#airbnb cleaning austin

[hozierandco]

Callum Turner x Reader - The match-maker (Pt. 2)

AN: Second part to a fic I published yesterday in which Callum Turner and Reader meet through Austin Butler, a friend they have in common. Requested.

If you have any requests, feel free to send them to me xx

TW: none. Kinda fluffy, no smut.

If you're interested in pt. 3, lmk. Ok, byeee

Arriving in New York was a surreal experience for Y/N and she was glad to be met by Austin and Kaia. The two of them looked like lovebirds and it would have made Y/N sick with sentimentality if it had been anyone else than them. She was longing for a healthy and stable relationship and was only glad her best friend had found the one.

Y/N knew she had one shot of making things right and that she was not allowed any mistake during the Gala. Not only for her career but also for her friend’s reputation if she failed him. Austin knew that Y/N was capable of great things and only had to trust herself. If anything, the Gala was her baptism by fire and a great way to give his friend the confidence she had lost in herself.

Plus, he knew that she was about to meet Callum and was beyond thrilled to see them together. He was certain it would be a match. 

“Alright, I need to prepare myself for the big day tomorrow”, Y/N declared after having spent most of the day in the city with Austin and Kaia. Together, they had been to the Guggenheim, Central Park and the Brooklyn Museum. It had been an exhausting but satisfying day and Y/N was now more ready than ever to craft her portfolio.

She woke up the next day wishing she could have slept longer but since it was Met Gala day, lots of things were to be done before the evening would arrive. Thank God, Austin had thought everything through to make her the most comfortable possible and had secured a spot for her in the first rows of the red carpet. She could then afford to arrive later at the Metropolitan Museum.

She fixed her many cameras, making sure she had battery and film rolls tidied up nice and clean in her bag when Austin texted her. 

Her phone showed her what the guy she had saved as Orange County Boy in her contacts had to say: 

7:21 am - “Ready 4 tonite?”

Him too had woken up early to get ready.

7:21 am - “Readier than everrrr. What about you two?”

7:24 am - “You bet we r! Kaia and I r having a party afterwards. You should come”

By sending that, Austin prayed everything he could pray on that she would accept as Callum had already let him know that he would join in.

7:32 am - “Yeah, sounds good. If I’m not dead with exhaustion or fangirling by then”

7:34 am - “Haha, even half-dead, you better get there!”

Once she had everything she needed sorted out, Y/N exited her Airbnb on the 11th Street to get some breakfast. In a few hours time, she was going to see all the celebrities she had dreamt of seeing. There would be Anna Wintour of course but she was mostly daydreaming of taking pictures of Jessica Chastain, Blake Lively and Alicia Keys. The fact that she would be first row was a golden opportunity.

By 2 pm, Y/N headed to the Metropolitan Museum and found her spot. She was escorted by people who were talking and acting as though she was the new Annie Leibovitz. Was it her Givenchy dress that she had borrowed from Kaia or her self-assured walk that gave the impression that she was famous? She could not have said but it sure felt good.

And then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye (though that was a couple hours in fact), the first people grazed the carpet. People from Vogue at first, and then a handful of random models before the A-list made their way. 

Y/N noticed Vanessa Hudgens that she had known very well a few years back but had grown distant since. Vanessa reached out for her and greeted her amicably as she recognised her in the cloud of photographers which made a huge impression amongst Y/N’s peers.

When Austin and Kaia entered the scene, Y/N was beyond excited and could not stop taking pictures of them. The night followed that way and soon enough, all of her cameras were full. The batteries could not take any more picture which coincided with the end of the night.

The photographers were asked to leave and Y/N thought of getting a drink somewhere with some other photographers she had met while waiting for Austin and Kaia’s party to begin.

“Girl, you were on fire tonight!”, a 30-ish year-old woman told her as the photographers started debriefing about the evening and voting for the best-dressed celebrity.

“Yeah, who are you even working for?”, another guy around 25 asked.

“Uh, well, no one in fact. I’m trying to make my way up”

“And you got into the Met Gala? Damn, that’s impressive”

Y/N had made her promise to herself never to mention her friendship with Austin as a safety net towards her friend and because she did not wish to be known as the “friend of”. So she decided not to reply. 

It was fun to be surrounded by peers who had so many anecdotes to tell about working in the industry. Y/N surprised herself laughing along with them and she made up her mind that Blake Lively was the best-dressed when she noticed it was 11:18 pm which meant the party had started about 20 minutes ago at Loeb Boathouse, a restaurant in Central Park that Austin and Kaia had privatised. 

Y/N called it quits on the photographers and walked her way to the restaurant. She instantly regretted choosing the Givenchy dress Kaia suggested for her. Straight from the Spring collection of 2018, it was a long black dress with a wide collar and a bow in the back. It was absolutely magnificent but not the most practical thing to be wearing, especially at night and in a gigantic park.

She arrived by 11:30 at the party, much to Austin’s relief that was wearing a tuxedo and a large grin on his face, far too happy to be hosting both a party and a surprise for his best friend. She greeted him and his girl for the second time of the evening and was shown to a table where food had just been served.

Coming back from the bar, Callum was trying to find an available seat when Austin reached out for him and indicated where he could sit. Right next to Y/N. He noticed a beautiful woman he thought he had seen somewhere before. He had to know more about her. 

She was looking like a Celtic goddess, he thought with her hair descending and shimmering as the light crashed on it. With her classy black dress, he could only presume she was a celebrity too and he then tried to force his memory to remember a name, to no avail. The woman seated next to her was so splendid in fact that, though he was craving to talk to her, he felt himself blushing like a schoolboy. Being an actor and not knowing your pick-up line, you could not make it up! 

Y/N made space for the man sitting next to her, recognising him in the blink of an eye to be Austin’s friend and colleague he had talked so much about. Though she never truly listened to Austin’s attempts to set the two up together, she was much obliged to admit that he might have been right to even try match-making.

Callum Turner was indeed a very elegant man besides being good-looking. His aquamarine eyes had something of a malicious air which made her imagine him to be a kind soul and considering he had become a good friend to Austin, he must have been this kind-hearted being. She felt immediately some comfort in his company, which she had not felt in ages while surrounded by men. 

She did not feel intimidated by his 6’1 stature nor his assured walk as they were balanced by a gentle and wide smile on his face. She dared starting a conversation as she could catch a glimpse of him eyeing her.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. You must be Callum, right?”

“Hi, that’s right! So nice to meet you. You were in a film, weren’t you?” 

Y/N chuckled at the idea of being an actress and even more so of giving the impression of being one. “Oh no, I would be a terrible actress. I’m a photographer and also a childhood friend to Austin”

Callum laughed along at the confusion “Gosh, I’m sorry. It’s just the dress and you look, well, drop dead gorgeous” And the blush appeared back on his cheeks and was soon followed by the same tint on Y/N’s. After having said that, he realised who she was and why she was so familiar. Austin had talked about her earlier and had even shown some pictures of them at prom and other moments of their early adulthood.

She was even more of a beauty than what the photographs made it to be, he thought.

“You’re not bad-looking yourself”, Y/N commented after a few seconds.

From afar, Austin looked at the two introducing themselves, knowing the deal was closed.

“So, tell me, what drove you to photography?”, Callum inquired while not being able to take his eyes off Y/N. 

“I guess I’ve always wanted to show another version of nature and people than what could be seen in magazines. Having someone pose for you or waiting for a certain light to come up in a forest does not interest me. I want to capture what makes a person different from another or why a certain setting is going to move you or not. Well, tonight was a little different than usual but it was fun somehow”

“You took pictures tonight? What photographs did you -”, Callum stopped mid-sentence, connecting the dots between the after-party he was a part of and Y/N’s activity and had to ask as Y/N seemed to nod at him “No way! You were on the red carpet?”

Y/N nodded once more, still not down from the experience she had gone through that evening. 

“Wow, that’s amazing! Congrats on that! How was the whole thing?”

“Exhausting”, Y/N admitted, which Callum could only relate to. Himself was not the biggest fan of red carpets, nor after-parties. But at this instant, he did not regret attending Austin and Kaia’s get-together and laughed along with her. How long had it been since he had not laughed and had genuine fun with a woman?

“But I guess you’ve got plenty of things to say about red carpets for yourself”, Y/N hinted. She loved his London accent which was music to her ears and her laugh was the purest thing she had heard in a while. 

“Tell me about it! I’m a real mess when it comes to those. There was this one time I nearly tripped on Judi Dench at the Bafta ceremony. I was running late which is something I’m really good at. So I’m running for my life to get on that carpet, right. Well, I saw the cameras and all but I did not see Dame Judi Dench and I just lowkey rushed into her as she was getting in the theatre”

“Stop, you mean you had a pile-up with M from the James Bond films? How did she even react?”

“She was the nicest about it. Mind you, I was 24. It was one of my very first award shows. I think she just noticed just how silly I had been to even try running on a carpet. I was unable to stop apologising to her but she was an angel”

After having discussed for over 30 minutes, interrupted here and there by the dishes served, the guests were taken to another room without tables and with enough space to dance the night away.

A playlist made of Taylor Swift, Marina and KC and the Sunshine band started blasting in the room, soon enough filling it with dancing actors and singers. Callum suggested Y/N and he could enjoy the tunes too. He took her hand and the two of them got to dancing. 

With the light emanating from the stroboscopes, Y/N was a shooting star. Her black dress twirled so nicely as she moved her body to the rhythm given. Callum could not stop looking at her while dancing along. 

Callum had this look of having done that all his life. He moved so lightly on the floor, with a composed pace and glistening eyes. 

“You look amazing when you dance”, Y/N whispered in Callum’s ear as the song ended, morphing into a new song.

“And you look amazing overall”, Callum replied. “You’re so beautiful I think I could kiss you right now”

Of course, it was mostly the alcohol speaking as Callum said that and he instantly regretted having said that outloud. As he was wishing she had not heard what he had just said, he felt a warmth on his lips. The warmth was a soft kiss placed with all the tenderness in the world.

After the shared kiss, the two of them went back to their dancing but this time, they got closer. Y/N’s sensual moves rushed Callum to grasp her waist and joining in, echoing her moves with his hands on her wiggling body. With the soft fabric of her dress under his hands, Callum felt like kissing her once more and in her ears said “I really want to kiss you right now, would that be okay?”

“Callum, we’ve just made out in front of everyone. Of course, I’m okay with that”

More kisses added up to the list and the song ended once more. “Let’s go somewhere more quiet”, Y/N suggested and the two of them got back to the first room where they had met. 

In that room, Callum was all hands on Y/N, not being able to resist the tension anymore. “Would you like to see the pictures I took back to my place?”, Y/N questioned, feeling like the end of the night could well go somewhere unplanned but nice.

#callum turner x reader #callum turner #fluff #fanfic #austin butler as side character #met gala 2022 #parallel universe #fiction

[mbrainspaz]

Dreamt I owned some kind of Airbnb lodge outside Austin so I drove out there for a little vacay and to do some maintenance. It was so cute and basically set up like a hostel, with a big open kitchen & sitting room at the front and bunk beds in the back. Two or three people were staying there and they were happy to meet my dogs. We cleaned up the kitchen together and then I noticed that my uncle had hired a contractor to fix the front wall. They’d made it into a 20ft art installation with layered colors of tile like a sunrise or water ripples. There were also a bunch of plaques with like ‘Faith and Love’ and other domestic bs on it so I thought, ‘well once we get those off of there it’ll be really nice!’ Then I went to the movies with my brother but they wouldn’t tell us when the movie started so I joined an illegal go kart racing squad doing races in the theater hallways. I was pretty good at it and won the respect of all the kids.

#dreams #journal of a dream mercenary #very mild stuff #there was a scary part at the end but I’m erasing that thanks

[sparklymaidaustin]

[roomsnearrajagirihospitalalwaye]

How to Make Money With a Short-Term Rental

If you are planning to invest in a short-term rental, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Firstly, you should know the real estate market in your area. You should be aware of the trends and the local laws. Then, make sure you have a plan for marketing and promotion. This is a crucial step if you want to make money with your short-term rental. A good marketing strategy includes crisp images, video, detailed descriptions and effective communication with guests. It should also include information about local landmarks and amenities.

Another thing you should keep in mind is the zoning laws. You should get a short-term rental permit if you want to rent your property to tenants. If your property is not zoned for this type of rental, you will have a hard time renting out your property. Moreover, disgruntled neighbors can file complaints against you, which can lead to a cease and desist notice from the zoning department.

The number of short-term rental listings is increasing year after year, and communities need to take steps to regulate and protect them. In many cases, short-term rental owners and operators are unaware of community preservation and compliance issues. This is why our software enables open communication and compliance between short-term rental operators and local governments, leading to higher compliance rates.

Besides being more affordable, short-term rentals also come with a few advantages. Apartment near Airbnb ernakulam are usually maintained by professionals, which means they receive regular cleanings and repairs. Moreover, short-term rentals often enjoy greater demand during the warmer months of the year. So, if you're looking to earn extra money through short-term rentals, consider promoting your property on short-term rental websites. They are free to list and require good visuals and a thorough description.

The first thing you should do before listing your property on Airbnb is to obtain a short-term rental license. The city of Austin requires short-term rental licenses for businesses that rent apartments, houses, and duplexes. The license is only good for twelve months, and after that, you need to renew it through your Seattle Services Portal account. If you're not sure if you're eligible for this license, check with your city government to learn more about it.

While short-term rentals are an easy way to earn extra income, they also have their disadvantages. The turnover rate is very high, and they require a lot of upkeep. As a result, the process of running a short-term rental can be time consuming and difficult. You will need to deal with guests and respond to dozens of messages every day. You'll also need to keep the linens clean and respond to complaints. Continue reading here to learn more about the rooms near rajagiri hospital Alwaye.

Guests who stay in short-term rentals are usually looking for a unique experience. This means that they don't want to spend months in a home. Short-term rentals give them that home-away-from-home feeling.

Check out this post that has expounded on the topic: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment.

[magichelpers]

Importance of Cleaning During CoronavirusOutbreak

One discussion that is common in the world is how to protect oneself from coronavirus. The global outbreak has been taking thousands of lives. The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the disease and spread it in almost the entire world. The main mode of the transmission of the virus is through respiratory droplets. Coming in contact with an infected person can create problems and exponentially increase them. 

One of the measures we can take is keeping our surroundings clean and disinfected. The central governments of the countries with the rise in the virus-infected people are giving recommendations to follow. Cleaning and disinfection of households will limit the survival of the virus in the atmosphere. 

 Why You Should Keep Your Surroundings Clean?

Cleaning is important for everyone, especially for tourists. It is one of the most prominent ways of virus spreading. The hotels they are staying in, the transportation they are using have to be properly clean. The hotels should take extra cleaning measures, hiring Airbnb cleaning services in Austin, China, Japan, Thailand, etc., majorly concerned cities. Removal of germs, impurities, and dirt and disinfecting by using chemicals, will help in reducing the number of new cases. The bed sheets, towels, pillow covers should be cleaned after every use. The rooms should be sprayed with proper disinfectants. If you see anyone coughing even slightly, trying to maintain distance (at least 6 feet) would be beneficial. 

Covering mouth and nose with good quality masks would prevent the virus from entering into the body. The particle size of the virus is large. So, wearing any type of mask would help. Ask your cleaning workers to wear those masks while performing Airbnb cleaning in Austin, China, Thailand or any other country. 

 Other Measures For Hotels

Apart from the above-stated points, the community members of the hotels and resorts can practice routine cleaning services. If needed, there are many cost-effective and quality cleaning service providers in Austin and other cities. Taking help from those would save a lot of time and ensure germ-free rooms. 

Wearing disposable gloves after every cleaning should be kept in mind. For one-step ahead, Airbnb cleaning in Austin, use diluted household bleach solutions and alcohol solutions and most common EPA-registered household disinfectants can be used. 

No matter whosoever the person is, make sure you take all these suggestions and recommendations in mind. Hiring cleaning service providers would be the extra mile during the times of the global outbreak.

#airbnb cleaning Austin #CoronavirusOutbreak #coronavirus #CoronavirusUSA

[thetiredstuff]

A list of ways to help Texas

This is a list of ways to help Texas provided by TexasMonthly:

Financially:

Mutual Aid Houston, DFW Mutual Aid, Austin Mutual Aid, Para Mi Gente, Feed the People DTX, Trinity Mutual Aid, and many more across the state. These are grassroots organizations and one of the best ways to help people in Texas. They provide food, housing, and other support systems to those in need.

In Need of Home Repairs:

Houston nonprofit West Street Recovery is working to clean out flooded homes and make other repairs.

In Austin, Meals on Wheels has a home repair program for seniors, veterans, and those living with disabilities.

The locak Habitat for Humanity chapter could have a repair program as well such as this one in Austin.

Displaced and Homeless:

Austin, sign up to volunteer at cold-weather shelters,

If you have a 4x4/off-road vehicle sign up to transport emergency workers, goods, supplies etc.

AirBnB's "Open Homes program: open your house to those in need of housing.

San Marcos, Home Center is working to get unhoused people into motels in the area. 

Houston, The Coalition for the Homeless, based in Houston, also has a resource guide listing organizations helping those experiencing homelessness, including agencies accepting donations of coats, blankets, and other winter gear.

Map of warming centers in the state of Texas: For additional assistance and resources call 2-1-1

The Hungry:

Feeding Texas: donate to a network of food banks across the state

Rio Grande Valley Food Bank: donate (haven't met their goal of 100,000 dollars yet) or donate most-needed food items

North Texas Food Bank reopened Thursday, February 18, at noon, and volunteers are needed for the Pandemic Mobile Pantry beginning Saturday, February 20. 

Funky Town Fridge, which provides food to Fort Worth neighborhoods, is also accepting donations. 

Children and the Elderly:

Houston area, Kids' Meal Inc.: donate or sign up to volunteer, an organization that provides meals to hungry kids year-round. 

Austin, the SAFE Alliance: in need of funds and much-needed supplies such as drinking water, nonperishable food, and wipes. Pipes burst in two of the cottages for the children’s shelter.

CrowdSource Rescue is working to assist senior citizens and could use volunteers and donations.

The Incarcerated:

Huffpost has reported those incarcerated are freezing through the winter storm, as many have been stuck in facilities with no electricity, decent food, or safe drinking water.

Texas Jail Project: a nonprofit organization raising funds for commissary and phone accounts of incarcerated people.

The Texas Inmate Families Association, which supports the relatives of those behind bars, could also use your help.

Animals:

Sea Turtle Inc.: the South Padre Island nonprofit rescued 4,000 hypothermic turtles this week & could use your donation.

Go to your local shelter’s Facebook page to see which items it needs, or make a donation online.

Smaller organizations may be in particular need, such as Texas Panhandle Pet Savers and Pets Needing Parents Rescue in West Texas.

Yourself:

If and when financial assistance is provided, you'll see it here: federal government FEMA. 

You can request aid from many of the mutual aid organizations listed above, as well as from organizations such as the Texas NAACP.

Beyoncé’s charity organization, Beygood, has partnered with Adidas to help anyone affected by the winter storms, in or outside of Texas, through the Bread of Life Inc. Disaster Relief Assistance fund.

If you’re looking for places to get food and water, HEB has a list of store hours and temporary closures, including Central Market locations.

You can also search through a crowdsourced list of resources by twitter user @dox_gay. WhenWhereWhatAustin is keeping an updated spreadsheet of resources in the Austin area, including where people can get hot meals, water, and groceries.

#texas #texas aid #texas winter storm #signal boost

[pandemicperipatetics]

Texas Cities: Austin

We spent 1 week in Austin, working from home at an Airbnb with 2 desks(!) in North Austin near a yuppie food/shopping area called The Domain. Most of our exploring was limited to a Friday that we took off work, and we were grateful to have our car to explore different parts of the city. Austin seems like a good place to live, and a fun place to visit anytime besides the extremely hot summer, when we were here. Below are our recommendations!

Veggie Food

Tex Mex We really liked all of these places, but there are plenty of other options in Austin as well!

The Vegan Yacht (south of downtown): Has an especially delicious tempeh burrito called the “freeto” ($9) with fritos! They are a bit salty but add a great crunch. It’s combined with a vegan store that had a really fun selection of vegan items that aren’t always found in grocery stores. Parking: free.

Velvet Taco (multiple locations): We love their korean taco (with tofu) and the cauliflower taco (surprisingly tasty). We tried their other 3 vegetarian tacos and didn’t love them. They have meat options as well. This is a chain that we also enjoyed in Houston. Both locations we visited had outdoor seating and had somewhat of a Chipotle vibe (in a good way). Parking: Varies. It was free and easily available at both locations we tried.

Torchy’s (multiple locations): We really enjoyed their migas taco ($3) for breakfast, friendly service, and outdoor seating. If Velvet Taco : Chipotle then Torchy’s : Taco Bell. We would eat here again. Parking: Free and plentiful at the location we visited south of the river.

Other

1886 Cafe & Bakery (Sixth St): This has turned into much more of a tourist attraction than it was when I was in Austin for SXSW 2012; it is listed as a top 10 Austin attraction on several lists online. While it used to have a slightly upscale vibe and involved full table service, now you line up to order at the counter, it’s more crowded, and the cafe feels slightly dirty. However, the Texas-shaped waffle with pecans, fruit, & whipped cream ($14) is still as delicious as I remembered, and eating in the lobby of the Driskill Hotel is pretty nice. Parking: Difficult. We lucked out and found street parking about a 5-minute walk away. You can pay for street parking using the ATX app or a payment kiosk.

The Driskill Lobby - you can eat your food from 1886 Cafe here.

Flower Child��(The Domain): This is a great little vegan chain with True Food Kitchen vibes. We tried it in Dallas and really liked the Glow Bowl and a thai wrap. Parking: The Domain has free parking garages with plenty of space.

Pro Tip: Maybe avoid Indian food in Austin. We heard this from a friend, and tried a pretty highly rated South Indian restaurant in North Austin that was very mediocre.

To Do (Stuff We Liked)

Zilker Park Botanical Garden ($8 non-Austin residents, free with American Horticultural Society membership): This is a very pretty place to visit and walk around. In particular, the Japanese Garden has some stunning ponds and the Prehistoric Garden has a very nice waterfall. It opens at 9am - if you’re here in the summer, go as early as possible to beat the heat! The walking path throughout the garden is somewhat shaded but it is still very hot. And wear comfortable shoes - it can be a bit wet and muddy so sandals are not ideal. Parking: Free and plentiful.

Texas State Capitol (free): We really enjoyed our visit. The building is beautiful and allows visitors to roam freely through the lobby and halls. There are free informational tours every ~30 mins, or you can take a self-guided tour using your mobile phone (you call a phone number and enter a code for each item you want to hear about). We enjoyed visiting the Senate and House chambers - there are even staff there to answer questions. It’s also neat to see the portraits of Texas governors lining the rotunda walls on every floor. The air conditioning makes this a great break from the summer heat, and the restrooms were very clean. 

Parking: You can park at the Capitol Parking Garage for free for up to 2 hours, and rates after that are quite cheap. It’s also just a ~10 min walk from there to Sixth Street, so it could make sense to leave your car here rather than trying to find street parking or paying $30+ to use a downtown parking garage.

St. Elmo Brewing Company (or other breweries): There are lots of breweries in and around Austin! We happened to visit this one and thought the outdoor, shaded picnic table seating was very nice. Half pints were reasonably priced at $3.50-$5 and we really liked the “Since, Like, Forever” (a double IPA). There is also a food truck in the beer garden - we didn’t eat, but it was nice to have as an option. Indoor seating is also good if you need to cool off. Parking: Free and plentiful.

Walnut Creek Metro Park (North Austin): We somewhat randomly visited here on a Thursday evening for a scenic walk. The trail we walked was very pretty and right by a stream. This seems like a great place to visit if you live in Austin. Parking: Free and plentiful.

Sixth Street (downtown Austin): If you’re staying downtown + aren’t as much of a grandma as I am, I can attest from my college days that this can be a fun place to bar hop in the evening and listen to live music. There is also a Velvet Taco on Sixth Street, which is an automatic win.

To Stay:

Our Airbnb was in North Austin, right on the North Star Greenbelt (which was very pleasant for evening walks). The neighborhood was a bit run down and the house seemed very old and run down, so while we didn’t feel unsafe, we don’t necessarily recommend this area. 

Downtown Austin is probably a fun place to stay, but parking is very expensive. We looked at a handful of Marriott Hotels, all of which charged $50 per night for parking. Given this, we were happy to stay away from downtown; the 20-minute drive wasn’t a problem.

#austin #velvettaco #zilkerpark #1886cafe #torchystacos #theveganyacht

[eyesopen2019]

Panda’s, Panda’s and lots and lots of people

On 27th September, a few days before Golden Week, we boarded a train and headed the 1500kms south to Chengdu.  This time we had left plenty of time to be at the station early so it was a much more relaxed boarding of the train.  We found our seats and settled in for the long ride. Besides a limited food selection, no beer and the people playing games and watching TV without headphones the 10 hour ride was fine.  By the end we were all ready to get off, especially Kai, and stretch our legs.  We got a metro and then walked the short distance to our apartment, before Leon and Lani both had a meltdown, at least they waited until we got home!  Both tired and hungry, they’d had enough so Hung went and got some soup for them for dinner, and then they went to bed and were asleep in 2 minutes.  I was a bit disappointed with our Airbnb as we had spent a bit more money in the hope of a nicer place.  But the apartment was nowhere new as nice as it’s photos, although it was a good size with a living room and small balcony.  The kitchen was dirty with very limited cooking and crockery supplies without even a dishcloth and soap.  After a good night sleep and Hung spending an hour cleaning it up, it wasn’t so bad and I was pleased for the extra space for us.  

Kai is really missing home and craving his usual foods, so on our first day in Chengdu we found a western style café (Origins coffee company) and he had a lovely breakfast of bacon and egg roll and a milkshake which he really enjoyed.  At the café we spent some time chatting to the American owner and getting some tips on places to go and things to see in the city.  Another night we went for dinner to Burger Austine and had a burger and fries which were just okay.  They were conveniently served with a pair of plastic gloves so you didn’t get your hands dirty!

Hung and Leon spent a day out, walking around the different parks, having tea and the famous Dan Dan noodles, getting Leon’s ear cleaned in the park and playing soccer.  They’d both had a great day together with Leon’s highlight being his ear cleaning with multiple long metal instruments and small brushes.  Lani and I had a girls day out having coffee, people watching and checking out the shops.

I am having a shoe failure with my expensive sandals bought in Australia finally breaking down on me after months of daily wear and walking many kilometres each day.  The leather straps are tearing, the Velcro failing and the soles cracked through and have been repaired already three times.  This may not sound like a big deal but when your foot is size 41 it is very difficult to buy shoes in an Asian country.  Lani and I visited a local sports outlet and bought the only sandals in my size, which happened to be bright red, so the kids all hate them and they are definitely not as comfortable as my other pair but at least they are intact.  

Chengdu is famous for being the home of China’s magnificent giant Pandas due to the famous breeding centre just outside the city.  It was the main reason we’d come to this city as I felt we had to see the panadas while in China.  A few kilometres out of town is the ‘Giant Panda Breeding Research Base’ which is a 165 acre park with 113 pandas of all ages where the focus is on research and breeding.  We arrived at 7am for opening at 7.30 and there were already many people lined up. We got through the gate easily and followed an expat family who had obviously been there many times before and followed their path around the park which was in reverse order to everyone else. It was fantastic because we got unobstructed views of many pandas of all ages feeding, playing and sleeping.  They are most active in the morning when they get fed and then sleep most of the rest of the day.  The park is well designed so you feel like you get very close to the pandas but they are in well designed open enclosures which appear very natural and can see them really well.  They look like gigantic cuddly teddy bears, especially when they are sleeping in the trees.  By the time we left in the early afternoon the park was very crowded and the views poor with most pandas sleeping so we were pleased we’d made the effort to get there early.  It was an early start, but we all enjoyed the day, and even Kai loved seeing the pandas. Lani of course came away with some panda souvenirs including a panda bag (not made out of panda!).

Golden Week started while we were in Chengdu and we spent the first day (Oct 1st) at home watching some of the parade telecast from Beijing on TV.  It was an awesome display of communist power and propaganda.  There were thousands of people involved in the hours of parade and they executed their songs, marches and dances with magnificent precision all while seemingly to be having a great time.  The rehearsed crowd never stopped smiling or waving their Chinese flags while the crowd of communist leaders looking on never once cracked a smile and just waving stiffly.  It really is an awesome spectacle to see.  The parade went on into the night with it repeating several times over the next few days.  By the end of a day of government propaganda Hung felt China was a magnificent country which had achieved a lot and he somewhat wished he was Chinese.  Not quite, but we see how propaganda works……..

Together we explored the three alleys which are three parallel snack streets.  They were extremely crowded with the leadup to Golden Week, and we struggled to move through the streets with the crowds.  We all, but Hung especially, found this very unpleasant and found the sheer number of people on the streets very overwhelming and exhausting.  Luckily there were a number of parks and a small river opposite our apartment complex which he could escape into whenever he needed some space.  We also wandered through Jinlin Street which is another famous snack street.  The first time was with just Lani and a few days before the holiday and it was interesting to explore the stalls and try lots of different foods and watch people enjoying themselves.  Leon wanted to visit as there was a magic stall we’d seen, but we unfortunately we visited with him during the holiday and we weren’t able to see any of the stalls due to the sea of people which just carried up from one end to the other and made it almost impossible to move out of the group and stop on the side.  Initially it was kind of funny to be amongst so many people but then it got really stuffy, and then a bit scary in case we lost the kids or there was panic of any sort. Hung especially didn’t like it, and didn’t want to be Chinese anymore.

We had a few rest days in Chengdu where we managed to catchup on some homework and do some planning for the rest of our time in China. We’d been considering doing the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike in Shangri-La county but were concerned whether it was safe enough for the kids.  We spent time reading lots of blogs including some by others who’d taken kids and still we couldn’t decide.  Eventually we thought we’d wait until we got to Lijiang and could hopefully talk to some local people and then decide.  As it turns out this was not very helpful as very few Chinese people do the hike as they generally don’t like hiking – or so we were told by several people.

[josiejourney]

September 30, 2018

Aww, we leave today. We had to check out of the Airbnb by 10am so we woke up early to clean and get things ready for our host. We had such a nice stay at this place -- nothing fancy by any means (and 100 steps to the door), but it was quiet, bright, and a perfect location. I had another cappuccino to get me going...it’s really the best way to start the day. We took a 10:30am train to La Spezia, which is the second largest city in Liguria (after Genova of course). It’s definitely more of a real city than a vacation place, but it’s around a 10 minute train ride from the Cinque Terre, so people tend to stay there if they can’t find space in the 5 towns. It was really neat to walk around; like I said in an earlier post, I know that my great-grandfather’s family was from here, so it’s a special experience to actually be walking around in the same places he might’ve been.  I drank more coffee (a caffè macchiato this time), we met up with our friends who were staying in La Spezia, and the 8 of us took a boat to Portovenere. HOLY CRAP I’m so happy we did that. I knew that I’d wanted to get on a boat if possible, but all the ones in Cinque Terre are wildly overpriced and tend to be very small and make me feel unsafe. From La Spezia to Portovenere, though, there’s a ferry boat that’s 12 euros round trip...PERFECT. We sat on the top of the boat -- the weather was actually very nice, so it wasn’t too cold even with the wind blowing.  Portovenere is gorgeous. There was the most wonderful castle at the top with a church (I’m really starting to realize that Europe is the land of castles and churches), and we ate THE BEST FOCACCIA BREAD. LITERALLY THE BEST. 6 euros for two big pieces wowowowow I wasn’t expecting Portovenere to be so nice. We as a group liked it 2nd best out of all the places we’d visited this weekend, after Riomaggiore. We took a train from La Spezia straight to Florence (I mean it stopped a bunch of times, but we didn’t have to transfer), and made it home for dinner. Austin, my friend who went on the trip, was our designated photographer -- the one’s I’ve been posting have been my own, but he just sent me some amazing ones and I want to share them, so anything that he took I’ll put in the caption. Here’s to school tomorrow...and to a new month! 

[haptureratch]

Okay so I wanted to flip the freak out here over Ari on Saturday because LJKSDDFJKLSDFJKLSDFJKLSFDJKLDFJKLSDFJKLDF okay but I didn’t have internet access at my airbnb. dsfjklfdskjldfjklfdskljsfdjklfdskldsjfsdjklfdsjklfdsdsfklj we spent another night together i took him to the airport in the morning we took selfies and he looked genuinely sad and lost about leaving sdkljdfsjklfdskljsfkljsdf he was trying to figure out the next time he’d be down to galveston sdfljksdfjkldsfjklfdsjklsdfjklsdfjklsjklsfdjkl aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Then I fucking drove to Austin on absolutely no sleep. Met fucking David Tennant. Got a picture and an autograph. I still look up at it all like WAT THA FAHK.

Saw my children Morgan and Joe and Morgan’s dog Atticus (sjklfdsjkldf name sdfjlksdf her english teacher aspirations sjklfds S’CUTE)

So like sjkldsfjklfdskljdsfj I want to lock this evening into stone here. The memories of the weekend lingering on me. The brand new understanding that I passed my GAR midterms. 75 on the NBME and 82.54 on the lab practical. (Y’all I didn’t even think I would pass that shit. I was so scared.) I had my left-over pho from Pho Tai with a hard boiled egg and protein smoothie. I did some adult stuff like cleaning out/condensing my fridge stuff, dishes, laundry, mail sorting, etc. I was talking with Danielle and Pranati. And Ari. My life is full and I am happy. An old FOB song that used to soothe me when I was so hurt and angry plays. The contrast is stark.

#LIT AF #BRUHHHHHHHHHHH #SDLKJDSFKJLSDFKJLDFSJDSF #yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa #reeeeeeeeeeeee

[fategist]

lists, layers, layovers: what to pack and how to pack it

There’s a scene in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery where Austin and his colleague/eventual love interest Vanessa Kensington, are newly arrived in Las Vegas, hot on the trail of Doctor Evil’s number two, Number Two. Posing as a married couple, they check into their suite and begin to unpack. Vanessa opens her suitcase to reveal a tidy assortment of clothes, accessories, and spy gadgetry packed neatly and divided into plastic bags.

Yes, the kind of bags you fill with cookies or vegetable scraps before tossing into the freezer for that vegetable stock you may or may not actually make.

This was in stark contrast to my own method, which was to pack clothes -- some of which might have been clean -- into a decrepit suitcase WITHOUT WHEELS -- and cross myself before hauling ass to the airport.

Yes, Miss Kensington, I am disappointed in past me, too.

But I never forgot about Vanessa and her freezer bags. It was so in character for the organized, utterly prepared Miss Kensington. And also because it’s such a great idea. Everything is easy to see and find, and can be left in their bags until they are needed. You can press the air out of bags to compress the contents, and thus you can fit more stuff into your bag.

It took me a while to adopt this method, because I am a messy beast and a procrastinator. And there was something sort of glamorously messy in running off to the airport, as though I were always on the road, and on the run.

This was a terrible method. I’d leave behind items I wanted to bring, and what stuff I did bring would look terrible, be inappropriate for the occasion, or be not as clean as I’d thought. But what choice did I have?

I guess I could have shopped at my destination but if you’re not wearing straight sizes it might still be a crapshoot depending on where you go. Even if you did find a place that could sell you clothes that fit and, even better, you liked and could afford, that’s still time you’ll have to spend buying clothes when you could be, I don’t know, drinking vinho verde at a bar located on top of a multi-story parking garage in Lisbon.

A few times I tried rolling my clothes, which is supposed to make them less wrinkly and afford you more room in your bag. That only works for skinny people, I am convinced. A pair of XXS yoga pants will roll into something not much bigger than a falafel wrap. My XXL cargo pants from Old Navy will not get any smaller than, say, a steak burrito. And shoving underpants into a pair of Toms doesn’t say packing technique or hack so much as utter desperation when your knickers are typically bigger than a tortilla.

Freezer bags, that’s my number one piece of advice. Treat yourself to the kind that zip, as they are just a few cents more than the kind that don’t. Fold or even roll your clothes up. Insert into bag, compress to get the air out, then zip shut. They’re also handy for packing liquids -- dressing, foundation makeup, and lube which, should they spill, should be pretty well contained.

Make a list of what you intend to bring, and cross each thing off as you pack it away. The internet abounds with packing list generators. I don’t have a specific recommendation, but the ones that ask you where you go and when you are going tend to be decent because they can give you the weather forecast and perhaps even recommend places to eat lunch.

We can have a long discussion about carry-on luggage and maybe one day we will, but for now let me say: whatever you pack make sure it fits in the overhead bin. If it doesn’t, check it like a good girl and vow to do better next time.

But if you’re like me and do only carry-on luggage, do not pack any more than you yourself can carry. If you have mobility or health issues that prevent you from doing so, remember to thank whoever ends up managing your bags for you, at your direction. I’m trying to find a way to express this without sounding like an ableist shithead so weigh in if you had advice on that point.

I think when it comes to figuring out what to wear, I say this: wear whatever you want.* Layers are key, that’s what everybody says, but those layers need to breathe no matter where you are.And check the weather before you go. I didn’t before a nine day trip to England when it always seemed to be on the verge of raining without actually providing the relief of precipitation so I felt like the entirey city of London was sweating upon me, all while wearing jeans with long sleeved cotton t-shirts, and I was miserable. But worse than that I was too stubborn to just go to the Evans in Oxford Street or the Selfridges, also in Oxford Street, and buy myself something.

*The one thing I will do, in following the advice of travel professionals and those travel bloggers who post shit like text posts that say “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” without any kind of irony, is keep my travel wardrobe in the same color family. Pick three colors, neutral or not, and just go for it. When I went to Lisbon in 2016, this is what I packed: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDfeHemRuUk/.

I once spent nine days in Ireland with no trousers/pants except these fancy hiking pants I got at Columbia. I hiked exactly twice during that trip, and the rest of the time I walked around Dublin and Galway and Dingle and Killarney looking, and sounding, like a sentient windsock. I got stuck on the hiking part instead of focusing on the fact that I’d spend most of my time walking around cities, drinking and eating and occasionally sitting before eating and drinking again. I could have used a pair of jeans, a warm sweater, and ankle boots. I solved part of my problem by buying myself a beautiful Irish wool cardigan at the Aran Sweater Market in Killarney. I love that thing.

Last spring I went to England for nine days (what is it with me and nine day trips to the UK?) and did more hiking but instead of bringing proper hiking boots I brought LL Bean boots. They were okay for tromping in mud. Not so much for going up steep hills as I am passed by surly French teenagers wearing Adidas.

I think the moral of the story here is I should give up on hiking as an activity. That, and I need to be more honest with myself about what I can and am willing to do when I got on vacation.

But for, say, three days in New York over Easter weekend? This was my last trip, and I packed:

light coat or jacket

scarf to layer with coat -- make it big enough to use as a blanket on the plane, or shawl for modesty

handbag or purse -- crossbody or GTFO

special outfit or dress -- I went to Le Bernardin with my brother for lunch on my birthday, and I wore this Target x Victoria Beckham collared shift. There were rabbits embroidered on the collar tabs. It was the best.

two shirts -- both were long-sleeved

black Old Navy pixie pants -- no pockets but comfortable, and more elegant than jeans

sneakers -- Converse seems to be the default for everybody ever, and I am not special so of course I have owned many pairs though I am down to one pair at the present -- mine are Comme des Garcons because while I am not special I am for sure quite extra

flip-flops for wearing around your hotel room/AirBNB/friend’s guestroom

black leather ankle boots -- sturdy sole, a heel if you care for one

underthings (bra, underpants, garters, slips, socks, hosiery)

jewelry -- just a few things that you might be able to wear at once or put away in an Altoids tin. I wear a watch, stud earrings, sometimes a silver button or a brass heart from In God We Trust that says “bitch please”.

makeup/toiletries

My next trip is London (yes again shut up I love it) and Venice (baby’s first trip to Italy) in September. I have no idea what I’m going to wear. Maybe a trench coat, Hunter boots, and not much else.

The whole reason I wrote this was because @rosamundt asked me on twitter to write her a post about what to pack for some trips she had coming up. I probably should have done this before today, as she has already embarked on trip number one. Trip number two is still forthcoming, a short trip to a large city for a family celebration. My packing list above should suffice, though she may be able to get away with not packing a jacket. And instead of the black leather ankle boots maybe some sandals with a stiff sole. I know she loves those Saltwater sandals but I don’t think I’d want to wear them on the subway. Just as long as it’s not Yoga Slings -- I think those are kind of gross.

#fategist #travel #packing #what to pack #style

[shirlleycoyle]

Tech ‘Unicorn’ Pacaso Is Turning Homes Into LLCs and Pissing Off the Neighbors

Earlier this year, the Malibu beach house directly between Bobby LaBonge and Lloyd Ahern’s properties sold for more than either of them would have expected, even considering that it sits along the famous Pacific Coast Highway. "There's no doubt they paid too much money," Ahern told Motherboard. "We thought, 'Oh brother, what kind of moron did this?'"

"We figured it was some wealthy family," LaBonge said.

The buyer wasn’t a single family. It was a company called Pacaso, a new San Francisco–based real estate startup that hopes to "democratize second-home ownership" by selling homes like the one between LaBonge and Ahern’s to as many as eight complete strangers. "We're going to make second-home ownership a reality for the top 20 percent of the world," the company's CEO, Austin Allison, has said.

The question is whether, in the process, Allison is going to make it harder or easier for everyone else to buy their first home—and whether Allison's idea will work out in practice as well as it does in theory. So far, the most certain thing is that he's making a lot of enemies in the largely wealthy communities where Pacaso is operating.

Allison was inspired, he's said, to start his new company after he and his wife purchased their own second home in Lake Tahoe. "My wife and I will never forget that first evening after closing, when we were sitting in front of the fireplace thinking about how appreciative we were," he said in a video on the company's website. He formed the company with Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff and the backing of investors, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. The company’s name is inspired by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, the namesake of a Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers song and .

“He is credited with co-creating Cubism, which brings together individual elements to create a new and innovative whole,” the company explains on its website. “We decided on Pacaso to honor Picasso's legacy of innovation.”

Since Pacaso launched last October, the company has burst onto the scene like a raging ball of flames. Within months, it claimed to have reached so-called "unicorn" status—meaning it had been valued at $1 billion—quicker than any other company ever. "If you were to talk to me a year ago and asked, 'Do you think this company will be a billion-dollar company someday?,' I would have said yes without hesitation, but I would have thought it would have taken five years instead of six months," Allison said at the time to dot.LA, a technology site co-founded by Rascoff.

Over that same period, though, Pacaso has also racked up an impressive number of opponents: mayors who say the company will ruin communities, neighbors who say it will worsen the housing crisis, and entire cities that say Pacaso is running illegal operations.

Got a tip for the the reporter of this article? Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Maxwell Strachan securely on Signal on 310-614-3752 or email [email protected].

The Pacaso model is nothing if not novel. The company buys a home, lightly fixes up and furnishes it, and then creates an LLC with eight ownership stakes. Pacaso customers then purchase at least one-eighth of a share of the home. After that, Pacaso essentially becomes a corporate property manager, handling repairs, cleaning, financing, and scheduling. People who own one-eighth of a Pacaso home can stay up to 44 days a year but no longer than 14 days at a time, and they can sell their share after 12 months. If they do decide to sell, owners independently set the price at which they sell and choose their own real estate agent, though the other owners get to be first in line to buy the share themselves.

Pacaso makes money by charging a 12 pecent fee at the time of closing and then a monthly $99 fee that covers “LLC oversight, ongoing owner support, and technology,” according to spokesperson Colin Tooze. “Home operating costs such as property management, maintenance, taxes, and repairs are passed along directly to owners transparently with no markup,” the spokesperson said.

"It's great for Pacaso," said Paul Grisanti, the mayor of Malibu, who has come out early in opposition to its local presence. "I don't think it's good for the schools, I don't think it's good for a sense of community."

"They're corporatizing our community. If this business model succeeds, then our town starts to become more and more like an adult Disneyland."

The day that Brad Day, 42, discovered that a tech startup had purchased the home across the street from him in Sonoma, he and the other neighbors gathered to have an emergency meeting. Soon after, they sprang into action, creating anti-Pacaso signs, writing op-eds in the local paper, and talking to members of the city council. They formed an organization, too: "Sonomans Together Opposing Pacaso," or STOP.

Like others in Sonoma and elsewhere, Day fears that the entrance of a company like Pacaso into areas zoned for single families will mean less real estate for potential full-time residents.

"They're corporatizing our community," Day said. "If this business model succeeds, then our town starts to become more and more like an adult Disneyland."

The Sonoma campaign gained attention, and Day started to hear from people in other areas where Pacaso was making inroads, he said. Similar anti-Pacaso contingents sprouted up across California, including in Healdsburg, St. Helena, Newport Beach, and Malibu. Some protests have proven successful already. In Napa, where Allison lives, the company faced fierce backlash after purchasing a three-bedroom home for $1.13 million. A company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that a Pacaso executive filed a police report after someone wrote in an online Pacaso listing that they would "burn down any home you buy in Napa."

Pacaso announced in June that it would sell the Napa home to "a whole home buyer,” as well as a number of other changes, including setting a price floor of $2 million for homes it bought in Napa and Sonoma counties. While Allison told news outlets that the company would learn from the experience, he remained steadfast in the company's core goals.  The company said that thousands of residential homes in Sonoma are “non-owner-occupied and owned in a vehicle (such as an LLC or trust) that facilitates co-ownership,” and it claimed at the time that it bought homes in Napa and Sonoma counties for $4.1 million on average.

"Luxury homes in luxury neighborhoods make terrific Pacasos," Allison said then.

“They're aiming at people who want to pretend that they're wealthy. They're gonna rent the lifestyle,” said Grisanti, the Malibu mayor. The sniffy tone here captures what the loudest residents of the luxury neighborhoods where Pacaso is dealing make of the whole thing. But many of the people I spoke with said (unprompted) they did not consider themselves NIMBYs—the derisive acronym for people who say “Not in my backyard.” Instead, they often emphasized their concerns that Pacaso could exacerbate the broader housing crisis in California and make it even harder for working families to buy a home. "There are real concerns that these properties are removing housing stock," Trevor Rusin, the assistant city attorney in Malibu, told Motherboard.  "I'm worried about family farms coexisting with Pacaso," said Yael Bernier, a farmer in the Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County and the president of the Dry Creek Valley Association. "They are going after single-family homes."

“They're aiming at people who want to pretend that they're wealthy. They're gonna rent the lifestyle.”

Unsurprisingly, the people at Pacaso believe that all these local residents are looking at the problem the wrong way. The company now argues that it is helping to solve the housing crisis by steering eight potential second-home owners "away from homes critically needed by the local workforce" and toward a single "luxury" home. (For what it’s worth, Zillow lists the typical home value in Malibu as $3,777,824 as of this writing.)

Similar to arguments once used by rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft, Pacaso claims it is "creating more housing opportunities through better utilization." "Nearly 10 million second homes sit unoccupied for 11 months a year in the U.S.," the company states on its website. Pacaso homes, by comparison, reach a "90%+ utilization rate," a spokesperson claimed.

But the concerns of anti-Pacaso residents extend beyond the price paid for the home, and raise a different, more unflattering parallel to Uber and Lyft, which rely on creative approaches to regulation. Many feel the company is bypassing or even exploiting local zoning rules. Lisa Cavalli, a self-described "third-generation Sonoma girl," said people in her town "welcome vacationers" but want them to use hotels or Airbnbs, which pay the city's transient occupancy tax that helps fund local nonprofits. Bernier, the farmer, believes Pacaso has been able to "skirt" local rules limiting non-agricultural business by calling their homes single-family dwellings.

"If this exploitation continues, where will it end?” Bernier wrote in a letter to the local board of supervisors, which Motherboard reviewed. “Sonoma County could lose its character and valuable farm land [sic] the way Santa Clara Valley did—now developed into Silicon Valley."

In Malibu, many people similarly believe Pacaso has taken advantage of a "loophole in the regulatory scheme," said Bruce Silverstein, the city's mayor pro tem. Silverstein has asked the Malibu city attorney if he could look into whether there were any means by which they could "curtail this lawfully," he said, but he fears it might be difficult.

People throughout St. Helena have put up signs in opposition of Pacaso. (Photo credit: Connie Wilson)

Like a lot of people in St. Helena, Connie Wilson believes Pacaso's business model amounts to trying to get around local bans on timeshares in residential areas.

"We are not NIMBYs; we are against the idea that they can come in with this idea of their LLC and circumvent our local zoning ordinances," Wilson said.

The city agrees. In February, the city's attorney wrote a letter to Pacaso saying  St. Helena had determined that Pacaso's homes were timeshares and therefore illegal. "Simply calling them co-ownership arrangements does not change that fact," he wrote.

Pacaso feverishly disagrees with all of this. People who buy into Pacaso homes “are not transients: they are people staying in homes that they own,” Tooze told Motherboard. “These families make a significant investment in their home, pay property taxes, and plan to return to their home time and time again throughout the year.”

"I'm worried about family farms coexisting with Pacaso. They are going after single-family homes."

In response to the St. Helena letter, Pacaso took aggressive action and sued the city. (The lawsuit is still pending, although a judge ruled partially in the city's favor in July.)  Because so many cities have timeshare ordinances similar to St. Helena's, both sides seem to understand the stakes of the suit. "If they lose that, that blows up their entire business model," Day said.

In Malibu, Ahern and LaBonge have already found life next to a Pacaso home frustrating. The trash cans often don't get taken out, and the house has been left unattended with security gates open for days at a time, LaBonge said. Workers park on their property and leave equipment there too. ("One morning, I open up the garage, and there's a ladder right smack in the middle of my driveway," LaBonge said.)  The three homes sit close together along the Pacific Ocean, and Ahern is worried about evidence of a hole in the Pacaso home's seawall.

"We're all intertwined with each other, and if you have one clunky neighbor, you're screwed," Ahern said. "If their seawall goes, my seawall goes, Bobby's goes, Billy's goes, Hilton's goes, Diane Warren's goes. Everybody goes because it's one contiguous seawall."

"You lose your seawall, you lose your septic tank, your septic system goes out on the beach, they red-tag your house, and then you can't live in it," he added.

Bobby LaBonge says the trash next door is often not taken out since it was purchased by Pacaso. (Photo credit: Bobby LaBonge)

Tooze, the Pacaso spokesperson, said inspectors assessed the property between Ahern and LaBonge, including the seawall; the company verified the “proper permits had been obtained for past renovation work”; and that Pacaso will continue to inspect the seawall and other major structural aspect of the house every year. (The company also said it “would not make sense” for them to overpay for homes like the one in Malibu.)

To deal with neighbors’ issues, the company recently decided to institute a "local liaison" who could serve as a "dedicated point of contact'' for residents near Pacaso homes. Pacaso said it hires "full-time, local employees” who “typically have 7-10 years experience in a service-operations role” to manage their homes and serve as a point person for neighbors. The company says these employees are available to the homeowners and broader community every day of the week.

For a long time, LaBonge had no idea who to contact because Pacaso never reached out to him, he said. The workers are young and drive Range Rovers and often tell Pacaso's neighbors that the company has "enough money to take care of any problem," Ahern said, which annoys him and LaBonge. "Money can't fix stupidity when the waves come in and you've got a hole in your seawall that should have been fixed,” Ahern said.

During the reporting of this article, Pacaso suggested Motherboard talk to customers the company provided to us, both of whom unsurprisingly expressed their satisfaction with the service. One of them, Chris Lim, ended up selling his property to Pacaso after a bit of synchronicity. One day at a coffee shop in Palm Springs, where Lim owned an entire second home, he saw Allison, whom he knows from working in real estate. Lim asked Allison what he was doing in Palm Springs, and Allison told him he was starting Pacaso.

"We are not NIMBYs; we are against the idea that they can come in with this idea of their LLC and circumvent our local zoning ordinances."

Lim had been renovating the property since he bought it in 2016 and was preparing to start opening it up to friends, and Allison asked him if he’d ever be interested in selling the house to Pacaso and keeping some shares for himself. He was. Since then, some of Lim’s own friends have bought shares in his Pacaso house, and Lim says traveling to his property has become much more relaxing since Pacaso employees took over the day-to-day maintenance.

“Normally when I go to a property, I end up working half the time,” said Lim, who also owns a second home in Lake Tahoe. “It's nice to actually be able to go and enjoy the home.”

Since Nkem Ogbechie, 42, and his wife closed on a share of Pacaso home in Malibu, they’ve had a positive experience as well, he said. The family’s full-time residence is in Santa Rosa Valley, about 45 minutes from the home in Malibu, and they decided to go in on the property after spending so much time traveling to various California beach towns during the pandemic. He said at least one other family has purchased a share of the home, but they’ve had “no meaningful interaction” with them outside of an introductory call. Cleaners tidy up in-between, and the property manager has been “very responsive.”

Ogbechie, who is an executive at a large public biotech company, has also enjoyed spending time with his neighbors, drinking wine, sitting on the beach, and talking about cars, he said.

Even still, the neighbors have made clear they’d prefer if a single family lived next door.

Grisanti, the Malibu mayor, has also been a real estate broker for over 40 years, and he foresees issues for the company that he expects might make it "doomed to failure."

"Partnerships don't tend to work very well, in my experience. There's always somebody who feels that somebody else has taken advantage and used everything up," Grisanti said. He said everyone has gone to a ski rental and found themselves frustrated by how the last tenant left it. (Not everyone has, but the point stands nonetheless.)

As with everything else, Pacaso has a response to that. In-between stays, the house is “thoroughly inspected and cleaned, and any maintenance issues are logged and resolved,” Tooze said. To help resolve disputes, Pacaso said it takes care of minor repairs like fixing a dishwasher and otherwise provides oversight. Trying to figure out how the many potential inter-owner dynamics are handled more specifically, I asked the Pacaso spokesperson if an owner was allowed to rearrange  the furniture if they so pleased.

“Pacaso takes great measures to ensure that each home is professionally appointed with respect to functionality, durability, and design aesthetics,” Tooze replied. “If owners would like to change specific details about the home, such as redecorating, a change in design, or a home upgrade, they collectively vote on whether to make that change.”

And how many homes has the world's fastest-growing unicorn filled up entirely so far?

 "We don't disclose this number, but I can tell you that hundreds of families across the U.S. are enjoying second-home co-ownership thanks to Pacaso," the spokesperson replied.

Tech ‘Unicorn’ Pacaso Is Turning Homes Into LLCs and Pissing Off the Neighbors syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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Business Analytics course

Business Analytics Course

By taking a Data Science training should you wish to update your typical knowledge, as the net data science courses carry on adding the most recent data & abilities to their program. Data Science coaching with interesting learning sources like MCQs, eBooks, & case research at well-timed intervals would allow you to upskill successfully in your profile.

You will find out about information acquisition and gathering, knowledge cleaning and integration and strategies for extracting info. You might want to have a numerate first diploma or reveal numeracy abilities. You could additionally be on the early phases of your profession in professions together with economics, statistics or laptop science. This course will train you how to apply information science throughout many various sectors, together with well being, retail and authorities.

Non-Data Science college students will be in a position to register/join a waitlist via SSOL starting September 1st for Fall 2020. Please remember to get hold of your program advisor approval before enrolling. We encourage students to attend the first class to get the syllabus and to get a pulse for the course.

Business Analytics course

Students will be taught not only the “how” but in addition the “why” of Data Science utility. Students will progress through the courses in a weekly launched, asynchronous instruction, delivered by way of the edX platform, created and supervised by UT Austin faculty and employees, with rigorous assessments, projects, and exams.

This is an all-encompassing newbie course for data science provided by John Hopkins University on Coursera that includes devices and concepts that you'll want in your data science journey. The course starts by posing the proper questions to draw derivations and, in conclusion, publishing the achieved outcomes. The abilities you master by using practical knowledge to build a data product are demonstrated within the final capstone project. At the tip of the course, college students can flaunt an unbelievable portfolio that will present their expertise within the topic. You will get an overview of the tools, questions, and knowledge that information scientists and information analysts require to work.

Go beyond number-crunching, study number-decoding with Analytics & Data Science course in India. As a finance skilled you're good at numbers, however is that sufficient to unravel actionable insights? Learn to resolve enterprise problems of the means to acquire the right clients and maximize buyer profitability using analytical tools and methods similar to credit score scorecards, cross-sell recommender models, and segmentation. Data is a key strategic asset in every group, and every employee must know how to benefit from the data. This Data Science training course introduces students to knowledge science and how it could be used to generate environment friendly and insightful decisions by constructing a data-driven tradition.

The objective is to breakdown all the info that the Samsung Health app has collected and see what helpful insights we are ready to achieve by analyzing it.Also,Analyse this knowledge to track activity. The aim is to precisely predict the place, when, and how many ride requestsUberwill receive at any given time.Create a dashboard for Uber forecasting model utilizing tableau. The objective is to foretell which country a new user's first reserving destination will be. By precisely predicting where a model new user will guide their first journey expertise, Airbnb can higher forecast demand. Understanding what content material is out there in numerous international locations Identifying related content by matching text-based options Network analysis of Actors and discover interesting insights. Enroll Once And Get one Year Flexi pass/Subscription to our classroom coaching With Project Mentorship Support and job Assistance. Previously an editor for The Muse, Alyse is proud to show that sure, English majors can change the world.

It is amongst the most enrolled in and highly rated on-line courses in knowledge science throughout the globe. JHU did an incredible job with the steadiness of breadth and depth within the curriculum. One thing that’s included on this collection that’s usually lacking from many data science courses is an entire section on statistics, which is the spine of information science. Some treat their data scientists as information analysts or combine their duties with information engineers; others want top-level analytics consultants expert in intense machine studying and information visualizations. Microsoft’s Azure AI Fundamentals certification validates your information of machine learning and artificial intelligence concepts and the way they relate to Microsoft Azure providers.

If our trainers come to understand that you are having a difficult time with a sure concept/topic, they might guarantee to explain that matter many instances till you don't get it. Python & R programming - installation of python, exceptional handling, data manipulation, information types, features & importing data in R, graphics in R, and extra.

You can reach us at:

ExcelR- Data Science, Data Analytics, Business Analytics Course Training Bangalore

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Airbnb Service Company

Our turnkey Airbnb cleaning service takes all the pressure out of being an Airbnb hostess and allows you to focus on your tenants.

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omaha

as described in the introduction, omaha was a late addition to my itinerary bc texas made the college world series a day before i traveled. i booked the trip a week before to lock in prices, and was ready to cancel in case texas didn’t make it (though they were highly expected as the #2 team in the country). i flew in monday morning from austin via dallas and met up with a friend and his family friend at the airport. i stayed at an airbnb while they stayed at a holiday inn two blocks away. my airbnb was in an older apartment with a door right on the street (three stories up) and it was a very nice getaway. when we got to the hotel, we had to wait for them to check-in so we went to the voodoo taco across the street (kind of like a omaha version of torchy’s tacos) and the chef in the back was also from texas and made some odd sports claims, including the fact that he was a new england patriots fan because his eighth grade football team was called the patriots. ok. we then made an excursion across the river to the ameristar casino in council bluffs, iowa, conveniently located on a riverboat. my friends wanted to go in order to partake in a barstool promotion, where you got a free t-shirt for making a two team parlay for at least $25. unfortunately, the games for the next day were not up at the time but we got 5 dollars of slot credits, which lasted about 10 minutes. we went to the area around the stadium and checked out the “beer garden” which was more of a collection of some shops and food stands on concrete. both my buddy and i got some clean snapback hats with all 8 team logos on the back. we then went to the 7 pm game, which was vanderbilt vs. nc state. the game was a pitcher duel, with eventual first round pick jack leiter giving up a solo hr in the fifth inning that was the only score of the game. after the game, we went to the bars in the area and i went back early bc i was tired but i apparently missed out on a fun night. 

tuesday was the big day of baseball, with two games and texas playing. first thing we did was revisit the casino to make our bets for the day’s games. i put down 60 on texas and miss st, while my buddies put down cash on texas and virginia. we then went to lefty’s sports bar before the game, where we ran into tennessee alum and baseball fan peyton manning. he was extremely large in person. the first game was orange ut versus orange ut, we found some nice empty seats in the section behind home plate and luckily didn’t get booted. the game was a thriller, with tennessee scoring multiple runs multiple times in the top of an inning, with texas responding each time and then some. there was a lot of fun banter between fans and we ended up meeting an extremely cool gentleman whose son was a pitcher on stanford, another participant in the tournament. texas won comfortably 8-4. between games, we stayed around the stadium and linked up with some friends of my friend in town. the second game was also a wild one, with miss st winning 6-5. virginia was leading for most of the game but then miss st scored an absurd 6 runs in the top of the 8th, which ended up the game winner. because of my parlay, i ended up winning 190 from putting in 60. after the games we all stayed out at the bars for a while and made some new friends, including an employee of the college world series. 

wednesday we were all totally wiped from the two days before, but luckily only one game was taking place, and at night. we had a lovely lunch together at a mediterranean spot and checked out the vendors at the beer garden, resulting in us getting a few gifts and additional souvenirs. we also walked around dt and witnessed a vanderbilt sendoff from their hotel. the last game was also extremely entertaining. vandy played stanford and vandy was extremely sloppy initially, but it didn’t prove their undoing as vandy somehow won on a walk-off wild pitch with the bases loaded, which i had never seen before. this was also an elimination game, and bc of that, stanford was eliminated. we took it easy after the game. 

texas ended up being the third to last team remaining and its only losses in the tournament were to eventual champion miss st. the world series was amazing and i would’ve had fun even as a neutral.