People who play it safe are generally conservative in everything they do.  They work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, at a job they’ve had for decades.  They like their routine.  They eat breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 12:30, and dinner at 6:00.  Their closets are perfectly organized, with clothes probably sorted  by color.  Go out to eat one Saturday night a month with the kids and one Saturday night without.  They don’t slurge.  They watch every penny they spend.  They buy generic toilet paper and canned creamed corn.  The only charity they donate to is their church.

They are boring.  Incredibly boring.

Since their lives are so mundane, they are absolutely incapable of holding a stimulating conversation.  They can only talk about their kids and the weather, or their job.  They have no intimate knowledge of the world around them, of politics, the environment, of life and death.  Gracious, don’t talk about life and death.  The church tells them what to believe and independent thought is forbidden, maybe even blasphemous.  And scary.

Then there are those folks who take risks, who live on the edge.  City Girl and I are in this category.  We do things on the spur of the moment.  We will open a new business after a half-hour discussion.  We will buy a property after a 15-minute dialogue.  We will gamble our money that we can be successful at any endeavour we tackle.  We believe in ourselves!

Since we’re not bounded by the constraints of a conservative life, we explore every avenue.  We don’t believe that human beings are the supreme species and all others are subservient to us.  That has led us to be vegans, meaning we do not consume animal products.  We do not “own” animals, since we believe in freedom for all and slavery for none.  We are staunch environmentalists.  We do not believe in profit above the fate of our planet.  We care about the plight of the common man.  We care about the needy, which is why we’re opening a free soup kitchen in our county.

We’re hungry for knowledge.  We want to learn.  Learning never stops. 

We’re always open to something new.  For us, there is no final frontier.  There will always be exciting challenges ahead.  We thrive on the action.  We’re adrenaline junkies.  For us, life is an adventure.

How about you?

- Mountain Man

With the opening of the second building at our New Jersey Avenue location in Wildwood Crest this past Wednesday, it’s obvious that the decor and wall hangings didn’t just appear overnight.  It took some serious shopping.  It took painting a pallette in my mind of the decor blending together.

Don’t let my rugged Mountain Man appearance fool you.  I love to decorate.  When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me that, “Someday you’ll make somebody a good wife.”  I’d give her a disgusted look as I continued to stir the spaghetti sauce.  No, I didn’t wear an apron.

Decorating is an art.  It sets the tone of the building, employees, and customers through the feelings it exudes.  Good feelings – in our real estate industry – equal good business and good sales.  That warm, fuzzy feeling gets them every time.  Oh, and our genuinely friendly demeanor helps, too.

Some guys have no taste.  To them, hang a few posters of hot chicks along with a few beer signs and they think that’s cool.  Yeah, if you’re stuck in post-pubescence.  I like to think – no, I know – that I’m eons past that stage.  I appreciate optical splendor.  I love sunsets and full moons and birds fishing in a marsh and swaying palm trees and a sailboat on the horizon.  I enjoy all forms of flora and fauna.  I love mountain streams and deer grazing and hawks circling above.  I can express my pleasure with these images through decorating our homes and offices.

You were right, Mom.

- Mountain Man

Then there’s the dumb excuse, which is becoming far too prevalent.  I’m talking about people who co-sign their kid’s mortgage, or continually funnel money to their whiney, manipulative kids so that they can live beyond their means.

I had a client come in recently inquiring about a short sale.  When he explained his income versus mortgage costs, I couldn’t see how he could be strapped for money.  Then the truth came out.  He had co-signed his kid’s mortgage and now the situation had degraded to the point where he was paying the entire $2,000 payment every month.  This senior citizen was willing to lose his home and have to become a renter just so he could continue to finance his kid’s lifestyle.  Unbelievable.

We call people like this “enablers”.  They enable their kids to be irresponsible because they will always come to the rescue and bail them out.  How pathetic!

This client staunchly defended giving his kid money.  “You’ve gotta do for family,” he repeated several times during our conversation (consultation, actually).  He made no apologies for throwing away a lifetime of hardwork and scrimping and saving.  Just as long as his kid and family could afford to drive new cars, buy cigarettes and booze, and buy their kids (his grandchildren) all kinds of status-driven material things, he was willing to lose his home.

Parents who do this type of enabling are not doing their kids a favor.  In most cases, once the parents are dead and buried, the irresponsible kids now in their 40′s and 50′s will not survive.  They don’t have the skills.  They’ll lose everything.  The cycle continues.

- Mountain Man

Ocean City gained notoriety for its idiotic Blue Laws, which designated Sunday as a day of no driving, no ocean bathing, no retail sales of any kind, no recreational activities.  I guess the only thing you were allowed to do was go to church …oops, walk to church.  In 1985 and ’86, most of the remaining Blue Laws were finally repealed.  Amazingly, it was a very close vote.

Ocean City does still carry the torch outlawing liquor.  The town is “dry”, meaning no restaurants can serve alcohol and naturally there are no packaged goods stores.  Heck, you can’t even be seen in public drinking a beer.

So imagine the the gall of restaurant owners this winter in proposing permitting BYOB, which stands for Bring Your Own Booze.  They weren’t asking to sell beer, wine or liquor, just to allow customers to bring a bottle of wine to consume with dinner.  The nerve!

The backward temperance folks were outraged.  “Not while I’m mayor,” said the reigning mayor.  I was waiting for him to add, “You’ll have to pry the gavel from my cold, dead hands.”  The argument, of course, is that Ocean City is America’s “Greatest Seaside Family Resort” and the town would shrivel and die if alcohol of any sort is allowed.  How dare we subject little Johnny and Susie to have to sit in a restaurant while the adults at the next table each sip a glass of wine.  Blasphemy!

The debate will carry on this winter, but by spring no doubt the temperance clan will prevail.  In Ocean City, BYOB will still mean Bring Your Own Bible.

- Mountain Man

Case in point is City Girl.  On Christmas day, she laid in tremendous pain in the hospital with a broken hip.  The ball of the femur (thigh) bone had totally pulled out of the hip socket.  The pain was constant, excruciating.  I mentioned that perhaps we should delay purchasing the building next door to our real estate office for a few months.  “No,” she replied.  “Thinking about the building is all that’s getting me through this pain.”  She was focusing on a positive to try to lessen a negative.

We all do the same thing, except when there isn’t physical pain involved it’s more appropriately called daydreaming. 

I daydream often.  In fact, I guess I actually daydream daily.  My mind is taking itself to somewhere in the future that is pleasant, soothing, idyllic.

Right now, in mid-January of a colder than average South Jersey winter, my mind is working overtime.  My mind is thinking of spring, of planting flowers and vegetables.  This fantasy has been helped along by the half-dozen seed catalogs that have arrived since January 2nd.  As I pour through the catalogs in my reading room (okay, bathroom) looking at tomato varieties, zucchini, spinach, hot pepper, and a host of other vegetable seeds, I envision these plants growing in my dozen raised beds behind the house.  I decide what varieties I’ll grow again this year and which new ones deserve a chance.  I think of the mistakes I made last year, like not planting enough zucchini plants to get proper pollination.  My zucchini crop was a total flop in 2010.  My peppers arrived late and my spinach bolted too early.  And I planted too many cucumber plants.  I’ll cut back on cukes this year.

With new flower beds to deal with as our real estate office expansion comes to fruition, I am debating which flowers to plant.  I want continuity so that the two side-by-side properties will become one.  Should I use impatiens, which always give a colorful display?  No, they get stressed too much in the hot July and August days because they need some shade, not full sunlight.  How about marigolds or asters or chrysanthemums?  Maybe I should start with cold-hardy pansies in March, then replant summer flowers Memorial Weekend?

My mind wanders to envisioning myself in a tee shirt and jeans, on my knees, with flats of flowers ready to find their summer home.  I think about all our customers and even folks walking down New Jersey Avenue who will be complimenting my choice of yellows, pinks, oranges, reds, whites and purples.  The compliments bring satisfaction, a feeling of accomplishment.

I feel good.  Isn’t daydreaming great?!!

- Mountain Man

This year, rather than racial equality, I want to address violence.  They go hand in hand at times, but in reality violence is the downfall of mankind.  Maybe shortcoming is a more appropriate term.  Or both.

In my 20′s, when part of the back to the land movement, I bought a few dairy goats and started getting my own goat’s milk and cheese.  One thing always bothered me – the goats fought until they established a pecking order.  Then the alpha doe always picked on the rest, the beta doe picked on all but the alpha, and on and on down the line.  Why couldn’t they get along?  After all, they’re all dairy goats and they’re all in this together.

Then I had a revelation.  They’re just like humans.  We’re always fighting to establish dominance.  Except, sometimes we kill.  Goats, along with most mammal species, fight to establish dominance, but they rarely kill and then its usually accidental.  Humans kill with vigor, with purpose.

In 2009, there were 15,241 murders in the United States.  Sure, that was down from over 24,000 in both 1991 and 1993, but it’s still despicable.  The US also had a total of 1,313,398 violent crimes in 2009.  Are we that prone to acts of violence?  Are we a nation of people who are so far from the norm of a peaceful society that hurting another human being is no big deal?  Do we have so little value for someone else’s life?  Are we, as a society, totally insane?

In the world recently in one year India led with 37,700 murders.  Russia had 28,904, Colombia 26,539, South Africa 21,553, the US about 16,000, then Mexico with 13,144.  Good old Iceland was one of the most peaceful with just four murders.  There are currently eight wars in the world that record over 1,000 fatalities per year.  There are 24 other wars taking place, with ten of them registering between 10,000 and 200,000 deaths each since their inception.

I won’t throw any other numbers at you, since I think I’ve gotten my point across.  We are a violent species.  We kill indiscriminately.  We kill for power, we kill for profit.  Sometimes, we kill because we don’t like somebody’s looks, religion, color, or politics.  People beat up their spouses, their kids, their neighbors, their rivals, or someone who possesses something they want.  Sadly, sometimes people even kill just for kicks or to prove they’re macho to their peers.

So on MLK Day, I ask that violence end.  Only then, can we truly be called “human”.  Dr. King would agree.

- Mountain Man

Sadly, most people are shallow and consumed with materialism  and their legacy is that they merely existed.  They took up air and space and helped further deplete our fragile earth’s resources.

For many folks, helping the less-fortunate of the world gives their life purpose, true meaning.  It’s a chance to give back for the excesses that we have thanks to our dedication, hard work, and honest dealings throughout our lives.

The Free Meal Center, which is Cape May County, New Jersey’s first-ever daily soup kitchen, is slated to open to the public in the late spring, 2011.  It’s a chance for many locals to help the 4,000 year-round families living below the poverty level that just can’t make ends meet.  The facility will offer lunch Monday through Saturday, plus breakfast on Saturdays, to anyone who walks through the doors.  They won’t even be asked their name.

TFMC needs another $25,000 by March 15, 2011 to complete the purchase of the 2.36 acre property featuring a 4,000 square foot former restaurant.  Won’t you help?  You can send a tax deductible donation to:  The Free Meal Center, PO Box 863, Cape May Court House, NJ 08210.  Check them out at http://www.FreeMealCenter.com . 

Helping these needy families could be your legacy!

- Mountain Man

Last winter, South Jersey was blasted by four big snowstorms which set a record for the winter by leaving behind 58 inches of snow.  Okay, we looked back at it all summer and decided it was an anomaly.  C’mon, we don’t get that kind of snowfall here in Cape May County, a 5-mile wide peninsula where the half dozen golf courses stay open year-round.  With the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south and the 13-mile wide Delaware Bay to the west, our weather is tempered by the waters that are much warmer than the air.

Up until a few years ago, I didn’t even own a winter jacket.  A heavy sweatshirt was sufficient.  Sure we had a couple cold mornings with temperatures in the upper teens, but it usually got in the mid-40s in the day and often broke the 50 degree mark.  Our winter was more like those found in South Carolina and Georgia, or so we told ourselves.

This winter, the day after Christmas, we received 17″ of snow.  Fortunately it was light and fluffy.  We all told ourselves that it was going to be the only snowstorm of the winter.  We collectively decided to ignor the fact that the temperate zones of the world – like the good old USA – were subject to weather extremes in this age of global warming.  Just a quick peek back to last summer and its intense heat and lack of rainfall should have been a sufficient reminder.

Yesterday, the TV meteorologists had the local populace scared about snow, but we didn’t even get enough to show on the ground before the sun popped out.  They switched their negative prognostications to today, a Saturday.  They talked about 1″-3′ here at the shore and up to 6″ farther inland.  Well, here it is 11am and we’ve got two inches of fresh snow on the ground and it’s still coming down with reckless abandon. 

Worse yet, they’re talking about a possible nor’easter on Tuesday.  Snow that wraps around and comes from the northeast is always our heaviest snowfall.  People on the East Coast love to talk about past nor’easters.

A few minutes ago, I had to go preview a property for one of  my real estate clients.  That’s what realtors do, rain or shine.  As I sloshed down a back city street in my 4-wheel drive, I pondered why anyone would tolerate this snow.  Everyone hated it, right? 

Then up ahead, I saw three boys about 8-years old each sitting on an old December 26th snowpile.  They had on full snowsuits, ski caps and hoods, mittens, and boots.  Each had carved out a spot in the hill that was custom-fit to their derriere.  They were having a great time and were oblivious to the blowing snow and chilly conditions.  It was then that I had an epiphany.  I flashed back to my youth.  Gosh, how I loved to sit and play in the snow, just like these three young lads.

The negative thoughts about snow left my mind.  Of course, snow is for the children, the innocent souls.  Have fun, kids!

- Mountain Man

Times have changed.

With the advent of the internet age, spamming and scamming have taken on a new life.  Yesterday on this blogsite there were 73 spams and this morning another 40.  Some take the line of supposedly commenting on a particular blog article.  But wouldn’t you get suspicious when some talk about a blog I wrote about City Girl breaking her hip and they say something like, “Informative article.  It made me feel good.”?

The last two days of spams have included dozens promoting on-line gambling, sexual enhancement pills (I refuse to print the names), weight loss miracles, wonder drugs, sporting goods, horny housewives and Russian brides, and on and on.  How do these people sleep at night knowing they are being underhanded?  Do their kids know that Daddy is unscrupulous and not really a role model?  Hey kids, Pops is a sleazeball!

Scammers take it to a different level.  If I was to believe every shifty email I get, I have relatives in China, India, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, England, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and yes Nigeria – let’s not forget Nigeria – that have left me fortunes ranging from $2 million up to $16 million.  Boy, I must have quite a family tree. 

And then there’s those who claim that some deceased prince or rich businessman has picked me from the world’s 6.9 billion people to be the lucky recipient of his mass fortune.  Wouldn’t they turn over in their grave if they knew I’d spend all the money on feeding and housing the needy folks in our country, instead of Rolls Royces and luxurious palaces.  Oh yea, I would set aside some money for beer.

I figure that adding up all the vast sums of money I have been offered amounts to about 1 billion dollars.  With 43.6 million Americans living in poverty, I could give each of them about $23 worth of food.  You know what?  I will take that money!

- Mountain Man

As you may know from reading two of the blogs I wrote since Christmas, City Girl broke her hip on Christmas morning when we were walking down the railroad tracks to feed some homeless fellows.  She’s had hip replacement surgery and is now in a convalescent home receiving physical therapy.  That makes me a bachelor for a while longer.

I’m pretty good around the kitchen, and in fact I do all the cooking in our household of two.  My mother even used to tell me that, “someday you’ll make somebody a good wife.”  She was right.

But I found one of my limitations this morning.  Since City Girl can not climb stairs, I am converting the dining room into a temporary bedroom.  It’ll be convenient for her being on the first floor and close to a bathroom, her office, and the kitchen.  I had no trouble disassembling the dining room table and along with my buddy Keith we got the table top, extension, legs, and six chairs into an outbuilding for storage.  The new full-sized bed I purchased was quickly assembled.  So far, every task had been regular guy stuff.  Easy to do.

Yesterday I bought a mattress pad, bed skirt, and a matching set of fitted sheet, top sheet, and two pillow cases.  I went 300 count thread, which is decent, and picked a nice beige color which City Girl approved via phone as I stood in the store aisle naming the color choices.  So far so good.

This morning I decided to assemble the bedding.  First I put on the mattress pad and it fit nicely.  Then I took the bed skirt and hit a brick wall.  I tried putting it over the mattress pad, but that couldn’t possibly be right.  I knew it didn’t go over the fitted sheet, so I pulled a chair up to the foot of the bed to contemplate my predicament.  Where the heck does the bed skirt go?  I could have gone upstairs and simply seen where City Girl had it on our bed, but that would be admitting I couldn’t figure it out.  No way!

Then it hit me.  It must go between the box spring and mattress.  Voila.  That was the answer.  Ten minutes later I had the entire bed made.  It looked nice. 

Oops.  One more thing.  Standing back to admire my work, I realized that the bed skirt was very wrinkled.  It needed to be ironed.  City Girl, once she’s home, will immediately point out that I should have ironed the bed skirt. 

I thought for a split second.  No, I won’t iron the bed skirt.  If I did, she wouldn’t feel like I really need her, which I do.  I’d rather have her smirk and think to herself, “He’s just a guy!”

- Mountain Man