Great stuff I found web-wandering

Home of the Blues

Take a look at this satellite image.  Be patient.  It’s a big picture.  You may have to scroll around a little, but the brilliant blue of Torch Lake will pop right out of the image.  It’s easy to see Sleeping Bear, too—the Big Sandbox on Big Blue.  (Thanks to Bill Steffens of WOOD-TV for helping me stumble on this.)

Educational beer coasters

I am not making this up.  Great Lakes Forever and Anheuser-Busch sponsored a 2008 Great Lakes Photo Contest.  The Grand Prize winning photographs “will be printed on educational beer coasters to be distributed to bars and restaurants throughout the Great Lakes region.”  So now I am thinking about a new business.  We have contributing photo editors at Torch Lake Views.  Imagine the pedagogical value of a Babs Young Original, or one of Katy Newman’s famous posts about attack flies or waterspouts, or Katherine Berst on the subject of elk.  I tell ya, I think we’re onto something here.

Afoot in Antrim: One Woman, Two Disreputable Dogs and a Bolga Basket

I got the idea for this from a story in Model D, an online newsletter about living, working and doing business in Detroit.  One Man, One Month, No Car details the experiences of a Model D writer who gave up his car for a month to test the region’s public transportation.  Given the paucity of public transportation in Antrim County, I figure the only way I could match the challenge would be to walk everywhere.  I know I can make it to Sonny’s and the IGA and Brownwood and the Township Hall/CSB on foot.  I can get to Providence Farm and lug home my CSA share in my Bolga Basket.  I’m a little worried about making it all the way to Central Lake, though, and Elk Rapids is definitely out of the question.  I may have to get a trailer for my bike.  Wonder if I could kayak to ER?