Real estate by its very nature is a long term investment. While there are ways to earn income over a short period of time, the greatest wealth building that utilizes real estate as an investment takes time. The compounding of values adds up to a staggering amount if you’ll have the patience to wait a few years. Buying and selling based on short market movements is akin to investors who watch the ticker tape and sell as soon as a stock price looses a little ground. Odd lot buyers (small time investors who buy less than 100 shares of a stock at a time) are notorious for making bad purchase and sales decisions. They seem to watch a stock grow in value until they are finally convinced it will keep going up forever; then they buy. Unfortunately for them, this occurs typically at or near the top of the bell curve and soon the stock starts to slide. When that happens, they panic and sell. They seem to forget that all stocks go up and down in value during differing periods of time, but over the long haul the good ones always go up. Interestingly, there are successful stock speculators who do nothing more that watch the odd lot numbers and then do exactly the opposite. Just think what you could have achieved if you had watched all the small time “get-rich-quick” buyers and then done exactly the opposite. Wow … you would have made a bundle. Therein is the difference between the unprofessional and amature speculator, and the seasoned professional. I did not lose one red cent in the great market downturn! I’m sorry if you did.

Like it or not, to maximize your return in real estate, you will need to weather some storms. This is yet another good reason for buying right in the first place. If you are stretched so tight that you cannot make it through the lean times and are forced to sell, you may never see the fat times full of profit.

The trick, if there is a trick, is to do your homework before you buy. It is far better than being taught a lesson by the marketplace. When you buy, expect some good and some bad, because you’ll have both. Be patient and give the market time to rebound from any corrections and you will benefit greatly. Real estate is the basis for all wealth. Get your share and then let it do its thing over a long enough period that it will meet your goals. Wealth building is most successful with an intelligent mind, a patient attitude and a pocket book deep enough to smooth out the rough spots on the road to success. Good luck in your career, and remember, no matter what happens, don’t panic.

She knows and understands intimately the importance of making a difference in the lives of those she cares for. She was willing to make the sacrifices she has in order to help the people, one at a time, in her care. Her focus is on the patient and not on herself. That is what makes her one of the very best in her field. I am so proud of her and hold her as a model for my life. I too believe in the power of the individual. I consider it a honor and a privilege when I, like her, can help make a difference in the individual lives that I come in contact with.

I’ve had some fun since her Doctorate defense referring to her as “Doctor” all the time.  She went along with it for a while but has recently informed me that if I don’t knock it off, I wouldn’t like what the Doctor would prescribe. So I, like all wise men should, took the advise of a trained medical professional and altered my behavior. I’m back to calling her “sweetheart.” But I admit, whenever I see her in her white coat, a chill goes up my spine.

Anyhow, while we were there the original dungeon of this huge castle (more like a small city) was open and we wandered down. It was frightening to say the least. The stone floors and central gutter are still bloodstained from when unspeakable things happened there. One thing that really hit home for me was the steel cage that hung from the ceiling where real live people were locked in a standing position for days, weeks, months and frequently until death. What brought back this horrific memory was a silly decoration that hung in our kitchen doorway during Halloween and that bonked me on the head a number of times as I passed by. It was a toy steel cage with a skeleton in it. It has given me pause to think. How many of us go through life in a steel cage of our own making? How many of us are restricted, confined and imprisoned by personality traits, lack of skills or experience that keeps the key to our success and happiness far out of reach. Unfortunately, too many of us. It is also unfortunate that many people are unwilling to make the changes necessary to break those bonds and set themselves free. Even when those changes are not that hard to make.

If nothing else that little skeleton reminded me that I need to make sure that the habits, thoughts and processes that could imprison me are overcome and kept out of my life. We’re only here for a short time. We need to make the most of it. We have a choice. Let’s stay out of the dungeon.

We have the rotation of the earth with the rising and setting of the Sun. We have Spring followed by Summer followed by Fall followed by Winter followed by Spring again as it all starts over. We plant, we nurture, we sustain and we harvest and then we plant again. Everywhere I look I see a cycle. Even in my own life.

My desk gets cluttered with piles of work, then somehow becomes less and less a mess until it looks pretty clean. Then suddenly, as though by magic, it is again cluttered and the whole process starts again. My brain also has it’s cycles. I find myself strangely at peace at times and then the stress grows and grows and I feel overwhelmed. So it has been in the recent past. I guess my Church, civic and business responsibilities began to weigh heavily on me.

Now the cycle has rotated to a more level field. My daughter-in-law just gave birth to a beautiful new granddaughter. My civic responsibilities are winding down to a manageable level, and my church service is less hectic.  Maybe all it took was a recommitment from me and a realignment of my priorities. Or maybe its just this part of the cycle. I’m not sure which. What I am sure of is that I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Its not my fault, it my computer’s. Really. Here I am sitting at my desk. I’m typing madly away and really don’t know whether these digital 1s and 0s will ever see the light of day. I ask my computer to calculate some difficult numbers for me and it responds with gibberish. I ask it to send a message for me and it seems to forget or it sends it to the wrong person. Sometimes I type for hours, click the “save” button and it arbitrarily sends my work out into cyberspace from which it can never be retrieved.

Sometimes I look at this creation and fantasize about replacing it with a young and attractive trophy computer. Then I realize that this is probably all I deserve. I even periodically consider whether or not I may somehow be complicit in its poor behavior. Perhaps I need to better learn what buttons to push, and maybe which not to. Still, at the end of the day, I know I will keep it around and keep using it. I also know that at some given time, it will betray me. Despite this fact, I know that it has an important role to play. So I will go forward, filled with ambivalence, because I use it, as necessary, for something that only it can do. And it doesn’t even complain. After all, there are just some things that I can’t blame on either the government or my wife. For those things I have my computer.

If this blog doesn’t sound exactly right, don’t think it is a result of my ineptitude, it was perfect when it left my office. If something is wrong, its the computer’s fault. Really. Trust me on this.

Recently I had the opportunity to become reacquainted with someone from my youth. It is interesting to open up those old memory boxes and brush off the events of the past. Some of the memories are faded, dusty and dog-eared. Some make you smile. Some do not. Still, they illustrate accurately events that led you to where you are today. I now better realize how the past is the genesis of the broken glass, tile shards, polished pebbles and rusty bottle caps that we have each arranged to produce the mosaic that is now “us.” I really believe that by careful tessellation of the combined past and present, we can individually produce a beautiful work of living art that we each call “life.”

The ground seems soaked to capacity with the melted snow so it does not welcome the inevitable addition of irrigation water from the system that gets opened up. Every year we have kids who are just been being kids and turn on hose bibs and leave them open. Over the winter we have freeze/thaw line breakage and then, as was the case today, there is often physical damage done by people running over or into stand pipes and exterior water lines.

Of course,the irrigation water fills the lines and then flows freely from the breaks and open spigots and finds it’s way to all the places that we wish it wouldn’t go. Then my office gets a series of frantic phone calls. I am always surprised at how people respond to these events. Rather that divert the water, open a drain or bail out an access area, they kind of freak out. They pace, chatter, worry and generally do nothing productive. They just let things get worse. They are looking for someone else to solve their problem. So of course we do. But inevitably the damage is worse than it should have been and expenses of restoration greater than they needed to be.

I think that by and large this is human nature. Overall people are just not taught to be problem solvers. Instead they learn to worry, rant and rave. They learn to look elsewhere for solutions. I believe that the underlying reason for this is a fundamental inability to actually think. I don’t mean this to sound harsh in any way, but “thought” is not a subject taught in schools. We learn to speak, to read, to memorize, to calculate, and to regurgitate facts. Much of our lives then is spent in reacting, responding and remembering but not all that much in “thought.” It’s really a simple process. At the very foundation, thought is the activity of asking yourself and answering a string of “what if” questions, then identifying the best answer possible and acting upon it.

Maybe thinking is painful. I know that just thinking about the events of the morning has given me a headache. So for the next little while, I’ll stop thinking and take the easy road and just react. For example, right now I am going to react to my stomach. It is thinking. It thinks it’s hungry.

Ciao; or should I say chow.

Years ago I was scuba diving off Catalina island with my two sons and a group of scouts. We were diving at night. I almost drowned. I panicked. I even spit out the octopus (the mouth piece connected to the air tank) and pulled of my mask. At that point I could no longer see or breath. It was my own fault. I did everything they said someone who was panicking would do, and had it not been for my son Bryce, who literally pulled me up out of the ocean as I was sinking the final time (after having resigned myself that my boys would be going home without their dad) I would not be here today.

There is a a lot more to that story, but suffice to say for our purposes here, I learned by reflecting on that experience that it was the panicking that would have killed me, not the water, not the weight, and not a lack of skill, knowledge or training. I have tried to remember and apply that lesson ever since.

Right now my life is as hectic, stressful, busy and challenging as it has ever been. During these times of uncertainty and pressure I realize that possibly the most important thing I can do is, sit back, put my feet on the desk, take a deep breath and just relax. When I relax I start to see more clearly and breath more easily. It is during those moments of relaxation that I receive a clarity of thought, a sense of purpose and more definite direction. I believe that I am able to receive those things by allowing my mind to reorder its thoughts to take advantage of education and experience; but I also recognize and accept that mostly I get those insights from the gentle calm influence of a kind and loving Father in Heaven who wants his son to achieve his potential and meet the measure of his creation, and he is helping me to do so. Knowing that I can always call out to him and have his assistance is a powerful influence for stability in my life.

Despite its ever-increasing demands, life continues to provide me with great joy, satisfaction and hope for the future. Sure maybe things are a little rough right now, but I’m still very happy. Some people have suggested that I enjoy life because I operate with blinders on and that I don’t really understand what is happening around me. I beg to differ. I know that I am happy precisely because I do understand what is happening, why and how it all fits into the great plan; not coincidentally called “The plan of happiness.”

If, as passengers on this great space ship planet earth, we are meant to be happy, then that is what I intend to be.

We had the opportunity to sell a property at a price that was simply too good to pass up. Recognizing that this would result in a taxable event, we went ahead and sold the property. I used the proceeds to pay down significant debt, thereby condensing the amortization schedules on other properties and allowing for retirement three to 5 years sooner than earlier expected. That all sounds great, but it carried baggage.

Now that tax time is here, my accountant called and suggested I make a payment toward the taxes due that I had not yet covered. He seemed concerned with the amount and I had to ask him three times before he told me what he anticipated I owed. It was like getting hit in the head with a brick. The figure was three times my annual salary!

I’m not exactly sure how to come up with this huge block of funds. (Perhaps huge is too aggressive a term to use to describe the amount, but I certainly don’t think so.) As a matter of fact I have no clue. However, I have found that if I simply take a little time to allow the sea to calm and give it some directed thought, a way will appear. My life’s experience teaches me that the world will move aside and let any man (or woman) pass as they move toward their goals. So once again I declair, get out of the way, cause I have work to do, problems to solve and goals to reach.

A couple blogs ago I trumpeted my shame at the need to buy bigger pants. Now I am forced to admit I was wrong. I was pulled into a web of deceit and misinformation. I was duped, bamboozled, even buffaloed. It turns out that I, even I, was a victim of the vicious elements that conspired against me. I rushed headlong into the fray, buying up new pants, disposing of the old, hoping to hide the evidence of my expanding girth. Then the truth hit hard, like business end of a 6-pound sledge. With that shock came the realization that I had been momentarily confused and the recognition that I am simply not as fat as I thought I was. And I blame my pants.

It all started on a dark and stormy night. Lightening flashed in the southern sky. I heard the creak of the floor, even though I was alone in the house and standing perfectly still. A shudder inched its way up my back and a sudden chill made the perspiration beaded on my brow into ice cold pools of pure fear. A gasp caught in my throat. I instinctively drew in my breath as though I might need it to cry out for help, even though I knew no one would hear. With all the strength I could muster, I buttoned the waist of my new pants then ever so slowly expelled the air in my lungs, but incredibly felt no relief. Instead I sensed an unusual pressure, an uncomfortable constriction, it remained somehow in my gut but also immediately haunted my mind. I yearned for freedom. I ached for mobility. I desired to walk, bend over or even just sit down. But I was frozen in place. They were new, hand picked and should have been supportive while giving me the agency to live my life with the security of denim and copper rivets to protect me from the elements. They had instead hurt me deeply and very personally. I had trusted them, but they mocked me, ridiculed my desire for comfort and left me feeling a shell of a man gripped in a vise of his own design. Reaching out for confirmation that I was still somehow the man I thought I was, I found nothing to grasp and instead fell into a pit of self pity and despair. And I blame my pants.

So here’s what happened. I wanted some new pants so I went to WalMart and found my size, paid for them and took them home. I washed and dried them and the next morning put them on. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I pulled and pried them on while all the time tucking in more than my shirt. The new trousers were as I’m sure you’ve guessed, too small. It seemed all too obvious, certainly I must have grown.

So later that day I bought the next size bigger. Five pairs of them to be exact. I took them home, washed and dried them and put one of them on. Sure it was more comfortable, even airy I might say, but I was not comfortable about the fact that my pants seemed at every opportunity to show portions of my anatomy that even though every teenager in the world seems comfortable with showing theirs, I was not willing to share mine with the world. So I cinched up my belt and went about my business. After almost a week I never could get used to the fit. Then it happened, a flash of insight. What if the villainous pants that had started this avalanche of activity were the wrong size? What if I wasn’t to blame? What if it was my pants?

So I got out the trousers that had started this mess and laid then next to a pair of the new larger pants on my bed and it was immediately obvious. The pants at the root of this problem were “way” smaller than the new ones. I looked at the label, it read as I thought it should, so I was again confused and bewildered. Then I got out the last pair of my old smaller pants and placed them next to the culprit pants. And again, the new suspect pants were smaller than the old pair. I couldn’t believe it. I had inadvertently discovered and now conclusively proven a conspiracy. A pant’s mislabeling conspiracy. And I have fallen prey to their affront. I wondered how many others had suffered tragically from this heinous act. So I did the only thing a victim of such a travesty could do. I gave away the five new larger pairs and bought some new ones the right size.

I have however learned from this experience. I shall now remain ever vigilant against another such event. I shall take, and live by, my son Bryce’s advise. When he heard the story he said simply, “You know Dad, this wouldn’t happen if you’d try them on in the store before you buy them.” There it is; from the mouth of babes. I have to wonder though “What’s this world coming to when your kids start teaching you lessons in life.” I’m a little embarrassed by this whole thing so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it to anyone else.