How a Ludite on the Web Survives: He Cheats Off a Nerd in Salem Oregon!

My wife is a Victorian era buff. She doesn't use e-mail or voice mail. She did go to our friend and local printer, Dennis McGinnis of Red Bank, for a bunch of frilly, lavender calling cards years ago. It's not unusual for Liz to drive by a friend's house and slip one of her relics in a mailbox or the crease of a storm door with a note.

"I dropped by to say hello. Call me when you can."

Her response rate with this Neanderthal means of communication? 100%.

Compared to me, a local real estate agent, who can flood his Sphere-of-Influence with teaser e-mails and get a single response: The economic minister of Nigeria who needs a pittance of my money in exchange of a majority stake in a diamond mine worth an estimated $100,000,000 U.S. dollars.

I've purchased a few off-the-shelf websites in my day. Static cyber flags that barely ruffle a week after product launch. My website is probably designed by the nephew of the dude who staged the lunar landing outside Scottsdale, Arizona.

Dead sticks of advertising just floating in an infinity of 0's and 1's, that's what I got.

I'm just not that into learning S.E.O. and keyword and html and back links, forward links, sausage links.

That's why when I come across a website that really combines the intimacy of Liz's purple missives with the naked power of Intel and Google and the Internet rolled up into a content pipe-bomb, then I have to step back and applaud the author.

I've never been to Oregon. The closest I've been up that way is Oregano. Little secret that Christopher Columbus' second cousin Frankie discovered Oregon when he made a wrong turn on his way to pick up a large cheese in China.

Melina Tomson of Tomson Burnham has got it going on over at The Get Real Estate Blog. (Agreed, it's a weak ass title for her website but the guts are mad nitro.)

A rich, textured site written by a savvy yet genuine real estate broker.

Chinook Estates looks swanky and I doubt I can keep my pinkies up for that long. I'm more the cranky dog walker you'll find picking his trouser seat in Salem's Historic District.

Never met the woman. Never talked to her on the phone and it's too far for me to drive and stick a mauve Hallmark in her mailbox. I know she burns when she bakes.

But she knows her real estate and the technology to support her Salem, Oregon clients. Am I jealous? I mean perhaps.

If I was into all that geek stuff.