After what felt like 25 days, we finally made it to Friday.

☀️Today's weather: Coast — Sunny, high 77; Inland — Sunny, high 82

• Coastal Flood Advisory until noon Tuesday

🎧 Sounds like: "Junk Bond Trader" by Elliott Smith

🚨 Situational Awareness: With about 475,000 ballots left to be counted, the sales tax Measure B remains ahead with 51.7% of the vote and incumbent Councilmember Henry Foster is still losing with 46.6%.

• Full results here.

🪔 Wishing a happy Diwali to all who celebrate this Sunday!

Today’s newsletter is 1,120 words — a 4-minute read.

A new local company wants to make it easy to give someone stock market experience.

The big picture: Instead of giving a gift card to Starbucks or Amazon, Beestow lets you give stock that the recipient can let grow and then cash out or reinvest.

Driving the news: The company launched in July and has done hundreds of gifts since, co-founder Emil Juboori told Axois.

How it works: You pick from 40 well-known companies and choose the amount of stock you want to give.

• If the stock grows, your stake grows with it.
• At any time, you can cash out by reinvesting with a brokerage or transferring your money to a bank.

Case in point: If someone receives $100 worth of Tesla, and a month later it's up 20%, they can cash out at $120.

"It's like a coat check, you drop off your coat and they give you a claim," co-founder Anthony Correia told Axios. "The claim that we're giving people is whatever time that they receive the gift, that starts tracking the actual performance of the company."

Caveat: You don't own the stock. Beestow holds stock on its own books and keeps track of its price.

Flashback: Juboori and Correia are from San Diego and worked as software engineers and entrepreneurs for years.

• They got the idea for Beestow when Juboori wanted to give a birthday present to Correia's 1-year-old son.
• "I didn't want to give him money in Amazon that he won't use," Juboori said. "I thought, why can't I just give him $100 worth of SpaceX or Apple, companies that I think will do well in the future?"

The big picture: Their larger goal is to help more people invest in stocks and not be intimidated.

• Beestow is like training wheels for investing, Juboori said.
• "It helps introduce people at an earlier age because the recipient isn't putting any of their capital at risk, but they're still getting the exposure of what it's like to have an investment fluctuate in value," he said. "We think it's a really good learning experience."

Tell a gifter

If you like puzzles, you should check out a new exhibition at the Fleet Science Center.

The big picture: The Mindbender Mansion is like an escape room for kids, with enough activities to keep them engaged for an entire afternoon.

Zoom in: When you enter the "mansion," which was part of Fleet's expansion this summer, you get a sheet of paper to record your clues.

• You then work your way through a series of puzzles, including classics like the 16 matchstick puzzle.
• And an extremely difficult challenge of stacking food items on lunch trays as they roll along a conveyor belt.

When you finish the puzzles, you get more clues to input into a screen to get passwords. It's all very complicated.

The bottom line: It'll keep kids occupied.

💭 Claire's thought bubble: My son and I spent an hour in there and got about halfway done.

• I am pretty competitive and was just as (if not more so) invested as he was in solving the puzzles.
• We'll definitely be going back to finish.

Other new additions

📺 The TV anchor whose signature '70s look inspired Ron Burgundy in "Anchorman" passed away this week at age 82.

• Harold Greene worked for 10News in the mid-70s, then again in the early 80s. (10News)

⚖️ Gov. Newsom pledged to commute the sentences of all 548 people on California's death row to life without parole. Some cases require state Supreme Court approval. (AP)

🏗️ Fashion Valley's owner revived plans to redevelop the JCPenney site with restaurants, shops and homes. But the project has been scaled down from 850 luxury units to 410. (Times of San Diego)

🍽️ Five local restaurants landed on OpenTable's Top 100 Restaurants in America list: Callie, Cesarina, Cowboy Star and Leila in San Diego, plus Lilo in Carlsbad. (NBC 7)

Some people don't like to make small talk. Others — especially younger Americans— say they simply don't know how to do it.

Why it matters: A communication-skills app is betting that a baptism by fire in small talk can help rebuild social confidence — and it's hiring people to approach strangers to put that theory to the test.

Driving the news: RiseGuide is hiring Chief Small Talk Officers — recently rebranded from Head of Hanging Out to stress the seriousness of the assignment.

• The monthlong gig pays each of up to three hires $2,000, plus a budget for outings to parks, bookstores and fitness classes, where they'll strike up conversations with strangers.
• Officers will rate their small talk skills before and after the assignment, with regular check-ins to assess their interactions. They'll also track conversation lengths and strangers' receptiveness, Anastasia Sliusarenko, RiseGuide's brand and reputation manager, tells Axios.
• "I'm personally rooting for applicants who kind of feel socially awkward," she says.

Between the lines: Avoiding strangers might spare people the anxiety of appearing awkward or "cringe," but it also cuts them off from the psychological benefits of casual interactions.

The bottom line: The goal isn't to become an extrovert. It's to get comfortable with the discomfort of striking up conversations with strangers.

More small talk

Welcome to the weekend. Make some plans.

⚽ San Diego Wave playoff match: Cheer on the Wave against the Utah Royals at Snapdragon Stadium tonight at 7pm, with a spot in the NWSL semifinals on the line.

🏀 San Diego Clippers home opener: Catch the Clippers taking on the Valley Suns on tonight at 7pm at Frontwave Arena in Oceanside as the team opens its home season.

🎬 San Diego Asian Film Festival: Catch Asian and Asian American features and shorts today through Sunday.

🍻 San Diego Beer Week: The countywide celebration kicks off today, with brewery events throughout the weekend.

🎪 Great Big Family Play Day: Take the kids to Liberty Station's Ingram Plaza tomorrow for live music, crafts, a bike course and foam parties.

More events

👶 Claire loved getting to see Kate and baby Nathan this week.

👩🏻‍🍼 Kate is on parental leave, but if she were here, she'd say she loved it too.

This newsletter was edited by Geoff Ziezulewicz.