About Juneau County, AK

Ah, it's dinner time and my mouth is watering for some spicy food. When the mood for spicy food strikes, the Bobby Flay cook books and recipes surface. We even have his 'Boy Meets Grill' cookbook on the shelf.

Bobby Flay, undisputed Southwestern Chef extraordinaire owns the search term 'Mesa Grill' on Google. Every link on the first page goes to Mesa Grill New York, Mesa Grill Las Vegas or Mesa Grill Bahamas. You'll easily find links to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill reviews, menus, online reservations, walking directions, hours, maps, wine lists, recipes, cookbooks, sauces, rubs, and even gift cards. Heck, I can even sign up for his mailing list or click over to the Kohl's link to see videos for his product demos and grilling tips. On to search results page two and it's simply more of the same. Total Bobby Flay domination! Went to www.msn.com and then www.yahoo.com and had the same experience.

As a matter of fact, the search results are so consistently skewed to Bobby Flay that Mesa Grill is about the last name that I would give to my new restaurant in any state of the US. Bobby Flay pretty well owns the term Mesa Grill. Ask 10 people who owns Mesa Grill and probably 9 of them will confidently respond with ‘Bobby Flay'.

When travelling my husband and I like to dine at our old favorite restaurants and mix in a few new spots to keep things fresh. Yet no visit to New York City or Las Vegas is complete without a visit to Mesa Grill. Mesa Grill is on the ‘must visit' list every trip.

We took a cruise and recently travelled to Juneau, Alaska and heard there was a Mesa Grill in town, so we headed on over. Guess this Mesa Grill isn't owned by Bobby Flay, I'm just sayin', ya know?

At least I don't think that's his pickup truck in the owner's spot...

Well, almost. But I’m done being the Board President of the Southeast Alaska Board of REALTORS®

Tonight we had our transitional meeting. I will step back as Past-President.

WHEW. What a run. We coordinated some great education, raised money for charity and RPAC, and started planning the state convention which will be held in Juneau in September 2010.

Congratulations to Gwen Place, as 2010 President!

One of the activities that bring me out of winter and into spring involves gardening. Catalogues, planning and dreaming! This year, it seems many of my favorite companies have either delayed sending them out, or perhaps have gone paperless. At least a few companies have switched to sending paper catalogues every other year as well. That’s fine – less clutter.

Part of a great landscaping plan involves planning. Our gardening season is wet, cool and short in Southeast Alaska, so there seems to be a lot of time to plan and dream during the long winters. This year is especially hard because we have so little snow cover. (Hopefully I mulched enough to protect my hundreds of bulbs!) When we have white on the ground, it seems to reflect what little light we have. Right now, the sun comes up about 9AM and it’s completely dark by 3PM.

As we start gaining daylight, it's easy to think of summer. I'm ready - yes, already!

In late winter, I look forward to summer hobbies, like fishing, gardening, hiking, fishing - oh yeah, I already said fishing! Tonight I was looking through photos on my computer and this one especially made me look forward to warmer temperatures and time out on the boat. I have friends who take their boats out in winter, but ours is tucked away inside a "boat condo" - a larger garage.

Yes, this letter is real.

December 4, 2009

Dear JP Morgan Chase –

I have enclosed some documentation and I hope someone can help me. I represent a homeowner who wishes to sell their home. We have an accepted offer. Payoff amount was requested November 6, and several times since.

A notice of default was filed November 25 - over two weeks after the first request for payoff (several times, we were told you never received the request). Are you just trying to run up the bill?

The title company was told that if they called again, they would “go to the bottom of the pile”. Money to pay the loan has been at the title company for weeks. This is NOT a short sale!

Fortunately, this is a cash buyer. If there were a new mortgage involved, this deal would have crashed and burned weeks ago. It still might though, because the buyer isn’t going to wait forever.

In the meantime, your company has called one of my colleagues to proceed with foreclosure. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to collect the full amount due on this mortgage.

Respectfully,

Debbie White, Broker

We all need to report every abuse we see from the financial institutions! I am also assisting my clients in filing a complaint with the OCC. Any suggestions from my fellow "rainers" would be most welcome at this point. I'm about to lose the deal, the seller their credit, the buyer their home. There's no good reason for this.