All Things Considered

I used to post lots of photos on Flickr mostly for hosting photos, but now I know that for seo purposes it's better to host your own images, so I have not been to flickr in a while.

Lately I've seen may photographers moving their online portfolios over to 500px, so I checked it out. 500px is simply awesome. The presentation is great, the quality of photos, overall, is awesome and it's easy to use and easy to search for photos. 

NPR connotes this as the 'Age of the Planets'

I don't know how many of you have pondered how significant this is. Forever, that we know of, we've know of stars. All those little spots in the sky are stars like or similar to our own sun, but they are not planets. Lately we've seen proof of planets beyond our solar system…

What is the American Dream.

Listening to NPR - which is probably the only media I soak up besides online sources and print - the famed words 'The American Dream' come up often in all sorts of ways, but mostly how it is so elusive. I think it may be so because it is elusive and probably none existent, at least not in the way most people thinks about it. The American Dream if it really existed was a short term phenomena limited to the post world war II era and ended starting the 1980's.  That is only 2 generations and really it seems only the baby boomers had it or a chance at it. 

Certainly it's attainable still. This is a great country for those who have the ways and means to meander the society, but most people can't and opportunities for a…

I'm sitting in my back yard at a table as the sun goes down, the pool twinkles and my dog, a smooth fox terrier - a lovely beast, is laying in the tea house observing the surroundings and listening to the birds. A good beer at my side and my trusty Apple MacBook Air beneath my fingers and of course the telephone on the left.

My eyes are near tears from the good feeling this weather is bringing. Today's high was a perfect 70º F. It's not nippy yet. There is still a good amount of heat radiating from the summer soaked ground and asphalt, but it still feels good.

My roses look amazing. They are bursting in flowers as if revealed from the summer of suffering: they look and smell extraordinary.

The air smells wonderful too. It's hard to explain…

After a decent conversation with a doctor at Olive and Ivy a lady took his place. She spread out a book and put her dirty shoes up on the seat where the next person in the sunday's best will probably nicely clean the seat for the next person, only to realize his pants are dirty and wonder where it came from: the lady will be happy and satiated and learned after consuming her literature.

The Launch of PhoenixMarketTrends 4.0

We recently relaunched our long running PhoenixMarketTrends.com website and weblog which is focused on Greater Phoenix real estate and market trends. It was a big project which is actually not yet completed: we need to finish transferring some 2,000 articles and posts, but then again a site is ever evolving and constantly in…

While ordering coffee. "I don't need a lid, thanks" I said. The nice girl replied, "I have to put on the lid for hot beverages. You can take it off after you leave the counter, but I have to put it on." All I could do is smile and take my coffee and dump the lid a few feet away before I sat down to drink it.

The Business of Real Estate

The business of real estate can and is often a stressful job, that is if one cares, about the outcome. When a client need to close on a home because he's moving here and an appraisal comes in completely off the mark, that's a problem that may or may not be resolve. It's stressful situation for everyone, even though it's one of the hurdles that comes up in some transactions, though it can't always to resoved to…

It's been amongst the busiest times for us at least not only in real estate, but in some of the other projects we're working on that thankfully are not related to real estate. 

Being a Realtor is all consuming, especially if you make it a profession. It is a business and it's just as demanding of time and resources. When busy on eats, drinks and sleeps real estate. Yeah I've had my middle of the night wake ups with my mind racing with things to do and issues to resolve.

It's one thing when I have to get things done for myself, they can always wait, but when other peoples lives are in part based on how well we do for them, then the weight of that becomes apparent often, and especially when issues come up, issues like wrongfully low appraisals, or…

We are (the United States) just a few weeks for defaulting, but I think some damage has already been done. This process is bringing out the weakneses in the political system as it is, or as we run it.

That is in perpetual election mode. The result is a government and individual politicians trying to save themselves and their party rather the doing what the nation needs, rather then making the decison that will improve life for most people and improve the system to maintain and improve living standards.

I think this is often forgotten, that we're here all together and that life can be good for most if not all people.

The Rain

A few days ago we had rain. The first really good downpour since March. That's about 5 months. The ground was dry,…

Immigration Issues

The Diane Rehm show via our local KJZZ station had a very enlightening program about Mexican immigration trends. 

Guests include:

• Steven Camarota: director of research, Center for Immigration Studies.
• Frank Sharry: founder and executive director of America's Voice, former executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
• Francisco Gonzalez: the Riordan Roett Chair in Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins' graduate school, SAIS, in Washington D.C.

This is a program that's very relevant to us in Arizona and in general. I'm not going to give you my opinion here, it's not relevant. You should listen to this program so that what ever your opinion is, it can be supported by relevant and…

A Grocery Store In Downtown Phoenix

Finally something similar to a grocery store, though not quite is opening in Downtown Phoenix. 

If you follow Oakville on Facebook you’ve been privy to some leaked photos recently teasing everything from the store’s wide selection of Arizona-made wines to bathroom tissue (complete with the laugh-out-loud caption, “We’ve got TOILET PAPER! oooooo ahhhhhhh!!!!!” Hilarious. (Downtown Phoenix)

Portland Place Condos

Portland Place Condos in the Roosevelt historic district.  

Data Point

While browsing the cycling site rapha.cc I came across an article about cycling the steepest streets of San Francisco and followed links to Data Pointed is the home of artist and scientist Stephen Von Worley's data visualization research; a journal of interesting information imagery and news from around the world; and a place where you can spend a few minutes, have a laugh or two, and discover something new."  31.5% and 29% grade.

There is a beautiful visual map of the U.S Census data for population growth from 2000 to 2010.

I spent alot of time on Data Point and learned a bunch too.

Market Trends

The Cromford Report has published the mid month report in which, amongst others, they note,