After the Vietnam war, a lot of colleges that were busy during the hay day of the war as a way to keep from going overseas, suddenly were scrambling to attract or enroll students to keep the doors open. Ricker College in Houlton Maine was one of those. In the last days of the school, the people who worked at Ricker College were paid with money marked to point out to the local community and merchants what an economic impact the well know college established in 1848 had on the area. The exercise was to showcase the involvement the college had in everyone’s day to day lives by illustration with the money you spent, currency change you received in the Southern Aroostook County area. Ricker closed its doors in 1978 but stills awards college scholarships to deserving area students that apply for tuition help, as long as they attend a Maine college.
The exercise in tracking currency and it’s winding pathway around the globe was something the fellow in front of me at breakfast told me about while waiting for the Big Stop restaurant cashier.
This big rig driver was holding a bill with a red circle around the currency stamp. He explained how he had tracked the serial number of a dollar he once spent and even had the same dollar come back to him in change! The exercise or study allows you to go on line to track a bill with the designated logo stamped on it by dialing in the serial number to track the bill’s movements from wallet to purse and beyond. In Canada, same exercise with a sister website called “Where’s Willy?”. The truck driver I met at The Big Stop Restaurant on US Rt 1 near Interstate 95’s exit 302 for Houlton Maine said he has had fun looking up serial numbers on the bills he has had pass thru his fingers over the years.
Where’s a fellow or a gal to find a good blog post? One that does not waste time, has some beef in it? Technorati’s job has not changed, but the way they do it has.
The Technorati website redesign promises new features, some of the familiar and more of the familiar being added back in.
Why the Technorati changes? The company says “We decided to talk less and put our noses to the grindstone. We tried to boil the ocean, and burned ourselves in the process.”
When our first Maine real estate website went up back in the 1990’s, I always thought you stock the shelves about property, weave in the flavor of the area with images. But it was still static, like a portrait you stepped back from to see it in a snapshot state. Or sure new properties were added, others sold and prices on them modified to make them sell. Those little changes happened and tie in with the season opening copy to make it appear fresh, up to date. But with blogging, vidcasting, podcasting, you can add more instant, right now happenings for today. Not just reflect the season or approaching holidays and some sprinkling of your brand.
Today, I can blog about Maine green real estate and if it is market rewarded in Northern Maine. Or point out we already have been building along those lines for decades due to the back to the farm / woodlot training. Or on another sister blog with links back to the primary mother real estate site, post with images, video, web links helpful information about what you need to know today about Maine’s waterfront market and shoreland zoning’s latest regulations. Hot off the press from the state legislature and fine tuned, dialed in to today. Not three months ago. Fresh, no preservatives, information without a mothball smell, formaldehyde protection added.
Think the social media explosion is happening too fast, making your head swim? Hang on, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Instead of the days when the media told us what we needed to buy, for services, what to drive, drink, and which brand to eat or smoke, we are no longer cattle being herded. Cattle that did what it was told, did not know what it needed until the tube, the newspaper, the billboard hammered it in to our wallets and the hand that controled them.
Now you, I and little Jimmy, all of us are holding a mouse, doing the research, homework. Comparing notes from blogs, social media sites and sharing what works, what is a waste of money, time and not a good experience. The 60’s song warned “there’s something going on around here..and what it is ain’t exactly clear.” No, but the fuzzy is taking shape, formulating and you and I are way way more aware, of everything.
It’s our life, we are going to live it, take it back and head out on to the open highway making our own decisions. What’s fun and worthwhile done by poll, counting hands and voices raised by the masses. Doesn’t that reflect the market..the folks that drive it, buy from it and shape it? These friends on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Youtube have sampled this and that and can tell you what to try, what is awesome, sweet, happening. Feel it? Can you say affirmative. Sure you can. I knew you could. Maine Real Estate For Sale
Not so long ago, if you wanted to look into real estate for sale in Maine, you had to check with this office and that Realtor in the area of the state you were shopping and studying.
Calling multiple Realtors to gather information and data. Slow and limited. You always have a sinking feeling that something is slipping by your property wise. You longed for a one stop shop.
You can now do a single venue search. Saving time, seeing more property, quickly, thoroughly. If you click
Maine IDX MLS Multiple Listings For State Wide Search.
www.mooersrealty.com and mouse over the Maine IDX MLS logo on the left hand navigation bar, a map of the entire state, all sixteen counties, all the towns, all the cities appear ready to examine, reference. Ready 24/7 at your finger tips from your lap top anywhere world wide with an internet connection.
You type in whether it’s a Maine home, farm, land, commercial from businesses to apartment houses your want to seach.
Next further define a price range or just show them all cheapest to most expensive or reverse order. Next you can scroll down thru the quick look abbreviated thumbnails and property highlights. Unlock more information on the ones you check off and ask for details on. Up to eight pictures, maps, lots of data and maps. That is powerful. It’s free. And if you jot down the six digit property listing numbers that grab your interest, no matter where they are located in the state, I can get you more info. Like days on the market the listing has hung around. And other indicators to help you dial in on what the owner’s situation is, what the history of the property marketing/pricing has been. You can study each listings, size them up, compare them. Here is the direct link to our Maine mls idx search option.
Why does property sell or not sell? Two major reasons. Proper, realistic pricing based on recent similiar sales, and competing similiar listings. Correct, aggressive, passionate non stop marketing of the listing is the second make or break factor that determines if the property sells and how fast with what degree of terms and conditions. A good full time Realtor is your partner, guide, resource and friend thru this process. www.realtor.com is the largest real estate site in the world. Your broker should have an enhanced, full feature site with option to put up to 25 images, to post live narrated video, and with well written, sharp, interesting copy.
Making the phone ring, the emails pour in and having more Maine real estate buyer visits from a larger, far reaching area than just your home town. The goal to maket and sell the property which is a person’s largest investment. And to avoid wasting marketing time, resources in the process.
Wearing Your Brand, Promoting Your Local Area Of MaineThe early chat room was the open porch in rural America..the one under the star filled skies. Outside information came in seventh grade geography class, from the men who served overseas in the last conflict or world war. No interstates, no internet, and your circle of friends was small and intimate. Your family, the folks you spent most of your waking hours with working on the farm that 96% of us tended seven days a week. Church family. The neighbor down the road we helped with the barn raising. We were all farmers, creating something from the dirt, heating with wood. Grandmother knitting wool mitterns, summer kitchens to can and preserve food. Three generations under one roof.
As a real estate broker, in the early days it was tell them about the property’s features. Keep it frugal. Appeal to the common sense of purchasing this one after lots of thought, much diliberation. The sticks, bricks, practicality of it caused the local sale. And why would the ad copy be written with a slant to what an outside buyer would want to know? Why would someone seven states away want to move to this same ole small town local burg anyway? That all changed.
We are mobile. We text, twitter, do shout outs. The world is suddenly small and getting smaller. We are connected six ways from Sunday. We are very social and on a larger scale now with LSD (Labor saving devices). No longer is the number of bedrooms, the square footage and property taxes the three top questions posed after learning the price tag figure hanging from that local real estate. The audience has expanded one thousand fold…the further away the reader of your blog, the listener of your podcast, the owner of the eyeballs scanning your vidcast or property video, the more they are intrigued, curious. Inquisitive. One reason? Rural real estate is soooo much less expensive, cheaper than urban properties. Small town America is full of volunteers with hearts the size of Texas..that give more than they receive. And they are grateful. No traffic, no crime, and you can see the stars at night..no light pollution. Man has not spoiled this camping spot. Maine is like that. Simple, pure, honest, healthy, spacious and roomy.
So now the modern day Buck Rogers real estate practioner carries more than one ray gun that broadcasts the fine attributes of the newest listing that he punctured the front lawn to insert a sign on. His other two ray guns transmit tons of local information like the blog you are reading right now. What is the area where the sticks and bricks are all about? There is a hunger for local information, blogs, videos to show the area…where they have never been. The first attraction is the incredible lower prices. The next hunger and thirst come from getting older, wanting to slow down or simple find a safer, saner place to raise a family. The third ray gun gets slid from the utility belt to subtly brand the broker, the peddler of properties. Who is this guy that can type, communicate and do I trust him with the single largest purchase / sale I will probably ever make?
Modern day real estate brokers can tap into the social media explosion. They can Twitter, can post updates on Facebook, Myspace, upload video to Youtube, images to Flickr and shine the light on their local area. “You can not be a beacon if your light don’t shine” sang Donna Fargo back in the 70’s when I was a local record spinner at a Houlton Maine radio station owned by Howdy Doody. I’m doing my best to be a beacon, to set up lots of transmitters to turn on a constant stream of information. The signals to be picked up by folks tired of living in the city, pinned to a wall by an office desk and thinking..is that all there is as Peggy Lee sings, asks, ponders, whines. Local Maine information…we are here to provide it. I speak Maine real estate but also have a “fire in my belly” on living here, sharing the excitement of what Maine is all about. When you are ready…. Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers
Surviving the loss of a child, a fatal tragedy in a family. Your child dying, gone, no longer here on earth. Can you imagine the feeling? You know it would knock you to the ground and keep you there, making it hard to breath and shaking your world. But unless you went thru the experience you would not wish on anyone, you don’t know the sense of loss, or can you begin to feel what that event really is all about. That’s what a friend of mine that has five children told me.
The accident happened in the child’s backyard. An oak tree limb broke that the child was swinging on. His brother broke a leg, this child suffered life ending injuries from the tree, and the fall from the swing. How did the dad and mom handle it? Shock, disbelief, guilt about the tree and then in a circle, round and round back to shock, flashback and then numbness. No feeling, all the senses shut down, sound gets turned down, vision gets tunnel like and to a pin point like the ocean surf coming in, going out. Blackness and despair.
The hardest part of the loss were people around you. Some trying to comfort and help you. Some reliving their loss of a child and making your Dr Phil-like to console them thru the recall of their own tragedy. My friend and his wife said the comments made them angry although most were well intentioned, said from the heart with no agenda to hurt, cause further suffering. They did not want to hear what other’s felt, how they would get over it. That “this too shall pass logic”.
But when a person tells you “I know just what you are feeling, what you are going thru” or “well, you have four other children, so God blessed you so greatly the loss will soon pass”…the blood starts to boil, the anger and temper can ignite like a flash grass fire with a spark in a dry fall Maine hayfield. All consuming, at a time when your defenses to take it all in, to surface from the loss of feeling and numbness is at an all time low. Nothing more to feel, a bankrupt emotional account.
The dad told me the last thing you wanted to hear at the funeral, on the street, over the phone or thru email is “I know just how you feel.” He became angry and felt minimized, reduced. That his feelings and the ability to have them were hijacked, ripped away and replaced with a short, sappy explanation for the current state of family affairs.
The words delivered on the same level of “hey, we’re out of milk, we need bread” causal recklessness. Said without thought, having no idea how inappropiate the jumble of words uttered, meaning to help caused the absolute opposite result. Creating a dagger of a sharp, hugely insensitive apology that plowed deeply into the heart of the dad, the mom and even the four remaining children if they were within earshot.
Can you imagine being in the funeral home, barely able to stand and swaying from fatigue, trying to hold it together for your family, for yourself to just get thru the horror, the day to day as you try to recover your balance? Like a person suddenly thrown from a plane they were not in ten minutes ago, and without a parachute…everything happening with no sense of why, no logic at all.
My friend was amazed how many folks came forward to offer their own sense of loss or that of another friend, family member or someone in the community they barely knew but were suddenly prompted, well versed to shareon. To attempt to put themselves in your shoes and help you sort it out. Telling you how to feel, how not to feel…programming you when you just want to sit in the breakdown lane a little longer until the nausea lets up, the vise grips on your brain loosen a little to continue on in that lane for an exit. Any exit to get away, be alone.
If you’ve never been there, you don’t know. Sorry. That was the sentiment and without wanting to be a martyr, or looking for sympathy, he just wanted the spotlight turned off, the organ music to stop, the sickening smell of flowers to clear the air. The childhood pictures on the easel by the casket to be cleaned up, packed away. The stories to end, stop, be hiddened away neatly, and protected. Suddenly to be very private. And to begin the crawl back into a sense of day to day life with one big gapping hole remaining.
Circling the family to reach out, to join hands, to make all pull together that remained to close the gap, the void, the cavity filled by a missing child. A child…not a aged, frail, grandmother with thinning blue hair, a myriad of health problems, medication containers on her kitchen window sill and a walker. A child, with a full, ripe life ahead of them.
A child that would not go on to have a family of their own, holidays, little league games, graduations, weddings, more funerals or other traditions. All missed..never experienced, never happening. Like empty picture frames, film reels containing no family footage. Blank, empty, stark, nothing there. The death affecting, changing the lives of the other remaining siblings. And their outlooks, view on life and a little less sense of safety, a future as a solid group, a set of brothers and sisters, mom and dad.
What my friend needed to hear was “I’m sorry”. Stop the teleprompter…no more copy to read, to share. Just that and zip the pie hole. Take an arm, give a meaningful hug of assurance that I am here if you need anything. Anything, anytime. But continue down the line so the funeral can play out, the process of healing can start. Resisting anymore. No trying to rationalize how with four other kids, the one lost would be hardly missed. I have four children. There are none I would be prepared to lose, would consider any more or less than the other.
Children are a privledge, a blessing and everyone’s quivver as the Bible says, should be full of them. Family is the most important institution on earth, the reason to be here, the day to day goal to create, to nuture, to cherish. Creating a home for them, providing food, heat, love and affection and equiping them with wisdom for the days ahead is my job as a parent. The same exercise my parents provided 24/7 for me. A sense of family, togetherness, of love, security, understanding and hope for a bright future involving the entire family. Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers
Maine Would Love To Have More European Tourists From Across The Atlantic Ocean.
When we started our stand alone blog MeInMaine, I was surprised with the number of Google alerts from German folks.
I had not thought about the German word “mein” if you disect the domain name partially, but the interest was there.
Today at the Houlton Rotary Club meeting, our speaker was Vaughn Stinson, the CEO of the Maine Tourism Bureau.
And I asked him at the end of the meeting a question. It was if the state of Maine tourism arm, or publicity department had an extra five million dollars to expand and promote the state, where and how would it be used. Mr Stinson smiled and said going after the European tourist market for a bunch of reasons.
Because Europe is a long hop across the Atlantic Ocean puddle, the folks that come to visit are not weekenders. The German, European tourists stay weeks at a time, studying the local geography, wanting to get to know the flavor of the area communities. Mr Stinson says beaming an advertising signal to attract this market would help Maine’s largest industry, tourism. So I have to translate this blog into German and other European languages to get the word out about “Vacationland”, Maine. What’s to do in Maine? Find out in one place the calendar of Maine events, happenings. Also, learn about the German real estate market here.
