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 Good with Coffee...
January 11,
2009
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A New Year. New
Opportunities. What are your goals for
2009?
When
I posed this question to a friend recently she paused
and gazed into the distance. "I'm not making any goals
this year," she said. "Last year everything went
into the toilet." My friend went on to say she's
almost paralyzed with fear. She is like so
many these days, waiting for the other shoe to
drop. For those of us over 60 these tough times
are not the first we've lived through. We'll get
through this like we did so many others. Yes,
we'll get through this and so will you. This is not our
destination, nor is it yours. We all need to
remember this is temporary.
When
I was young we
didn't have credit cards, we used lay-away. If we
didn't have money to buy something we went without
because credit was not common. The only thing we bought
on time was our house and then a
car. Financing a car was a new
concept and the ruination of many in those days
when there was little or no disclosure about car loan
interest. The "add-on" interest
technique easily ended up being 30% or
more in actual
interest.
It
was embarrassing to owe money, which may be why the goal
of our parents was to pay off their homes as soon as
possible. Some of my parent’s friends actually had
dinner parties wherein the high point of the evening was
to adjourn to the back yard where Mr. Homeowner would
take out his Zippo lighter and set the mortgage
papers on fire. Believe it or not, this
is still possible.
Today
those who have no debt and have their homes paid
for are considered pretty
smart. Decide now where you want to be
financially when you're sixty, seventy, eighty, or
ninety. Then stay loyal to those goals even
when you're going through times like these.
Sometimes we have to work harder than others.
Sometimes we have to put on our thinking cap and
get creative. But never lose sight
that struggles are temporary. 2009 can we a
wonderful year, different, but
wonderful.
If
you have seen something you think others
should know about or something
amusing you would like share, please send
it to me on the form
or in an email with Coffee Break in the subject
line.
Share
Coffee Break with your friends. Copy and paste this
link into an email: http://www.joannegardiner.com/CoffeeBreak.html
I
invite you to so you don't miss out
on the latest news from the real estate
trenches, Coffee Break updates,
etc.
May
your Chritmas be merry and your new year bright with all
things good,
Joanne
Your
San Francisco Bay Area Real Estate Broker... and coffee
lover.
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You heard it here...
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From our
Computer Guru... January 16, 2009
'Amazing'
worm attack infects 9 million PCs
Biggest
infection in years, says Finnish security firm
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Coffee Filter Tips ~ Thanks
to Ms. Florence Pierson
Coffee Filters:
Not just for making coffee...
1. Cover bowls
or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters
make excellent covers.
2. Clean
windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so
they'll leave windows sparkling.
3. Protect
China. Separate your good dishes by putting a coffee
filter between each dish.
4. Filter
broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when
opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee
filter.
5. Protect a
cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet
to absorb moisture and prevent rust.
6. Apply shoe
polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.
7. Recycle
frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve
lined with a coffee filter.
8. Weigh
chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee
filter on a kitchen scale.
9. Hold tacos.
Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.
10. Stop the
soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot
with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going
through the drainage holes.
11. Prevent a
Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed
in a coffee filter.
12. Do you
think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use
strips of coffee filters.
13. Put a few
in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries,
chicken fingers, etc on them. Soaks out all the grease.
14. Keep in the
bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers."
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Dave Barry Year in Review: Bailing out of
2008 ~ Thanks to Mr. Clayton
Barry
How weird a year was
it?
Here's how weird:
• O.J. actually got convicted
of something.
• Gasoline hit $4 a gallon --
and those were the good times.
• On several occasions,
Saturday Night Live was funny.
• There were a few days there
in October when you could not completely rule out the
possibility that the next Treasury Secretary would be
Joe the Plumber.
• Finally, and most weirdly,
for the first time in history, the voters elected a
president who -- despite the skeptics who said such a
thing would never happen in the United States -- was
neither a Bush NOR a Clinton.
Of course not all the events of
2008 were weird. Some were depressing. The only U.S.
industries that had a good year were campaign
consultants and foreclosure lawyers. Everybody else got
financially whacked. Millions of people started out the
year with enough money in their 401(k)'s to think about
retiring on, and ended up with maybe enough for a medium
Slurpee.
So we can be grateful that 2008
is almost over. But before we leave it behind, let's
take a few minutes to look back and see if we can find
some small nuggets of amusement. Why not? We paid for
it, starting with...
Read the whole review:
Dave Barry's Review of
2008
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AIG supports companies
that support terrorism ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim
Ward
Is the U.S. government sponsoring
terrorism? You be the judge.
This video is about a lawsuit filed
by the Thomas More Law Center regarding bailout money
going to support Muslim Shariah Law and Muslim
terrorism. It seems like our legislators are doing
their typical "head in the sand
routine" regarding where the billions of bailout
dollars are going.
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Unreported statistics about the 2008
election ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim Knudsen
Professor
Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St.
Paul, Minnesota, points out interesting facts concerning
the 2008 Election:
The original posting with this
information is below a Newsweek article at this link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/163337
- Number
of States won by: Democrats: 20; Republicans: 30
-
Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000;
Republicans: 2,427,000
- Population of counties won
by: Democrats: 127 million; Republicans: 143
million
- Murder rate per 100,000 residents in
counties won by: Democrats: 13.2; Republicans:
2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map
of the territory Republican won was mostly the land
owned by the taxpaying citizens. Democrat territory
mostly encompassed those citizens living in rented or
government-owned tenements and living off various forms
of government welfare..."
Prof Joseph Olson of
Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota,
points out interesting facts concerning the 2008
Election:
Olson believes the United States is
now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase
of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some
forty percent of the nation's population already having
reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
Note: All Alaska and Oklahoma counties
were won by McCain/Palin.
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WATCH OUT FOR THIS
VIRUS... ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim
Knudsen
OBAMA AMAZING SPEECH...
THERE IS AN EMAIL WITH SUBJECT LINE
OBAMA AMAZING SPEECH (AND OTHERS) FLOATING AROUND WITH A
TROJAN HORSE ATTACHMENT. DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY
REASON. DELETE
IMMEDIATELY
SPREAD THE WORD. Do not open "Obama
Amazing Speech". Delete
immediately!
Click on the
snopes site and see other titles about Obama and McCain.
DO NOT
OPEN.
Verified by snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/obamaspeech.asp
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Green Tip:
NUMBER 7 PLASTIC
DEFINED
Any plastic that does not fit into
the other six rather well-defined categories of material
earns a number 7. Ironically, this category also
includes the new bio-based plastics that use corn,
potato, or sugar derivatives. However, the most infamous
type of number 7 plastic is polycarbonate, a building
block in bisphenol-A (BPA), which gained headlines as an
endocrine disrupter and health concerns. Because this
category of plastics is composed of several types of
materials, few municipal or commercial programs accept
number 7 plastic.
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A chuckle or two or even a
gasp... |
Arthritis ~ Thanks to Mr. Richard
DeBiaso
A drunk man who smelled
like beer sat down on a subway next to a priest.
The man's tie was stained, his face was plastered with
red lipstick, and a half-empty bottle of gin was
sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened
his newspaper and began
reading.
After a few minutes the
man turned to the priest and asked, "Say Father, what
causes arthritis?"
The priest replies, "My
Son, it's caused by loose living, being with cheap,
wicked women, too much alcohol, contempt for your fellow
man, sleeping around with prostitutes and lack of a
bath."
The drunk muttered in
response, "Well, I'll be damned," then
returned to his paper.
The priest, thinking
about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized.
"I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to come on so
strong. How long have you had
arthritis?"
The drunk answered, "I
don't have it, Father. I was just reading here that the
Pope does."
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Future Shorts - The New Black Hole ~
Thanks to Ms. Linda Jo Bruton
See the new black hole: You'll be amazed by this short
video
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Sick Leave ~
Thanks to Ms. Juanita Whiteside
I urgently needed a few days off work,
but, I knew the Boss would not allow me to take
leave. I thought that maybe if I acted
crazy, then he would tell me to take a few days
off.
So, I hung upside-down on the ceiling and
made funny noises.
My co-worker (who's blonde) asked me what
I was doing.
I told her that I was pretending to be a
light bulb, so that the boss might think I was crazy and
give me a few days off.
A few minutes later the boss came into the
office and asked, "What on earth are you
doing?"
I told him I was a light bulb.
He said, "You are clearly stressed out. Go
home and recuperate for a couple of days."
I jumped down and walked out of the
office.
When my co-worker (the blonde) followed
me, the boss said to her, "And just where do
you think you're going?"
She said, "I'm going home too. You can't
expect me to sit here and work in the
dark."
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Sometimes revenge is
sweet ~ Thanks to
Ms. Julia Flores
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Nuns ~ Thanks to
Ms. Florence Pierson
Mother
Superior called all the nuns together and said to them,
"I must tell you all something. We have a case of
gonorrhea in the convent."
"Thank God," said an
elderly nun at the back. "I'm so tired of
chardonay."
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Trucking duck in Minnesota ~ Thanks
to Mr. Jim
Knudsen
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Murphy at mass ~ Thanks to
Mr. Richard DeBiaso
Murphy
showed up at Mass one Sunday and the priest almost
fainted when he saw him. Murphy had never been seen in
Church in his life.
After Mass, the priest caught
up with Murphy and said, Murphy, I am so glad ya decided
to come to Mass, what made ya come?"
Murphy
said, "I got to be honest with you Father, a while back,
I misplaced me hat and I really, really love that hat..
I know that McGlynn had a hat just like me hat, and I
knew that McGlynn comes to Church every Sunday. I also
knew that McGlynn had to take off his hat during Mass
and figured he would leave it in the back of Church. So,
I was going to leave after Communion and steal McGlynn's
hat."
The priest said, "Well, Murphy, I
notice that ya didn't steal McGlynn's hat. What changed
your mind?"
Murphy said, "Well, after I heard
your sermon on the 10 Commandments, I decided that I
didn't need to steal McGlynn's hat after
all."
The priest gave Murphy a big smile
and said, "After I talked about 'Thou Shalt Not Steal'
ya decided you would rather do without the hat than burn
in Hell, right?"
Murphy slowly shook his head and
said, "No, Father, after ya talked about 'Thou Shalt Not
Commit Adultery', I remembered where I left me
hat."
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Carolina Camera: The Sling Shot Man ~ Thanks
to Mr. Jim Knudsen
Rufus Hussey, The bean shooter man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ieWrWLjii0
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Today's Economy, an anomoly
of our times? ~ Thanks to Ms. Florence
Pierson
Today's
Economy
If you had
purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one
year ago you would have $49.00 left.
With
Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the
original $1,000.00.
With
WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00
left.
But, if you had
purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago,
drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for
the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have
$214.00 cash.
Based on
the above, the best current investment advice is to
drink heavily and
recycle.
It's called the
401-Keg
A recent study
found the average American walks about 900 miles a
year.
Another study found
Americans drink, on the average, 22 gallons of
alcohol a year. That means, on average, Americans
get about 41 miles to the
gallon.
Makes You Proud
To Be An American!
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25
most commonly misspelled words ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim
Knudsen
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Golf
for beginners ~ Thanks to Ms. Julia
Flores
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Sven and Ole buy clothes
~ Thanks to Ms. Florence
Pierson
Sven and Ole
are walking
down a street in Madison, Wisconsin, when they
see a sign on a store that reads, "Sale: Suits $5.00
each, shirts $2.00 each, trousers $2.50 per
pair."
Sven says to
his pal,
"Looky here! We could buy a whole gob of dese, take
'em back to Duluth, sell 'em to our
friends, and make a fortune. Now when we go in there,
you be quiet, okay? Just let me do the talkin' 'cause if they
hear your accent, they might think we're ignorant, and
try to cheat us. Now, I'll try not to sound like we're
from Minnesota.
They
go in and Sven says with his best Wisconsin accent,"I'll take 50 of
them suits at $5.00 each, 100 of them there shirts at
$2.00 each, and 50 pairs of them there trousers at $2.50
each. I'll back up my pickup and..."
The owner of
the shop interrupts, "You're from Minnesota, ain't
you?"
"Well...yeah," says a surprised Sven.
"How'd you know dat!"
"Because this is a
dry-cleaners."
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Worth a thousand words... |
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Love the
snow ~ Thanks to Ms. Florence Pierson
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Before we say so
long... |
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Before you go,
remember your comments, suggestions, and
contributions are welcome. When you come across
something funny or informative and in good taste,
please send it along. I would love to include
it with your name and
our thanks.
Be sure to tell
your friends about Coffee Break. And if you have
time, explore the other sections of our web
site.
I leave you to
ponder these words a good
friend shared with me:
"The happiest of people don't necessarily have
the best of everything;
they just make the best of
everything that comes along their way."
Carry that
thought with you as you tackle the rest of your
week.
For information
on buying or selling in the bay area,
please call me at 510-429-4800 or send me a
note on the form.
~ Joanne
Joanne L. Gardiner, Broker, e-PRO
Realtor
Advantage Realty
3205
Whipple Road - Union City, California
94587
(510)
429-4800
San Francisco Bay Area
San
Francisco East Bay Real Estate
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