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RAGBRAI ’12

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Becky is off for RAGBRAI 2012.  She drove to the east side of Iowa today.  She’ll camp tonight in Clinton, catch a bus to Sioux Center on the west side tomorrow and start the 500+/- mile ride back on Sunday.  Seven days of biking (the shortest day is 42 miles, the longest is 104 miles, if she does the Karras Century Loop), tent camping, cold showers, Port-a-Potties and fair food.  Yeehaw!

Not my thing, but I think this will be the 10th year she’s done it.  Our sister-in-law, Toni, will be going with her.  This must be Toni’s 5th or 6th time.  Apparently this sickness is contagious, but you have to be someone susceptible!

Becky rode nearly 1300 miles in preparation this year.  Sometimes that’s down around 1000 and sometimes as high as 1800.  Wish her luck!  It would take more than luck for me to accomplish what she has.

Becky usually emails me or calls me once or twice a day and generally I reformat that into an update email blast that I send out to anyone interested.  Let me know if you want to be on the list for the updates.

Culver Firemen’s Memorial at Town Council

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Public Service AnouncementFor those of you looking for the Firemen’s Memorial post I discussed at the Town Council this evening, I’ve conveniently linked it here.

For those of you that couldn’t make it to the meeting, I presented the Firemen’s Memorial to the Town Council this evening.  The project is proposed for the northeast corner of the intersection of Slate Street and Lake Shore Drive.  The lot is owned by the Town and is currently used as a parking lot for the firemen.  The lot is zoned C-1.  The basic conundrum was that Culver’s Zoning Ordinance doesn’t have a designation for Monuments or Memorials no matter what the zoning district.

I had discussed this with Russ Mason, Culver’s Building Commissioner, and we agreed that the best solution was to request the Town Council to accept the structure as a Municipal Sign.  (The Town Council is exempt from ordinance requirements for their signs.)  I presented it as such to the Council this evening.  Russ was there to back me up.  After a brief discussion, the Council agreed that this was an appropriate designation for a worthy project.

This knocks down another obstacle, so the project is moving forward.  Now we’re just held up by the minor problem of fundraising…

This has been a Public Service Announcement…  If I were a little more ambitious this evening, I would find a mpg of NBC’s “The More You Know” tag music to play in  the background…

Firemen’s Memorial Sketch by Mary Ellen Rudisel Jordan of Scearce Rudisel Architects in Warsaw.

MCEDC, Social Media and Just Being Awesome!

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One of my ToDo List items as Chairman of Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) was to see a new website up and running and get MCEDC tied into some of the social media outlets.  Thanks to Jennifer, Derek and Pam, this is one I can strike off my list.  (The benefits of Chairing organizations is that you can direct other people to do things and then take credit for their hard work.  Thanks guys!)  If you haven’t visited the new website, you can do so here.  It takes most of the good things from the old site and has added some functionality.  Some of these originated internally and some were the result of our work with Ady Voltedge on our marketing plan.

The website has been up since the first quarter of this year.  In the past month, Derek has added the social media connections.  MCEDC is now posting to Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.  You can go to the MCEDC home page and there are a couple of places with the connection buttons for these services.  Visit the site!  More clicks there help our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ratings and that could mean the difference in attracting new business to Marshall County.  If you Google it to find it, that helps even more…

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