patrick.net

OT to FAB

I'd like to ask a question about Peninsula SFR rentals (Burlingame/SM area). Can you email me at caed744 @ yahoo dot com?

Thanks in advance

Bork,

You are quite right. A liitle country with a nuke does not become a superpower, it justs gives the pipsqueek a suicide method.

The MAD has scaled back quite a bit, though. American B-52s and KC-135s no longer sit cocked on to launch at a moments notice. The ICBMs may still be active, but it takes a B-52 (or other heavy bomber) to deliver the megatons needed to destroy the hardened sites.

Bork,

Nuke subs have been around since the early 1960s, they were not introduced very late in the Cold War. Even so, the payloads of our sub based missiles were not large enough (or accurate enough) to pop hardened Soviet facilities.

The Soviet subs were far from invisible. We did a very good job of tracking those noisy tubs.

Our strategy was that the ICBMs and SLBMs would hit the soft targets, and the manned bombers would hit the hardened sites. Strategic Bombers were not made irrelevant by missiles (sub or land based), they stood down only when the Cold War ended.

I've gotta say (nukes aside) the Battle Mountain "Fat Cat" wine I had at a client's last night is definitely taking a toll! I had 3 freaking glasses and I feel like I pulled an "all nighter" for crissakes. I can still taste it and I feel dehydrated like a dog. Supposedly it's from Sonoma (and the client seemed to enjoy it) but has anyone else had this experience? Damn.

Oh and I'm shaking like a dog sh1tting peach pits!

On the topic of subs:
http://www.gizmag.com/go/7292/gallery/

SP,

Thanks for the heads up! I'm surprised they let that on the plane? My mother-in-law is visiting from the Philippines and I asked for (4) bottles of ESQ Rhum and now I'm being told NO LIQUIDS on Int'l flights!

Can anyone verify this or is Mrs. DinOR just trying to make sure I don't become any "more" of an embarrassment at the wedding? :(

TIA

Not just international flights. You can't take any liquid or gel on domestic flights also; in amounts greater than 5 oz per container.

Great....

An acquaintance we know just bid into a Palo Alto Eichler (1200 sft) for over 1.3M, it is quite close to 101. It is not even going to Gunn High, it goes to the other high school.

I personally think that the blue-collar part of Palo Alto is the most overpriced, bubblish area of BA. Give me a break, at least shacks of the same level of school district and lot size in Mountain View, Cupertino and Sunnyvale are "only" selling at $800Ks.

Mountain View High school is doing really well now, it is doing better than the other PA high school. You really have to shoot me in the head to pay $1.3M for a worker shack in eastern part of PA, which looks no different from RWC to me.

That's just for carryon, I believe in checked luggage it's not a problem.

I'd check with TSA or the airline for specifics. We ended up having to throw away $50 worth of deodarants, and orther containers. We had a brand new can of sunscreen spray which was like $15 just because we didn't want to have to walk all the way back and check the bags.

Mrs DinOr, that's funny.

Oh no, very sorry can't bring on the plane.

SP Says:
"May 23rd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Umm… you do realize _that_ picture at the beginning of the thread is not really of a real realtwhore, don’t you?
SP "

SP, thanks for basically telling me Santa Claus isn't real. I dreamed about that girl. I was even going to go and get my real estate license.

I personally think that the blue-collar part of Palo Alto is the most overpriced, bubblish area of BA.

I dunno about that - I've spent a lot of time in RWC recently looking for rentals, and it's pretty damn different than any part of Palo Alto (that's not East Palo Alto).

Is there a street in particular you were referring to?

eburbed

I will get more details from friends. Just heard about it.

Western RWC is not bad at all, I drove by it the first time last week, fully grown trees, fully restored houses, some even craftsman style. I prefer western RWC bordering 280 to the part of Palo Alto bordering 101 any time, if I don't have to deal with the school district.

I suspect that the address is near Orgeon Expressway, that part of PA is no different from eastern Cupertino or northern Sunnyvale.

eburbed,

if you live by yourself, or married with no kids, have you considered renting an in-law quarter in really nice areas?

There are lots of in-law quarters for rent in Los Altos, LAH, Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Gatos, in the traditionally upscale foothill areas. The cost is around $1500-2000 for 1bd/ba 600-1000 sqft, utilities usually included. I personally consider this the best deal of the valley, because you get to live it up with just a fraction of the cost.

If you only target Peninsula, I have seen some in-law quarter rentals in Portola Valley, Woodside, and even Atherton.

If you have no kids, and have a great credit score, some savings to show to landlords, they will be very happy to take you in for such deals, because these cottages are usually rented out by retired landlords who are looking for some stable pocket money.

Many of those rentals are not legal rental units. Just be aware that you're not a "real" renter going into it. I worked with a guy years back, during the 90s boomtime, who'd moved out here to join the fray. He was renting a non-legal in-law unit in Saratoga from a sweet old lady who used to bake him cookies and talk his ear off. That worked well from 1997 until late 1998 when she unexpectedly died. He had to vacate in a hurry after that when the kids came from back east to arrange the estate. (yea yea, he could've probably made all kinds of hell, but in most cases people want to avoid conflicts...and he really liked the woman and her family, and had been paying dirt cheap rent).

Yeah, I am aware that some transactions, if not all, for these cottage rental are cash-only.

But heck, for the same amount you'd pay to some "luxury" apartments, you have all utilities paid for, got to live in a really nice part of the area, that's not a bad deal at all. Over half of these cottages are updated, so they look and feel much better than the apartments with paper-thin walls.

So if one is single, or has a wife without kids, it is a risk worth taking on. Apartments may raise rent too. Usually these sweet old ladies or grumpy old men don't particularly like churning renters. So the only thing you've got to be worried about is their life expectancy :-)

If you have no kids, and have a great credit score, some savings to show to landlords, they will be very happy to take you in for such deals, because these cottages are usually rented out by retired landlords who are looking for some stable pocket money.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have a great credit score, and I posted an ad on craigslist recently - just waiting for some nibbles.

OT, but Money/CNN have ranked what they consider the "hottest" tech companies:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0705/gallery.fastgrowing_top25.biz2/index.html

Interestingly, of the 25 on the list, only 4 are in the Bay Area. Sure, the methodology may be off, but it's interesting nonetheless.

why is my comment in moderation? I didn't mention soc-ia-lism.

He seemed relieved and that made me think that may be he is claiming the house as primary residence in his tax return. Am I legally responsible for reporting his rental income to the IRS? If so, how would I do that?

It's probably more that he's not reporting this as rental income.

I don't think you have a responsibility to report this - except for malicious reasons.

If the IRS cracked down on that, a lotttttttttt of homeowners would be screwed. I know a lot of single people renting out rooms, etc.

*NOT TAX ADVICE

No, you are under no obligation to report anything to the IRS, since you don't know his tax status and there are no fillings required of you (you don't have to 1099 him, for example). If you were a corporation renting the place on your behalf, he'd be screwed. That's what he's asking, maybe. Tax cheats tend to assume everyone else is cheating also. My landlord here, who openly cheats on the same thing (and has me pay utilities in his name so he has evidence he isn't cheating, so he thinks) wanted to know if I was going to write off my rent to one of my companies -- same issue.

If he actually told you he was cheating, then perhaps you'd have some arcane legal responsibility to report it, but I doubt even that. Unless compelled under oath or a matter of life & death, you seldom have a duty to report.

OO:

I followed your comment and checked out propertyshark.com.

It is not nice to look up personal stuff about people, but I did it anyway. It confirmed my gut instinct that some well-heeled folks I'm acquanited with appear to be "FB".

But maybe not. Because I looked up myself on there and there's about as much wrong information on it as there is correct information. Even some basic sh*t like the dimensions of the lot, year of construction, are just wrong. I don't mean a little bit inaccurate. They're way wrong.

SP,

dunno the details yet, will report when I get the details.

sybrib,

for the ones I looked into, it was fairly correct, including that of myself. I think it depends on the history of the home, older homes without transaction record for a long time, tend to be wrong. Those with more recent transactions tend to have more accurate.

Anyway, it is just a data point. I am always baffled that for the biggest purchase of our life, we have so little transparent info available. You pretty much get review and product comparison for just about anything in the world, from ipod to a vacation, just not a home. Well, one data point is better than none. You can also cross check the information with zillow, propertyshark is not deriving from the same source as zillow, because I do encounter a few data inconsistency cases between the two. So if both zillow and propertyshark say the same thing, I tend to believe that the published the data is pretty darn close to the truth.

I think it is not nice to publish such data to the public. But there is nothing wrong with looking up data that is already floating out there on the internet.

It looks like there is more than one FAB in SF

http://www.mistahfab.com/

OO Says:

> eburbed, if you live by yourself, or married with no kids,
> have you considered renting an in-law quarter in really
> nice areas? There are lots of in-law quarters for rent in
> Los Altos, LAH, Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Gatos, in
> the traditionally upscale foothill areas.

These are hard to find since most are not advertised (and tend to be rented by kids who’s parents here about them at a Circus Club event or playing golf at Sharon Heights.

Years ago after a friend graduated from USC he moved in to the Atherton pool house of a recently divorced lady that knew his Mom through the JL.

He had a great set up where he had cheap rent and got to drink half a bottle of first growth Bordeaux and sleep with a great looking lady in her late 40’s a couple times a week.

When the ladies 20 year old daughter who was home from UCSB told her Mom that she slept with the guy renting the pool house he had to move out in a hurry before they both killed him…

OMG, if you thought that one was good try this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEs1waa6HT4

I love the pic of DL as Bagdad Bob.

When the ladies 20 year old daughter who was home from UCSB told her Mom that she slept with the guy renting the pool house he had to move out in a hurry before they both killed him…

Good grief. I thought things like that only happened in cheesy movies.

You know that auction I told you guys about? I just got an email, an urgent email with 28 of the 100 homes desperately being reoffered because the buyers fell out of escrow. 1st come first served on the auction price or make offer. Oh man! Lots in LA and Riverside too. Let me know if you guys would like me to forward.

When the ladies 20 year old daughter who was home from UCSB told her Mom that she slept with the guy renting the pool house he had to move out in a hurry before they both killed him…

I saw that movie the other night on Skinemax.

@Randy H,

Thanks for recycling ol' "agent 69" --one of my favs!

RE: Nukes and "hardened targets". Wasn't one of the reasons POTUS wanted to restart testing nukes above-ground to determine the effectiveness of those new design small-'n-stealthy "bunker busters"? Certainly cannot speak from authority here, but it seems reasonable to assume that pretty much anything that previously could be carried only by bomber can now easily be made small enough to mount on a largeish ICBM. God bless progress.

From today's WSJ:

California is an exception. A 1979 ruling by the state Supreme Court established that mortgage brokers there do have fiduciary duties. Pete Ogilvie, president-elect of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers says that hasn't caused him any problems and clarifies his role.

Holy cow! I never knew this. Lawsuits galore?

Wow, California's skilled labor market really IS unique:

The Mercury News
Report: California faces looming skills gap as college grads look elsewhere

“With stratospheric housing prices pushing an unprecedented flow of college graduates out of the state, a prominent think tank says California faces a worrisome shortage in future decades: A lack of highly skilled workers to buttress the state’s quality of life.”

“Much of the worry is prompted by the new exodus of college graduates. Historically, college graduates have flocked to California from elsewhere in the United States. But according to PPIC’s analysis of Census data, since 2000, more college graduates have been leaving California for other states than are arriving.”

Odd that grads started leaving in that particular year. I wonder what could possibly have started happening that year to drive them out? Bad weather? No. Bad food? No. The "million dollar" scenery? No way. Might have something to do with a perceived declining quality of life for some, or the odd reluctance of incomes to keep up with the cost of living (for proles, that is).

“‘It’s safe to say that certainly we haven’t seen this kind of flow out of the state in the past,’ said Hans Johnson, a PPIC demographer who co-authored the report. ‘Probably what’s happening now is unique in California’s history.’”

Attention banksters: better get those mortgages-for-illegals programs scaled up in a big hurry --times' a wastin'. And they're not making any more college grads! (Well, actually we're making them, just not keeping them, tee-hee. :roll: )

"Tax cheats tend to assume everyone else is cheating also"

If that were true, then why all the paranoia amongst the cheater crowd?

Randy, these people view cheating as a "skill" or trade like performing surgery or flying a plane. Most conclude it's a "necessary" skill and that you simply can't "get ahead" WITHOUT cheating! For them their are (2) classes of people, those that know how to cheat and those that are stupid.

And yes, they work off the assumption that everyone that's attained any measure of success has cheated.

Hey Bearcat,

Trident II has a payload of around 6,000 lbs. That allows for 10 MIRVs (if allowed by Treaty) with yields measured in KILOtons.

A B-52 can carry a 30 ton payload, and drops eggs in the high MEGAtons.

There was at least one site in the Soviet Union that was bustable only by a particular weapon deliverable only by B-52.

The crews that had that mission needed a wheelbarow for the 'nads. The Russians knew they would be coming, and set up intense air defenses for those sites.

Odd that grads started leaving in that particular year. I wonder what could possibly have started happening that year to drive them out? Bad weather? No. Bad food? No. The “million dollar” scenery? No way. Might have something to do with a perceived declining quality of life for some, or the odd reluctance of incomes to keep up with the cost of living (for proles, that is).

I heard that Howard Jarvis and the AARP are going to propose Son of Prop 13 to solve this: institute a new Exit Tax for People Under 65, with the proceeds going to a "guarantee that when you sell your home, you'll break even" fund.

eburbed,

WOW! For real? I heard of anything so ridiculous since that little Nevada exit tax in the 1800s.

Vegas Crash, turn off Rush Limbaugh and join modern society in the 21st century.

BTW, that Internet thing that you're using for your stupid rant was a public project :)

If you really are in Vegas, you might want to remember that little public project just up the way from you that is powering your computer right now. Hint, it's really big and starts with Hoover.