You see time. This recently released 18 minute video from TED is thought provoking. Awe provoking, really.
TED has lots of thought provoking information from smart people. Worth a lengthy surf to their site if you haven’t seen some of what takes place there. It’s always encouraging to see smart people.
Mortgage modification
Mortgages are often very difficult to understand. If you’re going to be applying for a mortgage, it’s important that you know how to get the best option for you because otherwise, you’ll struggle to pay for it. If you don’t have any credit history, then you will find it very hard to find a good rate so you should look at credit cards for people with no credit so you are able to build a score that will get you a score that will give you a mortgage you can afford. If you accept a mortgage that you won’t be able to support financially then you may lose your house. Luckily, there are steps you can take to improve your financial situation if you are currently struggling, like a mortgage modification. If you are interested in learning more about mortgage modifications for first time home buyers your preferred mortgage broker may be able to help.
A mortgage modification is where a troubled homeowner can renegotiate the terms of their mortgage to make it affordable. I have been dismayed to see so many scams recently appear to take advantage of the people who are in mortgage trouble, preying on the most vulnerable. Here’s a link to the only legitimate site I know, Making homes Affordable. Never pay anyone for this free information.
Avoid the many scam artists we see popping up. I hope this helps somebody.
If you’re currently purchasing a new home and want to find a lender for a mortgage loan, SoFi can help with this and make the process a less stressful one – https://www.sofi.com/home-loans/mortgage/.
Our kids will thank us.
A tale of two species
I’ve been thinking all week about that poor guy who was trampled to death by WalMartians last Friday. A Black Friday to mark in our memory. Stomped to death by his fellow man, in a hurry to get some cheap Chinese shit; what have we become? Contrast that act of humanity to this recent video of a dog risking it’s life to save its friend on a busy freeway.
Dog Risks Life To Save Injured Friend – Watch more Entertainment
Planetary conjunction
Okay this might not look like much here, but it was visually stunning yesterday evening just after sunset. The crescent Moon, lined up near Venus and Jupiter. I got out my camera and tried to capture the majesty, without much success.
Here’s the moon using the 200mm lens on my real estate camera. The conjunction was pretty spectacular in real life, but if you missed it, you’ll just have to use your imagination, perhaps. Using my telescope, you could plainly see several moons of Jupiter lined up in the same plane as the Earth’s Moon. And Luna herself was amazing with the light giving sharp detail to the massive craters. It was a nice evening for stargazing. I bought this 4″ Meade Newtonian reflecting telescope from an unemployed mortgage broker for $50 (no joke). Too bad I can’t hook the camera up to it (yet).
Appropriate to the setting, we have a rare live recording from the Schreder Planetarium of Craig Padilla’s Night Rain, originally from the album Eye of the Storm. This was recorded under the stars, under the dome a few years back. This 7 minute piece features a pyrotechnic guitar solo by Al Mires, now proprietor of Palo Cedro’s Music Max music store (Remember to shop locally folks). And Craig plays acoustic electric guitar here, no less. I think this recording was released only as a cassette prior to this, so I hope you enjoy it.
Looks like we’re having ham…
Record Searchlight reaches hypocritical new low.
Let’s begin this with the acknowledgment that the Record Searchlight is nothing but a business that makes money selling advertising. In the past, their position in our community as a strong representative of independent journalism guaranteed readership, and thus advertising revenue. Now, they are attempting to switch to an online model, where page-views replace readership in dollar terms of what they can charge for advertising. In this new model, accuracy is much less useful in generating page views than controversy. So now, if a news report can contain a line or a premise that will generate page upon page of anonymous comments online, it serves to increase their apparent attraction to advertisers, by increasing the page view count.
Thus, controversial statements and comment trolling have replaced journalistic integrity and community standards at the RS. Trolling is the practice of deliberately making an inflammatory statement to increase the comments. Online, highly commented articles are given a flashing icon to further draw your attention. It’s all about the page view count.
The Thanksgiving Day article about the housing market is a prime example. The article goes on for a while with reasonably accurate and useful statistical information. But then to juice up the page view, they throw in a zinger about real estate agents that was guaranteed to generate comments. The article is here:
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/26/area-housing-market-slips-prices-drop-14-over-past/
Go there if you want to help them add to their page views, and increase ad revenues, I suppose. The zinger was this:
“It’s a far cry from the first quarter of 2003 when year-over-year home values in Redding jumped 16.35 percent — tops in the nation — and real estate agents were advising clients to buy now or get priced out of the market.”
It was bound to get results, maybe even especially since it had no basis in fact. It was a straw man. A classic troll for comments. “Happy Thanksgiving, agents! We put words in your mouth for you, and then blame you for the bubble.”
It was also wildly hypocritical. Among those most vigorously fueling the buying frenzy of the boom was the RS, which continually harped on it with housing appreciation articles, and “flip this house” style housing porn, and just to clarify housing porn is nothing like adult porn such as https://www.tubev.sex/?hl=pl. Also, one of the single largest beneficiaries of the housing boom was the RS, riding a wave of agent-paid multimillion dollar advertising revenue all the way to the bank. So, it was in their best interest to drive the housing frenzy, and they did so with gusto. That makes them just as much real estate salesman as any individual agent. If blame is to be handed out for the ill effects of the housing bubble, that blame should be squarely placed on the Record Searchlight hypocrites.
People love to generalize about soul-less salespeople, who eagerly sell out their friends and community members in the name of just one more sale. I think now we have to include our former hometown newspaper in that soul deprived category. The editorial department writes articles now only trolling to increase sales revenue.
Happy Thanksgiving! Plus, link to a good post for today
I have so much to be grateful about, it wouldn’t even fit into a day. Nevertheless we are celebrating at home with friends and family, and Karry’s usual “Martha Stewart on steroids” dinner. Love it all.
If you make the rounds of local blogs, you’ve probably seen this recent post. But if not, I will bring this to your attention for today, as it follows the spirit. My friend and fellow Realtor Lara Wells Osborn wrote a thought-provoking post over at Food For Thought. It’s one of those rare pieces that stays with you long after reading. Lara is one of my favorite fellow agents. She and her husband have several cute kids too, which added poignancy to her excellent prose. That, along with the fact that she has established herself as a marketer of luxury homes, and has done very well with that high-end market segment. She’s just a good person to be around, and people sense that sort of thing. You should read her post if you didn’t already, and the link is HERE.
Thanks for writing, Lara. And a Happy and thoughtful Thanksgiving to all!
Diestlehorst bones by Skip
Redneck fire detector
Solar Fields
This video showed up in my e-mail the other day. I don’t know if it’s authorized, but it’s nice. It says the music was recorded Freitag (German for Friday) Nov 14. Solar Fields is a European music artist with whom I have a slender connection. Craig Padilla and I were invited to appear on a compilation CD from 2002 called the Fahrenheit Project on the French label Ultimae. Craig and I submitted a track from Beyond Beta, and Solar Fields contributed a track called Outlined surfaces. Since then I have followed the music vicariously, and find that we are very much in the same vibe. I see that the Fahrenheit Project #1 is now out of print, and that’s a shame. It was a very tasty compilation. The Ultimae label is run by Vince and Sunshine from Lyons, France, self described “panoramic people” in their newsletters. I hope we meet someday. Terrific people, great music, all across the sea. It’s always surprising to me that we seem to have a fan base in Europe.
I see their website has a review among several of the Fahrenheit compilation, in which our ambient beatless track is described as “not dreadful.” Ouch! Hee hee. I guess it could be worse.