The Marketing Team took some time this afternoon to officially usher in the warm months. We welcomed summer the best way we know how - with lots of food and fun!

Even though Michigan's weather wasn't exactly blue skies and lots of the celebrating was indoors, we still managed to whip up a savory spread complete with grilled hot dogs, hamburgers and even the non-meat versions of the picnic staples. I made a chocolate pound cake and someone even brought a couple Crave Cases from White Castle! All of the aforementioned has since been devoured.

Click inside the post for pics!

You know you do it... someone is telling a story or talking away, and they flip the "air quotes." Yes, just like us, you snicker, too. Only a certain, privileged few can get away with using air quotes, and it ain't us! What on earth is more funny than air quotes? Mis-used quotes. Yes, when those smart sign-making people allow quotes around things like "quality service" and "we care," we laugh.

A tip of the DIFF hat goes today to The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotes.

And, of course, because there are quite a few of us on The DIFF Team that really get geeky about how we all use our words, we've been sharing posts from Apostrophe Abuse. If we're not groaning from flashbacks to our grammar lessons, we usually get a good chuckle out of how some of those mis-placed apostrophes either seriously change the meaning, or just end up making no sense at all.

But, when all else fails and we still need a laugh, we still have those silly LOL catz.

Since everyone at The DIFF is a huge fan of Fortune's Best Company to Work For list, we figured we would share a clip from Good Morning America. This clip highlights "the DIFF" between working for just anyone and working for someone who values you as an employee.

It seems that when things get tight, solutions get more creative. If when budgets shrink, people find ways to squeeze the money for things they love to do. When time runs short, simple solutions just seem to magically appear. I'm a big believer in the idea that creativity grows when constraints shrink.

Here's a great example: AfriGadget.

The web site says it best, "It is a testament to Africans bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges." The concept is a web site and blog that feature African ingenuity -- products made with the most innovative methods, simply because many places in Africa lack things we take for granted, and doesn't have a fraction of the resources that we do in the U.S.

Our hot water heater broke over the weekend. It was a slow leak, but we had to drain the pan every 12 hours or so until we could find and fix the leak, or replace the hot water heater. Of course, when we moved in I just had to have my pantry shelves installed close enough to require moving them to get the water heater out. Time to empty the shelves, and we had to do it fast.

You may remember last week when Cora called out her love of recyclable bags given by Macy's and Whole Foods... and of course Kelly reminded us all (in the comments) of the wonders of Ikea's brilliant strategy -- buy their reusable bag or carry your stuff out on your own.

I share these two bits of information because if you haven't yet purchased Ikea bags, you're missing out on a huge time-saver. I've used these bags as laundry bags, for moving stuff about the house and from apartment to apartment, and hauling groceries.

And, of course, I used them to clear my pantry shelves in about 15 minutes. Thanks, Ikea!

I just spent a weekend on the beautiful Florida Keys and I spent two nights at the self-proclaimed luxurious Hawks Cay Resort on Duck Key, near the town of Marathon. Actually, it might have been part of the official town of Marathon, Fl., I just couldn’t really tell where the town started and ended.

So anyway, here’s my official review of the Hawks Cay Resort, complete with photos and my official recommendation at the end of my sad tale.

Sad tale.

That should tell you something about my stay at Hawks Cay Resort. Sometimes it's the little things that can mess up an experience. Little things like plastic PVC pipes used as stair railings – yes, that's PVC tubing in the pic on the right!

Back when I was in the Army (that would be way back), one of the things I enjoyed most - that would help me get through long nights on duty - was reading.

While I consider my lucky to never have been in combat, I was in a combat unit and we spent most of our time, well, training for combat.

For several reasons (most of them to do with my attitude), I was pretty much permanently on "night duty" for my entire two years in the Army. In other words, whenever we were on war games (a good percentage of the the time), I pulled the midnight to 8 am shift as a radio/teletype operator for the 8th Infantry Division's Artillery. This meant lots of time sitting around waiting for messages to be sent or received and in between, I would read. And read I did.

I have to tell you, I really had a great experience with Enterprise Rent-A-Car last week and I figured I'd share my story.

Here's the lowdown.

I used Enterprise Rent-A-Car on my recent travels to the Florida Keys after the great WOMMU conference in Miami (that was a blast by the way – if you've never been to a WOMMA event, I recommend attending the WOMMA Summit in November).

Anyway, back to Enterprise. Enterprise was awesome.

Oh, Seth, you've done it again. I think you have our office bugged. We've been pondering something here on the Quicken Loans marketing team: With a 94% client satisfaction rate, how can we encourage people to share the love with others?

Well, we know mortgages aren't the most exciting topic in the world, unless you're buying your first home. But what about everyone who let us help them refinance their mortgage? Seth came up with lots of good scenarios where word-of-mouth may not be happening. Hoo boy, did these hit home.

Pop open my freezer any day of the year and you'll find a variety of Girl Scout Cookies - I cannot get enough of those things! I'm partial to Thin Mints, but have no squabbles with people enjoy a Samoa or two.

At one time, many, many years ago, I even sold a few boxes. I did my part as a Girl Scout. Not quite as much Jennifer Sharpe, a 15-year-old from Dearborn, Michigan. This year, Jennifer sold 17,328 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. Unbelievable. Though the Girl Scout Association does not keep records, it's believed to be the all-time high.

Jennifer raised over $21,000 for her troop and consequently, is taking them all to Europe for 10 days. While we all might be shocked at Jennifer's ambition, this is not the first time she's raised enough to take her troop on a trip - a few years ago, they all got to swim with dolphins on a Caribbean cruise. Maybe, when Jennifer is a little bit older, we could use her phenomenal skill as a mortgage banker at Quicken Loans!

Talk about an incredible mindset to just get something done. She decided she was going to get the trip and truly outdid herself. The next time I get frustrated by something, I'm going to remember Jennifer and her cookies. Wait....maybe not the cookies part. That could get ugly. And fattening.

by Cora Bledsoe

I was browsing my daily reader stuff and I came across this post from the Consumerist.

We’ve been talking a lot more around our team about finding ways to be more green and this happens to fit right in. It seems that Macy’s has decided to switch to biodegradable packing peanuts.

Another company also down with the green movement is Whole Foods. Of course, it fits right in with their culture. They’ve opted to stop using plastic bags altogether and are instead only using paper bags.

Check out this story about it on WashingtonPost.com.

The other day a friend of mine offered me a special deal on buying a new Chrysler car or truck. (Of course, the Viper, Challenger, Wrangler 4 Door and Grand Cherokee SRT8 are excluded, and I really can't blame Chrysler for doing that.) I really appreciate being included in this offer, and just might take them up on it.

But, a couple of things have come to mind. First, I must like the hybrid or flex-fuel options on any car or truck I choose. My car is five years old, so it has lots of life left. I'm not going to trade my 35 mpg small car for a Charger, as much as I want one.

The bigger question, though, is in the $2.99 gas deal. At first glance, this sounds really cool. The folks at Freakonomics, however, are casting a bit of doubt on the value of this offer. Clearly they didn't have my gas bills when I was commuting to work every day. So, let's do a little math, and then I’d love to hear your opinion.

Aside from writing, I have little to no artistic talent. I can't draw to save my soul and I never really enjoyed art class for that particular reason. However, had I encountered an elephant in my art class, I might have paid more attention.

I found an article in USA Today and subsequently started some Googling on the whole "elephant artist" topic. Not only are they painting a lot, they're painting well.

Turns out, elephants have been showing off their artistic talents for years. Check out this YouTube video of an elephant who does a self-portrait. The video is about 8 minutes long, but totally worth it. Listen to the crowd reaction as they realize what the elephant is painting. The video has captured some 5 million+ views.

The paintings are sold to fund zoos and other conservation efforts. Depending on the animal's popularity or how clear the image is, the paintings can be sold from $25 up to thousands and thousands of dollars. You can also buy paintings by sea lions or chimpanzees. One noted chimp artist, Congo, had his paintings sell 3 years ago for more than $25,000. Maybe I should have paid attention in art class.

Picture this: a bustling mass of nearly 40,000 people at a Tigers game – each one touching railings, seats, wiping away nacho cheese from their mouth, sneezing and dumping drinks down your arm. Ew.

That aside, I *adore* the Tigers, Comerica Park and the whole Tiger game experience. I’ve been to 4 games so far this season and I'm going again tonight to see them stomp the Red Sox (fingers crossed!). I love the game, the crowd, the food and every minute detail associated with attending games. Well, except for the hygiene factor. Oh, and parking. What a pain!

While the city of Detroit's parking woes are a little bit more difficult to solve, Comerica Park has installed contraptions to thwart the excessive germs from fellow fans. Enter Sani-Post! (see lovely photo of said Sani-Post and myself). It's a nifty little kiosk that dispenses antibacterial hand sanitizer without even having to touch anything. It's also an extra bit of ad space for other local businesses. Love multi-tasking.

When I saw it at the last game, I thought it a small, easy addition for any major venue, but a great step for all the people who attend events like Tigers games. A little bit of DIFF, perhaps?

By Jen Romanowski

This afternoon I ran across a post on Twitter that talked about this year's Webby Awards. Being the internet geek that I am, I decided to cruise on over to the Webby Awards website to take a look at this year's Webby Awards winners.

Talk about some amazing websites. There were a number of websites that I knew of and have admired myself.  But there were also websites that I’ve never heard of.  Because we are in the financial industry, I decided to check out some sites that sounded like they might give me some great ideas.

My exploration took me to kiva.org, which won the Webby People's Voice Award for Charitable Organizations.  According to Kiva's about page, their mission is "to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty."  In other words, this website allows people to loan money to small businesses in developing countries so that the people borrowing can work hard to make something for themselves.

Many of the loan amounts are under a thousand dollars.  And you can lend in $25 increments, so it's your choice if you want to lend a little or a lot.  For each loan there is a percentage tally that shows how much money has been raised for that particular loan.  There is also a journal that will show updates about the loans and the entrepreneurs that are repaying it.

Recently I have heard more and more about social lending, but this social lending network has a socially responsible heart behind it which makes it "The DIFF."

What happens when you merge high culture, urban revitalization, gourmet food, free flowing drinks, lots of really good looking people, and Detroit?

BravoBravo! happens.

And man, did it happen. Oh my gosh, that was a darn good party.

Last Friday, the Detroit Opera House hosted it's annual BravoBravo! Fundraiser and it was a raving success. A success to the tune of over $205,000 cash money raised. Put that money in the bank, baby.

First of all, it was a sell-out. 2,300 people, partying their butts off, and literally hanging from the balcony. Second, I didn't know so many good looking people lived around here.  Third, it proved in my mind that the only reason why Detroit doesn't have the stuff other big cool cities have is that we don't try enough. Because when we do try, we do it right.

Amy (the Former DIFF Ninja) Prior found some great videos on msnbc.com and thought they'd be a great fit for stuff we put on the DIFF. 

They are!

First, check out Germany's new version of fast food. A restaurant in Nuremberg features food that is delivered to your table via gravity powered slides. Yes, that's a bottle of beer being delivered to a happy patron at the end of the slide. I wonder how they know if someone has had too much?

Second, learn about 18-year old Army Specialist Monica Brown whose acts of heroism (against orders) in Afghanistan earned her the Silver Star Medal. Brown is only the second female since WWII to earn the Silver Star.

Great stories and great examples of the DIFF.

Thanks Amy!

Every week we come to our team meeting with three things:

1. One big thing I'm working on
2. One thing I'm going to change
3. One big, "what if"

Today, Nicole proposed a really big "what if" for our team -- calculate the energy savings we could realize if we each worked from home just one day a week.

Many of us work from home from time to time, to focus on a project or figure out a problem, or just change up the pace to re-invigorate our energy. But, we've been thinking about how this can really impact our overall energy consumption and jump-start our own environmentally conscious changes.

This turned into a great discussion this morning. We’re all obsessed with "going green" and being not only good corporate citizens, but also how we can grow as individuals. We talked about how working from home can save energy: not driving to the office, not starting up the computers in the office, eating the food that's already in our fridges.

But that's not where it stopped.

I love good movies (and good television too – the key word there is "good").

I've loved them since I was a kid. In fact, I thought I was Kimba when I was about 5 years old. I'll get into that later, but now I want to talk about VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever a great new site my friend Sheila works on and told me about last week.

VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (from Gale Cengage Learning - the publishers of the VideoHound catalog series) is a really awesome resource for info on movies.  Aside from containing just about any movie I could think of, it has lots of great tools to locate your favorite movies.