If you’re looking for Christmas lights in the Charlottesville area, start here … I’m hoping the ones in Crozet/White Hall are back this year after they took last year off due to illness. If you have a google login, you can edit the map, add new light installations … View Charlottesville Christmas Lights in a larger map Thanks to @DailyProgress

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Rather than bore you with a full summary of my time on posterous, here are a few of the stories I noted/wrote there last week – Rethink the Season of Giving Postal workers say facility closure would slow mail service | Charlottesville Daily Progress Well *this* bodes well for health care reform Decentralized Design Hubs and Work Centers – Kinda like @GetOpenSpace #cityideas @good How do you define “investment”? Found an Interesting Report in our MLS today

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My dad was and is a commercial real estate broker there; I remember when I was a kid Dad would joke with me – and say, “they know who I am …” and very single time, they did. … Charlottesville is much the same way – we’ve grown since I was a kid, but we’re a very small town, made smaller by social media and our collective desire to communicate and interact. We’ve always lived by small town rules; building a real estate business has always been about small town rules. This new world allows for small town rules to integrate and interact with social media rules – and the overlap between the two is tremendous. – Reputation matters. – The Golden Rule, while not often explicitly acknowledged, is practiced more often than not. – Giving back counts. – Seeing people is easy; knowing people takes work.

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Provide toys and books to area children ages newborn through 8th grade Seek charitable contributions of money, toys, books and other needed items Seek volunteer assistance from the community Not interfere with any governmental or community agencies already assisting area children The Foundation’s service area includes the City of Charlottesville and the Counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson, and Orange.

…This allows us to identify those families that may not already be part of “the system,” but may be experiencing circumstances that make this year particularly difficult. For example, a family that has had a parental death this year and mom couldn’t even imagine trying to pull together Christmas might not meet any financial criteria, but the school personnel that know this family can identify them for us. They can also help us find those families who may have a very recent job loss, an accident or crisis such as a fire, or a sudden family burden.

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