The Oppenheimer Report 8/30/10

Today’s rant begins with my consternation about the seemingly random pricing of cross border postage and shipping. The other day, we ordered some exhibit pedestals from Florida for an upcoming glass show. It was going to cost $250 to send them up here to Katrine, Ontario, but if I had them sent to Buffalo, it was only $60. It’s another $190 simply for the privilege of crossing the border … what exactly are we supposed to be gaining from the NAFTA agreement? My other pet peeve is Canada Post. The mail system in Canada has become, in my opinion, a giant cluster f-ck of disorganization, as well as ridiculously expensive. How is it that it can cost just about one dollar to send a post card to the States, but only 25 cents to instantly fax a four page document there? I’m also finding that Canada Post seems to lose a lot of things I send to the U.S. Twice in the last year I have paid their exorbitant rates to send small packages to the States only to have them lost with no apparent accountability. One item I sent out was returned to me several months later, postmarked halfway around the world, with no explanation why it never got where it was supposed to go. While these were not valuable items, I expected them to get where they were going without having to re-send them. Forget about disgruntled postal workers, what about the disgruntled customers?




Reading the CNN business section online the other day, I came across an article about the five most affordable housing markets in the U.S. As soon as I saw the story, I thought to myself, “Gee, Buffalo housing is cheap, I wonder if Buffalo made the grade.” Sure enough, Buffalo, N.Y. is rated number five for most affordable housing. Of course, the example they gave was a ranch style house in Amherst, N.Y., one of the more desirable suburbs. If one is willing to move into the ever-shrinking inner city, the houses become even more affordable. When I lived in Buffalo, in rem ( i.e for back taxes) , one could purchase a habitable, inner city house for ten thousand dollars or less. Add to that the cost of a few locks and a shotgun, and it’s still a great deal. Periodically, I receive a market report from one of the local real estate companies in Buffalo, and I am constantly amazed by how inexpensive good houses are in the vicinity of my Mom and Dad’s house. A large brick home with a half acre lot and a detached garage, located in one of Buffalo’s more prestigious neighborhoods, recently sold in the city for about $400,000. In Toronto, that same home would cost seven times as much. A long time ago, when I was still working for my father selling industrial real estate, he and I sold the largest of the three Trico wiper blade plants to a Toronto developer. They couldn’t believe how inexpensive it was, and while nobody locally could see a future for this obsolete, eight storey, 700,000 square foot industrial facility, these developers jumped at the opportunity. At some considerable expense, they have since been transformed it into the Tri-Main Center. It is now a viable, profit-making multi-use industrial facility, home to many small businesses in Buffalo. Now that there is some talk about re-developing the downtown core into a high tech medical research campus, perhaps Buffalo will become a less well kept secret.



A propos to nothing, the above photograph was taken in Rose’s apartment, and I love the hat. I’m thinking of wearing it to a Shriner’s convention. Perhaps I could wear it to my next Jewish wedding as a sort of frontier yarmulke. As for the mink stoles, who decided that having a dead animal draped around one’s neck was a desirable fashion statement? Do you like my stole … I skinned it myself? Whenever I see a “coonskin” cap, I am reminded of a radio “blooper” I once heard. Advertising a mattress for a children’s bed, which included an illustration of Daniel Boone, the ad read: “Hey kids, come and see Daniel Boone in action on the bed” Yowza! I don’t want to think of Daniel Boone that way.



Happy week before Labor Day. Where did the summer go?





Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED