201 Street

Laura Robson is easily a favorite for the Australian Open Tennis coming soon because of her roots: she has Australian blood through her family, though her accent gives away where she was raised—the United Kingdom.  Her family has deep ties to Australia due to the fact that her great grandfather was president of the Australian Rules Football Club, for which the grandstand they hold is named after him.  Her uncle also has something to do with sports in Australia: in the seventies, he helped in the Premiership win of South Fremantle.  With athletics in her blood, she will be playing with Andy Murray, a favorite for the Australian Open too, which coincidentally is the initial event for the grand slam.  The whole thing starts on a Monday.

However, though these two are favorites, especially among the Australians because of Robson’s heritage, they do face some heavy opposition and the games up until the tennis open and during it may provide them with fiercer opposition than either of them suspected.  While he won against Sabine Lisicki and her partner Philipp Kohlschreiber (who is placed in the twenty seventh rank), both representatives of Germany, it was not the easy wins for which people know him for his impressive skills.  It was 2 to 1 win, which forebodes that Robson and Murray might need to put in more effort and time than previously expected.  Yet Robson is an impressive player, even after a few false starts during some of her games, as Sabine Lisicki commented on when playing against the talented fifteen year old.

Due to her age, Robson does not qualify for all that the Australian Open offers.  She can only play about twelve games with 3 wildcards.  If she ever wants to play against the primo players of tennis, she will have to  improve upon her ranking even though her talent on the court more than qualifies her for greater fare.  She is someone to watch out for as a young, up and coming star of the courts.

Public Strategies has been around since 1990, and has 150 employees working to establish relations in the public sector.  It is based in Oklahoma City, and has a tremendous track record for the communities it serves.  It was started by Mary Myrick, who has achieved a strong presence in the neighborhoods, and is dedicated to doing her work for the public good.  Her special interests in relationship education, focusing on low-income families, demonstrates a concern and commitment to helping to serve the community with experience.

Her company Public Strategies Inc. is continually recruiting new employees, creating a culturally diverse team who are professional and focused on project management, policy development, and a host of other services that are created to respond to the needs of the community.  Community involvement with a long record of service means she gives back to Oklahoma City, and helps improve the living conditions of the people who live here.  With two decades of service here, there are many concentric social circles that she’s touched in some significant way.  Her organization has helped other organizations, such as the Bureau of Social Research at Oklahoma State University.  Her team has used its expertise to work with many different groups, helping in program development and team building.

Mary Myrick has also been involved with different service departments in the state of Oklahoma.  Health, Human Services, and Youth Services, are just a few.  The reach is much broader, and it reflects her history here, and her involvement with the communities of Oklahoma City.  They also have offices in Texas, Washington, DC, and Colorado, and serve to help strengthen communities there, using public strategy as an effective tool for broadening development, and reaching out to those in need.  The focus is on both organizations and individuals, and her diverse team is equipped to use their various kinds of expertise in all levels, and are here to help serve.

All drivers nationwide are asked to maintain vigilance for vehicles and cargo of Special Interest . The areas of Special Interest are the Eastern Great Lakes Region of New York and the Southeastern area around the Carolina’s. Operations that involve Special Interests are any and all tanker operations, fuel and hazmat transport operations and operations involving or serving fuel and chemical production, terminal and storage facilities.

The characteristics of these Special Interest operations targets and cases observation and photography of facilities and operations, attempted interviews of personnel to obtain information regarding operations and facilities and following vehicles en route. Furthermore, any rehearsed attempts to enter facilities by unauthorized personnel, multiple vehicles actively boxing the target truck, aggressive driving behavior, potential ruse of staged accident to cause the target truck to stop on the roadside in an isolated area.

All drivers and employees of companies covered by topics of Special Interest should be made aware of this alert. With strict adherence to company/customer security procedures, all drivers need to keep watch for suspicious activity for other trucks of the types above. All companies with Operations Of Special Interest should review perimeter and access security procedures and their effectiveness.

Report any suspicious activity immediately and in an emergency dial 9-1-1. All Highway Watch drivers need to use their discrete phone number and ID to notify the Call Center, which will route the call to the proper authority; the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force office or to other appropriate authorities, like the DHS Watch and Warning Unit at (202) 323-3205, or toll free at 1-888-585-9078. Also, drivers need to report observations to the Truck ISAC Watch Officer by email at: securetruck1@trucking.org. The Trucking information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Highway Watch Program and Owned and Operated by the American Trucking Associations, Inc., on behalf of the Motor Transportation Industry in cooperation with the Federal Government for the Safely and Security of the People of the United States of America. Transportation Security Coordination Center Watch (TSCC): 703-563-3237 (non-secure), 703-563-3695 (secure).

For many weeks, protests have been staged by the students and the liberal members of society in Indonesia.  These protests, as in the current ones in Tanzania, have to do with corruption in the military and the government.  The upper echelon of the military is under attack, not only from the citizens of the country but by the international press.  The media has published many articles that illustrate just how corrupt those high ranking officers really are.

Companies in other countries have made reports about the fact that they were required to pay off officials in exchange for the business opportunities they had received.  Just as the government and the financial institutions are discovering, many foreign businesses are refusing now to do business in Indonesia, for not only do they not want to be forced to bribe the officials, they do not want to be associated with people, with businesses and with a country is so entrenched in these corrupt acts.

For there is not only the aspect of the corruption itself, but the actions of the military and the government is affecting the economy and quality of the lives of the people of the country, and not in a good way.  This is what is so characteristic of the criminal acts of money laundering, terrorist financing and bribery.  The leaders may or may not face consequences, depending on whether or not they get caught, but the citizens of a country where corruption is running rampant always suffer.

The investors on the foreign markets did approach the president of Indonesia, Suharto, with their concerns as he is surrounded by the corruption, he himself is known to be an extreme honest person.  He agreed with the concerns of the investors, as well as the people of his country and has pledge to participate in the all-out attack on the illegal, and immoral acts of those involved.

The world media has had their eye on Tanzania for a long time.  Due to their coverage of the current situation, wide spread corruption, people are discovering what has really been going on there, and they are starting to protest.  The government has split and the country seems to be in quite an uproar.  The current money laundering cases have made clear the need for the concept of “know your customer”

And banks throughout the world are following that procedure right now.  Now that the corruption cases have exposed, involving so many of the banks and the politicians, the banks and politicians of countries around the globe are refusing to be connected to those in Tanzania.  Knowing your customer just refers to the procedures one follows when they investigate the history and the character of those they are about to do business with.  It has been a widely practiced concept since the attack on September 11 in an attempt to discover the financial institutions involved in not only money laundering, but in the funding of terrorism as well.

This is a two-fold attack on corruption.  The first aspect is that the banks are checking the background on all their customers, and looking for suspicious activity.  Examples of acts that are suspicious are when large cash deposits are made, or when a customer makes numerous transfers in a short amount of time.  The second aspect is that the financial institutions of a particular country, really depend on the international partnerships with the institutions of other countries.  This means that no bank wants to be associated with another that has been found corrupt, and sometimes that is the motivating factor to not participating in corrupt acts.  In any case, the banks and the government of Tanzania will soon be called upon to explain themselves, after years of getting away with these criminal activities.

After pulling out of the Aegon Championships due to knee injury world number one, Rafael Nadal is looking to make his mark on Wimbledon this year.

The Aegon Championships is the traditional warm-up tennis tournament for Wimbledon.  Nadal is withdrawing himself to allow for his knee to rest. He wasn’t to return to Wimbledon in tip top shape so he can defend his title.

Nadal’s knee surgery last season did not hold him back from being the Wimbledon champion. Nadal beat Roger Federer at last year’s Wimbledon in a very nail biting match. Nadal’s knee problems may be keeping him from the season he was hoping to have.

He was knocked out of the French Open after the fourth round by Robin Soderling of Sweden.  Soderling was previously ranked number 23 in the world before defeating world number one Rafael Nadal. The lost to Soderling was Nadal’s first ever loss on the clay courts of the Roland Garros. Up until this season he was seen as a master of clay and a clay court specialist, he would have been going for his fourth consecutive title.

Hopefully Nadal’s knee injury will not get any worse or he won’t aggravate it more. Some sports fans may be asking themselves if it is a good idea for him to play in Wimbledon at all. Perhaps it is his sense of pride that will keep him in the running. But, it would be a shame if he goes out too prematurely if his knee is not properly healed and ready to go. It would put him at risk of putting his entire career into jeopardy.

So now Nadal will move onto Wimbledon 2009 to get his season back on track. The tournament will be held on the grass from June 22nd to July 5th.  Here’s hoping Nadal will be in the running, and healthy.

It is important to research online to find the lowest price when purchasing wheel and tire packages. You’ll be surprised at how many different suppliers are offering the same wheels and tires at different price points. Often the largest discrepancies will occur due to shipping costs. Because tires are bulky and weigh a lot, finding a supplier close to where they will be delivered will often yield the largest savings.

When shopping for tires, you may be tempted to look for the cheapest tires you can find, but keep in mind that price sometimes reflects quality. Cheap tires are not always the best tires. Sometimes it pays to pay a little extra if you feel they will last longer or provide better performance. Whenever you’re looking to purchase tires you should do reviews online to see if the tires you are looking to purchase have good reviews by others who have purchased them in the past. If you find a tire you want to purchase it makes sense to go the extra mile and research what others have said to make sure it will be a sound investment. Nobody wants to spend over $1,000 only to find out after the fact that they are not quality. By doing research up front, you can avoid the buyer’s remorse that can creep in after any large purchase and also avoid any headaches that many come in the future due to buying faulty tires.

On February 9th, 2009 a car bomb went off in the downtown business district, near offices and restaurants and five star Madrid hotels. It was allegedly set by a separatist group from Basque called the ETA. The bomb was planted in a Puegeot that was was parked by a convention center in district of Campo de La Naciones. Remarkably, no one was hurt by the blast, as it happened at nine in the mornings. A person phoned the Red Cross at around 7:30 that morning and claimed to be a representative from the the terrorist group. They stated where and when the bomb was set to go off. The building, Ferrovial-Agroman, was evacuated by the authorities. As stated before, the blast did not injure any people in the area, just blew out office building windows and created many traffic jams in the downtown area.

It is believed that the attack was in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Spain, which was that the ETA was an illegal separatist group used as a cover for two previously banned political parties. The Democracia 3 Millones and the Askatasuna were prohibited from taking part in the general elections for Basque on March 1. The attack may have been aimed at a Spanish company that owns many British airports, Gatwick and Heathrow included, as the bomb went off in close proximity to the building that houses that company. The company had planned to build a train system, high-speed, that would connect the Basque County to France and to the rest of Spain.

Others have not been so lucky in past ETA attacks. For years this organization has been threatened anyone involved in the building of this railroad. Construction workers simply doing their jobs have been threatened, as well as the companies they work for. The ETA’s position is that it is being forced on the county by the cities of Paris and Madrid. Apparently this organization sees themselves akin to such environmental guerrilla groups as Earth First. They protest the waste of resources say that the building of the train will harm the ecology. Meanwhile, during the 40 years of protecting the environment they’ve accumulated a death toll of 825 innocent people, from the business in suits involved in the building of the railroad, to workers in overalls laying the rail.

Drug rehab is a very serious matter. Whether it’s a friend, loved one, or relative the decision to commit this person to long term drug rehab is a life changing experience. Getting somebody to realize that they need help is no easy task. These discussions are often met with denial from the person needing help. It’s very difficult to see you have a problem although it may be very apparent to others around you. Often times the addiction directly affects those the addict care about most, but these are also the ones that are most positively affected by the recovery of the former addict.
The hardest thing to do is often convince the person that attending alcohol or drug rehab is the best thing for them. This is no easy task considering everybody always believes they know the best thing for themselves. Staging an intervention is often the way many individuals are told by those they love that they need to attend rehab. This can go either one of two ways. The individual will acknowledge those concerned and agree to go to drug or alcohol rehab or they will get upset and turn down opportunities to get help. Either way this is a positive experience as even if the individual does not agree to go to drug rehab, they will at least have it on their mind and know how much their loved ones care about them.

Bank of America’s acquisition of Countrywide Financial has analysts, investors and the media a bit nervous. BusinessWeek took a look at the situation and did not have good news to report. In today’s top story, they exposed the shaky background of Countrywide and its affect on Bank of America (BofA). “. . . The Countrywide buyout brings BofA lots of trouble. The quality of Countrywide’s loans is much worse than the loans on BofA’s balance sheet. BofA said July 21 it will need to deal with $40 billion in troubled mortgage loans at Countrywide.”

This news is softened by the bank’s reported share prices. Although the result was still a loss, share prices were not down as much as analysts had predicted. Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America Chairman and Chief Executive, is using this data as proof of the bank’s strength in the midst of the current economic adversity. However, BusinessWeek was not fully convinced. The upcoming weeks will show if investors buy into it.

I got a flat tire the other day and when I went to the tire store I found that a toyo tire was too expensive. So, after I got home I went online and found the same tire for a lot less! In fact, I was able to get the tire I needed plus high quality cheap chrome rims. My car has never looked so good, except of course when I first got it.

I’m planning on taking a road trip this summer from California to Chicago on the historic route 66. I’m planning on stopping at several classic diners and I really want my car to look great. I think that it will now that I can afford auto tires all around. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found this web site.

It seems like I’ve spent a fortune with the necessities of my car but now I know that I was just being ripped off before. Performance Tires Plus provides great cheap rims and tires and they have excellent customer service. I should have been shopping through them for years. Now I know what I’ll do when I need something for my car.

A printable map of the United States ended up saving me in 1st hour yesterday. My students don’t have the best textbooks in the world for geography but they’ve been okay thus far in the year. I had them open there books to page 68 yesterday and we found that the old geography teacher had them all ripped out for some reason. I quickly gave them a new assignment.

I went online to find a map for them to use. First I found maps of Asia and then maps of Mexico. At last I found a printable map of the United States. We got enough for the whole day and my students were able to get to the assignment at hand. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do because they had to do that assignment at some point because the objectives align with several of the state’s and the district’s.

I don’t know what I would have done for that assignment. I guess I’ll have to push the district to get them new books. I wonder if they will or if I’ll have to continue to purchase supplies for my students.

Last week my husband and I decided we were going to make our house look nicer by getting a few new accessories. He wanted all new lamps but I thought that curtains and rugs would make the difference. I figured that new area rugs would be less expensive than new furniture.

We found a huge selection of braided rugs and my husband really liked that style. They were not only functional but they were stylish. We both really liked the way the braided rugs matched almost all of our furniture. If we had known about all of the inexpensive ways to give our home a facelift, we would have done that years ago!

So after the living room was finished I thought we would call it a day but no. My husband wanted to do the kitchen and then the bathrooms. All I really thought we would do was pick out a few wall decorations and some accessories. Now I get to redo my kitchen!

For people looking to invest in real estate abroad, there are some areas in Australia that are worth taking a look at.  While there is plenty of barren desert in the Australia, referred to as the Outback, there are also several booming cities, such as Melbourne and Sydney.  Finding real estate in these cities may be a bit expensive, but will definitely cover the initial investment quickly.  Sydney has many attractions, such as the famous opera house, while Melbourne boasts the beautiful Rod Laver stadium, home to the Australian Open.  Of course both of these cities have many natural attractions as well such as all the breathtaking beaches and the Great Barrier Reef.

If you’re ever on the lookout for a plumber in Phoenix, try the new site at http://www.plumberphoenix.info/ This is a new service that allows businesses to advertise themselves locally without the expense of building a website and optimizing it. Information displayed includes:

• Company Name and Logo or other image.
• Full Contact Information including toll free and regular phone numbers, fax number.
• Website URL and contact email address.
• Text describing the company and products offered.
• Opening hours

If you would like more information about this service contact info@blueadder.com

Seeking Alpha have just posted their Housing Market Tracker – Commercial Real Estate and REITs Review – a good read for those in the business or just those tracking the commercial real estate business.

Moody’s now reports that commercial real estate prices are declining in line with the tightening credit squeeze. All of these reports are based on how things were before the cash injection into the banking system by the major central banks (see BBC News). This cash injection resulted in LIBOR rates decreasing slightly. The injection of cash should also allow the banks to stop relying on each other for money and allow them to use government money. The BBC News site especially mentions Northern Rock which has had a tough time recently because most of the money it lends out is borrowed from other banks, rather than being supplied by its own savers.

So we’re in the new office for one week and its taking up a lot of my time just fixing minor issues that keep coming up:

• Kitchen sink faucet is leaking
• The new towel dispensers in the bathrooms were installed and new supplies had to be bought
• Reverse Osmosis needs installing
• Current water supplier needs canceling.
• New office door being installed

We’re not in a big office, no wonder facilities in larger offices are a full time job.

On top of this we had a power glitch yesterday which showed that two uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) were in fact interruptible. Two servers go down and our T1 and Phone lines too. The T1 and phone lines I moved onto a second UPS in the same closet with no problems, I now need to go and buy a new UPS for the servers. Anyone know if the small UPSs by APC are worth fixing or should I just replace it with one from CostCo?

Great post over on the Seeking Alpha blog going into the underlying reasons the commercial real estate market will fall

Reggie uses some very basic CRE pricing models to show the price is out of control for the larger CRE investor. Whether this is just one market or across the board is not mentioned in the post. This is quite important as other people are saying the prices are softening but not necessarily deflating and then you have Sam Zell saying the prices have to go up because of supply and demand.

So in one day three people give three different views on the commercial real estate market.  Which one do you trust?

We received a letter from our water supplier O Water trying to upsell us to a RO (reverse osmosis) unit that also takes pods and brews coffee and stuff. Here we are sitting with 10×5 gallon bottles of water cluttering up our office and we start talking about this offer. After much discussion, instead of going for the supplier’s RO system we’ve decided to install our own. No more bottles cluttering the office. No more monthly fees. The savings in monthly fees will pay for our own unit (purchased from CostCo) within 5 months. The only ongoing costs for us are replacing the filters occasionally.

Guess the O Water should be careful what they promote.

Twice this weekend I read that the real estate market is slowing down. Is it true?  With so many banks having to write down heavy losses due to sub-prime lending (the latest being UBS $10 Billion) that can only put a brake on the real estate market. No good saying that commercial and residential real estate is not the same – if the banks are losing money then the credit available to the lending market is going to be depressed

Of course the whole economy is slowing down due to lower consumer spending, lower consumer spending means lower money in business’s pockets, which in turn means less investment from businesses in longer term investments, such as real estate. Lets face it if you’re the owner of a corner shop who was looking to expand, then consumer spending lowers so suddenly you’re not as profitable and your shop is not as busy. Given all that would you decide to expand? Probably not.

Atlantic Publishing have just released a new commercial real estate investing book called ‘The Commercial Real Estate Investor’s Handbook: A Step-by-Step Road Map to Financial Wealth’. As they state (and I agree) commercial real estate “Investing in real estate is one of the safest and smartest investments you can make.” Commercial real estate offers some advantages over residential real estate from an investment point of view:

• Longer leases – usually three to five years
• Tenants tend to be better from a owners POV i.e. pay on time, likely to have the money to pay, etc.

For more information see their blog post.

Buy the book at http://www.atlantic-pub.com/cgi-local/shopper.exe?preadd=action&key=CGC-01

If anyone buys the book, let me know if you like it.

Chinese prosecutors have found high incidence of commercial bribery in infrastructure and real estate projects, most implicating the government officials in charge.

Read More at China Daily…

RBC, 05.12.2007, Moscow 19:57:40. Russia’s commercial real estate market is set to grow by 10 to 15 percent on average, experts believe.

Read More at RosBusinessConsulting…

That was the message from yesterday’s annual real estate outlook from Jackson Cross. Delaware Jackson Cross partner Pete Davisson said Office leasing was down in 2007, but not at levels that would suggest a major downturn.

Read More at The Business Ledger…

Shamil Bank, EAG form joint venture in real estate

Read More at MENAFN…

Shamil Bank, a leading Islamic commercial and investment bank and member of the Ithmaar Banking Group, and Bahrain-based Ebrahim Abdulaal Group of Companies (EAG) today announced a multi-million dollar, joint venture to pursue real estate opportunities in the Kingdom of Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf area.

Read More at AME Info…

NEW YORK—-CapLease, Inc. , a real estate investment trust focused on single-tenant commercial real estate investments, today announced that Mr. Paul McDowell, Chief Executive Officer, will present at the 11th Annual Wachovia Global Real Estate Securities Conference in New York City on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 3:20 PM Eastern time.

Read More at Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance…

Who says football and real estate never mix? Former Dallas Cowboys star quarterback Roger Staubauch owns the Texas real estate services firm that has acquired Kansas City-based Glaze Commercial Real Estate Advisors.

Read More at Commercial Property News…

The Staubach Co. has acquired Glaze Commercial Real Estate Advisors of Kansas City, Mo. Addison-based Staubach is scheduled to take over operation of Glaze Commercial at the beginning of 2008.

Read More at Dallas Morning News…