Yesterday, on a glorious fall day, Grand Valley State University held an outdoor dedication ceremony and launched its offshore wind data buoy in Muskegon.  With the sun energizing its solar panels and the wind spinning it wind turbine the banana yellow craft was honored in speech after speech.  The promise of the research to be done by the Catch the Wind LIDAR unit and other scientific instruments were cited.  Many in the crowd recognized that this in fact is going to validate the potential of offshore wind as a major energy source for the Great Lakes region.  Hats off to Arn Boezaart of the MAREC center and the group from West Michigan Energy that helped make this dream a reality.  It is apt to be a watershed step in wind data lore.