Mr Al Young Dot Com

June marks the end of another school year.  It is hard to believe a school year has gone by so fast already and we are already into summer.  Last week Marcus graduated from Kindergarten.  It seemed like yesterday that he started Kindergarten. I have had the unique perspective of seeing Kindergarten up close this year as I was in the classroom nearly every day of the school year.  Here are some observations and thoughts of the school year:

• Kindergarten is fast paced:  I’m too old to remember exactly what I learned in Kindergarten but I am fairly certain that we did not cover so much material in Kindergarten.  Even though they are only in school for 3 1/2 hours they cover a lot of ground in that time.
• Kindergarten is a lot of work:  I don’t take Marcus to swimming lesson very often so it seems to me like he learned to swim overnight.  One day he is clinging to a floatation device and the next he is diving in and swimming across the pool.  Not so with school work.  I see the hard work being done in the classroom, the home work and the evening reading drills.  So now that Marcus can read and write I can appreciate how far he has come.
• There is drama in Kindergarten:  Kindergarten is mostly a carefree time but there is also a lot of drama sometimes.  Each day we walk home I get to hear all the drama that happened during the day such as hurt feelings, and misunderstandings.  It is mostly forgotten by the next day but it always seem like a big deal at the time.
• Moms work hard:  Being with all the other Moms has given me a new appreciation of how hard Moms work.  The Moms of room 2 are a very involved and dedicated group.  They volunteer for every school function and are at school every day.  In addition many work part time or run a business in addition to taking care of many kids.  My own wife is an example of a hard working Mom.  She volunteers at the library each week and is chaperone for every field trip.  Outside of school she is the little league’s team Mom and will be teaching at two different DVBS in the next few weeks.  This is in addition to serving as babysitter to nearly every kid in the neighborhood on short notice.  At first I felt that I did not have a lot in common with the other Moms but by the end of the year they have come to accept me as one of them.  We had a fun time at an end of the school year party as we bonded over several bottles of wine.  Just today we spent an entire afternoon together just chatting away at McDonalds.

So Kindergarten ended much like it started, with some excitement, sadness, and a few tears.  Here are some pictures.

Last week we went back to the Lark Creek Steak House in San Francisco for Dine about Town. You may remember that I wrote about my dinner there back in January. Yes I know Dine about Town is an opportunity to try new restaurants and I have already tried the Lark Creek Steak House only 6 months ago. There are several reasons why I decided to go back to the same restaurant again.

1. Dine about Town is normally the full month of January giving us a chance to use the whole month to make plans and decide which restaurant to try. This year Dine about Town is broken up with two weeks in January and two weeks in June. That does not give you much time to plan and set up dinner plans.
2. I enjoyed our last meal meal at the Lark Creek Steak House and I did not see any other restaurants I was dying to try.

So instead of spreading out some dinners with various groups of friends over the full month, we quickly decided on a restaurant and made plans with 3 other couples. This was our largest Dine about Town outing yet. June is a very busy month for anyone with kids and we have a combined 10 kids among us. So it was a small miracle that we were able to find a date and babysitting for all our children on fairly short notice.

I don’t have any new pictures of our meal. You can see pictures here of the last time I was there. We had essentially the same meal and it was still outstanding although the prices on a few items went up. The other reason I don’t have any new photos is that one of my dinner companions cited a concern over her their privacy in appearing on my blog. OK, most people seem excited to be featured on my blog, but certainly I will honor your wish to remain anonymous. However you must remember that having a blog is like having a reality TV show. If you interact with me chances are you will be blog material sooner or later directly or indirectly. So if you have a real need for privacy I can either put a black bar over your face, use only your initials, have you sign a waiver or I guess you can just tell me you don’t want to be featured on my Blog. My anonymous dinner companion has already done that but if anyone else has a problem with privacy let me know.

Our dinner was a lot of fun. As parents it is always nice to have an evening out without kids and everyone always enjoys a good meal among good friends. Unlike my dinners with my old friends the Dine about dinners have a different dynamics. Usually we go out with “my” friends and “her” friends on separate occasions. In a marriage there are always friends of our spouse that we may not otherwise interact with. We may not care for the husband of our wife’s friend or just find that we have not much in common. Still we put up with these people for the sake of our spouse and it is usually not so bad. It is easier if you have kids. If you don’t want to interact with the other couple just go check on your kids until its time to go home.

Still it is nice to be able to find a group of friends that can be considered “our” friends and we can both enjoy the company. With this group of four couples I think we are as close to having  a group of “our” friends as possible. We share many things in common with these three other couples. We are all about the same age and are at the stage of life. With each of us having young kids we also share the same joys and struggles of raising kids. Our relationships with one another go back many years starting as single people to now a married couple with kids. I guess some of these people could still be considered more “her” friends and some more “my” friends but the line between “his” and “her” friendships are becoming less clear with each passing year. While I do not have the same relationship with my wife’s friends, we still have a relationship and history that goes way back. Some people I have know nearly as long but of course in a different way.

A fine meal with no kids is always a treat, but to be able share the experience with a group of close friends makes the dining experience that much more enjoyable. We feel blessed to have a group of special friends in our lives that we can both share and enjoy our lives with. I look forward to our next dining outing even if the food is not quite as good. Not often… but sometimes the dining is not just about the food.

What is the difference between a pro athlete and an amateur one?  Most people will say the pro athlete is more skilled and play at a higher level of competition.  Most of the times that is true but not always.  For instance there are many amateur golfers who are just as skilled as professional golfers.  Yet they are considered amateurs.  The main criteria in determining if an athlete is an amateur or pro is if they are being paid.  Once you sign a contract or accept prize money you lose your amateur status forever and you are considered a professional.

If we go by that definition I guess I would now be considered a professional writer since I have recently been getting paid for my writing.  Not much but I still got paid.  My ramblings on this blog are still amateurish to say the least but you can add freelance writer to my list of titles.  Here are some of my paid and published writing projects.

E-book: Not only am I a writer I am an author.  I have co-authored a real estate e-book titled “Tenant in Common Investing-The Uncommon Path to Massive Profits”.   Writing this book has been quite an educational and hopefully profitable experience.  It is a lot of work to write a book, but once you write the book it is quite rewarding.  There are many benefits of an e-book over a regular book.  First the costs to publish an e-book is very cheap compared to a regular book.  We got our initial printing costs of the e-book back on the first day of sale.  What other business can do that?  There is also no inventory to carry.  You don’t have to print a lot of books and have no one buy it.  Once someone buys a book they just download it.  You can also charge more for an e-book than a regular book.  If you go to Barnes and Noble you will see a 1,000 page hardback book being sold of under $30.  Yet e-books  of 50-75 pages can sell for as much as $60 and people buy it.  E-books can also be sold 24 hours a day.  I can wake up and see that I sold several books overnight to people from anywhere in the world.  We have some marketing campaigns coming up to promote the book and I have a few ideas for other books I am working on.

Ehow: I am also writing articles for a “How To”website.  You can check out the site here.  These are all instructional type articles on a variety of subjects.  This has been my bread and butter so far as a writer.  You won’t find my name on any articles on the site.  That is because I go through an agent who I get my assignments from and they sell it to Ehow.   I sell the rights to my articles as well so it appears on ehow as written by staff even though it was written by a contractor(me).  This month I have written over 60 articles for ehow.  Am I an expert on 60 subjects?  Hardly, I don’t think I am an expert on even two subjects, but 10 minutes of Google research and I am qualified to write an article instructing others.  For example I have written 5 articles  on variations of “How to Snowshoe” and I have snowshoed exactly once in my life.  For the amount of work Ehow pays decently.  They also pay quickly.  Once my article is approved they paypal me immediately.  I have been so busy with these articles that I have outsourced some of my assignments to a writer in India.  I just edit the articles and send it on.  This frees me up for other writing projects.

SEO Writing:  SEO stands for search engine optimization.  This type of article is writing for the Internet. It is just like regular article writing but for the Internet.  For example I might be asked by a client to write a 400-500 word article on “Getting a Mortgage” using the keyword “California Mortgages”.  That means I have to write the article on “Getting a Mortgage” but 3-5% of the words must contain the phrase “California Mortgages” That is because when someone types in the phrase “California Mortgages” in a search engine such as Google, the article and information on my client’s company will appear prominently.  This kind of writing is a little tricky until you get the hang of it but I prefer it.  So far I have only written a few articles for 1 client but I hope to do more of this type of articles as I think there is a good demand for it.

Miscellaneous: In addition to these other projects I have few other articles scattered among several web sites.  These are short articles that pay very little, but it gets some exposure and I can build my writing resume.  Here is an example of such an article.

Writing and blogging is fun and a good creative release for me, but anything  is even more fun if you get paid for it.

I have never considered myself being old despite being told by several people that I am old. Still certain events happen in life that make me think that I may not be as young and spry as I used to be. Here are some signs that you are aging:

Kids: Nothing reminds you more that you are aging than watching your kids grow up. My oldest graduates from kindergarten next week. Just like that I have aged nearly 6 years since my son was born. It is hard to believe time has went by so fast. Its just not my kids that remind me of how old I am. Over the next few months kids I knew just as toddlers will be graduating from college and even getting married. Soon they will be having kids of their own. Even kids I don’t know remind me of how old I am. The recent news that Zac Hanson one of the Hanson Brothers is expecting his first child also was a reminder of my age. If you don’t know who the Hanson Brothers are you are older than me. They sang “Mmmbop” which is destined to be the Rickrolled of its era. Here is a reminder.

Movies or Phrases: You know you are getting older when people do not know what the phrases you are using or the movies you are referencing. Recently I said to a young lady “Hello McFly” and she had no idea what I was talking about. She had maybe heard of the Back to the Future movies but does not remember seeing them. I guess she would not know what a Deloren is either. It might as well have been a black and white movie to her.
High School Friends: Not only kids remind you of how old your are but your own peers also remind you of your age. Recently I ran into some friends high school I have not seen in quite awhile. After talking with them I remarked on how old they looked. Than it hit me that if they look that old how old do I look? We are the same age. That forced me to take a long look in the mirror and conclude that maybe I have not aged as gracefully as I thought.

Physical Injury: If you kids and peers don’t remind you of how old you are, it is only a matter of time before your own body tells you. At our church family camp a few weeks ago I was shooting baskets in the gym with my son on some lowered baskets. A high school kid took the basketball jumped up against the wall behind the basket and dunked the ball. This was on a lowered basket but it was enough to impress my son. “Wow can you do that Dad”? Without thinking I said “sure” and took off with the basketball. As I jumped onto the wall I did not get the elevation I thought I was going to get. I also did not get the push I thought I was going to get off the wall. Instead I felt a pull….on my hamstring. Instead of elevating to the basket I was free-falling awkwardly toward the floor. I landed on my side and banged my elbow on the hard gym floor. With my son looking over me I wondered what went wrong. I thought my body could still perform like that high school kid but maybe not anymore. If every time you don’t stretch for a good 15 minutes before exercising and you immediately injure yourself you are probably old.

“Kids Today”: I have caught myself using the phrase “kids today” more and more often these days. Usually while shaking my head. Well if you use this phrase often chances are that you are not young. If you were you would be one of the kids instead of complaining about them.

If you can identify with one or more of these things, I hate to break it to you but chances are you are probably not as young as you thought you were. You probably already know that but chose to not believe it as I did until the hard facts force you to accept it. So I am not as young as I once was. Who is? But maybe I am a little more mature, experienced, and polished? Still I’m not as old as some people.

During the Memorial day weekend we went to our church family camp as we have been doing for the past five years.  Both our kids started going when they were less than a year old.  In fact Mia was only 3 months old the first time she went to family camp.  It was quite a challenge bringing young kids to camp but of course it has gotten easier over the years as the kids grew older.  So to give ourselves a bigger challenge we decided to take another kid with us Vanessa our friend’s seven year old.  Its not much more of a challenge since Vanessa is well behaved, can take care of herself, and actually listens to us unlike our own children.

It is not the first time we have had to watch other people’s children.  Our house is like an unofficial drop in day care center sometimes.  It is not uncommon for 2, 3 or 7 kids to be dropped off at our house on short notice while their Moms do who know what for several hours.  In fact one child I do not recognize as my own just ran by me screaming as I am typing this.  I have suggested that we make it an official day care center and charge accordingly but my wife being the kind soul she is just continues to take them in for free.  To be fair we have dropped off our kids on occasion at other people’s houses while we run errands or catch a movie, but it is certainly not nearly as often as we take in kids.  It is not a fair trade, but Moms don’t keep track of these things.  However I do.

Still taking someone’s child for the weekend is a new experience for us.  Despite having a well behaved easy child to care for you do things a little differently.  First you are very watchful of the new child.  You want to make sure she is well cared for and having a good time because you don’t her to speak badly of your parenting skills when she gets home.  You don’t worry about that with your own children.  Secondly, you try to be more patient and show more restraint with your own children than you otherwise would.  You don’t want the new child to tell everyone how “Uncle Al completely lost it”.  So you try to be on your best parenting behavior and I think we did a decent job.

The speaker at our camp Dr. Bruce Fong was outstanding.  I was very impressed of how he was able to talk so freely and easily for an hour without any notes.  Dr. Fong is obviously a very gifted and talented speaker.  It also turns out he is equally good at writing.  He has a blog which you can check out here.  Who does’nt have a blog these days?  What is impressive about his blog is that he posts nearly every day despite a very busy schedule.  Bloggers know how hard that is. Not only does he blog frequently, he does it well.  His writing style is very eloquent and easy much like his speech.  If you take a look at his blog you will find a lot of spiritual truths and encouragement but you will also find entertaining stories such as “Wow! Kristin Can Dance”.

Sometimes I have to be called into “Mom” duties. Probably more so than most Dads since I am always around. This week I had to step in as my wife and daughter were on a girls trip to Disneyland. So I had to chaperone my son’s kindergarten class on a field trip to the fire house along with all the other Moms. It was my first field trip and it was an interesting experience.

The firehouse was fun but a little disappointing. First it is small. It can only sleep 3 people. It is like a small apartment rather than a firehouse. Also no pole to slide down. It is a one story building. It also did not have a Dalmatian. Still the fire trucks and the hose demonstration was cool and the kids enjoyed it.

My fine dining posts may have given you the impression that we go out for fine dining on a regular basis. That is hardly the case. We do enjoy an occasional splurge but most of our dining are value meals. Good food at a decent or bargain price. Of course we want quality food but we have to stretch our dining dollars out especially with a family of four. Mexican food is always a good option for a tasty meal that at an affordable price.

Another option is restaurant.com. Restaurant.com is a site where you can buy gift certificates at select restaurants at a discount. For example you can buy a $25 dollar certificate for $10. There are a good selection of restaurants to choose from in your local area. You can always find one you know of and like and also many others to try. Nationwide there are over 7,000 restaurants to choose from. If you are traveling this summer look for restaurants in the area you will be visiting. Choose some restaurants you want to try on your vacation before you travel and buy some discount certificates. Dining out while on vacation can be very expensive but restaurant.com can help save you a few dollars while still allowing you to experience new restaurants. Use along with your Entertainment card to maximize your savings.

While cutting Marcus’ hair this week we decided to experiment with a new style.  So we tried the mohawk or rather a “faux-hawk”.  Its not quite a full mohawk.

Marcus really liked it so we let him keep it for a day which turned into 2 days because we got too busy to cut the rest off.  The reviews were mixed.  The kids at school and at little league loved it.  Even his teacher liked it, but the older crowd, well….not so much.  Kind of like my playoff beard.

I have not been not been blogging lately because I have been busy with various projects. I continue to be a jack of all trades…..master of none. My latest venture is being an author and freelance writer. I have written or rather co-written a book which has just been released. It is an e-book titled “Tenant in Common Investing-The Uncommon Path to Massive Wealth.”

One of the real estate related questions I often am asked is why I don’t invest in California. I prefer to invest out of state because in most cases the numbers in California do not work for me. Also the prices in California are so high that my investment dollars will not go far. I can find much better values elsewhere. There are pitfalls to investing from a distance but I find it can be managed with planning. While you can find good real estate investments in California I prefer not to spend my time searching for a needle in a haystack but rather in areas that investments which meet my criteria are more common.

Still many people insist on investing in areas close by where they can see and touch their investment more easily. I have recently discovered a strategy which can be used profitably to invest in expensive, high appreciating areas such as California. Tenant in Common is a way to hold title to real estate. If you are married you typically hold title to real estate as Joint Tenants. Tenant in Common is a way for many partners to hold title jointly. How do we use this as a profitable investment strategy?

The short answer is you jointly buy a property(2-4units) via tenant in common, improve it to increase value and sell for a profit. It is kind of like a fix and flip strategy, but not exactly. It is like a condo conversion, but not exactly. This strategy has some very distinct and important differences and advantages over these other strategies. I can’t go into all the details here…..but I will in my book.

In addition to a more thorough explanation of this strategy, specific case studies, forms and contacts will be shared provided. Initial sales of the book have been going well and we have received some very favorable feedback. So, check it out here.  Because it is an e-book, you can download and read it immediately.

Here is a funny video I saw at church today of what a Mom would say in 24 hours condensed into a 2 minute and 55 second song.  So true.

In case you missed hearing everything, here is the list.

Get up now
Get up now
Get up out of bed
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Comb your sleepyhead
Here’s your clothes and your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now! Get up and make your bed
Are you hot? Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where’s your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and gloves and your scarf and hat
Don’t forget! You gotta feed the cat
Eat your breakfast, the experts tell us it’s the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at 3 today
Don’t forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play
Don’t shovel
Chew slowly
But hurry
The bus is here
Be careful
Come back here
Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside, don’t play rough, will you just play fair?
Be polite, make a friend, don’t forget to share
Work it out, wait your turn, never take a dare
Get along! Don’t make me come down there
Clean your room, fold your clothes, put your stuff away
Make your bed, do it now, do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone! Get off the phone!
Don’t sit so close, turn it down, no texting at the table
No more computer time tonight!
Your iPod’s my iPod if you don’t listen up
Where are you going and with whom and what time do you think you’re coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You’ll appreciate my wisdom someday when you’re older and you’re grown
Can’t wait till you have a couple little children of your own
You’ll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now I thank you not to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew, would appreciate
Take a bite maybe two of the stuff you hate
Use your fork, do not burp or I’ll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, get the door, don’t get smart with me
Get a grip, get in here, I’ll count to three
Get a job, get a life, get a PHD
Get a dose of,
“I don’t care who started it!
You’re grounded until you’re 36″
Get your story straight and tell the truth for once, for heaven’s sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said at least a thousand times before
That you’re too old to act this way
It must be your father’s DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straighter when you walk
A place for everything and everything must be in place
Stop crying or I’ll give you something real to cry about
Oh!
Brush your teeth, wash your face, put your PJs on
Get in bed, get a hug, say a prayer with mom
Don’t forget, I love you
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom’s work never ends
You don’t need the reason why
Because, because, because, because
I said so, I said so, I said so, I said so
I’m the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom!!
Ta da!!!