For all of you that have been to Disneyland and have NOT been Disney World. What is your take on Disney world?

I am going to have a multi part blog on Disney.

(Now if you have been to Disney World don't answer or think about your perception of Disney World before your first trip)

Being a Cali Kid and growing up going to Disneyland, my take had always been that Disney World was a little bigger and what I always heard was that
"you have to go check out the Matterhorn, its supper cool"

Other then that I always had a perception that they were more or less the same.

I look forward to hearing your answers!

-James Baxter San Diego North County Realtor

I can't believe the end of the year is upon us already!
Which also means it is time for all the end of the year stuff too!

First on the list is Halloween.
If you have little ones... there is nothing funner (is that a word) for them then a trip to Legoland California to the Brick or Treat trail.

it is running from October 3-4, 10-11, 17-18, 24-25 and of course the 31.
The kids have to be 12 or under and after a day at the park they can do a run through the trick or treat trail and get a bag of goodies to take home.
(I would recommend getting in line early cause it gets long REALLY FAST!)

I would then tell you to plan on dinner at the Upper Deck Sports Cafe. Mom & Dad can sit down to a nice dinner we'll the kids get to head over to the lego room to play with Lego's. They have a nice selection of grown up food and a great buffet for the kids!

Then Legoland is also hosting their Party Nights as well for more info goto:
http://www.legoland.com/

Ok... so some of my clients are telling me it is time for me to get a new car...

Not that my current one is bad... but it is a 2002 Camry XLE and I am just getting ready to break 100,000 miles on it.
I like my Camry a lot... it is black with leather seats and limo tinted windows.
I would like to think I have kept it in really good shape. It drives nice and has a lot of really cool features

But none the less, I have one client in particular that has told me I should go get a BMW or Mercedes.

My question is, "does the car you as a Realtor drive matter? should we be judged if we do not drive the latest BWM 7 series?"

I have been out looking at cars and I must say I am not impressed.

I have looked at the Toyota line up namely the new Camry and Venza (they are nice but I like my Camry better.)
I have looked at the Chrysler 300 (nice car, but god for bid you need to look behind you, the car has a ton of blind spots)
Ford Mustang, Fusion, Flex and Edge... they look good, but I am not impressed
GM cars ... The ones that look interesting are well over $60,000, more then I want to spend on a car.
The Honda Accord looks interesting (I still need to go test drive one)
I went and test drove a BMW ... they do drive nice but for $35,000 for the basic 328i with out a GPS system seems a bit steep to me.
(I all most bought one of them but we were $1700 bucks apart on what they wanted to give me on my trade in)

I would really like to get a Porsche 911 but again they start at $60,000 and that is a bit out of the price range at this point in time.

My next stop will be to my local Lexus dealer to see what they can do.

Any recommendations, pros or cons?

I have been tying to figure out what is the best way to back up my computers for some time now...
Now that pretty much all my client files are on my computer along with a life time of pictures.
My wife would KILL me if one day all those pictures were gone.

Lets face it, in the computer world, it is not if you will need to reinstall your computers operating system... it is when.
With that said I have been a long time Mac guy and knock on wood... 15 years of Mac I have never lost a file to my computer crashing.
I wish I could say the same for my Window machines.. I tend to have to reinstall every 6 months.

I thought it was time to start making back ups just in case something bad happened to my computer now that I have all these priceless files and pictures on my computers. Thinking I was being frugal I went down and bought a Western Digital My Book 1TB hard drive for $100 bucks from Costco. I installed the included back up soft ware and ... Well that is when the issues began... I should have known ... when you install software and they have a "uninstall feature" right next to the install one, that is a BIG RED FLAG.

Well the WD hard drive did what it said it would do... however when it was backing up my computer, it would slow my computer down so bad I could do nothing else, So I spent most of my time turning off the hard drive back up so I could get work done and not making the back up on my computer. We all know that if we are disciplined and make the back up every night we would all be just fine and not have a care in the world in regards to loosing our computer files... but lets face it... we are not disciplined to do that on a regular basis.

So I bit the bullet and bought an Apple Time Capsule for $250 bucks (regularly $500, got a refurb off the apple web site) This thing is KILLER! I am embarrassed to list all the Apple products I own (past and present) but if you ask I have more then likely have or have had it at some point.
And I have nothing but good things to say about them all!

This is just another very well built and designed product by Apple. It took me a bit to get it set up

(I was trying to bring it in to an already complex wifi network)
If you were just using this out of the box for a simple home system you would have it up and running in 10 minutes.

And it does everything it said it would!

I now have it up and running and it backs up all my computers every hour... then it has a feature where I can flip through my computers hourly back ups and retrieve that deleted file.

It runs quietly behind the scenes backing up all my precious files and pictures and I don't even know it is there.

Out of the box a basic set up is simple and straight forward and takes about 10 minutes as the install asks you very simple to understand questions.
(nothing that would remotely included having to ask your system administrator anything) It has an outstanding Wifi n router that works great.. then it has either net ports on the back. I did did find for the fist back up it is WAY faster if you have your computer hooked up to the either net port on the back instead of the Wifi n connection. It did take a little time for that first back up to be made. However once that one is complete... it is AWESOME!

I am now on day two of it making a back up every hour and it has been seamless and way cool!

I would have easily paid the asking $500 bucks for this now...

If you are looking to back up your computer... take a trip to the Apple Store and talk to the knowledgeable staff to see if a Time Capsule is right for you!

And if you have a Real Estate question... Call me =)

Ok I must say this current market really has me frustrated to say the least.

I am proud to say I have finally figured out how to get my offers excepted... the last 6 I have submitted have all been accepted.

The thing that gets me is that they make you wait and wait and wait for a response ... then they want everything signed sealed and delivered
with in 12 hours (sometimes 24) none the less they want the buyer to respond immediately...

What is the deal?

Why can they get away with making the buyer wait, but god for bid the buyer gets anything longer then 24 hours to review paper work?
 
I run in to this with my buyers on bank owned or short sale properties and it is frustrating!

Then the banks all have their purchase contracts they want you to use... what is the deal with that?
They have since change it to an addendum, but still I would think they are opening them selves up for lots of lawsuits down the road.

The one I am working on at the moment has a 7 day inspection period however I have to give a 2 day notice that I am entering the property.
so that leaves 5 days to get the report back, review it and release contingencies. And that is granted I can get my home inspector in there to get the inspection done right away.... I hope he is not more then a day out ;)

I understand the banks have been dealt a bad hand.. and they are doing their best to clean it up... but they made these bad loans, that have foreclosed in the first place and for all the people that have been through a cycle or two also know that this is nothing new. It is bad, but nothing new.

The buyers market in North San Diego county is over it is a sellers market, but there are great deals to be had.

Well I would type more but I am on day 6 now and have to get an escrow closed!

Thanks for letting me vent!
Is there really a winner?

It is that time of year again for the Miramar Air Show 2009.
it is on October 2, 3, 4
Gates open at 8am
shows from 9-4

On Saturday the 3 rd they have a twilight air show from 5:30-9

It is free admission, free parking, free blanket seating.

If you would like preferred seating and more info goto:
www.miramarairshow.com

As a kid I remember going to the air show and my first time seeing the F117-A bomber talk about an awesome plane.
They have planes the kids (big kids too) and get in and play around.
and demonstration throughout the day.

It is a great event to go to and see what the Men and Women of our military do for us on a daily basis!
God Bless America!

Semper Fi

I had been having trouble with my homes water pipes.

I really did not know what the deal was other then;
My pipes rattled if the dishwasher was on and you had a faucet running.
It was awful if two showers were running.
You knew when the sprinklers were on, you could hear the water pipes all through the house.
I had leaks happening way to often.
and god forbid some one flush a toilet when you were in the shower.

I called my long time plumber Doug Long at Bert's Plumbing in Encinitas (760) 436-2511

and asked what the deal was?
He came over and tested my water pressure.

We found out I had 110 lbs of water pressure... which is WAY TOO MUCH for a house to handle.
The MAX is around 70lbs.

Bottom line my Homes water pressure regulator had died... I guess after 35 years it was time for it to go.

What had happen was the regulator was not .... well, regulating.

and that was the cause for all my headaches!

Doug quickly found the issue and had it resolved. 

He installed a new regulator and a few, well worth it, hundred dollars later, my pipes are as good as new!

My sprinklers are working better then ever, I don't hear when they come on any more.
You can have more then one shower running at a time. Which is wonderful when I have guests.

And flush away on that toilet... You aint gonna hear me yell!

This was such a simple and inexpensive fix... but I had put it off for way to long. However it could have really been a big issue if one of my pipes burst while I was out. If you are experiencing any of these issues call a plumber you trust! .... I trust Doug!

Museum Day for the San Diego County Museum's

On this Saturday September 26th 2009 ( 9/26/09 )

The Smithsonian Magazine is sponsoring a free entry to all San Diego Museums:
San Diego Natural History Museum
San Diego Air and Space Museum (one of my favorites)
Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Quail Botanical Gardens
And other museums and cultural institutions nationwide.

Go to:
www.smithsonian.com/museumday

to download your free museum card and to see a list of all participating museums.

There are no shortage of corner pumpkin patches that start popping up this time of year... and for most city slickers, we don't really know any better.

Let me tell you between Encinitas and Del Mar we have some killer pumpkin patches that come to town about and they are about as grand as the Del Mar Fair.

However if you want to take you kids some where, where they can really see what farm life is like, I highly recommend Bates Nut Farm (insert joke here) Bates Nut farm is a family run farm since 1921 and every year it just keeps getting bigger and better!

They have tractor rides, vendors selling their wears, a general store with all kinds of fund stuff, horse rides, petting zoo and not to mention pumpkins... and plenty of them!

Be sure to check out Bates web site for other fun things they do through out the year like Cars Shows, Arts and Crafts Fair, Scout Day, Farm Education Day, Scarecrow Contests and Christmas Fair.

Then of Course for all you people in the know, on your way out of Bates Nut Farm...

keep your eyes open for the guy with too much time on his hands..

He has built a replica of the US Capital entirely out of match sticks.

Cheers,

James Baxter

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Every year my wife takes us apple picking in Julian. Being a San Diego native I grew up going to Julian every year and walking around the Julian store fronts. However we never really did much apple picking growing up. Well times have changes and my wife feels it necessary for our family to experience the American past time of apple picking every year.

We have been to the apple orchards with rows and rows of apple trees, which is great for filling your apple picking bag quickly... however picking apples this way does not wear your little ones out.
Well my wife has found the solution to this, Apples and Art Orchard in Julian. If somebody never told you about Apples and Art orchard.. I am not sure you would ever be able to find it. It is a bit of a hodgepodges of a farm.... but fun none the less.

They have wild apple trees spread over 10 acres. Let just say your little ones and you will be ready for a nap afterwards. Lots of hiking and you have a nice verity of apples. Some you have never heard of.

You get to experience Julian apple picking at its finest. Then afterwards meet farmer John and make some fresh apple juice.

I learned something new this year apple picking. Every other year there is a good year and a bad year for apple season. (or as I was told)
This is a bad year... and it has been magnified because of a dry year and a lack of bee's. Bee's play a major roll in the quantity and quality of apples for the year.

This is a rough year for apples... if you are planning on going apple picking you better go sooner then later. They are rapidly running out of apples.

Julian Pie company is still my favorite place to get an apple pie, We tend to always do lunch at the Julian Cafe and a stop at Dudley's for some of their bread has become a tradition. As always it is a fun trip!

Cheers,

James Baxter