Los Angeles Trip

So I haven't left a post here in a while because life has been rather busy. Plus, I tend to be incapable of making a blog post that takes less than twenty minutes, so any posting is a big commitment for me. But I'll try to keep this one short and sweet.

Last weekend I took a trip to Los Angeles with my parents so that we could attend an asset protection and tax mastery seminar that I had paid for last year as part of my real estate training package. I was allowed to bring one guest but both of my parents were able to attend without any complaints. It was amazing to get the scoop from these pros. The first day was taught by an attorney who specializes in asset protection. He taught us about something called a "hybrid trust." It's basically a panic button that you can push if you ever get into a lawsuit that freezes all of your assets with liens from the trust that anyone who is suing you would have to satisfy before they could take them. For example, you set things up so that your hybrid trust has an option on your home (after any existing mortgages) which is filed with the county recorder. Then you get sued for running over your neighbor's foot with your car. You can then have your trust exercise its option and your neighbor would now have to pay off not only your existing mortgages to take your house but your hybrid trust's option as well. Basically, if you set it up right, anyone who takes your home (because there's no way to totally prevent them from doing so) is going to have to pay you several thousand dollars to do so. No attorney is going to pursue that case willingly. Anyway, it's a little more complicated but that's basically how it works. It's pretty crazy.

The second day was taught by a CPA who specializes in helping investors "master" their tax burden. He went through all the different types of entities that you want for the different types of income you have and what the best tax vehicles are for your income streams. His presentation was also fabulously helpful. The third day was mostly Q&A and one-on-one consultations for each conference attendee with one of the instructors.

Each day after the conference we would head out into the city to see some new grand thing or eat at some new grand place. The first night we went to the LA temple (of course) and I took a bunch of pictures to send to LDSchurchtemples.com when I got home. Unfortunately this falcon had killed a crow and this black mess of crows was swarming around the temple squawking their disapproval and messing up my photos! I still managed to get some beauties and the webmaster even wrote me a complimentary e-mail thanking me for the submissions. You can check them out here if you are interested.

Dang crows

After the temple we went to the Getty Center museum in the Santa Monica mountains. This place was one of a kind amazing! I suggest doing a Google Earth search for it; it's quite impressive, even from a satellite. I was just sad that we were there after dark and didn't get to appreciate it in its full daytime glory. We had a fantastic dinner at the museum restaurant and then got to see Van Gogh's Irises and one of Monet's Roun Cathedral paintings.

View from the hills of Beverly Hills

The next night we took a drive through Beverly Hills while we were waiting for our 8:30 pm dinner reservation at Lawry's Prime Rib. It was pretty wild - these multi-million dollar homes were almost stacked vertically on top of each other along these steep, winding streets. After our wonderful dinner we went to visit the Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA. It's pretty interesting being in such a populous place and driving around in the heart of downtown on a Sunday night - there was no one else around! We probably saw five or six other pedestrians the whole time we were there.

Anyway, consider yourselves caught up on my life. My next post will probably be about my awesome garden boxes I just installed on Saturday. You'll be on pins and needles, I'm sure.