Santa Rosa, CA

Last week California rememebered the Loma Prieta earthquake which occurred 20 years ago on October 17th. Just like JFK's assassination, most locals remember exactly what they were doing when, for about 45 seconds, an earthquake rolled through Northern California. The destruction was devastating, and unimaginable. The collapse of the Cypress freeway in Oakland killed hundreds of motorist in their cars, the collapse of the Bay Bridge, and the scenes of San Francisco's homes collapsed, and the Marina district on fire.

You'd think with all the publicity, that I'd be prepared for the "next one" but I'm not. Last weeks remembrance reminded me that WE ALL NEED TO BE PREPARED FOR A DISASTER. You don't have to live in earthquake country to find yourself without food, water, or emergency services for a day or two. Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornado's, flood, or snow storm all have the possibility of leaving you without help for awhile.

You probably have everything you need for an emergency. Just put enough canned food and spare clothes in a plastic bin that has a tight lid. Put the bin somewhere where it will be accessible if you can't enter your house. Such as in the trunk of your car, or in a storage shed outside.

What do you need? Not much. How about two 14 oz. cans of food per person per day. Cans of food? Yes, like canned ravioli's or spaghetti O's. You can buy cans with pull tops so that you don't even need a can opener. It's not gourmet, but you will survive in the event of a disaster.

Here's the hard part. Water. You'll need a gallon of water per person per day. That's a lot of storage, but here's a trick. I live near a creek, so I have 2 gallons of water plus a hand held pump water filter that I bought at a local camping store. I figure worse comes to worse, I'll go to the creek and refill my water bottles with filtered creek water. That should get my family of 4 by for a few days.

Clothes. You don't need a lot, just sweats and a heavy sweatshirt, maybe some extra shoes.

We should all take a few minutes to pull these items together in one place, put them in a water proof container and put it somewhere where it will be safe should you not be able to enter your home.

Enjoying, assisting First Time Home Buyers in Sonoma County with my new web site: www.KammieQuinonesRealEstate.com

Top Realtors, Santa Rosa, CA - Top Realtors are like Top Chefs

One of my favorite tv shows is Top Chef on Bravo hosted by by Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio. I have to say, (and my wife agrees with me) Padma is one of the cutest hostest on tv! The contestants face two types of challenges every week:

• Quickfire Challenge - The chef has to come up with a dish that uses unusual ingredients like potato chips or twinkies.
• Elimination Challenge - The chef has to put together a meal that deals with a more complicated challege that takes them a day to complete. Usually it deals with a theme like gourmet tail gate food.

As I watched this show, I recognized the top realtors that I work with are like the top chefs on the show. Here's my "quickfire" list that I came up with:

• Top Realtors continue to educate themselves and are well versed in their local markets and the inventory in these markets
• Top Realtors get to know their clients before they shop for their homes or list their homes
• Top Realtors have a strong team of "su-chefs", i.e. title agents, loan officers, transaction coordinators
• Top Realtors think on their feet constantly adjusting to the demands of their clients, their escrows and their markets
• Top Realtors are not afraid to share their experience with other agents

So, do you have what it takes to be a top chef... I mean top realtor? ;-)

BTW- The Top Chef Image/logo can be found on Bravo's website at http://www.bravotv.com. Also, drop by my top ten list on Sonoma Wine Country and see Charlie Brown at work.

This is one of the best pumpkin patches in Northern California. If your within a 2 hour drive of Rio Vista, CA it's worth taking the kids to. It starts off at the Western Train Museum on Hwy 12 just outside Rio Vista. This weekend coming up (October 24 & 25 2009) is the last weekend for this year.

Here's how it works. From the museum, you pay about $10 per person for tickets to ride a train from the museum out about 5 miles through the beautiful rural, rolling hills of Solano County to a eucalyptus grove. At the grove passengers get off the train to enjoy music, food, crafts, and lots of stuff for kids (petting zoo, jumpy jump, pumpkin catapult and the worlds best hay mountain).

For more information click here go to the train museum's web page: www.wrm.org

Here is a short video I shot of my kids on the hay mountain, and of the grove. I hope you take time to visit, you'll come back! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQv9jZ759s

Rates are great, but homes are better

Mortgage rates are at an all time low again. This should help many home buyers save a few more dollars on their monthly payments or buy a little more home. Notice, I wrote "home" not "house." Remember the line "home is where the heart is"? It seems to me that we lost that connection with our home these last few years and stopped paying attention to the health of our "heart". I remember when home buyers talked about raising families or retiring in their homes.

Then, things changed and everyone talked about buying a house as an investment. Loans were given out like candy to "house buyers" and people started living off their equity as if they earned it. We all lost touch with the "heart" of the house and ended up having a "heart attack." What else do you call a market crash that's the worst in the history of the US economy?

I hope after the heart attack, for the sake of our community, we all start to think about the heart in our homes again.

Ok, I'm off my soap box now.