Business & Real Estate

How an attorney stopped a cemetery from raising 'rent'

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When I first transplanted from New York out West, I lived in Southern California. My mom would often remind me to visit with Uncle Harold and Aunt Lilly, my great-aunt and great-uncle. I had never met them. They lived in San Leandro, a town I had never heard of.

Quite a few years later, I traveled to the Bay Area and looked Harold and Lilly up. They were family and we had a grand time – telling stories, playing card games and breaking bread. We became close, and they drew me to Northern California. In the early 2000s, I moved up this way.

Meet the sweet-tooth whisperers

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TOWN CRIER FILE PHOTO
A child investigates Sugarbaby Sweetshoppe’s bulk candy selection. The store’s owners are surprised that only approximately one-third of their customers are kids.

Darren Howze and his wife, Colleen, own Sugarbaby Sweetshoppe on State Street, which opened in February. They have prided themselves on changing their selection to keep up with the changing seasons – and tastes – of Los Altos.

With a fresh pair of eyes

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Courtesy Los Altos Eyecare. A visit to Los Altos Eyecare may include an examination using the practice’s digital refractor.

Once she finished school in Boston, optometrist Morvari Ahi could have gone anywhere. She chose to come home.

“I grew up here,” she said. “I wanted to provide eyecare to the community that provided me so much growing up.”

One of history's worst mutual funds teaches investors a wealth of lessons

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Investors holding mutual funds in 2008 that dropped 30 percent or more may think the funds were among the worst funds anyone has ever owned. Think again. There is one fund that many agree qualifies as the worst ever (not counting outright frauds like Bernie Madoff’s) – the Steadman Technology & Growth Fund.

The Steadman family of funds started in 1939, but it recently came to my attention through a June article in ValueWalk.com. According to the article, ever since Charles Steadman assumed personal management of the funds in the early 1960s, they were always at the bottom of the performance charts.

Maybe think twice before extending that warranty

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I was in an electronics store the other day and at checkout they asked – doing their best “Would you like some fries with that?” routine – if I would like to purchase a warranty.

I never buy a service contract. Most good products come with a decent warranty, and if I shop at Costco, it tends to extend that warranty by an extra year.