Updated Routine

Hi,

This post is mostly for family members and friends who want to see updated pictures of Noah. Without further ado...

Noah wakes up at 6am...seriously, rawrrr groan grumble out of bed for me. FYI, recently it hasn't been just ambient Noah noise that I can ignore. Loud shouts of "DaDa" and I am pretty sure I heard him say "Hii Yaa! (like the karate chop yell, not like "Hiya dad what's up?")" this morning. Then he gives me the thumbs up as he eats Frosted Mini Wheats.

He dances along to some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and plays in his room with some toys.

I then change his clothes and he attempts to put on his shoes. He's not very good at it but hey, I am sure he's farther along then I was at a year and a half. For some reason I just imagine myself at that age throwing my shoe at the wall and then wailing on the floor as I poop my pants.

He gets a ride to daycare. By the way, how crazy is that kids hair!? I try and comb it every morning and nothing. It looks like Justin Bieber got electrocuted.

annnnd scene!

Until next time...

Conor

Snowboarding can wait...and other things of note

Hi,

Sorry people in Lake Tahoe, I am loving this weather. In fact, for this occasion, I have made a special list of reasons that I love the sun.

1. I can go on a run without getting soaked.
2. It's warm.
3. My son can go outside and cart his Radio Flyer around everywhere.
4. It's not cold.
5. I am in a better mood.
6. With a toddler it's difficult to make time to go snowboarding anyway, so might as well not worry about it...and also, this is what I look like when I am out there...

To be sure, that isn't me, just a representation of me. You'd never catch me in pants that red.


The list could go on for a while but the number one reason I like this weather is business related. Open Houses take place on the weekends and when the sun is out, people like to check out Open Houses and see what's on the market. I was speaking with a co-worker who had 42 groups through her house on Sunday! 42! That is a crazy amount of people for 3 hours. More people touring a house means a better chance of getting it sold, and the more houses that sell, the better it is for the economy. Pretty simple right? In related news, 2 + 2 = 4.

Another interesting thing that I will start doing (and I know how ecstatic some of you will be with this news,) is posting on Twitter more often. Now I can bombard you with a unique perspective on all things...but mostly just real estate and running. You can follow me: @cdunn27.

Also of note, my son Noah is 1 and half years old today, my how time flies. I saved the best for last, I updated the photo on my front page. YES!


Conor

You have an agent already? It's cool, I'm married.

Hi,

*This post was started about 3 weeks ago and I never had a chance to finish it, so the timeline is a little off but the point remains the same*

In an ongoing effort to keep up with my sister's blog posts (See them here: Teaspoon SF) I actually have something to write about today.

I was holding a house open last Sunday at our listing in Lafayette. It was a bright sunny day and everyone who came into the house was in a good mood, which made it really easy for me to strike up conversations with the people who walked in. Now, not all of you might know this, but the purpose of holding a home open is actually twofold. First, it is a great way to showcase the house for your sellers and give prospective buyers a chance to casually walk through on a Sunday. Second, it gives you, the agent, a chance to meet buyers who might not have an agent yet and therefore are just waiting to meet the perfect person (me!)

So I was sitting in the living room fiddling around with my Barnes and Noble Nook (it has Soduku) and waiting for people to come in. Just a note, sometimes I will bring my computer with me and get a little work done but this house was vacant and without internet, so just me and soduku on this occassion. Anyway, a womann eventually walks in, let's call her Sally, and says hi and starts to look around the house. I give her a few minutes and as she passes by me in the living room I strike up a conversation with her. I am pretty sure it was filled with an abundance of witty banter and undeniable knowledge of all things real estate but who knows for sure. We end up talking for a good twenty minutes and I can tell that Sally is starting to get ready to head off so I ask her if we can meet at my office and talk more specifically about what she might be looking for. She smiles kind of sheepishly and says "Oh actually I already have an agent." I respond with something along the lines of, "Oh that's great, who are you working with?" She gives me an agents name and I actually know the agent and also know that she is a GREAT agent. I tell Sally that she is lucky to be working with that agent and best of luck on her home search.

At Open Houses, this kind of thing is pretty routine and I don't have any problem with it at all. The last thing I would ever do is try and persuede her to switch agents or spit the virtues of working with me. First off, If I do that, I come off sounding like an ass and second, it just doesn't feel morally right. If I found out that one of my clients was getting pestered by an agent at an Open House, I would be a little ticked off at that agent. It's a breach of ethics, and it isn't how I do business.

As I thought about the scenario in my head a little more after Sally left I realized that this situation bore a close resemblence to the act of chatting up a girl at a bar or party only to find out at the end of the night that the girl has a boyfriend or is married etc. In this situation I was trying to procure a client, in the other situation, I'd be trying to procure a phone number.

Either way, nothing you can really do about it but say "Next!" Just keep moving forward because as Will Rogers used to say, "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

Happy hunting!

Conor

I'll be with you in a minute, I'm sending a text.

Hi,

Before I delve into an explanation of the comic strip above, make sure you click on the actual picture. That will bring the comic into a new window as a larger picture so that you can actually read it.

I don't know what it is with me and comic strips lately but they have been fueling quite a few of my posts. I read this one yesterday and smirked immediately because of how apt it is...people are on their cell phones all the stinkin' time. Before you accuse me of being a pot, yes, I am also on my cell phone quite a bit and will gladly take any well deserved criticism. I don't mind people using their phones to make phone calls, because hey, that is what they are for. It does make me sad however when I see people sitting in a restaurant across from each other and neither of them are saying a word because they are too engrossed in whatever they are looking at on their phone. Normally, you see the kids on the phone while the parents are trying to talk but a few weeks back I actually saw a girl sitting there staring at her mom for a good 15 min while her mom disregarded her and played with her phone. I watched this whole thing in awe as she, the mom, casually flicked her finger around the phone (obviously not sending an important work email,) while her daughter sat there sadly yearning for conversation. Well maybe not sadly yearning for conversation, but she was definitely sitting there! Bottom line, I kind of wanted to say something but it wasn't my place and I'm not an ass.

Let's move on to my own experiences. Usually at night after Noah goes to bed, Steph and I get a few hours to ourselves to just sit there and hang out. We have TV shows that we like to watch but recently, neither of us can even watch a half hour TV show without grabbing our phone to screw around on Facebook or see what's going on with Twitter. We get a few precious hours to ourselves at night and apparently we suffer from ADD so bad that we can't even relax and watch a show together. We knew we could do better than that, so we made a rule. Answering phones is fine (especially since I take work calls at all hours) and even responding to a few texts is okay, but we are no longer allowed to surf the internet or browse facebook/twitter while we have time together. Sounds pretty old and crotchety right? Well, the last thing that I want is Noah growing up seeing two parents not communicate with eachother because they are too busy on their smart phones. I don't want to be that parent in the restaurant on my smart phone while Noah sits there doing nothing, I want to be the dad who gives him a discreet high five for the silent fart he let out that disturbed all of the other patrons, just kidding...sort of.

*For the record, when Noah is awake, we aren't on our phones. I am sometimes, but not Steph, she is way better at sitting down indian style and playing with him and his toys. I can't sit indian style, it hurts.*

I could probably expand on this topic and point out the many different instances in when cell phone use annoys me but I have other things to do. The funny thing is that, as I complain about this stuff, I check tech websites daily to see if there are any new phones coming out because I am officially eligible for a new one. I feel like this whole blog is laced with hypocrisy but hey, what can I do? It's a blog: I have thoughts and I throw them onto the computer in a big jumbled mass and hope that my ramblings make sense.

Man, how aweomse does that iPhone 4S sound?? Right!??

Conor

So apparently Facebook did change its layout...

Hi,

So a few weeks back people were making a lot of noise about Facebook changing its layout. I was really confused because mine looked the exact same. Tonight I was behind my wife Steph while she was on FB and I saw something that BLEW my mind. The way her newsfeed looked was completely different and there was a ticker on the side that gave up to the second updates. Now all that chatter finally made sense.

See below, this is what I currently see on Facebook (I took this screenshot tonight)

Long story short, I have no idea why mine never changed. More importantly, are there other people out there who were just as confused as me and just didn't want to say anything? I thought I knew a lot about the social network but I guess I was wrong. Last, if someone who's in the know with Facebook (Yvonne, I am talking to you) please enlighten me as to why I am seeing something different than everyone else. I feel like this can be written in a "Parents just don't understand" column.

Conor

Advice

Hi,

Inspired by my friend Alan, who's got some insane moves, and thanks to a rockin' wedding for Shannon and Colin Fleming. I want to leave you with this piece of advice for the weekend.

When you are at a wedding, don't forget to dance.

Everyone is doing it anyway, so who cares if you look like a fool...might as well get some excercise.

Happy Thursday! (Friday for me because I am flying to Nebraska this weekend with my wife for another wedding...look for me on the dancefloor.)


Conor

Connections

Hi,

October is always one of my favorite months of the year. Don't get me wrong, I love summer and always will because of the hot weather and summer activities in general, but October has a lot of things going for it also. To start, my wife Stephanie's birthday is on the 25th and my Aunt Mary Ann (an avid reader of this blog) has a birthday on the 2nd. Also, the weather has cooled down a touch and going for a run in the afternoon is great. We can't forget Halloween, which is always awesome. The list goes on for a while but there is another one thing that I find important about October, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In recent years, this has become much more evident as you see signs in grocery stores (I donate at least a dollar every time!) as well as on TV and even now in the NFL, with the introduction of pink accessories like gloves and hats to wear on the sideline. This is important because it gives many people a chance to reflect on a family or friend who has had to deal with this awful disease. According to the American Cancer Society a woman's chances of getting breast cancer in her lifetime are a little less than 1 in 8 and the chances of a woman dying from breast cancer is 1 in 35. I am not going to inundate you with a ton of stats on this but I just wanted to be clear that you definitely know someone who has been affected by this disease. Sadly, my mother was 1 of the 35 who did not survive her bout with cancer. I miss her all of the time. The first year after her passing was insanely hard. Every holiday, birthday, or event was the first without her present. Now that's it has been almost 5 years, the scar is still very much there but I am able to go through these events and smile thinking about her rather than having a breakdown. While I still have those breakdowns on big occasions or just a random day, they are few and far between and I think my mom would prefer it that way. She wants me to smile when I think of her, and I do. That brings me to the comic above.

After college when I moved home for a bit I used get up in the morning and read the paper with my parents. My mom and I both loved the comic Get Fuzzy. It hasn't been as good in recent years but back then, it just cracked us both up every day. If we didn't see eachother in the morning before I headed to work I would come home later that day and say, "Man, did you read Get Fuzzy today!? It was so good." Then we would have a 2 min exchange. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal...but it was OUR deal. It was one small little thing that connected my mom and me. I loved it, and I still love it. Now, every time I read that comic, I wonder if she would like it, and it makes me think of her every single day. This one in particular she would've loved. She thought Bucky Katt was hysterical, and everytime he would get up to something (in this case, dressing up as a bat by putting a pot with wings on his head) she would point out the picture and say "Look how funny he looks!" Second to last panel, Bucky is standing there with the pot on his head, tongue out, just looking guilty. That's the shot.

I had other little things with my mom that we'd share but this was definitely one of the tops. Nowawdays, I am starting to find little connections with my son Noah such as watching music videos together in the morning or playing the Uke for him. I love these little moments and one day I will be able to tell him about these things that we did.

Happy October!

"While We Wait"

Conor