: August 2007

I'm fascinated with barns. The older, the better, and the more dilapidated the better. My wife is from Rochester, NY and we usually go to visit friends and family every year. I stayed home this year, but took this shot last year in Batavia, a small town between Rochester and Buffalo. I wonder if it's still standing...

If you're too young to remember Frank Sinatra or Patsy Cline's version of the song, maybe you remember Chris Isaak's. In any case, the missus and I are headed for Baja, California later today to spend a week in a condo overlooking the blue Pacific.

It surprises me how many people I run into who have lived in Southern California for years and have never been to Mexico. From where we live, it's about an hour and a half drive. Many have preconceived notions of Tijuana (there are actually some great areas and incredible restaurants there) and are frightened of the unknown.

My wife and I lived there for two years, and though we were ready to come back to the states, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. The Mexican people are warm-hearted and charming, and love it when they see you making an effort to speak their language. Even if you don't speak a word of Spanish, you'll find most of the store owners and restaurateurs speak passable English.

There's a wealth of things to see and do. This link will give you an idea. I hope to post from down there and give you an idea of our adventures.

A home inspection may be the most valuable investment a buyer can make. A quality inspector can catch small problems before they become big ones and potentially save you thousands of dollars. Ask your REALTOR® to give you a list of inspectors they like. Odds are, these are inspectors they have worked with before and will do a good job giving your future home a thorough inspection.

Your REALTOR® can also recommend a good home warranty plan. In Southern California, the seller will typically pay for this. For around $400 a year, you'll have peace of mind knowing that if something breaks down, for the price of a small co-pay, you can get it fixed.

Have you checked out kayak yet? It's a web 2.0 travel site that I think is a great way to check out airfare, hotels, etc. As you start typing, kayak anticipates what you are looking for and presents a drop-down menu of choices. Once you've narrowed your search, it searches all the major site, travelocity, expedia, etc., and provides you with choices.

Once you find what you want, you book directly through the source where it found the information. Often there is no middle-man. kayak doesn't charge anything, they generate revenue through advertising. I think it's worth checking out.

This is the harbor in Goteborg, Sweden from the ferry as we were heading to Denmark. The crossing took about four hours. The ferry was extremely comfortable and featured restaurants, bars, a huge store and a movie theater.

Driving from Lillehammer, Norway to Goteborg, Sweden, we stopped in Haldon for dinner. It was a beautiful place. We had a great dinner, and then drove up to an old fort we could see from the town and walked around for a bit. I wish we had been able to spend more time there.

Some of our affiliates have been sponsoring comedy night at the newly opened Improv at Pechanga Resort & Casino and last night I paid my first visit. It's a great, intimate venue that seats about 300.

The performers were great, Scott Kennedy opened and was wildly funny. You have to admire someone who has been to Iraq nine times to entertain our troops. For every CD he sells, he sends one to our service men and women. The headliner was Adam Ferrara, who had us laughing until we cried. It was just what the doctor ordered. It's wonderful to see the Improv open its doors in the Temecula Valley.

(Sung to The Sound Of Music)

I only wish I had more time to read all the great content on this site. In no particular order, some of my favorite posts I've come across here:

Have You Considered Reciprocating Your Comments? Hmmm? ROAR!   http://activerain.com/blogsview/137735/Have-You-Considered-Reciprocating - Just plain good advice from a great blogger.

Good Faith Bad Faith http://activerain.com/blogsview/178136/Good-Faith-Bad-Faith - I just love what she has to say and she's a wonderful writer.

BLOGGING WILL NEVER CATCH ON WITH REAL ESTATE AGENTS  http://activerain.com/blogsview/174078/BLOGGING-WILL-NEVER-CATCH - What can I say about Lenn? She calls it like it is. I think she hits the nail on the head.

Social Networks Are Where it is AT! http://activerain.com/blogsview/167418/Social-Networks-Are-Where - Joeann is a real estate coach and she's a gem.

There are so many more. I'll aim to do this weekly.

It's funny. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and had you told me 10 years ago I would be a resident of Southern California I probably would have asked you what you were smoking. The twists and turns life takes us on is an interesting process, to say the least.

To condense a long story, my wife and I went to Mexico for a long weekend in the year 2000. She's a jazz singer and wound up singing at a local night club. Three months later she returned to put on a concert at the same place and that weekend, we wound up buying a home in Mexico! We flew home, put our San Francisco house on the market, and moved to Mexico.

This will down the road lead to stories of how I got into real estate, my adventures south of the border, etc., but for now I'll tell you we decided to move back to California after two years. Someone told us we should check out a place called Canyon Lake. We did, we moved there, I got my R.E. license, got elected to the Board of Directors of our local Association of REALTORS and now serve as its Chairman.

We wound up falling in love with the Inland Empire. The summers are warm (okay, hot sometimes), but generally the evenings are cool and the rest of the year is very temperate. We've made a million friends here. We now live about 10 miles down the road in Murrieta, just north of Temecula. Our neighbors are delightful, San Diego is an hour to the south, Los Angeles is just over an hour west, Palm Springs is about an hour east and Las Vegas is about four hours away. As my former sales manager was fond of saying, "if you're bored here, it's your own fault".

This is a great community, and I'm proud to call it home. I'd love to show you around sometime. I hope you take me up on it.

EDIT: Bill makes a good point.

Murrieta Real Estate Expert – Tom Plant, REALTOR® - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage (951) 907-9701

To say that Inman Connect motivated me would be an understatement. I started this blog during the conference and have been blogging since. I shared the information with my fellow agents and was asked and have agreed to teach a class on blogging in my office.

I will focus on AR because I have learned so much from this community. I have book-marked a few posts and am going to give everyone the link to realestateweblogging101.com. What else would you suggest?

I think that now more than ever it's critical we help each other succeed. I am so grateful to have found Active Rain.

I shot this on the same trip as the Thai Ginger flower I posted yesterday. This is a hibiscus I saw in Da Nang, Vietnam. I'm not happy with the soft focus, but I have never seen another hibiscus like it.

We visited Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Of the three, I enjoyed Cambodia the most, even though it was 115 and extremely humid. The people were delightful and the temple ruins were simply amazing.