Chance Gates' Blog

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2012/1/kobayashi-bags-new-twinkie-eating-record-on-wendy-williams-show/

Speed eating legend Takeru Kobayashi has set a new record, this time setting a new benchmark for the most Twinkies eaten in one minute.

The Japanese competitive eater managed to scoff 14 of the cream filled sponge cakes on set of the Wendy Williams Show in New York, USA earlier today.

Today’s record adds to Kobayashi’s five other Guinness World Record titles (Fastest time to eat a bowl of pasta, most hamburgers eaten in three minutes, most hot dogs eaten in 12 minutes, most hot dogs eaten in 3 minutes, and most meatballs eaten in one minute).

Mortgage rates were back to hitting record lows again, pushing housing affordability even higher to home buyers, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey. For the sixth consecutive week, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the most popular choice among buyers, has averaged below 4 percent — unheard of until a few weeks ago.

“Mortgage rates eased slightly this week to all-time record lows following mixed indicators in the labor market,” Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac, said in a statement. The economy added 1.6 million jobs in 2011 — the highest number since 2006 — but overall unemployment still remains high, Nothaft noted.

Here’s a closer look at rates and the new record lows they posted for the week ending Jan. 12:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.89 percent, with an average 0.7 point, reaching a new all-time low. Previously, 30-year mortgages’ record low was last week’s 3.91 percent average. A year ago at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.71 percent.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.16 percent, with an average 0.8 point, dropping from last week’s 3.23 percent average. Last year at this time, 15-year rates averaged 4.08 percent.
• 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.82 percent, with an average 0.7 point, dropping from last week’s 2.86 percent average. Last year at this time, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.72 percent.
• 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.76 percent, with an average 0.6 point, this week, falling from last week’s 2.80 percent average. A year ago, 1-year ARMs averaged 3.23 percent.

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As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

I’ll put you through hell, but at the end of it all we’ll be champions.
Bear Bryant

I’m happy with the coach we have. I think any one of the ones I asked them to consider would’ve been good.
Bear Bryant

I’ve had many a player tell me all through high school and right up until signing day that they were coming to Alabama, then they signed with somebody else.
Bear Bryant

If I miss coaching that much, I could go to some little school where they didn’t recruit, where all the kids wanted to go. I believe I could find somewhere to coach.
Bear Bryant

It’s been years since I’ve had a real input in the game anyway. For this game, I’ve just tried to keep all the other stuff away from the players and coaches.
Bear Bryant

Nearly every coach I’ve talked with tells me that the attention you get from media and other people is the thing you miss most. I don’t know if that’s right.
Bear Bryant

Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.
Bear Bryant

The fun never goes out, but it changes with the years, with winning and losing.
Bear Bryant

From Mike Janela in New York, USA http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com

One of America’s greatest sports traditions is “Bowl Season” – that wonderful time each year marking the end of the American college football season end. More than 30 games match some of the nation’s best and most prestigious programs in battles to end their years on high notes.

Of all the bowls played, one of the most prestigious is the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, which this year sees the No. 3 Oklahoma State Cowboys take on the No. 4-ranked Stanford Cardinal, as part of the Bowl Championship Series. But while many eyes will turn to the game itself on Jan. 2 in Glendale, Arizona, USA, the spotlight on this game starting shining back on 16 December, when I adjudicated an attempt for the “most people to make an American football field goal in six hours” at the Tostitos Fiesta in the Square celebration.

With temperatures low, winds high, and former football stars in abundance, participants from around the world lined up in the middle of Times Square in New York to attempt their chance at history in the temporary football field assembled by Tostitos.

Requiring 100 different people to successfully make a field goal of at least 20 yards, the Fiesta in the Square saw a total of 181 different participants put one through the uprights and into Guinness World Records lore.

What struck me most while adjudicating the event was the wide range of participation. An event like this truly brought a huge variety of people together, running the gamut from foreigners to locals and football professionals to those who had never even put toe to pigskin before.

Former football stars who attempted (and all converted) field goals included Jim Kelly, Eddie George, Antonio Pierce, Rodney Peete, and Bill and Martin Gramatica. Other participants included visiting tourists from Turkey, Australia, Mexico, and the UK. In total, 965 attempts were made by countless hundreds of people throughout the day, with the aforementioned 181 finding success.

The teamwork resulted in more than just a Guinness World Records achievement, too. As a result of the final record total, Tostitos donated $200,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters charity. This was aided in part by Big Brothers Big Sisters advocate and entertainment personality Nick Lachey stepping up and drilling a successful field goal of his own.

In all, a great exhibition was put on for sport, for charity, and, of course, for record-breaking history. The Fiesta Bowl itself already has a lot to live up to!

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/tennessee_ernie_ford.html#ixzz1iKipqwsK

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

Pending home sales, a forward-looking indicator based on signed contracts, rose 7.3% in November after a 10.4% increase in October. On a year-over-year basis, pending home sales are up 5.9%. The number of pending home sales in November was the highest level in 19 months.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city housing price index — on a non-seasonally adjusted basis — fell 1.2% in October after a revised 0.7% decrease in September. On a year-over-year basis, prices fell 3.4% compared with October 2010.

Retail sales rose 0.9% for the week ending December 24, according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs index. On a year-over-year basis, retailers saw sales increase 4.5%.

The consumer confidence index rose to 64.5 in December from a revised 55.2 in November. It was the highest level since April. The index was benchmarked at 100 in 1985, a year chosen because it was neither a peak nor a trough in consumer confidence. Economists consider a reading of 90 to be the threshold for a healthy economy.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 15,000 to 381,000 for the week ending December 24. However, the four-week moving average for initial claims — considered a less volatile measure — fell to 375,000, the lowest level since June 2008. Continuing claims for the week ending December 17 rose by 34,000 to 3.6 million.

Thanks to my friends at Prospect Mtg

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

Santa won’t have any trouble finding the home of the Richards family this Christmas.

The property in the Canberra suburb of Forrest in Australia is illuminated with 331,038 fairy lights making it the Guinness World Record holder for the Most Christmas Lights on a Residential Property.

David Richards, a barrister and father of three, has worked on the decorations for over four years, with the number of lights having doubled from last year.  David said: “It started four years ago with one string above the door and has really grown from there”.

David is reluctant to say how much the decorations cost, but all the money he receives from visitors goes to the charity ‘SIDS and Kids’ which he says helped his family out during a difficult period in 2002.

Despite the four year investment in the light display David said that he won’t be doing it again next year, saying he hoped to be able to donate the lights to someone else who would continue to use them to raise money for charity.

Watch video

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

THE PROJECTS THAT ARE MOST URGENTLY NEEDED BY OUR SILVER SPRINGS COMMUNITY ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1. Commercial mall containing a national brand grocery store, pharmacy bank, family
restaurant and retail stores is greatly needed by our community.
2. Solar farm: We have many acres of available land for the
production of energy.
3. Wind farm: Silver Springs is known as one of the most affluent areas
of wind in the USA and would like to attract investors for wind farm development to
produce energy.
4. Train terminal for commercial and public use to stop
centrally in Silver Springs, Nevada.
5. Defense Training Facility: Silver Springs has many secluded
open areas suited for the development of a special defense training campus.
6. Amphitheater with seating and stage for public performances
and events, including farmers markets/flea markets/craft booths and exhibitions near
the intersection of Hwy 95A and Hwy 50.
7. Job Center to provide a building for job training classrooms
and job recruitment. This could act as teaching facility if equipped with classrooms
and computers.
8. The development of Lake Lahontan shoreline with commercial
outlets, services for outdoor recreation and boat storage. This is a state run park so any business would have to be off site.
9. Community Center and Convention Center with indoor events
stage, meeting rooms, possibly Boys and Girls Club room, areas for indoor and outdoor
events. Possibly a public pool, commercial kitchen, boce ball court and outdoor
courtyards. Possibly just a one room movie theater as in #11 below.
10. Hotel accommodations along highway 95A or 50 with family style
restaurant.
11. Movie theater as well as old school open-air theater for mild
seasons.
12. Mixed use housing built around community gardens.
13. Old Western Town experience built like a village setting with
real retail stores (souvenir), a bank (hopefully Wells Fargo for the stagecoach logo), a
blacksmith shop, a old time saloon, and a restaurant with a hotel façade and tickets
to see gun fighters on certain days.
14. Provide a link to commercial property and land available for
sale here (from local realtors). Hopefully, all can work together and cooperate to get
the growth moving in Silver Springs, Nevada
15. Also Events that need to be developed to attract tourism:
a. Kite Flying competitions- create an event in open area of SS
by contacting the National Kite association.
b. Have model airplane contests at the airport just before or just after the Lyon county
Fly in.
c. Food Festival like Stew competition, or micro beer brewing as
a yearly event-advertised as a competition with prizes.
d. Lake festival with boating competitions in summer and ice
snow-mobiles in winter- can we get an EPA grant to clean lake and put in catfish
for fishing competitions?
e. Art competition, Trash Art: Invite artists to pick up desert
trash and turn it into sculptures to be used for target practice. We would clean our
area, provide art and entertainment.
Contact the Chamber of commerce for land availability and details for possible
investments in Silver Springs. Telephone: 775-5774336.
Other local contacts for showing potential investors
the design renderings and project ideas we have. Our contact info here: Jean at
wolfladyjj@aol.com  or Mojra at mojra@arkablue.com

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

As the holidays approach, Its that time of year to think of the perfect gift for that special someone.  How do you buy something great for that person who has everything?

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Finally Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

What is  your favorite gift  to support your local community?

A new record for the largest Mongolian wrestling tournament was set recently when 6,002 competitors descended on the nation’s capital of Ulaanbaatar for the biggest contest of its kind.

Organized by the Mongolian National Wrestling Federation (Mongolia), the nine-day festival of takedowns took place between September 17 and 25.

Opened by the Prime Minister of Mongolia Sukhbaatar Batbold and the head of the Mongolian National Wrestling Association Regjiibuu Nyamdorj, the event saw wrestlers aged between 14 and 80 from 21 different provinces and 325 “soums” (sub-provinces) take part, with some travelling as far as 1,700 km (1,050 miles) to attend.

Wrestling is the most important of Mongolia’s “Three Manly Games”; the historic national festival called “Naadam”, which also includes horse racing and archery.

The tournament, which took place at Ulaanbaatar’s Central Stadium, brought the record title back to Mongolia, with the previous record which was set in 2004 with 2,048 wrestlers,  having been set in Xiwuzhumuqinqi  in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China.

Mogonlian wrestling holds a pivotal position in the nation’s culture, with the sport regarded as the most important of the countries historic “Three Manly Skills”  that also include horsemanship and archery.

The tournament ended with Chimedregzen Sanjaadamba victorious in the headline “Wonder of Mongolian National Wrestling”

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.