Happy New Year 2009 No comments yet

To all my readers,

I just wanted to wish You and your families a very, very Happy, Healthy, Peaceful & Prosperous New Year.  My hope for you is that you get everything that you strive for and desire in the new year and forever!

Best Regards,
Marc

Concrete Block Stucco (CBS) vs. Frame Construction No comments yet

The recent unseasonal cold weather brought about this post of concrete block construction vs. wood frame. There are advantages and disadvantages with both types of construction. One of the main deciding factors in utilizing concrete block vs. frame construction is the climate of the home.

In warmer more tropical climates, concrete block is generally utilized due to its properties in keeping a home cooler during the early part of the day and therefore using less air conditioning. On the other hand in colder weather, concrete block does not insulate well and you feel quite cold. That’s where I’ve been during these colder days that we’ve been noticing in Central Florida this year. Wood frame construction has more insulating properties than does concrete block. With wood frame you place the insulation not only in the ceiling but the walls as well creating a much more energy efficient home.

Another main reason, which used to be more valid in the past, for utilizing concrete block vs. frame construction was it’s being able to withstand hurricane force winds much better. Frame construction has come a long way over the years and can, when properly built, withstand winds of 120mph. Granted, you are more susceptible to damage from a hurricane in a wood frame home vs. concrete block.

Now we come to our friend the termite. Because of our weather and therefore great deal of moisture during certain times of year, we have the issue of termites. More so than many other parts of the country. With that said, termites love wood. Too many people are of the misunderstanding that you will not get termites if you have a home built of concrete block. While a frame constructed home is more susceptible, there is still wood utilized for the interior construction of a concrete block home – roof trusses, baseboards, furring strips, etc.

With frame construction you will have more design flexibility of the home as opposed to concrete block. In fact some of the design elements that you see in a concrete block home are actually areas that are framed out.

Here’s a little table to assist you in the pros and cons of concrete block vs. frame construction:

Hope this helps you in deciding what’s right for you!

For information on Orlando real estate and Orlando homes for sale in addition to Orlando relocation contact Marc Grossman, your Greater Orlando Area Realtor @ 407-463-1034.  Additional information is available for Seminole County real estate, Orange County real estate, West Volusia County and South Lake County.

To learn more about Marc and the services he has to offer, visit his website.

Marc Grossman, GRI  -  http://www.OrlandoHomes-4u.com/ -  407-463-1034

You can read Marc’s other blogs Real Estate Morsels, Real Estate Off The Leash & Real Estate Cracker

Marc donates 10% of his net proceeds to Hospice of the Comforter.

Marc It Sold!

Coincidences and the Jewish New Year! No comments yet

I don’t generally believe in coincidences, but… Yesterday, I wrote a post on ‘stuff’ - the fact that we accumulate such and what it all really boils down to in the end. Today, I received a card for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year from a very dear friend.

He sent it from the Chabad site. I played around the site for a little bit and then boom, I was hit in the face with these words “The Hebrew language has no word for “things,” for “objects” or for “stuff.” Even the words “physical” and “matter” are borrowed terms.” It was from an article “The Adam Factor,” by Tzvi Freeman.

What was somewhat profound to me is that I was discussing an end and today is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. It literally means ‘head of the year.’ This may seem odd to some, but you have to understand that we use the Lunar calendar in this regard.  There are several beginnings with Rosh Hashanah.  We read the torah from the beginning again.  The story starts with Adam and Eve.

It is one of the several high holidays that Jewish people observe and is a very solemn holiday ending on Yom Kippur in which we repent for our sins, ask for forgiveness and that we should be written in the ‘Book of Life’ for the new year.

L’shanah tovah tikatev ve’techatem l’alter l’chayim tovim - “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year, for good life immediately.“

Stuff – You Have It, Don’t You? No comments yet

stuff

Is this what one’s life amounts to in the end? A dear friend passed away 7 months ago and the process to clean out her house had been daunting on many levels. The range of emotions that I’ve gone through during the process is quite interesting when I look back on it, but then again I’m sure that it’s also the grieving process as well. I won’t deny that there has been so much anger while packing her things/belongings.

Seriously, what do your belongings become afterwards? Yes, we’ve had family and friends come in and go through her stuff to pick and choose what they may like. Some of it we did to keep as a reminder; other stuff we took because we may have liked it or thought that we could utilize it. As I’m writing, I’ve noticed that I’ve used the word ‘stuff’ – but that’s all it comes down to it – stuff! Stuff someone has accumulated and stuff someone else may want. Geez, almost sounds like we could go into a George Carlin routine here, but I digress.

So much has been gone through. Actually, every nook and cranny in this house. Now I’m here for the final packing and removal. Except for the furniture that’s left in the house, this is what’s left of her life - in the garage. I’m sorry, it appears to be a sad testament to one’s life, but I know the same will happen to mine at sometime in the future as well. And it’ll just be stuff that people will forage through to see what they may like and discard the rest.

You may wonder what is the point of this post? There really isn’t any, just basically my miscellaneous meanderings about our life or what happens afterwards. I apologize in advance if the tone here is somewhat somber, that is not my intention. But I guess when you speak of death, what else can it be?

more stuff

We surround ourselves with things. And obviously I’m referring to inanimate objects. We are masters of conspicuous consumption. Buy, buy, buy!!! Probably the majority of what we buy is not because we actually need it. I’m not going to blame this on our societal changes. But, if you look back, you will notice that we changed our lifestyles greatly with the advent of available credit. First it was with credit cards; then came the HELOC’s (Home Equity Lines of Credit); and, then the easy mortgage. Unfortunately, this has led us to really become what I’ll call a debtors society, where the majority of people have more debt than they do assets.

What happened to living within our means? What the heck is the big deal with “keeping up with the Joneses?” Seriously, are they putting food on your table? So going into debt and buying conspicuously will allow you to supposedly attain a certain social class or socio-economic status? But do we actually stop and look at the cost of such? Again, do you seriously believe that trying to buy your way up the ladder, will actually get you there?

I had an acquaintance once who felt that he had an inalienable right to things. That he was deserving and had a dutiful right whether he attained the goods or that he was owed it by others. It didn’t matter if he could afford such.

Do you think that our present economic situation is due to this kind of mentality? If you think not, than you are only deluding yourself. I apologize if that appears terse, but we need to reevaluate ourselves and what we are doing. First off, it’s only fair to the children. What kind of legacy are we leaving them? They deserve the same fair rights and choices that we’ve had, but not if we leave them a major debt ridden society.

Things need to change. They should have changed years ago, but that’s over and done with. Tomorrow will be too late. It needs to be done NOW!!

Till next time – Marc It Sold!

Piedmont Lakes Picnic - Apopka, Orange County, Florida 32703 No comments yet

Piedmont Lakes Picnic - Apopka, Orange County, Florida

Well a great time was had by all! We had beautiful weather games, a tattoo booth, food and fun. It was great meeting our neighbors and getting together. A great deal of thanks & accolades needs to be given

Bounce House at Piedmont Lakes Picnic donated by Clay & Maggie Lee

to Maggie & Clay Lee. Their hard work put together so much of this event including the fact that they donated the bounce house, which was obviously a great hit with the children.

There were sack races and frozen t-shirts amongst some of the games. Many sign up sheets were at the check-in desk and it was wonderful to see so many people that wished to help out.

Desert Table that so many donated

There were many teenagers that also assisted and were very enthusiastic about helping us.

People just hanging out and enjoying friends, neighbors and making new friends!

Another thanks needs to be given to Terri & Stuart Morrell for their hard work as well. Of course, our master grillers Stuart, Clay & ‘Uncle’ led the way and kept us hot hamburgers and hot dogs throughout.

Our next event with be a semi-annual community wide garage sale. I would like to see a Spring BBQ and hopefully more would like to help and be involved.

For more photos, visit  http://www.flickr.com/photos/22928563@N08/sets/72157607398585369/

How to win the frozen shirt contest!

Games being played!

Sack Race!

A Super Duper MeMe – Oy Vay! Here We Go Again!! 2 comments

With that said, when I saw this going around on Memorial Day I was hoping that I wouldn’t be victimized selected for this illustrious task. I was at first concerned about what I could come up with since I’ve written several already. And then you were asked to YouTube and Flickr, etc. Holy Moly, so much work and didn’t think that I’d be up to the task. Then in my email this morning, I got a cute little message from Sandra Cummings, “Your it….have fun….” Well, ‘fun’ wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. OK, enough with the bellyaching. Actually, I probably would have put this off to later, but see that so many people are being tagged and if I didn’t do this soon, then I’d have to try to find more victims, uh I mean, interested contestants.

The MeMe’s are floating around the blogsphere and as I stated I got tagged by Sandra, who was tagged by Jason Sardi, who was tagged by Jeff Belonger, who was tagged by Jeff Dowler, who was tagged by Mary McKnight, who started this crazy little game. Whew, just thinking of that is getting me tired already. It’s the age thing, what can I say? Probably a lot, but maybe not here – go figure!!

For a little background history, the purpose of a MeMe is to divulge a little something about you that others may not know. It is a very interesting way of learning about people whose blog posts you read. Then you, in this case, tag 8 more people to share in the love fest.

So without further ado here’s my MeMe:

1. Who’s your favorite musical artist? Wow! This has changed so much during the course of my life. I think that the first song that I really remember is this. The first song that I recorded was this. OK, so I know that I’m dating myself and I’m getting off track. Was definitely into the Moody Blues in the late 60’s & 70’s. Goodness, so many great groups/people are coming to mind: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; The Eagles; Linda Ronstadt; The Doors; Bad Company; Madonna (but that was much later on); The Police; U2; Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes; David Bowie; and, the list can go on and on as most of my posts do. I was definitely into the English Beat in the late 70’s & early 80’s including the likes of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Billy Idol, Graham Parker and the Rumor. OK, so finally to my answer. It would have to be someone that I first heard in the Main Lounge at Seton Hall University in, I think it was, ’73. Can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen him, but the answer would have to be Bruce Springsteen and especially with the E Street Band. I would have to say that this is one of my all time favorites from the album The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.

1. Who is your favorite artist? I tend to favor more abstract art and expressionism than the classics. I think some of Kandinsky’s work is breath taking. But on the other hand I also like Marc Chagall. But I’d have to consider my favorites to be Folon and David Hockney.

1. Who is your favorite blogger? I generally do not like to pick favorites as is obvious by this post already. But with that said, I would have to say hands down they (oops, can’t chose – they are all great in their own right, just read them and you’ll see) would include Andrew Lenza, Jason Sardi & Jennifer Bukaty. I’m not going to even go into why because this will then become a novel. Read each and you will understand in a heart beat. If I see any of their names on my blogroll, my finger itches to click on their post (Sardi and Lenza don’t even think of going there!).

1. If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them? I just don’t really know. Firstly, I must reiterate what Lenn Harley stated in that how would I know what is the most interesting thing about them if I haven’t met them already. That said maybe I’m not imaginative enough to see myself in the company of someone possibly famous. Like Popeye says, ‘I yams what I yams’ or something of that sort.

1. What did you want to be when you grew up? Maybe I’m getting old, but I can’t really remember except for one thing is that I always wanted to fly airplanes, but unfortunately was never able to for physical reasons.

1. What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know? Not very good at this one also. I probably know a lot of what some may consider useless information, but when put on the spot….. Sorry, can’t really think of something and all I’d do would be to Google it and then write something, but you can do that yourself.

1. If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why? Again, forgive me for not being imaginative and I surely can be, but I really like the times that I’ve lived through. We’ve had our ups and downs, but then so has every other era. I think when I was younger, I’d always thought of living in the future, but now I’m not so sure of that.

1. What is the most interesting job you have ever held? Now this is fun. I always enjoyed being a Kosher Deliman, but my most favorite job, other than what I presently do (yet I don’t consider this a job) would have to be in the late 80’s. I’d work for a restaurant and while there we opened up several more. I was in charge of all of the wine, liquor and beer purchasing for all of the restaurants and handled all of the contractual services and basically anything that had to do with non food purchasing. Additionally, I also coordinated the opening of all of the restaurants including the design as well, but mostly for the kitchen and wait stations. Love the job and didn’t mind the long hours, but unfortunately, they just didn’t want to pay enough.

OK, that’s enough of me for a MeMe for a very long time. Here are your next candidates and they all happen to be lovely ladies:

Jennifer Bukaty

Lisa Heindel

Jan Evett

Jeanette Neerpat

Sarah Cooper

Elaine Hanson

Elizabeth Weintraub

Paige Rausch

Jan Wood

Janet Guilbault

ps. I have to mention that it is with regret that I totally neglected to add Paul Slaybaugh to the cast of characters as one of my favorite bloggers. Just read some of his prose if you haven’t already and you’ll immediately understand why!

Help for your Outlook Email with Xobni No comments yet

How many times have you found yourself searching through old emails trying to find to find some information, a phone number or even an attachment? A lot of us try to occasionally go through our inboxes to organize them through deleting unnecessary emails and sorting through others.

Well now there is an Outlook plug-in that let’s you organize your inbox. It’s called Xobni, or inbox spelled backwards. It was released a couple of weeks ago and is available as a free download. Just go to www.xobni.com.

Xobni does not appear to interfere with your Outlook it that it runs outside of it. It indexes and analyzes all of your messages. The program creates a profile for everyone you communicate with in a sidebar.

Before we go on, one of the main flaws that I note is that Xobni loses track of an email once you delete it. There is also a feature on there that gives each person a ranking depending on how much you email each other and the usefulness of this is somewhat questionable.

Now, to the good features. On the top of the sidebar, there are relationship statistics. One of the best features is that Xobni extracts phone numbers from emails, whether it be in the body of the message or the signature. When you hover over the number, you will see where it was extracted from.

The next section on the sidebar is a list of related people between the email sender and yourself. Need the name of an assistant? Each profile lists the people who are often copied in emails that are sent to you.

One of the things that I really liked is that you can open an email thread and if you want to reply or forward, you do not have to navigate away from that conversation.

Need to find an attachment? Xobni lists all of the files that you have exchanged with each other.

It also appears to have a decent search mechanism that allows you to search for people and information.

To see a video of Xobni - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amRkMds177A

Vacant House Safety No comments yet

This is about vacant house safety because of a situation that I had to deal with over the last several days. Obviously, this person was quite tenacious.

With all of the homes on the market, many are vacant and we need to be more aware of our surroundings than ever before and CAREFUL! Even looking back, I did something quite stupid myself. OK, so a little history and a short story - Imagine that!

I have a couple of Central Florida rental properties that are not presently occupied. One of them I hadn’t been to in a couple of weeks. I knew that I needed to put new flyers in it as I’ve lowered the price and changed offices. So, I drove over to this house to put the flyers in the InfoTube and noted that my sign was missing. It’s been previously taken (see how I didn’t say ‘stolen’ - oops, there I did) so I really didn’t think anything of it except to be somewhat perturbed.

So the following day, this past Sunday, I went to the store and bought another ‘For Rent’ sign and drove over to my house to place it in the yard. To my astonishment, the sign was next to the mail box. I had to wonder, but only for a moment, if I had missed it. I was ready to drive off when I decided that I needed to check the home out. As I entered the garage, there was something on the floor that I would not have left there and as I got out of my car, I noted that the lid to the washing machine was up, which it shouldn’t have been.

What really floored me was that when I looked inside the machine, there were clothes in the tub. Needless to say I didn’t think anything of it and entered the house, obviously knowing that someone has been there, even though at this point I was also questioning my sanity and stability. Yeah, go there, I can understand!

I walked in the house and several things were amiss in that many doors were closed that should not have been; the porch light was turned off; there was an empty soda can on the floor in one room and a rod was there as well. Even though this isn’t my personal residence, I still felt violated (no need to go there, please!). After going through the house I’d noted that several doors and windows were unlocked, which was not the previous case. I’m usually careful with my homes. I also noted where I think the squatter came in.

The reason that I’m calling this person a squatter is because they did not do any damage to my house except for some dirt. So, I secured the home and called the police department to let them know what had occurred. The woman on the other side of the phone was silent for a while until she finally asked if I’d like them to patrol the area more often. Now, it has to be noted that this is a nice neighborhood and rarely has any issues.

So, Monday I go back to the house and note as I’m driving up to the garage that a blind appears to be more closed than I would normally keep it and as I enter the garage, I note that today there is a shirt lying across the washing machine. So, I immediately call the police.

Three squad cars show up and they go through the house with their guns drawn and come back with an empty pack of cigarettes. Not my brand. They were very nice and we all went through the home looking for ways of entry and a couple of windows were unlocked again including the one I thought they were coming through because I’d found footprints on the kitchen counter. I was wondering to myself about the security of this window the previous day, but checked it several times before I left.

So I went through the house and secured it again, checking it several times. Besides, I wanted to clean it up and vacuum because I was showing it on New Year’s Day.

Well, I guess they weren’t happy that I secured the home, so on New Year’s Day when I went over they removed a window from the exterior door to the garage and I must have forgotten to lock the interior door. Again, I called the police and went through the whole scenario again. But dealing with the police is another story in itself.

Well, I went over there today and don’t think that they got in after covering the window with some hard particle board.

The whole point here is we ‘assume’ that when a house is vacant, that is the case. But we don’t really know this at all. The fact is, not only in this case, but we do not have the right to assume anything.

More and more homes that we see on the market are vacant. I did a google search before writing this and couldn’t believe how many articles popped up on this topic and I’m only talking about the last couple of months. This is obviously not an isolated incident and the tenacity of this person is mind boggling to a degree.

Some of the things that I’ve read tell us that if a home is vacant to cancel all of the services and keep up with the lawn. But this really isn’t feasible if you are trying to sell or rent a home. One also mentioned to leave lights on, but shut the blinds. I usually leave them open so you can see if anything is going on inside, but I guess that the other hand is they feel that the possible intruder won’t be able to see inside.

But, finally, one law enforcement agency wrote that if they’ve been vacant long enough, people will just kind of make themselves at home and squatters will come in. Now, I have to tell you that on one level I felt sorry for this person, because it appears that they just may needed a place to sleep. I really couldn’t consider what they did as vandalism except for a broken screen and missing window. But the other hand is what they did was wrong and a violation.

Please just be careful and be safe. Many of us have vacant properties, whether they be our own or that of clients. We need to be diligent in our care of such. We need to make sure that we check them fairly often. This is not meant to frighten you but to heighten your awareness of yourself and your surroundings.

For more information on Central Florida real estate and Central Florida homes for sale in addition to Central Florida relocation contact Marc Grossman, your Central Florida Realtor @ 407-463-1034. Additional information is available for Seminole County real estate, Orange County real estate, West Volusia County and South Lake County.

To learn more about Marc and the services he has to offer, visit his profile & website.

Marc Grossman, GRI - http://www.OrlandoHomes-4u.com/ - 407-463-1034

Marc donates 10% of his net proceeds to Hospice of the Comforter.

Marc It Sold!

It’s All About Meme…Marc’s Book Meme No comments yet

I received an email from Midori Miller informing me that I am now tagged and need to write a post “It’s All About MeMe…” I hope you don’t mind if I take you on a journey and do this a little differently. Too many things are going through my mind. I know, that’s a scary place to be!

While typing the words ‘MeMe,’ I had a jolt back to a dear friend that always used the phrase “It’s All About Me!” - and for him it was. He used to kid that it wasn’t true, but the truth be told… In fact, I found this saying in one of my favorite stores in Ft. Lauderdale, called Seldom Seen on Las Olas and just gave it to him for his birthday. I’ve never been a ‘Me’ person. I don’t think others could consider me self-centered. That is just a turn off for me. I generally try to think of the other person.

OK, so now to what I’m supposed to be writing about. I have to change this around a little. I’m supposed to be telling you of my five favorite books of all time. That is extremely hard for me, but I will tell you of the books that I’m currently reading in a little while.

I remember that the first book I read by myself, without having to do it for school, was Rosemary’s Baby written by Ira Levin, who was better known for being a playwrite. Holy moly that was 40 years ago. About the same time we were reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding and if I’m not mistaken he wrote a sequel to that, but I can’t remember the name of it.

I’ve read J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (always thought Bilbo Baggins was so cool) & Lord of the Rings twice and hopefully will reread them again in my later years.

Reading has been a very important part of my life. I generally only read fiction and mostly love international intrigue and mysteries. So, what I’d like to do at this juncture is to share with you some of the many authors that I quite enjoy. They are in no particular order and there are many more..

Robert Ludlum - fantastic author of international intrigue. You’ve probably seen many of the movies. There were only 1 or 2 books of his that I thought were so-so. Have not read any of his works that were published post-humously since they were finished by others.

Tom Clancy - Loved his earlier works, but have not read him since The Sum of All Fears. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt that his books were just getting overwrought and boring. And it appeared to be that either he was getting full of himself and just having to push out more books because that is the nature of that business.

John Grisham - I have not read him in many years, but his first books were absolutely awesome. I felt that his books just appeared to be repetitious. He was obviously churning them out quickly.

Herman Wouk - Some absolutely fantastic novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War & War and Rememberance.

Philip Roth - I remember the first book of his I read was Portnoy’s Complaint. There was a lot of sexual content & eroticism and I was only a teenager at the time, but underneath all that this was a very good novel at the height of the sexual revolution. But he wrote many other excellent books including Goodbye, Columbus.

Leon Uris - What can I say, Exodus, Mila 18, Topaz, QB VII, etc.

Chaim Potok - Most of his books involve Judaism, The Chosen, My Name Is Asher Lev and Davita’s Harp.

Ray Bradbury - What can I say about him? I read The Martian Chronicles in school. He wrote books such as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man & Dandelion Wine.

John LeCarre - I must admit that sometimes his books took a little to get through, but that could have been a ‘me’ thing. But just look at some of his writing: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Smiley’s People and The Constant Gardner.

Jonathan Kellerman - Love his Dr. Alex Delaware series with his detective friend Milo Sturgis in books such as When the Bough Breaks and Blood Test.

Faye Kellerman - The wife of Jonathan Kellerman and the writer of a series of Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus books. He’s a detective with his Hasidic wife. There are 17 in the series and she’s written a couple of books with her husband including Double Homicide.

Martha Grimes - She wrote a series of Richard Drury books, whose a Scotland Yard inspector, with his friend Melrose Plant. All the titles of these books are names of pubs.

Mary Higgins Clark - An excellent writer with books such as A Stranger is Watching, The Cradle Will Fall and A Cry in the Night. She has also co-authored a couple of books with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark.

John MacDonald - Loved his Travis McGee series. All of them had a color in the name. Very easy and quick read. The Deep Blue Good-by and Nightmare in Pink.

I could keep on going on and on. There’s Elmore Leonard and Sidney Sheldon. Who could forget, The Other Side of Midnight, Master of the Game and The Doomsday Conspiracy.

It’s obvious that I love reading and especially my fiction, but I also love what I do - real estate. It doesn’t bother me that I’m not reading the way I used to, I’ll be able in the future hopefully. I quite enjoy reading about real estate. There are two magazines that I always read and are very informative, but are only local. One is Florida Realtor Magazine and the other Agent News Direct. There is so much to learn and they offer a lot as well. It’s important for me to learn because it not only helps me, but it also helps my clients and friends in the business. I have no issue sharing what I learn with others - OK, well maybe sometimes I like to keep things to myself.

So, with all this said, the books that I presently have on my coffee table (yes, it’s a mess - strewn with newpapers (read it daily) & books) are:

I think all of these books are quite self explanatory. There is one more book that I would like to include. Now, it may not be considered a book per se, but there are many stories to be read. As with each chapter of a book, some you may like more than others, but it is definitely a collection of sorts. Obviously, I’m referring to that of Active Rain.

Hope you enjoyed! Till next time - Marc It Sold!

For more information on Central Florida & the Greater Orlando area including Seminole, Orange, West Volusia and South Lake Counties contact Marc Grossman @ 407-463-1034.

To learn more about Marc and services he has to offer, visit his profile & website.
Marc Grossman, GRI - http://www.orlandohomes-4u.com/ - 407-463-1034

Marc donates 10% of his net proceeds to Hospice of the Comforter.

My Guilty Music Pleasures No comments yet

So, there I was driving along and bam this song is on. You’ll remember him instantly. He’s not only a musician but also an actor. Yes, the woman loved him, I guess he was dreamy on General Hospital playing Dr. Noah Drake. Yes I know, I’m ashamed as I well should be. So here I was singing along to Rick Springfield doing 867-5309 - Jenny’s Song. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for anyone with that phone number, because I’m sure there were many people that tried it.

So with this find I did a little thinking and remembered a few gems - old and new - that I have. With that said, my next death knoll is an actor, musician, singer & songwriter. He wrote the screenplay for “When Harry Met Sally.” Yes, and this is a double whammy because I have a cassette of him. And yes, it is Harry Connick, Jr.

Now, I’ve always been a Rod Stewart fan. Definitely some awesome songs like “Maggie May” with the ‘Faces’ and “Reason to Believe” to just name a few. No, that’s not the Rod Stewart that I’m talking about. Over the past few years he’s put out a number of CD’s entitled, “The Great American Songbook.” These are all of older music - 50’s and older, such as this one with Cher - “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered.” Now, maybe these don’t belong in here, but you’ll note shortly why I mention them.

Now, the reason that I brought Rod up is because of the next one. I would never admit that I liked him. Yes, this artist was definitely annoying as hell. And to make matters worse I recently bought two of his CD’s. In one he “Sings Sinatra,” which I couldn’t find on YouTube & his other one is entitled “Greatest Songs of the Fifties.” But you would know him better for songs like, “Mandy,” “I Write the Songs,” & “Looks Like We Made It.” Oh yes, I’m sure you’ve gathered that this is Barry Manilow. Yes, I can’t believe that I’m finally admitting this and maybe some might feel that I should be tarred and feathered.

OK, back to our drum roll….. Without further ado - some may and some may not remember songs such as “Cherry, Cherry” (OK guys, be nice!) & “Cracklin’ Rosie,” but also albums such as “The Jazz Singer.” Now, I have to honest here, I have not listened to that in while, but I do have it on my hard drive (just checked - still there)! Yes, we are talking about Neil Diamond. Now, that still doesn’t touch Jason’s “Ben,” but….