Scott McLaughlin

Well in my “alone” time which is rare these days with work, family and trying to run side business i have been working on the book revamp. Basically i’ve taken many suggestions from good friends on some ideas as well as I really wanted to get my mind around the order of the story.

I pulled the existing chapters off awhile back so I could re-work them a bit, build more descriptive scenes etc, and I think I know how I want to tell the story now. So anyway for those of you who’ve asked (thank you) I am working on it and hope to publish the first 6 chapters in the near future.

My brother and a friend of mine are working on ramping up a real estate business on the side. It looks doable with little or no money in. More of a long term retirment type corporation, not any sort of get rich quick scheme, although there’s a multi-year potential for it to let me do it full time…we’ll see. I’ll keep you all posted on that, don’t want to say too much earlier on and jinx it all.

Let me just tell you, my couple year old prediction of markets tanking in real estate after the “mini-real-estate .com boom” of 2004/2005 has solidly come to fruition. Idiots sucking down all interest loans from banks to climb into houses they planned would be easy pay offs after a few years are all dumping real estate faster than Bush can dump Iraqi commanders. (thats my political hit for the month)

The Subprime real estate melt down currently happening is going to force a huge increase in the rental market over this next year. While short term investment in multi-family dwelling real estate might not be great (its somewhat plateaued at the moment) long term investing is a no brainer. Renting and rentals are going to go up while the housing market falls on its face.

Anyway I need to invest in my retirment…i mean sure i have a nice 401k and stuff…but is that really gonna do it when i hit 60+? doubtful. Investing in bigger things now while i can afford to and skimp by will make life a lot sweeter in the mere 24 or so years i have until i should be retiring. Ask yourself do you really want a mortgage payment and have to work at Wal-Mart when your 63?

Well I have to say i haven’t gone out on St. Patricks day for any sort of celebration since probably my late 20′s. But last night was a real treat. My good friend Darren Smith hit me up on Friday and said he was going to be in town for a private house party on St Paddys day (last night) and he’d be playing a show at this house in Vancouver.

So I headed over last night, as I haven’t seen Darren in person in like 4 years. It was so great catching up, and then to see him play live in someones living room with about 25 people was just incredible. They played for a couple hours and then we got to hang out some more and mingle. Met a lot of great people, including a couple people that drove from the Tri-Cities in central washington just to see Darren play.

Darren’s headed down the coast to LA stopping and playing shows along the way this week. Check out his web site for dates, I encourage you to go see him, its worth the evening out. You can aslo pick up his latest CD at CD Baby.

Trying to get him setup for more shows in portland, so if you are hooked into the bar/music scene in PDX, let me know. Its hard to get shows around here.

Some random facts about Chuck Norris:

“Alien vs Predator” is an autobiographical depiction of Chuck Norris’ first sexual experience.

While Chuck Norris was on holiday in Spain, he ate some bad paella causing him to take the largest shit known to man. That shit is now France.

Instead of having a cigarette after sex, Chuck Norris heads outside and brands his cattle.

Chuck Norris once ate an entire watermelon, including the seeds, then grew an entire watermelon patch in his stomach which fed eleven families for six weeks.

In ancient China there is a legend that one day a child will be born from a dragon and vanquish evil from the land. That man is not Chuck Norris, because Chuck Norris killed that man.

A freak accident involving Chuck Norris and a severe thunderstorm turned an ordinary Total Gym (R) into Richard Dean Anderson, star of TV series “MacGyver”. Scholars around the world maintain that this is the only known case of irony that is both situational and dramatic.

Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris is unable to send his roundhouse kicks across the fabric of time, however he IS able to perform this action across parallel dimentions and once, just for fun, roundhouse kicked his own ass.

Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.

Dinosaurs went extinct because of the Chuck Norrisaurus.

Chuck Norris let the dogs out.