So many thoughts have gone through my mind about the disappointment in others.

In other news, have an extra $43k laying around? Buy this!

So this past weekend in San Diego was a blast. Zach and I stayed at the W Hotel while his mom and Margaret stayed at Paradise Point.

Here are some photos!


Zach's mom and Margaret.


Zach and I.


Hanging out at Paradise Point.


Looking up.


Arriving at the W.


Zach checking out the breakfast menu! Mmmmm.


Fam photo time!


Cool tree by the beach.


Cool shot of an F-14 flying by the beach.


Zach and I hanging out.


The Del.


Yeah, keep it.


This was the weekend for personalized plates!!


Sherriff Joe would be proud. Tent City!


Zach's mom and Margaret


The sink at the W. Thankfully nobody came in while I was snapping photos.


Zach's uhhh- friend.


Zach. hahahahahaha! Mmmmmmmm... Crown and Coke!


The W inside...


The W upstairs at the Beach Bar. This is a bar on the 3rd story of a building in the middle of downtown San Diego... How cool is that?


Another shot of the Beach Bar. There's even a firepit!


Me.


The second floor of the W. Here's a great place to hang out while you watch your kids - there's a pool just to the right that opens up to the sky above.


An honest man.


Zach trying to catch a powernap.


Hanging out at the beach.


Margaret.


Zach's mom.


Zach in the middle of the bay!


I left my mark in SD.


Mmmmmm... naaaaaaaaature...


Mmmmmm... Gooooo Daaaaaaaaaaaddy...

By popular request, here's a link to the glance back into the dot-com heydey.

Congratulations Karen!

I just found out that my friend Karen got hired at Microsoft. Wooo Hooo!

So today is my birthday.

I woke up this morning and the fact that I turned 27 is beginning to sink in more and more. I began to analyze my life and I've been thinking in the past few weeks of what my life will be like in the next 15-20 years.

As most of you know, I love kids. I've been thinking about what it would be like to be 40 years old and taking my 10 year old to school. My dad and I have a 30 year gap between us and although I don't think it was that bad growing up, I just don't know if I'll feel that connected with my children if I have a 30 year gap. Naturally, it depends on how old your mentality is but at 26, I already felt like I was an old soul!

With that in mind, I imagined myself at 40 and began to come to terms that 30 is 1095 days away and if I'm going to be that 40+ year old guy taking his 10 year old to school, I had better find a younger wife so at least one of us will be under 40!

Let's face it, 10 year olds are wildly energetic. I didn't really get to go out and play with friends when I was 10 because my parents moved up to a house on a hill and the rest of the residents in the community were older.

Hmm- this makes me think about how I want my children to always have that ability to be social with their peers when they grow up.

And that brings to mind, I want/have to be that active 40+ year old guy who hangs out with his kids. I want to be the cool dad! And as I age, I hope to have some reasonable level of communication with my children but that naturally depends on ensuring their maturity is higher than average so we can converse on the same wavelength.

So I just thought of something... when I die and my kids go through my stuff to check out what dad was like... wouldn't they want to find this blog? I mean- how cool would it be to flip through your mom and dad's journal that they had back in 1960s or 1970s?? So then that makes me wonder - how long will blogger.com be around? What about google - it seems as though they are in the information capturing business since they do keep a directory of the web and a copy of the web on their servers. But how much can you save? Can you imagine how much web content is going to pass over the web over the course of the next 30 years?

I wish my parents kept a blog.

When I think about my grandparents, I remember the times the whole family would gather over at their condo and stay up late on Friday/Saturday talking about whatever. That was nice. Hmm... when I think about old people in general, I can't help but think about most of them being quiet. They don't really talk much but when they do, they talk about how things were different long ago and they reminisce about their lives. Take my neighbor for example. He talks about how he used to make short wave radios back in Sri Lanka (I think that's where he's from) and how he used to have so many customers/friends and they all used to come by and compliment him on his work. Well, that was a long time ago and I don't understand why he doesn't focus on today/tomorrow to see what he would like to do in the future.

Well, back to me getting older. I woke up at 7:45 this morning and flipped through some photos my parents and I took yesterday. We checked out homes in Tramonto and Anthem. There was this one development in particular where the agent simply said "I have nothing to sell folks". He mentioned how there were hundreds of people who have inquired already but there were no homes available. He didn't even want my information to contact me because he said he doesn't contact people and people would need to take the initiative to come back and inquire about homes for sale in the future.

WOW.

So basically, if you're a real estate agent and you're working for a builder. You've got it made.

You can basically just sit there and take orders all day - given there's a supply to fulfill those orders. Is there an easier job out there?

So I began to think again... when was the last housing boom? Wasn't it back in the early 80s? And things in life tend to happen in cycles right? The economy goes up, down, up, down, investments shift from the stock market to real estate and back again... So theoretically, let's assume that the housing boom goes for another 2 years, we should have another in 2025. Somehow that doesn't sound right.

Maybe sooner? Why should the housing market slow down? Yeah, some houses have gone up a ridiculous amount of money in the past couple of years but that doesn't mean their houses are going to have a massive correction downward by 10-15%. The houses up in Anthem, Aviano, and Tramonto are going for anywhere between $350k-$800k.

Where do the people come from who can afford this much house?

These people exist but I think this housing market is an EXCELLENT time for builders to pick up cheap land in less than desirable neighborhoods and to really fatten up their profits by polishing up these areas and spinning them off to the lower to middle class. THAT'S HOW YOU KEEP THE ECONOMY GOING! If land developers want their business to continue these insanely profitable years, they can't just keep catering to the upper crust of society. I believe the upper echelon of the houses on the market has already been reached and the market can only support so many creme de la creme homes. Take Phoenix for example, I have a friends who have seen their equity rise $400k in one year. They live in Desert Ridge (one of the hottest areas in metropolitan Phoenix) and it's a new build. This naturally is not the norm but it just goes to show what's going on out there. With homes going UP that much, what about the lower to middle class people in Phoenix? These people maybe earn 25-35k a year - keyword: maybe. There's no way they'd be able to buy homes that are $300k unless they had a large down payment but if you're at the 25-35k range, it's going to be pretty hard to save enough money to make a dent in $300k.

It's understandable now why builders should focus back inward and recycle the poorer neighborhoods. There's a lot of money to be made in building closer to the center of town and I believe we've reached a level of urban sprawl that people are willing to pay a premium to be closer to the central part of town. I have to acknowledge the fact that the builders would have to buy out existing properties and naturally the existing owners of these properties are going to see nothing but dollar signs in their eyes. Give the property owners their money and wish them well and build!

ok- church starts in 15 minutes. I may add more later.

I got this e-mail this morning...

Dear Clifford,

You have received an offer for losefatpills.com, in the amount of $258.00.

Cool!

I think I can hold out for more money though...

So it's been a week since I last wrote something. Sorry.

I've been busy with the 4th of July activities and hanging out at the pool. Now, ya can't fault me for that right?



Found some interesting news today. The Standard in HK had an article about the millions in poverty in China. Read it here.

Also, here's some free orange chicken from Panda Express!

I'll post more stuff later. I've just been busy reading my three books (blink/maslow on management/freakonomics) and doing other stuff. I gotta live it to write about it!