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One of the best things about Las Cruces is that we are big enough to benefit from just about any convenience you need, and small enough that we all seem to know each other. 

That's why Look Who's Dancing! is such an entertaining event. For a few years now, we've been going to Look Who's Dancing! to have good fun watching local celebrities impress us with great dancing abilities, and yes, to watch a few of them embarass themselves. It's all in good fun! 

Look Who's Dancing! is a special entertainment event organized to benefit the New Mexico State University DanceSport Company. Its goal is to promote social dancing to the Las Cruces community as a healthful and enjoyable activity for all ages and all skill levels.

This year the wonderful dancers include:

Christopher Cruz from Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces
Donna Richmond from La Piñon Sexual Assault Recovery Services of SNM
Elaine Brown from Re/Max Classic Realty
Crystal Lay from Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering - NMSU
Debbie Calderon from The Whole Enchilada Fiesta Executive Board
Bill Connor from El Paso Electric
Austin Trout the WBA Light Middleweight Champion
Jeffrey Silva from Bank 34 & March of Dimes
Ceci Vasconcellos from Doña Ana Arts Council

Here's one of the highlights, in addition to the technical judging, competitors are competing for an additional trophy; people's choice. Community members get to buy votes; you cand drop money, at $1 increments, into the bins for the competitor you would like to vote for at the event. The competitor receiving the most money/votes wins. All money goes to the DanceSport Team. The winning competitors will receive trophies respective to the category they win.

Here are the details:

Friday January 27, 2012
7:00 pm
Onate Performing Arts Center
Las Cruces, NM

We hope to see you there! 

And now we finally get to talk about our number 1 favorite hamburger in Las Cruces at Dick's Cafe. 

This is the ultimate hamburger and New Mexican food dive!

It's been around since 1959 and they're still going strong. Their homemade hot salsa ranks up there as one of the best ever and their Jumbo Green Chili Cheeseburgers and Fries will fill you to the rim.

Their burger patties are freshly ground with their own recipe and the green chili is out of this world. Nothing touches their flavor or their size.

We frequently eat there when we have visitors looking for authentic green chile cheeseburgers, but be warned, this is a hole in the wall cafe. You won't find anything fancy about this place (or the other places on our list). But if you're hungry for some good green chile, this is one of the best spots throughout southern New Mexico. 

If you're looking for something different on the menu, try their Huevos Rancheros! Dick's Cafe has great Mexican food to compliment their menu. 

This is the final blog in a series on financing your home. Before we get to the final step, let's review the first 5. 

Step 1: How Much Can You Afford?

Step 2: Selecting a Lender

Step 3: Selecting a Loan

Step 4: Shop. Compare. Negotiate

Step 5: Loan Pre-Qualification & Pre Approval

And Finally, Step 6: Loan Approval

Processing and Underwriting - Expect a time delay in getting final loan
Avoid the most common problems with these worksheets:
Mortgage Application Checklist
Mortgage Loan Flow Sheet

Neither pre-qualification nor pre-approval nor a means you are guaranteed a mortgage. In order to get final loan approval and money delivered to the title company at closing, the loan must be processed and then be underwritten.

The processing department must order appraisals, title work, and verify employment and credit report. The underwriter must make sure that your loan meets the requirements for the particular loan program you are using. Problems with these final steps can often be traced to buyers not having submitted the necessary financial items and paperwork in a timely manner, and the fact that Processing and Underwriting are separate departments within the lending institution which can create a bureaucratic delay in completing this process.

For more information on Financing Your Home, visit our Buying a Home Website. 

Installing a security system may seem like a chore, but modern technology has made the installation process much easier. In fact, the set-up process for wireless systems may only take about 30 minutes at the most.

1. Buy a Kit

Most of the best security packages provide the essential devices for keeping the house secure. These are kits available for a lower price than if someone tried to buy every individual security component.

Standard kits come with a central panel and a number of security sensors to detect movement of the windows and the doors. They don't often come with state-of-the-art devices, such as glass-break detectors or passive infrared sensors. However, they usually have most of the essential parts that people will need to protect the house.

2. Use Wireless Sensors

Most of the earliest wireless sensors were often unreliable, because they wouldn't trigger the alarm even when it detected any movement around the doors and windows. The newest alarms are much more effective, thanks to revolutionary changes in wireless technology.

Every wireless alarm system now uses a central panel as a hub to operate the wireless sensors around the house. This panel can detect the battery life for each sensor around the house. This can actually save plenty of energy around the house, because it doesn't rely on as many wired sensors as the older security system models.

Each sensor only needs a lithium ion battery. Although it may seem like people are spending more than they should spend on batteries, they are actually cutting the amount of electrical energy they use inside the house. The battery sensors also help to prevent a person's home from experiencing a brownout due to an overuse of power.

3. Use a Manual Monitoring System

Although many security providers offer a home monitoring system, many of them are unwieldy and expensive to use. Many of the automatic systems could inadvertently use the phone line to call 911 for a false alarm. This could cause people valuable money, especially if people have a bad habit of tripping the alarms and forgetting the passcode.

Thus, people should instead purchase their own home monitoring system. Although it may seem like a hassle to string all the cords to a DVR (digital video recorder), it gives people more freedom to watch everything themselves. Rather than relying on a middleman in a monitoring station, people can watch all suspicious activity around the house from their own monitor.

Q-See's monitoring kit especially provides exceptional recording capabilities. The cameras can automatically record anything that triggers the motion detectors, allowing people to replay this material. The cameras may lack microphones, but the DVR still provides a big hard drive to save all the video data for future reference.

Although a do-it-yourself security might seem like a strenuous chore to complete, it pays off it the long run. A well-produced system will provide long-lasting protection to ensure that anyone's house is secure.

When I crave a greasy and just down right tasty burger, this is what I crave. They are phenomenal hamburgers, although, it's not the tidiest or most comfortable place to dine.

Their green chile cheeseburgers are good enough to rank them among the top of our list, but their history pushes them up to number two.

Day's Hamburges may be the first restaurant in Las Cruces, NM to serve green chile cheese burgers. At least, they are commonly referenced with other spots in the state who claim that title.

Whether or not they were the first, they were one of the first for sure and considering the fact that the green chile cheese burger has become a staple of just about any New Mexico menue... they have earned the number 2 spot on our list. 

When you go, you order at the counter and they call your name and number when its ready. If you're looking to add a side, let me recommend onion rings.

Again, keep in mind that this is good old fasion greasy food so if you're on a diet, don't go. There's nothing on this menu that leads you to losing weight. 

And this leads us to numero uno.... can you guess what it is? Tune in next week to find out.