Life on Easy Street - Vacation Rentals

Dear Mr. Obama,

2010-09-17T10:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. Obama,

You may not have heard but to my knowledge to date no one has received a reimbursement payment for the BP Oil Spill from GCCF (Gulf Coast Claims Facility). I know you appointed Mr. Ken Fineberg to administer the program, probably because he convincingly promised to streamline and expedite the claims process. Unfortunately, neither of which has happened, the system is neither streamlined or expedited unless you consider setting up a website to let you know nothing is happening qualifies. Mr. Fineberg publicly stated he would get checks to claimants that properly documented their claim within 24 to 48 hours for individuals, and within 7 days for businesses.

I presented a very well documented claim on August 25th and so far have been waiting 23 days. Prior to submitting this claim I had it reviewed in detail by the Santa Rosa Beach Claims office in detail. They actually used my claim to show several other claims personnel in the office an example of a well documented claim. Similar documentation was provided for my previous claims that were presented to BP when they were processing claims for May, June and July. For each of those claims, reimbursement was received within 7 days. To date I have been waiting for a longer period than the total claim period for all of my previous claims with BP. Can someone explain to me how this is a more efficient and expedited claims process?

With all due respect I think we were mislead by Mr. Fineberg. I would therefore like to make the following suggestions, 1) either suspend Mr. Fineberg's salary until such time as payments are made or at least started (We are not being paid so there is no reason that Mr. Fineberg should be paid, especially since it is obvious he is not doing his job up to HIS minimum standards), or 2) turn the claims process back over to BP. They have the experience and a far better record for claims turn around time then Mr. Fineberg.

We businesses on the Gulf Coast have actually had three disasters, the actual oil spill, the grossly inaccurate reporting from the national media, and now this disastrous claims process. Can anyone for a second image if this type of claims process and the delays were still being handled by BP. They would be sitting in front of a congressional panel. When does Mr. Fineberg get his invitation?

Sincerely,

Rick Scali
Easy Street Vacation Rentals
Destin, Florida

Rick Scali Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Meeting with BP, Mayor Sam Seevers & City Manager Greg Kisela

2010-06-12T13:22:00.000-05:00

It was a good day yesterday. Destin Mayor Sam Seevers and City Manager Greg Kisela invited several rental company owners and managers, including Easy Street Vacation Rentals, Newman-Dailey Resort Properties, Resort Quest, Dale E. Peterson, and others, to a special meeting with them and Jay Prothro, the Regional Director of the BP Outreach Program. The purpose of the meeting was to give us property managers a first hand and accurate update on the oil spill in general, the Booming Plan to protect the Harbor and the Bay, and the cleanup plan in the event the oil does reach our beaches. The BP representative also discussed the BP Claims process and offered to be an advocate with our claims process if necessary.

Before I go into the details of the meeting, let me first tell you after yesterday's meeting, how fortunate I think we all are to have the quality of leadership we have in Destin. I have been involved in many cities and city governments in my 20 plus years as a Credit Union CEO (my previous life), and I can say without question we have top notch leadership in Destin. I believe we have exactly the right people, in exactly the right job, at exactly the right time to deal with this nightmare. If I got nothing else out of yesterdays meeting, I got the sense that our city leadership has a firm handle on what's going on, how to protect us, and the guts to make certain we get whatever we need to protect our Bay, the Harbor and our Beaches.

The first bit of encouraging news we heard was that the oil is actually further away from Destin today than it was on Monday. Thankfully the wind and the currents seem to be working in our favor. Will the oil hit our beaches, I don't think anyone really knows with certainty. For two weeks now I have heard that oil will hit our beaches within 72 hours and it's still not here. What I heard at the meeting is that if (and I mean if) the oil hits our beaches we're prepared. The County has beach patrols on four wheelers that inspect the beaches several times a day, every day looking for oil. We have a SCAT team (don't ask me what SCAT stands for) that will validate any oil or tar ball findings. If validated they will call in for the BP clean up teams immediately. They also indicated that the city web site has the latest information on the beach conditions, air quality and other relevant oil spill information and links.

Another piece of encouraging news was that Jay Prothro from BP indicated the diagonal drilling, which is our best chance of completely capping the spill, is two weeks ahead of schedule. That means the oil spill should be capped once and for all by early August at the latest. It's never soon enough but there finally seems to be an end in site. He also indicated there are four skimmer boats active in the area now with four more on the way, cleaning up the oil before it reaches our beaches. Quoting Greg Kisela, the city is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

A great big thank you to the Mayor and City Manager for putting this special meeting together, and for their leadership during this time of crisis. It's very much appreciated. I know we'll all get through this.

God Bless the Gulf Coast

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Rick Scali Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

"Show Me The Money", they did and more!

2010-06-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

I am absolutely flabbergasted, not only did BP pay me for my claim for the month of May they actually paid me extra towards future claims. My claim was for $10,647.00 for loss of rents from April 21 to May 31, but I ended up walking out of the office with a check for $13,000.00. I want to think the extra money was because of my rugged good looks, but for all of you that know me you know that couldn't be the case. What BP did was round up on each of my claims. They had me file a separate claim for each one of the five houses that my wife Debbie and I own, and a separate claim for the 15 houses that we manage for other people. Where the claim loss that I submitted was in the high teens, BP rounded up and paid me $2,500.00. They said I will obviously have additional claims for the coming months so this amount will be towards those future claims.

I know we have all vilified BP, and certainly they deserve a lot of blame, but from my standpoint they have been very forthright. I provided BP with my claims documentation on Tuesday, June 1st and received my check today, Monday, June 7th. I also asked the representative how long will BP do this, and without hesitation he said for as long as necessary. "We are in this for the long run." So if there is any good news out of all of this mess, financially we'll do fine this year. And one other important point, I was not required to sign any document to receive my check that would limit my rights in any way. We were all concerned about that issue. So there you have it, straight from first hand experience.

God bless the Gulf Coast!

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Rick Scali Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Chronicle of a BP Claim

2010-06-02T09:22:00.000-05:00

Who knows when this Oil Spill nightmare will end, certainly not until BP finally caps the blowout well. As with any disaster there is as much misinformation as information, how much oil is leaking, where is the oil heading, how long will it take the Gulf to recover if ever, who is primarily responsible BP, the drill owner, Haliburton, who knows. I think everyone is focusing on BP, probably because they have the deepest pockets.

Of course I am worried about all of these issues, but I am most worried about how it will affect me, my business and my rental home owners. There is no question we will survive this, but how painful will that survival be. Will our business run out of cash during the off season? How are my Owners, whose houses I rent on their behalf, pay their mortgages without rental income over the summer? Heck, how will we pay our mortgages and fixed operating expenses?

We are fortunate in that we were 80% booked for the summer by the time of the spill, and only had three cancellations since then. One cancellation was a wedding and they decided to change their entire venue, a second were guests from France with in-laws in Texas, and the third was someone who was worried about getting laid off and used the Oil Spill as an excuse to get a refund on their reservation. The most negative affect has been from the worried calls we received from guests with reservations. Because we have a tremendous number of repeat renters, early on we implemented a 100% Money Back Guarantee if the beaches were closed because of the oil. We have not had a cancellation since the policy went into effect and only a few worried calls from those that were not aware of the money back policy.

We have actually had a few new reservations since the oil spill but we're still well below last year's actual and this year's budgeted goals. Typically we're sold out from Memorial Day through the middle of August - not so this year. Initially I thought I would do what I typically did when we had open dates, discount our rates, but then I thought what happens if the oil does hit our beaches and I need to give 100% money back to reserved guests. I am going to need some help!

Two weeks ago I received word that BP had opened Claims offices in our area, one in Ft Walton Beach and another in Santa Rosa Beach. Since it is obvious that sooner or later I am going to need help, this past Thursday I started the process of filing a claim. I posted the comment on Facebook and got some interesting comments, such as I was wasting my time, that BP would make it so cumbersome and require so much documentation that I would give up. That's when I got the idea to document my claims experience on my Blog, Good or Bad experience.

On Thursday May 27th I went to the Santa Rosa BP Claims office (5008 US Highway 98 West). It's a store front with temporary signs indicating it was a BP Claims office. It was the first time I saw a BP logo on anything other than a BP gas station. Seemed odd. When I walked in the front door I was met by a large open area with desks lining both sides and the rear of the room. Everyone seemed to be looking at me. Behind the rear desks in the back I could see one way glass, obviously the supervisor's office, he was probably looking at me as well. Immediately to the right as I walked in was an uniformed Sheriff's Deputy sitting at a desk. He asked me to sign in. He had me enter my name, address, name of my business and my claim number. I told him I didn't have a claim number so he had me enter Requesting Information.

I was the only "customer" in the room so it seemed like the employees were competing for my attention. John Alston shuttled me over to his desk, he may have been some sort of a Lead. He asked me how he could help and I told him I was just interested in information for now, and wanted to know what the process would be. John said the first step would be to file for a claim number, and he asked me to describe my business and what I thought my claim would be. I told him I was in the Vacation Rental business and that my wife and I owned five houses and we managed 16 other houses for other owners. He said I would need to file an individual claim, with a separate claim number for each of the houses my wife and I owned and another claim number collectively for all the houses we managed for a total of six claim numbers. He then gave me the 800 Claims Number and assisted me as I went through the process of getting claim numbers. With my Claim Numbers in hand, John walked me over to a claims processor Gaylord Smith and briefly described my claim to Gaylord.

Gaylord Smith gave me an overview of the claims process and basically said he would need documentation to verify what my 2009 rental income was and then compare that to my 2010 rental income, and I would be reimbursed for the difference if 2010 was less than 2009. I also had to provide my 2008 & 2009 tax returns, and provide county tax records that reflected the addresses of my property and showed my ownership. I provided him with all of the requested information on Tuesday June 1, so now we'll see how long it takes, see if I get the royal run around or what. I can say that I have been impressed with the BP Claims process so far, but the proof is in the pudding. Show me the money, as Jerry McGuire would say. I'll keep you posted.

Rick Scali Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Check out my Fan Page

2010-04-18T16:18:00.001-05:00

Wow, in less than two weeks we have over 200 Fans on our Facebook Fan Page Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals. My new marketing assistant Jessica Mansfield suggested I set up a fan page but I had no idea it would take off as it did. Apparently there are a lot of folks out there that are interested in clean well maintained pet friendly accommodations here in Destin.

There are other rental companies in the area that take pets, so I didn't think too much about our uniqueness, but apparently at most other places guests are restricted to one pet under 20 pounds. Here at Easy Street we allow any number of pets (within reason, we've had as many as 5 show dogs - St. Charles Cavaliers), any size (our biggest was a lab named "Goliath" 120 pounds brought by Alan Rice family), and any breed (as long as they are not aggressive). What makes our homes convenient is that most of our houses have separately fenced in pet yards that can accommodate multiple pets.

We recently became a sponsor (and a Fan) to Alaqua Animal Rescue here in Destin and Freeport, and we received a tremendous response from their fans. May 2nd (Sunday) we will be an exhibitor at their fund raiser at their Freeport facility. If you're in the area that day, come join us.

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Busy First Quarter 2010

2010-04-10T07:55:00.000-05:00

This is my first post for 2010, not because of lack of interest but rather a lack of time. With our new more user friendly web site, more aggressive marketing and adding three more homes (and counting) to our rental program, I have been swamped since the first of the year. I'm not complaining mind you, just more or less of an apology. I promised myself I would post an update at least once a week, and that obviously didn't happen. But here we are with lots to report.

Our web site is doing fantastic, especially our new filtering program that allows guests to indicate what specific house and amenities they're looking for and have it filter to just those homes that meet their criteria. We also added a Specials Section to promote our last minute specials and also list our new homes coming on board, to give them a running start with new reservations. We also added the Virtual Tours to most of our houses (I'm working to have Virtual Tours on all houses), and created the ability to add an unlimited number of photos. Previously we were limited to 15 photos. We also added a link to our electronic guest book, so guests could read ALL of the previous guest's comments. I always thought guests comments were important, this new link now makes it very easy for potential guests to view previous guest comments, and existing guests to post their comments.

The next thing we did was hire a new local Marketing Manager, Jessica Mansfield, smart, good looking and very talented. Jessica was recommended by a friend at the Destin Chamber of Commerce, Cheryl Walker. Cheryl is also the marketing manager for the Army Aviation Center Federal Credit Union and a volunteer at the Alaqua Animal Refuge. Jessica's first task was to set up our Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals Fan Page, which she did. Here is a link to the our new Fan Page:

Easy Street Vacation Rentals Facebook Fan Page

We would love to have you as a FAN.

The next project Jessica will be working on is a Customer Survey. We want to know what our guest's think, what they think we're doing right and wrong, how we can improve our product and service. Following that is developing a formalized "Repeat Renter" program and a "Guest Referral" program. We have so many wonderful repeat renters, and new guests referred to us by our many loyal guests. I goal is to create a great reward program that expresses our sincere appreciation for their efforts.

Have lots more to update, but I'll save that for next week.

Cao for now!

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

My Very Own Christmas Story

2009-12-27T08:52:00.000-06:00

This is my true Christmas story, it happened this year on December 23rd, 2009.

As many of you know we have 20 something rental homes, some we own and manage and others we just manage for other people. In the 8 years we have been in business this is a first.

Here in paradise, crime is a very rare occurrence, maybe a bar fight by a couple of guys after a night of drinking, or maybe some shop lifting, but rarely something more serious. Well we had our very first "Break In" of one of our homes, and a very unusual one at that.

A very neat burglar broke into one of our rental houses by breaking a rear window and jimmying a door lock in the back of the house. Once the burglar gained access, he turned on the heater and made himself at home. From the evidence left behind, we determined he cooked a steak and heated a can of baked beans. When he was finished with his meal he cleaned up his mess, including the broken glass from the window he broke, put all of his dirty dishes in the dishwasher, took a shower, neatly folding the bath towel and placed it on the vanity when he was done. Then watched a little TV, took a nap and left. Nothing else was broken or taken.

We discovered the break in the early afternoon of Wednesday, December 23rd, two days before Christmas. We check all of our houses on a regular basis to make sure they are ready for the next guests, or if the house is going to be vacant for a week or so, check to see that the AC is turned off.

During one of these rounds, we discovered the break in and I immediately called the Sheriff to report intrusion. When the Sheriff arrived I described the whole story and told him we had minimum damage, just a broken window and jimmied door, and nothing else broken or missing. The Sheriff suggested that it was probably someone cold and hungry. I told him it was not a big deal, but I mainly wanted a police report for insurance purposes to repair the window and door.

The officer hands me his business card - now this you're not going to believe, his name was "M. Christmas". True!

I asked him, please don't tell me your first name is Mary. He smiled and said, no Matt.

He took done all of our information and said the police report will be ready the first week of January. I am going to keep a copy of the police report and the officer's business card, just to back up my story.

To the person who broke into our home, Merry Christmas and I hope you have a better next year.

That's my real Christmas story.

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Easy Street Web Site Ready for Prime Time

2009-12-12T07:45:00.000-06:00

We have beta tested our new web site Easy Street Vacation Rentals over the last thirty days, and received some great input. To solicit the input, we forwarded our web site to a number of our repeat guests who agreed to review our site with fresh eyes. The overwhelming response was positive, plus we received a number of great suggestions, most of which we implemented. At long last I think we’re ready for prime time, and I think you’ll like what you see. The test will be on Monday, when we plan to announce the new web site to our 3,500 VIP past guest list.

Studies tell us we have less than a minute from when someone first lands on our web site, for them to figure out what to do to obtain the information they want and need. So, on our Home Page (and every page) a guest can enter their arrival and departure dates, and check rental home availability in under thirty seconds. We also created a way to filter their selections. Listed under the “View Our Homes” tab, guests can view “All Properties”, or just homes with “Private Pools”, “Heated Pools”, “Best Pet Homes”, “Single Story Homes”, or “Just Town Homes & Condos”. There’s more, once a guest selects any of the categories, they can select “Quick View” and then sort their selections by price, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms or number of guests the house will accommodate. They can even sort the homes alphabetically.

Where are our homes located and how far are they from the beach? Good question, so we added Google Maps (we call it “Area Map”) to out site. It is listed under the “Local Area Guide” and it shows the exact location of each home, it’s address, and a photograph of the home. We also added in the closest grocery stores, and soon we will be adding all of our favorite and recommended local activities, such as restaurants, golf courses, the harbor, amusement parks, shopping areas, etc.

Under the Local Area Guide, we added some other goodies too such as a list of Activities and Attractions you’ll want to take advantage of while you’re down here including our favorite restaurants, deep sea fishing, nightlife, shopping, etc. We have also included a link to local weather and an estimate of the typical weather conditions during different seasons of the year. Don’t know the best way to get here? Click on the Driving Directions and enter in your home address and Google Maps will bring you right here.

Over the years we have been blessed with a growing list of repeat guests. With the launch of the new web site we decided to formalize a list of “Standard Specials” for VIP and Repeat Guests. The Specials include discounts for the following groups, Repeat & Loyal Guests, Active & Retired Military, current employees of the Police, Fire and EMS, and because of my thirty years in the credit union industry, I have also included a credit union member discount.

Since we just hate to see any home go unused, we also formalized our “Last Minute” Reservation Discounts. If we have an open date and you book within one week of that date, we’ll reduce the price by 10% automatically, and if you book within 48 hours of an open date, we offer a whopping 25% discount.

We’ve worked very hard on this website (Debbie, Chris, Billy & me) and I hope it shows. The proof will be in the number of guests visits, and how do we know that - Google Analytics. (Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks). I found out this great little Google Application can tell us how many new and repeat visitor’s have visited our web site, where they came from in the US, what keywords they used to find us, and even what browser they used to search for us. And what’s cool is we can get that information by hour, by day, week or month. So here we go, it will be an interesting ride.

If you’ve got a free moment, take a look at the web site for yourself, we would love your feedback www.easystreetvacationrentals.com

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

New and Improved Website by LiveRez

2009-11-24T18:04:00.002-06:00

Well we did it! At long last we're live on our new and improved website. We loved our former website, looked great, won an award, and the webmaster was great to work with. The problem is that it wasn't a connected website, meaning we had a website, a booking engine, and a database management system, and the three didn't talk to one another meaning they weren't inter-connected. When someone went to our website and wanted to book a reservation, they clicked on the Bookit button, which sent them to another website that handled our booking engine. Once the reservation was "booked" we received an email announcing the new reservation. We then had to log in to their system, print out all of the reservation information, and re-enter all of the information into our database system. Very, very inefficient, and since our volume doubled this past year, the system was bringing us to our knees. We knew we couldn't handle another year under the old system. There were several other issues that were problems, and our owners didn't particularly care for the system, so here we are.

We are now with LiveRez, with all three systems wrapped into one, website, booking engine and database management system. We have been working on the system now for three months and today we launched 11/24/09. www.easystreetvacationrentals.com. Check us out and let me know what you think rick@easystreet-rentals.com

In the next Post I will tell you some of the neat things we have included in the new website that I think makes it extremely easy to use and very informative.

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Destin's Holly Burke dies after long fight with cancer.

2009-11-05T17:30:00.000-06:00

It saddens me to report that Holly Kaitlyn Burke, 19, of Destin, passed away Oct. 30, 2009, surrounded by her loving family, fiance and caring medical team, at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tenn.

The following article was published in the Destin Log, on October 14, 2009 shortly before her passing.

http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/holly-11498-destin-form.html

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

Update on Holly Burke

2009-10-06T15:17:00.000-05:00

Good day all, sorry I didn't get to post to my blog last week, I was heavily involved in our Destin Seafood Festival. I worked the beer booth on Friday and the Main Gate on Saturday, and by Sunday I was exhausted. Anyhow here I am ready to blog again.

I'm dedicating this blog to someone near and dear to my heart. It's the daughter of a friend who was diagnosed with a rare form of inoperable cancer. I have written about her in my Life on Easy Street Newsletter. For those of you who have not read my newsletter here is an except of the article, followed by an update. You might want to bring some tissues before you start reading.

Holly by the Sea is an idyllic beach house that we manage? Of course it has a white picket fence. Cool tile floors, a large porch and quintessential deck chairs that offer the coziest of comforts after a hard day at the beach - just 2 blocks away.

Yet, for the many reasons you might rent gorgeous Holly-by-the-Sea, one stands out more than any other. Holly herself.

Diagnosed last year with a rare form of cancer that attacks the body's soft tissues, hers is a story of a young girl and her family fighting back.

Spending much of her senior year 500 miles away in Memphis to receive treatment, Holly missed many high school moments. Managing to keep up with schoolwork despite grueling radiation treatments and multiple surgeries, she was able to graduate with her friends. Her classmates made a touching, unanimous choice to vote Holly their prom queen.

Spend time in Destin and you'll notice its natural community - a delightful thing in a popular vacation spot. Holly's mom Carol, a single mother, is quoted in the Destin Log as saying: "The love in this town is just amazing".

The pair's extended stay in Memphis required Carol to resign from her job. Lost income and medical costs meant tough decisions - and the possibility of needing to sell their home.

At Easy Street, this was our time to help. One look and we knew this 3-bedroom home would make an ideal rental retreat for families - its tropical charm, beach and pool proximity and cottage interiors make it immediately appealing.

After a few minor changes to transform the home into a rental property, its new name was obvious: Holly-by-the-Sea.

It's a perfect choice for your next family vacation - where you can't help but be reminded of the important things in life: time with those you love and random acts of kindness.

If you're planning a break this fall - consider this property. Help us to keep it fully booked and keep Holly's recovery close to your thoughts.

Well that article was written the end of September when we all still had hope for Holly's recovery, or at least improvement. As of last week, the prognosis is not good, in fact her doctors now give sweet Holy 4 to 6 months at best.

That was enough to break ones heart, but then this morning I received the most remarkable news, a wedding announcement from Holly's mother Carol. It seems Holly's dream was to marry her boyfriend of two years, and that's exactly what this brave little girl is going to do in Greenville, SC. Saturday, November 7th Holy Burke will become Mrs. Kyle Marinan. (sorry I'm having a hard time typing). God bless this brave young girl, and please keep her, her family, and her soon to be husband in your prayers.

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

2009-09-21T18:48:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

Well it's been a hectic week, call me crazy but I'm giving up an award winning web site for a whole new booking system that includes a new web site. There is actually more to the story. I have (but pretty soon I'll be saying had, once we launch) a great and very beautiful web site. In fact it won the 2009 Golden Addy Award. Problem is it wasn't getting the traffic I expected, plus the bounce rate was very high. If you don't know what a bounce rate is, which I didn't when I started this search, it is the number of people that did find my site, but left after viewing the home page. What that told me was people were actually finding my web site but didn't know what to do once they got there, didn't find the home page easy to navigate, or couldn't easily find what they were looking for, so left. The other problem was that my current web site was not linked into my data base reservation system or my booking engine, in fact I had three different vendors, one for the web site, one for the booking engine, and one for the data base reservation system, and the three didn't talk to one another, which required a lot of repeat manual entering of customer reservation data by staff. The sad part is I really like my old web site, and thoroughly enjoyed working with the designer.

Deciding to change was difficult, and who to change too was difficult. What I did know is that I needed a system that integrated all three aspects; data base reservation system, booking engine, and web site. The final two candidates was Bookt and LiveRez, and ended up selecting LiveRez because of their pricing system and they had a more complete back-end reservation system.

This past week really has been brutal, if anyone has ever gone through a data processing conversion, you know what I mean. Learning stuff for an old guy like me is not easy. The bad news is it's a lot of work, the good news it will save me a ton of work (when it's operational) and a ton of money. And hopefully increase my bookings. The cost of the new system is one fourth of the current amount I pay for all three vendors. My labor costs should go down significantly as well. I'm not planning on reducing staff, just redirecting their efforts because of all of the new business I hope to attract. At least that's the idea. The other benefit is to the owners of the properties I manage, they will be able to log into our system at any time and see the status of their rental. There are plenty of other features, but I'm just learning those.

The new LiveRez web site, I don't think it will be as pretty or flashy as my old site, but is designed to be a lot more functional for our visitor guest. isn't that how it should be. The goal should not be winning awards, but winning customers. The new site should be easy for guests to search for properties, check availability dates, and reserve homes. It will also be easier to highlight Specials, Things to do in Destin, and offer different amenity packages. I could go on, but if the new system lives up to my expectations, it should pretty much revolutionize our business.

Our market niche is clean, well maintain, pet friendly rental homes in the Destin area. I spend a lot of money on marketing so my web site will be found, and to think people find me but then abandon the search because my web site, although pretty, is hard to navigate, just frustrates me. Although painful, I think this is a step in the right direction. I am so tired of hearing people say they have been coming to Destin for years, but could never find a good pet friendly rental. Here I am! Here I am!

I have some really exciting plans that will be revolving around this new system, and help those folks find us, so stay tuned.

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

The origins of Destin

2009-09-13T16:39:00.001-05:00

Those of you that know me know I absolutely love the City of Destin, not just because I have a successful Pet Friendly Vacation Rental business and Street Legal Golf Cart business, but because it has everything I ever hoped for in a town. The city only has a full time year around population of around 11,000, but because of tourism and folks with second homes here, we have all of the infrastructure of a city five time our actual size, not to mention some great restaurants and first class leisure activities.

I can remember when I first retired to Destin 7 years ago, what was important to me was not only a nice place to live, but a community I could be a part of. I am happy to say I feel very much a part of this city and will be for the rest of my life. I am a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Rotary Club of Destin and a member of the Destin United Methodist Church. To feel more of a part of this city, probably one of the greatest things I did was attend the Destin Forward Class (2008) sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. This program taught our class just how paradise was run, the importance of our Harbor District, our fishing village heritage and the founders of Destin.

One of the greatest stories I discovered was how Destin was actually founded, and how the ancestors of those original pioneers are still actively involved in the city. I am proud to call one of those ancestors my friend, Dewey Destin, Jr. the great, great, great grandson of the founder of Destin, Leonard Destin. Dewey owns and runs two of the best seafood restaurants in Destin, Dewey Destin Seafood and Restaurant, and Dewey Destin's Harborside Restaurant. Dewey is also a City Counsel Member and has had a great influence in the direction of the City over the years.

The Destin family and Destin have been intertwined since Leonard Destin founded the area in 1835, but that is not where the story began. A few years earlier when Leonard, his father George and his brother William set out from New London Connecticut with three ships and ran into a hurricane off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida. Two of the ships, and Leonard's father and brother, were lost at sea. Stories had long circulated in the port of New London about the excellent fishing to be found off the Florida coasts, so even after the tragedy, Leonard decided to continue on and look for the best fishing he could find as well as a place to settle down.

In 1845, Leonard Destin met and married Martha McCullom from South Carolina and built one of the first homes in Destin (located about 100 yards from the current restaurant on the Bay). As a Yankee, Leonard was suspected of being a spy for the North during the civil war, and was imprisoned near Freeport, Florida. With Leonard scheduled to be hung, the circuit judge decided to spare Leonard's life because he was a fellow Mason. Following the war, Leonard returned to the the area and lived with his family of 4 sons and 3 daughters until his death in 1884.

1n 1879 Leonard Destin hired a 13 year old boy named William Marler who proved to be loyal, dependable and hard working. In a few short years Leonard gave "Billy" command of his own boat. Over the years Captain Billy sailed the mail in and out of East Pass and, to make things easier for locals, created an informal post office. In 1904, Captain Billy was formally made postmaster. An inquiry from Washington requested the name of the official new post office, and Captain Billy responded with "Destin" in honor of his first employer Leonard Destin.

Destin remained undiscovered and pretty much an island unto itself until the mid-1930's when the Marler Bridge was built, in honor of Captain Billy Marler, and the world began trickling into the Emerald Coast. In the 1940's and 50's most of the growth came from the influx of military retirees who became familiar with the appeal of Destin's white sandy beaches and cool sea breezes while stationed in the area. Condominium developers in the 70's and 80's provided the next growth spurt with Destin becoming officially incorporated in 1985. The rest, as they say, is history.

There are several other communities up and down the Emerald Coast that enjoy the same magnificent white sandy beaches as Destin, but what sets Destin apart is its fishing heritage and our wonderful Harbor. I have seen the plans for the expansion of the Harbor District and they are nothing short of amazing, with a 20 foot wide boardwalk that will be running from Harbor Docks all the way to the harbor entrance in front of the Emerald Grande.

I love this town and I can't wait for the next 20 years.

That's all for now.

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.

My First Blog - Life on Easy Street - Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals

2009-09-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

This is my first blog so bear with me as I learn this new way of communicating. There are few things I enjoy more than talking, especially about what interests me, so lets hope it will translate into blogging. I am passionate about the pet friendly vacation rental business, so I wanted to share my thoughts on that subject in this blog and hopefully answer any questions that may come my way. So here goes.

I retired from the credit union industry roughly 7 years ago and really planned to travel with my wife and our two pets, maybe play a little golf, and basically enjoy a new chapter in my life. The problem we ran into, however, was we couldn't find clean, well maintained vacation rental homes that we could bring our two pets that are an important part of our family. We wanted to find homes that we would want to stay in even if we didn't have pets, but would allow pets. We ended up staying at places that were pretty nasty, two I remember we walked in and then immediately walked back out because they were so bad. that's when it hit me that this could be a great market niche, clean well maintained homes that were pet friendly.

We sold property in California, did a 1031 exchange, and bought rentals homes in beautiful Destin Florida. We weren't really planning on starting a business, but we bought one home and started renting it as pet friendly, did so well that we bought another, and then a third, each time we didn't have any problem finding rental guests that appreciated being able to take their pets on vacation to a clean, well maintained rental home. Some of the same guests that stayed with us the first year are still coming back.

There are a number of rental companies here in Destin that offer certain homes in their inventory that are pet friendly, but frequently they have restrictions on the size of the pet and/or the numbers of pets. We chose to allow any size pet and any number of pets, we have pets as small as 3 pounds, and as big as 100 pounds. The record for the number of pets is 5 show dogs at one time in our Pineapple Cabana house. She stays with us about every other year. One year we even had a pet in a wheel chair, or I guess they called it a trolley. The dogs back legs were paralyzed so they were in this contraption that he pulled around with his front legs, and he got around just fine, just a happy little dog.

That's it for now,

Rick Scali

Rick Scali is the Owner of Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in Destin Florida. Whether you are a family looking for a squeaky clean Destin Rental Home with a Private Pool or a couple looking for a romantic getaway in a Destin Beachhouse, Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals will exceed your expectations. Easy Street Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals has the largest selection of quality pet friendly homes in Destin, Florida and throughout the Emerald Coast. Call us toll-free today at 877.432.7978 or email us at info@easystreet-rentals.com - we would love to welcome you, your family AND Fido to join us at the beach.