It’s time again for the Hamilton Mill food drive in cooperation with 12 Stone Church and Compassion in Action (CIA).  The 4th annual event is being held on Saturday October 2nd (2010).

Compassion in Action weekend brings thousands of volunteers together from dozens of local churches, including 1500 or more from the 12 Stoner crowd too.

As always, our project (one of many) is a huge food drive within the Hamilton Mill community.  It couldn’t be a better time for it either because the Lawrenceville coop is really struggling to keep up with demand from so many Gwinnett families in need these days.

Please mark your calendar for Saturday October 2nd and get together a big bag (or two) of good food for those in need.  You can let us know that you’ll have food ready for us by sending email to
fooddrive@diamonddwellings.com

Join the team

Wanna volunteer to help with the food drive?  Sign up right here

Got this list from Time Magazine (really via @twitter ).  As always, some interesting stuff on this list.  Lately, so much of these lists are driven by the web.  Amazing that the course of our entire vocabulary is mostly driven by our online interactions.  The term “Social Media” has become so ubiquitous in my world that I really don’t want to hear it anymore.  Anybody with me?  It’s like that song on the radio that’s just been played to death!  But, I digress…

I’d like to suggest a few additions of my own, such as Escape Velocity and Man-Friend (a term my daughter uses to describe friends of mine that are the other fathers of her softball teammates)

Here’s the Time Mag list:

The ‘96 Worth Cobras Softball Team is seeking the National ASA Championship during their second season at the Girls 14u level and the upcoming 2010/2011 season.

The team is hosting a full-field open golf tournament to raise money for their upcoming bid for the national title!!

All are welcome so why not bring your best buddies for the 4 man best ball event on Thursday October 21, 2010.  All the details are at 96Cobras.com

I’ve been doing a lot of baseball and softball batting for the last month.  My son just decided at the ripe old age of 12 that he wants to play Mill Creek baseball this fall, so we’ve been practicing every single day to get ready for the tryout.  (btw, the tryout was yesterday and he did really great!).

Jack City is the only batting cage that’s really close to Hamilton Mill, but there are several others within a 10 minute drive.

I’ve made a quick list here:

• Jack City
• BaseRunners
• Renz
• Home Run Zone

I also did a search on BattingCageFinder.com and that was pretty accurate (interesting niche business, huh?)

If you’ve found any others, please drop a comment here and let everyone know.

Have you checked out Foursquare.com?  It’s the fun new, location-based game that everyone’s playing on their iPhones (it works on blackberry and other phones too).

Check out Diamond Dwellings profile page and join in the fun.

I’ve been cutting my lawn with a reel mower for 4 or 5 years now.  It’s amazing the “look” you can get just by cutting with a reel – regardless of anything else you do to your lawn, like fertilizer, etc.  I’ve found a great company called ReelWorks that deals exclusively in service (and some sales) of reel mowers and they are right near Hamilton Mill & Chateau Elan, on Thompson Mill Road (here’s a map).  They’ve been working on my reel mower since I started using one.  The service has been great.

Sanding and lime are also critical elements for getting that putting green look with Atlanta’s soil conditions (I’m specifically talking about the prevelant Bermuda grasses).  Sanding is a very serious job and requires great equipment to do a large lawn properly (and get the desired result).  Call The Sandman to get more info on that.  Usually mid-summer is the best time to sand your yard.

Lime is actually the secret weapon for kick ass bermuda lawns in Atlanta.  It cuts the acidity of the nasty red clay soil (it comes back too so you have to keep up the liming once or twice per year). Lime is just the simplest thing ever to find & apply.  You can get it at Home Depot (or anywhere) and you almost can’t apply it too heavily.  Within a week or so (with water) you’ll see the lawn actually “soften” in addition to a deeper green.

By the way, if you are going to sell your home in Gwinnett, nothing adds perceived value and curb appeal like that putting green lawn!

If you decide to try out these companies, please tell them I sent you

Lately I’ve become excited about biking.  In fact, I’ve been riding a LOT.  I first caught the bug doing the indoor kind called spinning. That’s where you lock yourself in a room with 20 other people and jam some really loud music for about an hour — while riding a funny looking stationary bike. Anyway, that’s what got me into it.

I recently bought a mountain bike (pictured) AND a road bike (cuz I wanted to do both). My road bike is what they call a hybrid.  It sorta looks like a mountain bike with skinny tires.  And, I also bought a mountain bike for my son so we could ride the trails together.

As it turned out, I bought all three bikes from three different shops in the Hamilton Mill area so I thought I’d write this post to share my experiences and give some links to those shops.  Since I had great experiences with all three shops, I can really recommend all of them!  Each is slightly different depending on what you want, but all of them passed inspection with me

My hybrid bike is pictured below.  I had to steal this picture off the KHS website (can’t believe I don’t have a good picture of it yet myself).  I bought it from Addicitive Cycles up in Hoschton.  I went there before any other shops because a reliable source told me that “all the real serious bikers go there”.  Based on what I saw going on there, I guess I could imagine that to be true.  Since I’m just a total newbie to biking, I can’t really confirm or deny that for sure.  You can judge for yourself.  BUT, I can say that Cody and his team up there were awesome, friendly and made me feel very welcome even though they obviously deal with a pretty “serious biker” clientele.

I only had my hybrid for about a week when I realized that I really wanted a mountain bike too (for the trails) and the hybrid for the roads and the paved trails in Mulberry Park.  My mountain bike (top photo) is a Specialized (that’s the brand) and I bought from Outback Bikes located in the Hamilton Mill Publix shopping center.  I LOVE that bike.  It’s super cool (I think).  Outback Bikes is a great little shop.  They actually have two locations.  They had good inventory also.  Great service (not just saying that either).  By the way, if you want to start mountain biking in Gwinnett, Ft Yargo is a great trail to start on.

I bought my son’s bike over at Knight Bikes & Skateboards.  As you can tell from the name, they have bikes and boards.  It’s a bigger shop so they have pretty good inventory of both.  I think they had a few more “middle-of-the-road” bikes and bikes for kids, etc.  It might be the family bike shop of the three (although Outback certainly fits that bill too).

Are you into biking too?  Please let me know in the comments here.

This will be my 3rd year in a row leading a very big food drive in the Hamilton Mill area as a leader for Compassion in Action weekend – in cooperation with 12Stone Church.   It’s a really cool opportunity for all of us to give SO MUCH back to our community with just a few short hours of effort.

Last year we collected an amazing amount of food and delivered it to the Lawrenceville Co-op.
Hard to believe but there are families right here in Gwinnett that have a huge need (now as always)

This is certainly something that parents and kids can both be part of.

Now’s the time to sign up (takes 2 seconds)

The first step is having each person (parents and kids) sign up here:

Everyone gets a CIA t-shirt but they have to sign up really soon (like this week).

After you to the site, there’s a list of different activities.
The Hamilton Mill food drive is the very first choice (and the best one

btw, if you can’t be there on Oct 3rd, we also need lots of help with flyer distribution during the week before.
Also, if you can only help for an hour or two on Saturday, that’s fine too. Just come when you can!

Regards,

Matt Fagioli
678.694.7001

ps. please feel free to call me with any questions or ideas

Our Gwinnett Braves have just announced that they are going to be holding auditions for the first ever Gwinnett Braves Master of Ceremonies on January 17th, 2009 in front of Nordstroms at the Mall of Georgia.

Here are the details as we know them.

1. Contestants should prepare a 60 second skit on why he or she should be the Gwinnett Braves Master of Ceremonies for the upcoming 2009 innagural season.  After the skit, you will then be asked to MC potential in-game promotions and will be judged on how you sell the specific promotion and your interaction with the crowd.  Contestants must provide a valid ID and be at least 18 years of age.

2. The Gwinnett Braves are looking for someone with enthusiasm, fun and can stand out in a crowd. The MC will be responsible for entertaining fans, running in-game promotions and energizing the fan base at the games.

3. The tryouts will be help in front of Nordstroms at the Mall of Georgia at 1pm on January 17th.

The Gwinnett Braves will also have on hand, season schedules, ticket information, Chopper and the Gwinnett Braves front office.

Come out and participate and let’s get ready for an awesome season of Gwinnett Braves baseball.  For more information contact us at Diamond Dwellings Realty or log onto www.GwinnettBraves.com.

See you there.