Jankovic making home here. Top Of The Crosby Estates
March 11, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
INDIAN WELLS — Life high on a hill atop Rancho Santa Fe soon is to begin for Jelena Jankovic. Would that her tennis have similar elevation. Jankovic’s game has been askew since she began the 2009 season as the ranking player on the WTA Tour, but no player around here was talking more animatedly yesterday than the Serbian woman. It’s not tennis that excites her as much as the prospect of occupying the home she is having built in Rancho Santa Fe. Jankovic said she visited the site before coming here for the BNP Paribas Open. “They were putting the roof on. It’s like a dream come true,” she said of a home that, by her measurements, is to have three levels with 20,000 square feet of living space and have a garage large enough for 10 vehicles. “I have five (cars) for now,” said Jelena, who evidently does a lot of driving. Jankovic became aware of the joys of living in the San Diego area when she was competing in tennis events at La Costa. “I picked a lot on a hill,” she said. Its cost, according to San Diego County records: $1.5 million. Jelena advised her architect the place must include a tennis court (it does). “And I wanted a big master bedroom and a huge bathroom,” she said. Done. She is hopeful of moving in by the end of the year. Jankovic’s season, meantime, has not begun positively, with a first-round loss (to Agnes Szavay ) at Sydney and a third-round defeat (to Alona Bondarenko ) at the Australian Open. “But I am working hard,” she said. “I feel every day I am getting better and better. I want to work on coming forward.” Jankovic is the No. 6 seed here. Nothing all that dramatic is apt to occur in the opening round of a tennis tournament with a 96-player draw that hands out 32 seeds and awards all 32 byes. The women’s phase of the Paribas did, however, show off a Justine Henin who soundly eliminated Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-2. “I need tennis; I need to play,” said Henin. “Emotionally, I feel much better when I am playing.”
Related articles by Zemanta
- Women Tennis Power Rankings: Venus Williams Tops Henin in Titles Race (bleacherreport.com)
- Jankovic in, Year-end WTA Champs Field Set; Safina No. 1 Again (tennis-x.com)
Dreaming of Southern California
January 9, 2010 by admin · 3 Comments
Luxury Million Dollar Homes with 300 days of Sunshine
San Diego makes for an ideal location for a vacation. after playing on the beaches, riding your bike on America’s best city for bikes, strolling through Seaport Village, and taking a trip to the mountains, you’ll wonder if there is any place better to call home.
When Robin Leach hosted the popular television show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous which aired in the 1990’s, many of the homes he featured were California homes. whether it’s the wealth of its residents or their creative and laid back lifestyles, California has an abundance of opulent, luxurious homes and many of them are featured in luxury homes magazines.
Not surprisingly perhaps, the estates he featured in his show pale in comparison to the homes you’ll find there now. New developments have popped up in Orange County, that hip locale for new TV dramas. The OC definitely has its share of beautiful, expensive real estate. If you have the financial means, Orange County real estate and San Diego real estate are exceptional investments.
The geography of California provides the perfect backdrop for a stunning million dollar estate. The most expensive of these mega million dollar estates are often oceanfront properties. The rounded hills of California from San Diego all the way to the wine country near San Francisco provides panoramic views of countrysides. From Spanish villas in Rancho Santa Fe to Tuscan estates in Sonoma County, there’s a million dollar home for everyone in California.
The value of California real estate has fallen this year as every year and with the mortgage fiasco and other economic problems, a buyer’s market has appeared. for the first time in many years, you may have an opportunity to buy one of these million dollar homes as an investment or as your new home. Many people buy homes here for winter residences. The weather in Southern California is incredible. Temperatures are moderate and rainy weather is at a minimum. you can enjoy more than 300 sunny days per year. That translates to a lot of walking, tennis, golf and bicycling. That is a healthy lifestyle and one that is more invigorating.
If you’re not into leisure and relaxation, Southern California offers lots of high tech employment opportunities. From San Diego’s medical industry prominence to the hi tech industry in the Silicon Valley, Southern Cal has everything you’ll need for an exciting career. Just across the Ocean is China and Japan so although the sun sets are incomparable here, the future is a sunrise for Californians.
San Diego is a rising star in the US economy. its normally strong banking industry combined with the medical and military industries here, along with its access to cheap labour and manufacturing in nearby Tijuana Mexico give it every conceivable economic advantage. Being between Mexico and China and Japan make it an appealing locale for captains of industry.
What kind of homes might you expect to find in the San Diego area? when you see pictures of homes in magazines or online, you’ll be overwhelmed at how beautiful they are. these luxury homes feature swimming pools, master chef kitchens, interiors dressed in exotic woods and stone, spas that include workout rooms, hot tubs, Jacuzzis and swimming pools. Tennis courts and landscaped gardens are common. Many homes are designed by world renowned architects so these aren’t built piecemeal. these homes come together to appeal to the viewer’s sense of wonder.
It isn’t just that they have all the amenities of a luxury home, it’s how they’re weaved together to provide the ultimate in luxury and convenience. these are homes that draw people in. This is one of the reasons Californians want these types of homes. They attract friends and visitors and reduce some of the isolation that some may feel. for those that don’t feel isolated, they may have more friends and family coming over than they want. after all, who would want to leave a home with a 200 inch widescreen TV and swimming pool with a cascading waterfalls above it?
Southern California homes inspire our belief that anything is possible and that the good life is accessible if we work hard to achieve it. California is a land of beautiful contrasts and is worth the visit, even if to ogle the opulent real estate here. Make your next vacation to a place like San Diego and discover more than the lifestyles of the rich and famous, the lifestyles that we all dream about.
After You Decide Which of the 31 Destinations you Want to Visit, Read This! 10 Ways to Cut Your Travel Costs In 2010
January 8, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
LAST year was arguably the year of the travel deal, with resorts and airlines practically begging for bookings, and many travelers finding bargain airfares and hotel rooms as a result. But airlines have cut back capacity, meaning there will be fewer seats going unsold, and resorts may not be as quick to cut rates to attract guests, now that the economy looks as if it might be on a slight rebound. So now is the perfect time to review your booking strategy. Here are 10 simple steps you can take to help cut your travel costs in 2010.
Readers’ Comments
Share your thoughts.1. Sign Up for a Twitter Account
An increasing number of travel companies are using Twitter to market their brands, often by tweeting exclusive deals to followers. JetBlue calls out last-minute discounts at JetBlueCheeps on Tuesday mornings. A recent example: “$89 BOS to LAS this Sat. LAS to BOS this Mon. or Tues. 25 seats avail or til 6 pm ET.” Fairmont Hotels offers its Twitter followers special discounts before anyone else. Farecompare’s “flyfrom” Twitter feed offers location-specific fare sales when you plug in your home airport’s three-letter code, as in flyfromNYC.
All you need to do is sign up for a free account at Twitter.com and start following the companies you like or travel experts who do the work for you. (You can find me at MichelleHiggins.)
2. Find the Cheapest Dates to Fly
ITASoftware.com, which provides the technological backbone for many airfare shopping sites, allows users to scan an entire month’s fares for the least expensive rate. (Log in as a “guest” and click on “month-long search.” ) In January, the 28th and 30th were the cheapest dates to fly nonstop to London from New York ($536) for a week’s vacation, according to a recent search. The next best was Saturday, Jan. 23, at $640. To book the ticket, users must go to another site. Kayak.com has a flexible-dates option (registration is required) and a calendar that shows the best fares found by other Kayak users in the last 48 hours. Bing Travel, the Microsoft search engine, offers a similar option, found under “plan trips,” about halfway down the page.
3. Consider Nearby Airports
A recent Web search showed nonstop flights from Los Angeles International Airport to Miami International from $299 round trip on American in early January. But flying into Fort Lauderdale, roughly 30 miles north of Miami, was $219 on Virgin America, an $80 saving.
4. Go Against the Grain
If possible, avoid popular travel dates like holidays and spring break because airlines have begun to charge anywhere from $10 to $30 extra at those times. Farecompare.com offers a handy breakdown of the new fees by date, airline and amount. Early-morning and late-night flights may also be cheaper depending on the route.
5. Track Price Even After Buying
Airlines have long offered to refund the difference in their fares (minus a change fee) in the form of a voucher to customers who ask. Using your confirmation number, Yapta.com will automatically track the price of your ticket, taking the airline’s fees into consideration, and send you, without charge, an e-mail message or Twitter alert notifying you of the lower price. You can then call the airline to claim the credit.
Similarly, Travelocity.com promises to refund the difference in price for prepaid hotel reservations if you find the same room for a cheaper rate online before check-in.
6. Take the Bus
Cheap express buses with names like BoltBus, Megabus and Washington Deluxe have become increasingly popular along the Northeast Corridor and elsewhere, with seats for $25 or less, depending on when you reserve. With amenities like more legroom, power plugs at every seat and free Wi-Fi, the bus ride, though longer, can often be more tolerable than a flight that costs 10 times as much. Search for seats at GotoBus.com or BusJunction.com.
7. Roll the Dice
Sites like Priceline.com, Hotwire.com and Lastminutetravel.com offer deep discounts to travelers willing to pay before learning the names of the hotels, airlines or car rental agencies they’re committing to. To help you find the best rate, Biddingfortravel.com and Betterbidding.com provide strategic advice and offer tips from other travelers on how to navigate the system.
Getaroom.com offers a new twist to this gamble that may be more agreeable for risk-averse travelers. Unlike these other discounters, Getaroom tells customers the name of the hotel and price before booking. But it offers an even lower rate through its call center — typically 10 to 25 percent off — to travelers willing to pay for the room before finding out just how much of a discount they’re getting.
8. Go Rental
Tourists in most European cities can easily pay $200 a night for basic hotel rooms. By contrast, an apartment or villa can be rented for as little as $1,100 a week in Paris or Rome. Homeaway.com, Zonder.com and Rentalo.com are just a few of the many rental Web sites available. Some specialize in specific regions like Rentvillas.com for Europe or Wimco.com for the Caribbean.
9. Make Yourself at Home
For a 6 to 12 percent booking fee, AirBnB.com connects budget travelers with locals who are offering a place to bed down. The Times’s Frugal Traveler, Matt Gross, described it as “a cross between CouchSurfing.com and the vacation rentals section of Craigslist.” There were more than 2,000 listings in a recent search for New York including a futon in a one-bedroom near Gramercy Park ($65) and a bedroom with private bath and separate entrance in Hell’s Kitchen ($150).
10. Study the Fine Print
Play close attention to which airline you are actually flying, particularly on international flights. With code sharing, you may book a flight to Paris on Delta, for instance, and end up traveling with Air France, a code share partner with Delta.
But while the flight may be the same, the price often is not. Sometimes the difference can be negligible — say, $609 on SAS on a January nonstop flight from Newark Airport to Stockholm versus $627 for that same flight when booked through United. Or $817 for an American flight from New York to Lima versus the $693 that same flight would cost when booked through American’s code share partner, LAN.
There are times though when the difference can be substantial, particularly when the code share partner may be a foreign carrier not well known to American travelers.
Here are some examples, based on a search on Kayak.com for flights in late January, where the round-trip fares vary greatly depending on which code share partner you book through. (Click on “details” for a breakdown of the flight’s particulars.) New York to Singapore: $1,319 on Cathay Pacific; $1,817 on American. New York to Marrakesh: $1,098 on Royal Air Maroc; $3,257 on Delta. New York to Cairo: $908 on Egypt Air; a stunning $4,650 on United.
Start of PGA Tour season gives us something to talk about besides you-know-who. Even tho our own Rancho Santa Fe pro, Phil Mickelson, Will Not Be There.
January 7, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
G.O. time at Kapalua
For the first time in a long time, there is actual golf to talk about this week.Not much golf, but golf nonetheless.
Defending champion Geoff Ogilvy will lead a field of 28 pros at the season-opening, 2009- winners-only SBS Championship at hilly Kapalua — once a pineapple plantation, now a par-73. Steve Stricker, who lost to Daniel Chopra here in sudden-death in 2008, is the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 3, but Ogilvy, 14th, will be the only past champion.
This year’s field will tie the 2006 record for the smallest ever at this event, thanks to the multitude of multiple tournament winners in 2009, including Brian Gay, Zach Johnson, Ogilvy, Kenny Perry, Stricker and Y.E. Yang.
Players champion Henrik Stenson opted not to play, as did Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, as usual. (Hawaiians Tadd Fujikawa and Parker McLachlin were scheduled to help the SBS fill out its pro-am Wednesday. What, no Barack Obama?)
Speaking of Phil, a member of Mickelson’s camp reports the lefthander has been hitting the gym in his Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., home, and looks fit to begin the season at San Diego’s still sponsorless event at Torrey Pines, Jan. 28-31.
Among the mini-dramas within the SBS will be whether seventh-ranked Paul Casey can actually go all four rounds. He hasn’t been able to do so in an official tournament since straining a rib muscle last July.
Nothing, of course, compares to the DEFCON 1 Tiger story, well into its second month. Woods remains in hiding, and tabloid “sightings” have been so all over the map as to recall Robert De Niro in the 1988 film Midnight Run: “Where am I? I’m in Boise, Idaho; no, no, no, wait a minute: I’m in Anchorage, Alaska. No, no, wait: I’m in Casper, Wyoming; I’m in the lobby of a Howard Johnson’s and I’m wearing a pink carnation.”
The absence of Woods has led to speculation not only about his whereabouts but also about something that was previously unthinkable: a changing of the guard at the top.
“I think it’s an interesting time, obviously,” Ogilvy said. “Number one in the world might be up for realistic grabs this year” depending on when/if Woods returns.
At the very least, Ogilvy has a clear path toward a repeat victory at Kapalua. Three-time champion Stuart Appleby went winless in 2009 and didn’t make it to Maui. Nor did Anthony Kim and Davis Love III, who finished T2 at Kapalua last year, six shots behind Ogilvy.
Love, an avid snowboarder, is enjoying the last of his family vacation in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week. He plans to make his 2010 debut at the next week’s Sony Open.
Kim is again trying to bounce back from a year in which he admittedly lost focus and struggled with injuries.
News and Notes
• This is the first week players will compete with V-grooved wedges as opposed to their preferred U-grooves, in compliance with a rules change that may be much ado about nothing but is sure to dominate the Golf Channel’s telecast whenever a player is shown chipping around the green.
• There are seven Kapalua newcomers this week, including Casey, Yang, Nathan Green, Martin Laird, Ryan Moore, Pat Perez and Bo Van Pelt.
• Although the SBS sponsorship announced last May runs through 2019, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said earlier this week that Kapalua is contractually set to host the event only through 2011. After that the SBS could find itself elsewhere.
• Danny Lee, 19, headlines the Africa Open, which will be without its defending champion Retief Goosen, who is in the field at Kapalua. This will be the Africa Open’s first year as an official event on the European Tour.
Others in the field include former Ryder Cup stars Thomas Bjorn, Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley.
Lee, the Korean who moved to New Zealand at age 8, flamed out of Q-School last fall and has no status on the PGA Tour. But he has full privileges in Europe after winning the 2009 Johnny Walker Classic as an amateur, becoming the Euro circuit’s youngest ever winner.
• The Champions Tour’s season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship, Jan. 22-24, will feature “rookies” Fred Couples and 2010 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin. The newly minted 50-year-olds were given sponsors exemptions and will make their Champions debuts at Hualalai, in Hawaii, the Tour announced Wednesday.
• The Nationwide Tour will begin its season in Panama, Feb. 5-8, and also will visit Australia, New Zealand (two tournaments) and Mexico in 2010.
• The LPGA will open in Thailand on Feb. 18, further highlighting golf’s global expansion. The sport won inclusion last fall into the 2016 Olympics.
Here is to our Hometown hero! Go Phil!
Posted via web from slcorp’s posterous
Related articles by Zemanta
- PGA Tour Resumes Without Its Usual Sure Thing (nytimes.com)
The Rose Bowl – A Rose To Keep
January 7, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
An ambitious plan to renovate the 87-year-old
Rose Bowl is “money in the bank” for those who care about historic preservation
Date published: 1/7/2010
THE TRUE but often ignored maxim that “new doesn’t al- ways mean better” seems to be gaining traction in, of all places, Southern California.
That’s right, that mecca for reinvention, that capital of the bulldozer approach to redevelopment, might just be on the verge of saving an old football stadium.
One preserved structure, even one as fabled as the Rose Bowl, doesn’t constitute a trend. But it’s encouraging to learn that this glorious old stadium in Pasadena may avoid the fate of such fabled sites as the old Yankee Stadium and Miami’s Orange Bowl.
It turns out that the Rose Bowl’s breathtaking site, nestled in the San Gabriel mountains, surrounded by historic neighborhoods, just may be the source of its salvation. The powers-that-be in Pasadena, unlike those in most of the array of cities that dot Southern California, really care about roots and tradition. Treasuring the past is what sets them apart from the rest of the region.
That’s why the odds are good for a $164 million renovation of the 87-year-old host of the grandaddy of bowl games.
The even better news is that this renovation is not designed to stuff the elegant old stadium with inappropriately modern gadgets. Yes, there will be a state-of-the-art digital scorebord. But most of the refurbished parts of the Rose Bowl, even its eating areas, will be appropriately retro.
Investing in a stadium much older than most of the snazzy, anonymous, new NFL arenas amounts to “money in the bank” for the city, says Sue Mossman, executive director of Pasadena Heritage, a preservation group. People in the region are starved for something that rises above the suburban sameness that dominates so much of Southern California.
With the College Football National Championship game being played tonight at The Rose Bowl, it is comforting to know that it is finally getting the restoration it needs and will be around for many more thrilling games and events to come.
Posted via web from slcorp’s posterous
Justifiable Optimism for 2010
January 7, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
There’s so much bubbling beneath the surface of financial markets that over-focusing on monthly economic indicators misses the big picture of synchronic growth throughout the world. My pivotal leading indicator on unemployment and employment stats was the increase in part-time workers, positive these past several months. It kept me bullish.
The Fed won’t get in the way of a bull market. I’m projecting 10-year Treasuries at a 4.5% yield late in 2010. The level of Fed funds is irrelevant, even assuming 2%, possibly even bullish, as it could reduce excessive speculation in gold, oil and other commodities tied to futures markets. For these operators I wish burnt fingers for destabilizing our financial markets.
Then, the final washout of inventories plus a better selling rate for cars gets us to normalized GDP of 3.5% for the first half of 2010. This is without any pick-up in capital goods spending and new home construction. The back half of 2010 still rests in fog. You need to make some assumptions on the personal savings rate and consumer spending.
I expect positive employment numbers next month or in January and each succeeding month next year. This is an enormous confidence-builder, and will touch off consumer spending, home buying and automobile demand.
This is an excerpt from an article written on Forbes.com by Martin T. Sosnoff. Martin is chairman and founder of Atalanta/Sosnoff Capital, a private investment management company with more than $10 billion in assets under management. I think he knows of what he writes. Everywhere I go I hear people speaking of optimism for 2010. It is refreshing to finally see a light at the end of this economic tunnel!
is a service mark of The Prudential Insurance Company of America.