Why you shouldn't buy a ford...

Aside from the American car companies being slow to respond to the changing automobile market and failing to produce fuel efficient cars, or even interesting and exciting cars, here's the best reason NOT to buy a Ford.

Have you heard one of their commercials lately? Great deals huh. Here's the problem. The volume on the commercials is so incredibly high and out of control obnoxious that even my 90% deaf dad can hear them.

Seriously Ford - what the @)(#$*&$?????? Do you really think the best way to sell a car is to have your commercials twice as loud as all the rest so they literally scare people in their own living rooms?

It's just hot.....

I'm a heat weenie. Yes I admit it. It's not really that big of a deal, except for high electric bills.

Then there's the week of 100+ degree heat. I mean come on - enough is enough.

All week I've been thinking I'm just a big weenie - until tonight we were watching the news and apparently three people have died in Texas along - with several more across the midwest. How crazy is that?

An interesting take on things....

Times are certainly changing. Yesterday I was working on my newsletter and added some information on the local market statistics. It's ugly. Higher number of listings, more days on market, prices beginning to fall. We have 6+ months supply in nearly every category - and over a years supply in homes over 350,000. Ouch.

So last night I headed to Pok-e-Joes to pick up bbq for dinner. I was originally headed to Rudy's but at the last minute changed my mind - so I ended up taking the back road up past Toys R Us, Second Looks, and an assortment of other stores and resturaunts. You know what I noticed? There wasn't hardly anybody out shopping or eating. I'm talking almost like a ghost town. 10 people in Pok-e-Joes and 5 of them employees. Maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot.

Is it just me, or are times changing?

On the way home I heard a great song that I really liked - All Summer Long by Kid Rock.



When I got home I hopped on iTunes to download it - only couldn't find it? When I did a google search I learned that Kid Rock doesn't do iTunes, or any other pay service. You can download his music for free and he encourages it. With a little more reserach, I found this interesting Kid Rock PSA - Steal Everything. Certainly gives us something to think about....

08's first hurricane

Well.....that was easy! Not so much for South Padre and some of the rest of the Texas Gulf Coast - but hurricane Dolly wasn't all that. In fact, she was nice enough to bring some much needed rain to the area....so I'm gonna send her a Starbucks gift card as thanks when I find the address. :)

Seriously though...we needed rain really bad and thankfully we got a bit. Now we'll be green again for a few days - and humid as heck. Gotta make some money for Austin Energy, right?

Not much new to report. Dinner with friends on the farm this weekend... Low key weekend at home other than that. A bike ride maybe? Who knows......

Dinner with friends

Funny how easy it is to forget to write about fun stuff in your blog! Over the 4th Rick and I went to visit his sister and brother in law in Wisconsin. We had a fantastic time! Although flying has lost it's glamor, once we actually arrived at the Appleton, WI airport we had tons of fun. Ricks sister, Dawn, and her husband Mike, are very fun, kind, cool people. We spent a night in their beautiful Victorian farm house, then headed to their lake house for the remainder of our stay. It worked out great since Rick's mom, brother, sister in-law and their two kids stayed on the farm.

Being back in the midwest was refreshing in many ways. Back "home" if you will. That and the temps were in the mid 70's compared to our 100+ degree days!

So tonight Rick and I had our friends Woody and Martin over for dinner. BBQ'd chicken breasts on the grill, summer squash and zucchini with asiago cheese and a great salad with Claire's famous dressing. YUM.

Neither Woody nor Martin had played any of the new gaming systems....Rick and I have way too many toys so we shared. We started with a few games of guitar hero on the PS3, then moved to mariocart on the wii. Good times.

Baby Grady is crashed out on the couch next to me as Rick and Woody are playing mario cart...check out the cute pics.... ;)

Fun conversations...

Recently I had the opportunity to reconnect with someone from my home town. Diane, the mother of a friend I used to work a the local health center with, is perhaps the top real estate agent in Boone, IA where I grew up.

As my parents and are are discussing (negotiating? debating?) their potential move to Austin, we're at the point where we need a good idea of what they can get for their house. Like many people, this is their largest asset, and it is scary for them to consider selling it.

So after talking with a few friends in the area I decided Diane was the best person to call. She and I had a fantastic conversation, it was very cool to reconnect and learn just a bit about what's been going on with her for the past 10 years since I left Iowa.

Here's my challenge to you: think about someone from your past, and give them a call. You'll enjoy the outcome!

Why we do what we do...

Do you find yourself thinking....WHY did I do that? Or repeating something that you've done over and over...maybe in a job or a relationship? Ever wonder why you do what you do?

Click on the title above to hear a great talk by Tony Robbins. It'll make you think.....

A trip to the lake....

Grady and I just got back from a short 2 day trip to our condo on Canyon Lake. It's always great to get out of town for a while!

Traditionally, we have a frozen stuffed crust pizza and a salad on our first night, then eat the cold pizza in the morning for leftovers. To spice things up a bit, I made a banana shake and we sat on the balcony and watched the sun set - the photo above is from about 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 19, 2008. Very pretty and relaxing.

Grady went in to San Marcos and spent the day at the spa. He always comes back looking so cute. I had lunch with an old friend of mine at a San Marcos favorite - Herberts Taco Hut.

I made the obligatory trip to the outlet mall and went by Tommy Bahama's store. "Buy 5 items and get 50% off your entire purchase!" the employees shouted as people walked in. Normally I can't find 5 things I'd want to pay Tommy Bahama prices for...but on this trip I was able to get 4 fantastic panel back shirts and a great pair of shorts.

Today I'm back at the office wrapping up some loose ends and looking at next months marketing. I've also been spending a few brain waves thinking about really kicking it in on the Systemized Touchpoints business and potentially picking up a tanning salon in San Marcos. We'll see...I need to sell some more houses first!

That said, when you're talking to your friends and loved ones and they mention they're looking for a home, think of me first and put us in touch with one another!

Prioritizing....

Do you remember the first time you thought how great it was to be able to do multiple things at once - or multi-task? I remember being in college thinking I was a hot-shot because I could "multi-task" - when being intereviewed for campus leadership positions it was a huge buzz word - one I used and one I heard.

My coach Scott Gordon and I have had a few conversations about this whole multi-tasking stuff. Joe Stumpf, likely the best real estate trainer in the country, also has a lot to say about multi-tasking. The main point...it's really not good. When we've got a bunch of stuff on our plate and we're trying to do a little on one project and a little on the other projects, it leads to poor quality and slower results.

So what should we do? Prioritize. What's the most important thing to accomplish RIGHT NOW - the highest and best use of your time and brain waves. Sometimes I have a really hard time figuring that out. When it is choose between activity A and activity B, it's easy. When I have a list of 12 things - it's not quite that easy.

The other day Scott shared a great tool with me - the Prioritizer.

http://prioritizer.idea-sandbox.com/

Click on the link or put the URL above in your browser, then put in your list of activities or chores. Click next. You'll go through several questions, and end up with a prioritized list.

Cool stuff. I hope it's as helpful to you as it has been to me.

Lake Conroe

It has been a few years since I've spent the day on the lake....man do I miss it. Rick and I went to Spring, TX to visit one of his patients, who has a boat on Lake Conroe. We drove up Saturday, hit the lake about 3 and stayed until about 7:30.

While we were driving around I noticed some buildings that looked like Silverleaf Resorts Presidential units....we drove over and sure enough, there was Silverleaf's Piney Shores resort. Hopefully next time we go we'll stay at the resort and have a little more lake time, with an easy retreat from the sun to re-energize.

We arrived back in Austin around 1 today....one of the things I had forgotten was how much energy the lake/sun can suck out of you. Now that I've had my three hour nap, vacuumed and dusted, folded laundry and run the dishwasher....it's time to think about dinner.

Cheddars? Red Lobster? Chili's? Applebees? I really want a cheap nasty buffet but Rick is a weenie and won't go to any with me.....so if any of you reading are up for a buffet visit - let me know...mexican, chinese, american, doesn't matter...LET'S EAT.

Which reminds me of a book I want to check out, called The Cardio Free Diet. I'll let you know if I actually read it... ;)