun food news to share.

Sunset's One-Block Diet blog has been nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. My connection with this is tenuous at best; sweetheart Angela helps with some of the recipe testing (keen eyes can find her in some photos), and traveling companion Alan always seems often to be in photos partaking of the results. Still, I feel a sense of reflected pride. Congrats.

Also, Barbara and Kevin Brown, singing friends in SFBACC and proprietors of R&B Cellars, recently showed up on TV's Eye on the Bay along with their office manager Daphne Dahmen to prepare a lamb dish (made with R&B Swingsville Zinfandel) for Easter. Fun viewing, and Barbara says there's more on tap.

Check 'em out!

Musical Fun

2009-03-26T16:43:00.001-07:00

I have two upcoming concerts to announce:

1) The San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir will sing its spring concerts on Saturday and Sunday, April 4 and 5, in Alameda and Fremont, respectively. Concert time both nights is 7:00 p.m. We're singing a big range of music -- many, many short pieces -- ranging from Renaissance secular music to contemporary American madrigals. There's a reception after the Saturday concert with free snacks; I'll be baking Madeleines. Details, addresses, and etc. can be found here.

2) The Castro Valley Community Band has its spring concert on Wednesday evening, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. in the Castro Valley Center for the Arts. I bought a piece of music for the band from a publisher in France -- an arrangement of some of the music from the Umbrellas of Cherbourg -- that we'll play, along with our usual mix of showtunes, orchestral transcriptions, marches, and other fun stuff. And it's free!

Please consider yourselves invited.

Cisco Flips for Video

2009-03-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

The rumors were true: Cisco has purchased Pure Digital, the company that makes the Flip camcorder.

Cisco, of course, has been a beloved client of mine for years. And I'm a fan of Flip, and have done some mildly crazy things with mine (such as strapping it around my neck while skiing and making a hillbilly VCR out of it).

But what to make of the merger? Cisco historically has been very good at acquiring and integrating other business-focused technology companies into its corporate fold. Its acquisition of Linksys and its move into the home market has been generally well-handled, but that involved a networking company buying another networking company. The Pure/Flip company is a different beast, and I suspect it has a very different customer base. Dumber and cheaper, to be frank. (Remember, I'm a Flip devotee.)

My advice for Cisco (as if it wants my advice) is twofold: keep Pure's programmers, because I generally like the way FlipShare works (though not its appearance); and create a cheap, capacious battery-powered box that can offload videos from the Flip when I'm away from the computer. (For those of you who don't know: the Flip does not have removable memory, so once it's full, you can't record any more until you offload the videos.) If that box can be a network device too, fine; just keep it simple.

Last Night's "Wait, Wait" Taping

2009-02-20T09:38:00.001-08:00

I went with Angela and two friends to watch the taping of NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" last night (February 19, 2009) at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Panelists were Mo Rocca, Paula Poundstone, and Tom Bodett, and Frederica von Stade served as the "Not My Job" celebrity. (We were seated a few rows behind and across the aisle from her.) The taping took a long time, and it will be fun to hear on Saturday what gets left behind -- lots of scatological humor, probably, and a lot of awkward dead air when a snowplow operator from Colorado named Al couldn't come up with answers on the Listener Limerick Challenge. (We in the audience were practically jumping out of our skins trying to help the poor fellow.) Peter Sagal was charming and funny (though I found his oversized suit distracting), Carl Kasell looked kinda bored, and the panelists were great: Rocca stammering but smart, Poundstone following threads one step beyond their logical conclusions, and Bodett delivering low-key but pitch-perfect half-liners.

The other radio shows I've seen -- A Prairie Home Companion and the Grand Ole Opry -- are done live. They go out, flubs and all (though the broadcasts I've seen have been pretty flub-free). Wait, Wait, on the other hand, is recorded and edited. This gives the producers a chance to fix things after the bulk of the show is completed -- questions that get garbled, limericks that are mis-read, contestants' names that are given as "Tom" rather than "Brandon." (Ahem.) The engineers (three at a table, unsure what each one did) must keep constant track of what doesn't work, because these pickups were recorded immediately after the show was completed. After that Carl and Peter prowled the audience for a couple of quick questions.

Jill Sobule's "California Years" arrives!

2009-02-19T15:21:00.000-08:00

The CD of Jill Sobule's fan-sponsored album, California Years, arrived in the mail today. I'm officially a Junior Executive Producer!

Its appearance is a little spot of joy in an otherwise terribly stressful day.

Unfortunately I won't be able to listen to it carefully until tomorrow night. For now, I'm happy just to look at it on my desk.

Birthday Wishes

2009-01-22T21:38:00.001-08:00

Today would have been Jane's 47th birthday.

She's on my mind every day, but moreso today. That's obvious, and intentional.

I spent the morning matting and framing three of her linoleum block prints. They're among my favorites of her artworks: one resembles redwood bark, one describes a redwood frond, and one shows a redwood tree. She loved redwoods, to the point of naming her company Studio Sempervirens. The prints, particularly the image of the full tree from below, are rich and evocative. I cut three windows in a single mat and mounted the prints vertically. The photo below is glary, but you get the idea; come by and see them up close sometime.

It was good to look carefully at something she had seen, handle something she had made, and enhance a beautiful piece of art she had created.

In the afternoon I headed for Jane's niche at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. (Visits were also paid to Piedmont Springs and Fenton's.) I freshened the flowers and ate a late lunch. My tradition has become to have sushi and beer when I visit. While I was there, a couple came through with a dog on a leash to visit a gravesite. My thoughts turned to Delta, who regularly accompanied me to Mountain View. Followers of the Castro Valley Boulevardier know that I had to let her go over the weekend when virulent abdominal cancer returned just six weeks after its initial appearance and resection.

It's been a big week. Between Martin Luther King Day, the inauguration, Jane's birthday, Delta's death, and more, I'm pretty well spent.

Writing, Music, and Envy

2009-01-21T14:47:00.000-08:00

Some of you know I'm envious of Mark Salzman. He's a famous, handsome author (his Lying Awake is one of my favorite books) who's also quite a good cellist. I'm a busy but obscure writer and mediocre bari sax player.

Today, in the course of writing a press release for Cal Performances, I encountered another person to envy: Dean Elzinga. In addition to being an esteemed and busy singer, he has also worked professionally as a technical writer. Cool thing is, he still lists "Writer & Editor" on his LinkedIn profile, along with "International, Classical Bass-Baritone Singer."

Mr. Elzinga will be in Berkeley on March 13, singing Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon with the Brentano String Quartet. I'll be there, wearing green.

Inaugural Neighborhood Ball

2009-01-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

One of the hard things about working at home alone is that I don't get to chat with coworkers about current events. (Upside: I save a ton by not having HBO, or even cable TV.) But my friend Peter Fish asked me via email if I had watched any of the inaugural festivities, and I tapped out the following; thought I'd share it with the world.

Watched a bit of the Neighborhood Ball last night (Beyonce and Stevie, and Sting looking like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting). Funniest thing (to me) was the hostess (not sure who it was) in a 30-second interview with the President asking "So, what are you going to do on your first day in the office?" I'm sure she was expecting something like, "I'm going to do the usual stuff -- find out where the bathrooms are, get my new business cards, figure out the phones, har har har." But instead he went into an earnest talk about all the work that needs to be done. Perhaps sensing that he was getting a little serious for the moment, he softened and said that he just wanted to savor the evening.

Michelle Gamble-Risley on ABC News

2009-01-14T22:50:00.000-08:00

Michelle Gamble-Risley, who as editor of California Computer News gave me an opportunity early in my freelancing career, was on ABC News recently, sharing career- and life-changing ideas from her new book, Second Bloom. Congratulations, Michelle!

On Money

2009-01-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

I came across this quote today, from Norwegian writer Arne Garborg:

"It is said that for money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food but not appetite; medicine, but not health; knowledge, but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything, but not the kernel."

Several different translations are out there, but the essence is the same.

2008 Christmas Letter

2008-12-22T06:26:00.000-08:00

Holiday greetings. This is my experiment in a Green Christmas--some of you received reused cards, and I'm publishing my Christmas missive on the Internet rather than sending out another piece of paper to toss. (You can click on any picture for a larger view.) We’ll see how it works.

I’m still self-employed as a writer (business continues to be good, I’m glad to report), singing in the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir and playing baritone sax in the Castro Valley Community Band. This fall I joined a small new vocal ensemble (11 people) that specializes in Renaissance motets. I do a little writing for fun (and garnered a bit of local attention for doing so) and stay physically active.

I rang in the New Year on a beach in Mexico. I visited Las Bocas (don’t look for it on a map--you won’t find it) with my band friends Kathy and Dave for a week; I spent the time helping with projects around their house, beachcombing, reading, and discovering how much of my high school Spanish I could recall. (Quite a bit, it turns out.) It was beautiful but surprisingly cold. I drove to Las Bocas with K&D, but for my return trip I took a bus to Phoenix (much more of an adventure than anticipated, because of a dumb mistake on our part) and a plane to the Bay Area. On the way home I visited in Phoenix with Carol, a choir friend and retired counselor from Hayward High.

New Year's Beach Bonfire with Dave. (Kathy's behind the camera.)

In April I traveled to China with a Hayward Chamber of Commerce junket with my former Sunset colleague Alan. We went to Beijing, Shanghai, and a few smaller cities (as in fewer than a zillion people). We saw some of the Olympic structures before they were completed, took in the legendary smog, ate some shockingly bad food, and were encouraged to shop, shop, shop. Our best experiences came when we managed to slip away from the group and explore on our own.

On The Not-So-Great Wall with Alan.

Also in April, I spent my 47th birthday in Los Angeles visiting with yoga friends Paul W. and Adelaide, lifelong friend Paul R., former Sunset colleague Matt and his wife Becky, my college pal Tom, and online correspondent (and maybe distant cousin) Joanna. I took in a Dodgers game (thanks for the tickets, 'Teo), ate some fine meals, saw some sights, and generally basked in the kind attention of dear people.

We ate how many Dodger Dogs?
Also, note that I wore blue and left my Giants cap at home.

For the better part of the year--literally and figuratively--I’ve dated a charming woman named Angela. She’s a former colleague, a fellow widowed person, and a joy to be with. She and I took an early-Summer trip to the American South--specifically, Nashville, Memphis, Muscle Shoals (AL), and the Natchez Trace. The journey brimmed with spontaneous discoveries, surprising beauty, delicious food, and friendly folks.

On the porch at Graceland with Angela.

Later in the summer we Sandsmarks had our annual houseboat trip on Lake Shasta. In spite of some challenges--low water levels, high gas prices, and Nicole getting sick--the trip was a chance to hang out with the family (all the nieces and nephews came), sleep, and read. (Those are the choices if, like me, you don’t play Guitar Hero.) Paul and Mike helped me make BBQ pizza for dinner one night.

Houseboating is hard work.

I marked the anniversary of Jane’s death with a solo road trip to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. I visited some of our favorite places and attended the Labor Day Yoga Retreat at the White Lotus Foundation. The folks at WLF were instrumental in Jane’s well-being--and mine--during the nine years she was ill, and WLF was the right place to be for this important occasion.

The White Lotus Swimming Hole.

The year wrapped up with Mike, Carol, Nicole and Jenni visiting in early December. (Michelle’s in college in Hawaii, poor dear.) We celebrated Mike’s and Linda’s birthdays with lunch for 16 here at Outlook Court. I took the opportunity to give them both some of their own childhood toys out of the attic. There’s a lot more cleaning to do in this old house, but fortunately there’s no rush to do it.

December Birthdays.

I had one other bit of adventure at the end of the year: Delta (the hound) collapsed on a routine morning walk; a veterinary exam showed she had a large tumor on her spleen that had ruptured. Her spleen was removed (don’t ask how much that cost) and while she was under she had a cyst removed from a hind leg. She’s recovering well, but the spleen tumor proved to be malignant; the prognosis isn’t great, but for now she’s comfortable and happy.

The Spleenless Wonder Dog.

And given all the turmoil in the world—particularly in the economy—comfortable and happy isn’t bad. I wish you all a peaceful, prosperous 2009.

I don't know why I find this funny

2008-12-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

... but I do:

Let Me Google That For You

Patient-led Drug Trials

2008-12-01T09:52:00.001-08:00

An article by Marcus Wohlsen appeared on the AP over the weekend, regarding ALS patients who are conducting their own clinical trial using lithium. A snippet:

Dozens of ALS patients are testing treatments on their own without waiting on the slow pace of medical research. They are part of an emerging group of patients willing to share intimate health details on the Web in hopes of making their own medical discoveries.

I can certainly relate to the desire to speed up treatment plans. It's part of the need that patients with life-threatening illnesses have to take some control of their situation amid circumstances that feel hopeless. Others might look to nutrition, natural remedies, spirituality, etc. Personally (and quite unscientifically), I think it all helps, because I believe that hopelessness is poisonous.

Wohlsen's article also reminded me of the Virtual Trial being conducted by the Musella Foundation. The foundation deserves a plug here; I hope you'll follow the link to read about the Virtual Trial and the other good work the Musella Foundation does.

P.S. The AP link above will expire on January 1, 2009.

Brain Tumor News from Seattle

2008-11-30T17:53:00.000-08:00

Dr. Greg Foltz at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle is doing some interesting work around genetic mapping of brain tumors. A thorough article from the Seattle Times (reprinted by PhysOrg.com) talks about how he's approaching the disease in a number of creative ways. Some big guns (including Mitchel Berger, Jane's surgeon at UCSF, and Henry Friedman of Duke) are quoted in the article. A snippet:

Foltz and his colleagues genetically map each tumor they remove or biopsy, examining 30,000 genes to determine which are switched off or on. The pattern can reveal genetic glitches responsible for a specific cancer's runaway growth. Such mapping is done at major brain-cancer centers for select patients such as Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., recently diagnosed with brain cancer.

Foltz does it for every patient, free of charge.

The article also says that Dr. Foltz gives all of his patients his cell phone number, which is pretty cool; brain surgeons can be kind of aloof. The article's well worth a read. Maybe we Norwegians and the Swedes can get along after all.

Singing in the Air

2008-11-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

The choir I've sung with for the last quarter-century, the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir, sang its fall concerts this last weekend. We were favorably reviewed by Jason Victor Serinus of San Francisco Classical Voice. A couple of choice snippets:

Moments arise when the usual checklist of critical absolutes gets set aside and you just listen and sit back and enjoy. Such was the case at the first of two fall concerts by the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir.

and

If there’s one thing this choir has down pat, it’s how to achieve a hallowed sound. Again and again, SFBACC created an ethereal, plangent sound ideal for its chosen repertoire. Nothing was workaday about this performance.

The complete review is here. If you missed hearing the choir, we're singing on December 4, 2008 at Hayward's Light Up The Season downtown event. We sing at 5:45 and 6:45 at the Bank of the West, and at 7:45 in the City Hall Rotunda for the official tree-lighting ceremony.

Coincidentally but very much related, the "This I Believe" essay that ran on NPR this weekend featured Brian Eno talking about the positive benefits of singing a cappella with a group.

I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness, and a better sense of humor.

The whole essay is worth reading, or better, hearing.

San Francisco Street Parking

2008-11-21T14:17:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about SFpark, the city's pilot program for market-rate street parking. On October 24 I had the opportunity to interview the intellectual godfather behind the idea, Professor Donald Shoup of UCLA, for a short article that will appear soon in Oracle's PROFIT magazine. Here's the piece:

Market Pricing Meets Market Street
SF Uses Technology to Improve Street Parking

Imagine always finding street parking wherever you go. With the help of new technology, this utopian fantasy is being pursued in car-clogged San Francisco.

In a pilot program called SFpark, officials are linking together sensors embedded in parking spots, multi-space parking meters, and information technology, with three interrelated goals: monitoring inventory, managing prices, and spreading information. The idea: to tweak parking prices in real time so roughly 15 percent of spaces—about one spot per block on each side of a street—is always available. It’s market-pricing meets Market Street.

“It’ll be much more like selling other products,” predicts Donald Shoup, professor of urban planning at UCLA and an advisor to SFpark. And, he says, there’s a side benefit for city coffers: “There’ll be less shoplifting.” (That is, the city will know when motorists park without paying.)

SFpark will publish real-time information about parking prices on the internet and via text message. It won’t send out specific information on available parking spaces, so (at least in theory) you won’t see distracted drivers scanning their iPhones rather than the road. Instead, the goal is to encourage consumers to make informed choices—perhaps, if parking is costly, to travel at another time, walk or take the bus, or shop in a different neighborhood.

It follows that better street parking will result in improved traffic flow and air quality. Research shows that about 30 percent of cars in busy urban areas are looking for parking at any given time, Shoup says, and one study he conducted in the cozy UCLA neighborhood of Westwood Village showed that cars cruising for parking drove the equivalent of four round trips to the moon in a single year. “This is in one little 15-block area,” he says. “The same thing’s happening everywhere in the world.”

SFpark’s pilot program will cover about 25 percent of metered street parking in San Francisco. It starts in spring of 2009 and will run for a year.

In spite of my many attempts, San Francisco officials involved in the project didn't call me back before my deadline had passed, so (assuming the Chronicle article is accurate, which I do) a couple of important details are missing from my article. One, the rates will not change in real time; instead, "The hourly rates would not be adjusted more frequently than once a month and would not go up or down by more than 50 cents at a time." And two, the hourly parking rate could go as high as $18. This last number has prompted a predictable (and perhaps justified) cry of outrage from an aggrieved driver in the form of a letter to the editor, claiming "The future is clear - slowly but surely, auto use in San Francisco will be reserved for the very rich and/or the very politically connected."