Coffee Cup Stain

Waking up early this morning to a very humid day which is not the norm in Phoenix. With a day of rain, very unusual in the summer here in Phoenix, yesterday, today is cooler and damp now. Reminds me of growing up in New York state in the mid-Hudson Valley. The damp and humid are was a daily experience there. I didn’t even know a climate could be drier until I grew up and visited other parts of the country other than the east coast. I remember being uncomfortable in all that dampness. Sheets, bed, furniture all having a moist feel to them. This morning is very reminiscent to that. Nice to have the air conditioning off for a while but how long? Not sure I want to really deal with this damp air. Any way it is early and coffee is ready so I’ll get to firing up the computer and booking reservation for next month at the five star Hong Kong hotels for a meeting with some of my suppliers. Nice to have a long holiday weekend to relax and catch up on some of the stuff I have been putting off the past few weeks because I was so busy. Now that that is done and emails have been responded to I need to get to a little work in the yard and garden. Being September there is still plenty of work to be done still as e are still experiencing summer temperatures and will for a few more weeks. Going to clear out plants this morning that didn’t make it through the summers heat. The lack of rains and tghe dry heat the presisted through the months of July and August this year took its toll on the garden more so than most other summers.

Phuket is Thailand’s largest island. Say island, say beaches. Then picture this, beautiful clean, white-sanded beaches with the crystal clear, sparkling blue waters of the Andaman Sea and the lush, rich, green foliage of the surrounding landscape. Perhaps it’s the popular Hat Patong Beach you are on. Ok, now picture yourself under a big, colorful umbrella on this spectacular beach, the smell of the warm sea air as it wafts over you, brought to you by the gentle breeze. Listen to the waves roll up on the beach, clapping against large rocks protruding on the beach edge. Watch the sea gulls going about their daily hunt for food. Do you feel yourself getting sleepy? That’s ok, take a nap, let your worries and stresses of your life roll out with the waves. Is that one of your favorite books you have with you? And your favorite beverage? What a great picture you have imagined for yourself.

Now all you have to do is pick a time, book a flight to Phuket, make reservations for a Phuket hotel and you can make your picture a reality. Finish this picture as you take in all the wonderful sights, take the tours, attend, or even participate in Phuket King’s Cup Regatta for yachtsmen, visit the nightclubs and dance the night away, mingling with other tourists and locals. Picture yourself shopping in one of the many well-known stores with name brands, or the quaint little shops carrying items made locally. Have you pictured yourself enjoying all the fabulous cuisine in Phuket? The local entrees are delicious and delectable, based mostly on fried or boiled noodles, plenty of fresh vegetables and shrimp, chicken, pork and rice, with curry adding that extra something in the sauces. What a beautiful picture you have just painted, now do it and put all those pictures you created in an album to enjoy and share for many years to come.

If history proves correct, the cooling temperatures in Phoenix will bring more people out of the house, into their back yards to fire magic grills and entertain in the outdoors.  With so much entertaining to do, it is a shame when the host of the parties and gatherings is constantly running back and forth, in and out the house to fetch the food, the drinks and anything else that might be in the kitchen.

But these days, there is another option and that is to design one’s own backyard kitchen, complete with sink, refrigerator, storage space and yes, the grills. And back yard grills are not what they used to be either.  Many of them nowadays come equipped with slow roasters and smoker settings,  drawers for warming and cabinets for storage, as well as side burners for the cooking of the side dishes.

In Phoenix the weather is fairly accommodating year round, give or take the months of summer.  As long as the kitchen is situated in a gazebo or a cabana, with sufficient protection covering the appliances from the sun, this is the perfect climate to just go ahead and bring the kitchen out of doors.  The heat keeps most people trapped inside their air conditioned spaces, and once the weather changes, people want to spend as much time out of those spaces as possible.

Some people choose to bring plants and flowers into the rooms of their houses, but other people are opting to bring the rooms of their house out into their gardens.  What is better than reach down into the garden and grabbing the herbs such as thyme and oregano, or the vegetables such as peppers and tomatoes, and then standing right back up and tossing them into the pot.  Many of the newly constructed homes are including the outdoor kitchens in the original floor plan for the home.  But it is not too difficult to add a kitchen to a pre-existing back yard, designing it along side the pool or under the patio, and it’s a great way to entertain guests in the fresh and open air.

There are many excellent choices for gorgeous accommodations on the island, but our luxury Ibiza hotels offer excellence with a difference.  We have selected our fine array of lodging choices based on their consistency in meeting or exceeding our high standards for service and style.  This means that you’ll be enjoying the best hospitality around, as well as rejuvenating in an atmosphere that is sophisticated and contemporary.  Old world standards for courtesy and graciousness are also in play here, and our friendly and well-informed staff will make you feel right at home.  After a delicious meal served by our chefs who are well-schooled in classical and contemporary cooking techniques, and a delicious sleep in our gorgeous rooms, you’ll understand the meaning of rejuvenation.

You’ll be able to carry the relaxation with you, too, as Ibiza has a long tradition for taking it easy and having a good time.  These are practically art forms here.  Ibiza is one of the liveliest places in Europe, with a nightlife that is truly spectacular.  Its reputation as one of the most exciting party spots in the world comes from a couple decades of musical innovations, coupled with some very astute entrepreneurs who saw potential in the crowds and the clubs.  Its history is relatively short, but nonetheless fascinating as it tracks the development of electronic music.  One of the pioneers in this field, and in the Ibiza scene, is Trevor Fung.

He was working in London, exploring the new music sounds there, on the tail end of punk rock’s high water mark and the advent of new wave.  In the late 70s, he began vacationing in Ibiza and found that the experimental crowds responded very well to the exciting changes in music he was seeing, and playing.  He soon began working there fairly regularly, taking cheap flights to Spain and testing out his ideas on the dance crowds there.  By the late 80s, Trevor Fung had already established a very loyal following in Ibiza.  His unusual mixes of pop and indie with house music caught on rather spectacularly.  At some point, the innovations on Ibiza began overtaking the London evolutions, and the island found itself leading a revolution in electronic dance music.  To this day, exciting new experiments of sound can be heard all over the island, thanks to the efforts of this dj pioneer.

Among the region’s best in five-star hotels, Sydney offers a remarkable array of urban and natural adventures in the city and nearby, making it a perfectly lovely destination for tourists as well as business travelers.  It has long been a hub for culture in the region, with fascinating revolutions in music and visual art, and today is as exciting as it ever was.  Our hotels put you in the middle of things, with easy access to the areas you are most interested in seeing.  We also offer a splendid ambience to keep your sleep as restful and invigorating as your days will be exciting and inspiring.  We specialize in blending innovation and tradition, so that you will enjoy all the contemporary comforts and technologies, but still be treated to a large dose of old-fashioned hospitality.
Australia is famous for the rather stubborn individualism of its citizens, and this makes for some of the most interesting innovators in contemporary art.  Guests in Sydney who are curious about the new trends in the visual and performing arts will certainly find a healthy dose of culture here.  There are traditions that go back generations, for some thousands of years, and these find their way into the contemporary scene in interesting ways.  There are also new innovations that are less than a week old, and this combination makes for some dynamic work.  For some examples of what’s happening in the Sydney region, visitors should check out the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Liverpool.
This building was an old warehouse that fell out of use, and has been recently refurbished.  Today, Casula Powerhouse is a fantastically modern arts complex.  There are gallery spaces, artist studios, and theatre spaces, along with a host of other spaces contained within its architecture, to offer the possibility of presenting arts in all disciplines to a hungry public.  They are very community-based, with many initiatives that are designed to bring in all members of the extremely diverse population here, and present a regular schedule of entertainments that will appeal to every member of the family.

I remember first discovering Singapore for my self as a Young child sorting through stamps in my stamp collection. There was an engraved stamp in red showing Queen Elizabeth II on a stamp from Singapore. I thought that was strange since Great Britain was all way round the other side of the world from Singapore. I learned a lot that summer I started collecting stamps. The miniature works of art issued from everywhere in the world and used to send things all over. These stamps featured images of people, buildings, flowers, animals, plants, fish, birds, designs hey commemorated events, places and occurrences. Everything seemed to be documented on a stamp. The origin of the postage stamp is in Great Britain in the mid 1800s a stamp selling for one penny featuring the profile of Queen Victoria  was the first stamp to be issued. Now known as the One Penny Black these stamps had to be cut by hand and glue applied to them as the innovation of perforations and pre gummed stamps was years away. While staying at best singapore hotels there was a convention of stamp collector with an accompanying exhibit of stamps front he beginning to current time. I remembered the stamps i had. Some were printed over in bold words letters or numbers indicating new rulers, regimes and inflationary times. History was played out on these little works of art. A countries rulers could be followed by the changing images on the stamps issued by the country over time Big events, elections and other commemorations are found on stamps. The process of printing began with engraved stamps usually in one color sometime sin in two to more modern offset printing techniques that make full color reproduction on the stamps possible. The stamps chronicled the good and the bad, changes and stanchions and all events in between in the history of the countries issuing them.

In a city as large as Bombay, India, hotels are plentiful and the choice for accommodations isn’t always easy.  Our hotels offer luxury with a difference.  With careful attention to detail, we merge the old-fashioned charms of hospitality with all the modern conveniences, so you can enjoy a splendid rest and see the sights in this splendid place.  Bombay has enormous treasures to offer visitors of all ages, and our hotels are a perfect place to call home while you’re here.  We make sure that every member of the family is comfortable and enjoying their stay, offering gourmet meals, exercise facilities, in-room entertainments, and so much more.

In Bombay (now called Mumbai), there is a dazzling array of attractions and distractions to fill your days with new memories.  It is one of the largest cities on the planet, with an enormous diversity of cultures, and languages and customs make themselves visible on the streets every day.  People watching here is one of the major attractions, where the human comedy plays itself out before one’s very eyes.  If this isn’t enough, there are tours and sight-seeing and all the fine things a bustling city can offer.  Bombay is a feast for the senses, and it is visually one of the more stunning places in India.  Visual arts are especially lively here, and one can see local artists making use of everyday in their objects.  One excellent example of the everyday making its way into art are the dabbas.

Dabbas are aluminum or tin containers that serve as lunch boxes.  Workers who have to travel far from home often hire people to bring their lunches to them every day in dabbas.  They are particularly unique, then, to India, and speak of an average person performing work.  However, at the Kala Ghoda, this is turned on its head.   The dabbas are being used in installation art. In one iconic image, dabbas were attached to bicycles, which were attached to a ferris wheel, so that visitors were greeted with a delightful and thoughtful visual reminder of the cycles of life and work, in a festival setting.   Here we see a sublime and playful commentary on how the ordinary can be made sacred, and still keep its sense of humor, when art and life start to dance together.

ot long ago, a defense attorney was arrested in Newark, New Jersey with three others who were involved in a racketeering and corruption conspiracy that not only included murdering a key witness in a drug offense case, but money laundering and wire fraud as well.  Paul Bergrin was one of the four who were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bergrin was arrested on fourteen counts of various activities involving such activities as protecting clients..as in the previously mentioned murder in order to protect his criminal clients, allowing them to continue criminal behavior and protecting them from prosecution.  The murder Bergrin is accused of, is that of a key witness in a case in Essex County.

This was a federal case and the witness was a confidential federal witness.  He was also connected with the hiring of a Chicago hit-man to kill a different  witness for another case in Monmouth County.  Bergrin was kept in prison during the indictment proceedings as he was deemed a danger to society.  Bergrin had previously held high positions, Assistant Prosecutor for Essex County and between the years of 1985 and 1990 he was the Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Along with the racketeering charges, he is charged with the murder, conspiracy to commit murder and the conspiracy to commit travel act violations.  The other that were arrested were Thomas Moran, one of the attorneys with an office in Bergrin’s practice.  He was arrested for his alleged participation in the hiring of the Chicago hit-man as well as racketeering charges.

Vincente Estevez was also from Manmouth County and is facing drug trafficking charges as well as in the participation of the racketeering organization.  Yoland Jauregui, a woman who lived with Bergrin was charged with wire fraud, that was connected with a scheme involving a mortgage scam.  Sundiata Koontz was also charged with conspiracy and fraud as well.

We were eating breakfast in a cafe along the Levante beach, having just flown in very early to Alicante airport to the luxury hotels Benidorm offers in this once sleepy town, now a powerhouse of development. We had just come from a self laminating pouch convention in Brussels and needed some beach and sun. The pouch industry is made up of dour folks who are efficient but a little dull, so I was hoping to find a place to stretch my legs and maybe meet some interesting people. Instead, I wound up going to Terra Natura, and animal park on the outskirts of town. Actually, I wanted to see a porcupine and to take a picture of one for a client, a fellow who wanted to name his self laminating line Porcupine Plus, and wanted me to handle the marketing. I realized I had never ever seen a porcupine in real life, they just are not to common in Tucson, Arizona, and this thought would not leave my head, when I met Victoria on a stroll along the beach early the next morning. I am a very early riser and love to have the beach to myself as the sun comes up, and as I was walking along I crossed paths with this woman who was out that early herself. We nodded and said good morning and I thought no more of it, until a little later I saw her ordering cafeau lait at the beach cafe and I said hello again, and before I knew it she was inviting me to go along with her to this animal park, and I almost bowed out when I remembered about the porcupine guy and and  asked if this place had porcupines and she said she did not know but probably, And that is how I went from the beach to and animal park in Spain in two hours.

The process of foreclosure is one that allows a lender or a mortgage company to get back money they are owed in the case of a home owner defaults on their loan.  They either take possession of the property, or they sell the house, usually through a public auction. This all starts when the first notice is sent to the borrower, in reference to the defaulted status of their loan.  There are ways in which a home owner can stop the process and save their home.  They can either pay off the loan during a grace period allowed by the lender, this is the time called pre-foreclosure. 

Or if they can not manage to find the money to pay the bank back they can try and sell their house themselves.  This will allow them to pay back the loan and keep a foreclosure from affecting their credit score.  If neither of these options prove successful, then the bank will eventually take back the home and evict the residents.  The process is different from state to state, so it is wise to become familiar of the laws of one’s own state regarding foreclosures.  Brooklyn, New York will vary greatly from Austin, Texas with regards to the state laws, most of this variance will deal with whether or not the state uses deeds of trust, or mortgages. 

In a state that uses the mortgages, the foreclosure process is one that is set in a court of law.  In states wherein a deed is used, the process is settled outside of the judicial system, by organizations that are defined differently state to state.  Regardless of where one lives however, there are programs that are designed to help home owners avoid the process, and safe their house.  Most all lenders will work with the borrowers as they themselves do not want to go through the foreclosure process, and they do want people to stay in their homes.