For sale: One well used old farm house on 4.3 acres with a stocked pond, a dozen or so fruit trees, blueberry bushes, horse pastures, a little barn complete with a couple horse stalls and a big garden ready for planting.  Inside the house there are 5 bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two basements (the Michigan basement consists of fieldstone and logs with the bark still on them supporting the house!)  The second basement is the foundation for the addition that was added when I was in Junior High (I think) that doubled the size of the original house.  The original house is very old and  the neighbor’s house was one of the original school houses in the area.  Down the road is the old Holloway railroad station…

How could you pass this up:

My mom is finally selling the house that me and my siblings grew up in.  She hasn’t lived there in over a year as she has been busy with travel nursing assignments, and the place wasn’t getting the attention an old house needs to stay intact.  I spent the past couple days in Tecumseh trying to get everything organized, meeting with Realtors, carpet installers, and doing all sorts of general remodeling.  I was shocked how much better the house looked after updating all the light fixtures, updating one bathroom and replacing a lot of wall paper with more modern paint colors.  I hope a new family enjoys all the hard work, and I hope it means the house sells a lot faster.

And then there was the barn…  My dad was a collector of everything it seems; after he passed away a couple years ago we went through the barn and cleaned and organized the best we could.  This time around I had to have a dumpster dropped off to finally purge a lot of the stuff that wouldn’t be wanted/needed by anyone else.  The items he accumulated over the years ranged from flat out junk to the nicest antiques, including set after set of wrenches and ratchets, more hand saws than any one person could ever use, box after box of mismatched nuts and bolts, and random pieces of scrap metal that doesn’t seem to have any real purpose.  After cleaning and purging I think I finally have the barn ready for the county’s biggest yard sale/flea market.

If you live in southeast Michigan and are looking for a great place to live let me know and I’ll gladly give you more info!

Disclaimer: This should in no way be interpreted as the way things are done in my office…  I have never climbed on the desk during a call and we’re WAY too professional for these antics

I found a picture of Bailey while cleaning out some old files the other day and was blown away by how much he has changed in color since he was a puppy. I remember when I picked him up at the breeder and he fit in both hands. Here are a couple pics showing his changes. The face is most noticeable now as he is going white very fast, and he is only 7 years old!  I wish I had photos of him when he had a full mouth of teeth

Bailey at about 8 weeks old:
(the banana toy was about 6″ long)

Bailey around 4 years old:

Bailey about 4 or 5 years old:

Bailey tonight:

Picture “Video Killed the Radio Star” playing in the background…  I am hardly a star but it is what I thought of yesterday while hearing people discuss Twitter at the AIMWest Social Media Confab yesterday at the Grand Rapids JW Marriott.

In my case, it seems increased usage of Twitter has led to decreased blogging and the trend seems to have spread to others in my office.  Maybe I’ve had less to blog about, less time to blog in general, or perhaps less interest…but in any case it usually comes down to the redundancy between what I might blog about and what I am talking about on Twitter.  The “What I’m Doing” widget on the right captures just about everything I am up to via a Twitter feed so is it at all helpful or interesting to summarize or rephrase it here?

The other issue of late has been my desire/need to separate work and personal life.  I equate this to taking two distinctly different groups of friends out to the bar and then watching the awkwardness that ensues.  You know some old friend is going to tell the most embarrassing story or pick the most inappropriate youthful indiscretion to relive…

As my professional contacts grow on my previous largely personal social media outlets I find myself censoring or at least very carefully considering what I post for general consumption.  For instance, my trip to Key West, FL during Fantasy Fest was an amazingly fun time with a group of friends that I’ve known since college, but most of the photos I took “documenting the madness” are hardly safe for work. As I’ve told people, the most popular Halloween costume was just plain nude with a little body paint.  (Don’t worry, me and my group of friends remained clothed at all times) I tweeted about it, but I resisted all temptation to “twitpic” the events. Maybe a year ago I would have posted pics on flickr, blogged about the craziness and shared more realtime with Twitter.  It’s not like I have a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde dichotomy going on between my work and personal/social life…its just easier not starting meetings with Deans or the President with a conversation about something crazy I see/say/retweet outside of work.

I’d be interested to hear others’ thoughts on this, any solutions, insight, best practices would be appreciated! I know from conversation yesterday others are in this boat as well!