About Ottawa County, MI

First, please excuse the fact that my honeymoon was 4 years ago, and I'm just now blogging about it! But looking thru old photos last night brought back that luuvvvvin' feeling again!

During our long and drawn out 5 weeks of dating, I asked Evie - "If there's any place you could go in the WORLD, where would you want to go?

Without enough time for a synapse to fire, out came "Switzerland."

Then my not-overly-wealthy pocket book butted in... Why????? Why couldn't you have said Cedar Point, Ohio (Bill and Liz, lucky dawgs) or Muskegon state park? Think of all the money I'll we'll save!!!! Why Switzerland??? Only Wheel of Fortune contestants can afford to go to Switzerland, if they don't hit "bankrupt," ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

What ended up happening, was, a few weeks later, I hatched a plan where I pretty much said, if Switzerland's going to be the place, then I was going to need a little encouragement from Providence on this. Basically, if its going to be Switzerland, its going to have to be nigh miraculous.

So we had a little dinner date over at my place where I sprung the idea! After dinner...

-- Ok honey, o'er yonder wall you see a dart board, with 20 slices and a bullseye in there. I have made a secret list of 21 places around the world, which I have sealed in an envelop to be revealed to you at the conclusion of 3 rounds of 3 dart tosses.

Whichever number you most frequently dart out of those three rounds will be your honeymoon location. SO MAKE SURE YOU HIT SOMETHING!

Just to let you know, there are 3 international locations on the board, Fiji, Switzerland and Tahiti (I have no idea how I can afford it, but they're on there, so be it...and good luck hitting one...*chortle*...), and the bulleyes is going camping here at home...soooo...on the other hand....you don't want to throw too good.

Ok, darters, take your mark here behind the kitchen table and toss (its about 12 feet away).

What happened next, I don't really remember, probably because of hyperventilation and shock.

What she had managed to do, unbeknownst to her cute little self, was to 3 times out of 9, dart the only number in the list I had committed to memory - #2.....Switzerland.

A massive celebration ensued. There was much leaping and hugging and shouting for sheer ecstasy. At no other time was she ever so sure she married the man of her dreams!

This is not the end of this story...it has quite a twist to it. In fact, 2 days later came the heartbreaking news...

I will continue this in my next blog tomorrow when I have some more time...

***The photograph was taking during the actual dart tossing event. Notice what good form she has!!! That dart is headed for Switzerland!!!!!!!!

If we weren't so familiar with it, we'd swear it was revolutionary, a miracle of miracles.

It's simply amazing......

It's....a seed.

Big deal, right? What's so special about a seed. How 'bout a million bucks to do some good?"

Keep dreaming, ignorant one.

These little gems, such a humble disguise, playing the part of pauper, thrust in in the dirt.

Hundreds fit in the palm of my hand (if spinach, carrot, or tomatoes), and can yield a princely produce, and a royal reaping. When grown, they grace my grey-brown dirt garden with brilliant color and enough food to feed our little kingdom for an entire year (if indeed we harvested and canned it all!.

One seed. Eunum Pluribus :).

One plant.

Then from one, thousands of seeds. Thousands of plants.

Millions of seeds.

If there were ever a dose of inspiration in this natural world, the most potent form it comes in is a seed.

Here's a little jingle I wrote:

One Seed, many can feed.

One Gift, so many (all) can live.

One Word, many may believe,

One Life, and few who will receive.

The Bible gives some good insight on seeds for our lives:

"The sower sows the word..."

"A good man brings forth good things, out of the treasure of his heart..."

"for out of the abundant overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."

"Life and death are in the power of the tongue; and those who love it shall eat the fruit thereof."

"A man shall be satisfied by the good fruit of his mouth."

Tunnel Park in Holland, Michigan is a beautiful 22 acre park along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. It is a great place for swimming, sunbathing and picnicking. Tunnel Park in Holland, Michigan features a unique tunnel through a dune, which opens out to a beautiful panoramic view of Lake Michigan.

I recently visited there with my wife as we did a road trip to Allegan, Holland and Saugatuck, Michigan on Labor Day this past Monday. It marked the end of a wonderful 2010 summer for us, and we wanted to take advantage of the cool weather and see Lake Michigan again.

The tunnel was really unusual, with a wooden walkway and concrete construction that opens up to the bright and vast view of the Lake, and the beach. It was a great place to take pictures, and I have included a few of those here.

In addition to the unique tunnel through a dune, this park has a children's playground complete with a dune climb and a dune stairway which offers further scenic views of Lake Michigan. We climbed the stairway, which goes higher than where the tunnel comes out of, just to the South, and it also offers some great views of the beach and the lake.

Tunnel Park in Holland, Michigan has an extensive beach plus picnic areas, two picnic shelters, four sand volleyball courts, a children's playground and it is pet friendly. You can go there for a day, and park a car load of people for just $6. Play football, throw a Frisbee, have a game of catch, run through the sand, build a sand castle or play in the water.

Tunnel Park is closed from November 1 through March 31. Motor vehicle parking fees are in effect from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. Managed by the Ottawa County Parks and Recreation Commission, Tunnel Park is located in Park Township just west of Holland, in Ottawa County.

The entrance is on Lakeshore Drive just south of Lakewood Boulevard. So if you are interested in exploring the shores of Lake Michigan, it is worth stopping by and having some fun at Tunnel Park in Holland, Michigan.

As a Realtor in Southwest Michigan, I like to learn as much as I can about the great places to visit in the region, and Tunnel Park in Holland, Michigan has made my list! It really is a cool park on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

(That title has a little extra cheese, LOL)

Yesterday I logged into my webmail account and peered into the spam folder, perusing it for what might turn out to be an important property assignment I'm having trouble finding from an asset manager. What I am finding is alarming. Especially for my children.

Spam that does make it thru to my inbox, I dutifully click the "unsubscribe" option that the law requires from (legitimate) companies that spam. I used to just delete them, but I promise - its better to unsubscribe for the ones that get thru.

Because I want the people behind unsoliticed messages to know how much I disapprove of their rude intrusion into my private mailbox, I often respond to them with point blank advice, sharing how I will NEVER use their service, and will do my best to discourage others.

Here's an actual response from a spammer yesterday:

"I'm very sorry for bothering you. I will remove you from my list.

BTW, I received your contact information from GKAR as a part of my membership to the organization. I did not mean to SPAM you. I was under the impression from the GKAR board that members were aware that their information would be given to other members. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience."

Notice a couple of things: 1st - the response. Sharing point blank with the sender that the unsolicited email is counterproductive to their objective (I will now NEVER use their service) has more of an impact than not responding at all. The sender was actually sorry and responded, but needs to be impressed with the fact their messages are not helping their business, but turning people against them.

2nd: The perpetrator is a fellow member of the association of REALTORS(r) advertising their car cleaning service! Even if the association gives out our information to other members, that doesn't mean you take up your car cleaning service cause and spam my mailbox with it. I don't even like getting messages from other members that send out blast messages to advertise their lastest and greatest real estate. What if every agent did that? It's just plain rude. So how much less a car cleaning ad? C'mon people.

If this is the case, I am going to (politely) request from my board why in the sam hill members are allowed to get a list of emails and make unsoliticed ads to them.

What to do? Well, if you're an active AR member, the more exposure you build here, the more influence your blog has when you recommend local business, or recommend AGAINST local businesses. I wouldn't go so far as to give them a dedicated blog post, because it might be construed as over-the-top venom and embolden the sender thru some weird Jedi reverse pyschology. Maybe you can tell them if they want better advertisement, like this realtor member advertising car cleaning, they should BECOME A MEMBER OF AR, and advertise there by blogging! I actually wrote the sender back this morning recommending just that!

Bottom Line: the messages that make it thru to my box are usually legitimate companies that take note when you take the time to let them know that this type of "marketing" (I use that term as loosely as size 55 underwear) will push us away from their services.

P.S. The New York consulting firm Basex estimates $20B in lost productivity worldwide due to spam each year, with the rate growing at 100% per year. Ugh.

We're livin' the dream again for Wordless Wednesday with a photo of farm Mama and my eldest daughter, Faith. I think they look gorgeous and right at home on that tractor - wait, let me go get you some ice cold lemonade after working with those three kids all day hahah!

Truth be told, a tractor would be a luxury item for our 1 acre farm right now. But there's soon coming a time and a season when we'll be living the dream on a nice big spread, workin' the ground, and splashing in swimmin' hole on the sweltering dog days of summer! Until then - just keep dreamin' big dreams, whatever brand of tractor they may be!