Traditional Neighborhood Design

Hi, this is Minna, and I will be your guest-blogger for the day.  Today’s topic is Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND).  If you haven’t heard the term before, pay heed because it’s a fresh outlook on how to deal with suburban sprawl, and I have a hunch it’s going to be around for quite some time.  Let me explain what Traditional Neighborhood Design entails.

First of all, when I say the words, “community” and “neighborhood”, what comes to mind?  I think of taking a stroll through my neighborhood and waving hi to my neighbors who are outside grilling or something equally outdoorsy.  There is a feeling of vibrancy in the air.  I can walk to the grocery store and pick up a few things I might need that day, and then I can stroll back home at a leisurely pace.

I live in the ‘burbs, and this is not always possible.  One of the reason people live in the suburbs is because there is so much more space than in the cities.  The houses are bigger, the yards are bigger, and there is more room in general.  The problem with this is that subarban sprawl is not good for the environment.  When one person takes up so much space, well, it’s pretty much wasted.  In addition, a suburb is built for driving.  This means that you might have to spend the whole afternoon doing your errands as you drive from the post office to the supermarket to Home Depot.  It’s inefficient, to say the least.

Traditional Neighborhood Design puts all the essentials in one place.  These neighborhoods incorporate schools, offices, and commercial venues within walking distance.  In addition, they have plenty of paths and lanes for biking, walking, and driving.  They want to bring a sense of community back to the neighborhood, and be kind to the environment at the same time.  I think TND will be the way of the future, so learn about it now.

This website, The Town Paper, has good inforrmation on Traditional Neighboorhood Design.  It also has a list of TND cities in the country.  Scroll down for the ones in Minnesota.

Monthly Market Update

Here is the latest statistics from Minneapolis Association of REALTORS.

The short of it is that we have increased pending sales by 7.4% over last February, but keep in mind that over 60% of these sales were “lender mediated” sales, or foreclosures and short sales.

Also the number of new listings has decreased by 19% compared to last year. This means there are less homes on the market

See the whole video here.

HDTV, Digital TV, ATSC….Confused Yet?

Unless you are ready to throw out the old TV and buy a new one before February 17, 2009, you’ll  need  to do something to continue watching your favorite television shows. That’s the deadline when the FCC will make TV stations turn off the old analog channels such as channels 2,4,5,9,11.   This will make our older TVs and VCRs obsolete unless we do something soon.

 The easiest solution would be to get a converter box. These converter boxes are basically a Digital Tuner (ATSC tuner) that you hook up to your existing VCR or TV. This will allow you to watch

 Unless you are ready to throw out the old TV and buy a new one before February 17, 2009, you’ll  need  to do something to continue watching your favorite television shows. That’s the deadline when the FCC will make TV stations turn off the old analog channels such as channels 2,4,5,9,11.   This will make our older TVs and VCRs obsolete unless we do something soon.

 The easiest solution would be to get a converter box. These converter boxes are basically a Digital Tuner (ATSC tuner) that you hook up to your existing VCR or TV. This will allow you to watch and record over-the-air broadcasts after the cutoff date and without replacing your existing TV.

 By hooking up a converter box, you won’t be using your built-in TV or VCR tuner any more. 

 When buying a new TV or VCR or DVD recorder, make sure it has an ATSC tuner, which will be able to tune in the new digital channels.

 This FCC ruling doesn’t affect cable or satellite. If you have either, you don’t need to change anything.  You are set to go.

Our Office Has Moved

This may come as a surprise, but even Real Estate Offices move once in a while.  Our office had been at its previous location for the past 18 years, and it was time for a change.  We have moved to new office space one block away.

The new office space is a wonderful space and will be an ‘all-new’ build-out.  This building is easy to find and has plenty of parking–unlike our last office where parking was at a premium.  Since we won’t have a private street-level entrance, we will have a secure way of communicating with clients to open the door for after hours access. 

We are so happy to be settled into the new space, which happened at the end of last year.  OUr new address can be seen below, but mail sent to the old address will be forwarded for a while, anyway. 

If I were to write a description of the building, it would read something like this:

“Lovely top floor, 12-office / 1 kitchenette space with conference room and reception area.  Wonderful views of Edina.  Shared technology enabled conference room available within the building.  Plenty of off-street parking available.  Security entrance.”

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Slow Problem Resolved

I’ve been dealing with a slow Outlook 2007 for about a year now. By slow, here’s what I mean: when clicking on Send/Receive, the process takes perhaps 4-5 minutes to download 75 messages totalling about 400k. I have high speed internet, and have spent much time troubleshooting Outlook. My PST file size is 300MB, not large by any means.

Looking online, I found several people touting the virtues of: reducing pst file size, turning off RSS feeds, turning off add-ins, compacting, cleaning, updating service packs, autotuninglevel, safe mode, or turn off indexing, but none of these did anything to help my problem.

What did solve my problem? The skinny answer? Delete Sent Items. I send lots of attachments, mostly pdf documents, or photos. By getting rid of any e-mails in the sent items folder that were larger than 500k, Outlook immediately sped up. Now the approx 75 messages at approximately 400k takes 15 seconds!! That’s a healthy improvement.

Now, I just archive the sent folder once in a while, or I delete sent items with attachments, and outlook is very happy.

Relaxing At Home

Chaotic Minneapolis Life

This is Minna again, and I’m here to talk about the economy.  No, actually, I’m not.  I know, the economy is dire, and I know that the government has given beaucoup bucks to try to jump-start it, and I know that the sky is falling down, but I would rather not focus on that right now.

I am also not going to talk about the debate, though I hope you watched it.  We need to make an informed choice come November 4^th. 

Instead, I would like to discuss how in this chaotic world of us we can find some respite.  It’s not irresponsible to take a break from the news-it’s imperative.  There is only so much a brain can process before declaring, “Enough!  I need chocolate!” 

Inner Respite

In times like this, we need our friends and mutually-supportive networks.  However, we need more than that-at least I do.  I have recently started taking tai chi classes, and more often than not my shoulders are in knots from the tensions of the world.  After an hour and a half class each Saturday afternoon, I find a moment of peace that, however fleeting, soothes my soul.  I notice that this moment lasts a bit longer each week.  I am hopeful that in a year or so, it might last a whole hour.

Tai chi is not the only way to take care of your inner-self.  There is church, meditation, yoga, or simply a little nap in the afternoon.

Minneapolis Recreation

Now that your soul is rested, you need to look after your body as well.  Minneapolis is bursting with lakes, parks, creeks, and trails.  Now that the weather is dipping a bit, it’s the perfect time to go pick some apples and make cider.  Make sure to get some sun every day (using sunscreen, of course, if you’re going to be outside for an appreciable amount of time) and inhale the crisp air as you walk. 

When times are tough, as they most definitely are right now, you need to do the little things to maintain a semblance of sanity.

Minneapolis Real Estat -or- Minneapolis Real Estate

South Minneapolis Real Estat, er, Real ESTATE Blog

What is South Minneapolis Real Estat Blog? Just yesterday, I discovered that I had mistyped the title of the page. My page was specializing in Real Estat, which is a subsection of Real Estate. I’m sure not many people would be searching for Real Estat, but I certainly was catering to those people very well.
Anyway, I changed the title to Real Estate, which should more accurately portray what this blog is about!

National Night Out Minneapolis

National Night Out is coming up on the first Tuesday in August. It is a great way to get together with neighbors! This year, the organization that heads up NNO (i didn’t even know there was one), is in the headlines with some controversy. Apparently the president of the charitable organization, National Association of Town Watch, is taking a salary that is 33% of the organizations budget.

I’m not sure why that should matter about where or when neighbors get together for a block party. Our block is quite active and we get together 4 or 5 times each year anyway. We would participate in NNO regardless of who is running the organization, or what the day is called.

This year, we’ll meet in the street, with tables and chairs and grills in tow. We’ll have a pot-luck and lots of activities for the kids, and some great conversation.

Microsoft Office Problem

I recently was having a problem with PowerPoint 2007 running very slowly. A switch from slide to slide in the editing view, would take anywhere from 4-20 seconds. Just typing a word would take 5 seconds per word!  This was getting very annoying.

There are several good suggestions from others in the community about loading a local printer driver, changing graphics hardware acceleration, among other things. Here’s a list:

Read more

Just Sold

Sorry folks. The best first-time house is now gone. This lovely cottage in Arden Hills sold quickly.

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