Articles by mgedwards

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  If you are Mexican or of Mexican descent, I hope you have a chance to enjoy what is one of Mexico’s most prominent fiestas.  Cinco de Mayo honors Mexico’s victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.  I should be down the National Mall in Washington, D.C. right now enjoying the annual Cinco de Mayo festivities sponsored the Maru Montero Dance Company, but alas, I am at home studying Spanish (and taking a break to write this short blog entry, of course).  Maybe I’ll make up for it by having Mexican food for dinner. 

Of course, other Latin American nations such as Paraguay don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but this uniquely Latino festival is one of the few observed in the United States.  Paraguay’s Independence Day celebration will be on May 15 and on the evening of May 14 (Paraguay’s Flag Day) my wife and I will attend Paraguay’s Independence Day celebration at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C. 

Blog Notes:  My thoughts are with those who were affected by the tornado that destroyed Greensburg, Kansas today.  Greensburg is less than an hour from where my father lived.  My father passed away, but my mother-in-law still lives there.  Meteorologists have issued a tornado warning for a large swath of Kansas and Nebraska.  I hope that no more touch down in the aftermath of what happened in Greensburg.

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Is your heart in North Dakota?

This seems to be my week to focus on finance and economics, especially real estate.  The topics on this blog tend to rotate depending on my mood.  Maybe I’ve been so disenchanted with Spanish lately that my focus has shifted to investing.  That’s not far from the truth.  Now isn’t the time to be distracted–my Spanish test is at the end of the month.  One can only cram so much language into one’s brain.
 
I couldn’t resist passing this Yahoo! news article on to you, Dear Reader.  Of course, the rumor about Microsoft’s possible buyout of Yahoo! was even bigger news today than the one I’m about to share.  The purported YahooSoft rumor apparently isn’t true, so it’s not worth mentioning…yet.  It might come to pass, in which case I’ll probably blog about it.  Here’s the article I really want to highlight:
93-year-old selling heart of North Dakota town  
If the thought of buying a cattle ranch in Paraguay or a former U.S. Embassy building overseas, then maybe owning a historical piece of North Dakota could intrigue you.  For no more than $500,000, you could own the heart of Sibley, North Dakota, a town founded by a family who saw the opportunity to build a town in 1954 near a popular fishing lake not far from Fargo.  They paid about $2,000 to buy the land–you’re going to have to pay for the value they added to the area.  It reminds me of when I passed through Jordan, Montana a few years ago and noted that the town gas station/convenience store was for sale at a bargain price of $350,000.  I thought checking out and managing the store in this quiet eastern Montana town that is a transit point for fisherman en route to Fort Peck Lake.  I’m not sure why Yahoo! felt it necessary to feature this news article.  In fact, many quirky real estate-oriented "news" articles have been popping up lately (ala yesterday’s Washington Post article).  Perhaps the real estate market has been such a downer with looming bankruptcies and subprime travails that media outlets have no other recourse than to publish articles on the fringe. 
 
Speaking of media, I recently subscribed to "The Economist."  It’s the "in" thing to do, apparently.  You aren’t running with the big dogs unless you read it.  I can’t bring myself to read "The New Yorker" or "The Atlantic" quite yet, because I’m still an East Coast transplant and have limited bandwidth to read weeklies.  "The Economist" is cool, though.  I’ve read "BusinessWeek" for years, but I realize that it doesn’t have the international scope that its British counterpart does.  Interestingly, there is probably a simple explanation for this.  "The Economist" limits its coverage of the United Kingdom to about six pages.  If it focused on Great Britain as much as "BusinessWeek" concentrates on United States, it would be a small magazine indeed, even pamphlet size.  There is only so much you can write about on the British economy in a weekly magazine.

Wanna buy a former embassy?

Special thanks to a Dear Reader for pointing out an interesting column in Wednesday’s Washington Post advertising great bargains on former or soon-to-be-former U.S. Embassy buildings, including chanceries and diplomatic residences.  On the heels of my blog entry about the Paraguayan cattle ranch for sale, these real estate opportunities seem even better; well, more historically significant, at any rate.  Who wouldn’t want to own the Ottawa, Canada residence featured in the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward classic, "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge"?  It could be yours for just U.S.$2.25 million. 
 
I searched the Web and found photos of these properties.  Which one(s) would you like to buy? 
Granted, the London property is gorgeous, but $180 million is a lot of money.  The other properties have a distinctly U.S. government ambience.  With a little paint and some nice curtains, you could enhance their inner beauty.  Me, I’m partial to the soon-to-be-former chancery in Kathmandu, Nepal.  At just $6 million, it’s a steal!
 
If you like living among embassies but don’t want to leave the country, then why not try to find a place on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.?  They’re not quite a steal, but it’s pretty cool living where the diplomats hang out.