After blogging about how I’m not that enamored of real estate conferences anymore, today I am heading to a real estate conference.  This one is called Summit IX (sorta like the Super Bowl has numbers.  It’s for the Allen Hainge CyberStars — a group of Realtors who embrace technology and technological change.  We share ideas and tips on how to best use current and upcoming (read: bleeding edge) technology to best serve our clients and to best attract new clients.

It should be fun.  This is my first one but I already know a lot of the people who will be there.  I’ve met them at other conferences!  Plus, it’ll be warmer than the MD Suburbs of DC.  It’s supposed be 70° + during the day and in the 40s at night.  Not so bad

Labor Day weekend is always a lot of great fun.  It’s a long weekend with most people having the first Monday in September as a holiday. It’s the end of summer — the last blast of time off before kids get back to school and grown ups are expected to be done with their vacations.

One of the things that is most fun is  the wholesome, down home fun of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival which runs from Friday to Sunday.  This year, Jan and I went on Sunday about noon to beat all the big crowds and to get a chance to browse through some of the hundreds and hundreds of used books on sale benefiting the Greenbelt Elementary School PTA.  There are also the many food booths that benefit many of the community organizations in Greenbelt.  Oh yeah, the rides!

Then there are the bands. We got a chance to listen to a great jazz band — Bruce Swain Jazz — and there was a Battle of the Bands later that afternoon featuring a good friend, Ed Crowley, who is a Greenbelter from way back. There are beauty pageants, a parade on Monday morning and a chance to run into people you may not have seen for awhile.

The weather was with us on this Labor Day. The weather was warm without being too hot.  The sun was shining.  It was just a great time.  If you happen to live in the area, you know what I mean. If you ever thought of moving t the MD Suburbs of DC, Greenbelt and the towns around Greenbelt are a great place to live.

Check out the Market Trends for up to 10 zip codes (including Greenbelt) in the MD Suburbs of DC by simply filling in the form over to the right or click here. You will get a totally FREE report e-mailed to you. No phone calls, no spam. I promise.

Last Saturday, the College Park Woods Swim Club had its annual crab feast.  This is the first one that Jan and I have been to and we both had a great time.  It was a beautiful evening and there was a great turn out! Crabs (as much as you could eat), hot dog, corn on the cob, bar-b-que, soda and beer.  Great company and an appearance by Senator Jim Rosapepe of the 21st District.

Here are some of the memories:

Recently I’ve had a hankerin’ for some good ol’ diner food.  Some people call it “comfort food”.  No matter what you call it, the experience usually involves heading down to a building that looks like an old RV and has a counter full of old guys shooting the breeze with waitresses that call you “hun”.  Recently, new upstarts have tried to capitalize on the diner experience: the Silver Diner is one which has evolved into a chain.

The Nautilus Diner is another with two locations -  Crofton, MD and Timonium, MD.  I checked out Crofton.

The morning I went it was a nice, sunny day about 10:30.  I had a couple of cups of coffee but I really had a taste for pancakes.  Since these diner places tend to sell breakfast all day, I thought I would check out the new diner (I would ride by it while it was being built while I was showing homes to my buyer clients).

The verdict — don’t bother.

Even though the diner wasn’t that busy it took a few minutes to get seated and a lot more minutes to wait for someone to come up and ask if I wanted to order or wanted some coffee.  Eventually the diner’s manager or owner — he was pretty official looking — came over and asked if I was being served.  I told him what I had in mind and as he turned away he relayed my order to a waiter in the area. I ordered the French Toast special which was supposed to come with a breakfast meat but, of course, no one asked me what kind.  The French Toast came out a few minutes later without butter or syrup.

After I asked, the sausage, butter and syrup and it came out pretty quickly.  The condiments were pre-packaged.  The French Toast itself was under prepared with a mushy taste and the sausage tasted like  a hot dog.

What About Lunch and Dinner?

I’m guessing that lunch and dinner might be a different experience.  They have this absolutely beautiful display of all  kinds of desserts and cakes right in the front as you come through the door.  If breakfast wasn’t already dessert I would almost feel compelled to order something.

However, the breakfast experience with the slow service, the food that was well below expectations (even for diner food) was enough for me to know that it’s not worth the trip back.  There are plenty of other nice diners — Plato’s Diner in College Park, MD, the Tastee Diner in Laurel, MD, Silver Spring, MD and Bethesda, MD as well as the Silver Diner chain — that have much better food, better service and, truth be told, better prices.

Today, a new and, hopefully, exciting new venture has been launched — Photos Around the DC Suburbs.  This will be an ongoing photo project of interesting sites in and around the DC Metro area.  The first photo shows Testudo —the University of MD mascot —a terrapin, of course.  It sits in front of McKeldin Library at one end of a long grassy mall where students and faculty hang out to read, study, play a little Frisbee®.

I hope you enjoy it as I enter in some photos that highlight life in towns outside of Washington, DC like:

• College Park, MD
• Beltsville, MD
• Laurel, MD
• Silver Spring, MD
• Bethesda, MD

and many, more places nearby.

Click Here to take a look.

I found this fascinating quote today:

Michael Kordahi, (@delic8genius ) created a simple search site that delivers the unbranded results from Google, Yahoo and Bing.  You can find it at http://blindsearch.fejus.com Search for “MD Suburbs ” and you’ll find 3 very different results.  Click on the Vote button and the three search engines will be revealed.  For each search the columns are switched.  Having a little fun, I searched for “Decision Engine” and “Why Bing?” just to see how skewed I could make it.

Bing, Google or Yahoo?

You should read the whole article!

It’s that time of year again!  Time to think about cooling down and getting wet.  Yeah, I know. It’s been raining a lot this season so getting wet isn’t at the top of your mind.  Take my word for it, though.  It’s going to get hot and you’ll want to be able to splash around in the pool.

College Park Woods Swim Club is now taking membership applications for the 2009 season.  Just click on this link to download the information form — College Park Woods Swim Club Information and Registration Form.

The very best part is that you don’t have to live in College Park Woods to join the pool!  Of course, it would help if you lived nearby but, hey, it’s a nice pool and the drive might be worth it. Download the form and join the club.  You’ll be glad you did!

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Today is the day we, as a nation, set aside in order to honor our military and their families for their service and, in many cases, their lives for our country.  Regardless of our views on wars or the need for national defense, there is no question that these men and women and their families make sacrifices far beyond those of the rest of us.

It’s also a National Holiday with friends gathering together to grill burgers or enjoy the parades.  Here are a few local events:

• National Memorial Day Parade (downtown DC)
• Alexandria Memorial Day Jazz Festival (for all you jazz lovers)
• Navy Band Memorial Day Concert (downtown DC)
• Memorial Day Observance at the Vietnam War Memorial
  (see drawing)
• Rockville’s Hometown Holidays (Rockville, MD in Montgomery County)

These are just a few of the events going on around town today.  Enjoy the day.  Remember our vets.

That’s right!  This very blog is now available on the Kindle: Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device

So if you’re one of the many high tech readers who own a Kindle (or want to) you can now read this blog and thousands of others right from the device.  Download the latest blog post and stay up-to-date on what’s going on the the Suburban Maryland real estate market.

Yowsa!

I recently had the pleasure of chatting about what Real Estate IQ is and what it takes to get it.  The occasion was a segment on Blog Talk Radio with host Juliet Johnson.

I first met Juliet through this very blog.  She commented on a post I wrote about home staging.  Being an extraordinary home stager herself, she had a nice comment on my post.  Since then, I’ve met her again in Real Town and Active Rain — both real estate centric blogs — as well as Twitter.

To be honest, this was my first appearance on any kind of “talk” forum.  Most of my stuff is written. It was a lot of fun, though.  I shared the segment with Robert Northfield, a mega Realtor in New Jersey near NYC. He had a couple of things to say. I had a couple of things to say.  Juliet guided the conversation along and really put me at ease.  I have no clue as to how many people listed to Blog Talk Radio but, for sure, you should.  Why not?  Plus, there’s lots of other interesting stuff on there, too.