A Trip to the Track

On the weekend of May 14, 2010 I went for my first motocross experience at Ogemaw Sport and Trail center in Mid-Michigan. I went to check the track and trails out with my friend Chad and several of his friends. Our weekend revolved around this trip. Ogemaw Sport and Trail center consists of a main track, intermediate track, kids track, and 120 acres of private land filled with trails and hill climbs. On top of that OSTC has easy access to hundreds of miles of state trails. In order to ride here you must have a waiver filled out, parent signature if necessary, and seal. Along with that it is twenty dollars for your first time, anytime after that for the year is fifteen dollars. OSTC also has camping reservations if you would like to stay there. My experience consisted mainly of riding the motocross track. I have always enjoyed riding tracks and in fact have had my own full track at my house for most my life. So for me, I guess I found that the main motocross track was rather easy for someone with my experience. However the terrain was sandy and some jumps required giving the bike all it had. Even though I found the track to be easy, it was fun and well worth the money. The track contained a variety of jumps whether they were step ups, doubles, triples, ski jumps, etc., meaning there was enough there to wear a person out. It probably only took me five laps before I got arm pump to the point of having to stop. But once I was worn out on the track it was time to cool down on the trails. So we would take off a begin a journey around the trails among OSTC which seemingly were narrow and required speed and agility. We did find several nice hill climbs while explain the land. One in which Chad tried climbing was beyond 90 degrees upward, he didn’t quite make it. After that hill climb stop were proceeded around the winding trails all the way back to the intermediate track. This track consists of a combination of small table top jumps, tight sandy corners, trees, and whoops. After ripping around the trails and intermediate track we once again headed back to the main track. We probably road on and off the track for another 4 hours or so before we thought about leaving. When we finally stopped for a break, Chad decided he was going to check out the freestyle section they had set up with two metal jumps. This was quite entertaining to watch considering only Chad and one of the owners were the only ones to ride this section. Chad launched off these seventy foot doubles approximately 35 foot in the air from ground level which wore me out watching as I was already tired. One thing that was nice about the whole experience was that there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic at the track or in the trails. However, this place can get packed! One weekend included a visit from professional dirt bike rider Travis Pastrana. I would definitely recommend this power sport center to anybody that has a passion for riding.

Facebook

Facebook has become a hot commodity with people of all ages over the past couple years. So much in fact that it has over five hundred million active users. The face book press room establishes that fifty percent of the five hundred million of active users log on to face book everyday. The average user of face book has 130 friends. What I found most ridiculous while reading the statistics of face book was, people spend over 700 billion minutes on face book each month! With all this time spent on face book, I’m afraid that people are spending to much time within a building, especially my generation. My generation seems to be addicted to every new technological advance there is. I feel that face book keeps people from actually going out and meeting new people, working, and keeps people from thinking outside the box. Once a person is addicted to face book, they tend to get on every waking moment they can, merely posting every activity or thought throughout there day. But if were spending so much time on Facebook, how can you actually live your life? But with over 900 million objects that people can interact with why wouldn’t you want to be on here? The average user is connected to over 80 community pages, groups, and events. On top of that the average users creates 90 pieces of content each month with more than 30 billion pieces of content shared each month! Being able to access all of this information/applications from your mobile device, added convenience to the users hand, which may have in fact been a great factor when it comes to the expansion of the site. However there are several good things that came from face book. First of all face book opened up a world wide communication network for meeting new people. In fact, there are more than 70 translations available on the site, and about 70% of Facebook users are outside of the United States. It takes over 300,000 users to help translate the site through certain applications on Facebook. Users being able to access this information while on the move, through mobile devices, allows people to be out and about, but it definitely keeps people from noticing there surroundings. Especially if they are texting and driving, which is a big down fall. Yet there are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices, and the crazy thing is that people who access Facebook via mobile devices, are twice as active as non-mobile users. However, Facebook has opened up new opportunities for a profit margin in advertisement simply because of its popularity. The best part of advertisement is that it generally creates more demand in turn creating more jobs. With the United States in tough economic times, especially Michigan, these jobs will be greatly appreciated. In fact there are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products. Think about it, that’s 200 more people employed, and all though that’s throughout 60 countries it is also just for its mobile products. There is advertisement for nearly every industry around the world on Facebook. I guess what it all boils down to, is that it’s the users choice to decide when exactly is to much time spent on Facebook.

A Place Called "Up North"

There is a place that people call, "Up North." This place is filled with, what seems to be, everlasting amount of wilderness, animals, and water. A place of relaxation. Up North is a term that many michiganders use referring to the upper half of michigan. Up North is a place that can be described so many ways. A place that many advid outdoorsman go to fill the tags. My idea of that place is located in Black Lake, Michigan. Here I can wake up in the morning knowing I don't have to work. But at the same time, I enjoy getting up there and mowing the lawn, getting the boat fired up for her first time, the jet ski's tuned in ready to go, and splitting wood for the night time bonfires. It's always good to get everything important out of the way for the real fun. I mean come on, wilderness, open roads, huge spand of water. You could start your day off with a good morning fishing expedition. With a lake of a variety of fish species to choose from you could never get bored. My particular choice right now, Pike. Ever since my second year up there, just drifting along in the pontoon with current. I got one pole set up in the water dragging and another one in my hand casting and realing. Probably should pick one you think? Well about that time, the pole that was dragging, snaps down. Fish on! The fight was the best i had so far up there, and I knew it was a good one. I was just realing and pulling, but the fish wasn't giving up. I tried telling my dad I had a fish, he just nodded and said, "no way, you probably just got some sea weed." Well I told him he better check this out. About the time he turned around the fish was to the boat. It was my first big pike! It weighed out at 7.5 pounds and was thirty-two inches long. What next, well if that doesn't excite you, then listen to this. So I head back to the cabin, considering it's only around 2:00 p.m., to figure out what next. I dont even have to get off the boat before I now what I'm going to do. I meen sitting on a pontoon, roasting in the sun, you just have to get on the jet skis. So that exactly what I did. Hopped on, pushed the start button, and away I went. There is not to much to compare to a hot summer day, skimming across the water, with mists of water spraying all over to cool you down. If you fall off, then that is just all the better. After you are wore out from throwing the machine around you can head back to camp. It's about dinner time at this point. So you refuel yourself with a good old fashioned cook out or maybe just whatever sounds good. Anything to get you moving again. There is still time for a walk through the woods and maybe end then night with some friends around the bonfire talking. Everyone has a place like this. Up North is a place I love.

Investing

Instead of talking about well drilling, this time I want to address an investment topic called tax liens and tax deeds. I have been doing research on this subject since mid-summer and found it a good way to invest. Here is how it works. The beginning of the process involves a property owner not paying there taxes. When they don’t pay their property tax a tax lien goes up for sale, weather it is at an auction or not. Basically when you buy one of these tax liens you are paying the property tax off for the person, in return you receive your money back plus what ever the state mandate percentage is, particularly around seventeen percent. Next year comes around and the property owner still hasn’t paid past taxes or the new years so another tax lien comes out. Now let me explain that the owner has a certain period of time (depending on the state) to have all these taxes paid back otherwise the house is foreclosed on. We are going to say that here and Michigan the people get three years to pay all fees off. So second year tax lien comes out, you can choose to buy it if you want or let someone else buy it, either way doesn’t matter. Okay so now two of the three years goes bye, third year comes out still not paid, another tax lien comes out and the property owner is given another year, weather you are the one to buy it or not, however the owner of the very first tax lien gets the right to have first chance to purchase future tax liens or the house before others get a chance. So, no taxes are paid off the house and bank has a chance to pay off these liens, and foreclose the house for bank property to try and sell. Otherwise if the bank doesn’t pay the liens off the first share holder gets a chance to pay off the other two liens plus pay a tax deed bill to the county in exchange for the house. I just want to say the property tax can range from $90 to thousands of dollars, but by going through this process you can get a house for merely only thousands of dollars. You see the county needs to keep making money off this property tax and if someone else gets the house and can pay these taxes the county starts making its money again, therefore it is very beneficial in the tough times we are in now. Unfortunately in the year of 1999 a law was set, getting rid of tax liens and setting up a system of land sales or tax deed sales. This system basically goes through the same process but instead of you putting fourth the money for back taxes the county lets them build up until the house is foreclosed. From there you go to a tax deed sail in which you can bid on a house with a minimum bid of what is owed in taxes, along with any fees throughout the sale process.