Sign Spinners

What do you do on a Saturday when you want to earn some money. Well, you can become a sign spinner. They hold signs and swing them to attract attention from passing cars. Here you see 4 human sign posts with signs of homebuilders. Did I already mention it is 110 F in the shade between 11h-16h, well that means it is probably 65 degrees Celsius in the sun :-) Oh, they get paid 7 bucks an hour, before taxes ...

Kittens

We went to the animal hospital today to get our kittens back. They were both declawed and fixed (below) and they got their shots. Auch, the $830 bill hurts, but a sofa or bed that gets demolished by our cats is a little bit worse:-)

(the cat in the second picture is not ours)

Retarded USA banking system

It is very difficult to explain the US banking system but you can ssume it is on a 19th century level. This week I visited the bank EACH and EVERY day. It is totally insane. Yesterday we received our checks from the school so we deposited them at once using the drive through LOL. Depositing a check takes about 10 minutes, which is quite incredible to say the least but they deposited the check in a WRONG account. Not one of ours. Oh my, luckily trading/buying stocks, bonds, CD's and mutual funds is cheapo here.

If you can't beat them, JOIN them

"Century 21 gets kicked out because they can't pay their bills anymore." Or on a website that WAS for the greatest part sponsored by the real estate mob, it goes like this: Century 21 Metro Alliance finds lien notice on door Looks like those lying realtors got what they deserved, real estate never goes down...they don't make any more land... haha

I am thinking of joining the realtor troups, they are all gone from Maricopa now anyway.
To earn the realtor degree,
you need: an IQ of schrimp(PROBABLY: CHECK), $550 for the education (pay with credit: CHECK)and 2-4 weeks of your time(SUMMER: CHECK).
I don't have anything to do during the summer and I already own the domain maricopavalleyrealty.com :-)

Ultimate fighting UFC75 on US Spike TV

I will not be available Saturday night. I'll be watching this, free of charge. My favorite fighter: Mirko Crocop. This is not for the faint of heart. videolink

My take:

Henderson beats Jackson: 3-0 decision

Crocop beats Kongo: KO 1st round

Hamill beats Bisping: submission in the 2nd round

Kongo will leave the Octogan with a head ache

A rate cut by the US Federal Reserve is 99% certain now

Bonds spiking and the dollar dropping, it's almost inevitable now. The government will lower interest rates to stop the chaos in the housing market.

Who in their right mind would be out signing their name to a mortgage on a depreciating asset today?

Not me :-)
Prices are dropping fast in Phoenix now: link.

What a great guy, I love this man!!!

Just a reminder or two

Hilarious

3 Minutes of TRUTH

are hard to find on US television without a host that attacks you in a real negative way. This guy wrote a book before it happened, he is the smart one. CNN should embrace Peter SChiff and invite him in the studio every day.
Why is that host so agitated? Shooting the messenger or serving the "there is no housingbubble, real estate always goes up realtors". The government will help 80 000 people in the first phase, well that's 6 920 000 to go ...

It looks like the truth hurts, sometimes.

Naomi's first day of School in Pictures (Alice in Wonderland)

Police officer

A police office stopped my car because I was driving my car in the middle of the road of a (but REALLY WIDE)2 way road. We always did this to pass the traffic jam heading into Phoenix. Luckily I talked us out of it, being real pathetic. We moved from Europe, we're both teachers at the High School and everybody was doing this so we thought it was allowed. "Well, David I will give you a warning"
Ok thank you, we won't be doing that anymore...

We bought a bed

It was the only bed we liked, pity we have such an expensive taste regarding beds.

KINGsize which means it is about 2m03 long en 1m93 wide. It's almost a square with 2 removable headstands. Headstands and small tables can be placed anywhere on the sides.

Hell will probably freeze over

before we see a GB truck in Belgium with this description:Please reform the State without our parasite's consent.

Locked

Lisa wanted to work for school AT school on Sunday. But someone already closed the fence before she finished. Luckily she is an expert climber.

Radio show gives a real remarkable present

a space trip.

Q-music, a Belgian music channel, will be the first music channel in the world to give a space trip to a lucky winner. The space trip will be provided by "Space adventures" which is building sites in the United Arabic emirates and Singapore.
You will be lifted to 100 km in space, rocketmotors will be turned off.

Q-music Space Trip LINK

Casino

In Arizona gambling is allowed on Indian ground, so GP and i went to the local AK Chin casino. Played for 2 hours blackjack: result: lost $42.5
The casino is larger then I expected. I went to the casino in Breda (Netherlands)which is the biggest casino in Europe and I visted the largest casino's in Las Vegas. The AK Chin casino is definitely a BIG casino. At least 500+ slots, no craps table AUCH, 1 roulette and 6 blackjack tables, 8 poker tables and an extra poker room and no clock and exit sign in sight :-)
AK CHIN casino

Fascinating concept, fascinating website

www.prosper.com
Leader in online peer2peer lending. I discovered this website a few months ago and I am now a lender/user.
People borrow money and prosper is the "middleman" that brings the lender and the borrower together on the prosper platform/website.
Prosper borrowers ask for a loan, lenders then have to bid for the loan. Most loans don't get fully funded so the loan is then cancelled. When the loan is fully funded, borrowers get a return that depends on the borrozers capability in paying off that loan. Borrowers can get cheaper rates then a bank would offer them.

Caution is advised because these loans are not backed by any security. Prosper does check identity and credit scores.

I find it an excellent diversifation in an investment portfolio. Consumer credit/lending is pretty unrelated to interest rates, stock markets, bond markets, gold and other asset classes.

Prosper is a very young website but I believe in the potential of peer2peer lending. I think it will become the ebay of P2P lending. If it will IPO, I will definitely buy a long term stake in the company.

BED hunting

We'll be shopping for a mattress this afternoon. We already decided on a bed, very modern, but very expensive. It seems we have avery expensive taste regarding beds... Luckily there is a mattress sale in my favorite (LOL)store SEARS (60% off).

My Computer is FOR SALE on ebay

LINK: Davids Comp on ebay

Naomi's bedroom (videofile)

Thx GP for compressing it to the right format.

This will not get any attention in the US media

so I will post it here. I searched for this article on the US news websites but they didn't have any coverage, I wonder why...
Former UK Army chief blames Rumsfeld's intellectual bankruptcy for US debacle in Iraq
Finally I found it on the Yahoo! website in INDIA. In Belgium this was one of the main topics for today.

The Mortgage bail out revisited (UPDATED)

1. Flippers and investors buy homes as investments and drive prices up
2. Families like John doe are not able to afford a home anymore, so
a) They give up their American Dream of owning their own home and rent
b) They buy a home they can't afford helped by the "Suzanne researched it" crowd
3. Wallstreet and the corrupt mortgage industry help them a hand.
Realtors and mortgage brokers received their commission.
4. And now the government will bail those people out.
Go Figure

DOUGH!

Credit Card problems

Are you sitting down because this will be hard to believe.
I received my first bill from the credit card company, it was about $3k. So I went to the bank on Monday to pay the full amount. But my available credit didn't return to the normal credit availability. In other words, the 3k went from my checking account but it seemed it was not received by the credit card company.
So I went to the bank on Friday to straighten this one out. The bank called the credit card company. What happened: the credit card company put a hold on the 3k payment. It was flagged by the computersystem because it is not normal for someone to pay such a large amount on his credit card. People pay only a small amount and don't pay their bill in full. Can you believe that, I must say I was "nailed to the ground" when they told me that.

Marketplace of Sint-Niklaas in the news

Click on the right hand side (top) under "video". (wait a few second to load it)
LINK

3rd September = Labor Day

No school on Monday, joehoe.
Labor day: Annual holiday devoted to the recognition of working people's contribution to society. It is observed on the first Monday in September in the U.S. and Canada. It was first celebrated in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882, under the sponsorship of the Knights of Labor. Various U.S. states observed the holiday before 1894, when Congress passed a bill making Labor Day a national holiday. It is often celebrated with parades and speeches, as well as political rallies, and the day is sometimes the official kickoff date for national political campaigns in the U.S. In most other countries, workers are honoured on May Day.

This can't be happening, tell me I am having a bad dream.

It seems that Belgium is not the only country run by monkeys...

Bush moves to aid homeowners.
They are going to help people that wanted to show off by buying a home they couldn't afford. They thought they were getting rich in a few months, real estate never goes down, right?
Will the Government also refund my money (with taxpayers money)if my television drops in price? Or when I lose my stake at the tables in Las Vegas?
This can't be happening! This is all a bad dream.

Luckily I didn't pay a lot of the taxes they are going to use...

Pimp my ride (with pictures)

Whoehaha

That is such a funny cartoon LOL

I would be worried to

Belgian king is worried that he won't get any more money from the Belgian citizens. If Belgium cease to exist, he'll need to find a job. I will write him a letter that they are still searching for French teachers at our school here.

Meat the teacher night

Yesterday (Tuesday) we had a meet the teacher night, similar to an "oudercontact". Not a lot of parents showed up at David's class (8), Lisa had more(17) parents visiting her. But then again, she teaches mathematics.

Naomi's school delayed once again

Due to problems with some permits, Naomi's school will open on Tuesday 4th of September. So she has to stay a week longer at her daycare. She will probably have to take extra weeks of school at the end of the year. Which would jeopardize our return to Belgium for the month of June.

How to lure uneducated buyers in buying homes they can't afford ..

This is a real scandalic commercial. It let's the mother instinct of having a warm nest (home) prevail over that man's sense of reality. Realtors and mortgage brokers got their profits, too bad for them they will have no job in a few months...I don't have any sympathy for them, I don't sympathise with the devil :-)

Comic

source: The Big Picture blog

Naomi's Daycare

This is the website of Naomi's Daycare
If you click on the "about us" page and scroll down, you will see some familiar faces...

Our daily schedule

David wakes up at 5h30 and does some surfing, checking Belgian websites for news and stuff. Lisa and Naomi wake up at 6h15. We eat breakfast and prepare ourselves for school.
At 7h05 we leave our home and drive about 3 miles and drop off Naomi at the daycare. We drive to school and go to the copy center if necessary. Only 2 copy machines for 1100 students and 60+ teachers ...
We prepare our class and at 8h15 school starts. Lisa has 2nd period off, David has 6th period off. But that is going to change since they e-mailed me I will be teaching that 6th period... no breaks for me except for lunch which is about 38 minutes... But I will get paid for that 6th period... waaw cool, I really need that money ...
School ends at 15h23, Lisa stays until 18h00. David has always some students for detention from 15h25-16h00, sometimes a meeting afterwards. I will be picking up Naomi at the daycare and drive home to take a swim in the pool. We pick up Lisa and go home to make dinner or we 'take-away' some food.
We relax and surf on the internet, work on tomorrow's courses/classes and go to sleep at around 21h00.

Pimp my ride

We have a new CAR. A Cadillac Seville which has the same dark green color as our beamer(sniff sniff, I miss you). I will post pictures later, the 4.8 liter 8 cylinder 300 hp(pk) Northstar engine is very NICE for our 4 mile drive in the morning:-)

Here we go again

Belgian Politics

How are teachers paid over there?

If I would be working in Europe that would definitely be my first question. I won't put any amounts here but it will give you some idea. Let's take a look at a comparison of my pay:
Let's assume 1:1 USD:EUR for convenience
BEFORE TAXES:
US: +60% over Belgian paycheck

The US paycheck includes my health plan, in belgium health care is almost free.
Because the pension/retirement system is totally diferent, it is very difficult to compare "after tax" figures.
The school district takes 10% from your gross pay and matches this amount and puts it into the Arizona retirement fund. The first 10% is always yours at retirement, the part that they put into the fund will be yours when you stay in the district for 5 years. Taking this into account I receive about double in the US after taxes.

My US paycheck doesn't include the bonus I will receive if my kids reach the Arizona standards.(performance pay: +/-$1000 - $3000 extra for the year)

As a teacher you get paid extra for everything you do as an extra: coach for a sports team, being a mentor for new teachers, ...

I will also be tutoring at our school. That is one-on-one teaching and pays $40/hour (paid by the State).

A teacher can choose to be paid for 22 or 26 times. The total amount will be divided in 22 or 26 biweekly payments.

Teachers can have a second job or can do whatever they want during the holidays, in contrary to Belgium where you are not allowed to do extra jobs/work during the summer.

I pay 8-12% taxes on the gross amount of the paycheck.(State AND Federal taxes)

People are paid here every 2 weeks. It helps to keep the American shopping spree intact. Living from paycheck to paycheck is pretty common. We'll try NOT to do that...

Tv channels

An overview from my Cable provider:
Taking a brief view of all the channels it seems Bruce Springsteen was right: "57 Channels (And Nothin' On" (except commercials...)

Naomi playing with Ramses and Toshi (video file)

UFC

For the fans (and I can tell you, I am a huge fan) of ultimate fighting: tonight there are two important fights
Gonzaga-Couture (Heavyweight)
St Pierre-Koscheck (middle weight)

To watch them you have to pay (pay per view) but they are viewable on some obscure websites on the internet a few minutes/hours after the fight. If you need one of those websites, contact me.

Finally we will be able to watch some TV

We have a lot of real HD channels on the cable here. Will update on that later when we are used to the TV and the cable programming guide...
Devices behind the TV: Set top box with HD recording (cable), DVD player (upscaling from 480 to 1080P).

HDMI cables are real easy to use, just plug them in the 2 devices and they are ready to go. 1 small cable for sound and image.

Funeral Card Aunt Annemie

You were always positive and enjoyed life. We have always appreciated your positive attitude and we will remember the good times we had with you. Goodbye

Our family here mourns because

our Aunt Annemie has died far too young. She was 54 years old.

Isn't it IRONIC, don't you think?

White House press secretary Tony Snow will step down from his position because of financial reasons.

His 168 000 dollar salary is not enough to pay for his health problem. Would Bush consider stopping an unnecessary war against a country that didn't do the US any harm? And putting some money in health care? Probably not. He probably won't see the link, there goes the tax money down the drain.

His own secretary can't pay the health care bill, oh my isn't that ironic?
INCOMPETENT leadership!

High Definition

A few more days and we will be watching FULL High Definition (1080P) in our living room. No fake HD-ready but the real deal: 2 million pixels. (1920*1080)

It is now very clear that LCD is the way to go. A few years ago LCD and plasma were evenly matched but LCD has a definite advantage now.
Don't get fooled these days in buying a cheap LARGE HD-ready television. A bigger screen fades the picture quality. Hence the same amount of pixels are divided on a bigger screen. A 50 inch 1366*768 delivers only 800 000 pixels on a huge screen... image quality will be worse than a comparable 37 inch TV. Real High Definition has 2.5 times as much pixels on the screen: 2 000 000.

This will arrive in 2 days. It has the best rating available on Amazon.com. I prefer the next model of the Samsung line with higher contrast ratio but that was 25% more expensive. The fact that we paid less than a thousand euro, all taxes (LOL) and delivery included is a BIG plus. Cheapo America. Cheese is almost expensive as High Definition TV's.

We bought the HDMI cables and the upconverting (to 1080P) DVD player. So everything is ready for the HD hook-up.

Pets

We adopted 2 small cats from the animal hospital in Maricopa. They are both 4 months old, 1 male and 1 female. The female black with white feet is calles "TOSHI", the male orange/white is called "RAMSES the sixth" Video and pictures will follow.

Blood in the streets

Prelimenary results for housing in Phoenix:
Sale numbers (provided by a realtor using MLS)
AUGUST 1-14 1,272
JULY 1-14 1.638

auch, that is down 22% month over month (when August should be higher, seasonally speaking, than July)

AUGUST 1-14 2007 1,272
AUGUST 1-14 2006 1,990

AUCH, that is down 36% year over year.

School update

Apparently our day at school starts at 8h15 and ends at 15h23.
We teach 5 hours of 52 minutes and we have a 30 minute mini class. Class sizes vary from 26 to 32 (David) and 29-34 (Lisa) It is very busy right now and most of the teaching really goes well. Lisa's airconditioning unit died so it was 86 F in her room which is quite frankly insane. Hopefully they will sent a repairman real soon before she dies of the heat.

Duststorm in Arizona

What is a duststorm? (videofile)

Homebuilding in the USA

Click on the picture, I have added letters to the different phases.

Tell us something new

Windows Vista kicked out of Olymics pc's.

When you need a stable system use XP on a pc.

Sedona

Sedona is a small town in Arizona which was called most beautiful place in the United States on different occasions. (yahoo, forbes, etc.) Well let's take a look at home and land prices over there:
(difference = year over year)
1. Homes Above the $1,000,000
Median Price rose 9%Median Price now $1,405,000
2 year inventory

2. Vacant Land - SEDONA
Median Price has dropped by 42%
Median Price now $357,000
2 year supply of inventory

3. CONDOS - SEDONA
PRICES DROPPED BY 18%MEDIAN PRICE - $235,000
13 MONTH ABSORPTION RATE

It looks like land and home prices DO go down... even in the most beautiful place in the USA, the supply and demand theorema holds.

First day of School

13th of August and our first day of school as teachers in the USA. The Maricopa High School has about 1200 students now. The student staff is new for about 50% new, so it was a hectic day. As teachers everything went fine today. Students here have the same motivation as in Belgium...waiting until the bell rings :-)

Some amazing movies, really incredible!!!

Our classrooms (video file)

We have been working really hard the last week getting our classroom up to date.
Lisa's classroom:

Davids classroom:

Why is this happening?

First this:


Then this:


Luckily there is no "Volkert" around this time :-)

Then this? (just a little joke of course...)

These things end badly most of the time...

BEL20 (Belgian Stock index) on a 5 year chart

Great Text and Song

The new National anthem?
Lyrics

Classroom test

We are both working hard at the High School to get our rooms prepared for the first students. There will be a panel with pictures on the wall. Students will try to recognize them, see if you can with this sample:

Ron Paul on the move

The truth hurts ... wink wink



Who won the debat? LINK

New Sofa

We bought a new sofa for our livingroom. It was a showroom model, but oh my, furniture is expensive especially if you look for modern or contemporary furniture in Arizona.

Local Maricopa housing market

MARICOPA

JULY '07 - 958 Homes for sale; 64 sold (6.7%); 15.0 months inventory

avg. 2,184 sf - price $221,052 - on market 91 days - price per-sq ft $101

JUNE '07 - 915 Homes for sale; 68 sold (7.3%); 13.5 months inventory

avg. 2,219 sf - price $232,051 - on market 82 days - price per-sq ft $105

Oops that is a 4-5 percent decline in one month...

One year ago

AUGUST '06 - 756 Homes for sale; 65 sold (8.6%); 11.6 months inventory

avg. 2,119 sf - price $253,887 - on market 71 days - price per-sq ft $120

Oops that is a 20 percent price drop in one year

Beer lovers

As you might know, alcohol rules are a lot more conservative / strict in the USA. You are only allowed to buy and drink alcohol when you are at least 21 years old. Belgian beer as Leffe and Stella Artois can also be bought here. I have made a picture of the label of the Leffe and the Stella Artois bottle in our fridge, enjoy...

We bought a ...

SOFA for our living from this modern furniture store: ThingZ
The sofa will be deliverd this Monday, pictures will follow. So we still need to buy 2 big items LCD TV 1080P and a bed for us. The TV is the next thing on the list, this is the top favorite for now "Sharp AQUOS LC-46D62U 46" LCD TV 1080P". LINK

Is this the first BIG builder to go bankrupt?

Just a hunch, nothing more...Beazer Homes

Naomi's 8th birthday song

Title says it all:

Monsoon season in Arizona

Well, what is the Monsoon season all about: Rain, Thunderstorms, Lightning, ... and warm weather during the day: