I saw an article from BusinessWeek yesterday about “affordable global real estate” and I thought I’d share the link and my observations here.

In The Worlds Most Affordable Housing Markets, writer Maya Roney lays out where the smart money chooses to live based on an index of home prices, cost of goods and services, local stability and quality of life. Keep in mind that the article is from Business Week and explicitly uses a standard based on the needs of a youngish middle manager and his or her average sized household / family, or about — 4 bedrooms.

The top pick is Bogata, Columbia which I admit isn’t a place I normally think of as “stable” but if you enjoy tropical on a Canton Ohio budget there are probably worse places you can wind up in. Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt comes in at number two in affordability, and honestly — looks absolutely gorgeous with a cost of living comparable to Muncie, Indianna.

The top 10 including 3 rather cold but gorgeous locations in Canada, and both Nicaragua and Panama and the top 25 including locations in Malta, Poland and Honduras. Viva!

Each city is compared to a US Market to give the potential home buyer a reference point on which to base their explorations, and each location includes one color picture which is supposed to symbolize that particular environment. The pictures are very “stock” and the article runs over as many pages as possible no doubt to maximize their ad exposure and SEO. The navigation frame for the top 25 locations is easy to use, and that makes comparing the cost of a home in the Carribean to the cost of a similar home in Bozeman nearly painless.

The idea here is that real estate in the US may be flat, but the international market is still bullsih. There may be some truth to that, though for most non-retired folk, such a move might be problematic unless they had recently been offered employment in Cairo.

As for me I have decided to retire in Mexico; surf all morning, sleep all afternoon and play Troubadour all night long for rich touristas. Viva baby!

–Dex

I was visiting a blog site of someone I admire earlier today and was reminded of this video again. I watched this video when it first came out, transfixed by someone who is dieing of pancreatic cancer give one of the most powerful and moving speeches of my life. He gave the speech for his three very young children. Dr. Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor, beloved teacher and an important researcher in the virtual reality field.

If you have 70 minutes and want to watch something meaningful, I humbly suggest this:

From New York Times: Keeping Priorities Straight, Even at the End.

The 70-minute talk, at www.cmu.edu/randyslecture, has been translated into seven languages, and this week Hyperion is publishing “The Last Lecture,” a book by Dr. Pausch and a collaborator, Jeff Zaslow, that tells the story behind the story of the lecture.

“The whole thing is very strange,” Dr. Pausch said over lunch at a diner near Norfolk, Va. “I just gave a talk. I gave talks my whole life.”

But of course, this wasn’t just any talk. “Let’s not ignore the obvious,” he said. “If I’d given that lecture but I weren’t dying, it wouldn’t have had the gravitas. Context is everything.”

Dr. Pausch, 47, is dying of pancreatic cancer, a disease that kills 95 percent of its victims, usually within months of diagnosis. Except for a pill bottle on the table in front of him, there were no outward signs of the deadly tumors growing inside him. Though he had just recently recovered from heart and kidney failure, he looked boyish, with a red knit shirt and a head of thick dark-brown hair.

Last fall, after doctors told him that he would probably have no more than six months of good health, Dr. Pausch stepped down from his academic duties and relocated to be closer to his family. But he decided to give one last lecture to a roomful of students and faculty members at Carnegie Mellon.

The lecture was not about cancer. Instead, he says, it was simply a father’s effort to digest a lifetime of advice for his children into one talk — a talk that Dr. Pausch knew he would not be around long enough to deliver in person. The children are Dylan, 6; Logan, 4; and Chloe, almost 2.

Although he could have set it up on a home video, he liked the idea that one day they would watch his last lecture and see their dad at work, in his element.

“I’m speaking only to them,” he said. “I didn’t set out to tell the world about how to live life.”

Yes, this is the best time ever to excel.

This is the most depressing and hopeless state that the United States of America has been in since the great depression of the twenties. That is a reality. Not that this information is tantamount to the death of any soldier or civilian in Iraq today, or the death or suffering of anyone anywhere for any reason anywhere on the earth today. No, not even close to that reality.  But it is an opportune time for  sentient human beings. This is a time that is ripe for growth. Personal growth. When all about us seems to be failing on one level or another. This is a window in time to excel, yes, to rise above the common and become a beacon of light in a dark night, way offshore with no apparent guide to safety. Each of us has the ability to offer some reaffirmation of basic human values and respect. In a climate of descending values and respect we may segregate ourselves by offering a message of solidarity and hope. A positive and constructive statement, a statement of concern for our fellow travelers in this world. Be strong is the message. Hold true to your deepest beliefs. The belief you know is paramount to the basic fabric of life on this earth. Be kind.

I want to take a moment and write a bit about car accidents.

My wife and children were involved in an awful wreck 10 days ago when their vehicle was struck by a driver who ran a red light at nearly 60 miles per hour. My wife was driving our Suzuki Reno and the car itself was totaled in the accident, though — thankfully — my family escaped with only injuries; some worse then others.

I am not going to detail the physical injuries in this post. My purpose in writing this today is to raise a little awareness about a side effect of traumatic accidents that I was not previously aware of. I am talking about “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” or PTSD. Before I get into it though I want to share with you a picture or two of the car post accident, so that you can get a feel for the violence of this particular accident.

Ok — first up is a picture of the front end of our car. As you can see, the car preformed as it was designed to do in the event of a catastrophic accident: The engine collapsed to the pavement, and the engine compartment folded itself around the passenger area, protecting the occupants of the vehicle.

Officers who arrived on the scene just after the accident and who interviewed the eyewitnesses tell me that my wife probably didn’t see the other vehicle until he appeared out of the blind spot near the crest of the hill, less then 20 feet from the intersection. Reacting on instinct, she slammed down hard on her breaks, and struck the other vehicle broadside in the passenger doors. Had she not reacted the way she did, he would have probably struck her broadside, and considering the size and weight of the other car — the outcome of the accident would have been very different for her and my children.

She tells me she can still see his face as clear as day as he looked up from whatever it was he was doing just as our car impacted with his. I can imagine the surprise on his face.

Thankfully, the other driver was riding alone, and there were no injuries in his car.

We were lucky, but not altogether unscathed. My 10 year old daughter was cut by her seatbelt in the lower part of her belly and required 20 stitches. Thats a picture of her stitches, next to the picture of our car (above). My son was the luckiest of all. Asleep at the time of the accident escaped with bruises on his face and back and a bloody nose. My wife was not so lucky, of course. She probably tensed up as she stomped down on the breaks, and her body suffered for it. Her injuries are numerous and include a fractured pelvic joint, a bulging disc in her spine where her neck meets her head, a large gash in her right shin and dozens of contusions over most of her body — especially on her left side.

Her worst injury by far in my opinion is something I had never considered before the accident. Because the accident happened at the corner just outside of our rural neighborhood, there is no way to avoid the intersection. She cannot ride in a car now without spontaneously and uncontrollably weeping. She has from horrible dreams wherein she relives the accident over and over, and consequently  suffers from insomnia. She is also prone to waking flashbacks, as well as visions of similar collisions whenever we pass another vehicle on a two lane road, or even while parking in the parking lot of our local grocery store. She is terrified of driving, and her body seems to be on a heightened state of alert at all times. This anxiety and stress has compounded her more physical injuries and caused her debilitating pain.

Because of the circumstances around the accident; the other driver running the red light, the impact with his vehicle, the spinning and subsequent ditching of our car, the smell of the airbags after deployment and the screams of my children as our care settled at the bottom of a ravine  — and because she was driving not only herself, but our children as well — she suffers from what her doctors have diagnosed as “post traumatic stress disorder. I am told that her recovery will be complete, and that she will eventually feel whole again, but the mental recovery will likely take months — perhaps even years. In the meantime I have read everything that I can find on PTSD and auto accidents, and I am struck by stories of anxiety and mental anguish that often persist long after stitches are removed and broken bones heal.

Honestly — I always assumed that PTSD was something soldiers suffered from after experiencing war up close. I never imagined that the same kind of thing might apply to those who survive a near fatal collision.  As a guy who has always been able to shrug off adversity, I must admit that it has always been hard for me to understand depression or anxiety. My gut reaction is to tell her to get back on the horse as soon as her physical injuries have healed, and maybe that works for some people — who knows? The truth of the matter is I have seen the very real effects this accident has had on my wife beyond the physical ones — I now have a deeper understanding and empathy for those who have experienced these kind of traumatic events in their lives. It is my hope that anyone who suffers from this kind of thing gets the help they need for both their physical and emotional injuries because there can be no real recovery without addressing both.

Haha. What a world, what a world.

Wow. Pretty soon he will be able to process simple tax returns, make a good batch of salsa and play some rockband or guitar hero.

I bought a very interesting book recently – ‘Decotara” by Japanese photographer Masaru Tatsuki.

Decotara is the combination of decoration and trucks. He spent nearly 10 years researching Japanese trucker culture. I learned about this book at this great site: http://pingmag.jp/2008/01/31/decotora/

I don’t think I have ever seen trucks with those side windows in the front of the cab before. I wonder what those windows that jut out serve in terms of function? Decorative?