I am an avid cyclist. I try to ride at least three days each week and do many organized events throughout the year. Some of you may have read my account of riding the Assault on Mount Mitchell. As a public service I will try to provide a list of upcoming Union county area cycling events. Some will be fun rides, others charity events.

July 21 - Weddington, NC - Tooth-Bus Ride
The Tooth-Bus Ride was started by a group of volunteers at Weddington United Methodist Church to raise funds for an outreach mission to provide dental care to residents of Union County. Proceeds from this event will go directly to support continued visits by the NC Dental Bus to improve the dental health of our community.

Start/Finish Location: Weddington United Methodist Church Family Life Center 13901 Providence Road Weddington NC 28104. Registration begins at 6:45 am. Metric Century Ride starts at 7:30AM 37 Mile Ride starts at 8:00AM

Please come out and support this ride and help Union county dentists promote good dental health!

In reply to the rumors about the iPhone Nano, Apple is denying that they are creating such an product. Speculation is now moved to a new version of the iPod that will have some of the touchscreen features of the iPhone without the internet connectivity and phone features.

Another of the rumors is that the new iPod will have WiFi capabilities so that you can easily transfer music and movies between the iPhone and the new iPods.

This seems so much more logical than taking a phone based on several year old technology and crippling it further just to hit a lower price point.

To see what other manufacturers are coming up with to emulate features found in the iPhone take a look at the HTC Touch. I am not a real fan of this phone either as it too does not have 3G data rates. If you are in the market for a combined PDA/Phone/Internet device then 3G is a must. Personally although my Cingular 8125 is now ancient I will be waiting until the beginning of the year to see what emerges from other manufacturers before I commit to a new converged device.

I have seen a couple of different ways to do this. Since the Real Estate industry is generally independent contractors, agents generally have their own sites (even if they are sub-domains of an agency site). For the most part the agents may run one or multiple blogs. Those blogs might have listing information, local information or may be of just general interest. They would be moderated by the agents themselves. The good thing is that the agent generally has complete control of the content. They decide what they write about and they decide how to moderate their blogs.  The guidelines can be looser than if it is not directly on an agency website. One big issue is that it may be easy to “step over the line” with posts or comments, or go to such random subjects that there is no real purpose in the blog. The upside is that there is no one designated as the ‘Blog Policeman’ who must moderate or approve all content.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two words: Great Schools!

Here are some interesting facts about Union county schools:

When it comes how students performed on state reading and math tests, these state test results show how well students have mastered reading and math skills in comparison to state standards. Union county scored 88.6% in reading proficiency and 76.6% in math proficiency compared to the statewide averages of 84.3% and 66.2% respectively.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sports and recreation are a big part of what makes Union County, NC a fun place to live. If you happen to be a golfer, there are three public courses, six semi-private courses and two private golf course with the county borders.

Charlotte National Golf Course
Eagle Chase Golf Club
Pebble Creek Golf Course
Stonebridge Golf Club
The Divide Golf Club
Emerald Lake Golf Club
Monroe Country Club
Rolling Hills Country Club
Firethorne Country Club

Read the rest of this entry »

There are very good reasons to live in Union County, NC. Just pick a township, any one of them and you too can enjoy the same things my family and myself enjoy about living in Union County.

Initially we were drawn to Union County because of two things, first was the lower tax rates than neighboring Mecklenburg County. If you live anywhere in Union County you will be paying lower taxes on any property of the same value than Mecklenburg/Charlotte. This translates to more real spending dollars, and can’t we all use more spending dollars! In some townships it may be just a few cents less, but it is less.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just when you thought Apple couldn’t do any worse that the iPhone, comes the rumor that they are planning to release a less functional version of the iPhone based on the iPod Nano.

This rumor is based on a patent application Apple submitted on July 5th for a multi-function device with a circular touchpad control surface similar to the current Nano. Apple anticipates 10 million iPhones will be sold in 2008, that would be about 1% of the total cellular phone market. A less functional Nano version is speculated to help curb cannibalization of current iPod sales.

I now have a question, since the iPhone doesn’t really do anything more than the current crop of smartphones using technologies from Blackberry and/or Microsoft, why would anyone want to buy one with less functionality? It would appear to me that the only people this might appeal to are Apple fans already. Stranger things have happened!

The full story is available at this link: Apple plans cheaper, Nano-based phone: JP Morgan

Google announced on Monday it has agreed to acquire Postini, an e-mail security company for $625 million. Postini services over 35,000 businesses with over 10,000,000 customers with on-demand security products centered around communications.

Read the rest of this entry »

With so many real estate sites on the world wide web, many are trying to find a way to differentiate themselves. Blogging is the new buzzword with blogs being set up on agent sites for many different reasons. Some of these Blogs are used as Content Management Software (CMS) where their sole purpose is to keep track of the reports, files and news that solely relate to Real Estate or directly to the agents business. Some are personal diaries where the agent or multiple agents use it to talk about family, friends, gatherings or any other topic that seems of interest to the poster. Some of the Blogs are used to post information about in-house listings. I am wondering to myself, as I write this, which one of these if any is more effective than the others at attracting attention to the business at hand, Real Estate!

Read the rest of this entry »

Before you can say it is Green!

Interesting concept, isn’t it? Today is 07-07-07 and scheduled in various parts of the world are “Earth Day” concerts that are trying to highlight awareness of the diminishing resources our planet has. But just how environmentally friendly is it?

Read the rest of this entry »