Is Grayling to be the Home of an Amusement Park?

There are rumors flying around that Grayling might some day be home to an amusement park called Main Street USA. 1,800 acres of state-owned land along I-75 just south of Grayling have been available for commercial or industrial development for the past five years. Axiom Entertainment has had discussions with state officials regarding the possible development of the land into a theme park. Estimates put the number of potential workers at around 2,000 seasonal employees and 700 year-round. Potential customer traffic is estimated at 1.7 million annual visitors. I am not sure how this is determined, but for comparison purposes Muskegon's Michigan Adventure theme park drew 550,000 visitors in 2005.

It is unknown how many of the 1,800 acres would be used for development of the theme park. Michigan's Adventure is located on 250 acres and offers over 40 rides and attractions. Cedar Point (another Cedar Fair L.L.P. property) stands on 365 acres and features over 60 rides and attractions and drew 3.1 million visitors last year.

Courtesy of the Bay City Times

The Bay City Times dug up information about this deal through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Homeless Man's Honesty Pays With Cash and Immeasurable Rewards

These days it seems that a lot of people say (or at least think) that being nice does not pay or that it just does not pay to be honest. Well, I believe that Charles Moore would beg to differ with you. You see, Charles found $21,000 worth of savings bonds in a trash bag that he was looking through for bottles that could be turned in for the deposit money. Moore had recently lost his job as a roofer down in Ohio and had found himself homeless for the first time. He did not think twice about it. With the help of the Neighborhood Service Organization, he tracked down the rightful owner and gave them back the bonds expecting nothing in return. He received $100 from the bond's owner for his honesty and was thankful for that.

After hearing his story in the paper on Saturday, the public did not think that $100 was a large enough sum and more money has been coming in from across the area. He has currently received around $4,000, some new clothes, and an interview has been lined up for Moore as well. Charles intends to use some of the money to get an apartment.

What Charles Moore did ended up not just having an impact on the owner of the bonds. His story has touched people in Michigan and other surrounding states. The immeasurable rewards he has gained from his honesty are respect and teaching a lesson that some people spend their whole lives missing out on. It will always pay (I am not talking about money) to be honest.

Thank you Mr. Moore for a well taught lesson. The school of life is always in session and you have used your time at the head of the class well. Will your pupils listen? I hope so.

Via The Detroit News.

Yahoo! Google is Coming to Michigan!

Excellent news on the job front today in Michigan. Google Inc. (yes, as in I better google that), the search engine that is now in the dictionary as a verb, is looking to hire up to 1,000 people over the next five years to run their new Ann Arbor headquarters for their Google Adwords division. A quick look at the Google Jobs site does not appear to show results for the upcoming Google Adwords positions. There are currently positions open for Google's controversial Book Scanning operations in Ann Arbor and Advertising Sales positions in the Detroit area. Supposedly the new Ann Arbor jobs could be listed as early today. If you are interested you should check it out sometime today.

With average salaries anticipated at $47,000 this is a great day for Michigan and its beleaguered economy. I have to be honest, this news has me giddy and delighted for the state of Michigan this morning. Day after day all we see, hear, and read about are all of the job losses in the automobile industry.

Hearing that such a well known company from the technology sector is expanding in Michigan is like hearing we get an extra month of summer. Until now, it seemed that all we had to feel uplifted about in Michigan lately was the excellent play of the Detroit Tigers.

Can you imagine what might happen if things go well for Google in Michigan? We just might shift our economic image from the auto industry to the technology sector. Wouldn't that be something?

Read Tom Walsh's article in the Detroit Free Press.

Oops, I Messed up the Link to the Shipwreck Pictures

I made an "oops" with the link to the slide show of shipwrecks that I posted yesterday. I have it fixed now so you can enjoy the show! Sorry about that :)

Scrapbooking + Blogging = Scrapblog

Now, this is not a Michigan-based company, but the premise is too intriguing not to share. Scrapblog combines elements of scrapbooking (including themes, stickers, and other graphics) with blogging. You get to create as many scrapblogs as you want for the low, low price of . . . free! People in my family love to scrapbook and from what I have seen with the tour that Scrapbook provides you can do a lot of the same work as you would with a physical scrapbook. Interested? Head on over to Scrapblog today and get started.

Thanks to Mike Wendeland's blog for the heads up on Scrapblog.

Find Fresh Michigan Strawberries at a Farm Near You

I performed a quick search at the Michigan Farm Market and U-Pick Directory section of the Michigan Department of Agriculture website for strawberry farms and it turned up 34 results across the state. The search function allows you to refine your search by county, region, city, and even the farm name (if you know it). I narrowed down my search from statewide to our region of southwest Michigan and it turned up 13 results. It did not turn up a few places that I know have u-pick strawberries so apparently the places I was thinking of are not registered to be included in the Michigan U-pick Directory. My suggestion would be to use this as a guide, but if you are traveling I think you are bound to find a roadside stand or u-pick farm that is not included.

The strawberry season in Michigan is short so don't hesitate to stop by your local strawberry farm and grab some sweet Michigan strawberries before it is too late. I think I will be posting a different strawberry-themed recipe each day this week so stay tuned.