So the annual event has arrived.... the official opening day for firearms deer season. Time to head to the woods for a chance encounter with what Mother Nature has to offer. I have to admit.... I am not a hunter... was not raised in a hunting family... unless bagging the best price at K mart is considered hunting! I love the out doors and especially appreciate the many acres of state land available for our enjoyment. In fact.... the Bald Mountain Recreation Area is right out my window. I appreciate all that it has to offer and have even really just now began to appreciate the shooting range.
I recall when we first visited the home we have lived in for the past 16 years that it really wasn't anything at all like what we had on our "must have" list. We started out with a vision of a 5 acre parcel with a cape cod style house in the Oakland Township area. Sure... there were some homes that fit the description... but were slightly out of our price range... not really by much. But... the common thread in each that we found were that they were nothing at all like what we visualized... and were all major fixer uppers.
Ultimately after turning over every stone that fit the bill... we changed the bill.... and ended up where we are at today. Not a cape cod, not 5 acres... but unique and distinctive in it's own way. I remember looking out the second floor bedroom window (which by the way were all in need of replacement!) and looking out over the sun settling over the acres of trees and wet lands of the Bald Mountain South Unit. If you set just right... you don't even notice the neighbors house across the street that separates us from the park boundary. In a sense... this place gave us much more than the 5 acres could have ever given us and with much less in the way of maintenance. Just a short walk down the street and into the park along with all that it has to offer. You really can't beat it.
One thing we did overlook and missed in the timing of our visits is the Bald Mountain Shooting range. In our visit later in the day I think in late August or early September we heard the birds singing and that was pretty much it. It is possible that there may have been some distant occasional ring of a shot gun or hand gun... but not enough to really take notice of. We moved into the home in December and again... the quite and solitude of early winter... pretty quite. It probably didn't really become an issue for me at all since I am up and out early and return later in the day after the close of business. But... for a new mother at home with a new baby... the coming of spring... brought the realization that there was something going on over across the woods that picked up in intensity as the weather began to break. The gun range became a source of continual noise that broke through the peaceful early days of the new spring. Funny thing though... after the first year... it became really nothing but back ground noise.
We adapted to the eb and flow of the range just like some in the city tune out the sounds of the city. It really only came up again when we had a visitor that would ask about it. Doesn't that bother you? Aren't you worried about a stray bullet? No... you get used to it... and they really have controls on the direction and do a really great job keeping things where they belong.
The shooting range just went through a major renovation this past year. That's a good thing... because it means that there is value in the range and people enjoy using it. With few dollars available these days for State Parks it was really a blessing to see an investment of new dollars into the
Bald Mountain Park. I figure this is a good sign and look forward to being able to apply for the new State Park License plate pass port in the coming year. http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10371_10402-234660--,00.html
For $10 you now have complete access to the best of what the Michigan State Park system has to offer... and don't have to worry about finding a ranger available to sell you an annual pass. I can't wait to get mine as I think it's the best $10 you'll spend this year. Hey... can't you deduct the cost of your tabs? Better ask a CPA that one!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Wrap your head around roundabouts | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Wrap your head around roundabouts detnews.com The Detroit News
I found this article on detnews.com this morning and thought of how it related to the visitation of Dan Burden http://www.walklive.org/?page_id=17 over the past two days in Oxford, Michigan. Many of you know that I serve on the Down town Development Authority Board and Chair the Economic Development and Restructuring Committee for the Village of Oxford. The development of our Village is a work in progress. Many who have served on various Boards and committees have long been talking/visualizing one of our Villages blessings ad curses, M 24.
The blessing is that we have what many are trying to create in a historical downtown street scape. We have iconic buildings with unique character that cannot be duplicated in a Mc-mall drawn up on a board with fake facades made to look, but can never feel like what we have. Why? because you cannot put the heart and soul into a Mc-mall. When you closely examine it and touch and feel it.... knock on it.... you hear and empty "ping" because.... it has not heart and soul.
After meeting with Dan Burden I can attest to a man who has heart and soul. Just take one look at the larger than life smile and a mustache that is unique to.... well Dan Burden (some from the Village would argue Dave Baily is a close match!). This past week was an energy overload for our Village. We started out the week with a DDA Board meeting, moved up on the calender to coincide with our Main Street Evaluation by the Oakland County Main Street Evaluation Committee. This is a highly coveted recognition that many towns and villages across America are reaching toward gaining that recognition http://www.oakgov.com/peds/program_service/main_street/mainstreetoc.html .
This does not happen by osmosis or good luck. Recognition like this comes from good old fashioned hard work with volunteers pulling the load. People who reside in the Village of Oxford need to know that they are blessed. Why? Dan Burden commented on several occasions about the energy level and excitement level he felt over the time he spent with community leaders and volunteers over his stay. Dan even commented on an example of how this phenomena works making reference to a TED.com video demonstration I will try to paraphrase. Imagine a group of people on a hill... kind of like Pine Knob at a concert.... and one person gets up and starts to sway and dance to the music.... another person joins in.... and then another.... and another.... and eventually everyone... even the rhythmically impaired join in. The revelation is in that it is not the first in leader that is the key to this but the first to join in that creates the sense of "courage" to join in the dance and the wave follows. I'm thinking this is a similar situation to pop culture things like spiked mow hawks, ear rings for men, nose rings, belly rings.... uhhhh.... lets stop here?
My point to all this is a call to all to look around and see what positive things are happening in your community.... join in the dance... if you don't have a lead dancer.... start dancing... you might feel funny or foolish at first.... but don't be afraid..... START DANCING!
The evaluation committee gathered with the DDA Board and community leaders and gave us their verbal report findings. You might think I'm going to go one to tell you how perfect we are in every way? WRONG! Good news is that we received good , but can use improvement in almost all categories. The formal written report will be synthesized and made available to the community in a few short weeks. So... that is good news because isn't that what life is really like? Aren't we all really on a "needs improvement" program? My wife and kids tell me this often (JK!)!
I cannot close out without mentioning that Dan Burden met with over 50 community members and gave us a presentation that left us all with a real vision of "Yes... this can be done..." as opposed to some that have said "No.... we've already looked at that... It can't be done..." . It reminds me of those pictures we were shown as students in Psych 101 class... what do you see here? Do you see the beautiful women? Or do you see an old women with a large nose with a big wart on the tip? Glass half empty or half full?
My personal favorite (remember I'm a science teacher at heart!) part of the day.... a demonstration of the brand spanking new LED downtown street lighting retro fit designed, made and installed by Relume Technologies http://www.relume.com/ of Oxford Michigan. Wow, high tech, low energy use, state of the art , made in USA, made in Michigan, Made in Oxford! The representative from Relume pulled us up to his vehicle, pulled up a program, clicked a couple of buttons... BAMM... entire street lighting goes to 50%.... Click.... slowly... in theater mode.... back up to 100%... clear focused.... lower energy use, less maintenance, efficient lighting. He continues on to say that each light has its own id (name) and they can do things like knock off every other or 2 of 3 lights in late night/early pre dawn. That makes sense... we shut off our lights before hitting the sack... right? Why not at least knock them down a few notches and save a few bucks on the electricity bill? Now... I though I heard him say... and I don't want to make any promises or over state this... but he did say something like "We can even sink these lights to music...." Excuse me?? Did you say you can make these lights go with music? Are you kidding me? You've got DDA people standing on the street looking at these new lights and thinking.... Rochester... we love your Christmas light display and all.... but... you can't touch the sugar plumbs dancing in our heads right now. I mean... dancing lights?
Stay tuned!
I found this article on detnews.com this morning and thought of how it related to the visitation of Dan Burden http://www.walklive.org/?page_id=17 over the past two days in Oxford, Michigan. Many of you know that I serve on the Down town Development Authority Board and Chair the Economic Development and Restructuring Committee for the Village of Oxford. The development of our Village is a work in progress. Many who have served on various Boards and committees have long been talking/visualizing one of our Villages blessings ad curses, M 24.
The blessing is that we have what many are trying to create in a historical downtown street scape. We have iconic buildings with unique character that cannot be duplicated in a Mc-mall drawn up on a board with fake facades made to look, but can never feel like what we have. Why? because you cannot put the heart and soul into a Mc-mall. When you closely examine it and touch and feel it.... knock on it.... you hear and empty "ping" because.... it has not heart and soul.
After meeting with Dan Burden I can attest to a man who has heart and soul. Just take one look at the larger than life smile and a mustache that is unique to.... well Dan Burden (some from the Village would argue Dave Baily is a close match!). This past week was an energy overload for our Village. We started out the week with a DDA Board meeting, moved up on the calender to coincide with our Main Street Evaluation by the Oakland County Main Street Evaluation Committee. This is a highly coveted recognition that many towns and villages across America are reaching toward gaining that recognition http://www.oakgov.com/peds/program_service/main_street/mainstreetoc.html .
This does not happen by osmosis or good luck. Recognition like this comes from good old fashioned hard work with volunteers pulling the load. People who reside in the Village of Oxford need to know that they are blessed. Why? Dan Burden commented on several occasions about the energy level and excitement level he felt over the time he spent with community leaders and volunteers over his stay. Dan even commented on an example of how this phenomena works making reference to a TED.com video demonstration I will try to paraphrase. Imagine a group of people on a hill... kind of like Pine Knob at a concert.... and one person gets up and starts to sway and dance to the music.... another person joins in.... and then another.... and another.... and eventually everyone... even the rhythmically impaired join in. The revelation is in that it is not the first in leader that is the key to this but the first to join in that creates the sense of "courage" to join in the dance and the wave follows. I'm thinking this is a similar situation to pop culture things like spiked mow hawks, ear rings for men, nose rings, belly rings.... uhhhh.... lets stop here?
My point to all this is a call to all to look around and see what positive things are happening in your community.... join in the dance... if you don't have a lead dancer.... start dancing... you might feel funny or foolish at first.... but don't be afraid..... START DANCING!
The evaluation committee gathered with the DDA Board and community leaders and gave us their verbal report findings. You might think I'm going to go one to tell you how perfect we are in every way? WRONG! Good news is that we received good , but can use improvement in almost all categories. The formal written report will be synthesized and made available to the community in a few short weeks. So... that is good news because isn't that what life is really like? Aren't we all really on a "needs improvement" program? My wife and kids tell me this often (JK!)!
I cannot close out without mentioning that Dan Burden met with over 50 community members and gave us a presentation that left us all with a real vision of "Yes... this can be done..." as opposed to some that have said "No.... we've already looked at that... It can't be done..." . It reminds me of those pictures we were shown as students in Psych 101 class... what do you see here? Do you see the beautiful women? Or do you see an old women with a large nose with a big wart on the tip? Glass half empty or half full?
My personal favorite (remember I'm a science teacher at heart!) part of the day.... a demonstration of the brand spanking new LED downtown street lighting retro fit designed, made and installed by Relume Technologies http://www.relume.com/ of Oxford Michigan. Wow, high tech, low energy use, state of the art , made in USA, made in Michigan, Made in Oxford! The representative from Relume pulled us up to his vehicle, pulled up a program, clicked a couple of buttons... BAMM... entire street lighting goes to 50%.... Click.... slowly... in theater mode.... back up to 100%... clear focused.... lower energy use, less maintenance, efficient lighting. He continues on to say that each light has its own id (name) and they can do things like knock off every other or 2 of 3 lights in late night/early pre dawn. That makes sense... we shut off our lights before hitting the sack... right? Why not at least knock them down a few notches and save a few bucks on the electricity bill? Now... I though I heard him say... and I don't want to make any promises or over state this... but he did say something like "We can even sink these lights to music...." Excuse me?? Did you say you can make these lights go with music? Are you kidding me? You've got DDA people standing on the street looking at these new lights and thinking.... Rochester... we love your Christmas light display and all.... but... you can't touch the sugar plumbs dancing in our heads right now. I mean... dancing lights?
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Walk-able, welcoming downtown Oxford Michigan
Have you ever noticed how much traffic controls the feeling you get for certain places you visit? When you visit a town what are the things that really count to make you a repeat visitor? Is it the selection of stores or restaurants that attract you to come back again? Here in Oxford Michigan we have a pretty good vibe going on for the past several years. It has been growing and gaining momentum.....even defying the poor regional economy. This past year we regained our "Main Street Accreditation" from Oakland County and in fact are up for review again tomorrow. I am confident we will again keep that and perhaps gain more attention for the good things going on in our once sleepy little North Oakland County community.
What starts the wheels of progress for a town? Why do businesses want to locate here versus the next town over? It seems that this might be the movement away from the desire to shop and dine in an indoor mall setting. Statistics show that the once coveted indoor mega malls are being passed over for the new trend in the out door, walkable , upscale shopping experience. I have come to the conclusion that mall developers are really trying to create what we already have. Think of it as a design studio that takes a blank sheet of paper (empty land space) and attempts to create a fantasy version of the down towns of old. Store fronts and facades designed to look and attempt to feel like the days of yesterday. So the question you have to ask yourself is why do major retailers fall for the designer replica when they can have the real thing?
Think about it... we have the old store fronts.... with many new facades that have been updated with incentives provided by grants from the Oxford Downtown Development Authority. Take a look around town and you will see major renovations (keep it in prospective as "major" defined by a small town) being encouraged with DDA facade grants. Our stores have the squeaky floors and unique architectural components you will not find in any Mc-Mall.
We have just compleated a major rebuilding of our parking in the four quadrants which should give us a one up on the malls or other towns with parking space problems. It is amazing what you can do when you get the opportunity to revisit the use of the space. The bottom line in my opinion is that this is in fact economic development. Adequate parking may not get modern shoppers excited... but it does mean a lot that it is available, well lite, well striped, AND convenient. Consider the mid December visit to the local mega mall. In years past you had to troll around hoping for an opening and in many cases you'd have to pull up on a section of the lawn. Now... visit a town like Oxford and you will have a short walk... but typically a pleasant walk in an area you know has "character" and lots of history. Think of it as "distressed" furniture! Over time we begin to value those little dents and bumps in the street scape... because it feels familiar and comfortable.
Tomorrow we meet with world renowned guru of walk-able streets in Dan Burton. He will be here walking our streets looking the one thing most of us here in Oxford have wanted for a long time.... the one thing that has eluded us for 3 or more decades now.... the taming of traffic on M-24... or Washington Street as we call it in the Village. What is the problem you say? Why does a piece of road cause you fits? Imagine moving 60,000 cars, trucks, gravel haulers and motor cycles every day through the middle of one of the "fake main streets" I mentioned earlier.... and now you start to get the picture. Seems pretty silly doesn't it? But.... that is the reality.
Our goal is simple... it is not to create a "bypass" or move people around town. It is really an issue of taking a look at a plan that was set up long before this down towns current state of vitality. Then the goal was simple... move traffic through town as quickly and efficiently as possible without interruption. What does that mean for the pedestrian or non motor vehicle mode of transportation? How about skip the visit to the spa... standing on M-24 during peak traffic provides a free skin exfoliation compliments of the sand kicked up by the trucks and traffic zooming past!
So... we begin with turning the model around and looking at pedestrian safety and alternate non-motorized modes of transportation first... and movement of traffic as an important... second. The buzz words here are "traffic calming" and "walkabililty". The reality is that this means different things for the variety of people who need to walk safely up, down, and across our busy streets. Consider the cross trip for an elderly or wheel chair bound pedestrian compared to a youngster on a bike or skate board? What can we do to facilitate the needs of all types of walking abilities?
I surely look forward to the meeting tomorrow as I truly believe that this is the next big thing in the development of our down town. Stop in and visit tomorrow evening over at the new Oxford Community Schools Offices in the North East quadrant. I believe we get started around 6 pm.
What starts the wheels of progress for a town? Why do businesses want to locate here versus the next town over? It seems that this might be the movement away from the desire to shop and dine in an indoor mall setting. Statistics show that the once coveted indoor mega malls are being passed over for the new trend in the out door, walkable , upscale shopping experience. I have come to the conclusion that mall developers are really trying to create what we already have. Think of it as a design studio that takes a blank sheet of paper (empty land space) and attempts to create a fantasy version of the down towns of old. Store fronts and facades designed to look and attempt to feel like the days of yesterday. So the question you have to ask yourself is why do major retailers fall for the designer replica when they can have the real thing?
Think about it... we have the old store fronts.... with many new facades that have been updated with incentives provided by grants from the Oxford Downtown Development Authority. Take a look around town and you will see major renovations (keep it in prospective as "major" defined by a small town) being encouraged with DDA facade grants. Our stores have the squeaky floors and unique architectural components you will not find in any Mc-Mall.
We have just compleated a major rebuilding of our parking in the four quadrants which should give us a one up on the malls or other towns with parking space problems. It is amazing what you can do when you get the opportunity to revisit the use of the space. The bottom line in my opinion is that this is in fact economic development. Adequate parking may not get modern shoppers excited... but it does mean a lot that it is available, well lite, well striped, AND convenient. Consider the mid December visit to the local mega mall. In years past you had to troll around hoping for an opening and in many cases you'd have to pull up on a section of the lawn. Now... visit a town like Oxford and you will have a short walk... but typically a pleasant walk in an area you know has "character" and lots of history. Think of it as "distressed" furniture! Over time we begin to value those little dents and bumps in the street scape... because it feels familiar and comfortable.
Tomorrow we meet with world renowned guru of walk-able streets in Dan Burton. He will be here walking our streets looking the one thing most of us here in Oxford have wanted for a long time.... the one thing that has eluded us for 3 or more decades now.... the taming of traffic on M-24... or Washington Street as we call it in the Village. What is the problem you say? Why does a piece of road cause you fits? Imagine moving 60,000 cars, trucks, gravel haulers and motor cycles every day through the middle of one of the "fake main streets" I mentioned earlier.... and now you start to get the picture. Seems pretty silly doesn't it? But.... that is the reality.
Our goal is simple... it is not to create a "bypass" or move people around town. It is really an issue of taking a look at a plan that was set up long before this down towns current state of vitality. Then the goal was simple... move traffic through town as quickly and efficiently as possible without interruption. What does that mean for the pedestrian or non motor vehicle mode of transportation? How about skip the visit to the spa... standing on M-24 during peak traffic provides a free skin exfoliation compliments of the sand kicked up by the trucks and traffic zooming past!
So... we begin with turning the model around and looking at pedestrian safety and alternate non-motorized modes of transportation first... and movement of traffic as an important... second. The buzz words here are "traffic calming" and "walkabililty". The reality is that this means different things for the variety of people who need to walk safely up, down, and across our busy streets. Consider the cross trip for an elderly or wheel chair bound pedestrian compared to a youngster on a bike or skate board? What can we do to facilitate the needs of all types of walking abilities?
I surely look forward to the meeting tomorrow as I truly believe that this is the next big thing in the development of our down town. Stop in and visit tomorrow evening over at the new Oxford Community Schools Offices in the North East quadrant. I believe we get started around 6 pm.
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