Real Estate Views from St Pete

Earlier this year I posted about our Wedding Bells sign rider. Nothing like a little pressure - we had to get their properties sold before this couple of friends could get married.

Monday we attended the wedding on Ft DeSoto Park beach - which was the #1 rated beach in the entire US, including Hawaii. A bit windy, but clear skies.

Looking out our office window this afternoon we saw the installation of this bronze statue across the street at the Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally I went outside with my camera and then started asking questions. This bronze is part of a coming exhibit The Baroque World of Fernando Botero which will be at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St Petersburg from January 9 - April 4, 2010. The Museum of Fine Art's Coming Events page tells more about it.

If you're coming to the exhibit, please stop and say hello to The Simms Team at ALVA International, Inc real estate office right across Beach Drive from the Museum of Fine Arts.

Have you seen window decals like this start appearing this week? The Simms Team at ALVA International was named a Favorite Place by google and received this sticker for the window. It's designed with a QR bar code so that phones with this code reading application can point at the sticker and get photos, hours of operation, directions, information about the business. The you can click through to our website, dial through to our phone, save it on your phone, or email the information to a friend.

As a business owner you can add photos, descriptions, etc., so this is a new way to supplement your marketing efforts.

Google has blogged about this new way to window shop.

There are several QR reader applications for the phone. I chose QuickMark for my iPhone at the cost of 99 cents. QuickMark is one of the 16 most popular iPhone applications and the most popular one in the barcode category.

Additional note:  based on some of the questions that came up in the comments, I found this post on Google Favorite Places that explains how they made their choices and what you can do about it.

This was a fun sight from the window of the St Pete Yacht Club where we were having lunch today.

The yacht club is decorated with trees, lights and decorations everywhere. The long hallway with trees along both sides is particularly spectacular. Then each dining room, the bar, meeting rooms and nooks all have their own decor.

Mr. Snowman must be getting ready for tonight's annual St Petersburg Boat Parade. It leaves from Bayboro Harbor at 6:30 pm, goes out into Tampa Bay, around The Pier and around the Vinoy Basin, then returns.

There are lots of places in the waterfront parks to watch the lighted boat parade tonight, or you can watch from some of the restaurants that overlook the water. Many of the downtown luxury condos have great views of the parade as well. You can even charter a yacht to see it.

Merry Florida Christmas!

Do you keep old Christmas cards from year to year? All of them? The ones with notes? Do you keep the annual Christmas photos of your family, friends or clients?  Just hate to throw them out.

So - I went through last year's and used my Fujitsu Scansnap to scan a few notes and some photos, and now they're saved on a flash drive.

That made me think of another use for those scanned photos over the years - why not make a digital book and give it as a gift?