Blog

I stumbled across Alan Gutierrez’ blog this evening thanks to the aggregator over at ArborBlogs. Alan seems like one of those kindred spirits that I knew existed in this town, but often kept to themselves out of fear of “a tirade against a red-state,” as Alan puts it.

That post isn’t what made me write about Alan’s site. This one is. I’ll quote because Alan nails it (sorry Ann Arbor, he’s got your number).

I started with noting how caustic Ann Arbor is. That people lack social grace, because they are Michiganders. They’re wipping past each other at 70 MPH all day. They don’t know how to say hello. That Ann Arbor is bubble, and people come here to escape the rest of Michigan, they think it is some sort of Paris of the mid-West. Ann Arbor is a bubble and people are bubble people, scared of what is outside the bubble, oddly xenophobic, while trying to seem worldly. Then I talked about having to litterally beg to differ, how thin-skinned, easily offended these people are. Then I mentioned the agenda-oriented social scene, and exaggerated gender roles. Ended up saying that the orthodoxy of Ann Arbor runs counter to mine. I feel people make the best descisions for themselves, that if you listen to them, they’ll make sense. Ann Arborites think that people can’t make decisions for themselves, and you have to tell them how wrong they are so they’ll understand.

I think Alan is like me; here for the time being because this is where the work is. I have no loyalty to this town, I have no ties to the idiocy that this town spews forth everyday. Alan’s right: this is a place where ideas come to die, not flourish. Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on your perspective), there is one entity that can toss huge sums of cash at lots of people and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This town will never be forced to gain perspective. It’s a shame, really, with the diversity that does exist on campus that Ann Arbor hasn’t found a way to integrate those philosophies into the community.

Ever since some one crammed a (dangerously simple) battery into an Altoids tin as a backup power supply for his iPod, the Me-Too crowds have been saturating the blog world with their contributions. We have the battery in a deck of playing cards, the battery in a yet-smaller Altoids case (for your mini, of course), and then the ultimate: make your own MP3 player in, yes, an Altoids case. (Sounds like Altoids has a great marketing campaign going.)

And then, today comes around and the “hacks” have started PSPs. Yes, now you can make a battery pack inside an Atari 2600 joystick. This kids is the tipping point. We are now ruining devices that are likely worth actual money (quick check on ebay says $15.00) and making battery packs that are larger, clunkier, and less functional than the device that actually needs the power. Wouldn’t be easier to, oh, I don’t know, pack along and additional set of batteries sans joystick?

In the latest hit to the West Michigan area, the most recognizable name in business (aside from Amway/Van Andel) is closing up shop. Roger’s department store announced today that, after over 50 years in the same location, they are closing down.

Roger’s is one of those places that servers a community touch point. It’s target client was mid- to high-end on the clothing scale, but they always had customers from just below. The Roger’s annual sidewalk sale was practically an city event at one point. Thousands of people would decend on the store trying to get a piece of the good life for cheap.

The sadder aspect of this closing is the loss of the businesses influence in the community. Roger’s was the corporate face of a lot of activities for a lot of years. It’s departure probably leaves a lot of charities, funds, and causes without corporate sponsorship in a business climate that hasn’t been healthy in a long time.

It’s a sad day in Grand Rapids.

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This is just something for future reference. You know, just in case.

[Via Engadget]

I was wrong; housing in Ann Arbor is affordable. Just look at this chart from Consumer Reports. Ann Arbor gets a “Fair Value” rating, with only an 8% differential between what’s affordable and what the market price is.

Oh, except that in the first three quarters of last year, the rate at which prices increased began to accelerate. I wonder where those $224,000 houses are? Not anywhere near downtown, I guarentee.

I’m quickly approaching the parity point on this, but one more. We have cats. Here are pictures on those cats.

Classifying this as Made Me Laugh is actually telling, since this photoshopped image actually does make me laugh when I see it, and I made the damn thing. I’m such a nerd.

So, I’m not an intentional Ludite, but sometimes I’m very, very slow on the uptake. I think it might have something to do with controlled substances in my past, but I don’t like that line of thinking.

Anyway, I finally signed up for a Flickr account. I really don’t have a reason to do so, but it seemed like fun. My first set is up, and oddly enough, I’m advertising for someone else.

…

I don’t know what’s wrong with my thought process on this one, but, enjoy the pictures.

So, J– and I have been looking for a house for about a month now. We’ve learned a few things:

• Basements in this area effin’ blow. Whatever crap some ice flow left in this hole thousands of years ago is begging for the next ice age, just to remove the apparent seventeen miles of clay that comprise the majority of the land.
• Apparently you can repair a foundation/basement that is leaning into the house at roughly a ten-degree angle with some steel rods, steel plates, and enough concrete to anchor a damn bridge.
• Real estate agents (except ours) are a bunch of liars.
• “For sale” on a sign doesn’t actually mean the house is for sale.
• Housing prices are a joke in Ann Arbor. Here’s a for instance. I had friends in Chicago who bought a 1,500 square foot condo in Wrigleyville (the area right around the stadium). They paid ~$300,000. For $40,000 less, you can buy a piece of shit house on Seventh, which, last I checked, wasn’t nearly as fun as Chicago. (see bullet one about basements.)
• Way too many people in this town think pink is a good color. Without exaggeration, we have toured upwards of six homes where one or more rooms had pink as… well, saying it’s a dominate color is an insult to all those colors (like white) that really want to dominate, but just can’t get it together.
• Speaking of paint, we have now seen five shades of green that do not exist in nature, all of them applied to the walls of someone’s bedroom. Even mirrors would be an improvement for those rooms.
• Fuel oil leaking at a rate of one ounce a day will completely saturate a house with its smell within a week.
• No one in this town understands the concept of grading the dirt around the foundation away from said foundation. (see previous two bullets about basements.)
• And tonight’s final lesson: Railroad tracks != good neighbors.

Today almost broke me… we lost the house we wanted. But, we couldn’t just lose it by finding out it was off the market. Oh no. We had to have our agent draw up the papers, set up a time to meet him at the house in question, have him be late (again), only to then tell us that some other dumbass agent had offered that morning, but hadn’t updated the listing. While we’re standing in the driveway of what we’d though up until that moment was going to be our house. Yeah, nice.

I could only hope to do something like this. Some guy (based on the URL, I assume his name is Paul Rademacher), wrote a scraper that maps all the listing from Craiglist with Google Maps. The results are freakin’ amazing.

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