- Real estate agents don’t often have an easy job.
Attempting to reconcile the demands and expectations of unreasonable homeowners
in need of X dollars from their current home to help pay for the new one they
spent far too much money on with the needs of cash-strapped buyers seeking a
bargain because their poor credit won't afford them the large loan they need to
make the purchase can be tough. St. Lucie County (Fla.) realtor Hoyt Murphy has an especially daunting
task on his hands and it has nothing to do with square footage, granite
countertops or a third bathroom. He has been hired to sell a rather unique
property that is likely to have a very limited appeal to a very specific type
of buyer. This real estate gem is located not far from the Florida Turnpike,
just north of Fort Pierce. It is, simply put, a bomb shelter for sale. This
isn't just any bomb shelter. It’s not some hole dug in the ground in someone’s
back yard, covered by a pair of flimsy wooden doors and with dirt floors,
filled with shelves stocked with pork and beans and SPAM. No, this bomb shelter
is on the market for $499,000. Murphy says the shelter was built by AT&T in
the 1960s in anticipation of "the big event," with the goal of
housing five men for 30 days to keep the lines of communication open. Inside,
industrial springs are everywhere, carefully installed to minimize the effects
of a blast. "In my 30
years, this is the most unique property we've ever had for sale," said
Murphy. There are positives and negatives for the shelter, which has only one
bathroom, but does have some sugar, baking powder, milk solids and bacon dices
on the shelves. Getting to the heart of the facility necessitates a long crawl through
a thick concrete passageway. At the end of the crawl are two massive air intake
tunnels, which would be closed off in the event of heavy radiation as carbon
filters activated. So what has the response been since the property hit the
market? "Week or so ago, we had some preppers from South Florida
Survivalist Group but probably the more practical use we've had is things such
as antique car storage," Murphy added. In other words, the window is still
open, so act now………
- Lost or forgotten art found in attics, basements or
storage units seems to be in never-ending supply. People rich and poor, living
in cities and the middle of nowhere, seem to be uncovering unknown works of art
by revered artists and finding a fortune in the process. The fun continued this
week when a mystery
portrait donated to a British heritage charity as part of a mixed lot of
paintings was identified as a work by Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn and
valued at more than $30 million. The painting, dated 1635, shows the artist at
the age of 29, clad in a black velvet cape and hat decorated with outsized
ostrich feathers. It was donated to the National Trust in 2010, along with four
other works. Originally, it was believed to have been painted by one of
Rembrandt's pupils, but new tests and detailed research by leading Rembrandt
scholar Ernst van de Wetering suggest that it was more likely painted by van
Rijn’s own hands. "Over the years, it has gone back and forward," said
David Taylor, the National Trust's curator of paintings and sculpture.
"Decades ago it was thought to be a Rembrandt, and then the experts said
no, that it was by someone in his studio instead." The painting was last
examined in 1968 and obviously, tests for authenticating art have advanced
significantly since then. Increased knowledge about Rembrandt's self-portraits
and the fluctuations in his style, along with X-ray analysis, helped change
perceptions about the painting in question. The estate of Edna, Lady Samuel of
Wych Cross, donated the painting to the trust. Edna’s late husband Harold, Lord
Samuel of Wych Cross, was an avid art collector and philanthropist. "It
was part of a very generous gift, of five top-notch paintings," Taylor
explained. Ironically, the portrait was the only work included in the donation
that was not put on display at Buckland Abbey, in Devon, southwest England,
immediately. Instead, it was stashed away in a storage room until the trust
knew more about it. Now that it has been authenticated, the portrait is the
only Rembrandt in the National Trust's collection of 13,500 paintings and it will
remain on display at Buckland Abbey until the end of the tourist season before
being taken down and subjected to more tests to help confirm its identity………
- Look at the Atlantic
Coast Conference, getting all indignant and whiny with it. Known as one of
college basketball’s best conferences on an annual basis, the ACC is a bit down
this season and beyond its two top teams, Miami and Duke, there isn’t as much
quality depth in the league as normal. That lack of depth was evident when the
NCAA Tournament bracket was unveiled Sunday evening and the ACC received just
four bids. No sooner than the brackets were released, ACC coaches began whining
about the low number of teams from the league who made the tournament. Words such
as disappointed, fair, respect and perception are being tossed around and the
fact that regular season and ACC tournament champion Miami did not receive a
No. 1 seed is also a point of contention. The Hurricanes are the first team to
win the ACC regular-season crown outright and the tournament championship but
fail to get a No. 1 seed. Both UM and Duke are No. 2 seeds, while North
Carolina and NC State ended up as No. 8 seeds. Virginia and Maryland were both
considered bubble teams, but did not make the field and instead had to settle
for NIT bids. UNC coach Roy Williams called Sunday night’s selection show "a
confusing show, and I'm still confused." Maybe the ACC should be getting
used to its shrinking number of bids, as it is the second time in three years
that the league only has four NCAA Tournament teams and the fourth time in the
eight seasons since the league's expansion to 12 teams in 2006. "It's a
really good conference, and I was just hoping it would garner a little more
respect than that," Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. It is a good
conference, but Bennett’s team is a cut above mediocre and for an at-large
berth, that isn’t enough. North Carolina can’t complain much either because the
Tar Heels enter the tournament with 10 losses and garnering an eighth seed
feels just about right for them – even if their coach doesn’t agree. "I
don't mind telling you I was stunned," Williams said. "I saw North
Carolina and the No. 8 -- I was stunned. And so then it took me a couple
seconds, 'Hey, that's us. It's not somebody else. That's us.'" Maryland
coach Mark Turgeon had a more realistic perception of what happened, even if he
wasn’t happy about his team having its bubble burst. "The perception of
our league just wasn't great," Turgeon said. "Our league was much
better than last year. ... [The ACC] had some bad losses early, and it just
stuck with us.” Maybe next year, ACC…….
- Why anyone ever tried to characterize British folk/indie
band Mumford and Sons as rock and roll clearly had never actually heard a
single song from either of their two albums. While they’re widely respected and
successful, characterizing Marcus Mumford and his mates as rock stars is the
broadest possible use of the term. The band's banjo player Winston Marshall – and any
band with a banjo player can NEVER be characterized as rock and roll – admitted
as much in a recent interview, saying Mumford and Sons are "rock 'n' roll"
and don’t fit the normal stereotype of a rock band. "We’re not, like, hard
men. We're emotional. We're not rock 'n' roll,” Marshall explained. “If AC/DC
apologized, that'd be the end of their career. But someone doesn’t say hello to
us and we're like, 'I cannot believe the gall!'" Life has been very good
for the quartet, which recently unveiled the video for their track
“Whispers In The Dark” and picked up a Grammy Award for Album Of The Year. Not
only that, Marcus Mumford has
been working with former man-bander Justin Timberlake on the soundtrack of the
new Coen Brothers movie, “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The pairing was a
fitting one – not musically, mind you – because the film stars Timberlake and
Mumford's wife, Carey Mulligan. It
tells the tale of a fictional musician trying to make it in 1960s New
York. "I did work with Marcus Mumford on the soundtrack… Marcus and
myself, we all kind of worked on the music together and I don't know any other
world where we would have the opportunity to collaborate like that but it was
so much fun," Timberlake said. Whether they’re rock and roll or just a
bunch of folk rock hipsters with two great albums to their credit, life is
still good………
- Shed a tear for polar bears, world. Long the poster
children (or poster furry killing machines) for the effects of climate change,
these white-furred animals now have another reason for receiving loads of
sympathy from nature lovers. Dr. Seth Cherry of the University of Alberta and a
team of researchers have discovered that polar bears are shifting their migration patterns because of changes in sea ice.
With glaciers and polar ice caps melting and the flow of ice changing, the
bears are arriving on land earlier and departing later, which is threatening
their access to food. The researchers studied the migration patterns of polar
bears Hudson Bay, Canada, using satellite-tracking data collected between
1991-97 and 2004-09. Using that data, they discovered that the rate at
which sea ice melts and re-freezes, as well as how the ice is distributed
around the bay, predicted when the bears migrated to or from land. Polar bears
typically hunt for their main mealtime staple, seals, while on sea ice.
However, with shifting sea ice and more time spent on land as a result, they are
sometimes forced to go longer between means and rely on their fat reserves to
sustain themselves. “Climate-induced changes that cause sea ice to melt
earlier, form later, or both, likely affect the overall health of polar bears
in the area," Cherry said. For the study, Cherry and his colleagues fitted
109 female polar bears with tracking collars (which would not fit on male polar
bears because their necks are wider than their heads) after impressively
locating them from a helicopter, tranquilizing them after getting close enough
and slapping the GPS transmitter-equipped collars on them once they were immobilized.
Blood samples and fat biopsies provided information about the bears' diet and
nutrition and the collars broadcast their whereabouts. Those whereabouts were
on land much more than the research team expected……..
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