8/12/2010

Before You Buy Check Out Your Neighbors


I owned a home in Kite Hill and loved my neighbors. I bought the house that was a wreck and over a year of remodeling and landscaping it became the house everyone visited to barbeque or have dinner.
The house I live in now is beautiful but buyer beware.

The seller is not going to tell you the neighbor is nuts.

A few signs that might not mesh with normal family

1. The neighbor takes their big dog on walks and leaves odorous little blue bags all over the sidewalks.

2. The neighbor places their black Weber barbecue upwind from your kitchen windows then regularly ignites twelve ounces of lighter fluid to start their coals. Imagine the fireworks.

3. The neighbor uses piles of squirrel bait and rat poison to kill rabbits on their hillside then throws the dead creatures into your yard for your dogs to consume.

4. The neighbor complains about everything- your wind chimes (you take them down) your children swimming in the pool in the afternoon (you keep them quiet) your rose petals fly into their yard and they have no flowers ( you trim them all low on their adjacent wall).

5. When a freind comes over and parks a Mercedes in a legal parking space in front of your own home. The neighbor has the car towed claiming it is their own and the battery is dead.

6. The neighbor takes pictures of your teenage daughter and her girlfriends when they sunbathe (with bathing suits on).

7. One Saturday afternoon the neighbor calls the police, when you have pro Angels players in your backyard with the little league team. Fortunately, the Sherriff joins for two minutes. They have a turkey burger to go. They disclose that the neighbor made hundreds of nuisance calls a year about the previous owner with imaginary problems.

8. You avoid using chemicals. You try to be green. You go out of your way to save water. The neighbor has their yard and house sprayed with poisons twice a month and runs their sprinklers every day causing the hillside to be saturated. (You live in an area where other hillsides have slid )

9. The neighbor removes your Halloween decorations and discards them. The neighbor moves your Christmas lights.

10. The neighbor has their gardener use your green trash bins because they do not want to pay for them. When you lock your gate, the gardener climbs over and does it anyway.

11. The neighbor uses their cars as weapons. They swerve toward to frighten your children when they walk to school. Next she actually bumps your youngest child with her car and proceeds to yell at him.

12. The neighbor calls the Homeowner Association to complain about:

Your orchid greenhouse fan makes a ticking noise. Your carpenter repairing some siding leaves his saw in your own yard for a day. You must take down your basketball hoop – although there are forty others in the track.



All I can say is location location location. I love my view. I have a great home but I wish the neighbor would sell.

8/10/2010

Whooping Cough Alert 122 Cases Registered Here

Pertussis (whooping cough) cases continue to grow. The California


Department of Public Health has reported 1,496 cases; Orange County has reported 122 pertussis cases to date. Forty percent of Orange County cases are in infants. Many cases are assumed to be unreported.

under 6 months of age. With an additional death reported this week, there have now been six deaths in California, all infants under six months of age.

Pertussis is a highly contagious disease and young infants are very vulnerable.

Whooping cough is bacterial. It starts with symptoms like a cold. Serious complications develop about a week after exposure to the bacteria. Severe episodes of coughing start about 10 to 12 days later. The cough sound sometimes occurs in children .It is produced when the patient tries to take a breath. Coughing spells may lead to vomiting or a short loss of consciousness due to lack of oxygen. Pertussis should always be considered when vomiting occurs with coughing. In infants, choking spells are common. Other symptoms are runny nose, low fever (102 °F or lower) and diarrhea

Vaccination prevents the disease. Pertussis is bacterial. Frequently wash your hands. Often in summer, we forget when we are outdoors or at the beach to wash with hot water and soap twenty seconds. Be extra cautious if you feel you have a cold and are handling children.

8/02/2010

Vounteer in Trouble NEED Your HELP

Volunteer in Trouble We need your help.




My son Carson’ football coach has been suspended from his volunteer position because he offered a running camp before our season began. My son is an honor student and great athlete. He signed up for Mission Viejo Cowboys Team because the Patriots did not have enough gentleman or enough volunteers to coach. He is outraged that our team and a good man are being punished for doing no wrong.



Our league is run by OCJAAF. Our coach been in place seven years, and had this same running camp somehow this year he was singled out as being in violation of a preseason rule.



The league states the rule is that no two boys from a team should be in any camp together. The rule is being applied in a arbitrarily crazy manner. My son plays several sports. Last year he enjoyed Junior Guards and there were more than four boys on his team last year who attended the cap- and that would have been a violation. If he went to any baseball camp (which he did in the past) it also would be a violation of the rule as many of the local boys who are in football happen to be active in other camps and sports.

With more than forty boys on a football team having a rule that never allows any two to attend an outside camp as some bad relationship is crazy.



Other teams in our OCJAAF league offer camps before season begins.



The intention of OCJAAF rule is to avoid having boys from a team injured under their name umbrella, to avoid having a team run football plays year round, and to create a level playing field. Many high school coaches offer camps for sports and training that is fee based out of season. Coaches do this to supplement their income and to keep the boys in shape. It would be Un-American to say a coach has no right to supplement his income. Our situation is different. Coach Kevin Pierce offered the running camp for free.



Our coach is a volunteer for middle school boys’ football he is also not paid for this huge job. The small group of boys who chose to join the running group was half from our football team and half from other sports.



Coach Kevin Pierce has been suspended for the year because of his kind and generous heart. What does this teach our young men?



The community meeting is Tuesday night. A crowd of hundreds are expected to attend in his support. Hopefully OCJAAF can see through the forest of politics and understand that is unfair to punish one man for doing something good.

It will be this Tuesday, August 3rd.

Location: City of Villa

Park Town Hall 17855 Santiago Blvd, Villa Park, CA 92861. Time: 8pm to 10pm

If you can not attend please send an email to : bobbarna@gmail.com the commisioner

You don't need 3D Glasses, just look at what's around you

I was in Minnesota last week. After hours I captured a picture of the lightning storm from my seventh story window over the flat land near St Paul. The next morning after no sleep for two nights I was excited, energized and ready to share the greatness I had seen. Every local to whom I expressed my bubbling enthusiasm about the beauty of the storm seem unimpressed by the noise of the thunder that was unimportant. I never see the flashing show of a storm at home, it's always too foggy even though we might hear the thunder I was thrilled to see God's fireworks. It made me think that our perspectives created our seperate response. If only we could all see the wonder right around us, the secret to happiness would be in appreciating the good right under our toes. This morning I drank my Major Dickenson's Blend Peet's coffee and really tasted the roasty flavor that I love. Then I cut some Rosa Bonheur roses from my side yard and put them in my sleeping teenagers rooms. I am a lucky woman to be alive in this time at this moment and I thank God for a world which is always full of wonder.