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Reasons to Live in Encinitas

Friday, November 20, 2009
posted by Frank Stevens 12:32 PM

Reasons to Live in Encinitas

The decision to move is one of the most significant decisions you will ever have to make. There are many reasons why people relocate. Some of the most common is an opportunity for a better job or lifestyle. If you have a family, then affordable homes, good schools and safe neighborhoods might be a factor. If you are single, then access to entertainment might be a factor. For the most part, the decision to move to a particular city comes down to cost of living and quality of life. A city that embodies all of these factors and more is Encinitas.

A decision to move to Encinitas now can be a lot easier than you might think. Encinitas, affectionately known as the Flower Growing Capital, is one of Southern California’s beautiful seaside cities. Located only 25 miles north from downtown San Diego, Encinitas sits on six miles of California coastline and offers residents and visitors alike beautiful sandy beaches and access to world-class surfing and golfing.

One of the quality of life factors is climate. Encinitas encompasses this factor beautifully with an average temperature in the 70’s. Good schools is another factor in quality of life. The school district in Encinitas is made up of many California Distinguished schools. Your interests and hobbies also play a factor in your decision to move. If your hobbies are surfing and golfing, then Encinitas is the perfect city for you. One of the biggest attractions in Encinitas is their beaches. The surfing is unbeatable and many surf contests are held throughout the year in Encinitas. Those who love the game of golf will enjoy Encinitas’ Ranch Golf Course, a championship 18 hole par 72 course with panoramic ocean views.

Continuing with quality of life factors, Encinitas has easy access to a large variety of entertainment. There are plenty of attractions to visit near Encinitas. For family entertainment, Legoland California is only a few offramps away from this family-friendly theme park. It is the only LEGO theme park in the United States. The original resides in Denmark, the birthplace of the famous toy building blocks. Twenty minutes south is the world famous Sea World San Diego. Plan on spending an entire day watching Shamu’s spectaular show and seeing marine life like dolphins, penguins, sea lions, and even some Polar Bears. Downtown San Diego offers a large selection of entertainment options like museums, shopping and access to world class hotels and professional baseball and football teams.

The cost of living factors also play heavily into decision making. Your career is the most important factor. Encinitas location puts you only twenty minutes for San Diego and major industry. Affordabilty of homes that fit your income level is important. The median price for a home in Encinitas is $635,000.Encinitas homes are representative of the casual lifestyle Californian’s enjoy today.

Encinitas makes the grade and when it comes to quality of life in this beachside city.

Add Temecula Valley to your Bucket List

Thursday, October 1, 2009
posted by Frank Stevens 1:50 PM

Add Temecula Valley to your Bucket List

In the movie “The Bucket List,” Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson compile a list of adventures that they want to experience before they “kick the bucket.” They including things like drive a race car, jump out of an airplane, and ride on the Great Wall of China. There’s one item that they don’t get to before passing away, witness something truly majestic. If they had made a stop in Temecula Valley in early June, they could have crossed that item off the list as accomplished.

Each spring, the annual Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival is held. Two of the festival’s event could have qualified for the truly majestic site on Freeman and Nicholson’s bucket list. Those events are the morning Balloon Rise and the evening Balloon Glow. The Balloon Rise event is just what it sounds like, hot air balloonists participating in the event simultaneous send their balloons floating up into the beginning rays of the morning sun in the skies over Temecula Valley. You may have seen some images of this event on the television news. The Balloon Rise lasts for two hours before the balloons settle back to the valley floor.

During the day, attendees can climb into the baskets of these giant lighter than air craft and be lifted aloft for a bird’s eye view of Temecula Valley and the event below. The area’s many wineries and vineyards also offer wine tasting to the thousands of attendees who come to the event each year. Some of the finest wines in California are sampled at the weekend long celebration. There is live entertainment and lots of food served up throughout the day.

The evening event known as Balloon Glow is perhaps the most majestic spectacle of the festival. Hot air balloons as you know operate by heating the air inside them to the point where its expansion causes it to be much lighter than the air outside the balloon and it floats up into the sky. This is accomplished through the use of a big propane heater. This heater creates a big flame under and in the opening at the bottom of the balloon. During the Balloon Glow event, balloonists fire up their heaters after dark and the giant flames light up the inside of the translucent balloons. The net result is that the balloons glow brightly from the inside out and their bright colors and patterns light up the night sky over the Temecula Valley. The flames are then turned on and off allowing the balloons to alternately rise and fall as if they were performing s a slow, stately waltz through the valley’s night sky, a truly majestic sight.

I’m sure that the characters played by Freeman and Nicholson in The Bucket List would have made a day of it, arriving before sunset (probably sneaking in, knowing them), and then being among the last to leave in the evening. That sounds like a pretty good plan.

Celebrities Living in Atlanta

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
posted by Frank Stevens 12:40 AM

Celebrities Living in Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. As such, it has it’s share of celebrity residents residing in luxury homes and mansions throughout the city and it’s surrounding towns. As one might expect from a city with professional Baseball, football, basketball, and hockey teams, there are a number of pro athletes residing in the Atlanta, but the world of music is also very well represented in Atlanta.

Among Atlanta’s residents, one of the most famous, and certainly the most infamous, celebrity athletes is Michael Vick. Before changing his address to a prison cell, Atlanta resident Michael Vick was the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons. After being released, though he has signed on with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Giving even Michael Vick a run for his money on the infamous side are celebrity couple Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. Whitney and Bobby have racked up a number of drug violations over the years. The tumultuous lifestyle of these Atlanta residents has kept the tabloid paper business humming even through the recession. The pair are known to frequent higher end restaurants and clubs in Atlanta, and have never been accused of trying to keep a low profile.

Atlanta is also home to Turner Broadcasting (TBS) and its founder, billionaire Ted Turner. Ted Turner is believed to be the largest landowner in the entire United States with more than two million acres under his direct ownership. In recent years, his penchant for ranching has led him to spend more and more time out west on his Montana property, but it is still not unusual for him to be spotted in Atlanta. Turner’s equally famous ex-wife is also an Atlanta resident. The former actress and fitness mentor is actively involved in the community and is often noted for working with local charities. Speaking of cable news channels, the outspoken CNN talk show host Nancy Grace is another well-known Atlanta resident.

Famous movie actor and producer Tyler Perry not only lives in Atlanta, but has bases his production company, Tyler Perry Studios, in the City as well.

Also on the list of musicians calling Atlanta home is Usher. In 2007, Usher moved from Alpharetta to Roswell, Georgia, apparently not wanting to get too far from Atlanta’s nightlife and the city where he grew up. Celebritydetective.com reports that Usher paid $3.3 million for his six bedroom/ seven bath luxury mansion.

Of course, as the state capital, the governor’s mansion can be counted among the luxury homes in Atlanta as well. Atlanta is the home of MLB’s Atlanta Braves, The NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, and the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers. Many of the members from these teams make their homes in and around Atlanta, at least during their active seasons.

These are just a few highlights from among Atlanta’s many famous residents. The city has a number of affluent neighborhoods and suburbs that are full of luxury homes.

The Character of Country

Friday, September 25, 2009
posted by Frank Stevens 1:20 AM

The Character of Country

If you asked people to name the home town of classical music, a few might make a tentative guess at Vienna. If you ask the same question about Rock & Roll, Hip-Hop, Punk, New Wave, or almost any other mainstream genre of music, you’d get nothing but a blank look in return. Ask about the home of country music, however, and the universal answer is Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is not only the home of country music, it is where nearly every aspiring country singer and songwriter goes to try to break into the business.

Nashville, of course, is the home to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry, perhaps country music’s most famous stage. It isn’t buildings that make Nashville the home of country music, it’s the attitude of the people. Country music is about a fierce independence, an independence so strong, in fact, that in many country songs it ends up in conflicts.

It’s also fitting that country music is the one genre that can be so strongly linked with a place, since it is the one type of music that can also be identified by place names within the song lyrics. For example, any song that refers to the boondocks, the holler (or hollow), a farm, the backwoods, or the place where the blacktop ends is almost certainly a country song.

Location is the only lyrical clue that a song is a country song. There are certain thematic elements that, while not entirely exclusive to country songs, are certainly much more predominant in the genre. If a song references a bar fight or a gun being fired at a jukebox, it is most likely a country song. Drinking in order to get over a former lover’s memory is a common country song theme, as are failed relationships of all sorts, although the latter can’t be said to be exclusively found in country songs as several other types of music also use this thematic element with some frequency.

Another telltale sign that a song is a country song, is that it is sung with a noticeable accent, not a foreign accent like Nena’s 80’s pop song 99 Red Balloons, but with a decidedly American drawl often referred to as a country twang. Sometimes you’ll even find that country music singers who routinely sing with such an accent, don’t have any trace of it in their normal speaking voice. It’s a little like the opposite of many British rock stars who have a thick English accent when they speak, but sing with no trace of it whatsoever.

In summary, it can be said that Nashville and the trademark country music for which it’s famous are both full of character.

Residential Corporate Housing Providers.

Friday, September 4, 2009
posted by admin 12:57 PM

Residential Corporate Housing Providers

Many people have never heard of corporate housing and probably have no idea that it is a thriving business. To most it might sound like another executive bonus system reserved for Wall Street insiders. It isn’t. Corporate Housing is generally used for employees who are relocating to take a job in a new city or who have been sent on a long term assignment away from home.

In these cases, the company wants the new worker to be productive and get off to a fast start, so they take care of making arrangements to find them a place to live for while. It’s not a permanent arrangement, but lasts long enough for the employee to get settled into their new job, get familiar with their new city and to find a house or apartment on their own.

The length of the stay in these temporary accommodations is usually decided during the hiring process. The incoming employee might be awarded a relocation package which could consist simply of cash reimbursements for his living expenses during the transition period, or the company might work with a residential housing specialist to make all the arrangements on the employee’s behalf. In the latter case, the expenses are generally billed directly to the company, saving both parties a mountain of paperwork trying to keep track of the individual expenditures and reimbursements.

Often the corporate residential housing provider will handle the details with only a single phone call from the employee’s new company. This frees up the company’s own personnel to handle tasks more aligned to their core responsibilities than making living arrangements. It also helps ensure that nothing is overlooked. Basic utilities like electricity, phone service, and even internet access are usually a part of the arrangement and are all in place and waiting when the new employee arrive to move in to their temporary housing.

Corporate housing units are almost always fully furnished, not just with the necessary furniture, but with such basic needs as pots and pans, silverware, towels, and bed linens. These corporate apartments are truly move-in ready. A full working kitchen also helps reduce expenses since the employee can buy groceries and prepare their own meals much less expensively than dining at a restaurant two or three times a day.

Corporate housing units are often conveniently located to the business district of most cities to minimize commute times. Washington, DC, Miami, New York, and most other major metropolitan areas around the United States and Canada have companies that make their business in corporate housing. Even if there isn’t a company office based in that city, they likely have access to corporate housing units there. Many corporate housing specialists have offices in just a few cities, but handle temporary accommodations on a nationwide basis.

The availability of these temporary housing units allows companies to search outside of their local areas to find the top talent for open positions. Similarly, job-seekers can expand their search across the country instead of relying solely on local companies for job openings. The corporate housing industry exists to help make the transition to a new job easier for relocating employees. Based on the success of the niche, their services are well appreciated by both parties.

Realtors Who are on the Right Course

Thursday, April 16, 2009
posted by Frank Stevens 4:04 PM

Realtors Who are on the Right Course

Orange County Golf Course Homes is a real estate group that, as their name implies, specializes in homes that are adjacent to golf courses. These are the homes where golfers can literally walk out their back door, and step onto the course (or hop into a golf cart) and head for the tee. For those that like to play the game several times a week, a home on the course is like living next door to heaven.

The twosome of Dave Myszko and Marty Samuel make up the team at Orange County Golf Course Homes and have over 55 years of real estate experience between them. In addition to his lengthy experience serving customers in the southern California real estate market, Marty also spent 21 years serving his country as an officer in the US Marines. He credits his time spent in the Marines as helping to strengthen his strong ethical foundation. Indeed, as a man of integrity and character, he now serves as Chairman of the Professional Standards Hearing Panel. If you’re buying or selling a house worth hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more), you want to deal with a team that is reliable and trustworthy. That’s exactly what you’ll get when you work with Orange County Golf Course Homes.

Most of the business that comes to OC Golf Course Homes comes as a result of referrals from people who have already bought or sold a home with Dave or Marty. That kind of word of mouth business doesn’t happen by accident, and it doesn’t happen unless every customer ends up completely satisfied with the level of service that they received. Customer testimonials, which can be viewed at the company website OCGolfCourseHomes.com, praise Dave and Marty for their professionalism, attention to detail, and follow up. Most home buyers and sellers will tell you that there is nothing more nerve-wracking than waiting around for your realtor to call you back after you’ve left them an important message. With Dave and Marty, that simply doesn’t happen. They respond quickly to all messages and are a remarkable ten hours a day, six days a week.

Customers of Orange County Golf Course Homes also receive annual invitations to their Client Appreciation Golf Tournaments. Of course greens fees are compliments of Dave and Marty and the tournament features free drinks and food. For those golfers with a competitive streak, there are cash prizes as well. The tournament is great way for the agents at OC Golf Course Homes to check in with their clients to make sure that everything is going well in their new homes, but it also provides them with an excuse to get out on the course. After all, it’s no accident that these guys specialize in houses that are adjacent to golf courses, they love the game themselves.