Salt Lake City is one of 10 recession proof cities

A word to Salt Lake City residents – our city is not doing as bad as the media would like you to believe. We have recently been named one of the country’s top 10 recession proof cities, according to a study done by Forbes.

It is true that our unemployment rates have gone up to 3.1%, but we are still below the national average of 5.1%. And our housing prices rose 2.5% while most of the nation was dropping. The other promising number, according to Forbes, is a 5.5% expected growth percentage in education and health services.

I’ve always thought that it is important to publicize this kind of news in addition to all the bad news swimming around out there. It’s too easy to get caught up in the gloom of the national media, so I make sure to point out good news when I see it.

Salt Lake City residents are in a relatively good position right now. Jobs are still being created, people are buying homes (although there needs to be more of that happening), and health services and education is growing. I know people here are feeling the rise in prices, but it could be a lot worse for our city. I don’t think it will be too many months before we start to come out of this, especially in the Salt Lake housing market.

Tags: Salt Lake City economy, Salt Lake City real estate, Forbes, business, real estate

This just might convert you to Honda

I don’t much care for forwarded emails because they’re usually a giant waste of time, but here is another one that I really liked.

You are supposed to read this before you click on the link below:

“If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven’t seen anything yet.

There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images.  Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it..

The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn’t work. It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to achieve this effect.

The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence.  The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to

support any of us for the rest of our lives. However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet.

Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it) When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.

There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording.

Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles. The voice is that of Garrison Keiller. The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation.  By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.”

Being a Honda guy myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this commercial. And as you’ll hear the voice in the video say, yes I do love it when my car just works.

Watch the New Honda Accord Commercial

Tags: Honda, Honda Accord commercial, Honda cars, car commercial

What to do in Salt Lake City this weekend

The ever popular Dine O’ Round is underway once again in downtown Salt Lake City. Those who love to eat out take note – starting Friday, May 2nd until May 17th, diners can get a two course lunch for 10 dollars or a three course dinner for either $15 or $30.

Salt Lake City’s Dine O’ Round is the perfect opportunity to visit those restaurants that for some reason you’ve just never visited. There are also some fairly pricey restaurants participating in the event, so what better time to eat out than when you can get a discounted meal?

How could you pass up the likes of Bambara, New Yorker, Takashi, Market Street Grill, and many other fine choices? The taste buds are dancing just thinking about all the good food that will be served. First-timers will find that this event brings you back year after year – return customers already know what goodness awaits. Click for the list of participating restaurants.

I’m ready to eat.

Tags: Salt Lake City Dine O’ Round, Salt Lake City restaurants, Salt Lake City Utah, restaurants, food

Suncrest is open to bidding

The fate of Draper’s Suncrest development has been decided – or at least the next step to it’s eventual fate. A bankruptcy court has declared that the development will sell to highest bidder in an auction of Suncrest LLC’s assets.

Bloomberg has just reported that June 9th will the last day to submit a bid, and the auction will be held on June 11th.  Approval of the sale will be determined in a hearing held on June 16th.  Here is the original news story at Bloomberg (you have to scroll down a little bit to get to it).

I wrote about my feelings on this Suncrest bankruptcy issue a while back on this blog, so I wont’ repeat everything here.  I’ll just say that I hope the development  finds a better owner that the previous one, because it has some good things going for it up there.  It’s a shame to see any community experience something like this, because you have lots of people who have made serious commitments by living there.  So I hope that the residents will feel as little a disturbance as possible, so Suncrest can get out of the news and go back to just being a sought after place to live in Draper. 

Tags: Suncrest LLC, Draper Utah Suncrest, Suncrest LLC bankruptcy auction, Draper Utah real estate, real estate