According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal “Only in Japan, Real Men Go To a Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends”, the once thriving resort town of Atami is trying to revive its economy by catering to single men who play a video game for the Nintendo DS by the name of Love Plus+.  Atami, a town featured in the game, and once popular with honeymooners, is feeling the pinch of Japan’s falling marriage rate; yet where they came up with the idea to market to players of this game, mainly single men in their 20’s and 30’s, this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender has no idea.

The crazy thing about this (ok there are numerous crazy things), is that the men will actually pay more for a hotel room in some cases just to make the experience real (in Japan rooms rates are based on number of occupants), and they will also pay for dinner for two, even though there is only one who can actually eat. Hopefully their electronic girlfriends don’t mind a room without a view or the fact that their boyfriend only orders them a small plate of sushi.

Just when you’ve thought you have heard it all, something ultra-weird pops up. I guess that as a Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender, I won’t be surprised in their near future when a potential client asks if they can apply for a loan jointly with their virtual girlfriend named Manaka. Hopefully she has stable income and a high FICO score.

The opinion of this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender is that while rates in the low 4.00% range are helping certain economic markets by increasing home affordability and lowering payments of some homeowners, it is ultimately a sign that the overall economy is still struggling to gain a solid footing.

While the spending packages initiated by the government (i.e. our future tax dollars) may have rescued our economy from falling off a cliff, we still have a long journey ahead in order to navigate our way out of the wilderness. Based on the reports which keep coming out, employment is what will ultimately lead us out of this situation. If people are comfortable that they will either find a job, or be able to remain in the job they currently have, money will start flowing into the economy from the source that makes up roughly 67% of our annual spending, consumers.

Low rates may position some people to better contribute to the recovery once the employment picture improves, but they are not the answer to our problem. They are in fact a product of the instability in the world financial markets, as they are a sign that investors would rather stash their funds in a low risk, low return investment, than invest in ways which indicate confidence in the economy.

Will rates drop even further, this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender hopes that is not the case, as the lower rates go, the longer we will all have to endure the journey before we return to solid economic ground.

Love & War, by John & Stasi Eldredge, is a book I stumbled across on an Active Rain profile. Once I finished the first chapter online at LoveAndWar.net, I knew this was a book that I had to read. After my second time through the book (now starting my third), this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender can honestly say this is the best book on marriage that I have ever read.

The authors not only provide some great insight into their marriage, sharing the highs and lows they have experienced over 25 years, they also provide incredible clarity into God’s design and purpose for all marriages. What impacted me most about the book is that they give you the “Why” as to the purpose God has for marriage, while being honest about how difficult it can be at times. I don’t know about you, but when I have a clear sense of “Why”, the “How” becomes an easier question to answer.

As a Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender, I have the privilege of getting to know many couples, sometimes while they are in the middle of a war. You can bet that when the opportunity presents itself, this is the book that I will be happy to share with others

In February of 2010, I determined that my efforts of my blogging experiment were not producing the results required to continue this discipline. The primary reason was that I had not put into place the tools required to maximize my efforts. As I worked to add these tools (it is still a work in process), I found it interesting that the discipline of blogging is very similar to any other lead generation discipline that is used in a sales driven business. Once I stopped blogging, those people who followed the blog of this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender and commented on a regular basis (those very few I should add), stopped communicating all together. With the exception of one person, never did I receive an email from someone asking what happened to my blog, if I was still in business, or if I had decided to escape to some tropical island to spend my days relaxing in the sun.

So in this new era of online virtual relationships, we need to ask ourselves are we truly developing relationships with those whom we connect with via electronic media, or are we merely developing acquaintances of convenience, people who remember we exist as long as we pop up in their inbox on occasion?  I’m not sure of the answer, so the experiment continues.