Fred Sandsmark's Blog

Back in June 2000 I wrote an article for California Computer News about OneShare.com I had met the CEO, Lance Lee, at a White Lotus retreat; I was doing a package of stories on online investing, and OneShare made a fun sidebar, I thought.

Not long ago, I saw an article by Mike Cassidy in the San Jose Mercury News. OneShare is still going strong, and Lance is still running it. So much has changed in the last nine years; this continuity made me happy.

Here's my original article. I'm pretty happy with it, almost a decade later.

ONESHARE.COM SELLS BIG-NAME STOCKS A SHARE AT A TIME

By Fred Sandsmark

One of the numbers you often see in stock reports is volume — the number of individual shares of stock that change hands in a single day. With today's huge institutional investors and speedy electronic trading, it's not unusual for the volume to reach a billion — yes, billion — shares a day.

In that context, it seems unusual to sell just one share of stock. But that's exactly what OneShare.com does: it sells single shares of about 100 different stocks, ranging from AT&T to the World Wrestling Federation.

Lance Lee, a former broker, founded San Francisco-based OneShare.com in 1996 and remains the company's CEO. "I noticed that people were trying to transact single shares," Lee recalled. "My brokerage, like most brokerages, really discouraged it. It's actually very costly for the company."

So Lee started a company specifically to sell single shares. Oneshare.com began as a direct-mail business, but has grown into a busy online operation, with two-thirds of its business done over the Web. The company has sold 35,000 shares since it was founded.

Lee estimates that 30 percent of the stocks he's sold are bought for children, by their parents or grandparents, to mark special events or to teach kids about investing. His company serves this market with a colorful "My First Stock" frame and tutorial brochure. Oneshare.com provides its service for about $30 a share (plus the cost of the stock and optional framing). That may sound steep, but when compared with a broker, it's not bad. "If you go to a deep-discount broker, their com-
mission might be just $8," explained Lee. "But their certificate fee might be $25. It can add up."

And in spite of those fees, a broker might not treat the expensive piece of paper with care. For example, many brokerages fold certificates for mailing. OneShare.com ships them flat, since many customers display the certificates like works of art. A prime example is Disney stock (OneShare.corn's best-seller), which features a image of Walt with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and other characters.

But stock certificates are more than pretty pictures. Each share of stock comes with rights and privileges. For example, every shareholder receives the company's annual report, and can attend — and vote at — the company's annual shareholders' meeting. (In darker days at Apple Computer in 1986, Steve Jobs sold all but one of his shares of Apple stock. He unloaded the shares to protest John Scully's management, but he still wanted to attend Apple's annual meeting.)

Some companies even send gifts to their shareholders — for example, McDonalds has sent coupons for food, and Wrigley has sent chewing gum. Companies that pay dividends mail checks (sometimes for just pennies per share) to shareholders.

And in select cases, a single share can confer the right to invest in the company without using a broker. This is called a Direct Reinvestment Plan (DRP). Shareholders in companies with DRPs (some examples are Campbell's Soup and General Electric) can invest as little as $10 per month, while some DRPs allow monthly purchases of up to $10,000.

But OneShare.com doesn't oversell these programs; its goal remains educational. "Our aim is to teach people about the fundamentals of stock investing," says Lee. "And not to make day traders," he adds with a chuckle.

Labels: clips, fun, money, personal history, writing

Some days the Internet delivers wonderful treasure. Today's one of those days, when I got an email from a guy I'd interviewed eight years ago. With his permission, I've posted the email here. The article in which he's quoted - published in 2001 - is below his note. (Remember, this was before WiFi or iPhones or Facebook.)

Hi Fred,

I stumbled over this article on your website while I was searching google for myself haha. It's Friday and I was bored at work...

Emailing just to say hi, as requested in the Afterword of the piece. I remember answering your questions (I must have droned on and on), but wasn't sure of which magazine it was for. In the end I figured it never got published, which I thought was a shame as I never got to read it. Anyway, glad it did get published and I enjoyed your article (even the stuff not about me!), I'd forgotten about using the internet in the Indian chap's little house.

Anyway, thanks for putting it online. I was happy to read it.

Best wishes for your future publishing undertakings.

Graeme
Glasgow, Scotland
(currently in London, England)

World Wide Wandering

Online travelogues are informative and easy to create, even while you’re traveling

By Fred Sandsmark

Most of us create a packing list - at least a mental one - when we prepare for a trip. It has basics like changes of clothes, credit cards, prescriptions, and maps, as well as other helpful things like guidebooks, beach towels, and binoculars. But these days, many travelers are also packing digital cameras and laptop computers to document their trips - and they're posting their adventures on the Web, sometimes right from the road.

Take Brice Wong of Vancouver, British Columbia. Last fall, before embarking on a 10-day road trip with two friends to go mountain biking in Moab, Utah, Wong packed a "mobile office" - computer, digital camera, PDA, several mobile phones, and an inverter (to run 120-volt devices from the cigarette lighter) - in his Mazda B4000 4X4 pickup, along with the bikes. Wong and friends produced a travelogue, hilarious and occasionally profane (this was a pickup-full of twentysomethmg males, after all), and posted it at www.futurelooks.com. The journal's not just for laughs, though; the descriptions of Moab's mountain-bike trails are frequently as vivid as the famous red rocks themselves.

Why did Wong create the travelogue? "People are nosy," he says with a laugh, "so I figured, why not share our fun and adventures with the world? Plus, it gives people who have never been to Moab a true sense of what it's really like. Sometimes travel agents and magazines and promotional materials really don't give you the whole truth, but if you read someone's journal or diary you're going to get the real deal."

What’s my motivation?

Another good reason to keep an online travelogue: It's easier than ever. A handful of Web sites make travelogue creation a simple click-and-type operation that any technophobe can handle. But the motivation for individual traveloguers varies. For Graeme Renfrew - who quit a "subterranean desk job" in Glasgow, Scotland, cashed in his pension, and set out on a 14-monih trip around the world - a travelogue is an easy, inexpensive way to check in with the family (his travelogue can be found at www.travelpod.com). "It's cheaper than phoning home," says Renfrew. "The Web travelogue lets me tell them everything is OK from a distance. And if they aren't interested, it doesn't bother me."

Vanity drives a lot of traveloguing, too. "We refer to it as ego gratification," says J. R. Johnson, chief executive officer of VirtualTourist.com. "It's the same reason that your grandparents sat you down in front of the screen to see their slide show of Europe. There's some bragging involved in showing all the places you've been."

But Johnson thinks most traveloguers who use his service just want to share their knowledge. "For the most part, our members just really like helping other people," he says. "They had a good time, and they want other travelers to do the same." That often means posting specific restaurant and hotel recommendations, sightseeing suggestions, and hard-won "insider" advice.

Some people use a travelogue for capturing impressions, telling personal stories, and flexing creative wings. (Adjective alert: Amateur travelogues frequently contain prose as purple as the final fleeting flares of a simmering sunset over the tranquil waters of a steamy tropical South Pacific atoll.) Other travelers just post a skeleton of their travelogue as they go, recording events in real time, and then flesh out their account with photos, movies, sounds, and Web links when they get hack home.

Bring it on home

You don't need to carry a lot of equipment to create an online travelogue. Even Wong (of the mobile office) tries to be sensible: "I know there are lots of different sorts of gadgets and stuff on the market," he says, "but sometimes you have to really sit and think, 'How practical and reliable is this thing I'm going to be lugging around with me?' Because, man, I tell you, I hate carrying useless stuff."

People who choose to travel light can use public computers in libraries, copy shops, and hotels. There are also cyber-cafes - coffeehouses that sell Internet access by the minute. They're not hard to find in North America, or even abroad. "Last year while in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I saw five Internet cafes side by side," recalls Luc Levesque, who runs the TravelPod Web site. "Just about everyone, from restaurants to coffee shops to public libraries to laundromats, has a PC with a modem waiting for your five dollars."

Renfrew agrees - and says that these spots can often provide a window into the local culture. "There are Internet connections anywhere there are tourists with money to spend and friends to contact," he says. "One of the places I went into to check my E-mail [in India] was just some bloke's two-room house, with blue-washed walls and ceilings so low I had to crouch to get in. There was a shrine to Shiva in the same room as the clunky PC, and his mum and sister were doing each other’s hair and singing behind me. It wasn’t exactly high-tech - but it worked.”

How to create your own travelogue

Many Web sites can help you produce a travelogue. Here are a few of our favorites; all are free and none require technical expertise.

Blogger (www.blogger.com) creates Web logs or "blogs," which are just simple Web sites whose contents are organized chronologically. A blog can produce a serviceable travelogue, but you must provide the Web space to host it.

By Travelers (www.bytravelers.com) lets you link a map from its library with your travelogue. Otherwise, the site is bare-bones, so the focus is on storytelling rather than flashy features.

TravelPod (www.travelpod.com) can send E-mail to a preset group of people every time your travelogue is updated. It also gives the option of assigning a password to a travelogue, so only friends and family can see it. Photos and movies can be added, too.

VirtualTourist (www.virtualtourist.com) is an extensive travel community site that hosts travelogues. It asks specific questions about hotels, restaurants, nightlife, tourist traps, and such to elicit users’ opinions. One clever feature: You can use photos posted by other members (the site boasts more than 140,000 members) as electronic postcards.

AfterWords:

This article appeared in the short-lived Mazda Zoom-Zoom magazine in winter of 2001. It remains one of my favorites, mostly because I had the good fortune of locating wonderful interview subjects. Unfortunately, I've lost contact with them. Brice and Graeme, if you find this, please drop a line!

Copyright © 2001, 2006, 2009 / Fred Sandsmark / Marble Publishing

Labels: clips, email, fun, gadgets, Internet, personal history, travel, writing

Our family was driving to South Dakota when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. I remember watching it on a snowy black-and-white TV, somewhere in the heartland. (Normally, we wouldn't spring for a motel - much less one with a TV - so this was a big deal.)

That summer, Gulf Oil gave away paper cutout models of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) if you bought a tank of gas. Mike and I got several of these during the trip, and one survives to this day - it's been hanging in the attic for decades.



Another of the paper models was built with a Black Cat payload. That one never made it back.

P.S. Turns out you can download, print out, and build your own Gulf LEM, along with many other spacecraft. Now that's what the Internet was made for.

Labels: history, Internet, news, personal history, science, travel, TV

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.

Labels: cars, personal history

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.

Labels: brain tumor, health, Jane, medicine, news, people, personal history, science, work

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.

Labels: Jane, news, personal history

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.

Labels: media, personal history, politics, TV, work

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.

Labels: friends, Jane, personal history

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.

Labels: health, music, personal history, radio, singing

I drove past the Mervyn's headquarters on Foothill Boulevard in Hayward yesterday morning around 8:00 a.m. The parking lot was empty, except for a TV truck with its transmitter mast extended. I knew immediately that the local retailer was calling it quits.

I have a bit of a history with Mervyn's (apart from just buying lots of clothes there over the years). As a kid I delivered their advertising circulars for a year or so. Published every week, the ads were distinctive in that they used illustrations rather than photographs of the merchandise. I'd get a bundle of these flyers on Monday after school; I'd roll and rubber-band them, and toss them onto maybe 150 porches in my neighborhood. It was less work than a daily paper route and didn't involve collecting, so it was a great job for me. I don't remember how much I made, but I remember that it was my own money.

When I was at CSUH I did an internship in the PR office at Mervyn's headquarters, working for Lizette Weiss and Joanne Johnston, both of whom subsequently held many distinguished media relations jobs in the Bay Area. This was when Mervyn's had its headquarters in the industrial area of Hayward. It was a fun internship, and it came at a time (1983) when the company was on the move.

Another connection was made when Mervyn's moved its headquarters into the old Capwells' building in downtown Hayward. I had worked in Capwell's for a few years in college, and was glad to hear that the building would get a new life. Though I never went into the building after it became offices, I remember hearing from friends at Sunset Custom Publishing that the escalators were still in place between the two floors. Mervyn's took very good care of a signature piece of property in town, and it will be hard to find another business to take that spot.

Now the building will be vacant again, and an important local business has disappeared. The job losses are sad, of course, but sadder still to me is the idea that a retailer with deep roots here in the East Bay -- and deep personal connections -- is gone.

Labels: CSUH, Hayward, jobs, people, personal history, retail, sales, work