A parent's impression of San Francisco State

Would you like to go to a college that has puppies and free massages? If so, San Francisco State might be for you. Just beware of parking tickets and tsunamis.

I've toured S.F. State twice, once in 2018 with my daughter, and again in 2019 with my son. While these visits didn't give me a full picture of the university, I did leave with some strong impressions.

San Francisco State is an urban campus on the west side of San Francisco. There is a large mall immediately to the north and heavily trafficked Highway One on its eastern boundary.

On both my visits, the campus was filled with students hurriedly coming and going. San Francisco State is not so much a tranquil venue of intellectual thought as a buzzing hub of learning for busy students.

A view of San Francisco State from the top of the Student Union

The campus is compact, and to create space many of the buildings are tall. But it has surprises. You might not expect to find a soccer stadium tucked into the tight confines of the campus, but if you wander behind the tall buildings and look behind some trees, there it is.

Our 2019 guide, Victor, was fun and entertaining and noted that on certain days of the week the school brings in puppies as "therapy" for stressed students (sometimes it's kittens, or even piglets).  Wednesdays are "Free Massage Day" -- for everyone, not just students.

Unfortunately, we were there on a Tuesday, so we missed out on the free massages. But we did get something else. Just as our tour was about to end, a loud horn sounded over the whole campus. It was alarming, honestly, but Victor explained that it was a test of the tsunami warning system that sounds every Tuesday at noon.

Speaking of warnings, Victor was emphatic that students should not even think about bringing a car to campus. Parking is hard-to-find, expensive and aggravating. Parking officers, Victor explained, will literally wait as the last five minutes on your meter runs out and then give you a ticket. You might think that once you get that ticket you won't get any more that day. But you'd be wrong. Victor said officers will ticket you again and again -- one person he knew got seven tickets in one day in one spot.

Rather than drive, take the bus. The school's One Card ID includes a free pass for all San Francisco buses and discounts for the BART train system.

Another positive: A modern and expansive student recreation center, complete with a rock wall, multiple gyms, workout classes, and plenty of exercise equipment.

We didn't get to see any of the dorms on our tours. Victor suggested that some of the rooms are very small, but if you're willing to pay more you might do better.

You can't really learn much about academics on a campus tour, even two of them, so be sure to look around elsewhere to find out about that. 

A parent's impressions of Sonoma State University

I've visited Sonoma State University twice with each of my children, got official tours both times and also strolled the campus on our own.

The visits didn't go perfectly -- there was the rain and the undercooked pasta. after all -- but I still found a lot to like about this college about an hour north of San Francisco.

The mostly flat, Sonoma campus is a pretty, pleasant place to be. Groves of tall, evergreen trees are sprinkled throughout the campus. The grass is green, the lawns tidy. While the overall acreage is not great compared to other colleges, the campus still seems spacious.

An unrelenting downpour fell on my first visit to campus in 2018, so my daughter and I didn't explore much. But the next year, my son and I arrived on a warm day and wandered around a bit. Behind the classroom buildings there is a small man-made lake that supposedly has fish (we found it a little dirty), and some short paths through the woods.
 
The buildings are fairly modern -- though the campus first opened in 1961, it went through a major renovation starting in 2001. We did find one building, Stevenson Hall, that seemed a little older, as evidenced by the ivy running up the side. That won't last -- the building is scheduled for a complete renovation, our guide said.

Ivy on Stevenson Hall

Almost everyone we encountered on campus was nice. One sophomore girl, unprompted, happily stepped in to take some pictures of my son and I by a fountain.

Most colleges do not offer a view of dorm rooms as part of their regular campus tours, but SSU does, likely because this is one of their strengths. I don't even want to call them "dorms," because the housing is all more like apartments.

On both my visits, we were shown a four-person suite that featured two double-occupancy bedrooms, a shared living room, and bath area with separate shower and toilet rooms (so one person showering doesn't tie up the whole bathroom). No need to stumble down a long hallway in your bathrobe to a bathroom shared by 15 or 20 people.

The "show" rooms were dressed up in brightly colored furnishings from Bed, Bath and Beyond. Still, looking beyond that bling, you could see the rooms were bigger than you would expect. Some of the freshman dorm rooms even come with small kitchens

The rooms for older students were supposed to be even nicer (though we didn't see them); some  include floor warmers for cold winter days.

There are two outdoor pools by the dorms and, during my second visit, plenty of students were in the pool on a Monday afternoon enjoying the warm weather, talking and laughing. The phrase "party pool" came to mind.

And for students living on campus, laundry is completely FREE.

Still, there was the pasta. On my second visit, my son and I sat down for a lunch at the main campus eatery. Digging into the pasta we found about one out of every six pieces of pasta hard and chewy. Ugh. And my son didn't like his marinara sauce either.

Also, our guide said there was a "frozen mountain lion" on display in the basement of the science building. But when we later went to look for it, we couldn't find it.

OK, no campus is perfect. But SSU does have a shiny modern student recreation center with climbing walls, three gyms and plenty of workout equipment.  Students can "check out" camping gear for their own outings, or sign on to an arranged trip.

You might note that this article doesn't have much about academics. That's partly because that's hard to "see" on a tour of campus, and also because our guides didn't spend much time on it. You'll need to do your own research.

How to park for free at Universal Studios Hollywood

Parking for the day at Universal Studios Hollywood, the theme park in Los Angeles, costs a minimum of $25 and can be as high as $50.  Wouldn't it be nice to park instead for free?

You can, and it's not that hard, as long as you go on a day when the show "Family Feud" is taping. "Family Feud" films immediately next to Universal Studios and, to fill the audience, it gives out free tickets.

Here's the key point: Advance ticket holders to "Family Feud" are given a free pass to park in Universal's parking garage. Once you're there, there's nothing to stop you from going to the theme park instead of the show.

"Family Feud" tapes a lot, so you have a fair chance of finding a taping on the day you want to go to Universal Studios. You can find the schedule here. Some episodes do fill up, so plan at least a week ahead of time.

The REAL cost of driving

Some of you may have read my earlier post, "The cost of driving."  As life-changing as that post was, I realize now that it just wasn't good enough.

In that post, I concluded that the cost of driving my car was 26.3 cents a mile. But after some consideration, I think that's too low because I'm underestimating the cost of depreciation.

My previous calculation simply looked at the drop in the value of my car if I added 20,000 miles to it. That came to 2.7 cents per mile.

But that's a very narrowly focused view of depreciation because it fails to take into account the fact that every mile driven takes you closer to the day when your car will just not be worth driving anymore and you'll have to buy a new one.  That last mile -- whenever it happens -- will be VERY expensive.

So it seems to me the fairest way to assess overall depreciation is to take the total cost of a new car and divide by the number of miles it lasts.  This requires some assumptions, and I'll start by estimated my next car will cost $25,000 (no, I'm not planning on buying a BMW).

So how long will a car last? This can vary widely. Some cars, well cared for, last well past 200,000. But some seem to have trouble getting past 120,000 without major engine work. I'm going to say 160,000 miles. (Disagree? Fine. Do your own calculation.)

Divide $25,000 by 160,000 miles and you get 15.6 cents per mile. I think that's a fairer estimate of depreciation.

Also, since my last post, the price of gas has gone up; I last bought it at $3.59 per gallon. That works out, for my car, to 16 cents per gallon.

Adding it all up: 16 cents for gas, 8.6 for maintenance, 15.6 cents for depreciation, and that totals 40.2 cents per mile.  That's my REAL cost of driving.

The cost of driving

Imagine you want to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back again. For argument's sake, let's say a round-trip plane ticket cost $150.  Would it be cheaper if you drove?

To figure this out,  you need know the cost of driving. And I don't just mean the cost of gas. There's also the cost of maintenance and deprecation. Well, some of the depreciation.

This is a trickier subject than I expected when I started considering it. For one thing, note that the cost of driving is different than the total cost of owning a car. Just to own a car, you need to pay registration fees and insurance. But those are (mostly) fixed costs that vary little, if at all, with how much you drive. Should they be part of the "cost of driving" calculation?

There are various web pages that will give a rough estimate of the cost of driving. But I really wanted to know my specific cost, for my car, right now. I own a 2011 Hyundai Santa Fe with 101,000 miles on it. What is it costing me? 

Gas: Fuel may be the easiest cost to calculate. My car gets about 22.5 miles per gallon, according to the readout on my dash. This is an average, of course -- on the open road, the MPG will go up; while idling in city traffic, it will go down.

When I bought gas the other day it was $3.39 per gallon. Divide the the cost of gas by the MPG, and we get ... 15 cents per gallon. That's my driving cost for gas.

Oil changes: I get an oil change about every 7,000 miles. These days it costs about $42 each time.  That works out to 0.6 cents per mile. Not much.

Tires: How long do tires last? This varies widely, but in my experience, I get about 70,000 miles on a tire. (Your mileage may vary. Literally.). And how much do tires cost? Angie's List members reported an average cost of $637 to replace all four tires in 2015. Four years later, I'm going to say $700. This works out neatly. Divide $700 by 70,000 miles and you find that tires add one penny per mile.

Other maintenance costs: Cars need maintenance. Things break and need to be fixed. Brakes, belts and fluids need to be replaced. It's hard to figure all those, so I'll take a shortcut: AAA says that a medium-sized SUV like mine incurs maintenance costs of 8.6 cents per mile. That would include the oil changes and tires I listed above. (You might wonder why I figured those items separately if I was just going to add them into the general maintenance cost. I'm wondering that, too.)

Depreciation: Things get tricky here. Each mile that drive your car lowers its value and takes you closer to the out-of-pocket cost of buying a new car. But your car also depreciates even when you're not driving it.

Depreciation will vary widely depending on the age and value of your car. But I'm only interested in my car.

I went to Edmunds.com and found that my car currently has an estimated value of $5,675 in a private party sale. Then I added a fictitious 20,000 miles to the car's mileage, and Edmunds reduced the value of my car by $532.  Divide $532 by 20,000 miles and I find that the depreciation is 2.7 cents per mile.

That's much less than I expected, but looking at the numbers I see that age, regardless of mileage, is a separate factor in car value. For instance, just by adding a year to the age my car -- but not changing the mileage -- the value drops from $5,675 to $4,940. 

Conclusion: Remember that my goal was strictly to discover the cost of driving. The additional costs of ownership (insurance, registration and part of depreciation), are important, but they're not the subject on the table.

The cost of driving my car is 15 cents per mile for gas plus 8.6 cents per mile for maintenance plus 2.7 cents per mile for depreciation. Total: 26.3 cents per mile.

Driving roundtrip from L.A. to San Francisco is 764 miles. That's $200.94 in driving costs. That's more than the air fare. But if you're thinking of flying, remember to figure in the cost of getting to and from the airport!

Review: Hotel Rose Garden in San Jose, California

My daughter and I spent last night at the Hotel Rose Garden in San Jose. The hotel just sent me an email asking me to review our stay. Thanks for asking, Hotel Rose Garden!

Location: The Hotel Rose Garden is located on a broad, busy street (The Alameda) just outside downtown San Jose. A mix of businesses, homes and large trees inhabits the neighborhood. It's a pleasant-looking area, but doesn't offer much in the way of restaurants or grocery stores.

The hotel is quite close to San Jose Airport -- but not so close you hear the jets -- which is one of the main reason we stayed there. It is just a few blocks off Interstate 880.

Check-in: We were little thrown upon arrival when we found the hotel doesn't have any parking spaces for people checking in. Still, we found a spot a bit further away without a hassle.

The woman at the desk was quick and efficient in checking us in.

The room: Our room smelled of cigarette smoke despite being labeled a "non-smoking room." The room was of comfortable size, and the TV worked. The door on the bathroom jammed and was hard to close. The shower worked and the water got suitably hot.

Noise: This was the worst characteristic of the hotel. The walls were so thin that we continually heard barely muffled voices and TV program sounds from other rooms. From above, we heard every footstep in the room above us. This sounds and noise continued sporadically through the night. While this noise wasn't exactly loud, it was constant enough to be annoying.

I also noticed that the hotel had a 2nd floor bar which had its door open, and its music could be heard throughout the courtyard of the hotel. We weren't that close to the bar, so didn't hear much of this music, but I think it would have been annoyance for anyone in a room nearby.


Beds: The beds and pillows were comfortable, but the blankets were very thin.

Wi-Fi: Free and it worked.

Breakfast: The hotel had a waffle maker, cereal, and bread for toast. There was also juice and some fruit, but the bananas were turning black. No eggs, bacon or sausage. The eating area was quite small, but we lucked out and had it to ourselves.

Overall: The Hotel Rose Garden gets some things right, but fails in areas that are most important to travelers. The smelly room, noisy environment and thin blankets meant the hotel was only minimally tolerable. I was glad we only stayed one night. I can't recommend this hotel.

Hotel Rose Garden, 1860 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126