JustinMar.com: The official website of Justin Mar

Covid-19 Pandemic 2020 The coronavirus pandemic is something that we will all remember for the rest of our lives. It will make history on how it has impacted our entire world in all aspects. A virus that does not discriminate against age, sex, race, or species (humans so to say). It's deadly to the most vulnerable and can even kill the healthy. On a personal note, we are taking every precaution in our household to shelter in place and limit our social exposure. It's quite an adjustment. Since we live with many elders in our household, it's just prudent for us to use all precautions because they are so vulnerable. We survived our first week confined inside our home. Our daughter transitioned to distant learning. Sherry is working from home.  Since we are social creatures, it's very easy to get "stir crazy." Somewhat feels like we are on house arrest (we actually are).  There were a few occasions where we walked back and forth in front of the house just to

The real estate market has been HOT! A definite "sellers" market. We were able to quickly sell our condo to a very serious buyer! Very quickly too! There were only a few contingency snags, but we were able to sort them out. It helped that our realtor walked us through the entire process. We were very pleased! Where are we living now? We moved in with my in-laws. This is just temporary until we find our future home. Gives us an opportunity to save even more too! It's rather nice to have zero debt again! The next steps... Now we are just going to wait for the market to level out a bit here in the Bay Area (keeping fingers crossed). The prices for homes are just outrageous and real estate inventory is limited. We are gambling on the fact that if we approach a recession, the housing pricing in the Bay Area may adjust to being more reasonable. Let's hope! We're standing by with money in hand to pull the trigger!

We decided to put our Castro Valley condominium up for sale. It was our first home that we bought together 14 years ago and we want to pass it to another first time buyer or investor! Many memories in this place. The views of the bay are spectacular! It's in the coveted Castro Valley School District and conveniently located close to BART/freeways, etc. I personally did all the remodeling by myself. New bamboo floor, new carpet, new appliances, new interior paint, new lighting fixtures, new toilets, and new water saving fixtures. Very bittersweet to leave but it's the right time for us to move to something bigger for our family. Come to the open house on June 8 & June 9 from 1pm-4pm on both days. Click here  to view the listing. Living Room Dining Area Kitchen with new appliances Master Bedroom Bedroom 2 View

Today embarks a very sad day for our family.  We lost our little furry friend Mickey who has been a longtime family member of ours for 16 years. He has been suffering from mitral val ve disease the past year. A common disease in older dogs. He had a constant chronic cough (a common symptom) along with an irregular hea rt bea t (m urmur). The vet diagnosed that eventually over time as he ag ed , h is heart w ould most likely give up. The indicators that we monitored was his b reath count at rest. So when I noticed he was breathing rapidly at rest, it was a strong indicator that his hear t was w orkin g harder and would eventually go into cardiac arrest. We could tell the night before his passing that he was slowly weakening. He could b ar ely walk, stop ped eating, drinking, and was very slow moving. I had this very small hunch that he was getting ready to depart.   That night, we heard him struggling to walk on our wooden floors. We could hear his paws scampering as he

Decided to pull the trigger on getting the iPhone 6S series since AT&T was the last of the large mobile carriers to drop the two year contract phone option.  Now all the mobile companies require you to pay retail price for the phone or you'll have to finance the phone in your monthly bill payments. I was a bit skeptical in the beginning on getting the 6SPlus due to it's size. I have large hands, so it actually looks like a regular 6s in my hands. Although after reading the reviews, I was more sold on the 4K video aspect with image stabilization (a feature only available on the 6s Plus). I've also noticed that I've always purchased the "S" version of the iPhone. My main reason for getting the 'S' models is due to some of the revised enhancements done to the phone prior to the predecessor. Never understood what the S was abbreviated for. Is it short for: Security? Sucker? Speed? Sound? Sensitivity? Who knows? It's a great phone

It feels good to go back to an Apple computer.  Especially after being a devoted PC user for the past 20 years.  My first computer when I was in elementary school was an Apple IIGS, which was one of Apple's first color and sound based Apple II series computers. This computer got me through jr. high and high school as my word processor. It paired along with the trusty dot matrix Apple ImageWriter II color printer. Why did I decided to go back to an Apple?  One of the main reasons for going back to an Apple was for processing photos, as my aging PC desktop was getting rather dated and didn't have the capacity to process images without crashing all the time. Since I was due for a new computer, I decided to go back to an Apple since the majority of photographers use Apple computers (sorry PC fans). Additionally, you can't beat Apple's Million color 5K Retina screen! Sure, there aren't very many videos shot in this format yet, but at when the industry go