Category: Real Estate News

Local Photographer Audrey Hall reaches finals in 2009 Nikon Film Festival Contest

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Internationally published and Livingston Montana based photographer Audrey Hall has been chosen as a finalist in the 2009 Nikon Film Festival. Her short film “See You Then” was selected from over 1200 submissions nationwide. Filmed exclusively in Livingston Montana’s Paradise Valley, the independently produced movie combines art, music and the rugged beauty of the West.

Starting with a brush stroke on a canvas by Livingston artist Edd Enders, “See You Then” paints a visual narrative of the creative process in which the daily routines of ordinary people are entwined in unforeseen ways. Unconventionally made, “See You Then” was filmed entirely on a Nikon DSLR with HD movie capabilities – a recent innovation and trend in digital camera technology.

To view “See You Then” go to: http//www.nikonfestival.com/blog/2009/12/13/see-you-then. BE SURE TO VOTE before January 12th!

Hall’s images have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Sunset Magazine, Western Art & Architecture and The Big Sky Journal. This is her first film.

It’s Official: Montanans are Happy

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While we all have plenty to celebrate as the new year begins, Montanans have extra reason to count our blessings. As it turns out, Montanans are officially happy. A recent study from two colleges compared the level of happiness by state, from Alabama to Wyoming. Montana cracked the top 10, and is the 7th happiest among the 50 states.

Science Daily (2009-12-21)  reports findings of  new research by the UK’sUniversity of Warwick and Hamilton College in the US into the happiness levels of a million individual US citizens have revealed their personal happiness levels closely correlate with earlier research that ranked the quality of life available in the US’s 50 states plus the District of Columbia. This research provides a unique external validation of people’s self reported levels of happiness and will be of great value to future economic and clinical research in this field.

The new research published in the journal Scienceon 17th December 2009 is by Professor Andrew Oswald of the UK’s University of Warwick and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in the US.

The researchers examined a 2005- 2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System random sample of 1.3 million United States citizens in which Life-satisfaction in each U.S. state is measured. This provided a league table of happiness by US State reproduced below.

This is the first large scale analysis of happiness levels in the US but the researchers were content with simply having this large data set and ranking. They decided to use the data to try and resolve one of the most significant issues facing economists and clinical scientists carrying out research into happiness.

Researchers have to rely on people’s self declared levels of happiness — not how can you rely on those self declarations. There have been useful studies trying to match those levels of happiness to clinical signs of happiness and stress such as blood pressure. That has been useful but one cannot know for sure whether those clinical signs are themselves driving happiness or whether the reverse is true. Researchers have longed for a more clearly external set of data to test their results.

On this occasion the researchers found another parallel data set that might for the first time provide that external validation or challenge their findings. They discovered research by Stuart Gabriel published in 2003 which considered objective indicators for each individual State of the USA such as: precipitation; temperature; wind speed; sunshine; coastal land; inland water; public land; National Parks; hazardous waste sites; environmental ‘greenness’; commuting time; violent crime; air quality; student-teacher ratio; local taxes; local spending on education and highways; cost of living. This essentially allowed the creation of a rank order of US states showing which should provide the happiest living experience. This then was a truly external data set that could be used to check against the self declared levels of happiness.

When the two tables were compared they found a very close correlation between people’s subjective life-satisfaction scores and objectively estimated quality of life.

The lead researcher on the study, Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick said:

“The beauty of our statistical method is that we are able to look below the surface of American life — to identify the deep patterns in people’s underlying happiness from Alabama to Wyoming. This type of study has been done for a few European countries but it is new to the United States. We are the first to be able to do this calculation — partly because we are fortunate enough to have a random anonymized sample of 1.3 million Americans.”

“The state-by-state pattern seems interesting in itself. But it also matters scientifically. We wanted to study whether people’s feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality — of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etc — in their own state. And they do match. When human beings give you an answer on a numerical scale about how satisfied they are with their lives, it is best to pay attention. Their answers are reliable. This suggests that life-satisfaction survey data might be very useful for governments to use in the design of economic and social policies.”

Professor Oswald expressed some caution in how the results should be interpreted for the state of Louisiana in the survey following the disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina but was confident that the data on the other states was a true reflection of happiness levels saying:

“We have been asked a lot whether we expected that states like New York and California would do so badly in the happiness ranking. Having visited and lived in various parts of the US, I am only a little surprised. Many people think these states would be marvellous places to live in. The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy. In a way, it is like the stock market. If everyone thinks it would be great to buy stock X, that stock is generally already overvalued. Bargains in life are usually found outside the spotlight. It may be that exactly the same is true of the best places to live.”

Andrew Oswald/ Wu ranking of happiness levels by US State:

  1. Louisiana
  2. Hawaii
  3. Florida
  4. Tennessee
  5. Arizona
  6. Mississippi
  7. Montana
  8. South Carolina
  9. Alabama
  10. Maine
  11. Alaska
  12. North Carolina
  13. Wyoming
  14. Idaho
  15. South Dakota
  16. Texas
  17. Arkansas
  18. Vermont
  19. Georgia
  20. Oklahoma
  21. Colorado
  22. Delaware
  23. Utah
  24. New Mexico
  25. North Dakota
  26. Minnesota
  27. New Hampshire
  28. Virginia
  29. Wisconsin
  30. Oregon
  31. Iowa
  32. Kansas
  33. Nebraska
  34. West Virginia
  35. Kentucky
  36. Washington
  37. District of Columbia
  38. Missouri
  39. Nevada
  40. Maryland
  41. Pennsylvania
  42. Rhode Island
  43. Massachusetts
  44. Ohio
  45. Illinois
  46. California
  47. Indiana
  48. Michigan
  49. New Jersey
  50. Connecticut

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091217141314.htm full article

Housing & Economy Headed For Sustainable Recovery?

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RISMEDIA Reported on Nov 18, 2009…..

Aided by the home buyer tax credit, the outlook for housing and the economy appears headed for a sustainable recovery, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

BANOVICH FINE ART PUBLISHING ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF BEAST: THE COLLECTED WORK OF JOHN BANOVICH

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Banovich Fine Art Publishing of Livingston, Montana, invites readers everywhere to look over the shoulder of a master painter and into the eyes of the BEAST…

THE FIRST TIMEJohn Banovich picked up a paintbrush as a young boy in Butte, Montana, he knew he was meant to be an artist.  Something in his DNA compelled him to study, marvel and translate to canvas the animals that roamed before his pure artist’s eye.

Now, nearly 40 years later, Banovich has established himself as the consummate “close-up and personal” wildlife artist.  His unparalleled combination of talent, passion and drive has won him respect and accolades from collectors, peers, galleries, museums, conservations and sportsmen the world over.

BEAST:  THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JOHN BANOVICH, being released today, is the first book to be published on the life and works of the artist.  This beautifully designed and executed volume is a powerful presentation of Banovich’s accumulated work, as well as an inspiring story of his struggles, dead-ends, heartbreaks and ultimate triumph as one of the world’s foremost wildlife artists.

Written with noted outdoor journalist, David Cabela, son of the founders of the Cabela’s Outfitter Stores, this book takes the reader on a dramatic and compelling journey—from Banovich’s early days in Butte and art school in Seattle, to research and field trips in Africa, India, Pakistan, Siberia and other far-flung places and ultimately to the artist’s receipt of the Society of Animal Artists” “Presidential Award” and his current international recognition. The book also vividly describes Banovich’s work with his own Wildscapes Foundation, with the Lion P.R.I.D.E. Initiative and other important conservation efforts.

FILLED WITH over 100 fine-art reproductions, 50 field sketches and over 35 black-and-white and color photos, the book catalogs Banovich’s work from his early development prior to 1990, through the productive “African years” of the 1990s and into his present-day quest to paint interesting species all over the world.

The production quality of the book is exceptional and paintings are presented in high-resolution color in large format, with many of them overlapping two pages.  Each painting is accompanied by data on the year, size and medium of the work, along with the artist’s notes on the setting, significance or background of the piece.  A number of pages also include an anatomical or field sketch of the subject that the artist later incorporated into his paintings.

IN HIS INTRODUCTIONto the book, James L. Bellis, Chairman of the Board of the Blauvelt Demarest Foundation, whose beneficiary is the prestigious Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum, says of Banovich:  “He is one of the most driven, highly motivated artists I know…(with a) relentless, nearly sleepless passion to pursue his profession and life’s purposes.”  And of this newly published collection of the artist’s work, Bellis adds:  “In this book, we see why Banovich is drawn to his subjects and why we are drawn beyond the conventional dimensions of the picture’s height, width and depth, into a fourth dimension of his art—the spirit, the essence of the subject, its deeper meaning, its soul.”

The book features a Foreword written by celebrated wildlife artist, Guy Coheleach, an early mentor of Banovich, whose paintings hang in the Smithsonian Gallery and in the White House.  Jack Hanna, host of the award-winning television show, “Jack Hanna’s Into The Wild,”a good friend of Banovich and fellow conservationist , has also added his thoughts in a Prologue to the book.

BEAST IS BEING RELEASED in three simultaneous editions:  a “Gallery Edition” with hardcover binding and dust jacket for distribution to bookstores, libraries, museums and art galleries; a canvas-and-faux-leather-bound and slip-cased artist-signed “Signature Edition” for sale on-line and through the mail; and a pre-ordered , large-format, numbered  “Collector’s Edition” for patrons bound in genuine cowhide and housed in an African-mahogany wood presentation case.

To support the release of the book, the artist will be making appearances over the next two months in Barnes & Noble and Bordersbookstores in Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Dallas and Bozeman.

 “There is an ancient mystery in the eyes of the beast.  Looking deep within, we come face to face with ourselves.  They are the windows of our past and the prophecy or our future.”—John Banovich

JOHN BANOVICH serves on the boards of the Society of Animal Artists and the Craighead Environmental Research Institute.  His life and work have been featured in countless international publications, including Big Sky Journal, Western Art & Architecture and the Artist’s Magazine, as well as on various television programs aired on the Outdoor Channel, Versus and PBS.  Through his art and the Banovich Wildscapes Foundation, he has raised millions of dollars for conservation and humanitarian causes.  When not in India following the tracks of tigers or in Africa searching for the next wildlife encounter, he can be found painting at his studios in Livingston, Montana, and Seattle, Washington, where he lives with his wife, Amy.

 

For more information, contact:

Stacey Peretz

Banovich Fine Art Publishing

2 Pine Creek Road

Livingston, MT 59047

Phone:  941-473-9338 (FL)

E-mail:  Banovich@johnbanovich.com

See the website at:  www.johnbanovich.com

IRS Announces 2010 Contribution and Income Limits

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The recent economic turmoil has caused some speculation about the traditional contribution and income limit increases for IRAs and 401(k)s. Would there be an increase this year or would we actually see a decrease in the limits? The IRS recently set minds at ease by announcing the contribution and income limits for 2010.  In recent months, there has been much speculation about how the IRS would deal with a negative Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) – something that has not occurred since the introduction of IRAs.

The COLA is calculated each year based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

From the 3rd quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009, the CPI dropped about 2%. The last time there was an annual drop in the CPI was 1955.

Some people were worried that a drop in the negative COLA would result in a reduction of the contribution limits. Thankfully, these fears were unfounded, as the limits published for 2010 will remain that same as 2009 for most plans. See the chart below for a rundown of all the 2010 contribution limits.

2010 Contribution Limits
Account Type Regular Limit Catch-up Limit
Traditional IRA $5,000 $6,000
Roth IRA $5,000 $6,000
SEP IRA $49,000 $49,000
SIMPLE IRA $11,500 $14,000
CESA $2,000 N/A
HSA (single/family) $3,050/$6,150 $4,050/$7,150
401(k) (including Roth 401(k)) $16,500 $22,000

The only plan that will see an increased contribution limit for 2010 will be the Health Savings Account (HSA). This isn’t too surprising, given the skyrocketing cost of healthcare today.

With a freeze on contribution limits for another year, those wishing to make larger 2010 contributions will want to look to the many small business retirement plans available (SEP, SIMPLE, Individual(k)). And… don’t forget you can use your self-directed IRA to purchase real estate investment property.

source: Equity Trust Company

A SPECIAL NIGHT OF BRILLIANT MUSIC, DINNER AND DANCING WITH THE BOZEMAN MT SYMPHONY

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November 11, 2009

THE BOZEMAN SYMPHONY IS SERVING UP THE “BRASS SAUCE” THIS SATURDAY NIGHT—NOVEMBER 14th, 2009

It’s not too late; there are reservations available for this important community event and spectacular musical performance.

The Spectrum Brass Quintet and the BozemanSymphony Orchestra performing an all Latin themed concert that has been created specifically for this, the Symphony’s only annual fundraiser concert. Starting the evening with a fabulous dinner party we’ll be all warmed up when the Spectrum Brass and the Orchestra take the stage. After the concert Poco Loco will serve up danceable salsa late into the night.

There are a few special surprises in store Saturday night so don’t miss this opportunity to support your local Symphony and have a great night out at the same time! Show your appreciation for all the performance, outreach, scholarship and education the Symphony produces each year in Bozeman.

The Bozeman Symphony truly relies upon, appreciates and values your support.

Contact:

Bridget Garnsey
Executive Director, Bozeman Symphony Society
bridget@bozemansymphony.org
Office – 406.585.9774

OR

go to: www.bozemansymphony.org  for reservations

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