So Cal Real Estate News

( 5/29/2011)Last month Barb & Dave were privileged to visit two beautiful memorials while visiting her cousin near Washington: The World War II Memorial (in the foreground of the photo on the left) and the Air Force Memorial. The quotes, fountains and sculptures at each one can’t help but move anyone who visits.

We are so blessed to live in America, but our freedom has come at great cost. Since 1776, over one million, three hundred thousand 1,343,812 brave American servicemen and women have given their lives for our country.

I hope you find some time this Memorial Day to consider their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of their families,and of the millions of other American servicemen and women who were and are willing to give their all.

I found many inspiring quotes engraved on the two Memorials Barbara & I visited. Here are three you may want to share with your kids or grandkids this weekend:

“Tell them that we gave our todays for their tomorrows.”
Inscription in Allied Forces Cemetery
North Assam, India

“I am going on a raid this afternoon. . . there is a possibility I won’t return. . .
do not worry about me as everyone has to leave this earth one way or another, and this is the way I have selected.

“If after this terrible war is over, the world emerges a saner place. . .
pogroms and persecutions halted, then, I’m glad I gave my efforts with thousands of others for such a cause.”

Sergeant Carl Goldman, USAF WWII B-17 Gunner killed in action over Western Europe in a letter to his parents

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(12/6/08)  Today I’m writing as a native Southern Californian who’s lived here all of my 58 years, not as a Realtor.

Every now and then it hits me what a very special place I’m privileged to live in.  Today’s one of those days.  There are many things to love about Southern California, here are a few that hit me today:

1. The weather: December 6th, 2008.  Forecast high in my home town of Los Alamitos in the mid 70s.  Low in the fifties.  Crystal clear, warm, sunny day.  I took my shirt off when I went outside to jog a couple miles.  We went to a local Christmas parade last night in shirt sleeves.
2. The sunshine: Every year I tally in my journal the number of days I don’t see the sun.  It averages about five.  Somehow, it seems like we get most of the little rain we get at night.  And almost never on the Rose Parade.  I tell my friends that was the deal the Rose Association made with God about a hundred years ago.  No Rose Parade on Sundays, so people can get to chuirch, and no rain on their parade!  Maybe the NFL should try that one!
3. The geography: I live about 12 minutes from the beach.  1 minute from a nice local park.  An hour from the San Gabriel Mountains, which include a peak over 10,000 feet high and two major ski resorts.  To the east, the San Bernardino Mountains include a peak over 12,000 feet high, several alpine lakes, and three more major ski areas.  I could see both mountain ranges clearly this morning, as well as Mt. San Jacinto, just South of Palm Springs.  (Did I mention the deserts?)  It’s not all that hard to snowboard (or ski) and surf (or boogie board) on the same day, but I would recommend a wet suit for the Pacific in winter.
4. The rivalry: Right now, I’m taking a break from the USC – UCLA game, where my Westwood alma mater is doing better than expected. . . so far.  USC-UCLA is the only true cross-town rivalry among NCAA Division 1 schools in the country! Both schools are within the Los Angeles city limits, only about 12 miles apart.  Many USC students live in Westwood, by UCLA.  When I went to UCLA, it wasn’t uncommon for athletes from the rival schools to room together.  My best friend in high school went to USC while I went to UCLA.

Rival banners are flying throughout my neighborhood.  Three  of the sixteen families on my cul-de-sac have UCLA alum, but we have SC season seat holders & alum anchoring the start of the street.  My mother and I both graduated from UCLA, my son’s girlfriend hopes to go there.  My boss is a USC alumn.  Both are great schools with great traditions.  And a great, but generally friendly rivalry.  As a tribute to the Trojans, let me share the words to USC’s famous Fight Song, at least the way I learned them at UCLA (with apologies to my friends from “Figueroa Tech”):

Fight on!  for USC.

You pay a fee; you get a degree!

You’ll be smarter than me, because I went to USC!

I went to USC!  I went to USC!

Just kidding.  I think they’re both great schools, one public, one private, two of several dozen outstanding colleges and Universities ranging from Cal Tech to the University of San Diego.

I could go on and on.  Diversity.  Opportunity.  Culture.  Great churches.  Great museums.  Great beaches.  Great mountain biking.  Over 100 languages spoken in local schools.  Forward thinking.

Sure, we’ve got a lot of people, but locals figure out ways to deal with and even enjoy it.

For me. So Cal is a wonderful place to live year round.  If you live someplace else and want to move here, I just happen to know a good So Cal Realtor.  Actually, quite a few, since Blair and I mainly cover  West Orange County and Greater Long Beach.

Happy Holidays from Southern California!

(Saturday afternoon, 11/15/08) Being a second-generation native Californian, I tend to take our local disasters in stride.  Local’s joke that we really do have seasons out here in So Cal, they’re just not the traditional winter, spring, summer, & fall outsiders are used to.  Our seasons are more like flood & mudslide season, riot season, fire season, and earthquake season.  (I left off “drought,” but that’s more like a year-round thing every few years).

Trouble is, in the last few years fire season keeps getting longer.

I just flew back from a wet,  chilly, but fall-foliage beautiful two days in Nashville on Thursday night.  During the last half of my non-stop Southwest flight home the “Tea Fire” in Montecito ignited, spread, and burned several dorms and other buildings in my wife’s Alma Mater, Westmont College.  I teased my son-in-law that he needed to keep I couldn’t leave the state for two days without Barb’s college burning down.  Fortunately, injuries and loss of life was minimal, but hundreds of gorgeous acres and scores of expensive mansions were lost, along with the Tea Garden well known among Westmont students.

Fortunately, the winds died down on Friday, but when I got up this morning and saw the Santa Ana winds gusting through our Los Alamitos neighborhood, I knew the fires would be back today.  Before we even turned the TV on for the non-stop coverage I told Barb to expect at least 4 new fires and 500 homes destroyed.   Sadly, it appears that I may have underestimated.

Most of our natural disasters aren’t really that widespread in their devastation.  This week’s fires, for example, will probably devastate less than a hundredth of 1% the homes in Southern California.  That’s still hundreds of homes and millions of dollars, but most of us aren’t severely impacted.

The smoke and pollution will be felt by millions, lots of patios and cars will need to be washed off sometime early next week, but life essentially goes on.

Fire season is brought on by the infamous “Santana” winds, often mistakenly called “Santa Anas.”  The word is probably a contraction of vientos de Satan, Spanish for “winds of Satan.”   These are hot, dry offshore winds that descend from the Great Basin through the Mojave desert down into Southern California, primarily in spring and summer.  While the threat of fire is generally greater in the fall, with recent dry winters fire season has extended to include spring and, now, late fall as well.

Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.

—Joan Didion, “Los Angeles Notebook”

Ultimately, additional restrictions will be imposed on construction and additional clearance and greenbelt requirements imposed in fire prone areas.  Our wildfire challenges are actually easier to manage and less widespread than California’s earthquake risks.

To most Californians, our natural disasters are less ominous than those in so many other regions of the nation or the world.  Most of us regard them as one trade off for 360 days of temperate sunshine a year and the many other benefits of living in a dynamic, diverse land of opportunity.

While our thoughts and prayers and help will be going out to our neighbors in these days of loss, while it’s annoying to curtain outdoor activity and deal with the smoke and ash, most Californians still consider this our Golden land of opportunity, and really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

(photos from L.A. Times’ Gallery