Stepping Up My Blogging Game

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Boring Week

It's been somewhat of a very boring week. I know that I haven't posted in some time and that's the simple explanation. I realize this might be hard to believe considering the standoff in washington - other than reading a lot and regular work schedule, I have to confess not much to report. I'll have to come up with something in the next couple days otherwise any readers that I may get here might be sorely disappointed and never come back.

Tesla Motors Gets A Downgrade

Oops. Tesla got downgraded the other day based upon it's high price. Pushing the $200 level one has to admit that the price is a bit out of whack with reality, although as a true believer in electric cars as the "wave of the future" I happen to feel that the company has the potential to be much greater than it is - ie. if you believe in Tesla's future, you should still be buying, if only just a little bit here and there, betting that Tesla will grow in to it's valuation. Anyway I slight pull back isn't necessarily a bad thing and considering it's rise this past year it's probably healthy.

Better Luck Finding Videos On Home Reno's

So it's taken me a little time, but I'm slowly getting there. I had been lamenting my inability to find videos and topics on home renovations etc with a just a google search through youtube, but now I'm starting to hit on a couple of better spots / good locations that are worth a little time and effort.

Here's a link to a great video on what to do / or not to do in fixing up a home for a flip. Granted I have no desire to flip my house, but it's nice to see what constitutes "value" these days.

I know that in my bookmarks section I have Real Estate Fantasy already linked up, but this is a much better through link to their general real estate and construction category.

I haven't yet made the effort to post any pictures of our house with any explanation of what projects I need to do - I know that it's pretty easy to post photos here, so I'll have to give it a whirl in the next couple days. I know that reading a blog without photos kind of really sucks - so please bare with me a little longer.

A Little Real Estate N Design Love

I think my last two posts were on something about the home renovations I've been ignoring. No seriously, I actually got to work this past week on demoing the garage roof to put in a shed dormer. Our basement has always been wet and not so great for storage - actually more or less worthless, so with a couple clear days this week and hopefully early next week, I am finally putting in the extra space above the garage. That's not the real point of this post though - note the title real estate and DESIGN love. I've been wasting my time in the evening having a little fun looking at pre-war architecture in NYC. While there are a million websites out there by realtors who show interior photos of apartments etc, there are not a whole heck of a lot who are showing the exterior design elements... So here's a couple for you that I think you will all enjoy from the classic buildings on park avenue and fifth avenue:

800 Park Avenue
960 Fifth Avenue
903 Park Avenue

And for all of you guys out there that loveeee homes of hedge fund guys, brick and cornice has a couple photos of John Paulson's townhouse.

You Tube Searches For Home Improvements Drive Me Crazy

Undertaking a couple new projects at home, and I thought I might take a little time to sharpen up on my renovation skill sets by surfing around you tube for home improvement and renovation "channels". I was kind of hoping it might be a little easier to find stuff - here's a link to the search results from the above - not great.

I'm eaither going to have to get much better at general search tactics or I'm going to have be much more specific - I think this is one of those classic cases where sometimes the internet is just filled with a little too much garbage and sorting through it all can make you insane.

I found Bob Vila's Channel, but I'm not exactly sure this is the type of stuff I'm looking for.

Home Renovations For The Fall

Today is officially the first day of Fall. Summer was way too short, June was basically a non-event, weather was awful, had a couple of really nice hot (maybe too hot, thanks global warming) days in July and then august was kind of on again and off again. Honestly, I am not ready for fall, or winter for that matter. As I've been saying to my wife, New England is doing a really bad job of convincing me to stick around for another year.

Winter 2012 / 13 wasn't particularly bad, but it just lasted forever - it was 30 degrees for basically nine months.

I will always be a New England boy and I will always keep our home here, but life is just too damn short to spend half of the year inside.

Before we go seeking warmer climates however, I do need to do some work on the house that I've been putting off.

I'll get back to you all with the various projects and states of deconstruction / destruction as they progress.

GM Looks To Crash Tesla's Party

This is great. There has been such an uproar in the past couple of days since GM announced that it plans to go head to head again Tesla Motors and bring to market a long range fully electric EV priced in the $30,000 range. All I can say is great!!! Go for it. Rah rah General Motors. However, lets make something abundantly clear - GM, you will never be able to beat Tesla at it's own game - and here's why GM is not an aspirational brand, simple as that. Love the idea that you (GM) is working to build a cheaper longer range ev, it's going to be great for the industry and for the environment. But Tesla has built itself as a premium brand, they have done what you guys (Big American Auto) should have done 10, 15, 20 years ago), you need to have great design, great marketing and great quality. I have bought two American cars in my lifetime and I use them as beater cars, I do not use them for my actual day to day driving, I just don't like them, they don't feel as good, react as good, look as good as a European car.

Tesla, I got my eye on you and I do want one of your cars. That will be my third American car and I will drive it on a daily basis. GM, not even interested in what you bring to market.

Couple good links on the topic, if any of you are interested:
GM Refuses To Be Pawn In Game
GM Takes On Tesla And Might Win
Tesla Is Apple Pre-IPhone

Finally A Little Love Towards Apple

I've traded apple for the past few years with moderate success, haven't made a fortune, but have been safely able to make some money, overall I've been long and cumulatively adding to my holdings for the long haul. The past year has been suffice to say PAINFUL, the legion of media hounds has for the most part been very negative and I guess I can't blame them, Apple really does need to come up with some new products to light a fire under people's pants. When the latest IPhones came out a few weeks ago I had hope, and then the media started railing in to the company saying it was just an incremental alteration, more or less - and they are right - but finally we're getting some honest opinion - that the phones are good, the new OS is a great experience and things seem to be getting a little better at Apple (remember the maps fiasco).

I'm sincerely hoping for some sort of great TV product to be announced - i would love to have a fully integrated smart home with my apple products, but it seems the company is really dragging their feet on this one - hopefully their slowwww efforts are not an example of them ignoring the possibilities and instead actually striving to make a great product lineup. We'll see.

So if any of you are interested in what I'll title The First Happy Story About Apple In Awhile - here's the Fortune round up of commentary on the phones.

Latest Greentech Implosion

Well today should be entertaining, I'm not sure if it's particularly relevant that I decided to register here and begin blogging the day after Ecotality has filed for bankruptcy. Sadly it appears that this government funded effort is more or less going to be a complete "Fail" - rumors (although well founded) have been running rampant in regards to the poor quality of the charging stations - that they basically do not work. In the bankruptcy what assets there are will be auctioned off and sold. Knowing some of the people involved in the company and where the units were actually made, it seems in all likelihood the company is probably worth zero, although it might be interesting if they could auction off the "shell" public company of ECTY.

What also got me was the announcement I read over at Yahoo finance that the Fisker loan was being put up for sale. Fisker is the poster child for chaos - these guys have been promising cars for how many years and only delivered a handful.

Past 24 hours has basically been a "one two" punch in the face for anyone following the EV business in Greentech.

C'est la vie.