Category: Ypsi-Arbor

Weather Babies, part 2

A couple weeks ago, I complained about what I referred to as the “weather babies” of the Ypsi School District (and all the other districts in the area) that canceled school just because of a little ice. Well, the weather babies have struck again. School was canceled today due to the cold, and, as I found out via an automated phone call just about 20 minutes ago, it will be canceled tomorrow, too.

Babies.

Look, I don’t want to get all “when-I-was-a-kid-we-walked-through-snow-up-to-our necks” on everyone, but the idea of canceling school just because it’s cold, well, I think that’s silly. I mean, school is an indoor activity, people!

But I also fully admit that much of this attitude comes from my hearty Iowa upbringing. It is always colder in my hometown of Cedar Falls, sometimes considerably colder. It doesn’t happen often, but every other year or so, it doesn’t get above zero in Cedar Falls for about a week (and it is fairly common for it to stay below freezing in my northern Iowa homeland for 40 days or longer in the dead of winter). Do they cancel school? Hell no! Not unless things have changed a lot. Snow, ice, tornadoes– those are reasons to cancel school. Too cold? Put on a freakin’ sweater.

So c’mon, SE Michigan weather babies (because it seems that every school district in this part of the state has already canceled classes for tomorrow), toughen up a bit! It ain’t that bad.

Oh, and a PS: at least the Ypsi school district decided to call at 10:20 instead of at their usual 5 am. Unless they decide to call tomorrow morning too….

What a bunch of weather babies!

I write this after being hazily and partly awoken at about 5:15 am or so this morning.  It turned out to be the Ypsilanti school district calling (automated, of course) announcing that school was canceled.  As I listen to the radio now, I am hearing that they’ve canceled classes in Ann Arbor and lots of other places in Washtenaw County, too.

So, winter is finally here, you’re thinking, right?  Barely, as far as I can tell.  It’s in the 20s– hardly even what would normally be called “cold” around here in January– and there is barely a dusting of snow.  Granted, there is some ice and such out there, but that’s what road salt is for.  But the forecast for the day is just for a typical winter day.

All I can think of is that it has taken only about a month or two of unseasonably warm winter weather for the whole state to turn into a bunch of weather babies.  I haven’t seen such an exhibition of weather weakness since I lived in Virginia.  Sheesh.

Who says nothing ever happens in Detroit?

Via boing-boing and in the Washington Post, “Mannequin Fetishist Could Get Life.” To quote:

A man who has a history of smashing windows to indulge his fetish for female mannequins could draw a long prison term for his latest arrest. Ronald A. Dotson, 39, of Detroit faces up to life in prison if convicted of a charge of attempted breaking and entering at a cleaning-supply company in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale.

Later in the article, it says this guy was arrested a few years ago with three “lingerie-clad mannequins” in an alley a few years before.

Christmas Greetings/Sexually Explicit Cards/Christmas Letters/ Pepper Nuts

I was talking with my friend Mary T. today and she mentioned that I must be pretty busy with that pesky teaching/job thing because I haven’t been posting here much lately. You’re darn tootin’ I’ve been busy! You can read about some of it at the official blog and also at EMUtalk.org, which is the community blog that I started this year because of the faculty strike. But the short version is this has probably been one of the busiest semesters in my academic life, simultaneously and at different times horrible and wonderful.

Actually, the whole year– official and unofficial– has been like that for us around here.

Anyway, to get to some things in the order they appear in the subject line here:

They are tasty though….


More Ypsi Mayoral Fun (and why it might not matter)

I stumbled across a couple of potentially useful links about the upcoming race for mayor in Ypsilanti– that is, if you are a reader even remotely interested in such a thing. Here they are:

I will say this (and this gets back to some of what I posted about before, some of what is in the comments there, etc.): in the end, I’m just not convinced it will make a whole lot of difference who gets elected. Both Pierce and Schreiber bring different strengths and weaknesses to the party, but both of them are going to have a hard go of it because of the large issues/problems of Ypsilanti.

According to a question that was apparently asked at the debate, 25% of Ypsi residents live below the poverty level. That’s a lot, and that’s a group of folks who are basically using a lot of public and tax-supported services without paying a lot of taxes themselves. A lot of the questions/concerns right now are focused on the crappy financial state of the city, an issue where there are no easy solutions. The city itself is built-out, meaning there isn’t a lot of opportunity for more development– short of trying to take on brown field projects, which are never any fun. The city’s biggest land-owner, EMU, doesn’t pay taxes at all. The auto industry (and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think they are the biggest tax payer in Ypsi) is leaking like a sieve and there’s little reason to suggest that’s getting better in the long or mid term. There’s little the school district can do to convince the likes of me that the middle schools and high schools are a good option for my child. Add to all of that the whole area (really, the whole state) is in a slump and pretty soon it seems to me that the choice between two or three different Democrats who are in many (if not most) ways on the same page regarding the key issues is ultimately irrelevant.

Maybe that’s a bad attitude, but there you have it.

Oh, and I don’t want people raising chickens in my neighborhood. That’s stupid. So in that sense, at least according to ypsi~dixit, it sounds like Schreiber and I are on the same page.

Two Post Scripts:

  • At my wife’s request, I made some slight editing to my post. She had a point.
  • Another bad attitude remark: I haven’t seen any poll numbers, but I’ll bet you anything that Steve Pierce is way out in front and is going to win. For better or worse.

Ypsilanti Mayoral Race: What Signage (and other things) Tells Me

To be honest, I haven’t been following the issues about the race for mayor of Ypsilanti, and I am not even sure I’ll be voting– I would have to vote absentee since I’ll be out of town, and getting the ballot and all of the rig-a-ma-roll involved in that…..

Anyway, of the two candidates that are really running (there is a third, but Lois Richardson really seems to me to be running a stealth campign at best), I’d probably vote for Paul Schreiber, if for no other reason because he really does seem like a “real” Democrat. I mean, just look at this guy:

Paul Schreiber

Casual, earth tone, open collar shirt with a sports jacket thrown on as an after-thought, proudly bald. That’s a liberal.

Now, compare that with Steve Pierce.

Steve Pierce

Pressed white dress shirt with striped tie, tight to the somewhat chubby neck, slicked down hair, well-thought jacket. That’s a conservative.

Actually, that’s been the scuttle-butt in this whole election, that in a town where it is simply impossible for a Republican to win the race, Steve Pierce became a Democrat. I don’t know if that is or isn’t the case, and I also don’t want to turn away late joiners of the the Dems. Better late than never, right?

But I have to say that there are some signs– literally– that Pierce isn’t really quite all that much of a Democrat’s Democrat. For starters, there’s the sign (a picture I took on a walk with Sophie):

Pierce for Mayor?

That American flag with the bold, ALL CAPS, sans-serif font is practically a copy of the BUSH-CHENEY bumper sticker/sign campaign.

But besides that, I’m a little suspcious of where these signs are showing up. Around town, it seems like every rental property has a PIERCE sign, and every single family home has a Schreiber sign. And in my neighborhood, the one house where I can count on “conservative values” being on display (eg, they have various flags flying, yellow ribbons, and NRA sticker on the front door, etc.) has like four or five PIERCE signs.

So, I don’t know. I’ve heard good things about Pierce and I don’t want to make him guilty by association. But….

So, I hear there’s a big football game in town…

Yes, I know about the Superbowl, of course. It’s been quite the piece of news around here lately because it’s in Detroit’s own Ford Field. But I don’t feel a whole lot of involvement. Here’s why:

  • I personally don’t care much for pro football (I like the college game, to an extent). Mind you, I have nothing against professional football– if it’s on with family and/or friends, I’ll watch it– but I don’t really make it a point to watch football. I don’t really root for any teams, perhaps a result of growing up in pro-free Iowa, I don’t follow the mirad of details of the game, and I don’t really care who wins this weekend. Since the Steelers have the same colors as the Iowa Hawkeyes, more or less, I’ll go with them.
  • Annette cares even less about pro football than I do. I think that if you quizzed her on the basic rules of the game (how many “downs” are there? and how many yards does the offensive team have to gain to get a so-called “first down?”), I’m pretty sure she’d answer “I don’t know” and/or “why the hell should I care about that?!” many times. Therefore…
  • … I’m pretty sure that there will be no Superbowl activities around here. We haven’t been invited to any Superbowl festivites and I don’t expect to be at this stage. Actually, Annette is going out to dinner with something for work that night, so it will probably be just me and the boy around the house here. Will and I will probably watch the game some (I suspect Will will get bored with it though, to be honest), make some pizza, maybe play some games, etc. It’s probably just as well to be left out. Years and years ago, back when we lived in Oregon, Annette and I were invited to a Superbowl party and we were by far the worst guests. “When is a new commercial coming on?!” we whined.
  • And besides, the important game is tomorrow afternoon when Iowa and Michigan play in basketball. Go Hawks!

The Food (W)Hole goes Dog Style; what’s next, Milwaukee’s Beast?!

Dog Style, 9.99

I was in Whole Foods the other day, and there, right up front, I saw this display of Old Style beer as you come into the store, just in front of the pristine produce section and right next to some fancy Rick Bayless chips. I immediately snickered and I had to take this picture with my cell phone.

Ah, memories. Back in the day in Iowa, every run-0f-the-mill bar worth its salt had Old Style (aka Dog Style) on tap. In fact, you were much more likely to find it than Budweiser or Miller when I was in college 20 years ago. It was everywhere and it was cheap-ass beer, “beer” just a half-notch above “beer” like Milwaukee’s Best (“The Beast”) and Meister Brau (“Mr. Beer”). When we were broke college kids who wanted beer, we used to pool our cans and bottles so we could cash them in (a nickel apiece in Iowa) and buy a six-pack of crappy near-beer beer like Dog Style.

And now it’s on sale at Whole Foods. Actually, I had seen it at Whole Foods before (along with Pabst, believe it or not). But I had never seen it featured quite so promienently. This is usually a spot of the store where they try to sell fancy wines and cheeses, or at least reasonable beer. So, what is the Food (W)hole thinking here? Annette suggested that perhaps it was an effort to tap into some sort of nostalgia; I think that maybe the person who decides on the displays has a sense of humor and/or a sense of the kitch. Or maybe they just have a whole bunch of this they have to get rid of.

Of course, $9.99 for 18 is a pretty good deal.

Why I think Annette should keep a blog

Here’s a quote of an email that my lovely wife Annette sent me this morning:

So, I’m in Panera’s and just had a lovely, healthy lunch: half sandwich, salad, and an apple. I’m sitting here trying to work and these two older guys–our dads’ age–are sitting next to me loudly pontificating for one another about the ills of the world: ie. “The Bush-Haters.” So far, we’ve concluded that liberals don’t care that Sadam killed his own people or that Mao murdered 20 million Chinese, and, here’s the kicker, that the symbol for Honda is an H, which looks like the devil’s horns and, of course, stands for “Hell.” . . . they are currently complaining that their adult children do not honor, respect, or listen to them . . . hmmmm? I wonder why? . . . There was some earlier ranting about Harry Belafonte, Barbara Streisand, and Jane Fonda–apparently, Jimmy Stewart never would have behaved so disgracefully. . . . It is simultaneously annoying and amusing, though I hope they leave soon so that I can get some work done.

See what I mean?