Inna Hardison- HaMedia Group Wordpress for Real Estate &Design,Print

a fotnote: On the fifthieth anniversary of Harper Lee's classic. The story that inspired this blog belongs to Pierre Tristam of FlaglerLive.com - and can be found here.

“Fear picks out objects in the dark

And guides a moonbeam to an axe...”

- Anna Akmatova wrote this long before her only son was locked up in prison, long before the dual occupation of Leningrad, long before any oppression of the intellectuals, writers, composers and others to later become simply known as dissidents was widely felt or known. It was still a premonition then, a feeling before anything or anyone in her circles was censored, and certainly long before anyone got exiled, locked up or simply executed for their words, notes, thoughts – in that order.

But fear, even in that nightmarish daydream was the tyrant, which brings me almost a hundred years later to a whole new country and a small place I call home for now – Flagler County. Perched rather conveniently between the Intracoastal and the Atlantic but on the less traveled side of both, this place was left to its own devices for decades after its more progressive neighbors to either side accepted urbanism, desegregation, industry and every fault and favor that followed. Flagler stayed rather as it was until the last.

As such, rumor has it that until the year I was born, there was a sign on the only bridge to the shore from the mainland stating that ‘no niggers were allowed over the bridge after dusk, unless in the employ of a white person”. It may have said Negroes, although I don’t see it making much of a difference at the time to the ones so referenced, whether then or now. The sign came down in 73. Not surprisingly, Flagler was also the last county in the country to finally desegregate their schools, and that came by a way of a court order.

This little bit of history into the place where I now live may not mean much on its own, but I really wanted to give the uninitiated some context for the most recent bout of shameful censorship that took place here.

Our local high school, FPC, the one my oldest just graduated from last year, was in the midst of rehearsing for a performance of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. The choice of play made sense, given our above referenced history for one, and the anniversary of the publication of this book for another. At the promptings or complaints of a few members of the community, the school principal and district superintended chose to pull the play, citing concerns over language, specifically the use of the word “nigger” in the play. That same word is also in the book multiple times, in the same unmistakably unambiguous context, of course, as anyone who’s ever read it or even watched the film would know and expect. The book is and has been required reading for every 9th grade student in that same school for over two decades.

The elected members of the school board had the last word on the subject and chose to support the principal's decision and cancel the play, even after rather vocal dissent and outrage from the community at large, and more importantly, kids who spent the last few weeks inhabiting the characters of that work.

The school board is now citing protocol as the root of their decision, and not cowardice, of course. The protocol calls for any controversial materials to be approved by the administration of the school first. The teacher did not seek such approval, given that these same kids have all had to read the book already, rather uncensored. The kids from FPC drama club have also previously performed scenes from the play for the general public. The issue of controversy of any kind simply never came up, except for now. One of the folks who objected is a black Palm Coast City Councilman. He seems to have never read the book or seen the movie. Being black, and an elected official, his objections carried some weight with the school board, or so I can now speculate.

Whatever the reasons or objections, the community that might have merited that specific play the most will most likely go without. Flagler County’s elected and powerful will stand by their asinine decision, because anything else requires a minor bit of courage. Courage to do the right thing and let the kids perform the play, as they have in the past, as it has been performed elsewhere on stages and in the classrooms. Mostly – let them perform it in the one county that is still so damn backwards that its representatives are more afraid of someone hearing the “N” word uttered by a student from the stage of the Auditorium in the context that can’t possibly confuse even the slowest and least passionate among us, than they are of giving validity to the very distinction between the black and white members of the community that they had just done, albeit inadvertently. When fear guides the decisions of those who are in a position to dictate the path of education of our kids – and not a single person on the five-person board has the gonads to see that not-so-elusive line between right and wrong, we are indeed the most regressive place on earth, no matter our patria.

For the first time, I am actively ashamed of living here. For the first time since we moved here am I feeling that this is maybe the worst sort of place to raise my kids. For no amount of natural beauty in the world can recompense a kid if an injustice has been done. No amount of sunshine can fix certain scars.

Only people with power and courage can, and in this county – that combination is apparently an improbable if not an impossible one.

I am told to breathe in and out, slowly… To try to picture myself on a deserted island, windswept dunes singing softly under my toes, the waves lapping at the shore – anything at all to take my mind off of the finding a place to live fiasco that’s spread like a disease yet to be named into every pore of my body.

The fiasco in reference is my struggle to situate my kiddo in an apartment within easy commuting distance from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. My baby is a proud freshman in FAU’s prestigious Ocean Engineering program. He lazed his way through high school, skipped a few classes and was on the verge of not even graduating, and then, as if by magic, pulled in decent enough grades and recommendations to get into the first (and only) school he applied to. The school is a tremendous complex with student services and amenities to die for, situated in that oh so posh Floridian shopping mecca, where one is just as likely to show up to class on a Schwinn as in a brand new Porsche.

We were told that all freshmen must live on campus, so we toured the cramped rooms of the dorms, thinking of nifty storage ideas for lack of space and were regretting already that baby D couldn’t bring his piano with him. There was no room for large bulky extras. The kiddo was looking at everything through those ‘I can taste the freedom now’ glasses, and spent the majority of the summer learning to say goodbye to a few choice friends, practicing beer pong, jumping out of the airplane and filling out thick packets of various paperwork that welcomes one to the real world as an adult.

Some four weeks ago, an email from FAU advised my giddy happy teen that there was not enough room in the dorms to accommodate all the freshmen, and he was out of luck. We had weeks to find him a place to live off campus. So the hunt began. Craigslist yielded crappy results and accidentally, one extraordinarily sweet real estate agent, Sheryl Pinatel with Boca Vista realty. She took her time to talk to me about all the different complexes near campus, warning me to stay away from some places as being unsafe, and sending me links to the safer ones. One of the links was for a neat-looking community some 7 miles away from Boca called Spring Harbor at the Landings. Cute townhome style apartments lining a few man-made bodies of water, a pair of swimming pools, a gate, and most importantly – they deal with college kids, make allowances for them and understand that their needs will be different than other tenants. Long story short, Sheryl gave me a contact there, and we set the ball in motion. D was tasked with finding room-mates, which he accomplished by running a few free ads on FAU’s off campus website, interviewing the kiddos via phone, and after a few switches, 3 boys were found. The rather arduous process of filling out applications was commenced and I kept in constant communication with the Leasing agent, Robert. I should restate this: I tried to keep in constant communication, with the leasing agent, who on most days, made himself unavailable. After a few exasperating days of waiting, I spoke to Sheryl, and she drove to the apartment complex. Magically, her presence made Robert answer his phone and occasionally, even return a message I’d left.

But communication is only as good as the message being delivered, and over the course of the next few weeks, I learned to expect that what I was told yesterday would not be valid today or tomorrow. That everything, from availability of an apartment I reserved to the monthly rent amount for that apartment was bound to change with the shape of the moon or the currents, or the mood of the leasing agent. That it was common for a fax machine at their office to lose entire applications or for rules to change without any notice.

The day we were going for the orientation this past week, we found out that we could NOT, in fact, move anything into the apartment yet, and that after all this time of being told that we were fine, they were still ‘processing’ our paperwork.

We went to the complex for the first time in person the day of orientation. Shook hands with the incompetent Robert, who turned out to be a solicitous youngster of 25, and were finally assured that we’d be fine and ready to move in on the 8th, and, pending one letter from just one of the applicants, our deposit was sufficient and we just needed to pay the first month rent. We paid, packed our stuff and went back home, finally thrilled that the kiddo had a place to live that he could afford. A place he found perfect in every way, and that the dozen daily calls and emails to the property management company was going to come to an end. We prevailed… We could finally relax a bit and start packing the kiddo, but everything was now going to be alright.

Until this afternoon, when I got another call from Robert, cheerfully letting me know that everything is fine and we are all set, less the minor issue of having to come up with an additional deposit in a pretty large amount, due to the fact that kids do not have sufficient credit history. An interesting fact, considering from the get go, credit history was NOT a requirement for these obviously just-out-of-high-school-kids, – having a job and or enough financial aid to pay the rent was….

The complex is managed by Greystar group – one of the largest property management companies out there with a huge portfolio of properties. They post a fantastically high occupancy rate, by any standard. The shareholders must be thrilled. A portion of those occupants are college kids, who took the assurances of the agents that they were fine and had a place to live seriously, and who found themselves in a situation where they had to simply come up with an extra grand or two if they wanted to attend the school they got into. Because there is nothing one can find in Boca in a week, especially without the benefit of being in Boca. There is nothing most of these kids can do on short notice, if at all.

We’ll be moving the kiddo into this particular apartment complex, for lack of any other options. I can’t help but think that this very first move away from home for my son did not need to be full of stress, and constant recalculation of his finances. I can’t help but think that there ought to be a recourse for a hapless just-turned -adults entering these schools when a supposed real estate professional lies to their faces, whether deliberately or because they have no idea what they are doing. This particular apartment complex is ideal for FAU students, except that the chances of being able to rent there due to incompetence of the agents is astronomically low for a working adult, never mind a college kid.

For now, I’ll breathe in and out, as slowly as I can. I’ll do my best not to dread seeing Boca’s area code on my caller ID. I’ll do my best not to throw Robert and crew into their nifty community pool, fully clothed, unintentionally of course, when I go to visit my baby in his new quarters. Unless something changes, yet again, tomorrow, in which case I’ll go terminator on their asses.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words... When it comes to real estate photos, depending on the commission associated with the sale of a property, we can probably translate each of those words into a few Benjamins.

There are fabulous photographers on AR giving members advice on just how to take that awe-inspiring photo of a dwelling that one might fall in love with; great advice on what sort of camera to buy, basic editing techniques and so much more, all going towards the all-important first impression...

Some choose their IDX providers based on how the property photos will be displayed to the buyers and are willing to pay top dollar for the ones that can provide the best presentation...

What if you were one of those agents or brokers who has gone through the trouble to do all the right things, acquired just the right camera, learned PhotoShop, got a Cadillac of IDX providers and signed up for all the premium Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia et al services to have your listings with their beautiful photos appear at the top of the searches... ?

What if you had spent thousands of dollars getting to this point only to realize that NONE of it makes the slightest bit of difference? How pissed would you be if upon uploading your high resolution photos, where a potential buyer can see every vein in the granite countertop, every doorknob that you meticulously polished is reflecting the love previous owners put into the home, where your landscape photos of the surroundings make one feel the crisp blue of the Atlantic...only to realize that your potential customer will be looking at a tiny thumbnail?

If you are a member of the Daytona Beach Association of Realtors and submit your photos to the DB MLS - NO MATTER who your IDX is provided by, and no matter how large the photos you sent in with your listings - the consumer is looking at 290 by 218 pixel images you so painstakingly took. Take a minute and scroll through Daytona area listings via Realtor.com or any other engine consumers may use, even your own search option on your site, and you will be looking at itty bitty photos.

Navigate to Flagler area, or South Florida or quite possibly any place else in the US, and if you click on enlarge photos - the thumbnails generally speaking will, in fact, get larger. Except for the 22 mile stretch of beautiful coastline that is the greater Daytona Beach Area.

For the ones curious enough to know why that is, here is my take on it so far. In a few short words, the DB Board of Realtors technology officer or whatever the official title is has no clue whatsoever about technology. We have been designing a few sites for a local brokerage firm, and once we installed the new IDX (the very expensive but cool Diverse Solutions type) we realized that the images in the slide show stayed tiny. We called IDX folks and they referred us to the board, as they get their feeds directly from them. The above-mentioned person at the Board had no clue about what a pixel meant and insisted that the only limitation as to the size of images they impose on the realtors is a 2 MEG max file size, but outside of that, it's someone else's problem.

So we called their contracted MLS provider, Innovia to see what they could tell us, thinking that, at the very least, the people there would know the difference between file size and dimensions, and surprisingly - they did. A very nice man by the name of Austin found a checkbox or something to that effect that indeed limited the output of all images to feeds to their thumbnail size, and promptly put in the work order to have it lifted.

My husband and partner in crime is a sweet-natured guy, so he figured all the realtors here have been somewhat cheated for at least a year and a half of being able to properly show their listings to consumers, so he called the board to let them know about this very simple fix and that it would, indeed, be resolved for EVERYONE.

Upon hearing the great news, the technology officer promptly explained to my hubby that he had no right to do that, and that we CAN"T have our feed display larger images than anyone else, and berated him for trying... She then promptly contacted the MLS folks, Innovia, and put a stop to the work order.

It took a few threats, and a few more calls, and might still take a trip down to Daytona Board of Realtors office tomorrow to settle the dust, but Innovia just let us know that the IDX's will in fact start displaying larger photos shortly. So for any of you who work in the area, just in case the incompetence wins yet again, if you have an issue with displaying thumbnails only to your prospects, speak up in the comments, and we will use your names in addition to a few we already have to get it fixed for everybody.

In the meantime, I wish MLS access was no longer necessary to sell real estate, or at the very least that there were options. I find it offensive that the Association's Board took no steps on their own to resolve this issue and when we helped get it solved found it imperative to let us know who the boss is. The way I see it, the boss is a person sitting on the other end of the computer screen looking for properties in the Daytona Area with a magnifying glass. That's who cuts the check or not.

So again, to any members of the Daytona Association of Realtors - speak up in the comments.

Thanks all!
PHOTO by Jon Hardison.

Mr. President:

When you were campaigning for green jobs, cleaner air, more energy efficiency in our cars, homes and industrial and commercial buildings - we rallied behind you. We welcomed an ideal of rebuilding our economy by once again manufacturing stuff, whether cars, homes or new technologies. We welcomed, too, your promise of tighter oversight of our financial institutions upon whose good graces would depend our ability to purchase those new cars, homes or to help a fledgling business devoted to new green technologies. We were hoping that no bit of political or legislative nonsense would ever again prevent those who are worthy from being able to enjoy the American dream of Home Ownership, and that the consumer opting to live in a green home would have no more trouble obtaining a loan than a person choosing to buy a Smart Car over one buying a Hummer.

We thought that in order for this country to recover economically, the housing market needed a boost and agreed with your vision to make it happen.

So the bailed out banks got an influx of cash to lend to achieve that very goal of recovery. Then the HVCC was introduced into the mix. If you've been too busy to pay attention to the consequences of this rather benign-sounding bit of consumer protectiveness, the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, here is a brief from a consumer's point of view.

Michelle B. lives in Flagler County, Florida, an area considered a distressed market. She is an environmentalist. She wants to live in a Green home, just the right size for her and her husband, with no wasted space. She wants to have full house solar and not depend on burning fossil fuels. She wants to plant her own little organic garden in her yard. An ideal home for her would be 800 or so square feet of smart living space, a 1-bedroom country house. She finds a local builder who builds certified green homes, and they embark on drawing plans for her new dream home, just the way she envisions it, only to learn that the only properties that appraise in the area have to be 3-bedroom, 2-bath homes, and that there is no appraiser working for the Appraisal Management Company the bank uses who would be willing to spend the extra 10 minutes to acknowledge any energy-efficient features as adding value to the home.

The irony of it is, Michelle B. currently occupies a 2,400 square foot home that is simply too big for her needs, and consumes too much in a way of resources. She wants to do the right thing for all the right reasons. She wants to build the kind of home you campaigned about. The kind of home that Energy Efficient Mortgages were designed to help finance. But they won't, because the people the entire transaction depends on, value these properties from behind a computer with nary a drive by inspection to speak of - after all they are only getting half the money they are accustomed to, so they could be effectively managed, and so the bank couldn't influence the outcome of the all-important appraisal.

So with all things being equal, as much as one might like to build a new home, especially if it's green and on a smaller footprint, the frustration associated with trying to finance the purchase may not be worth it. In fact, it appears that if anyone wants to buy in an area dominated by short sales, purchasing anything other than a short sale will not work out - the home will simply not appraise.

It used to be that the market value hinged on how much a buyer was willing to pay for something. Now, it is dictated by an underpaid appraiser's opinion of value. If the housing market is to recover, does it really make sense for us to keep devaluing dwellings in places where things are tough enough already? To trample on the idea of the American dream of home ownership under the auspices of protecting the very consumer whose dreams we can no longer fulfill?

Logic tells me that no code of conduct alone can make one act ethically. Experience tells me that for as long as we are corruptible, there will be those who are capable of violating these codes of conduct, so, at the end of the day, the consumer is no more protected by the additional red tape than they were before, but the dream of home ownership for so many across the country has just become a nightmare.

Hit the blogs, Mr. President - this is happening everywhere, and home buyers, those rare creatures willing to purchase a home, capable of purchasing a home, are the ones that are being pushed away by the very thing design to protect them. There has to be a better way to protect our money without destroying our dreams, Mr. President. This needs to be fixed, for the sake of thousands of people like Michelle across the country, for the sake of realtors and loan officers whose livelihoods depend on it, for the sake of all of us being able to build something again.

Disclosure: This blog was written with first hand knowledge of the difficulties financing a unique property built by my client, Florida Green Homes, LLC - a builder of certified green homes in North East Florida. www.myfloridagreenhome.com

Life, these last few years, has been a blur... Days and weeks flew by leaving behind uneven tracks of a car going too fast around a serpentine curve. The necessity of moving from New York post 9.11, forcing both, me and my husband, into the stormy seas of self-employment, left us crippled as parents to our two boys, with nary a bedtime story for the little one and only an occasional word of encouragement for the oldest. Kids get used to things, and a goodnight kiss eventually suffices to let them know they are loved, or so we hope.

The kids learned that we only had time for emergencies and things of utmost importance, and those were shared during dinner conversations. Last year, almost all things of utmost importance to our 16-year-old son revolved around his chemistry teacher, Sylvia Brady. Every joke she shared in class, every cute nick name she gifted one of her students, every anecdote were excitedly passed around the dinner table, along with the inevitable request for us to meet with her. The year ended with a rushed Christmas break, and the kiddo was through with chemistry. We had not met Ms. Brady. There was simply no time.

A few weeks ago, our son was helping Ms Brady fix some computer related issues in her classroom. He came home that day with somewhat of a concern that we may not get to meet her after all, as she could retire. "She is pretty old, you know, and she may not be at the school much longer..."

Looking back on my own childhood and struggling to recall any teachers, but one, who were more than dictators upon whose good graces depended the all important numbers on my transcript, I caved. The one teacher I had who made all the difference for me also taught chemistry, a subject I loathed so deeply I was not above cheating if it spared me the embarrassment of always getting it wrong. With her, I couldn't cheat. It was a relationship she had with each student where we were not inferior little people who needed to be taught something or rather for their own good - we were treated as equals, as adults, capable of their own thoughts and conclusions, even if we were wrong. That was a great year.

Last Thursday I went to see my son's old chemistry teacher at FPC, Ms. Sylvia Brady. I had to shake her hand, at the very least, and tell her something about the difference she made for my son, and the fact that the kids are all raving about her, and that it was probably a bad idea for her to retire, because let's face it, chemistry is no fun, unless kids can blow stuff up, which they can't for safety reasons, and formulas are just boring. She made kids love coming to class - she had a gift...

Sylvia Brady is 67 years old, so she tells me almost casually, as she towers over me and we shake hands. She has a slight limp, a result of a recent trip and fall incident in her classroom. She points to a scar on her forehead as forensic evidence of that fall. I tell her that my son talks about her incessantly, trying to explain my reason for being there without appearing insane. She nods. We sit in a large empty classroom. She graciously apologizes for the mess, pointing to a few stacks of paper lacking in symmetry on her desk, but the room is clean, and surprising devoid of any odors I recall from my days of chemistry classes.

I ask her why she chose to teach chemistry, or something to that effect.

We are interrupted by a knock on the door and an unannounced appearance of a teenage girl. In short order, I learn that Ms. Brady's classroom is home to any kid who has an extra five minutes to kill before their next class, or while waiting for a ride home. Throughout the next 45 minutes that I spend in this room, the kids wander in an out, and I get used to being interrupted. They come, give Ms. Brady a hug, and talk to her and each other. Some, have not been her students for years, but still they come. My son, it turns out, is one of those kids, a Ms. Brady groupie.

"If I won umpteen million dollars in a Florida Lottery - I would still teach this class," - she tells me. "This is my passion, corny as it sounds, and I love my kids..."

It is corny, I concede, but the way she greets each of the kids wandering through her classroom tells me it's genuine. She listens to each, with intense curiosity. She knows what classes they take and how they are doing in them. Sometimes, someone asks something or other chemistry related. Then, the kids make themselves comfortable, and listen.

I am puzzled now why someone who is so obviously happy would want to retire, but I keep it to myself for now, dreading learning the answer to the nagging question. Part of me already knows the obvious answer: "the schools are downsizing everywhere. I know that, I've been reading the papers for years. At least our district is not closing any schools. They may simply not have the money to hold on to teachers who are of retirement age, or, to put it bluntly, more likely to get sick..."

Ms Brady has been teaching chemistry for 32 years, most of them at our local school district. She had won numerous awards and accolades, none of which are displayed in her classroom - they don't matter in the grand scheme of things. She picks up a smart board from her desk and tells me that the school's been very good to her by giving her all this new technology.

Rebecca, one of the girls hanging out in the classroom at the moment, tells me that Ms. Brady had to rely on using a microphone after having thyroid surgery last year: "that's the kind of technology that makes her happy, the kind that allows her to continue teaching the subject she loves - a $30.00 microphone when her voice couldn't carry... Everything else, she can live without, gladly, as would the kids, so long as they have Ms. Brady."

There is no glimmer of understanding of economic woes facing the nation and the school district in the eyes of the teens in this classroom. It's not subject to a mathematical formula, or an issue of a grade on some piece of paper. To these kids, and all the others Ms. Brady taught over the years, it's a simple matter of decency, and they are simply too young to understand that the good does not always triumph. It's just part of the idealism they picked up from their mentor, Ms Sylvia Brady.

I hope you get to stay, Ms. Brady. And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being there for all these kids. Thank you, for being there for mine - he is a better person for having known you.

Inna Hardison is the owner of Ha Media Group, a full service small kick-ass ad agency.
For all your printing needs, visit www.hamediashop.com and get grate quality Postcards, Business Cards, Flyers and more at awesome prices. For pring and web design, see our design portfolio at www.teamhardison.com

Copyright (C) 2008, inna hardison. please, don't steal from the starving artists, it's illegal and well, just plain freakin' wrong!
:-)