Miami Dade Real Estate Scoop

I mentioned to Jason Crouch in a reply to a comment about a poem.  I heard Desiderata read every day by a DJ in NYC as I was growing up.  I had not realized how much of an impact it had on me until I flew back 30 years in time to a time when I heard this read almost daily. It really is an incredible poem.  I am posting it here for all to read.  I'm sure many have read it already but a good thing is never read too much.

It's not my writing so flag it for points deductions if you like.  =)  I'm not doing it for the points anyway.

Desiderata .......

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann c.1920

Did anyone notice the number up there?

55,002 members!

I don't recall exactly, everything was so new back then, but I think there were around 6,000 members when I joined in January.

Active Rain has revolutionized the way we do real estate.   Blog on!

I may be mistaken, but up until now I did not know of any way to embed a spreadsheet in a post other than taking a screenshot image and posting the Jpeg. And if you had a very long spreadsheet, forget that even. It would not fit on your screen for a screenprint.

Well, Google Docs has changed that! They have added some advanced features to their awesome FREE site that rock! One of the new features allows you to embed all or part of a spreadsheet on your blog!

The spreadsheet below was created in Google Docs. I then generated an embed code for only this portion and stuck the code in here. Pretty neat, eh? Disclaimer - I made the numbers up. They're for illustrative purposes only!

And you can embed so that if you change the figures in the spreadsheet, the figures will change wherever you've embedded. I can think of a few good uses for that. Like a spreadsheet that shows present inventory numbers. It would be kept current everywhere just by your keeping the Google document current. But if you want the data to stay put, like a snapshot in time, it can do that too! There are many options.

Just thought you might find this useful.

I'd like to introduce you all to Justin Chester.  The last post I wrote was about Justin's incredible customer service. 

I decided he had a lot to offer us Active Rainers and extended an invitation to join.

Justin is part of Pat Zaby's tech team.  So if he's offering tips on Outlook and such, I suggest you pay attention =)

As a matter of fact, he just posted a great article offering just that.  A way to use Outlook more efficiently. 

I hope you'll stop by and welcome him to the most incredible online real estate community in existence. =) 

Welcome aboard Justin! 

Are you providing your customers with the bare minimum to comply or do you go above and beyond the call of duty?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with Justin Chester of Integra Computers.  I was actually speaking to him because he's part of the tech team at Pat Zaby's Seminars and Systems.  I needed a little help with something I purchased from Pat and Justin was providing the help.

Justin asked me to allow him remote access to my computer.  I did.  He then said "whoa, you've got way too many programs running in the background!"  He explained that all the little icons at the bottom of my screen represented programs that were running, even though I wasn't using them.  He also explained that there could be other programs running which didn't have icons which all contribute to slow down my computer even further.  

As he resolved my Pat Zaby issue, he quickly took a look at my RAM and informed me that I would benefit from purchasing some extra memory (not from him LOL).  He took me over to newegg.com, looked up my computer stats on Google, found the RAM I needed on NewEgg and explained to me how to add it.

As if that were not enough he went back into the system and disabled all the programs that were running in the background which I did not need.  I was seriously impressed!

Why did he do all this?  Just because he likes to provide top notch customer service!  He could have just solved the issue I called about and I would have been satisfied.  But instead, he noticed I could benefit from making some changes and shared his expertise with me.  It took him a few extra minutes and I was floored by the level of customer service he provided.

What about you?  Are you going the extra mile when you see the opportunity?  Or do you stop at the boundaries of your job description? 

It could mean the difference between getting referrals or getting forgotten.  Go for the referrals!

I am having such fun on the web today!

Why is today any different?  It started out like any other day.  Internet Explorer 7 froze on me several times as I traveled the web.

I emailed Jeff Dowler about something and a series of emails ensued.  We got to chatting about Internet Explorer.  He has 6.  I have 7.  We each hate it.  He said his daughter uses Firefox and loves it.  I asked him:

"what the heck are we waiting for then?"

I came to AR to search "Firefox" and got a ton of results.  As I read one article that looked particularly interesting, guess what happened?  IE7 froze on me for the 7th time in several hours.  How appropriate.  That was the last straw!!

I waited as I ended the non-responsive program (NO, I do not want to send an error report to Microsoft, thank you very much.  Have any of the 178 other reports I sent in the last 2 weeks helped?) 

I booted IE7 up again and returned to the article.  Looking around making sure Microsoft was not watching, I clicked on the download link.

I then had to try out my new toy.  What did I do first on Firefox?  I returned to ActiveRain and visited Brad Andersohn's blog.  His blog ALWAYS freezes my IE7. (Brad, that ought to tell you how valuable each of the comments I have ever left you really are...there was much patience and clicking involved in each one).

Did Brad's hyper tech blog have the power to freeze the great Mozilla Firefox? NO!  NO!  A thousand times NO! 

MUHA HA HA HA HA HAHAH AH AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH!

I AM MAD WITH POWER!! 

Jeff, you might want to make the switch or eat my dust.  This baby's fast! 

P.S. Can somebody tell me how to open a new tab in Firefox?  I need to add some love links to this post =) 

Here's something for those wishing to perfect their blogging style.  That includes me too.  This was written many, many years ago.  Before blogging, or computers were around.  It's still just as relevant today.

The following is taken from George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" written in 1946, over 60 years ago!:

"Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

Quite a difference no?  Mr. Orwell claimed that the modern English language was atrocious!  So he offered some tips for improvement (his writing is italicized, my comments not):

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. - I'm not sure I agree with this one totally.  My style is to write as I speak and I do use them in speech.  For instance, "clean as a whistle" seems fine if that is the point I am trying to convey.  But this is me against Orwell.  I'm just presenting my take =)

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. - I agree 110%  Why use a word the other person may have to look up if there is an everyday word that will convey the same message?

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. - Another I agree with!  I often read and re-read my posts (not this one though) and discover that I can delete words and still have the same feel to the post.  I delete.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. - "The train hit the lady," vs "the lady was hit by the train."  Did I use correct examples?  English wasn't my best subject.  I am not sure I even understand his point on this one.  Someone out there care to enlighten me?

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. - this one I both understand and embrace!  Let's not forget to leave real estate jargon out of our discussions with our clients.  Plain English!

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. -   If the choice is either writing something barbaric or breaking one of the above rules, he gave you permission to break the rule.  It's nice to know there was flexibility built in. =)

Above all, don't forget to keep it real and have fun.  Blog on!

Asa Coon was an angry child even by his uncle's admission.  Earlier this week he wounded 4 at his Cleveland high school before taking his own life.  He was 14 years old.

Fourteen years old with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Fourteen years old and no recourse, in his eyes, but to do what he did.  I can ask why all I want.  I can debate it all I want.  The fact remains that a child, fourteen years old, who should have been looking forward to the rest of his life is now dead.

I don't watch the news as reports of this nature affect me terribly.  But after an innocent song on the drive to work, they slip this in anyway.  I need to get an iPod.  And part of the terrible effect is predictable.  I need to know more about the person.  I need to try and understand why.  It doesn't make sense. I know.  But I research it and read it.  The very thing I try to avoid by not watching the news.  I even emailed Carole Cohen the day I heard.  A veiled attempt to express my condolences to her lovely city for something like this happening there?  I don't know. 

I don't know why I'm even writing this.  But I need for the universe to know that Asa was not a mistake.  He was not just an angry child who had a history of neglect and violence.  At the age of four he was the subject of neglect.  At the age of four my girls were watching Barney, plump, fed and dry.   He had a history of violence and a strained relationship with his mother. 

His classmates described him as "odd."  That just about broke my heart.  Who among us doesn't want to leave a legacy the day we go?  I will remember Asa Coon differently and I didn't even know him.  I will remember him as a boy who played chess even though the demographics were against it.  He eventually played well enough that he beat his teacher and went on to win a citywide tournament.  I will remember him as a troubled youth who fell through the cracks.  The cracks that get bigger every day and allow more of our precious children to fall through.     Our children.     Our future.

My condolences go out to his uncle, Larry Looney, and everyone else who loved Asa.

I realize this had nothing to do with real estate.  But it has everything to do with life.  What else is there?