Medalists (minus speedos)

1. GOLD MEDAL: Jonathan Dalton’s “Cocktail Parties, Bar Conversations, the BCS and Phoenix Real Estate” wins the magical golden medal not because he rocks a Michael Phelps speedo everywhere he goes but because he personifies the problem that lies in peoples’ amateur analysis of the market. This article *must* be read to the very end, it’s great!
2. SILVER MEDAL: Ardell DellaLoggia’s “Paradigm Shift: Changing the Human Experience” is pretty much a tie for the gold medal, but Dalton’s last name comes first in the alphabet. This article saw a lot of traction this week in the blogiverse and on Twitter, go read and find out why.
3. BRONZE MEDAL: Jim Reppond’s “The P-I Globe and the Bubbleator” talks about the sentimental value of a local landmark and does a great job of drawing in his audience.

Other Entrants (also sans Speedos)

• Joe Manausa’s “Follow Real Housing Market Movements with Trends“
• Jacqui Richey’s “CityCenter Loses Some Condos“
• Brian Block’s “A Guaranteed Way to Lose $54,528 When You Sell Your Home“
• Diana Santos’ “Heritage Hills” Profile
• Silvia Dukes’ “2008 in Review: Home Sales for Hernando Beach“
• COREI’s “Central Oregon Real Estate Investments“
• Thursday Bram’s “An Easy Way to Check for Rental Foreclosures“
• Stacey Doyle’s “Can a Housing Assistance Program Prevent Foreclosure?“
• Chris Lang’s “How to Productively Inspect Many Properties in One Day“
• Jacqulyn Richey’s “A Great Time to Buy in Las Vegas“
• Michael Emilio Rodriguez’s “How to Use Public Records for Real Estate Success“
• The Mortgage Reports’ “Fannie Mae Adds Loan-Level Pricing Adjustments for Condos, Co-Ops & Everyone Else“
• Money Tipper’s “Refinancing Your Mortgage? Get a Reissue Rate on Your Title Insurance
• CRQ’s “Can You Afford a New Home?“
• William Doom’s “New mortgage Guidelines 2009“
• Bring The Blog’s “Housing Predictions for 2009? Keep ‘Em to Yourself“
• Karen Goodman’s “Steps to Improve Your Credit Score“
• Steve Howe’s “Ways to Improve Your First Time Buyer Credit Score“
• Kevin Warmath’s “I’ll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours“
• Jeonard Cook’s “Home Selling in 2009“

Go ahead and start submitting your articles (by clicking here) from this past week or this upcoming week- be sure to overwhelm next weeks host!!!

The City as a living organism

With the birth of the major American metropolises, scientists sought out ways to describe how a city is born and how urban sprawl occurs. One of the dominant urban growth theory models that is still used to explain the phenomenon of cities spilling over into more rural areas (thus becoming neighborhoods/subdivisions) is Ernest Burgess’ “Zone Model” (or “Urban Land Use Model” if you’re fancy). He was a sociologist at the University of Chicago, so his model was based on his home city and his aim was to study the city as a living organism and showed that just like in a natural environment, invasion and succession drove competition between species and drove formation of concentric rings. Burgess’ Zone Model served as an ecological model with ethnic groups as species (which is an obsolete measure in modern times as sociologists study zones in terms of socio-economic status).

The Zone Model

So what does all this rainbow mumbo jumbo mean? Remember, Burgess’ study was primarily focused on Chicago in 1920 which meant a lot of immigration and lot of factories which is obviously different in modern cities. Let’s take a quick look:

• Zone I- CBD stands for “Central Business District” and is the most densely populated area, is the primary source for employment and is where transportation systems converge.
• Zone II- the Factory Zone is where the CBD spills over and industrial activities take advantage of the immediately accessible labor and markets. City ports and railyards are located here.
• Zone III- the Transition Zone is where manufacturing/commercial and residential merge and typically contained the poorer urban population in poor living conditions.
• Zone IV- the Working Class Zone is (you guessed it) populated with the working class who have moved up from (but is still lower cost due to) it’s neighboring Transition Zone and was usually called the tenements or the projects.
• Zone V- the Residential Zone is famous for higher quality housing along with longer commutes and was later called “the inner city.”
• Zone VI- the Commuter Zone represents upper class, expensive housing in the suburbs where commuting costs are the highest. In the 20’s, it was most desirable to have land and live far from the industrial noise and pollution.

How does this relate to Social Media?

I’m most interested today in social media as a living, breathing organism, just as Burgess was with city life. If social media is organic (and I would certainly argue that it is), concentric circles of population form, overlap and converge just as Chicago did. The easiest way to look at the Zone Model is to look at the industrial area as the least desirable area to live in and the further you live from it, the more expensive and desirable it is. In social media, the space is virtual and the currency is social capital.

Because we exist in a space (despite it not being physical) and because we use currency, the parallel is easy to make and instead of calling it urban sprawl online, I would call it Internet Social Sprawl.

Internet Social Sprawl Model

This rainbow mumbo jumbo is a little different because we’re not talkin’ Chicago OR the 1920’s, we’re talking about the here and now:

• Zone I- Lurkers are the people who are either so new to the space that they’re simply listening before jumping in, or they’re not hip to a two way conversation. Either way they have no social capital and can’t afford to move out of Zone I (yet).
• Zone II- Casual Users are those who have created profiles on social networks but haven’t build social capital up yet- they haven’t really engaged anyone or produced any content, but they poke their head into conversations here and there.
• Zone III- I would argue that the largest zone is made up of Average Users, people who have a limited network but have social capital within their network. They are spending their social capital to build and grow their networks (on Twitter, their blogs, etc) and are working hard to move out to the suburbs.
• Zone IV- Niche Famous Internet users have great influence in their niche be it an industry, a hobby or otherwise, they’ve been at it long enough to build up social capital that they can expend in their dominated zone. Paul Chaney, Jackie Huba, and Wendy Piersall all live in Zone IV.
• Zone V- people in this zone have Web Fame that greatly transcends niches and location. People like Robert Scoble, Darren Rowse, and Jason Calacanis live in this zone as they have been fine tuning their networks by building and expending massive amounts of social capital and most people in this zone are the earliest adopters of social media giving them the advantage.
• Zone VI- few people live in the Mainstream Zone where they exist as a household name due to their Internet personality. Mark Cuban and Gary Vaynerchuck (aka garyvee) are known even to people that don’t use the Internet which is why they are mainstream names and live in the most expensive zone of all.

Pull it together!

Okay, I’ll pull it together now- the point is that as a living organism, the online space is much like a city where there are hot neighborhoods and ugly neighborhoods and not all people want to be Mainstream, but most would like to at least be Niche Famous as many people (over 18) are online to serve a business purpose. Yeah, the grass IS always greener on the other side, but much like we all dream of a downtown penthouse suite, we’re really aiming for that four bedroom with hardwood floors in the SoCo district. We have goals in mind and we are all working to build up our social capital so we can spend it (aka buy the SoCo house) and the Internet Social Sprawl Model is the easiest way to visualize this phenomenon.

T.S. Eliot and Formalism

In the 1910s through the 1960s, British and American writers responded to the literary romanticism by launching the “New Criticism” movement (also known as “Formalism”). Previously, the focus of writing had been on the experience of the piece, the prestige of the author and a variety of philosophical perspectives taken toward writing. With the Formalism movement, authors focused on the culture of the reader and became less concerned with the intention or background of the writer.

Formalists became entranced with readers perceptions of written word in various ways depending on what they bring to the table. T.S. Eliot unknowingly inspired (and with his earlier writings was a part of) the Formalist movement. His essay, “Traditions and the Individual Talent” was published in a two part series, “The Egoist” followed by “The Sacred Wood,” focused less on his own personal ideologies and intricately tends to the details of every single passage as they pertain to how a reader will experience them.

T.S. Eliot and Social Media

T.S. Eliot is a complicated case study, but in his earlier works, he proved that text has more extrinsic value than intrinsic value and emphasized the culture of the reader and the importance of the lens with which they read the text. Although his works were in a non-digital time and the medium was different, the Formalists preached the same thing as many social media evangelists- the culture of the reader and how they interpret words is excruciatingly important.

In modern times, most bloggers don’t publish works that are only of interest to themselves and because the online culture is collaborative, most digital writers don’t ignore how their reader will experience their work. If writers today subscribed to the notion of the Romanticist movement, the web would be dominated with writing with the most elevated diction level possible, addressing theories that went over the heads of most (and the writer wouldn’t care because the emphasis would be on their own importance and on their intentions).

How would T.S. Eliot view social media? He wouldn’t likely view social media and blogging as a new concept. Eliot’s “New Criticism” was the start of a movement that is still highly applicable today- modern digital writers focus on the culture of the reader and less on their own importance or intentions.

How to use this analysis:

I spent many years at the University of Texas studying English Literature and the last few years as a digital writer and an early adopter of social media, both giving me invaluable insight into how readers and writers function. What I implore you to take away from this article is that as a digital writer you must examine how your reader will interact with your writing and insure that it is never self-serving as that is a severe violation of the culture of social media. With each article you write, a new reader should be able to pick it up and understand it from start to end, so be sure to limit obscure references, self-serving innuendo and never ignore your reader. Social medians’ emphasis on reader experience is a theory dating back nearly 100 years, just ask T.S. Eliot.

co-authored by Benn Rosales

Mama Said Knock You Out

LL Cool J once rapped, “don’t call it a comeback! I’ve been here for years, rockin’ my peers and puttin’ suckas in fear!”

I have let this blog flounder, choke, sputter and die. I have a billion reasons (from writing for and being new media director for Agent Genius, being lead writer at Agent Genius News, writing on the corporate site, etc. blah blah blah), none of which are good enough to have consciously let RE Revealed to go the wayside.

Performing Blog CPR

I decided that instead of selling this labor of love for a bajillion dollars (which is totally what it’s worth), I’m going to use it as proof that a blog can be revived… it just takes some CPR and I invite you to watch me perform my CPR magic (I know what I’m doing, I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night).

Step One: Transformation

This site began as RealtorWives.com, my first blogging attempt ever. It was a place for wives of practicing Realtors (like me) to write, rant and share their daily lives alongside their beloved husbands but I was the only wife in America that cared to do such a thing. So, I moved off of Blogger, got a blog makeover (thanks to @agentgenius) and started talking about what I really wanted to- Austin real estate and sometimes national real estate.

Today, R.E. Revealed will transform its focus into what consumes all of my time now- social media. The RE in the title has stood for “Real Estate” but today becomes “re” as in “re-revealed.” As a social media strategist, much of what I do is study the environment and reveal what others are saying, how the culture is forming and changing and much of what I do is not originate theory, rather reveal it in my own words based on my own experiences. Thus, the site will transform away from RE Revealed to rerevealed.

Step Two: Set 10 Goals

In order to resuscitate this site, I have a lot of work to do. Do you think I can achieve my goals? Are there any I should add? Read on…

1. The next few weeks, I plan on cleaning up the sidebar and my bio up top.
2. The blogroll will likely become its own page and will be expanded outside of the real estate space.
3. I have to actually comment on the blogs that I read so people have a reason to revisit my site.
4. Use of Twitter and Facebook will be huge in my Blog CPR, I’ll announce changes, challenges and encourage people to watch for results.
5. Because much has changed since the site was overhauled last year, I’ll need to update plug-ins but I’m not sure with what, so stay tuned.
6. Because of Agent Genius, I regularly speak, am contacted for interviews by new and old media, I guest write and of course get invites to some of the most posh social media parties. What I aim to change is the width of my reach outside of the real estate space.
7. Traffic must come up and it will take a magical potion of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, forums and email signature efforts.
8. I aim to be realistic- I can’t possibly blog every day and so far, I don’t have a set schedule, I’ll be writing as time allows. I may establish a more regimented schedule later.
9. Continue awarding the Nacho Blogger award and doing Bubble Gum Interviews but this will be for anyone in social media, not just real estate people.
10. My MOST AWESOMETASTIC Goal is to publish the results of the Blog CPR endeavor at the end of six months with tips on what I did, what succeeded, what failed and suggestions on how others can revive a dormant blog.

So Stick Around…

I’m focused on new media and I couldn’t be more excited! So call your mom, holler at your dog, and tell a friend- REREVEALED is back!

Scared to DEATH!

Look, I am terrified of haunted houses but I’m still hard to impress. I tend to talk to the actors and ignore things jumping out at me, but we went to the Mansion of Terror and while my husband and young’n loved it and wanted to go again, I was the one who made everyone laugh because I screamed the ENTIRE time and actually RAN out of the haunted house. True story.

The Mansion of Terror returns for its 5th season and was rated America’s scariest Haunted House by Liongate Films. Admission includes two separately themed haunted houses in the same location and you will be terrified in the Slaughter Circus with a truly twisted take on an 1800s sideshow and circus complete with claustrophobic passageways and bloody screaming clowns, AND the second house Blood Frenzy which reminded me of a much much scarier version of the Saw movies (seriously).

This picture was taken after we finished- note my dilated pupils. This is no joke, people.

Hacked Up Body Parts

It’s not all just hacked up body part props, it’s also charitable… the Mansion of Terror owner Norm Glenn is a firm believer in giving back to the Austin community (through charities like the American Cancer Society), “there is no sense in running a business here in Austin if you can’t give back to the people who need it in our local community.” So go, get the pants scared off of you and help your community. The creepy clown said you have to, so go to the Mansion of Terror in North Austin.

In comments, local painter Lavanna Martin revealed her secret that she is a coffeehouse artist and she may be painting you while you’re sipping your jumbo organic fair trade coffee and pecking away at your iPhone. She is a wonderfully gifted artist and I am amazed that she can do a portrait at such a rapid pace before her secret subjects slip away! I love that she keeps an Art Journal where she records why she chose her subjects and what she was feeling. She also does commissioned work for which I anticipate she will soon be a commonly known name in Austin, check her out!

Big Big News

This week at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, Wal-Mart announced a new program to reduce plastic shopping bag waste 33% per store by 2013.

The program will focus on reducing the amount of plastic bags distributed at Wal-Mart stores, encouraging customers to purchase and use reusable bags, and promoting more recycling options for bags.

This is INCREDIBLE!

If the effort is successful, the program could reduce energy consumption by approximately 678,000 barrels of oil annually and reduce CO2 emissions by 290,000 metric tons per year, the equivalent of removing 53,000 cars from the road annually.

The announcement is good news certainly and having the world’s largest retailer acknowledge the harmful effects of plastic shopping bags is a big step in the right direction. Within the next few weeks, the first round of data will come in from the Austin plastic bag voluntary reduction program. It will give us the opportunity to take stock, see what we’ve accomplished and then plan for the future.

Source: Bag The Bags Coalition

First Up:

From left to right: Cory, me, and the back of Omar’s head.

Too Much Awesomeness:

AustinAaron (who is the only one who can out-talk me) and me, post-red eye repair!

Mr Monopoly:

Gus Rojo, who has to be one of Austin’s youngest brokers.

Loungin’:

PCourt on the left (don’t ask his real name, he’s like Cher and just goes by PCourt) and AustinAaron with the dual-action longhorns/rockon hand signal.

The A-List:

AustinAaron, me, AgentGenius (Benn), RobQuig, Julie Gomoll, and Gus Rojo, at the Moximity afterparty!

The real estate community reached out to our family at that time in an unprecedented way- money was raised for my brother’s wife because he was so young, insurance wasn’t a thing on his mind and with kiddos, it looked like a tough road. We’re all still recovering, each in our own ways but I wanted to share some pictures with you of my brother’s babies that are current:

Thank you all, I am still in awe of how everyone stepped up to the plate. I will be back online tomorrow, today we’ll be visiting my brother.

I put together an image tribute on AG and everyone is sharing their stories of where they were when the planes hit. Please go share yours.

God bless the survivors and those who lost their lives.

Survey Says…

Susan Hughes, an evolutionary psychologist from Albright College recently uncovered that people with voices deemed to be “sexy and attractive tend to have greater body symmetry upon close inspection, suggesting that what we hear in a person can greatly affect what we see in them.” The conclusion was not necessarily applicable to face symmetry which has long been held as the standard of beauty but of body symmetry which indicates mate attractiveness.

The study consisted of 100 people who listened to voices and rated the speaker’s approachability, dominance, healthiness, honesty, intelligence, likelihood to get dates, maturity, sexiness and warmth (also the key factors in mate selection) and were able to form a consensus based on these factors which people they believed to be sexy.

Our human systems of perception may be more advanced than previously thought, however, because no computer program has been able to create the same consensus as the study groups.

Can I Change?

How’s your phone voice? According to Dr. Hughes, our voices are formed in the first trimester yet change during puberty. We can probably change up our word choices, our inflections, even our accent but it sounds like our sexiness factor is already determined based on the formation of our vocal chords. No one likes their voice, but it is interesting that callers may be subconsciously sizing you up based on the same characteristics as sizing up a mate.

Sexy food for thought. Oh, and please don’t call or skype me to test my phone voice to size me up… I already brought sexy back.

photo credit

This event will be put on by Sheila Scarbrough and Connie Reece, two of Austin’s leading voices on this subject. I know both these ladies and am confident that they’ll help your business with this workshop and the price is reasonable, so go sign up now!!

Sometimes I wish I’d thought of things first… Jessica’s index card blog is now one of my favorites for pure ingenuity. This chart of hers is humorous to me, but what do YOU think of it? Have you been touched in a positive or negative way by any of these programs?

Remember the MTO Vlogging Contest I recently wrote about? No? WTH? Yes? Oh, good- you get a cookie. Well, MyTechOpinion.com hosted a vlogging contest about what the most useful real estate tool is in a real estate/mortgage professional’s business and after 12 entries, here are my thoughts (and some awesome impersonations of contestants):


MTO Judging Reactions from Lani Anglin-Rosales on Vimeo.

Okay, But Who Wins?

Yeah yeah, I don’t know since I was just one of several judges. I sent in my submission in writing as to who I think should win, but it’s up to the other judges and the 8 lb. 6 oz. baby God now, tune in to MyTechOpinion.com tomorrow to see who takes home the big prizes!

Now Watch Me Morph

Your Turn!

Go to My Heritage to fool around and see who YOU look like.

Take Action

On September 13th, Austinites will gather for the First Annual HAM-Up benefiting the Capital Area Food Bank. What’s a HAM Up? Let me break it down: HAM = Hunger Action Month, Up= Tweet-up (which is a meetup of Twitter users). Everyone is welcome and we ask you to donate your time, talent and treasure as best you can. Will YOU be there??

House prices likely to bottom out in early 2009. Agree?

The above poll is open to anyone in the BuzzDash community (comprised of people creating and voting on hundreds of poll topics). Today, I’m not interested in asking anyone to take a poll, rather to see the results of this particular poll. They may change by the time you see them, but at the time of publication, the results show the following:

70% of voters agree
30% of voters disagree

Voters have not commented, so I can’t be sure of the reasoning behind their votes, but it is really intriguing what public perception (at least in this group of people polled) is regarding the bottoming out of housing prices.

Whatev, Why’s That Important??

This is crucial information because it shows that people see an end in sight to all the bad news. Despite the doom and gloom of any presidential election period and despite traditional media’s insistence that the real estate Armageddon is upon us, 70% of people believe that we’re soon to hit bottom. This is good news, y’all. People finally see an end in sight which makes practicing real estate easier because more time is spent with each client discussing their individual transaction rather than easing fears about the entire global market.

Ginger Wilcox of Blog By the Bay and Agent Genius fame has finally succumb to the pressure to be interviewed and mocked publicly. She’s not only gorgeous, but she’s a good sport, so let’s see what kind of damage we can do!!!

What were the first and last concerts you went to?

a. First- Oingo Boingo at Cricket Pavilion (formerly Desert Sky Pavilion) in Phoenix, Arizona

b. Last - Rolling Stones at PacBell Park in San Francisco

What celebrity do you see yourself being friends with in real life?

@respres, jeff turner, of course. President of his fan club.

What hair color do you think Jeff Corbett, Jeff Turner and Jeff Brown put on their driver’s licenses??

Isn’t bald a hair color?? Corbett- Brunette, Turner, Red, Brown- Bald at birth

If you’re in hell and someone pisses you off, where do you tell them to go?

Arkansas, sorry! I spent lots of time there growing up and have very vivid memories of water moccasins. Shudder…

Tell us what animal you want be if reincarnation happens to be true…

a dolphin- they are very social, take care of others, they are friendly, extremely intelligent, have a great sense of humor and excellent communication skills. The only challenge is that dolphins are very graceful and I ummm, am not.

Fave candy? PS: readers, Ginger added this one. She must want you to send her candy….

My favorite candies are junior mints and whoppers malted milk balls

***************
So there you have it. Ginger likes crazy flavors of music, adores bald dudes and dreams of their original hair colors, admits to spending time in Arkansas, and has fantasies of being a dolphin. Oh, and she wants you to know she needs candies. Now that you really know Ginger, what do you think??

What’s a vlog? It’s a video blog. Why do people vlog? For several reasons ranging from home tours, humorous videos (even if not meant to be funny), to blogging via video because some consumers are too lazy to read (what? It’s true!). Seriously though, with the advent of simple to use cameras, vlogging is becoming increasingly popular and more highly demanded in the real estate industry.

Oooh, Contest??

So what’s this contest (that I’ve already been told I’m not allowed to accept bribes for) that MyTechOpinion.com is hosting?

Your Task: Create a video that answers the following question: What technology product or service has made the biggest impact on your business? And why? (EX: blog, social network, mobile device, transaction management, lead generation tool, etc.) Then send us the link to your video. We will be featuring all entries on MTO. Be sure to get your video in by midnight August 31, 2008. Your video will be judged by us, as well as four celebrity expert judges (Lani Anglin-Rosales, Mike Price, Daniel Rothamel and Jeff Turner).

The Rules:

* You must be a real estate or mortgage professional.
* Answer the question in 5 minutes or LESS.
* Be creative
* Be professional
* Be yourself
* Prove your point!
* Submit a link to your video by midnight August 31, 2008.

AND there are PRIZES!!!

The winner will receive:
(1) A Flip Ultra ($149 Value)
(2) Obtain a Featured Video Section on the MTO Homepage for 6 months
(3) Score Custom Video Blog Integration (offered by Chad from DravenCreation Web Design)
(4) Video Broadcast Set Up and Distribution via MLBroadcast ($78 value)
(5) RealSeekr Premium Membership for 1 year ($249 value) and Logitech Quickcam for Skype ($35 value)

From the desk of NikNik:

Thanks to Twitter, Luba Muzichenko (her twitter and her blog) recently became my friend and who wouldn’t follow someone with a bio like “San Francisco Realtor by addiction, San Francisco blogger by choice”?? Because I was suuuper late to REBarCamp in San Francisco last week (thanks, Southwest Airlines) our paths didn’t cross and I’m really sad about that. For the others of you who didn’t get the pleasure of meeting her either, get to know her now:

Why do you “put your 2 cents in” when it’s only “a penny for your thoughts”? Where’d the other penny go??

I’ve thought about this long and hard. Frankly, it’s rare that anyone really wants to pay a penny for anyone else’s thought. Therefore, the thought-giver (the one putting his/her two cents in) has to give the thought-receiver (the one paying “a penny for the thoughts”) two whole cents so that the person on the receiving end of the opinion is able to pay the thought-giver a “penny for their thoughts” AND profits (a penny!) as well. This exchange is done covertly so as not to raise eyebrows or start rumors. If you really think about it, this is the most logical conclusion as the missing penny, well, it is really a bribe.

Other than where you live now, what other city on the globe would you call home if you could?

Is that last question for me? Any place could be home for a few years: New York, New Orleans, Juneau–anything that has some mystery to it, but in the end it always comes back to San Francisco for me.

Tell us about the last time you ran into someone famous.

Does being at the same conference as TBoard, BawldGuy, The Real Estate Zebra, HouseChick and the Twitter gang count? I got goosebumps just being in the same room! Seriously, the web has turned regular people, who are willingly to share some if not all of their lives online, into celebrities. And strangely you can feel in awe of people from just reading what they have written and what they think about.

In fact, there’s a local photo blogger here in SF that has a secret blogging identity, and I got to meet and talk to him regarding buying a house with his fiance once they tie the knot. I was giddy to meet him–and giddier to know that I was a handful of select individuals who knows who he really is. It’s like knowing that Clark Kent is really Superman, but without the secret powers.

If a song had to play every time you walked into a party/social event what would it be? (What’s your theme song?)

Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles–for no other reason than I always have an urge to “walk like an Egyptian” every other time I walk into a room. And if the song played, people might think I was just dancing, which is a good cover for odd behavioral tics.

If that was taken (and if theme songs are like Web site addresses, I’m sure my first choice is taken) it’d have to be Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf. It rings true even as I find gray hairs every few weeks inching their way up from my scalp.

What actress would play you in the movie of your life?

Probably Paris Hilton. It’d be a B movie and she’d be the only one desperate enough to accept the role. Humility is important. And it’s the only time I could look somewhat OK as a blonde.

If you had to be a professional athlete what would you be?

I’d be on the Olympic team gymnastics and be a gold medal winning ribbon waver.

***************
So there you have it. Luba believes that one penny is an acceptable bribe, is addicted to San Francisco (but she can quit any time she wants!!!), knows the kind of sort of Superman of San Fran, longs to cover up her crazies with theme music by the Bangles, is humble enough to cast Paris as herself in the Luba Life Story and dreams desperately of winning the gold in ribbonry. Now that you really know Luba, what do you think??