There’s always something to howl about.
The photo is from a house Cathy closed on today. That’s what they call a street, out in the sticks. You can measure how clean the air is by the definition of my shadow, maybe sixty feet away. On the way home, we saw a yearling coyote on Dear Valley Road.
Our annual late summer “monsoon” is being pushed out of the valley by very hot, dry weather rolling in from the Mohave Desert. Within the next couple of weeks, we will shift back to the dry heat that makes Phoenix so perfect all winter long.
And this is bad news?
That entire Reuters article is interesting, as will be the forthcoming stories on President Obama’s big, big plans to put Americans to work.
Two important facts emerge, I think:
First, no one in the entire ruling class has any idea how jobs are created. Stimulating demand while you stymie production is just another way of driving up prices at the cash register.
But second, I think Obama is managing to do what decades of conservative and libertarian ideologues have failed to do: He is demonstrating the futility of the entire Keynesian approach to government.
It’s an internet effect, of course. The massive increase in information velocity makes smoke-and-mirrors academic obfuscation more and more difficult.
But Obama’s uncanny political ineptitude is making it that much easier for Americans to discover that, for all the hype, the emperor has always been naked.
Yes, yes, I’m late to the SiriusXm party I admit it, but we recently got rid of a car with a cassette player, so that should tell you a lot. Honestly, the only thing I knew about satellite radio was Howard Stern so you can’t really blame me, can you? But that’s the past. Now that I’m here, can I tell you how much I love it? I do! I love it! A channel of nothing but Broadway show tunes? What, are you kidding me? My gay clients and I have sing-alongs, but that’s not why I love it. Here’s why I love it: It’s specialized. I don’t know how many channels there are altogether because I only listen to two. I flip between OnBroadway and Willie’s Roadhouse. I’m not interested in Spa, POTUS, or Hair Nation (If you’ve ever met me you know I live in my own private Hair Nation, thanksanyway), or any other of the bazillion channels available, each so freaking specialized and focused that it blows my mind! On the way from OnBroadway to Roadhouse, I have to pass Prime Country, Outlaw Country, Bluegrass Junction, and The Highway. No thank you, I’m not interested. I want my Roadhouse. I want my George and Tammy, my Johnny and June, and a little lite Texas Swing thrown in to mix it up. I’ve been laboring under the false impression that C&W was C&W but no, not even close. And each radio station taps into one tiny segment of the entire car-driving radio-listening population, each driver getting their own unique radio itch scratched in just the right place- it’s ecstasy. Pure unadulterated radio ecstasy. But this is a real estate blog so let’s talk Realtor talk.
Last week I was referring a lead to a Realtor and she informed me that I’m too quick to limit myself to one area. Not really true, but I remembered Ryan Hartman’s post that gave away the blue print for a broker’s market domination plan. You should go read it, I’ll wait. Done? Okay, see where I’m going with this?
You know how much you love Read more
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My little slice of Heaven, Solana Beach, is developing A $6 million, ten-unit, low-income housing complex:
The three-level building would have a 1,300 square-foot market on the ground floor, and 10 housing rental units above. The site is now a parking lot with 31 spots, used heavily for beach access and for the junior lifeguard program. A lot with some underground parking with 54 spots is proposed.
“The Pearl” will be a mixed-use development, with a small market and ten housing units which can house up to 44 people. Ginger Hitzke is the Temecula-based developer. Her work history includes various “public/private developments”, as a Vice President with the Affirmed Housing Group and now, as a lead developer with Community Collective.
Naturally, the coastal residents are up in arms about the affect on the neighborhood:
Residents packed the City Council chambers, many complaining that The Pearl would increase traffic, loitering, reduce property values, and wouldn’t mesh with the surrounding blufftop condominiums that line Sierra Avenue.
“The city just seems too desperate to fund the building of 10 units to complete the settlement of a bungled lawsuit regarding the loss of 13 low-income units,” said Mark Tiddens, an area resident.
The Condominium Organization of South Sierra Avenue will vote by Sept. 2 on whether to formally oppose the project. Story poles indicating the outline of the building are now in place at the site, a public parking lot near a beach access.
The morality of redistribution of wealth schemes, and the efficacy of Keynesian stimulii notwithstanding, wouldn’t it just be easier to buy ten listed homes for sale? I searched for Solana Beach homes for sale, under $600,000, and found 24 active listings. To purchase existing listings meets the ideals of “integrating low-income residents” throughout the community, would be easier to manage, and can be accomplished quickly.
The City could make a public announcement that it intends to purchase ten homes for less than $550,000, offer a 4% co-brokerage fee, and suggest that it will give preference to short sales or foreclosure situations, My guess is it would be flooded with offers to sell.
Solana Beach is stuck with the State’s Read more
Good luck, y’all. Definitely interested in hearing your how-we-survived stories.
She loved me better than any dog I’ve ever known. She loved me better than I deserved, more than I ever did anything to earn. She was with me at my desk all day and on the floor beside my bed all night. When I left the house, she would wait for my return where last she saw me, and when I came home she would yip and scamper and dance and rejoice with every fiber of her being.
I loved her better than any dog I’ve ever known, but I loved her nothing like she deserved. I loved having her with me, but I ignored her almost all the time. But I always knew where to drop my hand when I wanted to touch her. I didn’t have to look for her. Her love and her loyalty were so complete, I always knew where she would be.
She taught me so much just by being alive, but what she taught me best was how to be that completely, that unreservedly, that rapturously alive. She was beautiful inside and out, and she was exuberantly delighted every day of her life — even this one, the last day of her life.
The photo montage above is from the out-takes from our Christmas Card for the year 2000. Shyly is the gorgeous black bitch in my arms who can’t sit still — who never could sit still.
She was a mutt, half Chow, half Labrador, but she was a proud and perfect puppy for every minute that she lived — always eager, always excited, always involved. She died at peace, as dogs can and as human beings so often cannot. I know she had a happy life, and I’m glad she had a painless death.
She was with me for thirteen years, but she’ll be with me for the rest of my life. I’ll never love another dog as much as I loved my Shylygirl. I’ll miss her every day.
Good Jobs reading:
Warning long post ahead.
First of all, I was saddened today to learn of Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple’s CEO. Below is the resignation letter which is making its way around the internet at lightning speed right now.
To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.Steve
I have copied it here because I respect the man greatly. I spent several rough months of my life being diagnosed with the same illness that he has only to find out that I was fortunate and did not have cancer and he did. In the darkest hours of that time for me, him toughing it out helped me tough it out.
What impresses me the most about him is that he has kept his focus on doing his business, in building things to make peoples’ lives better and it helping other people through capitalism.he is everything I admire about the dream of taking things on because they are there and in building more in spite of all odds. He epitomizes the term “Do your worst, I will not kneel.” I am grateful for the example of a really bright guy doing extraordinary things.
Note to the East Coast media currently whining about a 5.8 earthquake…Japan’s was 1,000 times as severe. Let’s have some priorities OK? Quit whining. You do not Read more
I’m kicking this back to the top, which I think means no one will read it. 😉 In fact, I’m moving stuff like this to SplendorQuest.com, going forward. I think this an insanely-great essay, but it reads better elsewhere.
But: The comments to this post are amazing, BloodhoundBlog at its very best. Here are two of my remarks, illuminating why I am moving content like this and what I plan to do at SplendorQuest.com:
Celebrating my self: I have amazing things to say about the ontology and teleology of egoism and individualism, and virtually no one is paying any attention at all. I would be frustrated, except I can’t be: It’s raining soup in my mind, even if in no one else’s.
And:
I don’t have any organizational goals, I just want to induce people to think better, if I can. It’s a good thing for me, in the long run, since I stand to do better when other people do better — and since I’m pretty much incinerator-bait if things go to hell. But I know that the people I’m talking to will do better if they learn to seek Splendor in their lives. If I give anyone any time at all, my objective is to get that person to question his most basic assumptions about how the universe works. That much is not a kindness, at least at first, since people don’t generally love having the stilts kicked out from under them. But that’s “how much and how far” I want to go. There is no other way to get here from there.
“Save the world from home in your spare time!” I love that joke. But that’s what I plan to do, as time and minds permit. Come play with me, if the quest for Splendor moves you. –GSS
A rallying cry for the Tea Party rebellion: “You’re not the boss of me!”
I love that phrase — “You’re not the boss of me!” — those words, that order, that emphasis. Children say it when they’re put upon, and I love it so much I write it into their mouths in fiction, too.
The sentence has Read more
Kicking this back to the top from February of 2007, although the underlying essay is much older than that. This is the shortest statement I have made, so far, of the ontology of human behavior. –GSS
Russell Shaw has mentioned the film The Secret a couple of times. Cathy bought the DVD, and we took the time to watch it tonight. As an expression of the right attitude to take toward life, it was right up my street. As physics, metaphysics, epistemology and ontology, it struck me as babbling word salad. The Law of Attraction commended me to The Eyelid Show, as television often does, so Cathy saw the whole thing, and I saw about half.
What the movie would seek to ascribe to a volitionally-caused physics (this is solipsism, right there), I would argue is simply the secondary consequences of particular habits of mind. Russell wants to freely and very generously share all that he has learned in his career. To do this, he needed me as his amplifier, and the two of us needed Allen Butler for his technological prowess. A great many other very talented people will be involved in this project. Are we drawn to each other by a Law of Attraction, or all we all simply oscillating in our own minds at around the same frequency — birds of a feather?
I wrote a book about the ontology of human social relationships, but it’s dense, tough sledding. Appended below is a easier-reading summary of some of these ideas. I wrote this as a speech for my Toastmaster’s Club in August of 2001. In the weblogging world, I’ll throw out details about our lives, but that’s really just so much plastic fruit, local color. This is the world that I live in, the world I wish everyone lived in…
Shyly’s delight
or
Manifesting the secondary consequences of splendor
I have a Labrador mutt named Shyly. She’s about three years old, but because she’s a Lab, she’ll always be a puppy. Always busy, always involved, always eager to be right in the middle of everything.
Shyly is the world’s greatest master at expressing delight. She Read more
Art is demanding, and that’s good. But art is petulant and importunate and presumptuous to a fault. Art is that damned nuisance of a snoopy neighbor who keeps knocking, knocking, knocking on your cellar door. Art goes straight for the places you forbid yourself to think about and rummages through your most terrifying secrets like a burglar tearing through your underwear drawer. Good art makes you hate it as you devour it, shun it as you immerse yourself in it. Good art makes you restless and jagged and ragged and inspired. Good art makes you shiver. Great art makes you cringe.
Art is a vanity in precisely this way: I presume to recreate reality in my own image and likeness, and I have the effrontery to demand that you not only acknowledge that reality but prefer it. I presume to seize the universe and squeeze out of it a tiny seed of truth. And I presume to plant that seed within you — without your consent, perhaps without even your knowledge. And I presume to nurture this new universe I have caused to grow within you until you scream — if I am good enough — scream from agony and delight. And I presume to do all of this for no purpose of yours, but only for reasons of my own devising. And at the end of it you may thank me or damn me, but you will never have been more than the means to my end: I sought not you but only to spawn myself anew within you — immaculate conceptualization. Art is a vanity because it is the means by which the artist postures as a god — and not a very merciful god.
I see all of this and yet I embrace it. I am as much art’s victim as you, although on my best days I am lucky enough to have a bit of my own back. But as a species and as individuals we are unwilling to forswear the worst of our vices without that resounding blow to the head that art alone provides. Our artists are Read more
This is an extract from a book I wrote in 1997 called The Unfallen. This amounts to me letting people I make up speak for me, too, but it’s apposite to the larger conversation, and it’s good, I think. I like art about adults, and this is fun for me because we get to watch a teenage boy growing into his adulthood. I have never yet written a good book, and I don’t know that I ever will; the last chapter of childhood consists of coming to grips with your own mediocrity, after all. But The Unfallen is concerned with nothing but my world — my kind of people tackling my kind of issues. I hope this book is not the best I will ever do, but it’s the best I’ve done so far. And if you want to get drenched my way, it will do that job from the very first page. –GSS
Devin stood with Spencer as the car pulled away. He said, “Are you cold? Can you stand to walk?”
“I’m all right.”
“Let’s just walk, then. I learned how to think on the streets of Boston and Cambridge. I don’t always find the answer I’m looking for, but I can always walk my way to peace, to serenity.” They walked their way to the Harvard Bridge across the Charles — named the Harvard Bridge because the students of M.I.T. thought it was too badly designed to be called the M.I.T. Bridge. Elements of the more-or-less perpetual repair crew were out in their orange vests and traffic was backed up in both directions. The walkways were free, though, and they walked, one foot in front of the other, without speaking.
Finally Devin said, “Are you a boy or a man, Spencer?”
“I’m not sure I get that…”
“It’s yours to say. People will treat you like a boy for the most part, I guess. But if you decide you’re a man, and if you decide to behave like a man, who can stop you?”
Spencer grinned, his smile as bright as the sun. “There’s that, isn’t there?”
“I ask because I think it’s a very brave Read more
[This is me in February of 2004. It’s fun for me to read now, because we were selling a lot then, and — like a lot of folks — the next year, 2005, was my best year so far. I’m not selling success as a matter of dollars and cents. That matters to me, but not as much as Splendor does, not as much as integrity and follow-through and a comprehensive commitment not just to the good but to getting better — all the time. I have an essay aborning in me about everything I have learned about sales in the last ten years, but even that’s not as much as I want to do — as much as I want to have done. I want better money, yes, for us and for everyone who listens to us. And I want for Realtors to be better. I want for us to have an earned and deserved reputation as honest brokers who put our clients’ interest first. But before all that, I want for people to do better, to be better, to experience life more as a rapturous treasure and less as an unwanted burden. I want for the world to be better, remarkably better in every conceivable way.
This essay is me, the real deal, entirely unedited. I know I’m not alone in being like this, but no one dares to talk this way. We are children of Abel in every way that matters, and we are too much ashamed of being alive to celebrate the simple fact of our vitality. And yet this is the change that matters. To be free of other people means to be free of them in the silence and solitude of your own mind. If they can’t get at you there, then chains and walls are nothing but expressions of their inevitable failure. But if you forebear to be who you really are at the command of some internal editor, you are imprisoned everywhere — even when you are completely alone.
If you want to buy or sell some real estate in Metro Phoenix, I’m your guy. Read more
Recently I was asked to participate on a speaker’s panel at an upcoming real estate conference in Columbus. It’s always nice to be asked to participate and I even had a disturbing but fleeting Sally Fields moment. Conventional conventions are not my thing, but I got to thinking about the subject of the panel- Online Reputation Management and while in the end I demurred, I knew I had much more to say about the subject than my share of a speaker’s panel would allow. Here then, is what I might have said about ORM in 15 minutes or less:
Online Reputation Management. Interesting concept. I know what it means, I’m just not sure it gets to the root of the problem and the problem isn’t that people can post horrible and hideous things about you online, because if you spend enough time online speaking your mind, not hiding who you are, well then girlfriend, someone, somewhere is bound to say something hideous and horrible about you. The focus should not be that you cannot control what other people say, that’s reactive thinking. The focus should be on the only thing you can control- your own thoughts and actions.
It occurs to me that once upon a time a Realtor’s reputation was theirs to control through advertising alone. They wrote smarmy or vague advertisements about being the Neighborhood Expert, and who knew any better? What were you going to do- go around to each of your neighbors for verification? “You know this guy? Is he the expert?” It’d take for friggin’ ever to get a consensus on whether or not Joe, the Friendly Neighborhood Expert (FNE), was in fact, a) Friendly, or b) an Expert, but the interwebs changed all that, sort of. I mean you can still say whatever you want about yourself, but now your clients can turn to the ultimate FNE, aka Google, and in the blink of an eye, all is revealed.
This is a good thing. It’s good for us. It’s good for our industry. But most importantly it’s good for our clients because now you really do have to Read more
[I wrote this in the late Summer of 1995. –GSS]
I moved to a new apartment this Spring, and it happens that my new apartment number is 101. We live by symbols, like it or not, and I can’t look at my door or write my address without thinking of George Orwell’s “1984.” For in Room 101 is housed one’s greatest fear, the secret dread that, Orwell implies, will drive a person to betray every value in his life. Nothing like that here, thankfully, but there’s nothing so fine as a metaphor to focus the mind.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the love of life and its antithesis. For me, the quest for human liberty has little to do with laws or strictures or jack-booted thugs hiding behind mirrored shades. We are not enslaved or set free by other people, and we will not change our interior existence by convincing other people to change their behavior. We are free as we dare to rejoice in the beauty and glory of life, and we are enslaved as we shrink from that rejoicing. The ego is a realm infinite in extent, and it cannot ever be invaded from the outside.
And thus, some of the secret desires of libertarians seem a little silly to me. Assuredly we need to stand firm against new statist encroachments and complain incessantly about those already in place. But the Minerva fantasies and Atlantis fantasies are a bit much. To the world, we speak of free countries where free men and free women can produce untold wealth in free markets by the free exercise of free thought. But I suspect that in the privacy of imagination what is foreseen is the Neverland, where one can play forever and never grow weary. That’s fine, I suppose; life would be dull without daydreams. But the essence of a daydream, or the vice at least, is imagining a universe where one is not oneself, where one is not who one really is.
“‘I like people who live their dreams in the day.'” I made a fictional character say that a long time Read more
