It looks like I will be getting a lot of these beautiful hot pink cactus flowers this spring and summer. There are dozens of buds on the peanut cactus this year. Click on the image to enlarge.
Shopping Crime Rates in Arizona
One major consideration in Shopping Homes is the crime risk in areas where we might decide to settle. I found a real estate appraisal website, eppraisal.com, where area demographics for a given locale may be found. The crime data that they use is almost ten years old, so it has likely changed some; the data came from year 2000 census statistics. I’m sure that the crime rates, even though they may have changed, will have remained in proportion to those shown.
I chose to compare between Phoenix, the largest city in Arizona, Tucson, second largest and two neighboring smaller towns, one close to Phoenix and one close to Tucson. The numbers in the graphs are incidents per 10,000 people and break down to Personal and Property crimes. (We tend to take property crimes personal, however, but that’s beside the point.)
First, let’s look at Tucson and Marana, both in the southern Valley of the Sun and in Pima County. Interstate 10 runs through or beside both, and both are considered good places to retire. Both towns have a fairly high property crime rate but have a relatively low violent crime rate when compared to cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
Note that the scale and the personal property crimes are considerably higher than in Tucson proper. Auto theft and burglaries seem to be the major problem in Marana and, to a lesser extent, in Tucson.
Next, let’s look at Phoenix and Wickenburg, closer to the center of Arizona and both in Maricopa County (think Sheriff Joe). Phoenix and the surrounding area are also considered to be nice places to retire. Again, the Phoenix Metro area experiences a lot of property crimes and has been growing in personal crimes due to illegal aliens and drug cartel problems. Wickenburg is isolated from the Northwest Phoenix metro area by virtue of a small range of hills and a distance of about thirty-five miles from the town of Surprise, AZ. Us Highway 60 connects the two.
The vertical scales are different between these two graphs, but inspecting the numbers reveal a very low rate of both personal and property crimes in Wickenburg. We’re inclined to believe that the combination of lower new home prices and lower crime rates makes Wickenburg our very likely choice.
Dilbert Channels Washington
Scott Adams and the Dilbert crew nail the manner in which this administration reports statistics.
First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory
These images are just astounding . . .
April 21, 2010: Warning, the images you are about to see could take your breath away.
At a press conference today in Washington DC, researchers unveiled “First Light” images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space telescope designed to study the sun.
“SDO is working beautifully,” reports project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This is even better than we could have dreamed.”
Launched on February 11th from Cape Canaveral, the observatory has spent the past two months moving into a geosynchronous orbit and activating its instruments. As soon as SDO’s telescope doors opened, the spacecraft began beaming back scenes so beautiful and puzzlingly complex that even seasoned observers were stunned.
Be sure to click on the image above to view full-size and then go to the SDO Website.
A Yellow Iris
I have been waiting several days for this iris to open. It was finally open this morning. I waited for the clouds to clear off a bit before getting this sunlit image.
This is my first yellow iris and it sure is beautiful. There are several more getting ready to open.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Shopping Homes
For several months, we have been talking about ways to relocate to Arizona as soon as possible. Up to this point, it has been all talk. Over the weekend we decided to take some action by heading to Arizona (very soon) to shop for a home there.
I went on line to see currently available homes in the area where we are most likely to settle. I am pleasantly surprised to see how affordable homes are over there. I worked out the numbers and I do believe we can be in a position to shop, make an offer and get into a home this year – maybe this summer.
Our California house is quite large – four bedrooms, three baths, large family room, two stories – space we used to need when we were raising a family. Now, in retirement, it’s just overkill. We figure to get into a single story, two or three bedroom with a two car garage and space to store the RV.
The one in the picture above came from one of the real estate websites. It’s an example of the class of home and Santa Fe styling we both like a lot.