Watch some classic footage of Northern Michigan – Sleeping Bear Dunes, Mackinac Island, Traverse City, Sault Ste. Marie, Tahquamenon Falls and more.

I found this neat site that lets you choose from a bunch of different major U.S. cities and then set off a fireworks display using the Shockwave Flash player. Wouldn’t you know it? Detroit was one of the options !

It is a fun little waste of time. You just click the buttons under the city display and shoot off different types of fireworks. There is even a grand finale button you can hit for a real whiz-bang finish.

Go there now, and waste some time!

Since tomorrow is April Fool’s Day (beware of the pranks) I thought I would share a link to a website containing the top April Fool’s Day hoaxes/pranks of all time. At Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes you can peruse the hoaxes and chuckle at how gullible some people can be.

A brief history of April Fool’s day
Around 1582 the Gregorian Calendar was introduced and the New Year was to begin on January 1. In the past, the celebration of the new year was celebrated for eight days beginning March 25. Well, the first year of the new calendar found some people not realizing there was a calendar change and some people were just obstinate and wanted to keep celebrating the new year through April 1.

So, those folks were referred to as April Fools and it slowly evolved into a tradition of playing pranks on unsuspecting people.

Information on the history of April Fool’s Day courtesy of www.wilstar.com

I have made it possible for you to receive this blog in your email. Just use the form below that also is on the right-hand side under ‘Subscribe.’

Once you sign up, you will receive a confirmation email with a link that you must click to confirm your subscription. Then, you will begin receiving an email with the articles posted most recently. Pretty simple stuff.

I love promoting cool Michigan businesses and shops, but I have to go out of our state to mention this company. The Slanket is a huge fleece blanket with loose, oversized sleeves so you can still use the remote, read a book, or eat popcorn and not have your arms freeze. For $65 you can enjoy your Slanket while you have the thermostat turned back to save $$$.

I just checked the Slanket website today, February 3, 2006, and unfortunately all of their Slankets are on backorder. Evidently these are more popular than I had thought. Rats! I was hoping to get one. It looks like anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks before you will receive your Slanket if you order today.

Guess I’ll have to plan ahead for next winter.

****** SLANKET : THE BEST BLANKET EVER ******

I have to warn you about this quiz. It is very addictive. Once you start, you just keep going and trying to see how many answers in a row you can get.

I won’t say what my top number of correct answers in a row is so far. Lets just say that I haven’t made it up to 12 in a row just yet. They throw some easy questions at you in the beginnng and then toss you a real whopper that makes you guess. If you are lucky, you guess right and move on to the next question. If you are like me, you start from the beginning.

Have fun!

Christmas Quiz

Update: I sent this letter to the Kalamazoo Gazette and received a phone call from them yesterday (12/5/05). They plan on printing it at a date closer to Christmas. Pretty neat!

In 1897 Francis P. Church, the editor of the New York Sun received the following letter from 8 year-old Virginia O’Hanlon –

“Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?” —Virginia O’Hanlon

His response to her letter has become a classic and people seem to read it every Christmas.

If people insist on referring to Christmas as a “holiday”, newspaper editors across the country might some day be receiving letters such as the following –

“Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no Christmas and that Jesus does not exist. They say that Christmas is merely a holiday and should be referred to as such. We don’t have Christmas parties at school anymore. We just have a holiday party. They don’t put up a Christmas tree at the local town square – it is a holiday tree. Santa Claus can come to town, but we can’t have a Nativity scene depicting the birth of Jesus on city property. Please tell me the truth. Is there really a Christmas because Jesus was born or is it just another holiday?” – Virginia

If I were an editor this would be my response (based upon Francis P. Church’s response over 100 years ago) –

Dear Virginia,

Your friends and others are wrong. They have been affected by the political correctness in this all too political correct time we live. They do not believe in that which they cannot see.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Christmas. It exists today just as it did over 2,000 years ago when Jesus Christ was born to save man from his sins. How bleak this world would be if there were no Christmas.

Joy and love would be merely temporary things felt for an instant only. Childlike faith would disappear and nothing would exist that would make life tolerable. There would be no hope for the future.

Not believe that we celebrate Christmas because of Jesus?!? You might as well not believe in the wind. You cannot see the wind, but you can see the effects of the wind and know that it exists. No one can imagine all of the joys in this world that are concealed to our eyes.

Only our faith and the love that God showed us by sending his Son to us on that lonely night in a stable so long ago can open man’s eyes to the fact that Jesus is the reason for the season of Christmas.

No Christmas? Thank God that he gave us the very first Christmas gift of Jesus Christ and know that He lives forever. Tens of thousands of years from now Christmas will still exist because Jesus still lives.

Merry Christmas and God Bless!