Category: Manny Kagan

 Whom Do You Know That Might Benefit From Our Tailored Mortgage Solutions?

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Last week I wrote about a short vacation trip we took to Ogunquit, Maine.  To get there we flew from New York to Portland, Maine. On our way back, we decided to stay in Portland for a few extra days to explore Maine’s largest city with a population of over 500,000.  On our visit, we met very friendly people, and the food was very good as well.  We stayed at the Hyatt Hotel in the Old Port district, which is made up of many old brick buildings, with restaurants and boutiques.  We visited the Portland Museum of Art, which had an interesting art collection, and Elfa did her share of bargain hunting to help the local economy.

On the first night, we had dinner at the Fore Street Restaurant, which was recommended by the Fodor’s Travel Guide, and we were not disappointed.  We sat next to a couple, and I used the opportunity to clandestinely photograph the guy with a long beard.  After I got satisfactory results and showed it to them, it was very easy to start a conversation, and to acquire new friends.  Scott’s ancestors came to Maine on the third ship after The Mayflower, which arrived in New England in 1620.  He and Rhonda were celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary.  Suddenly, he told me “Look on her face now”.  At this moment he started to unbutton his shirt to reveal the tee-shirt underneath with the magic words “Yes, Dear”.  The man was mature enough to know that to make a good marriage, the husband always has the last words, and it is “Yes, Dear.”

For me this trip was an opportunity to relax, to observe and meet new people, to take photographs and to write.  I started working on my next book titled “Retirement Solutions for Smart People.  5 Easy Ways to Enjoy Your Golden Age”.  It was not a coincidence, but in the morning I was writing about how in planning for retirement, husbands need to listen to their wives.  And after all the agreements and disagreements, his last words are “Yes, Dear”.

Enjoy and Share.

P.S. Because people are so friendly here, it is very easy to photograph those whom I encountered.  But you have to come here to check it out.  Meanwhile enjoy these images.

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 Whom Do You Know That Might Benefit From Our Tailored Mortgage Solutions?

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Have you heard about a place called Ogunquit, located in Maine?  Neither did I, until a few months ago my wife Elfa informed me that if we do not take a three days’ vacation, the points of our time-share will expire, and it would be a shame to lose them.  She also told me that she had found an exchange at a resort in Maine, one of the States on our list of places to visit.  When I looked at the map, I realized that Maine could be a part of Canada, since most of the land borders with Quebec.  Its population is only 1,328,361, and is the 42 most populous state in the United States., while California is Number 1 with 37,253,956 inhabitants.  In terms of bodies of water, Maine is ranked 12^th in the nation, while California is #6.  There is water everywhere.  The resort area where we stayed was a few residential blocks away from access to the sea.  When I walked there early in the morning, I found a huge beach with calm waters.

Although the weather was very nice, there were just a few people there.  The tourist season was due to start at the end of May and lasts until the end of September.  During this time, all the area will be filled with visitors, who flock there to experience the beauty of nature. The name Ogunquit in the Abenaki language, which was spoken long ago in Quebec and Maine, means “beautiful place by the sea”.  We drove on the road that winds along the water, visited picturesque little towns, and ended up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is about a thirty minute drive from there.  But many food establishments had a CLOSED sign on the door, since it was before the tourist season started.  To taste the local ROCOCO ice cream (which was very good), we drove 15 miles to Kennebunkport.  This port town was incorporated in 1651, and today this area is the location of summer homes of the 41^st President Mr. and Mrs. Bush, as well as their son Jeb Bush and many others who is whos, judging by the huge mansions along the road.

On a morning walk through the marsh land bordering the sea with my camera in hand, listening to the chirping birds, looking at the young green leaves just appearing on the tree branches, and the brown, old ones on the ground, noticing new flowers pushing themselves through soft ground, I realized that it looked like any other place or state we have visited in the spring.  I had a similar experience back at home on The Sea Ranch as well.  Then I thought, “Why do we always want to go far away and visit other countries, if everywhere we go looks so familiar?”  I think the answer was given by the Russian poet Vladimir Soloukhin.  In one of his poems he writes, “To live on the earth with the soul striving to the sky,” and in another he describes the different experiences we have in our lives, and then asks, “O.K., what is left for us in life?” and answers, “The joy of anticipation”.  I just carry along my photo camera on my journeys to capture a small sliver of my experiences with one purpose, to share with you the joy I feel in my heart.

Enjoy and Share.

P.S.  Unfortunately, because of my lack of skills and even the possibility to capture the beauty, I think you would still have to come and to experience it here yourself.  Meanwhile, these four images reflect the natural beauty created by nature itself.

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 Whom Do You Know That Might Benefit From Our Tailored Mortgage Solutions?

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We recently traveled to Portland, Maine for a short vacation.  To get there from San Francisco, we had to fly to New York.  The first time I visited New York City was in 1978, while still living in Israel.  When we were considering moving to the United States for my MBA studies in 1980, we were deciding between New York City, where my close childhood friend was living, and who would help us start our new lives in a new country, or San Francisco, where my wife’s childhood friend lived.  My wife Elfa turned New York down, thus we ended up in San Francisco.

Elfa used to be afraid to go to New York, and ironically both of our daughters ended up studying and living there for many years.  Our eldest daughter Alona received her Master’s degree from Columbia University, while her sister Tamar received her Bachelor’s degree from the Tisch School of the Performing Arts, at NYU.  As a result, we traveled to Manhattan many times to visit our daughters.

After the Dutch bought the island from the Native Americans in 1626, they named it New Amsterdam.  In 1664, the British seized the island from the Dutch and gave it a new name – New York City.  It served as the capital of the United States from 1785 to 1790.  One of the first groups of different people and nations, who today populate this area, were Jews.  In September 1654, twenty-three Jews from the Netherlands, who were originally from Recife, Brazil, then a Dutch colony, arrived in New Amsterdam.  Today some experts believe that as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York.  All five boroughs were incorporated into a single city in 1898, and a census estimated the population in 2015 was 8,550,000, distributed over the land area of just 305 square miles, thus making New York the most densely populated city in the United States.  In 1920 John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer for the New York Morning Telegraph, called New York the “Big Apple”.  The name caught on and is still popular today.  Enjoy and Share.

P.S. As any big city, New York offers many photo opportunities.  When I visit Manhattan, I like to go for a walk in Central Park, which was developed in 1857.  San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, which was modeled after Central Park in New York City, is actually 20% larger with a population in San Francisco of only 837,442 (as of 2013).

Many famous photographers have photographed New York City throughout the years.  I hope you’ll enjoy my humble contribution of four images of this great city.

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 Whom Do You Know That Might Benefit From Our Tailored Mortgage Solutions?

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Anyone who has travelled to countries in Europe such as Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands, may have noticed the proliferation of bike riders in the city streets.  We saw bicycles everywhere.  I was amazed by the size of the bicycle parking lot we saw in Amsterdam, where we visited in 2010.  It was multi-leveled, and I had to wonder how the owners could find their bikes.  One of the problems of living in small city dwellings is where to store your valuable means of transportation.  Some bicycles are very expensive.  On Google I found that among “The world’s most expensive bikes” the least expensive was priced at $34,425.00, and the most expensive one called “The Butterfly Madonna” can be purchased for just $500,000.00.  If this is not in your budget, you might consider Bike Sharing.

I recently visited 24^th Street in San Francisco, and I picked up the local newspaper, “The Noe Valley Voice”. Inside was an article, “Bike Share Coming to Noe Valley”, which prompted me to write this story.  And then the following day, I read an article in the “San Francisco Chronicle” titled, “Bike Share Set to Wheel into Bay Station”.

Cycling in San Francisco has grown in popularity in recent years, aided by improving the cycling infrastructure.  At the end of 2013, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) attempted to count how many bikes there are on the streets, which amounted to 23,225 bikes, about a 96% increase since 2005.  As more young people move to San Francisco, the number of bikes seems to grow.  But this also creates a challenge. One bike is stolen in our city every three hours, and most of them are never recovered because they’re quickly disassembled in chop shops. When my daughter Tamar lived in Manhattan, her vintage 3 speed bicycles that she used to ride around downtown NYC, were snitched a number of times, only to be replaced with another old one, just to continue the recycling process.  Regardless whether you cycle to work or just for pleasure, protect yourself.  Enjoy and Share.

P.S. It is always fun to photograph bicycles.  I encounter them everywhere.  Perhaps one day their images will get into my next books.

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 Whom Do You Know That Might Benefit From Our Tailored Mortgage Solutions?

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Long ago, I realized our children are our teachers.  Of course we teach them at the beginning of their lives; trying to guide their early education, helping them find an occupation, which would sustain their lives, and then they leave home.  Years later, after having their life experiences and being on their own, they return to our lives to help us see a new world through their eyes.

I’ve learned a lot from our two daughters, including how to be patient, tolerant and loving.

In recent years, both of our daughters have been teaching us how to become healthier. We have been learning how to control our cravings for less than healthy foods.  Our younger Tamar, who has been a vegetarian since birth, started a small business some years ago, helping people embrace food and to eat more healthfully.  She learned a lot about nutrition and developed delicious recipes, which she has shared with her mom, and I am lucky direct beneficiary of my wife’s culinary skills.  Our oldest daughter, Alona, was the “rebel” in our family.   When we became vegetarians over forty years ago, she continued to eat meat.  But as the years advanced, she became more conscious about what goes into her body and started to learn how to maintain her health and weight.  I have been trim most of my life, but lately my stomach started to stick out.  I wanted to get rid of that extra five pounds.  In my view, dieting for the sake of losing weight does not always work.  What I needed was to change my lifestyle, the intake of food and to exercise regularly.  Elfa suggested walking, daily.  To that, I added regular workouts.

Meanwhile Alona influenced the change in our eating habits.  Learning about her eating experiences, I decided to go on cleanse, by only eating apples for three days, which I wrote about it in September 2015.  I felt great and I lost some weight.  Then she suggested that we change what we consume in our daily meals.  During one of her recent visits from Paris, she showed Elfa how to eliminate sugar and carbs from our diet (which I wrote about last week).  We started eating lighter, eliminated bread and desserts and “miraculously” I shed nineteen pounds.  Following that, I decided to clean the inside of our body.  Alona convinced us to undertake a week-long juice fast, where we consumed juices three times a day, and also went on long walks (Consult with your doctor if you want to do that).  The idea coincided with an invitation I got to teach two seminars in Monterey.  We rented a house in Pebble Beach, and during the next week we just consumed delicious juices prepared from different varieties of vegetables and fruits.  Elfa bought a book “The Juice Cleanse: The Seven Day Juice Diet”, which offered many recipes.  During those days I kept working, teaching my seminars, meeting with new people, talking to my ongoing clients and my office.  I also walked for three hours every day.  I did not feel tired or hungry, or a need to take a nap.  By the end, I had a lot of energy, and a cleaner and trimmer body.  Upon our return, we gradually started to consume solid foods, but kept small portions with the intention to repeat this experience every other month, but for only three days at a time.  My goal is to live a healthful and productive long life.  Stick around to see how I am doing.

Enjoy and share.

P.S. During my walks I encountered a lot of blooming flowers and insects, who manage to sustain themselves on pollen.

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Cheers,