#Sunnyvale Rent a Car

[presidentialrealestates]

5 New Year’s Resolutions That Can Help You Buy a Home

Thinking of buying a home this year? We compiled five New Year’s resolutions that can help you keep your financial resume in tiptop shape.

1. Avoid job hopping

Employment history and income are two of the biggest factors lenders look at when evaluating a mortgage application. A new job may be a good career move, but if you plan to buy a home in the new year, know that job hopping can be a red flag to some underwriters — especially if you’re moving to a different industry.

A steady job history and few or no gaps in employment over the past two years are ideal, as it helps lenders more easily forecast your future income.

If you do get a new job while home shopping, let your lender know as soon as possible. It doesn’t mean you won’t qualify for a mortgage — just be prepared to show extra documentation.

If you’re moving from a commissioned or hourly job to one that’s salaried with equal or more compensation, it may help your application. Lenders often prefer borrowers to have steady, predictable paychecks.

2. Limit monthly subscription services

Monthly subscription services are certainly convenient, but they can add up. Even if you pay off your credit card every month, you could be dinged for high credit utilization if your credit report is pulled midcycle.

If you’re thinking of buying a home this year, consider keeping your monthly subscription services to a minimum.

3. Build a solid credit history

One of the first things a lender will look at is your credit history. Lenders prefer borrowers who have a history of paying off credits cards and other debts on time — because it signals that you’re a responsible borrower and less of a risk.

If you don’t have credit, securing a home loan may be significantly more challenging and time-consuming, but not impossible. Records of paying rent and utilities on time, as well as student loan debt or cell phone bills, can help show a potential lender that you have a history of managing monthly payments.

4. Check your credit

Your credit score can have a significant impact on your ability to buy a home. A low credit score can negatively affect how much money a lender is willing to loan you, as well as your interest rate.

Just a few percentage point differences in an interest rate can cost you thousands over the life of a loan. Monitor your credit closely, especially for fraudulent activity, to prevent any surprises that could delay the loan application process.

If you’re unsure of your credit score, many financial websites offer credit score monitoring, or you can get a full credit report once a year.

5. Avoid large purchases

Avoid taking on large amounts of debt — whether it’s buying a car or planning a large vacation — before buying a house. This is advisable even if you’re already preapproved.

Your debt-to-income ratio, or how much money you make compared to how much debt you have, can significantly affect how much money a lender is willing to give you. Keeping debts to a minimum can help make the home-buying process go a lot more smoothly.

Just like proofreading your resume before you apply for a job, cleaning up your financial resume can help improve your chances of buying a home.

Why us?

Real estate is typically a long-term investment. Presidential Real Estate is here to help you in this long venture. Our property management assistance in Santa Clara, CA, is unparalleled. Our property management aids in Campbell and Sunnyvale are also quite impressive. Seek out help in these areas and reap great perks.

SOURCE & CREDIT – https://www.zillow.com/blog/resolutions-can-help-buy-home-2018-224008/

[sunmarketing]

Sunnyvale, CA

Welcome, you belong here.

In this episode: FAQ is: How do I visit my family members in the military? 

Today’s Destination is: Sunnyvale, CA

Today’s Mistake- Losing my airline rewards

Travel Advice:  Join my clubhouse rooms for travel tips

  FAQ: Nadia asked, How do I visit my family members in the military? My son is graduating from military training and I want to see him in Korea. Are there any discounts I can tap into for travel?

  Answer: 

Depending on the training center location, and security screening you may be able to visit him. When you do visit, you may want to check out some of the military benefits and see if they apply to family members, such as shopping in the commisary or other attractions. 

It’s possible that you can ask the airlines for assistance in this, because they have likely had this question answered also. This question was from a recent clubhouse room. I’ll mention Clubhouse at the end of the podcast again.

Today’s destination: Sunnyvale, California

  You’ll find Sunnyvale in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County, California. It’s located along the famous Highway 101 and El Camino Real. San Jose borders to the north. Mountain View is Northwest and Los Altos is southwest. Cupertino is to the south. Santa Clara, home of the Mission and University was reviewed in episode 160 and is located to the east. The population is about 150,000, which is next to San Jose, the second most populous city in the county. 

It’s part of Silicon Valley. It’s the birthplace of the video game industry, where Atari was founded. 

https://www.sunnyvale.ca.gov/

https://www.sunnyvale.ca.gov/recreation-and-community/community-centers/senior-center

https://www.sunnyvale.ca.gov/recreation-and-community/parks-and-trails/baylands-park

https://heritageparkmuseum.org/

Here are a few suggestions for Sunnyvale.

Heritage Park Museum is open three days a week and does not charge admission. 

There is also pottery and other activities at the local community center. The senior center may be of interest to you, so look in the show notes for these and other links. 

Consider visiting Baylands Park for hiking or picnics. 

Sunnyvale was known for having orchards and some still remain here. But most notably lately it is known as the home of several tech giants. The big industry here is the technology and information headquarters of many computer tech companies. Some of these large firms started here in garages and in high schools. Google, Apple, Facebook, now Meta and others have a presence here. Venture-capital seems to be flowing through the water. Sunnyvale is known for the home of many future technology projects. 

In Mountain View, you’ll find the Computer History Museum, open Wed-Sun.

https://computerhistory.org/

  I visited Sunnyvale several times over the past 40 years living in California and most recently in January 2022 and stayed with my cousin, Jane Halligan. I flew into San Jose airport, rented a car and explored the area with several local residents to get insights to guide you to the best travel activities. Jane and I walked around an area that is reserved for seniors and community minded individuals and around what remains of the orchard groves. 

  Do - Visit the Community Center and Museum. Go hiking and visit the Senior Center.

Don't - Get stuck in traffic on the freeways if possible. 

Today’s Mistake - Losing my airline rewards

I’ve lost more airline points than I’d like to admit. It’s probably hundreds of thousands of miles that were not recovered over 50 years of traveling solo. I’ve had special status on several airlines that no longer exist and I never did follow up to find out where my points went. I assume they just disappeared. Now, my credit card gives me rewards that I can turn into cash, no matter what airline I travel on. I would like to keep my points on dozens of airlines that I fly, but it seems that to do so requires a lot of extra work that doesn’t add up. My advice is to keep track of your rewards better than I do. You can make them work for you.

Today’s Travel Advice-Join my clubhouse rooms for travel tips. No makeup needed.

Join “Clubhouse” and the club called “ Women Travel Best.” There are hundreds of women like you who travel in the group and I hold about one room per week. Please join us. You don’t need an invitation to join. It’s open to anyone with a phone. It’s still early days with this social audio media. You don’t need to dress up or put on makeup to come to a room. Just download the app, entter your phone number and some basic information and you are in.

https://www.clubhouse.com/

Connect with Dr Travelbest

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email: info@drmarytravelbest.com

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Check out this Dr Travelbest episode!

[carrentalsunnyvaletx]

Benefits of Hiring Car Rental Sunnyvale TX

Traveling to Sunnyvale is a fine option when you are looking for both a place to relax and do some business. it is a beautiful location for tourists to visit and plan a picnic. The city has so much to offer to range from naturally enchanting parks to trilling nightfall places. As the place has so much social and financial significance, its normally packed with local people and sightseers. To wander around the city with complete opportunity and accommodation, we at Swift Rent a Car show our top-notch quality Car Rental Sunnyvale TX. People usually look for an economical ride when they are in a new town. A local car surely does save some bucks but it is rather inconvenient than private transportation. From accommodation to comfort, a private vehicle service is the best choice rather than public transportation.

When it comes to accommodating the customers we at Swift rental car has a group of highly professional and expert drivers who have been working as a driver for years and hold complete command over the car steering. Over public transportation where you need to wait for quite a while as an afterthought, our Car Rental Sunnyvale TX is the perfect solution. Before hiring drivers, we complete a cautious background check. All of our drivers take regular drug tests. We do most of this since we care about your safety. When you contract our services, you will have the critical tranquility that you and your companions are in safe hands. Our drivers will guarantee that you reach to and from your location to your destination in style, luxury, security, and comfort.

All of our vehicles are of the most recent model and we ensure that they are routinely maintained and quality checked. This makes us beyond any doubt and you sure that, when you get into our vehicle, you won't confront a breakdown of any sort. Our expert staff is constantly available, and are just a single call away from you, for you from the time you get in touch with us to the time you achieve your goal. We take pride in giving the best Car Rental Sunnyvale TX in town.

[rentalcardallastx]

Things to Check Before Hiring Rental Car Dallas TX

There may come a time when you have to hire a vehicle service. The need can be anything an outing, voyaging, conference or prom night. Cars dependably make the adventure simple and give you full opportunity to move around. It doesn't make a difference what the circumstance is, the intricate details of leasing a vehicle ought to be known. This can help you from numerous points of view like maintaining a strategic distance from concealed chargers, getting bulldoze vehicle and checking each part of the vehicle. When you are going to contract Rental Car Dallas TX here are 5 activities before leasing a vehicle.

Determination of extra drivers

Continuously think ahead, will you be the main driver or you ought to have help. It relies upon the length of your trek. In the event that the trek will be drawn out, at that point so as to maintain a strategic distance from tiredness an additional driver helps a great deal. Hence, before leasing a vehicle ensure the number of drivers you are going to take with you. Notice the drivers to the organization's administration so they have the record of who is dealing with the directing.

Assess the insurance policy

Rental car companies such as swift rental car cover the actual price of the car in insurance and do not cover for accidents. Check your collision and comprehensive coverage with your insurance agent before stepping into renting a car. Generally, with Rental Car Dallas TX, your vehicle is insured but you have to be careful along the way to avoid accidents. As it is always safe to drive carefully so follow the rule but for a safe side check your insurance policy.  

Get acquainted with traveling arrangements

On the off chance that you are removing your rental vehicle from the state, at that point, it is helpful to check the voyaging strategy of that state. Try to think about the limitations and traveling charges. A reputable resident never gets associated with disasters and stay away from strains. So in the event that you are a well-behaved individual, at that point acclimate yourself about the arrangements of the spot you are going towards.

Fill your fuel tank

For the most part, it is a prerequisite by the rental vehicle organizations to top off the fuel tank before returning it. On the off chance that you have driven the vehicle as you need, at that point return it as per the approach of the organization. On the off chance that you don't fill the tank, at that point, the organization will charge you additional cash. on the off chance that you are voyaging, at that point utilizing the Rental Car Dallas TX is the most appropriate alternative to pursue the strategy of the organization.

[carrentalrockwalltx-blog]

Get Professional Services From Car Rental Rockwall TX

Rockwell Tx is a beautiful area which has many tourist attractions and chances for opportunists to earn money. The city offers so much to people. To explore the city fully the swift rental car presents the car rental Rockwell Tx service for renting.

We have a big fleet of cars and a lot of option for people to choose from. From cheap cars to executive luxury cars, our company deals with quality and premium services. If you are planning to travel with family but have a limited budget for transportation, then we at swift rental car give you the most convenient option. We have economical cars who consume less fuel and give great mileage when hit the road. You can easily choose among a variety of affordable deals and enjoy the picnic plan with family and friends.

The experienced team of our company looks after all the matters of transportation. they basically ask questions, take a brief, get to know your range and then give you the best suitable options they have. You can easily book up a car online or through calling our customer care unit.

As the drivers are highly capable of satisfying clients, they give the following facilities to every customer.

·         On time pick up and drop off facility

·         A safer and secure driving experience

·         Convenience and comfort

·         The shortest route to the location

·         Last but not least professionalism

As we have everything ready on one single booking, we offer 24 hours’ services throughout the 7 days of the week either the hours are odd or busy.

  Get fixed rates

You can have a confirmation of a fixed rate from our limo service before the booking. Car hire organizations like Uber can utilize valuing methods that bring about charging you twofold their ordinary rates. When you enlist our car rental Rockwell Tx for your business travel, such things will never transpire. Due to no shrouded costs, you get an extraordinary significant serenity.

Full security

Hiring our car hire services implies that you get an expert, well trained and experienced driver at your location for airport transfer. When you are going for business, you need to consider all the facts like focus on schedule, remembering the keynotes and managing your tour stress freely. With this mental stress, you ought to never stress over transportation with our services.

Our car rental Rockwell Tx offers simply the ideal feelings of serenity when it comes to stress over safety especially in an unfamiliar city. Our services are commonly highly secured and are constantly protected to travel. 

[cheapcarrentalmesquitetx]

How to Hire a Cheap Car Rental Mesquite TX for Traveling?

Life is getting expensive every day. People are doing so much to cut the cost of living and save up some bucks. As when it comes to transportation the scenario is also the same here. Private car companies charge so much when a person hires their services. Therefore, if you are looking for cheap car rental Mesquite Tx then come at the swift rental car to get vehicles on economical prices.

We have a motto in mind to serve the needs of clients before even they have spoken. All of our team members and policies run around this motto and we strive our best to understand people’s needs. Therefore, the customer’s satisfaction level for our company is hiring than most of the rental transportation companies. Here are some ways you can hire a cheap car for rent in Mesquite Tx for all your needs.

Look for the smaller cars

Smaller cars are cheaper to hire. Sometimes people go for luxuries like a limousine, Mercedes and black SUVs to make an impression on people. The question is when you don’t need a big lavish car then why spending on something which costs you so much. Therefore, try to hire smaller cars if you are traveling alone or have a family of 3 to 4.

These cars are highly economical and affordable. Great in running and super in fuel consumption, the small cars are the best solution when you are looking to cut the cost of traveling as well as planning to get a private car hire.

At the swift rental car, we have a big range of affordable vehicles for you so if you are looking for cheap car rental Mesquite Tx then contact us for excellent services.

Use coupons and promotional activities

Car rental companies mostly have a promotional plan going on and are also giving away coupons which can save the cost of traveling. If you have determined to travel reasonably then wait for the promotional activity and then make your plans to save out some real money.

The coupons are also very helpful to cut the cost of traveling. They give a great deal of saving to people and enable a reasonable booking of private cars. There is also an option of traveling in the season when the companies are mostly out of business. It can be an option but not highly appreciated by the people.

Hence, if you are highly interested in saving the money then come to the swift rental car. We have a lot of deals for our cheap car rental Mesquite Tx services.

[swiftrentacar]

Services You Get When You Book Swift Rental Car for Transportation

It is a typical comprehension, regardless of whether you are on business for work or you are visiting a location for vacation, you need a vehicle to move you around to your goal locations. The swift rent a car offers you the best car rental service in town.

There are many reasons for you to choose our transportation service above every other service. Some of these reasons are:

Security:

We make sure that you get an expert, professionally experienced driver at your service. When you are going for business, you need to consider the meeting ahead, introductions and every single related thing. In that condition, you ought to never stress over anything else. We offer you essentially the perfect veritable sentiments of relaxation because of the prosperity we offer.

Get rental discounts:

We offer our customers discounts and other benefits on swift rent a car. Our services are cheaper than any other vehicle rental service in your area. On top of this. We offer our customers the best discounts which allow our customers to get our world class services on even cheaper prices. Which means you get to travel in style, luxury, comfort, and safety on equal or cheaper rates than a local taxi service.

We bring your vehicle to you

Our customers choose us again and again for all of their car rental needs because we always go one step further to provide the best service for our customers that they receive from anywhere else. A part of those services is that we deliver your selected car to your location. This is beneficial for the people who don’t have a vehicle available and would, under normal circumstances, have to find a taxi or a local transport to get to the location of the car rental company.

We deliver your selected vehicle to your location so that you will not have to go through all of the hassle and ordeal.

Fixed Rate

Typically, taxi companies utilize evaluating procedures that acknowledge charging you twofold of their basic rates. When you rent a vehicle from Swift rental car, such things will never happen. You will get the actual quote of your trip and there will be zero hidden charges.

[pizza-is-my-buziness]

Sam/Deena deciding to travel across country looking for other hauntings like Sunnyvale/Shadeyside

A) Thank you for the prompt! You are the best!

B) I have no idea why I thought I could write anything "short" or "fast" so...

C) I kinda took the idea of this prompt but changed it up some too? I hope that's okay! I played around with the idea but didn't follow it exactly. Sorry anon! I hope you still enjoy this!

For the record, she’s doing this for Sam.

Literally no one would be surprised, seeing as she does most things for Sam. Including foregoing the perfectly nice and perfectly cheap camp site in favor of the bed and breakfast that had made Sam literally squeal and nearly poke Deena in the eye as she’d all but crawled out of her seat, jabbing her finger toward the windshield. “We should totally stay there tonight!”

Even as she’d made the U-turn, Deena had offered her protests, grumbling about how the camping fee was only five bucks and how the place was probably booked anyway. Even as she’d pulled into the parking lot, she’d argued that they were going to have to re-do their road trip budget because of this and the people who ran this place probably wouldn’t be all that interested in renting a room to a pair of recent high-school graduates. But they’d slept the last night in their car -which was not all it was cracked up to be- in a campsite that had promised showers and delivered a spigot in the ground and Sam had forgiven this oversight even as she’d stood shivering in her bra and underwear with icy water dripping from her skin and onto the grass so okay, fine, she can do this for Sam.

Even if the place gives her a little bit of the creeps.

Which Deena would never admit.

The front steps creak as they walk up them and it’s just barely evening, the sky still brushed with golds and pinks and yellows and Deena is grateful for the light as she pushes the door open to what the handmade sign stuck in the window calls a “cheerful little bed and breakfast.” The place smells old but in a way that makes it feel homey rather than full of dust and rats that are going to eat her face when she closes her eyes and the lobby looks like it was decorated somewhere around 1910 and never updated.

Sam is immediately charmed, her face brightening as she goes to brush her fingers along the tassels hanging from a fabric lampshade and then across the lace doilies hanging like spiderwebs across the surface of the table. “This place is cute,” she says, glancing toward Deena, who is currently in the midst of a staring contest with a taxidermized weasel. “Don’t you think so? Better than sleeping in the car.”

When she phrases it like that, it’s obvious. Because duh sleeping in the car really sucks. It had seemed like something that might almost be fun, charming, when they’d started planning out their escape from Union, like sleeping in the car was the equivalent to sleeping under the stars or something. Though, the reality of it makes Deena wonder if she might not still have a little Sarah Fier inside her, assuring her that anything that doesn’t involve cornhusks stuffed into a mattress and a hole in the ground is a luxury.

“Are you sure about this place,” Deena mumbles, reaching for Sam’s hand and tugging her back so she isn’t talking across the lobby for the whole place to hear. “It’s a little…creepy. And how do you know the people who don’t own this place aren’t going to like bury us out back for sharing a bed or something?”

There’s a quick flicker of doubt across Sam’s eyes at her words, enough to make Deena regret having spoken at all, even if she was mostly joking. But then she smiles, scrunching up her nose as she gives Deena’s hand a squeeze. “At least there are beds here,” she points out. “And I’m tired. And hungry. Come on…where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Probably still under the Shadyside Mall,” Deena teases but she swallows up further protests, following Sam toward the front desk and not reaching out to stop her when Sam taps lightly on the silver bell waiting on the counter.

Everything feels like an adventure where Sam is concerned. There’s something inherently thrilling about just being here with her in this moment. Or any moment. Singing along with the radio or simply letting the miles pass them in silence, Sam’s hand on hers, feels thick with adventure, with promise, with the idea that anything could happen next and Deena would welcome it.

Even, apparently, a bed and breakfast where the lobby is decorated with more ceramics than Deena would’ve imagined existed in this entire world.    

There had been a moment, more than one, where she’d seen it all. Sam, slipping through her fingers. Her life, without Sam in it. She’s lived in that world, thank you very much, those two minutes where she’d been wet and trembling and feeling fear like a living thing trying to crawl its way out of her throat, where she’d seen Sam pale and unmoving and dead, dead, dead because Deena had killed her. A world without Sam. A world where she didn’t get her back.

It makes even the smallest of moments feel like getting away with something, like Deena might never get sick of it, of any of it. Of teasing Sam because she snores or defending her French fries from Sam’s quick fingers or getting to kiss Sam as they drive down a stretch of highway with no one else around for miles.

Sam glances over her shoulder, lifting her eyebrow and Deena can tell that she’s debating ringing the bell once more, just like Deena is debating saying “see, I told you so” when a woman who looks closer to eighty than not emerges with a smile on her face. “Sorry, dear, just doing some paperwork in the back.” She slips behind the desk, putting her thin fingers onto the countertop’s surface. “How can I help you?”

“Just a room for the night,” Sam says with a polite smile on her face. “If you have one.”

“Oh sure,” the woman says, nodding and causing a strand of wispy white hair to slip free from the bun on top of her head. “Not quite full tonight.”

Deena contemplates the mounted deer head on the wall, the antlers strung with cobwebs. “Do you guys…get a lot of visitors?”

Sam gives her a pointed look that Deena pretends to miss, keeping her focus on the unfortunate Bambi. The woman doesn’t seem to notice the skepticism in Deena’s voice. “Most nights we have a few rooms rented out,” she says, pulling out a thick ledger and lifting a pen that Deena is surprised isn’t made of a feather or something. “Name, dear?”

Deena lets Sam handle this part, wandering around the lobby to get the full view of the place she’s agreeing to sleep tonight. There’s a dining room off to the right, a fire simmering low in the spacious hearth despite the fact that it’s June and definitely not cold outside. The wall is full of black and white and sepia tinged photos of old people, more than half of them holding up guns or posing awkwardly with children or animals. There’s one wall entirely dedicated to framed newspaper and magazine clippings and it takes Deena a beat to realize all the clippings are about the Winslow Bed and Breakfast and another second to notice they’re all about ghost hunts and hauntings.

Great.

“You two seem like you’re a long way from home,” the woman is saying to Sam as she hands back her driver’s license. “What brings you out here?”

“It’s kind of a…road trip?” Sam says with a shrug. “Though we’re eventually going to make it to the city where we’re going to college.”

The woman smiles brightly, nodding. “Oh, I remember those days. Taking trips and spending time with my friends.”

Sam glances toward Deena with a smirk, which only grows when Deena rolls her eyes comically for Sam’s benefit.

“I thought you might be interested in our ghosts,” the woman continues, pulling open a drawer and retrieving a large brass key. “That’s why most people come in to stay with us.”

“Ghosts?” Sam repeats while Deena says, “Yeah, I was just reading your articles.” She points toward the wall. “Impressive.”

The woman certainly seems to think so, her smile hardly faltering as she hands the key over to Sam. “It’s made us quite famous, you know. This place has been haunted nearly since it was built in 1857.”

Well, that explains the décor.

“Built on the remains of an old hospital, you know,” the woman tells Sam with a slightly mischievous smile. “Very tragic. Lots of restless spirits.” She taps the key in Sam’s hand and says breezily, “Well, you’ll be on the third floor, room three. With Tom.”

Deena arches an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

“Tom, he’s the spirit on that floor.”

If Deena hadn’t spent a few days in October fighting undead serial killers, murdering and resurrecting her girlfriend, traveling back in time to the 1600s, and taking down the devil worshiping sheriff then she would definitely think this woman was totally off her rocker. Instead, she just thinks this lady is a little…eccentric. “Oh. Right.”

The woman nods. “He’s mostly harmless. Not like…” Her expression darkens somewhat. “Ezekiel. But we try not to let people stay in his rooms.”

Sam takes a step back from the counter, holding up the key. “Well…thanks for…this one.”

“Oh, of course, dear.” The woman’s smile returns. “Unfortunately, our kitchen is closed for the night but there are vending machines on every floor. Let me know if you need any change. And we’ll have breakfast served in the morning. Sleep well and enjoy your stay.”

Once they’re out of ear shot, Deena bumps her shoulder into Sam’s, leaning closer to her girlfriend. “Sleep well,” she teases, drawing out the words and tickling the back of Sam’s neck to elicit a laugh, grinning when Sam twists away from her. “Watch out for Ezekiel.”

Sam gives her a playful shove in response, not pulling away when Deena catches her hand, letting her fingers encircle her wrist. “Oh, so ghosts are where you draw the line of believability?”

They start up the stairs trying not to drag their suitcases loudly behind them even though with each step Deena is feeling less and less enthusiastic about being on the third floor. Where does Ezekiel sleep? If he’s on the ground floor, then she’s willing to take her chances with him.

Sam unlocks the door with the key, the lock clunking as it slides away, and the room looks much like Deena would’ve expected given the rest of the place. At least it seems clean and there aren’t pictures of dead-eyed settlers on the wall or anything, just crooked canvases bearing paintings of mountain sunsets and flowers stuffed into a vase. Sam makes a circuit of the room, poking her head into the bathroom and into the tiny closet, seeming to deem it all acceptable judging by the way she flops down onto the bed.

“Up to your standards?” Deena teases, impressed that a cloud of dust doesn’t puff out around her.

“Well it’s not the back seat of a car but it’ll do I guess.” Sam closes her eyes, folding her hands across her stomach.

Deena can’t resist the urge to glance away, tightening her jaw against the memory of Sam still and lifeless on the grocery store floor. She’d hoped leaving Shadyside would help her leave those thoughts behind and while the passing months have certainly helped, the memories still hit her sometimes, catching her completely by surprise. Like, for example, in a bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere because the lamplight falling across Sam’s face makes her look pale and ghastly.

Or maybe this place really is haunted.

“But you know the best part?” Sam’s voice wrenches Deena blessedly away from her thoughts and she lets out a little sigh of relief, glancing back toward Sam. “We get to actually cuddle.” She pats the mattress beside her.

Deena smirks. “Oh yeah? What would Tom say?”

Sam sits up, a grin across her face. “What if this place really is haunted?”

“Then we’re sharing a room with a ghost,” Deena deadpans. “Is that what you want?”

“Maybe,” Sam drawls playfully. She stands, crossing the room to where they’d dropped their bags. “I’m going to take a shower. I still smell like the water from the campsite.”

They both do, that mineral tang that hadn’t escaped Deena’s notice as she’d kissed Sam or pressed her face to the crook of her shoulder, making Sam smell slightly unfamiliar, a reminder that they’ve finally left Shadyside behind.

While Deena listens to the water run, she digs through their bags, trying to scrounge up as much change as she can without having to go back down those stairs and out into the car to dig around for quarters. Thankfully she manages to find a handful of coins to go along with the crumpled bills stuffed into Sam’s jeans pocket, the rumbling in her stomach reason enough to brave both the ghosts and the winding hallways in an effort to find the aforementioned vending machines.

At least they are decently stocked, though after a few days of driving and surviving mostly on gas station snacks, Deena isn’t exactly thrilled to once again have Twix bars for dinner. She gets as much variety as she can before heading back toward the room, her feet silent on the carpeted hallways. In fact, everything around her is silent, which only adds to the creep-factor of the place, making it feel like the eyes of all the photos on the wall are following her progress.

“Fuck you, Tom,” Deena mumbles as she pulls open the door to the room, slamming it closed behind her with a little more effort than necessary.

Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed wrapped in a towel, running a comb through her wet hair. “Are you okay?” She looks mildly amused by her question.

Deena tosses her a Butterfinger rather than answer. “Dinner is served.”

After they eat what they’ve generously termed dinner, Sam gets dressed, wearing an old shirt of Deena’s, which makes it slightly more difficult for Deena to remember why she needs to leave Sam sitting alone on the bed in order to take her own shower. But the feeling of several days on the road and the unfortunate lack of showers in the campsite outweighs just about everything else, though Deena tries to rush the process as much as she can.

Sam is sitting cross-legged on the bed, one elbow resting on her bare knee as she studies the map she’s spread out in front of her. She’s taken far more interest in their progress than Deena, studying the topography with an intensity that Deena can only encourage, seeing as it often leaves Sam with a furrow between her brow, soft lips pursed in concentration. A twist of hair has slipped past her shoulder and Deena can’t resist the urge to brush it back behind her shoulder, letting her hand fall between Sam’s shoulder blades.

Even as Sam lifts her face toward Deena’s, she whispers, “Deena…what will Tom say?”

Deena kisses her, grinning. “He could use a little more scandal in his life.”

Sam pushes the map aside, taking its place and pulling Deena down with her. She kisses her lazily, one leg absently hooked around Deena’s thigh as she plays with her curls. “So…what if she’s right.”

“Who?” Sam definitely makes it hard to think straight, but even still Deena feels like she’s missed something.

“The lady downstairs,” Sam says, and Deena lifts an eyebrow. “I mean…what if this place really is haunted.”

Deena kisses the underside of Sam’s jaw. “I’ll protect you,” she assures her.

“No, that’s not…” Sam laughs, breathy and light in a way that leaves heat pooling in Deena’s stomach. “I mean…what if it’s like Shadyside? Another curse.”

Deena lifts her head, trying to read in Sam’s face whether she’s serious or not. “O…kay?”

Sam’s fingers lazily trace the slopes of Deena’s cheeks, her nose, her chin. “I mean what she said about the hospital…all the ghosts…it could be. What if there was a way to help somehow?”

Grinning, Deena starts humming the theme song for The X-Files, leaning in to kiss Sam again. “Okay, Agent Fraser,” she intones seriously. “Let’s get right on that.”

Sam laughs even as she says, “I’m serious, Deena.” Gently, she pushes Deena back enough for the both of them to sit up and she brushes her wet hair over her shoulders and away from her face. “I mean, we did figure out what was going on in Shadyside,” she points out. “And we stopped that curse, which had been going on for three hundred years. This should be easy.”

Shaking her head, Deena exhales. “Okay…so you want us to…go around to, what, haunted hotels and break all those curses?” She lifts an eyebrow.

Sam brightens. “I hadn’t thought about that! We could go around the whole country and-”

“Okay, okay, slow down there Mulder,” Deena says, shaking her head. “Assuming that’s like…a real thing that is happening, like that there are other places out there like Shadyside…do you remember how dangerous all of that was? Trying to stop Goode and all that shit? Because you died. Literally. I’m not exactly keen on signing up to do that again.”

Sam sits across from her, their knees pressed together. “We could help other people. Another Deena. Another Sam.”

“Um, no, there’s no one else like you,” Deena assures her, making it sound enough like it could be a joke to ensure that she doesn’t sound completely sappy and hopeless. “Let them figure it out. I’m not trying to lose you again, okay?”

Sam smiles, putting her hands on Deena’s shoulders, her thumb brushing against the curve of her neck. “You won’t,” she says softly. “I guess we could put the ghost-hunting on hold until after college.”

“That’s all I ask,” Deena says solemnly.

“Aren’t you even a little curious about Ezekiel?”

“Um, no,” Deena says, leaning forward to kiss her. “All old, dead white people are the same.”

Sam laughs and pulls Deena toward her and it isn’t until later, when Deena is flushed and heavy and half-asleep, that Sam retrieves the map from the floor and spreads it out half-across Deena’s back and says, “How many other haunted places like this do you think there are along the route?” that Deena realizes maybe she hasn’t done the best job of distracting Sam from her dreams of becoming the newest Ghostbuster after all.

[muttonchopsalley]

Video Store Locations - As listed in the “Stuck on VHS” book.

Foster City Video, CA - Music Art Studio

Bankview Video (Alberta, Canada) - Sutton Group

Allandale Video (Ontario, Canada) - Loan shop

Scottsdale Vodeo, AR - Law firm

Main Dunstable Video (Nashua, NH) - Optometrist

Hummel's Video (Bridgeton, NJ) - Liquor store

Ganges Video Range, Canada - Trade shop

Hogan's Video (Modesto, CA) - Gas station

Carroll's Video (Porterville, CA) - Used car lot

DanVideo (Danville, VA) - thrift store

Mac's Video Center (Jersey City, NJ) - Daycare

Johnny's TV (Stillwater,MN) - Still In Business! Prob doesn't rent vids anymore.

Dick & Dot's Video (Huntsville, AL) - Dress shop

Mary Video (Sunnyvale, CA) - Dentist

Deb & Bob's Video ( Rushville, IN) - Abandoned (Formerly Tax Office)

Michelle's Video ( Sunrise, FL) - Vacuum Shop

Mayra's Video Club (NY) - Korean restaurant

Bethany Video, CT - Bank

Carmela's Video (Fort Bragg, CA) - Abandoned

Premier Video (Santee, CA) - Cell phone store

Rosebud Video (Asheville, NC) - Cafe/Bar

Spotlight Video (Mattoon, IL) - Aflac Insurance

PJ's Video (Elkhart, IN) - Gas station

A to Z Video (Brick, NJ) - Nail Salon

DJ Video Express (Chicopee, MA) - Walgreen's

Flix Video Rentals (Marlton, NJ) - CVS

Pick A Flick Video (Napa, CA) - Liquor Store

Broadway Video (Sausalito, CA) - Abandoned

Ace of Video II (Torrington, CN) - Dentist

Jumbo Video (Ontario, Canada) - Clinic

Take One Video (Willis, TX) - Donut Shop

SuperDuper Video (Riverside, CA) - Grill Restaurant

Couch Potato Video (Papillon, NE) - Gyros Restaurant

Couch Potato's (Medford, NJ) - Flower Shop

Freeze Frame Video (Green River, WY) - Dance studio

Das Video Haus (New Holstein, WI) - Private Residence

Will the Thrills Video (Ronkonkoma, NY) - Bagel shop

Le Video (San Francisco, CA) - Bookstore

Wild and Woolly Video (Louisville, KY) - Bar & Grill

Movie Madness Video and More (Portland, OR) - Abandoned

Movie Mania (Springhill, LA) - Abandoned

Videorama (Lavallette, NJ) - Pizza Parlor

Maniac's Home Video (Delaware, OH) - Abandoned

Crazy Mike's Video (Maryville, WA) - Dollar Tree

Crazy Mike's Video (Bellingham, WA) - Sub shop

Bulldog Video (New Albany, MS) - Insurance Firm

Video Fox (Romulus, MI) -Abandoned

Black Dog Video (Vancouver, Canada) - Still in business!

Movies to Go (Hammonton, NJ) - Sign Design

Movies * to * Go (Fair Lawn, NJ) - Credit Union

Video Man (Los Altos, CA) - Bookstore

Captain Video (Germantown, MD) - Hair Salon

Count Video (Glenview, IL) - Daycare

Video Master (Comstock Park, MI) - Furniture Store

Videosmith ( Lexington, MA) - Real Estate

Captain Video II ( Brooklyn, NY) - Dollar Store

Video Wizard ( Sebastopol, CA) - Restaurant

Palmer Video (Brick, NJ) - Gym

Premiere Video (Eau Claire, WI) - Auto Parts

Video Update (Jacksonville, NC) - Cafe

Rogers Video (Vancouver, Canada) - Laundromat

The Video Shop (Belmar, NJ) - Still in business!

Video Bank (Litchfield, OH) - Normal Bank

The Video Station (Lincoln NE) - Medical Supplies

(Surrey, Canada) - Hair Salon (Burnaby, Canada) - Supermarket

Video Vault (East Brunswick, NJ) - Martial Arts Studio

Video Movie House (Ontario, Canada) - Grocery Store

Movie Land ( San Mateo, CA) - Restaurant

The Video Land (Madison, WI) - Martial Arts Studio  (Sun Prairie,WI) - Vape Shop

Video Island ( Savannah, GA) - parking lot

Planet Video (Chicago, IL) - FedEx Store

Video Galaxy (Alpharetta, GA) - Restaurant

Video Universe (Columbus, OH) - Flooring Store

Audio/Visual Plus (Houston,TX) - Abandoned - Sign's still up

Archie's Rent & Tan ( Tuckahoe, NY) - Mormon Institute

Town  & Country (Brown City, MI) - Still in business, but rental aspect gone  (Croswell, MI) - Auto body shop

Sunburst Video & Tan (Madison, AL) - Restaurant (Huntsville, AL) - Gas Station

[movingcompaniessouthbayblog-blog]

Rumors, Lies and Moving Company Woodside

Those storing clothes and other items susceptible to mildew, mold and damage from weather-related causes should absolutely rent a climate-controlled storage unit. Always check into the companies moving license for their business and ask to ensure that the movers who will help you have the right license. Most moving truck companies ask that you refill the gas tank before returning the truck. What many people don't realise is that removal companies can be fully booked for days and weeks in advance. You should also scout out your new home and see if there are any challenges there for the movers. It is your calling to decide on the most fit company all hands on deck so you stay at a distance from the tension of moving your effects. Paying for care services is a worry of many aging and elderly people. Before making you decision on any moving company it is also necessary to check their reputation and reliability.

Moving Company Woodside 1m8!1m3!1d1612386.14046457!2d-122.4203375!3d37.8791998!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x0%3A0x22a0343cf881a015!2sRoadRunner%20Polaris!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1592091847214!5m2!1sen!2sus" width="600" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0;" allowfullscreen="" aria-hidden="false" tabindex="0">Moving Company Sunnyvale

https://www.roadrunnerpolaris.com/california/moving-company-sunnyvale-ca/ Movers today provide a wide range of services to make your relocation easier. Since the car moving company is experienced, it will also have good idea on the trade tariffs charged and other crucial procedures which form the part of whole structure. A good moving company should satisfy a particular set of cardinals. It's quite clear that you are attempting to offer your junk car and attempting to do away with, but junkyard owners are taking it as a business. When you need to choose a professional moving company, you can find the best for you by asking them the right questions. Cross country moving companies offer an excellent service to many people in need of moving their belongings long distance. Moving long distances typically causes stress and frustration levels to rise. Your items will be packed in heavy duty, durable cardboard boxes that can handle all your goods. The future mover will want to speak one-on-one with a company representative to discuss service options, services offered, the price of such services, as well as to request estimates for the potential moving task. Through research and investigation and fully understanding the household goods moving process, consumers can avoid becoming the next victim to moving fraud. If you have a way to pile your items cleverly and save space, you will also be able to go for a storing facility with a smaller space and lesser cost. One of the main reasons for hiring a moving company is to get the job done as soon as possible. The resort's world-class services come complet. If you're counting on your homeowner's insurance to cover items while in storage, be sure to check your policy's specifics. By keeping all these tips in mind, you should be better able to find some quality vehicle moving companies. Finding a good moving company is a daunting task. To prevent all possible risks while going to another position you can seek the services of any of his available expert moving companies. Moving from one property to another can sometimes be traumatic. Local companies charge according to per hour system. When it comes to packing, some items require a little extra care and attention. There have been instances when possessions of certain people have been dumped in large warehouses and left to rot, until the customers have paid hefty amounts to regain their possessions. Don't hire a professional mover that does not make you feel comfortable. If you feel there is something wrong with the estimate call the company and ask. Relocation insurance covers for the damage caused by any catastrophe and even if your items are not carefully packed. So, if you don't have much to move, you could save money by getting a smaller container from a different company. So, before choosing the best shipping company out there for your business, it is advisable to educate yourself first. Moving from out of state is a big deal, as with all long-distance moves. Some movers require cash to cover the cost of the move. The first important thing is to search for a property that suits to your budget. There may be any number of reasons why you think moving yourself would be better than hiring professional movers. When someone mentions moving services, of course the first thought that comes to mind is the movers. That should appeal to customers in need of some helpful moving services.

When comparing charges and locating a company that has all the qualifications preferred and it is bit costly. So, to protect your valuable belongings, you have to know how to opt for a professional movers and packers company. If you are looking for moving company choose company which have well known name in the moving industry.

Since transportation laws vary from state to state, it's important to check your state's individual laws before driving a rental truck on the highway. Most storage facilities offer multiple size units to choose from as well as additional services to help keep your belongings safe and secure. Unfortunately, you don't know how many other times the originator sold these leads as well as the company from whom you are purchasing them. Experienced movers are knowledgeable, skilled, and professional. All standard and default tariffs are impacted, effectively limiting the price per unit on energy provided to and used by consumers.

If you have cargo that looks suspicious the moving company for safety may check your items. You may own things that movers are prohibited from transporting due to state regulations. Current technology highlights alarm setting, password protection; built in time sequence, auto setting of different moving styles etc. Therefore, you must do your best to find a moving company that is trustworthy. Hiring a mover can be a complicated task, but if all goes well, it will make the moving process much easier for you and your family. These are professional people who help you relocate your goods. In order to meet a component of several requirements of these people, there are many packing as well as moving companies that provide packing, moving, moving, moving as well as relocating services within along with across the country. Tell them where you are currently located and where you are going, and find the best rate from the most reliable moving company.

[creditrepairinsunnyvale]

For A Better future start with a good Credit Score in Sunnyvale?

Have a low credit score in Sunnyvale? Looking to get a loan? Or a mortgage? Then you might need to know how to boost credit score. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to make your credit score better. This blog will go over a few of these things and show you how you can get a better credit score in Sunnyvale.

1. What is a credit score and why does it matter?

A Credit score in Sunnyvale is one of many things that help determine your credit worthiness. If you have a good credit score then it will make it easier for you to get loans, better interest rates and even lower insurance rates. If you have a low credit score, then that will mean paying higher interest rates and even having your application denied. This blog will look at what a credit score is in Sunnyvale, why it matters and how to improve your credit score.

2. How to set your credit score on track

If you don't know your credit score, then you need to find out. It's not a good idea to buy a car or a house or even rent an apartment without knowing what kind of credit history you have. A low credit score can make your life more difficult. That's why you need to find out how to set your credit score Sunnyvale on track.

3. How Willingness to Pay Credit Score can help you.

You may not know this but there is a Credit score in Sunnyvale and in most other cities in the world. The willingness to pay credit score in Sunnyvale has a huge impact on what you can do in Sunnyvale and in any other city in the world. This blog will look at the different ways in which your willingness to pay credit score in Sunnyvale can help you in Sunnyvale and in any other city in the world.

4. How to improve your credit score.

A credit score implicates a lot in your life. Low credit score could mean no loans for a business, no mortgages for a home or a higher cost to borrow for a car or even a personal loan. But a low credit score does not have to be a permanent situation if you know how to improve your credit score. This blog will look at the different ways you can improve your credit score in Sunnyvale so you can take advantage of the opportunities a good credit score could bring you.

If you are looking for best credit repair companies in Sunnyvale?

Check out website: - www.creditrepairinmyarea.com

Free Consultation Today: (855) 656-2963

[saints-row-2]

the following is a creative writing ‘essay’ i wrote as part of a class on psychogeography, about Stilwater. i think i linked to this briefly before but i got asked to post it so im posting it now. 

But this Vision Remains Fragmentary

I came to Stilwater five years ago, mostly because I had nothing better to do and nowhere better to be. There were other options; San Andreas, or New Austin, or Los Santos, but I chose to come to Stilwater. On the edge of a lake, in the middle of Michigan, Stilwater is a tiny city that might have been nice forty, fifty years ago. The city has a huge factory district, so I guess it made its money off producing something at some point, but now they’re all closed. It’s a mystery how Stilwater makes any money at all. Most of the city just doesn’t.

Stilwater has always been rife with crime, had a crime family decades old stuck in a war with their younger rivals, tearing the city apart for only yet another gang to slip in through the cracks and monopolise the bits of the city not yet claimed. The three gangs divided Stilwater up into factions and fought hellishly on the boundary lines. Anyone could get caught in the crossfire, and anyone did – the number one cause of death in Stilwater was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It didn’t really matter where you were; the projects in Sunnyvale Gardens amongst the run-down apartment blocks, or the wealthy suburban houses in Tidal Spring, it was all open for invasion.

I came to Stilwater, but most importantly, I came to Saint’s Row. Saint’s Row is a small neighbourhood on the corner of Stilwater, surrounded on two sides by open water. Historically, it has been one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city, wedged between the Red Light district and the factories and truck yards in Charles Town and Pilsen. It is the wrong place. Long past its prime, half full of empty buildings and half full of homes rotting with people still inside them, Saint’s Row was a desolate place to live. By far the most violent neighbourhood in Stilwater, abandoned to be a failure inside a city that was already suffering. Somehow Saint’s Row never fell under the banner of one gang or another; people fought there, but no one ever claimed it for themselves, the title of ownership rolling around between factions until someone finally decided they’d had enough. It was a shithole, but as my friend Johnny said, it was a shithole with potential.

We were not the only ones who saw the potential inside Saint’s Row. Over five years they rebuilt the neighbourhood from the ground up, stripping out the decaying housing projects, remaking the landscape to form something useful to the people funding the rebuilding, something that the whole city could be proud of. Now it is a thriving centre of business and commerce, every skyscraper a shining beacon of success. The people who used to live in Saint’s Row are gone now, driven out by rising costs and the swift demolition of their homes. But that’s a small price to pay to have a place to put Stilwater’s brand new digital convention centre.

I never saw the rebuilding of Saint’s Row. I spent the transition confined to a hospital bed; left my home the way I had known it and returned to find the place wiped clean, as though the riverbanks had burst and drowned the old neighbourhood. Long ago, when an earthquake struck the Red Light district and caved in a part of the city, they built over it, the old buildings entombed deep below the ground like ancestors’ graves. But the old Saint’s Row is not buried, it is gone, scoured from the face of the Earth.

It wasn’t a safe place to live, a friendly place. I’ve said that well enough; it was dangerous, and it was decaying. Now it’s purified, scrubbed clean and perfect, a glass-coated vision of luxury without a soul and with no homes. I don’t know if having nowhere to live is an improvement over having somewhere unsafe to live. The apartment buildings here are a little out of the price range of the usual tenant of the old Saint’s Row.

I can barely find the street my building used to sit on, let alone revisit my old home. The block where my apartment sat was demolished, and they built a skyscraper on it. It’s a definitely a change from the squat three-floor building I used to rent a ground-floor apartment in.

It was a single room; bedroom, kitchen and living room in one. Hot and cold running gunfire at all hours of the day. It wasn’t anyone’s dream home, especially mine. It was a filthy mess in a block full of graffiti-coated shacks, and was barely able to keep warm in winter and keep out the sound of the street. It did have a garage though, which was a distinct advantage in a city where parking a car on the street is essentially asking for it to get stolen. And it had a beach view, if you stood on the roof, although the last thing you’d really want to do with Saint’s Row’s own Mission Beach was look at it.

The skyscraper that stands there now is like every other new skyscraper in Saint’s Row, a fifty-story art-deco rectangle cluster, with a thousand shining blue windows that are excellent for catching the sun and shining it in your eyes. No matter where you try to hide in Saint’s Row, if the sun is out, there is going to be a skyscraper shining the light right back in your eyes, like a spotlight that detects poor people. There is a huge divide between the old and the new in Stilwater; places like Downtown are an inharmonious mixture of old traditional and the new flash, which is why they have tried to eradicate everything in Saint’s Row that risks breaking outside of their strict template.

The only thing that remains from the old Saint’s Row is the church, and that’s still the greatest loss of them all. The church at the heart of Saint’s Row is white, like bleached bones picked clean by scavengers. The inside is gilded with gold and lined with oak floors, but it looks and feels like a rich man’s tomb. You can spend a million dollars to make a grave beautiful, but it still holds nothing but the dead. They call it the Saint’s Row Memorial Church now – it was just the Church before, it didn’t need a name to hold reverence – and claim it is a testament to the city’s tumultuous past.

When it was the place me and my friends haunted like violent ghosts, it was collapsing in on itself. The grey stone that the church was built out of was plastered in so many layers of graffiti that though it could have been white underneath, but you would never be able to tell. The pillars inside that held the second story were crumbling, the stairs to the upper floor torn out a long time ago. Most of the pews were gone too, only a few left, the wood black with rot. The graffiti that coated the walls was like a mural to the history of the neighbourhood, every gang and gangster that rolled through in the last forty years had made their mark on it. It was alive, with the people inside and with our love for the place. People died to protect that church. I fought tooth and nail to keep it ours. It was a crumbling ruin, but we were proud of it.

The memorialisation feels like mockery. What are they trying to memorialise? What has been lost is not theirs to mourn. The church was ours and they took it from us, and they have the gall to say that they lost something in the years that we were the ones occupying it. It was our right! To take what we had and defend our neighbourhood, that was our right. No one else was trying to look after the place, the police and the city officials had long since given up on the Row.

The Church sits now in the shadow of the Phillips Building, a goliath of a black and orange skyscraper that dominates the Stilwater skyline. The Phillips Building is the Ultor headquarters, and they want to make sure you can always see them. They funded the rebuilding of the Row, and they want to make everyone know it. The road leading up to the Church is four lanes wide and lined on either side with flags showing off the Stilwater city crest alongside the Ultor company logo, as if the two are halves of the same coin. Ultor billboards are all over the neighbourhood, branding their mark into every inch of the place so you can never dare to forget it. A BRIGHTER FUTURE AND A BETTER LIFE, their slogan claims. The future they’ve built is definitely brighter – it’s so dazzlingly bright that I’m blinded. Or maybe that’s just from the rage.

The Church was sacrosanct not because it was holy; it was an ordinary building, we the children played in it, we can hardly claim the refurbishment was an act of iconoclasm. It was precious because of what it meant to us. I wonder sometimes what happened to the bodies in the graveyard. Were they moved, to the bigger graveyard in the north of the city, next to the rich people’s suburban mansions? Or were they just paved over, buried under layers of concrete and tarmac, like the underground buildings in the Red Light district? It feels more egregious than the other crimes, even if we had little respect for the graveyard ourselves. People used to have fights out there, in ritualistic bonding activities, and half the gravestones were broken from our own bullets.

I say ‘people’ like I wasn’t one of them, and Johnny didn’t once nearly kick my teeth in out there amongst the tombstones. That kind of thing just felt natural in Saint’s Row. It probably doesn’t make sense to outsiders. It doesn’t make sense now they overthrew the neighbourhood and made it into something hollow, and empty. I couldn’t imagine behaving that way in the courtyard of the Memorial Church, our behaviour turned into something unwanted and vile, a blight on their glass paradise.

The change in Stilwater was less natural progression and more a like a sudden neon-clad viral infestation, eating through the bones of the city and making it flourish into hideous impractical new growths. You can stand on the river opposite Saint’s Row, on the pier in Downtown, and it very nearly looks pretty at night. When it’s too dark to make out the buildings themselves, all you can see is the sweeping orange spotlights around the leviathan Phillips Building, the way the millions of glass windows reflect in the river, and it looks nice. Certainly, better than it’s ever looked in the past. In the light of day, the old city looks grimy and unpleasant, the ugly practicality of the old architecture awful in contrast to Ultor’s garish new renovations. I’d say you can understand why someone would want to remodel the rest of Stilwater, but I’d be caught dead before I was seen sympathising with Ultor.

Saint’s Row is pretty from the outside, from the faraway side of the river, but it’s worthless within. There’s nothing worth reclaiming, and even if we called it ours, it never would be again. Beauty, when it does not hold the promise of happiness, has no right to exist, but we can’t tear down the billboards, the skyscrapers, the Phillips Building and find what we used to own beneath the shell. The Saint’s Row we called home is gone. Five years ago, we started in the Row and grew outwards. It was a struggle, but it was a war we were willing to wage. Now we are forever outside Saint’s Row looking in. It is a white void of land that is untouched and untouchable by the likes of us.

[carrentalsunnyvaletx]

Rent a Car Sunnyvale is all about security, serenity and convenience

So at whatever point you need to book a vehicle to stamp the event, or to book a ride when you want comfort, book Rent a Car Sunnyvale for a more secure, dependable and helpful air terminal exchange and city visit.

If you travel now and then for any reason, then you are unquestionably mindful of the criticalness of leasing Rent a Car Sunnyvale. In the case of going outside the city for corporate gatherings or inside the city for dealings and exchange, private transportation gives another hope to voyaging. The Swift Rental Car is working in Seattle and encompassing regions for over a decade and giving all kinds of convenient transportation to clients. 

Hire Best  Rent a Car Sunnyvale

You will have fixed rate from our private rental car service which you can negotiate before the booking. Taxi affiliations charges by the meter. Sometimes when you are unfamiliar with the roads most drivers tend to choose long directions to make more money. Therefore, it is wiser to get a car with fixed rates.  At the point when you take a look at our company for your traveling needs, such things will never happen. 

Updated security 

A private car rental service proposes that you get a pro, particularly arranged and experienced driver at your territory for air terminal trade. At the point when you are going for business, you need to consider all of the substances like the focus on the schedule, reviewing the keynotes and managing your visit pressure uninhibitedly. With this mental weight, you ought to never stress over transportation. 

Our Rent a Car Sunnyvale offers basically the ideal assumptions of peacefulness with respect to stressing over prosperity especially in another city. Our services are commonly significantly confirmed and are constantly guaranteed to pass by our lord watching office. So in the event that you are new in a city and need a ride from the air terminal, don't spare a moment to book ahead. 

Dependable ground transportation 

At Swift Rental Car, we utilize competent drivers who are top notch in driving. The escorts are keen, obliging and orchestrated and have quite a while of driving data. As they are the most capable and experienced drivers, they know the majority of the courses and systems for driving. With a practiced driver, you can get an astounding driving establishment. You should simply contract a vehicle from our organization. Our master driver will be at your get area on time to take you to your goal.

Save time

Save your time by renting a reliable private car hire company like ours. Just because of on-time services the company is becoming 1st priority of many travelers. Usually, car rental companies invest more money in the business other than local means of transportation. The cars are expensive so the rates are a bit higher as compared to other car services. Once you have hired a car for airport transfer the car will be on time to take you away. 

[orbemnews]

Seeing the Real Faces of Silicon Valley By Mary Beth Meehan and Fred Turner Mary Beth Meehan is an independent photographer and writer. Fred Turner is a professor of communication at Stanford University. The workers of Silicon Valley rarely look like the men idealized in its lore. They are sometimes heavier, sometimes older, often female, often darker skinned. Many migrated from elsewhere. And most earn far less than Mark Zuckerberg or Tim Cook. This is a place of divides. As the valley’s tech companies have driven the American economy since the Great Recession, the region has remained one of the most unequal in the United States. During the depths of the pandemic, four in 10 families in the area with children could not be sure that they would have enough to eat on any given day, according to an analysis by the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies. Just months later, Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, who recently added “Technoking” to his title, briefly became the world’s richest man. The median home price in Santa Clara County — home to Apple and Alphabet — is now $1.4 million, according to the California Association of Realtors. For those who have not been fortunate enough to make billionaire lists, for midlevel engineers and food truck workers and longtime residents, the valley has become increasingly inhospitable, testing their resilience and resolve. Here are 12 of them, who originally appeared in our book, “Seeing Silicon Valley,” from which this photo essay is excerpted. Ravi and Gouthami Between them, Ravi and Gouthami have multiple degrees — in biotechnology, computer science, chemistry and statistics. In 2013, after studying in India and working in Wisconsin and Texas, they landed in the Bay Area, where they now work as statistical programmers in the pharmaceutical industry. They rent a one-bedroom apartment in the bayside town of Foster City, and they regularly attend a Hindu temple in Sunnyvale, which has been a hub for the Indian community since the early 1990s. Although the couple have worked hard to get here, and they make good money — their starting salaries were about $90,000 each — they feel that a future in Silicon Valley eludes them. Their apartment, for example, costs almost $3,000 a month. They could move somewhere less expensive, but, with the traffic, they’d spend hours each day commuting. They would like to stay, but they don’t feel confident that they can save, invest, start a family. They’re not sure what to do next. Diane lives in a spacious house in Menlo Park, the city where Facebook is based. Her home is filled with beautiful objects from a life of travel with her husband, a Chinese businessman and philanthropist, now deceased. The couple moved to the Bay Area over 30 years ago when he retired, and they loved the area — the sunshine, the ocean, the wide-open spaces. Since then, Diane has watched the area change: “It’s overcrowded now. It used to be lovely, you know — you had space, you had no traffic. Here it was absolutely a gorgeous place. Now it’s heavily populated — buildings are going up everywhere like there’s no tomorrow. “The money that rolls here is unbelievable,” she continued, “and it’s in the hands of very young people now. They have too much money — there’s no spiritual feelings, just materialism.” Victor Victor came to Silicon Valley from El Salvador more than 25 years ago. He lives in a small white trailer in Mountain View, a couple of miles from Google’s campus. He used to live in an apartment nearby but had to leave when the rent got too high. His trailer is parked in a long line of trailers, some inhabited by others who’ve lost their homes. Victor, who’s now in his 80s, doesn’t have electricity or running water, but the custodians in his old apartment often sneak him in to bathe and to wash his clothes. Victor always carries a jar of medicated ointment in his backpack, and when neighbors twist an ankle or have a stiff neck, they know to knock on Victor’s trailer door. He sets out a chair for them and massages the sore spot until the pain passes. Teresa Teresa works full time in a food truck. She prepares Mexican food geared toward a Silicon Valley clientele: hand-milled corn tortillas, vegan tamales, organic Swiss chard burritos. The truck travels up and down the valley, serving employees at Tesla’s headquarters, students at Stanford, shoppers at the Whole Foods in Cupertino. Teresa lives in an apartment in Redwood City with her four daughters. In the fall of 2017, her parents visited from Mexico, the first time she had seen them in 22 years. “Bienvenidos Abuelos,” a crayon drawing on the door announced. Welcome, grandparents. Today in Business Updated  May 7, 2021, 1:12 p.m. ET “Es muy dificil para uno,” she said. It’s really hard. Konstance As a teacher, Konstance is one of the thousands of public servants in Silicon Valley who can’t afford to live in the places they serve. For years she joined the commuting firefighters, police officers and nurses sitting for hours in traffic on the freeways around San Francisco Bay, commuting from more affordable places dozens of miles away. In July 2017, Konstance won a place in a lottery run by Facebook. It offered apartments to 22 teachers in the school district adjacent to the company’s Menlo Park headquarters. The teachers would pay 30 percent of their salaries for rent; Facebook would make up the difference. So Konstance and her two daughters moved within walking distance of the family’s school. Suddenly, she was surrounded by something she’d been missing: time. Time to make hot meals at home rather than eat in the car, time for her daughter to join the Girl Scouts. In 2019, Facebook announced that it would give $1 billion in loans, grants and land toward creating more affordable housing in the area. Of that pledge, $25 million would go toward building housing for educators: 120 apartments, including for Konstance and the other teachers in the original pilot as long as they were working in nearby schools. At the time of the announcement, Facebook said the money would be used over the next decade. Construction on the teacher housing has yet to be completed. Geraldine One day Geraldine received a phone call from a friend: “They’re taking our churches!” her friend said. It was 2015, when Facebook was expanding in the Menlo Park neighborhood where she lived. Her father-in-law had established a tiny church here 55 years before, and Geraldine, a church leader, couldn’t let it be torn down. The City Council was holding a meeting for the community that night. “So I went to the meeting,” she said. “You had to write your name on a paper to be heard, so I did that. They called my name and I went up there bravely, and I talked.” Geraldine doesn’t remember exactly what she said, but she stood up and prayed — and, ultimately, the congregation was able to keep the church. “God really did it,” she said. “I didn’t have nothing to do with that. It was God.” In 2016, Gee and Virginia bought a five-bedroom house in Los Gatos, a pricey town nestled beside coastal foothills. Houses on their street cost just under $2 million at the time, and theirs was big enough for each of their two children to have a bedroom and for their parents to visit them from Taiwan. Together, the couple earn about $350,000 a year — more than six times the national household average. Virginia works in the finance department of Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, and Gee was an early employee of a start-up that developed an online auctioning app. They have wanted to buy nice furniture for the house, but between their mortgage and child care expenses, they don’t think they can afford to buy it all at once. Some of their rooms now sit empty. Gee said that Silicon Valley salaries like theirs sounded like real wealth to the rest of the country, but that here it didn’t always feel that way. Jon Jon lives in East Palo Alto, a traditionally lower-income area separated from the rest of Silicon Valley by Highway 101. By the time Jon was in the eighth grade he knew he wanted to go to college, and he was accepted by a rigorous private high school for low-income children. He discovered an aptitude for computers, and excelled in school and professional internships. Yet as he advanced in his career, he realized that wherever he went there were very few people who looked like him. “I got really troubled,” he said. “I didn’t know who to talk to, and I saw that it wasn’t a problem for them. I was just like ‘I need to do something about this.’” Jon, now in his 30s, has come back to East Palo Alto, where he has developed maker spaces and brought tech-related education projects to members of the community. Erfan “It is amazing living here,” said Erfan, who moved to Mountain View when her husband got a job as an engineer at Google. “But it’s not a place I want to spend my whole life. There are lots of opportunities for work, but it’s all about the technology, the speed for new technology, new ideas, new everything.” The couple had previously lived in Canada after emigrating from Iran. “We never had these opportunities back home, in Iran. I know that — I don’t want to complain,” she added. “When I tell people I’m living in the Bay Area, they say: ‘You’re so lucky — it must be like heaven! You must be so rich.’” But the emotional toll can be weighty. “We are sometimes happy, but also very anxious, very stressed. You have to be worried if you lose your job, because the cost of living is very high, and it’s very competitive. It’s not that easy — come here, live in California, become a millionaire. It’s not that simple. ” Elizabeth Elizabeth studied at Stanford and works as a security guard for a major tech firm in the area. She is also homeless. Sitting on a panel about the issue at San Jose State University in 2017, she said, “Please remember that many of the homeless — and there are many more of us than are captured in the census — work in the same companies that you do.” (She declined to disclose which company she worked for out of fear of reprisal.) While sometimes homeless co-workers may often serve food in cafeterias or clean buildings, she added, many times they’re white-collar professionals. “Sometimes it takes only one mistake, one financial mistake, sometimes it takes just one medical catastrophe. Sometimes it takes one tiny little lapse in insurance — it can be a number of things. But the fact is that there’s lots of middle-class people that fell into poverty very recently,” she said. “Their homelessness that was just supposed to be a month or two months until they recovered, or three months, turns out to stretch into years. Please remember, there are a lot of us.” Source link Orbem News #Faces #Real #Silicon #Valley

[chapterxxv]

2020

Highlights:

Dating Michael

Rescuing Nori

Moving to NYC

Kelly’s engagement and wedding

Visiting Hawaii and Puerto Rico

Surfing, scuba diving, and snorkeling

Buying the car I wanted

Cross-country road trip and seeing my family!

Spending time with Michael’s family, getting to try kayaking, paddle boarding, and going on their boat on the lake

Best Christmas ever!

Working out, vinyasa yoga, getting abs, biking

Having incredible friendships. Molly ❤️ and so many to name

Cabin trips (Poconos, Fire Island, Rhinebeck)

Reading: Kelsey’s books, The Glass Castle, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Ninth House, Trevor Noah’s book

Sarah’s visit at the beginning of the year and still getting to visit her in Detroit

Recreational bucket list

Threesome!

Furnishing and decorating my apartment

Buying my Cricut

Lowlights:

Getting dumped and spending most of the year getting over it

The really shitty stressful string of navigating a personal request to work remotely, finding an apartment across the country, moving from Sunnyvale to Airbnb and NY, moving from Nick’s apartment to mine, selling my car, and then moving abruptly between sheltering orders, freaking out about getting basic supplies and food after moving, not being able to find a roommate

Living absolutely alone for months and paying a lot in rent (pro: being able to afford my rent)

Not being able to buy more clorox wipes

Tinder/Hinge 🙄

Acknowledging and working through anxiety and depressive disorders

Some really fucking shitty projects at work. The Learned Detector initial work and then later the refactor.

[thekillerblogofkillers]

Israel Keyes (1978-2012)

Israel Keyes was an American serial killer, rapist, burglar, arsonist and bank robber who admitted to violent crimes spanning from as far back as 1996, with the vicious sexual assault of a teenage girl in Oregon. Keyes committed a series of brutal rapes and murders until he was captured in 2012 – he was being held in custody, awaiting trial for Samantha Koenig’s murder, when he committed suicide in prison. He was born in Richmond, Utah, on January 7, 1978. Keyes was raised in a Mormon family and was homeschooled. The family move to Aladdin Road, north of Colville, Washington, and became friends with the family of Chevie Kehoe, a white supremacist and convicted murderer. The family attended a Christian Identity church before moving to Sunnyvale, California, spending time on the east coast after Israel’s father died. Keyes served in the US Army between 1998 and 2001 at Fort Lewis, Fort Hood and Egypt. According to Keyes’ military records, he entered the Army in Albany, NY on July 9, 1998 and was discharged from Fort Lewis, Washington on July 8, 2001 at the rank of E-4. The same records indicated that Keyes was given the following awards: Army Achievement Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Marksman Badge with Rifle Bar, Expert Infantryman Badge and Air Assault Badge. Keyes started a construction business in 2007 in Alaska, Keyes Construction, working as a handyman, contractor and construction worker.

The first victims of Israel Keyes were located in Washington state in the late 1990s – Keyes told investigators that he killed 4 people in Washington State, claims which the FBI are still looking into, as well as state police. Keyes lived in several places in Washington state between the late 1990s until around 2008. As a US Army Specialist he was stationed at Fort Lewis between 1998 and 2001, and also lived in the small city of Colville in Eastern Washington and in the Makah Reservation community of Neah Bay on the Olympic Peninsula. Keyes didn’t have a felony criminal record in Washington but had been cited in Thurston County (near Olympia) for driving without a valid licence and in an earlier incident pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. Authorities are currently reviewing unsolved murder and missing person cases to determine which cases, if any, are linked to Keyes. He confessed to a murder in New York but authorities haven’t been able to determine the age, identity, or sex of the victim, let alone when or where the murder occurred, but still believed the confession was accurate. Keyes did have ties to New York, owning 10 acres of land and a run-down cabin in Constable. He also confessed to committing bank robberies in New York and Texas – the FBI later confirmed that he robbed the Community Bank in Tupper Lake, New York, in April 2009. He threatened people with a handgun, but there were no injuries. Keyes later told authorities he had also burglarised a Texas home and set it on fire. In the same period as the Community Bank robbery Keyes claims to have killed a woman in New Jersey and buried her in the area. Keyes was linked to the murders of Bill and Lorraine Currier in Essex, Vermont, breaking into their home on the night of June 8 and tying them up, sexually assaulting them and strangling Lorraine. The bodies have never been discovered. 2 years earlier, Keyes hid a “murder kit” near the Currier’s home, which contained a handgun and various other supplies. Following the murders he moved most of these items to a new hiding place in Parishville, New York, where they stayed until his arrest.

The last known murder Keyes committed was that of 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, a barista from Anchorage, Alaska. Keyes kidnapped her from work on February 1, 2012. He stole her debit card and other personal possessions before murdering her on February 2. Police said that Keyes sexually assaulted Koenig before killing her. After her death, Keyes left on a cruise out of New Orleans, leaving her body in a shed. When he returned from the cruise, Keyes revisited the body, taking a photograph of the corpse with a 4-day-old issue of the Anchorage Daily News in an attempt to make it seem that she was still alive so he could demand a ransom. After asking for $30,000 in ransom money, Keyes dismembered Koenig’s body and disposed of it in Matanuska Lake, north of Anchorage. A report by the FBI stated that Keyes burglarised at 20-30 homes across the United States, also robbing several banks between 2001 and 2012 to fund his hobby of murder. Keyes may be linked to as many as 11 deaths in the U.S. as well as even more outside the country. After the murder of Samantha Koenig and the payment of his $30,000 ransom demand, police were able to track withdrawals Keyes made from the account as he moved through the southwestern United States. During this time, controversially, the police refused to release surveillance video of Koenig’s abduction. Keyes was arrested by the Texas Highway Patrol in the parking lot of the Cotton Patch Cafe in Lufkin, Texas, on March 13, 2012, after using Koenig’s debit card which had also been used in New Mexico and Arizona. Keyes was extradited to Alaska where he confessed to the murder – he was represented by Alaska federal defender Rich Curtner. He was indicted in the case and his trial was scheduled to begin in March 2013, a year after his arrest.

Keyes was known to plan his murders ahead of time and took evasive action to avoid detection. Unlike many serial killers he didn’t have a particular victim profile, usually killing far from home and never in the same place twice. On his murder sprees, Keyes would keep his mobile phone turned off and paid for items with cash. He had no connections to his victims. In the Currier murders, he flew to Chicago and then rented a car to drive 1000 miles to Vermont, using the murder kit he had hidden then 2 years earlier to perform the killings. Keyes admired serial killer Ted Bundy and had several similarities with him – both were methodical and felt like they possessed their victims, but there are noticeable differences, namely that Bundy’s murders were spread throughout the country because he lived in many different places, not because he was trying to avoid detection, like Keyes. Bundy only targeted attractive young women with long, dark hair parted in the middle, while Keyes had no particular victim type. While he was being held in jail at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on suspicion of murder, Israel Keyes committed suicide on December 2, 2012, via self-inflicted cuts to the wrists and strangulation. He was survived by a school-age daughter. A suicide note discovered underneath his body consisted of an “ode to murder” but didn’t share any clues about potential other victims.