FRIDAY - I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE

Traditional Family Room by San Francisco Architects & Designers Arcanum Architecture

How to navigate an extended guest stay, National Bike Month, top 100 California restaurants, Bay Area wages are very high, signs of an suburban comeback, how the real estate market is reflected on TV, comsumers paying mortgages ahead of credit cards, Ericsson leasing in Santa Clara, 8 uses for a sideyard.

Enjoy!

San Jose is one of America’s Top 50 Bike-Friendly Cities - with 400 miles of street bike lanes already laid out. And that’s not all— San Jose is also expanding the impressive Guadalupe River Park Trails, which will eventually form a whole link of trails that will connect with other trails and transportation hubs, creating an amazing biking option for commuters. Additionally, there's a Friday night “Bike Party” that attracts thousands of cyclists every third Friday of the month for a 15–30 mile ride through South Bay.

Top 100 California Restaurants - According to the SF Chronicle anyway. South Bay's Amber India makes the list.

The Good News About Working in the Bay Area: For Many, Wages Are Very High - The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its latest numbers on employment and wages throughout the United States, says average wages throughout the region are generally much higher than the national average of $22.33 an hour. The South Bay average is $34.45 an hour, which is 54 percent above the national average; in the San Francisco area, it’s $32.41, which is 45 percent higher than the U.S. mean; and in the East Bay, it’s $28.70, or 28.5 percent higher than the all-American average. Those newly released stats are all from May 2013, by the way.

Signs of a Suburban Comeback - The land of lawns and malls has experienced two years of solid growth, as more Americans are moving again to suburbs. Many of the nation’s fast-growing cities are slowing down, while suburbs and areas beyond suburbs are seeing an uptick in growth after expanding more slowly during the recession and its aftermath.

The House Shows Boom: How the Real Estate Market Is Reflected on TV - Why are home-improvement shows so popular, and do these shows really correspond with what viewers are likely to be doing with their homes? It seems there are some patterns between the number of home shows on air during a given calendar year and real-world housing statistics. TIME notes that “As the housing market has begun to recover from that bubble, the number of home-related shows has also increased, though not to the extent that was seen before the bubble.”

Consumers Are Back to Paying Mortgages Ahead of Credit Cards - Americans are reversing an unusual pattern that had developed after the housing bust: They are putting their mortgages ahead of their credit cards when they pay the bills. Lenders expected mortgages to be paid first when home values plunged during the downturn, but consumers began to default on their mortgages while continuing to make credit card payments.

How Ericsson's big Santa Clara lease could revive region's commercial real estate market - Experts noted that companies appear to be motivated to lease big chunks of space in order to keep their employees together. LinkedIn's head of workplace said as much in comments before the Mountain View City Council on Tuesday in pitching new office projects in the city: "We've had to find real estate outside of the North Bayshore area," he said, referring the LinkedIn's home base. "But it's very hard for us to operate when we have multiple sites far away."

8 New Uses for Your Side Yard - Lovely to look at and delightful to use, these side yards meet a home's needs as dining, entertaining and living areas. My favorites: