March 2020

Dear friend,

Have you spotted any leprechauns lurking in your house? No…? Excellent!

…That means you’re free to sit down and read through this month’s newsletter in a comfy chair while those mischievous little things pester someone else.

I’m most excited about the Brainteasers found in this month’s newsletter because they’re just the right level of tricky: hard enough to make you think, but nothing that is going to truly stump you.

We also have:

•   A quick and simple explanation about how spiders hear.
•   Interesting statistics on how often we REALLY exercise!
•   Some useful tips for positive habits on the job.

Oh, and if while reading, you suddenly see some wee little folk moving about surreptitiously, well, the easiest way to solve that situation might just involve buying or selling a house. Perhaps you could find one with the perfect storage space or the kitchen of your dreams. Wouldn’t that be lucky? Seriously, if you’ve been thinking about a change in home or lifestyle, let’s talk about how to get you into the perfect home.

Slainte!

Cliff

Cliff Keith 650 597-1821

cliff.keith@GGSIR.com

Your friend in the real estate business,

Lowest Interest Rate Home Loans

For High-Income Professionals At

http://Micheal-Ryan.com

Inside This Issue

A Loving Ode to Old Age

Here’s a story I found online (author listed as unknown) that makes me feel spry this spring. Pass it along to someone who might enjoy a new perspective on old age.

“I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! For example sometime despair over the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. I’m often taken aback by that old person in my mirror, but I don’t agonize over it.

I would never trade my amazing friends, wonderful life, loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. I am kinder to myself. That means I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avant-garde on my patio. Just maybe I am entitled to overeat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I can say ‘no’, and mean it. As well I can say ‘yes’ to myself, and mean it

Great freedom comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 am, and sleep until noon? I will walk the beach in a swimsuit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the bikini set. They, too, will get old!

As I get older, it is easier to be positive. I care less about what other people think. Questioning myself isn’t important anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. Being old is okay because it has set me free.

I like the person I have become. Likewise, I am not going to live forever, but while I’m still here. I’ll not waste time lamenting what could have been or worrying about what will be. Today, I wish you a day of ordinary miracles.”

Where Do You Keep Your Phone?

Quick—where’s your cell phone right now? A recent survey asked that question of millennials and people in other age groups to determine how connected we are to our devices. The survey found that pants pockets are the most common location across all age ranges—58% of millennials, 39% of those age 35-54, and 44% of people 55 and older.

But some people literally can’t let go. The survey found that more than 50% of millennials say they sometimes will carry their phone in their hand all day long. Only 30% of those in the 35-54 group said the same, and 16% of the 55-and-older crowd joined them.

That makes durability an important issue for millennials. The survey found that 48% want their phones to come with shatterproof screens, water resistance, and other protective features, while only 40% of the middle group were looking for those elements and slightly more than 25% of the oldest group had the same worry. For the two older groups, battery life seems to be a more important concern.

Please don’t keep me a secret…

The next time you’re in a conversation with a friend from work, your neighborhood, church, your gym or country club and they mention that they are interested in selling their house or rental property please, don’t keep me a secret. Pick up your cell phone, look up my number, (hint: 650-346-7366) and call me immediately. When you call we can talk about what would be the best way for you to introduce them to me.

Spring Cleaning: Do Fabrics First

Fabrics that have absorbed a winter’s worth of dirt, body oil, and germs will need a deep cleaning to get them ready for another year of wear. That usually means using a carpet cleaner to shampoo carpets and clean upholstery.

When renting a carpet cleaner, practice first in an unobtrusive area to make sure you have the knack of the machine and that the treatment won’t discolor fabrics or cause dyes to run.

Move furniture just slightly—not out of the room or against the wall, as the old rules dictated — and place the legs of each piece back on top of small wax paper squares after shampooing. The wax paper will protect your carpet and keep the furniture legs from getting wet as the carpet dries.

Open the windows to speed drying, which can take a day or more. And if you’re not the furniture-shifting, machine-renting type, hire a professional carpet and upholstery cleaner.

Costs to Buy a Million Dollar Home…

Do you know what the your costs when you buy a one-million-dollar home with 20% Down? Including what your mortgage payments…

Escrow Fees:

Down Payment    (200,000.00)

Origination Fee       (8,000.00)

Title Insurance        (2,000.00)

Settlement Fee       (250.00)

Escrow Fees          (2,200.00)

Sub Escrow Fees   (125.00)

Loan Tie-In Fee      (100.00)

Recording Fee          (60.00)

Tax Service               (75.00)

Appraisal Report     (350.00)

Credit Report          (250.00)

Monthly Payments:

Mortgage Payment 3,819.32

Hazard Insurance $291.67

Property Taxes     $1,000

TOTAL           $5,110.99

Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again. ~Gustav Mahler

Where Do You Keep Your Phone?

Quick—where’s your cell phone right now? A recent survey asked that question of millennials and people in other age groups to determine how connected we are to our devices. The survey found that pants pockets are the most common location across all age ranges—58% of millennials, 39% of those age 35-54, and 44% of people 55 and older.

But some people literally can’t let go. The survey found that more than 50% of millennials say they sometimes will carry their phone in their hand all day long. Only 30% of those in the 35-54 group said the same, and 16% of the 55-and-older crowd joined them.

That makes durability an important issue for millennials. The survey found that 48% want their phones to come with shatterproof screens, water resistance, and other protective features, while only 40% of the middle group were looking for those elements and slightly more than 25% of the oldest group had the same worry. For the two older groups, battery life seems to be a more important concern.

Google, M.D.

The internet is good for some things, but when you want to find out what’s making you feel sick, you’re generally better off with your doctor than with a medical website or smartphone app. That’s the diagnosis of a study by Harvard Medical School that was recently written up in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal.

The research involved 234 physicians and 23 diagnostic tools offered by such websites as the Mayo Clinic and Web MD, along with apps for the iPhone and Android smartphones. Given 45 hypothetical patients and their symptoms, the human doctors got the correct diagnosis right away in 72% of the cases, while the computerized symptom checkers were correct only 34% of the time.

When asked to provide not one, but three possible diagnoses, physicians again outperformed their technological counterparts, hitting the right diagnosis with their top three 84% of the time. Websites and apps found the correct diagnosis just 51% of the time.

So although you might be tempted to just Google your symptoms and head to the drugstore, most of the time you’re better off making an appointment with your doctor.

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainier Maria Rilke

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See page 7

Brain Drain: Control Appetite After Work

Ever notice that you can feel starving after a long day at work, even though you’ve spent it mainly at your desk? Scientists, as reported by The New York Times, say it happens because your brain wants more fuel to keep going—even though you probably haven’t been digging ditches or running marathons all day. The problem is that you’re consuming calories your body doesn’t actually need, because your brain is telling you to.

Oddly, the solution to controlling brain-induced appetite is to exercise. In an experiment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, 38 college students met to discuss their favorite pizza. After the discussion, they were allowed at eat as much pizza as they wanted. That created a control. On another day, they were brought back and given a series of tests from college entrance and graduate-level exams. Afterward, half the students worked out on treadmills while the rest sat quietly. The entire group was again served all the pizza they wanted, but the treadmill group ate less—about 25 fewer calories than at their previous session. On the other hand, the rest of the group actually ate 100 calories more. The study suggests that a light workout after a mentally strenuous day may curb the appetite. So perhaps a brisk walk before dinner is in order?

The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also. ~Harriet Ann Jacobs

An Ancient Mystery: How Old Are Saturn’s Rings?

The rings of Saturn have dazzled humans ever since they were spotted by Galileo, but they still contain many unexplained mysteries, such as how old they are. One theory states that they date back approximately 4.6 billion years; another suggests that they’re just 100 million years old.

Scientists backing the younger theory contend that the rings should show more evidence of space debris from the Kuiper Belt, which would make them darker than they appear today. Proponents of the older view note that the rings were probably created by a moon or some other icy object falling apart as it passed close by Saturn, an event which doesn’t seem to have happened in recent times (“recent” in astronomical terms, at any rate.)

Some of the trouble comes from not knowing precisely how massive the rings are—a lighter series of rings could have formed more recently than a heavier one.

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The Tingle of Spidey Senses

Spiders can’t “hear” exactly, but they can sense and respond to vibrations in the air over relatively long distances. Until recently, scientists believed they were only sensitive to sounds from a few inches away. However, the Sci-News website reports that researchers at Cornell University have found that jumping spiders (Phidippus audax) can pick up low-frequency sounds from up to 10 feet away.

The spiders apparently sense vibrations through the hairs on their forelegs, which produce a response in acoustically sensitive neurons. Physically probing a single hair produced the same type of response. The jumping spiders are most sensitive to frequencies produced by the wingbeats of wasps, one of their natural enemies. Scientists plan to examine the brains of fishing spiders and wolf spiders for similar abilities.

You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep the spring from coming. ~Pablo Neruda

Spring Into Action

To get in shape for spring and summer, you don’t need to do everything at once. Put one or two changes into practice, such as controlling your portion sizes or cutting back on added fats and sugars in your food choices. When you feel comfortable with your progress, try something else.

Add physical activity to your day. Spring weather makes it easy to get outdoors and get your recommended amount of daily physical activity. These activities can count toward your day’s total exercise:

• Go for a brisk walk during your lunch hour or after dinner.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator whenever possible.
• Skip the drive-thru car wash and wash the car yourself.
• Stretch your green thumb by doing some gardening. Consider growing your own fruit, vegetables and herbs.
• Walk in place while watching TV.
• When possible, ride your bike to school or work — or use it to run errands.
• Plan an active family vacation or a weekend outing.

Like good eating habits, regular physical activity needs to be part of everyone’s healthful lifestyle. Remember, your goal is to make changes gradually so you can stick with them and won’t have to repeat this process next year.

.

Mistaken Identity…

Even Queen Elizabeth II sometimes goes unrecognized. A story from the Hello magazine website tells of a time when the queen’s car drove up to the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1991. A guard walked up and told her, “Sorry, love, you can’t come in without a sticker.”

Unfazed, her majesty answered, “I think if you check, I will be allowed to come in.”

He did, and she was.

Look How Amazing Your Brain Is!

Here’s an interesting experiment in brain function, sometimes used to test if a person has mental deterioration. Warning: if English is not your native tongue, you may naturally have problems with the exercise.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

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After all, a referral is sending someone you care about to someone you trust. Cliff Keith

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The Link Between Stress And Stroke

Stroke is a devastating experience in which blood is cut off from a part of the brain. It can have many contributing factors. One of them, physicians now say, is stress.

According to the journal Stroke, researchers looked at medical records of more than 6,000 men and women who participated in a 16-year study. As part of the study, participants’ anxiety levels were measured. Over the course of time, 416 people suffered at least one stroke. The researchers determined that the risk of stroke rose 14 percent among individuals with higher anxiety levels, as measured in terms of such symptoms as extreme nervousness, tension, and general stress. Participants with especially high rates of these symptoms were identified as having an increased risk of 33 percent.

One possible connection: Stress often leads to unhealthy habits like poor nutrition, smoking and drinking, and lack of exercise. Stress also contributes to higher blood pressure, one of the culprits behind stroke.

Brain Floss Puzzles

Brainteasers are good for honing your creative thinking. Try these to stretch your mind:

1. You are driving a bus with nine passengers. The first stop, three people get off and five get on. At the second stop, seven people get off and four get on. Finally, at the third stop, six people get off and two get on. How old is the bus driver?
2. You have to choose to enter one of three rooms. Inside the first room is a team of ninjas hired to kill you. The second is a tiger that hasn’t eaten for three months. And,inside the third is a raging inferno. Which room do you enter?
3. Imagine you’re in a leaky rowboat that’s sinking. Great white sharks are circling your boat. How do you get out of this predicament?

(See answers at the bottom of the page.)

“We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.” ~Robert Wilensky

Rock Star Press Management

Rock star David Bowie knew how to charm reporters. According to the Digital Spy website, when a magazine ran a series on some of the journalists who’d interviewed him over the years, they discovered that he’d played the same trick on them over and over again:

Bowie would schedule a 45-minute interview. When his aide came in to show the reporter out, he’d say, “Look, I know we’re on a schedule, but we’re having such fun here, could we do an extra 15 minutes?” Every journalist felt flattered by the attention, which usually resulted in a positive review of whatever album Bowie was publicizing. Only years later did they discover that he’d scheduled them for a full hour all along.

A Meeting Of The Minds

The famous actor/director Charlie Chaplin once met world-renowned physicist Albert Einstein at a public event. According to Storypick, Einstein told the comedian: “What I most admire about your art is your universality. You don’t say a word, yet the world understands you.”

To which Chaplin replied, “True. But your glory is even greater. The whole world admires you, even though they don’t understand a word of what you say.”

“The 7 – BIG MISTAKES MADE DURING PROBATE” 

FREE eBook…

On how to avoid them when you are an administrator or executor of a probate.

Learn them in less than 10 minutes by clicking here:

Answers to Brain Floss:

1. Whatever you own age is, since you are the bus driver.
2. Room No. 2. A tiger that hasn’t eaten in three months is dead.
3. Stop imagining.
   

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