I had the app

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Need a dog walker? There is an app for that. Saw it in the news feed today! Need a ride from the airport? There’s an app for that too. Where would we be without all these apps? There is one for prepping your child for summer camp. There is one for the shortest sound bites of news imaginable. Can you stay up on current events in under 10 seconds? I am dying for the app that does my morning workout routine. Oops, you say it looks like I already have that app and my phone is in better shape than I am? Thanks!

Some of my favorite stories over the last 10 years have to do with faster delivery of online purchases. Just when exactly did it become necessary to get a pair of shoes overnight? Or as we seem to be headed, to be able to get them in 90 minutes placed on your front sidewalk by a drone. Why? Is there something wasteful about that idea? When I used to work with an avid reader that ordered books from Amazon frequently, I would see the overnight package hit the front desk (just a small extra charge) so she could start reading less than 24 hours after deciding that book was worth picking up. And the cost: about the same (when shipping was added) as paying retail at the local fantastic Collected Works Bookstore. Won’t that be sad when we no longer have a local bookstore to stop in and browse? When we all buy our books from Amazon, the bricks and mortar stores have no choice but to close.

So where is the app for making dinner? Oh, I forgot, in the big cities it’s called catering and food delivery. Someone will deliver the restaurant meal of your choice to your home for a mere $14.00 more than the cost of the meal, without the wait staff to serve you and without the need to tip anyone beyond the delivery person. What a wonderful life that would be to dine out (actually dine in) every night sampling quality food from a different place each night!

What about all the apps that need to know exactly where you are? Cruising the clubs without your friends can be a drag. Apps exist that let you hook up with friends and strangers after dark, though more valuable in a larger metro area with more users than Santa Fe seems to have. I am not really a big fan of spilling my guts and my private life onto the internet for all to see. I can take a pretty good photo, but why do I have to share it with the world? Are they interested anyway? Most of the apps want to know where you are so they can learn your route, your habits, your purchasing trends. Then you are valuable to them as a commodity. The apps that are sneaky smart can sell the data and all of a sudden you get contacted to buy a car when all you did was search online for a car for 10 minutes one day. It is as if someone was following you around or reading your mind. Does that bother you in the least?

There is an app for blogs like this. Smart software can select articles of interest in my field of expertise and repost them under my name (giving small print credit to the actual author). I guess I value originality too much to do that to you. Like Google, I prefer my name to be on things I wrote instead of articles I think someone might like. Yes, I occasionally provide a link, but reprinting or reposting an article with someone else’s byline does not impress me. If that’s what my loyal readers want to see, please speak up.

I have the QuakeFeed app. Now and then I look at the earthquake list from the last 24 hours. They are almost always along the infamous ring of fire, but the small ones in Oklahoma and the western half of the US kind of concern me. Fracking has nothing to do with it, they say. Well, I am not a scientist but I say BS to that statement. Fortunately New Mexico is not a hotbed of quake activity. In fact , we hardly ever have hurricanes or tornadoes, tsunamis or major ice storms. You know, it’s a pretty nice place to live, in Santa Fe NM.

Of course I have the KW mobile app (and you can also!). It is GPS based real estate searching that makes it simple to park in front of a for sale sign and bring up the details of the listed property on your handheld device. It is yours for the taking; go to the top right margin of this blog and click the big red square that says KW. You will be taken to a page provides 3 ways you can download the mobile app. I really recommend it for anyone that is re-curious.  (real estate addicts know what re-curious is)

Yes, iTunes, YouTube, Twitter, My Altitude, Compass, LaserLevel, iBooks, Flashlight, Sky Map, Stocks and plenty of real estate related apps that allow me to work away from my desktop computer. But no, I do not have Uber. I own a car and use it in my work. I don’t drink to excess in the local pubs and then need a ride home. Maybe I did that once or twice about 30 years ago, before Uber came along.

Over the years I have downloaded many apps that I later deleted. I just didn’t use them. They looked sexy at the time; a calendar app that organized my life (good luck!), an app for finding the best airfares ( I happen to despise commercial air travel and avoid it like I avoid falling down), an app that let me sleep to the sound of a small mountain stream or birds singing (I still couldn’t sleep), and an app that balanced my cholesterol ( which I learned can be done in other ways like nutrition and exercise). What is your favorite app? I like the ones that inform me: news, educational information and of course I love the weather apps. I only have two of them right now but I am looking for more. Cannot get enough of this rain!

My next favorite app is going to be one that lets me tune out the entire 2016 presidential election campaign and all its bad advertising and super PAC funded dishonest messages. I don’t know whom I will vote for yet, but none of those ads or messages will be allowed in my head once I download the new Ostrich app. Then later I plan to use it to tune out constantly barking dogs and loud motorcycles and those people that hate someone they do not understand. And then there is the Trump app. Its like getting bit by a skunk. The smell is worse than the bite.

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The writer is a 68 year-old young man engaged as an active REALTOR (associate broker) with Keller Williams, in real estate sales and management in the Santa Fe NM market area. My career has been in and around the real estate industry for more than 35 years, ranging from mortgage lending (interim, commercial, residential); residential property management and leasing; shopping center development and leasing; real estate sales; sales training; title insurance as an executive and an escrow officer; various management positions; consulting and other related activities. That plus a bunch of banking experience including our family-owned Bank of Santa Fe in the 1980s. Where has the time gone?
My background means you have my working knowledge of the entire transaction process at your disposal. That comes with honesty and no bullshit.