Nick Bastian's Blog

Once again, it's time for our (7th) annual turkey drive! On Sunday Nov. 22nd, I will be delivering turkeys to Phoenix Rescue Mission as they prepare to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.

I believe that many people have a desire to help others this time of year but find it difficult to do so because our lives are so busy. This year, the shelters need a LOT of help. If you would like to help by making a financial donation, we will do all of the work for you! I'll be purchasing frozen turkeys Sunday morning to deliver to the Phoenix Rescue Mission. (I can provide receipts from the mission if needed.) Please feel free to contact me with any questions or donations.

If you are able to donate one dollar or a hundred ( or more), I am able to purchase frozen turkeys all at once for delivery to the mission on Sunday morning. Over the years, we have found this the easiest way to help the most people. I can give you my address or I can pick up donations up until Saturday the 21st. You can always email me at nick (at) nickbastian (dot) com or call me for more info! I am out and about a LOT, so it makes picking up your donation pretty easy! :-)

Last year, with the help of my friend Rob, we were able to deliver over 875 pounds of turkey for needy families! Big thanks to Rob Sell at Sell Home Inspections for all he does. Thankfully, Rob has really stepped in to be a huge help to me in hauling all of these birds. We both have a BLAST delivering them and want to thank everyone for your donations to such a great cause.

Please help. Every single penny is GREATLY appreciated. We want to make it easy for everyone to help others this Thanksgiving. I would also like to wish you and your families a wonderful holiday season!

If you are an agent that sells homes near transit lines or that feels like living near a light rail system could be a benefit to home owners or investors, I would ask that you contact your local transit authority to get your area added to the Walk Score system.

Walk Score is a great tool we have used for quite some time to allow people to “score” a home based on it’s “walk-ability.” While I believe it is a great tool, I hadn’t really been quite as excited as one might think, mostly because their algorithm hadn’t included public transportation, mainly, light rail.

Recently, that excitement has changed slightly as I have seen several blog posts about new transportation data being used in evaluating a Walk Score. The reason I say slightly is because the Phoenix Metro area does not yet have the super cool transit functionality built into the search. ( Flagstaff has it!?!)

Getting the data necessary to add transportation to the Walk Score system is easy. There is a form we can all fill out to request our transit agency to submit a transit feed to make it happen. If you are interested in transportation or are interested in living near the light rail line, please fill out that form and let them know.

Please feel free to leave a comment here and add to the discussion BUT, please also head over to the blog post I wrote about this topic on the Rail Life blog and leave a comment there as well. I would like to get some reactions from some of the "transit geeks" that read the Rail Life blog and it would be great to have them see what some of the people from Active Rain have to say about the Walk Score information. If you are not familiar with Walk Score, you might want to check them out. It is a fun way to tell people how "walk able" their neighborhood.

Ok, who is using Google Wave? As you can see form the following blog post written by my friend Bill Risser, we are going to meet on Monday to try and dive a little deeper into some of it's features.

You are welcome to join us in person or online. If you have a Google Wave account, please feel free to connect with me so that we can chat on Monday at 10am ( AZ time) I am nickbastian@googlewave <dot>com

I have heard good things and not so good things about Google Wave which is understandable for a new product. I have nt used it much yet but see some interesting possibilities. Please feel free to join us!

Not long ago, I came up with the term RailGating. Basically, it is a new way for people to enjoy the football games at Sun Devil Stadium while avoiding traffic and parking nightmares. Now that we have light rail available to drop people off right in front of Sun Devil Stadium, many people are using it to get to the games and a new term has been introduced to light rail riding Sun Devils. RailGating is here… Soon, it will be an art form. There is no right or wrong way to railgate, just have fun. There will be people that join existing tailgaters, people will use one of the FREE park and Ride lots and then stop at restaurants and bars near Sun Devil Stadium, downtown Phoenix students can take light rail to the game and meet up with friends, etc.

This weekend, we are gearing up for for some serious RailGating action and a Homecoming showdown with the Cal Bears on Halloween.

In fact, everyone is invited to come hang out with the cool AT&T SparkyCentral camera man before, during (if you don’t have tickets") and after the game. While there, you will have a chance to enter the “Grand Puba” contest to win a bunch of cool stuff. If you can’t make it or are not going to enter the contest, please make sure to VOTE FOR ME. <—yes, click that link and vote so that I win…

According to the AT&T Sparky Central site, these are some of the things up for grabs…

1. Free passes to home games.
2. Sideline seating.
3. FREE AT&T Sparky Central merchandise.
4. Exclusive V.I.P. Tailgating Railgating events.
5. More cool stuff that you can find on their site or ask em’ Saturday!

The Homecoming game against California has been picked up by ABC for a 12:30 PM kickoff. We will be there by 10:30am to hang out with friends before the game. (SparkyCentral will be there by 11:00am) The early afternoon kickoff time leaves plenty of time for RailGater’s to enjoy trick-or-treating and other Halloween festivities that evening. Be there, be loud and in gold to carry on the home field advantage for the Devil’s.

ASU has a bunch of great stuff planned for Homecoming. Make sure you check it out and make sure you stop by and say “Hi!”

To come hang out with me and SparkyCentral, take the light rail to the station at 5th and College and head South on Forest to 6th street. At 6th street head west to where the street ends, we will be in the lot on the South side of the road at 101 E 6th Street. Here is a Google map for “RailGating” with us.

For people that are enjoying the games in Tempe, we have set up a new RailGating group on Flickr to share the experiences with friends and with the community. I'll be adding more pics from this weekend so come back and check it out. Finding ways to have fun in Tempe is what it is all about!

See you Saturday… Go Devil’s!

Foreclosures are a huge part of the real estate market in Arizona. For some, foreclosures are an opportunity, for others, they are a nightmare. Over the past several months, I have had many conversations with people about what happens to a tenant when an owner loses the home. We have all heard the horror stories of people coming home to an eviction notice and the terrible situation it can put them through. The National Association of Realtors "supports programs to reduce the impact of foreclosure on communities." In fact, they have talked about tenants rights quite a bit this year. From a NAR article we learn:

 Under the new law, which went into effect on May 20th, tenants will have to receive 90-days notice prior to being evicted, when their rental home is foreclosed upon. In addition, tenants must be allowed to stay in the property through the end of their lease, with two exceptions: * The new owner wants to occupy the property as a personal residence, and * There is no lease (month to month), or there is a lease but state law allows the lease to be terminated at any time upon notice.

Unfortunately, not all people are aware of their rights. The fact is, most people would prefer to be notified prior to a notice being served.

After my friend Jeff called recently to ask me to look into a potential foreclosure situation for a friend of his, I called my friend, Bill Risser and also decided to meet with the guys at LemonLandlord.com to learn more about their service. Take a look at this video. If you have any questions... " Just Call Nick!"

You can also follow Bill on Twitter and follow along with Lemon Landlord there, as well.

Oktoberfest at Tempe Town Lake is this weekend! With the weather looking good and the huge list of fun things being offered, who could say no?

The Tempe Oktoberfest will be held Friday, October 2nd through Sunday, October 4th at Tempe Town Lake. Of course, the easiest way to get to all of the cool events at Town Lake ( in our opinion) is for you to take the light rail to 3rd Street and Mill. The FREE light rail park and ride lots make the trip very convenient.

This year’s event looks to have something for everyone. There will be a ton of kid-friendly activities with Kinderfest at Oktoberfest* along  with non-stop music and entertainment for all. In fact, this year’s music lineup is being billed as their “best ever” with “20 bands on 4 stages.”

Other features and “Fest Facts” for the Oktoberfest include:

Six Beer Gardens

Splash Park/Rock Wall

Bungee Jump

Six Beer Gardens

Bavarian Bakery

Carnival Rides

Six Beer Gardens

Two Wine Gardens

Non-Stop Polka (whatever that means)

Six Beer Gardens

FREE admission is always good, too.

The Tempe Oktoberfest will be held:

Friday 10/2/09 from 5pm – midnight

Saturday 10/3/09 from 10am – midnight

Sunday 10/4/09 from 10am - 6pm

If you want to save a few bucks, “special family pricing allows for the purchase of 25 food / activity tickets for just $20.00 during the following hours: Friday:  5:00 pm –  7:00 pm  Saturday: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm and Sunday: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm.” ( normally, tickets are $1.00 each )

Flickr photo by Mark Briola

*Kinderfest hours are slightly different than the rest of the event. Please see their web site for details.

Tempe Town Lake is located at the North end of the Mill Avenue district and is home to all kinds of cool events, festivals and concerts year round. If you want to keep up on some of the fun things to do in and around the Mill Avenue and Lake district, follow along by reading the Rail Life Blog.

Have a great weekend!

Wow... This is some hard hitting information about mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures. Take a look at these charts.

If you know me, you know that I love hanging out with family and friends. If you are family or consider me your friend, I would love to invite you to a fun Friday night at Chase field!Heck, even if we aren't friends yet, I hope you will join us.

RailLife.com and I are teaming up with a bunch of friends in the "Night Rail" spirit for a great time on Friday, September 18th. We have prime seats in the very cool Diamond Level at a discounted rate of just $20.00 to watch the Dbacks vs the Rockies at 6:40 pm. It’s the perfect venue for all of us to get together and have some fun.

Here’s the scoop…

Game: D-backs vs Rockies, Friday September 18^th @ 6:40pm

Simple process to purchase tickets:

1. Click on the following link: www.dbacks.com/groups

2. Log in with the following information:

sign-in ID – rail 

password – life

Special discount ticket option includes:

$20 (reg. $30) in the Miller Lite Diamond Club

The Miller Lite Diamond Club is an upscale club located in right field on the main concourse level at Chase Field. It  is a PERFECT place for a bunch of people to hang out. No assigned seats, special lounge seating throughout the entire location, full service bar (cash bar), pool tables, and HD TV’s make for a great night where will have some of the best seats in the house. Plenty of standing / mingling is possible in the Diamond Club with it’s cool lounge style seating.

We’ll be joined by many of the ultra-cool Friday Night crews as well as friends from AZ Hardball, The Social Latte, CenPho.tv, The Downtown Phoenix Journal and others. I’m sure people will have plenty of ideas about other fun things to do after the game, should anyone be so inclined! :-)

Yes... Everyone is invited. This section is perfect for having fun with friends. Agents, mortgage professionals, people we know and don't know are invited. Use this as an excuse to invite friends to watch a game and have some FUN. No sales pitches, just a good time with hot-dogs, baseball and probably even apple pie.

Remember: To purchase tickets for the game, just visit www.dbacks.com/groups and use the sign-in ID of rail and the  password - life. You will get the discounted price of $20.00.

See ya there!

Recently, the Metro Light Rail board of directors voted to extend the weekend hours of light rail in Arizona on Friday and Saturday nights. This extension allows Phoenix light Rail riders to ride until after 2am on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Given the fact that the extension is said to be implemented on a "trial period" of one year, a group of people have decided to help with an awareness campaign for the newly appointed hours.

Enter "Night Rail" which is being held tonight, 7/31! From the Rail Life blog we see that...

"If you are a fan of the extended light rail hours, a friend of business owners along the line or just a fan of having fun, join us for Night Rail. Several groups will be getting together along the line throughout the evening and then meeting at the Roosevelt Station at midnight to show support for the extended hours. After midnight, we will head to a couple of nearby places before calling it a night. You can join our friends at “Light Rail Friday Night” who will be meeting at Rula Bula on Mill from 6-9 pm. After that, people will be meeting (10:00 pm) at Monti’s and at Maizie’s, which is just south of the light rail station at Central and Camelback."

The response from the Night Rail blog post has been great with many local groups picking up and showing their support. A few examples of blog posts and media interest are...

CenPhoTV is promoting it a ton!

AZCentral picked up the Night Rail story

Urban Affair Media Advisory

The Downtown Phoenix Journal

A cool Yelp mention

The Phoenix Cycle Chick blog is rockin' Night Rail

Heck, even radio coverage for Night Rail

So, if you want to have some fun, Light Rail style, be sure to check out this first Night Rail event!

Most people know, the world is a Twitter. This social networking platform has MANY uses for many types of people. The effectiveness of it's use depends on the effectiveness of the person sending the "tweets." Of course, there is worthless dribble on Twitter but there is also a TON of breaking news, community specific information and opportunities to communicate with people you may have never had the opportunity to meet "in person." 

I am really looking forward to this Wednesday's TweetUp in Tempe at the Sign of the Whale. Why? Because I know it will be a FUN time and a great chance to network with some really talented Tempe business owners. This TweetUp is being promoted by Jack Smith of The Social Latte which is a great resource for anyone interested in Social Media. As a Tempe resident, Jack really has a good feel for our community and is always looking to give back, help small business owners and have some fun. Jack and I worked together on helping the Tempe Chamber of Commerce implement social media as a business strategy. The Tempe Chamber is a great Chamber of Commerce and some of their members will be joining us as well. People like Nick Miner, a commercial real estate broker that I have enjoyed meeting at other Chamber events. The guy knows Tempe! I believe Joan Jakel, a very talented Tempe business attorney, past "Business Woman of the year," personal friend and all around great gal will be joining us as well as a bunch of other really cool people.

From the invite we hear... "We'll have a private room with Happy Hour pricing from 5-7 for networking and socializing and then I'll be bartender from 7p - 10p with DJ Mike..." More info on the twtvite page!

All are welcome! So, come see "Jack the bartender," have some fun, hang out with some really cool "Tweeps" and write it off as a business expense! Ok, scratch the business expense thing because I'm not your accountant or a CPA so, just come have fun!

When: July 8th

Where: Sign of the Whale 1706 E Warner Rd Tempe, AZ

Happy Hour and networking, 5-7pm - DJ and heckling of Jack while tending bar... 7-10pm.