When it comes to the grocery store, I leave the hard work to the Mrs. She usually goes on Saturday afternoon armed with a list while I attend to mowing the lawn. Despite my disdain for yard work, I’d much rather mow a lawn on a 95 degree day than go to air conditioned grocery store.

The only time I go to the grocery store is when I have to pick up the items that my wife may have forgotten or to pick up more baby food (Gerber #3 or Graduates) for our daughter. There’s a Safeway on the way home so it’s usually my store of choice. Moreover, Safeway has a great selection of gift cards. Whenever I have a closing I usually stop by Safeway to pick up a Home Depot gift card for my clients.

Safeway cashiers like to say your surname i.e. last name when they hand you the receipt. They probably get your last name if you have a Safeway club card membership or a debit/credit card. The cashiers have never pronounced my surname correctly. My surname, LETO, is fairly short and simple and I pronounce it Lee-toe. In Italy it’s pronounced, Lay-toe. The actor, Jared, likes to pronounce it Leh-toe. If you’re a wise guy from New York (or Boston) you’ll pronounce Lido as in Lido Shuffle.

So which way is correct?

Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek. -Gus Portokalos

LÄ“tṓ – Long e and emphasis on the o.

Leto according to wikipedia is Greek in origin. Leto was the daughter of two titans and got knocked up by Zeus (Zeus deflowered everything in sight) and gave birth to Apollo and Artemis.

Oh but wait, the surname Leto is not Greek, it’s Italian. However, if you pronounce Leto, Leh-toe, Italians will think you’re saying letto which means bed. I’m sticking with the Greek pronunciation.

I enjoy reading sports columnist Mike Lupica of the NY Daily News. His column “Shooting from the Lip” interjects his many different view points and thoughts. Bold words are used to highlight the theme.

Here’s my version:

The enemy of greatness is mediocrity. When discussing the San Antonio Spurs over the last nine years their “enemies” in the championships have mostly been mediocre. The face of the NBA are the Spurs. A team that flops and whines. Congrats David Stern, Bud Selig’s steroid ridden league looks better than yours right now.

Barry Bonds is about to break Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs. A few years ago I rooted for Barry to break the record simply because I thought his rookie baseball card would be worth something. Even though he’s on the cusp of an asterisk, his rookie card is worthless.

When I was in college, one of the guys in my dorm was on the juice. He denied it but we all knew it. One day he got really drunk and put his fist through a window. The cops picked him up and threw him in the slammer. When we visited him in his holding cell, he was sobbing. Jail is a scary place unless you play for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Despite graduating from college over a decade ago, I finally had my bachelors degree framed. It’s an eternal reminder that once upon a time I went to college, had fun, and ran 7 minute miles.

A few months ago I hurt my foot. The doctor took x-rays and said nothing was broken. Yet each time I’ve gone for a run, even at a slow pace, my foot has been in pain. With my main form of exercise on the shelf, I altered my diet. No fried foods. No pork. No beer. Limit my intake of sweets. What do you know, what do you say: No weight gain!

The Sopranos ending was perfect despite the deluge of criticism from disappointed fans. I often wondered if you really see your life flash before your eyes of if everything went pitch black when you died. According to the Sopranos finale, it was the latter. We followed Tony’s journey to the bitter end.

Journey saw a 500% increase in sales of their single “Don’t Stop Believing” on iTunes. I liked Journey when I was younger and pleaded with my older brother to take me to see them in concert. He didn’t take me but redeemed himself when he took me to a U2 concert. As usual someone in our section yelled “play Freebird!” Bands must really dislike that phrase.

I really dislike the phrase Short Sale and the word Foreclosure especially when the word Profit is tied to the story.

There’s nothing more discouraging than seeing a borrower with good credit, income, and reserves who happens to be upside down on their mortgage and on the verge of a rate adjustment.

Rates are taking the stairs.

The Sopranos is coming to an end. So far the final season has been a massive bloodbath with several key characters getting whacked. I’ve enjoyed the Sopranos mainly because I’m part Italian and I like how the cast is mostly Italian-American.

The portrayal of the Sopranos as a typical Italian-American family has been very accurate. The family dinners. The passionate discussions with lots of hand gestures. The butchering of the Italian language. How in the world does gabagool = capicola. (Yes, I know it’s the southern Italian dialect.) However, the Sopranos has received a lot of flack for portraying Italians as mafia. I think Hollywood with movies like Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, et. al. had more to do with this stereotype than the Sopranos. Most Italian-Americans I know don’t have any ties to mafia. My paternal grandfather hails from Sicily, a hotbed for mafia, and despite the many years I’ve worked on my genealogy I can’t find any link between my family and the mafia.

I am looking forward to the last episode of the Sopranos which airs on Sunday for two reasons:

One, the writers were building the storyline to one final showdown between the Soprano crew based in Jersey and the Leotardo crew based in Brooklyn. Incidentally, I have roots in both places. Two, I can’t wait to get rid of HBO. Other than the Sopranos there’s no reason to get HBO. Who really wants to watch reruns of Cheaper By the Dozen 2 and Pride and Prejudice?

By the way, the Sopranos had their fingers in real estate:

In Episode 38, Carmela studies for the real estate exam.

In Episode 46 Tony and the crew used bogus real estate deals to con money out of the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Subsequent episodes, 50 and 51 focused on this scam.

Carmela begins a spec house with her father that is wrought with numerous delays. Episode 71, 75, 76, 77 follows her ordeal.

In Episode 73, Tony is involved with a real estate agent who’s persuading Tony to sell one of his stores to Jamba Juice.

So their you have it, the Sopranos is tv worth watching especially if you’re Italian and in the Mortgage/Real Estate business.

At first I wanted this blog to be about Denver, Mortgages, and Real Estate. A blog is supposed to be a book and each posts are supposed to be chapters or sections in that book. I started off with the greatest of intentions but along the way I diverged and went way off course.

Discussing the housing bubble and mortgage bubble simply doesn’t interest me. It seems like every print and online publication including blogs have sensationalized the “doom and gloom” in the real estate world. If it bleeds, it leads. Your world turns into what you read and what you discuss.

Rather than make my blog a doom and gloom world, I decided to just pontificate on life. Real estate and mortgages will always be part of my life, after all I will always own a house and will more than likely have to pay a mortgage. Right now discussing real estate and mortgages just seems mundane.

There’s only two major cities in the Philippines, Cebu and Manila. I’m more comfortable in Cebu mainly because I lived there for several years. Although it’s been over 25 years since I left and looks nothing like it did when I was a kid (the city has transformed into a sprawling metropolis) it still really feels like home.

We spent equal time (4 days) in Cebu and Manila and found them to be worlds apart:

Cebu is more laid back. The people are more friendly. Not as many good restaurants. The taxi drivers were more honest.

Manila is more hectic. The people weren’t as friendly. Lots of good restaurants. The cab drivers were less honest.

In the Philippines the Jeepney is the best way to get around. The people in the Philippines were quite clever. They took the remnants of the Jeeps leftover from World War II and converted them into small busses. However, in 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity, we opted for AIR-CON (short for air conditioned) taxis.

In Cebu the taxi drivers didn’t even try to rip us off. They simply told us the fare based on what appeared on their meters. In Manila, it was a much different story. A 4 kilometer taxi ride that should’ve cost us 100 pesos (approximately $2) cost us anywhere from 100 pesos to 400 pesos or $2 to $8.

We were getting ripped off but we really weren’t.

The taxi drivers that charged up to 400 pesos spoke English and loved to chat. They gave suggestions on things to do and places to see. They played American music (Bon Jovi is played regularly). Their cars were nicer. They dressed nicer. They also drove with a much more calm demeanor; they didn’t drive crazy. In other words they provided a higher level of service.

The taxi drivers that charged us 100 pesos, didn’t speak a lick of English, drove like they were in a NASCAR race, had cars that were looked like they ready for the junk heap any day, wore flip flops instead of shoes, didn’t know the first thing about personal hygiene, and last but not least didn’t even want a tip.

We preferred the 100 peso taxi. While the service was less than stellar, we kind of liked the adventure.

The Philippines is an archipelago made up of 7,107 islands.

I was born in the United States but I spent a good chunk of my adolescence in Cebu, Philippines. During the summers my family would visit the island, Maripipi, where my mom hails from. It’s a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.

When I was a kid, there was no electricity and no running water. During my last visit (after college) they had electricity but only for a short period at night. Today, only a handful of houses have running water using an elaborate water tank and pump system. Electricity is only available for 12 hours from 6 pm to 6 am.

To really put things in perspective, it’s one of the poorest areas in one of the poorest nations in the world. People on the island don’t have much. I went through my Grateful Dead phase in college and had several tie-dyed shirts. I was surprised to see those shirts that I donated several years ago still being worn. Besides clothing, food is at a premium. People live on 100 pesos a day (about $2) which is barely enough to buy rice and fish for an entire family. Despite the harsh reality of life, people don’t carry guns and there aren’t liquor stores on every corner. There is gambling, drinking, smoking, and general mischief but there’s no police. The people police themselves.

In some ways I’m very envious of the life they live. My uncle (my mom’s brother) and my aunt (my mom’s sister) live about three blocks from my mom. She gets to visit them every morning for a cup of coffee. My cousins all live a few blocks from each other. I was only there for 5 days but while I was there, there were two parties where all my relatives got together. The cousins that left the island come back once a year during fiesta (a huge village party). Usually the parties involve karaoke. Everyone sings. I even belted out “Can’t Help Falling In Love” to a much lower score than my more accomplished karaoke singing cousins.

Basketball is huge on the island. Every day there are games that go on at the local court. The last time I was there, I played pick up games every day. This time I abstained from playing mainly because I hurt my foot. Besides my forte is shooting jump shots and it doesn’t go well with the running style they play. They simply don’t place a premium on shooting. Moreover, at the local gym in Denver, at 6 feet, I’m usually one of the shortest players on the court. On the island, I’m the tallest.

After five days on the island, we were happy to visit but also happy to get back to a city. We’re city folk. Waking up to an alarm clock is much better than walking up to a rooster. You can turn off an alarm clock, you can’t turn off a rooster.

Lately I haven’t been blogging. I’ve been reading books.

If you blog and haven’t read Seth Godin’s blog, go there now. It’s a must read. I’m currently reading Seth’s book, All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World. The premise of the book is about telling authentic stories. Companies that are able to tell an authentic story usually succeed.

What story are blogs really supposed to tell?

Most blogs fail because people fail to find their voice. I don’t exactly know what that means but I do know that right now the internet is full of blogs. You might even say it’s blogged down with blogs. There’s so many people out there with a story, positive or negative, to tell. I walked into Starbucks yesterday and I noticed 2 people blogging. How do I know? They told me when I asked them.

How are blogs supposed to tell an authentic story?

It seems like the best blogs or at least the blogs with the heaviest traffic/readership have an author(s) that spends all day blogging and commenting. I mean all day. Before the sun rises till Linda Cohn hosts Sportscenter. The blogging world is doomed when bloggers start blogging about other bloggers blogging about other bloggers.

How do I know that my blog is authentic?

This is how I know my blog is authentic. My blogging efforts usually begin when I sit down at my computer with a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal or oatmeal and ends when the aforementioned cereal or oatmeal is in my belly. If I have something to say, I say it. If I don’t have something to say, I read other blogs. There are enough blogs that start with a B and end with a S. I just don’t want to be one of them.

Interesting posts and articles from around the web:

Denver: Elusive upside to downtown – The upside to a housing slump is cheaper homes.

Credit Cards: Americans and savings, hardly go hand in hand

Implode O Meter: Lenderama informs us that the Implode O Meter lawsuit is null.

Zillow: Ten points of interest on Zillow.

4Realz: Ten points of interest on 4Realz.

Trulia: Could be seven, could be ten points of interest on Trulia.

Wall Street: Paul Kedrosky always highlights interesting posts/articles including Wall Street and Web 2.0

• The Denver Post has an article entitled Poor priced out of homes which examines a recent report of the rental and housing situation for the less than affluent Denver inhabitant.
• Zillow is at it again, this time the innovative and controversial online AVM has created a feature called Make Me Move. With this feature you basically broadcast to the world what it will take financially for you to move out of your home.
• Greg Swann of Bloodhound Realty has added numerous contributors to his blog including Dan Green of the Mortgage Reports. The BloodhoundBlog evolved from a Phoenix based real estate blog to a lively discussion group on real estate. Good reading!
• How the Light Rail converted Englewood from a drab Cinderella City to upscale City Center is explored in this article by the Real Estate Journal.

• Westword discusses the decline of the northern suburb Northglenn.
• Woody Paige returns to the Denver Post as a sportswriter. His stint in New York on ESPN2′s ultra boring Cold Pizza ended so he’s returning to Denver. Woody may have a style that ruffles feathers here in Denver but he’s the closest thing we have to Mike Lupica.
• File this under: real estate agent discusses the perils of the option arm.
• If it’s built for yuppies, it will attract yuppies.
• Where the heck is Pitkin and Garfield counties and why are home sales blowing up in these areas?
  (answers)
  • Pitkin county is where Aspen is located.
  • Garfield County is where Glenwood Springs is located.
• To find out if wood burning is red or blue, click here.
• Note to Mayor John Hickenlooper, it’s December and snow is falling.
• Note to John Elway, it’s GO time!