The Beard, Day 64, after Vancouver lost in Game 7 to Boston

Wow. What a ride. The Vancouver Canucks’ 2010-2011 season was nothing short of spectacular. While I am obviously not happy about the result last night, and I won’t even get into the idiocy in downtown Vancouver that followed, I’ve never enjoyed watching my team play hockey more than this season and playoff run. Thanks boys!

This year – as many of you know – I grew a playoff beard. If by chance anyone is reading this that is from abroad: it is somewhat of a tradition for the players (and their fans) to quit shaving once the post-season begins, and not to shave it off until their playoff run is over. What seemed like a fun idea on day 1 (April 13, 2011) was starting to look ridiculous by day 64 (June 15, 2011).

Day 1 - April 13, 2011

I really should have taken a photo of it every day, that would have been a cool animation afterwards. I did not trim the beard at all, except for my upper lip and I shaved my neck because, well, neckbeard, yo.

April 24th, Day 12 - I kind of like how it looks here

The longer it grew, the bushier it got. I learned that full facial hair doesn’t suit me.

There it is, in all its bushiness

And, in shaving it off, I had to try on a couple different facial-hairstyles – when was I going to have this much face-bush again?

Yikes

If you knew me in the late 90s and early 2000s, this might look familiar, though I never let it get that bushy. Also there was less grey.

Goat-errific

Wow.

This is my personal fave.

In the end, I’m glad it’s off. Will I grow it again? Probably not.

• What I wanted the logo to look like
• How to begin to think about it
• Whether or not I would change the name of 642Blog
• How happy I would be with the result!

The first thing Jason suggested was to email him with examples of logos that I liked. This way, he could get an idea as a designer what types of logos I would be happy with. So I scoured free and stock logo sites. What I wanted was a modern, fresh look that expressed the type of business I am in. So, naturally, houses come to mind, or rooftops, stylized gables, etc. I found it hard to find examples, however, that weren’t, well, trite.

Below are some of the examples I sent to Jason. See if you can pick out the design elements that he incorporated into the finished product.

Another element that I was drawn to were lighthouses. Being in a coastal community, this is obviously a natural. However, I had the same problem as before – it just seemed hackneyed and clichéd.

Jason emailed me the first results – it was starting to come together:

From my feedback we went here – a little too bright for my liking:

And then:

Finally we settled on this:

And this as an alternate:

It’s perfect. I really like how Jason put this together, using so many of the design elements that I like. The house sits atop the green hill, evocative of a lighthouse perched on a rocky shore. The stylized wave denotes a coastal theme and the typeset is bold and stands out.

While the logo for this blog is much more simple, it too is exactly what I wanted. The speech bubble indicating a conversation about Sooke – your comments will be that conversation. The ? signifies answering questions about Sooke and real estate in general, which is what I do here, and the ! denotes excitement, which I think we can all agree there is lots of in Sooke these days.

I’ve wanted a personal logo/brand for several years now, and had always been daunted by what appeared to be a monumental task. Jason helped bring that to fruition and I am forever grateful to him for it. If you ever need a brand or logo designed for your business – contact Jason - his approach is beyond comparison and the results will be spectacular! Jason can also be found on Twitter, usually at @DiscoverSooke.

Do you have a brand or logo you love? Share in the comments below!

You may have noticed some things have changed ’round here!

That’s right, 642Blog.ca is now known as What The Sooke?! I made the decision to move the blog to this new address a few weeks ago and have been working hard to get it all put together. I found out that moving a blog is nearly as complicated (and as much of a pain) as moving to a new house. Hopefully everything still works! So, what’s new?

• Theme. A fresh, clean look is what I was after. With no exaggeration, I must have perused hundreds of themes before deciding on this one.
• Logo. Jason from Inktvis Creative/DiscoverSooke did an outstanding job on both my blog logo and my new real estate logo, pictured below in the footer of the blog.
• Listings. I’ll now feature my listings on the blog – You can find them under the category ‘listings,’ oddly enough!
• More content! This whole exercise has been a lot of work and has really inspired me to put it to good use. I have some great ideas for articles and videos and I intend to post much, much more often than I have been.
• Easier sharing and subscribing. You’ll note that at the bottom of each post, you’ll find sharing buttons to share via Twitter, Facebook and several other methods (you can even print off the articles and frame them!)
• Featured Posts. Articles or listings of particular interest will now be ‘sticky’ and featured in a big featured posts slider on the front page.

I hope you’ll enjoy the new What The Sooke!? as much as I have enjoyed putting it together. As always, your comments are welcomed and encouraged – use the comment form, or send me a message here.

Sleepless Nights

I think it should be a rule that REALTORS® have to complete one real estate transaction of their own every five years at a minimum. This would help put things in perspective and make us better agents. Having just completed a transaction for me and my family, I can certainly relate to the stress, anxiety, and sometimes, sleepless nights that a buyer experiences. I had purchased a home before, but it was 7 years ago. When we do many transactions each year for different clients, they tend to become routine (in most cases) and we can lose sight of the client experience. As much as we all think we understand our clients, it is worthwhile to become one every now and then to make sure.

In my experience, I had at least two sleepless nights, and more anxiety than I care to admit, wondering what the hell I was thinking buying a bigger house. I’m a pretty logical, reasonable guy, so this was not an impulse buy in the least. I calculated, re-calculated, extrapolated, and otherwise contemplated this purchase for the past 6 months at least. Once I had found the right house, I triple and quadruple checked my math to make sure I wasn’t committing financial suicide. I think I got a pretty good deal on my house – you’d think an experienced agent would know!

But all that doesn’t matter when those nagging, anxious thoughts creep into your brain late at night! No matter how illogical and frivolous these thoughts are when you really think about them, it can scare the crap out of you and shake your confidence so easily when they run away with your brain.

It’s Normal

Everyone feels this way. Talk to your friends and colleagues. Talk to co-workers and your family. Chances are they will have had similar thoughts and feelings when they purchased their homes. And it’s not just the first-time jitters. I talked to another agent friend of mine who has completed five or six transactions in the last 20 years or so, and he still freaks out every time. The key is to work with a team of advisers (mortgage broker, REALTOR®, financial planner, etc.) that you trust. They can help separate the important, key details from the noise of your subconscious mind that is keeping you up at night.

It Will Pass

For me, all the anxiety and stress disappeared the morning after the move. Here we were in our ‘forever’ house: me, my wife and our new baby daughter, and a pile of boxes and disarray. And it was perfect.

What about you?

Were you stressed about your first home purchase? What about your second or third? Did it get any better? When did it pass, and what advice can you offer readers about home-purchase anxiety?

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the blog. I’ve had a tremendously busy summer, both with work and in personal life. Most of my spare time lately has been dedicated to projects around the house. Over the August long weekend, we had a minor flood in the kitchen from the dishwasher that’s turned into a major project. Thankfully, insurance covered the damage, but it’s taken a really long time to get things back to normal and it’s nowhere near over yet.

The floors in the kitchen were laminate, which does _not_ take well to water, especially water from below – the dishwasher leaked underneath the cabinets, so the water went underneath the flooring material, necessitating a complete removal of the flooring in the kitchen, dining room and hallway. The carpet in my office also got soaked, and we had water in the crawlspace. While insurance covered those floors, we decided to replace the aging carpets with the same laminate, for a more uniform look throughout the house. The cabinets were also damaged, and rather than repair the old ones we opted to replace the whole kitchen, as the cost difference was not that much. You can see how these things tend to snowball.

The flooring was installed this week and it looks great, and I finally got my office back together last night. The kitchen should be installed this weekend, and then it’s the home stretch for the arrival of Baby Ayres, due late October. Speaking of said new arrival, obviously lots of our time has also been dedicated to preparing for him/her.

So that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

Look for more updates this week about some exciting projects I’m involved with in the region. I can’t believe how 2010 has turned out so far, both personally and professionally, and I’ve never been more excited about the future!

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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One of our first dates

Then Comes Marriage….

One of my favourite shots from the wedding

Then Comes….

Due late October!

!!!

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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Lindsay Buziak: Still No Arrests In Murder Case

As long as I write this blog, I’m certain to never forget that two years ago today, February 2nd, is the day that Lindsay Buziak, a 24 year old real estate agent from Victoria, was murdered in the house she was showing to prospective buyers.

In the month or so before the anniversary of her death, searches for “Lindsay Buziak” and related keywords surrounding the case show up with increasing frequency on my blog stats because of what I wrote the days after the murder and on the one-year anniversary in 2009.

It’s only natural I guess – people scouring the Internet for information on the case: clues, speculation or rumours. I’d like to think that some of the traffic is law enforcement, hoping that somebody somewhere has posted a new tip or clue about the case.

Because it’s ridiculous that the police have next to nothing to go on. She was killed in the early evening in a residential neighbourhood where people would be getting home from work. Somebody saw something. Somebody knows something that will lead to an arrest. Saanich Police concede that she was intentionally targeted and that the murder was planned many weeks in advance. You can’t plan something like that and have no one know about it.

“Lindsay was intentionally targeted, she was intentionally lured to the home and she was intentionally killed.” – Saanich Police spokeswoman Sgt. Julie Fast.

Lindsay’s family has announced a reward of $100,000 for information leading to an arrest. The Victoria Real Estate Board and the Canadian Real Estate Association have each contributed $25,000 to the reward pool, in a show of support. What happened to Lindsay, while not a direct result of her profession, could happen to any of us in real estate. All too often we get complacent in the chase for another deal. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it – listen to your instincts.

I really hope I never have to write another Lindsay Day post on this blog. Please, if you know anything about this case, no matter how small it may seem, call the Saanich Police tip line at 250-475-4356.

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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I was driving the lead boat (the Coast Guard Auxiliary boat) in the sailpast, and managed to shoot a little bit of video to give you an idea what it looked like out there if you missed it. What a perfect night to be on the water. A little chilly, but the wind held off until after the sailpast, which was a big plus. There were lots of people on the boardwalk watching the dozen-plus decorated boats sparkle on the crystal-clear and calm evening on Sooke Harbour.

Check out the video I shot below. It’s mostly of the boats getting ready and of the beautiful harbour before sundown, as I was driving the boat during the actual sailpast. If anyone has any better video, shoot me an email and let me know and I’ll post it!

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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I’m pleased to announce that I will be teaching web marketing and social media training in Victoria, BC starting next month. Reachd.com has approached me to be their Victoria instructor. The 3-hour classes are taught in the afternoon, and are ideal for anyone in any small business who wants to learn how to capitalize on this growing trend. How can you effectively use social media and web marketing to grow your business? I can’t wait to show you how. The three courses that are happening next month are: Social Media Guided Tour ($149), Explode Your Growth With A Blog ($149), and Broadcast Your Message With Online Video ($249 – includes a video camera!). You can take all three courses for $399 – a savings of $149. Come out and learn something in December and be ahead of your competition in the new year!

The courses will also be offered in January, along with courses on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google AdWords.

More information and registration at http://TimAyres.ca/reachd

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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