Debbie White

If I suggested you use GoDaddy.com for your email, I'm sorry.

They SUCK.

There is nothing else I can say about it.

First, they blocked all YAHOO Groups.

Now they have blocked the largest ISP in Alaska.

They don't like fancy email signatures.

They don't like HTML in emails.

They don't like links in emails.

If you use your email for business, stay away from GoDaddy.

One of my clients recently wrote to me, telling me that someone who was interested in his home left him a voice mail stating that the lenders, buyers and sellers in our area were "in a twit" over our new tax assessments, which just came out. The person who left the message for him is a friend interested in his house, but wanting to make an offer considerably under asking price. Below is an email I sent to him:

At my invitation, the CBJ assessor was a guest speaker at our monthly board luncheon yesterday. As president of the local board, I schedule timely and relevant guest speakers to make the meetings more interesting. I've spoken to several people about this and I would hardly describe anyone's attitude as "in a twit".

The previous assessor pretty much had the "raise it until they complain" attitude and that is part of what got us where we are. In addition, Alaska is a non-disclosure state. That means people are not obligated to tell the assessor's office what they bought or sold a property for. The only time anybody ever complains is when their taxes are too high. There was a lively discussion about the non-disclosure part, as the last place Robin worked, when you sold a property, there was a form you had to fill out in order to record the sale, notifying the public of the purchase price. Of course, that would never happen in Alaska. People are too independent and privacy is fiercely guarded here.

From a lending standpoint, the tax assessment only affects property taxes. When a buyer is pre-qualified for a purchase price, the payment amount must include the property taxes. I would think lower taxes would be a good thing!

Somehow people in Juneau get the idea their tax assessment is an appraisal and it certainly isn't. The only things that affect a home's assessed value are neighborhood, lot size, and square footage. The structures are then depreciated for age. While supposedly it should be near the value of the property and in fact by statute is supposed to be within 6% of true market value as of January 1, it just doesn't happen. It hasn't happened in the past, and it will take considerable manpower and a few years for the assessor's office to completely get everything that's wrong fixed. They are years behind on neighborhood canvassing.

The neighborhood canvassing is to evaluate the maintenance and upgrades from the exterior. For example, you could have two homes, same size, same age, side-by-side, built by the same builder. When you come back 20 years later, one is a run-down shack and the other has a new roof, nice landscaping, upgraded windows, an addition - things like that. Obviously they both have a different value now. Since the assessor's office is supposed to do neighborhood canvassing every five years, they would usually catch these things relatively quickly. They did area 1 this year (Thane, Downtown, West Juneau) and it had been 12 years since a complete canvassing had been done. Some went up, some went down. Files at the permit center were checked, and those additions were caught and added to the assessments. The permit center and the assessor's office do not currently have an efficient way of sharing information. Sometimes the assessor's office catches an addition that wasn't permitted!

Mass appraisal is a completely different thing from fee appraisal. Fee appraisal is specific to each property. Mass appraisal is a completely different animal and does not define what a specific property is worth. The assessor doesn't know what your house looks like on the inside, and it is NOT an appraisal!

Today I had a home inspection at 10AM on Douglas Island. I was almost directly across the channel from another listing that I needed to visit. The seller is pulling the home off the market so he can do some upgrades. Since we rent our lockboxes, I was going to go pick mine up and turn it into the MLS.

Our home inspection was completed at 12:30. So, off to Thane Road I go... until my phone rings.

An old friend wanted to see two of my listings. One was on Douglas Island, and the other was on the mainland in Mountainside Estates. I didn't go out Thane Road. When I got home, this was on the front page of the online version of our local newspaper:

The residents of Thane Road will likely be cut off from town for at least a few days while they blast to make sure no more snow will come down and clear the roadway. It is estimated the snow is 18 feet deep and 300 feet wide. As far as we know, nobody was driving on the road.

Thanks, Daria! You might have saved my life! The slide happened at about 1:00PM. I would have been driving through this area, or on the other side, if she hadn't called.

My husband got to go caribou hunting this winter for the first time in his life, and for the first time since we have been married I have an ample supply of this wonderful meat in the freezer. It had been several years since I had a freezer with more than one or two packages of caribou meat, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

I've always preferred fresh, wild meat and seafood to the stuff in stores. It just seems like it's healthier and with all the food recalls in the news, it probably is. Wild game doesn't have antibiotics and hormones in it. The animals eat what nature intended for them to eat.

What I don't like is a real "gamey" taste to the meat. That's probably one of the best things about caribou. Caribou meat is lean, and doesn't have the marbling you find in beef. At first, that may sound as though the meat will be tough, but amazingly it is as tender as veal (or so I've heard... I will not eat veal.) I read somewhere it is because the meat is so finely grained.

With all game, you do not want to have fat on your meat. Preferably it should all be removed during processing. I like to trim off all visible fat before cooking game meat.

Caribou meat is extremely healthy. Nutritionists call caribou a nutrient-dense food. Caribou meat is low in fat but high in protein. See the comparison below, per 100gram (approximately 3.5 ounces) portion:

FAT Protein IRON

Caribou 1 gram 38 grams 6.2 mg

Beef 23 grams 17 grams 3.0 mg

Veal 12 grams 19 grams 2.5 mg

Chicken 13 grams 20 grams 1.0 mg

Pork 45 grams 12 grams 2.0 mg

Lamb 28 grams 16 grams 2.0 mg

The same meat portion roasted only has 167 calories, no carbohydrates, and no sugars and is very low in cholesterol. The different cuts of meat lend themselves to a variety of cooking methods. Steaks are best cooked fairly hot and fast, yet served rare to medium rare. Roasts can cook low and slow and are good everywhere from medium rare to well done (overcooking can make the meat tough though). Ground meat is exceptionally good in any dish you would use ground beef. The stews are excellent, and chunks of caribou are as good as the best beef on skewers with vegetables too.

I think he needs to go caribou hunting every year. Here's a photo of my babe and his "boo".

Tonight I must have had at least 15, if not closer to 20, teenagers and young adults in my house. The last ones that are leaving just did and a few strays are about on couches, floors and extra bedrooms. For one of these parties, it was pretty mild. We've had as many as 25 young guests in the past. I used to keep track by counting all the shoes!

There are soda cans and paper plates everywhere. The dishwasher is running for the second or third time tonight and I'll need to spend at least another 15 minutes just on the kitchen. I'll probably have some help tomorrow from a few of the guys, but it will take a while to get the house back to normal.

No alcohol was involved, with the exception of the rum & coke I'm having now that everyone is gone or asleep. At one point, it was so loud, my dear husband took refuge in the master bedroom walk in closet because we both have to work tomorrow and he was exhausted.

So, why am I so happy? I knew where all the kids were, and I had a general idea of what they were doing. Mostly playing "Halo" or some other multi-player game although a few may have been watching a movie. We keep a few old TV's around for these occasions. Guests bring extra game consoles, controllers, music, and much of the food. I spend a lot of time talking with my sons' friends and getting to know them. A few even visit me while my older is away at college.

It was LOUD, and there was definitely a lot of foul language that I tried hard to ignore.

I think if more parents would learn to tolerate the occasional messy house and lack of sleep, the world could be a better place. It sure beats having them out drinking, or doing who knows what on a winter Saturday night. Some of these kids (and yes, even at 20, they are kids) don't have an adult in their live they can sit and talk with. Nobody needed it this time, but all of them know that my door is open if they need me. In this day and age, everybody needs that.