Get out of Jail Free Card

In my internet travels, I found the site Kiva.org. I can't even remember how I stumbled on it, but the concept intrigued me enough that I had to give it a try. The object is helping people. Okay, now I really know what you are thinking, "how on earth did Ace find this site?". Seriously, I don't know, the point is I found it and that's all that matters! The concept is donating a small amount to somebody, typically in a third world nation, to help fund a business venture. I consider it a donation, but if all goes well, the individual who asked for the loan, plays it back and ultimately the money you gave for the loan comes back to you. So, in a perfect world, it's loan and not a donation where it's possible for the same money to be used to help people over and over again.

I picked four individuals who I thought were worthy of my funding, actually one looks like a small village, but I'll pretend it's only one person. Hopefully, the small loan I made will help make their business dreams come true or at the very least makes their lives a little better. Now, don't think for a second that I have a big heart, there's always evil plotting with everything I do. This is really just my master plan for the day I stand before a judge, my defense lawyer can use to show my high moral character!

Here's a link to track my loan progress

The internet never ceases to amaze me.

Traverse (Moomers) City

Our new friend Cori imposed on us enough! Becca and I finally decided enough was enough and it was time to turn the tables and invite ourselves to her city for a change. She graciously accepted on a moments notice and we drove up for the weekend.

Friday night, I was taught how to make S'mores over the small bon fire in Cori's back yard. It's not like I didn't know how to make them, but apparently my idea was different then theirs. With two girls, sometimes it's best to to pick and chose your battles and I decided this was one not worth fighting over. For the record, when making a S'more, it's half a Hershey's bar, one gram and two marshmallows. The girls, for some reason wanted to only use small pieces of the Hershey's bar, which seemed silly to me.

Saturday was a full day. Our first adventure was climbing the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Due to a tactical navigation error, we didn't reach the top of the dune to overlook Lake Michigan. Instead we came to the top of the dune only to see another steeper dune, then after climbing to the top of that dune was a great view...of more dunes. By that point Becca had enough of the sand of this adventure and we headed back to increase our chances of finding water. The next stop was the scenic tour (by car) where we were able to stop and walk to a lookout. The view is incredible and the water color is amazing (hence the picture). We then headed north and grabbed lunch, continued further north to visit a lighthouse and then stopped at our first official winery. On any given day, that seems like a full day, but we weren't done yet. The next stop was what Good Morning America declared as the best ice cream in America at a place called Moomers. That's a tall tail and I'm not disagreeing with the claim, but I need to do much more "testing" before I'll agree with that claim, but I have to admit, it's pretty damn good.

I don't even remember what we did on Sunday, but we did visit Moomers again. Hmmm, it's growing on me. Oh yeah, we did some geocaching. It just so happened that there was an underwater cache not to far from Cori's place, so we all suited up and did that. I really should admit something here, but I'm not! Cori was right and we'll just leave it at that.

We had a blast and I look forward to crashing at Cori's place unannounced for the ice cream again!