Brentwood and Franklin have become infested with immigrants from California.

No, I’m not talking about Mexicans. They’re in South Nashville and Antioch. I’m talking about the people from L.A. and San Diego who have cashed out on their overpriced real estate in Southern California and moved to Nashville to buy their McMansions and raise their snotty nosed brats here because they can get so much more house for their buck and we have such a better quality of life here than anywhere in California.

I’m going to just start refering to Brentwood and Franklin as “New California” or maybe “Eastern California.” I hate driving anywhere near the mall anymore. These people from California think it’s OK to just step out into traffic and walk anywhere in the road or parking lots that they want without even looking for cars. California has big laws protecting pedestrians and giving them right of way. Tennessee does not.

In the South, cars rule. The sooner these new people from California understand this principle the sooner we can all get along.

This morning, I went out to the car to go to work and found a mess. Someone had broken into my car while it was parked in the condo garage and pulled out everything from the glove compartment and the middle console. Everything was strewn about in the front seats and floor boards.

While I stared at the mess I looked over what was there and tried to figure out what was missing. I’m not good at spotting what is missing – often I don’t miss it until I try to get it and discover then that the item is gone. But I did notice right away that the car registration and insurance papers were missing, which has a lot of personal information on it. They didn’t steal the car stereo – which is a blessing. I don’t leave much of anything in my car – I like a clean, uncluttered car. But they did get a handful of CDs and my papers.

Like most people, I’ve seen the ads for a credit protection service called lifelock. And like most people, I’ve thought something along the lines of, “That’s nice – but I don’t need that. I’m careful with my personal information.”

So now that I’ve talked to a couple people at work and heard their warnings of identity theft experiences I’m a little freaked out that someone might actually try to do some damage to my credit or whatever else they can do with identity theft. I hope it’s not too late to sign up for the lifelock program and have them help me put a stop on anything this jerk tries to do. I’m going to their website to read through the details of their program and sign up.

Every time I’m ready to go out shopping and have something specific in mind or a particular store that I want to go to, I check online for coupons first.

Sometimes I just Google the key words and add “discount” or “coupon” to the search, but most of the time I check the one website that is like a clearing house of coupons and discounts, 1-coupons.com.

This site lets me check individual stores when I want to buy electronics or toys for my grandson or even workout gear.

Last time I ordered my computer, I found a discount coupon for 25% off my Dell laptop. Now that’s saving real money!

You can even save on booking travel for hotel stays for your next vacation or weekend getaway and there are discount codes for car rental companies. So unless you’ve got money to burn, you might want to check out the coupon site and save yourself some cash next time you go shopping, too.

Having only been here for two days, it’s been a whirlwind of sights and things to learn. It is very noticeable how the language is very different. I understand the words they are saying, but we don’t use the same words in the same way back in the States. I know I have a slight southern accent – I’ve lived in Tennessee for over 40 years! So when I talk I get a lot of slightly amused looks from the people here, but everyone has been very nice.

If we can find the property and get a deal started this week, we do have another mission to find and either buy or lease a car for the company to keep here, mostly for the traveling executives that will be coming through London, but also for the daily errands of the office staff we’ll be hiring, like going to the post office and bank.

I’ll look to Cabby for advice on the vehicle search. I don’t know enough about doing business here in the U.K. to know if a lease is more practical than buying a car. I’ve done a little research on the internet and talked with our Purchasing Manager back in the office.

One website that I like is www.shrewdlease.com and the information that they have about getting a good deal on a lease. The site has a Vehical Lease Evaluator so I can put in all the variables in the deal being negotiated and obtain a lease factor to compare against other deals. That is a smart method of comparing offers and will come in very handy later this week when I start shopping for our new car.