I dunno... a petting farm-themed bus might help increase ridership. All those people recording it with their phones...looks like great free advertising for the bus service.
If folks feel baaaad about it, they should just let it goat.
Bwahahaha! Look at this old map of the Great Lakes from 1792 from the Yale University Library:
Apparently, it was made from descriptions given the the mapmaker, and is actually more focused on Hudson Bay. Full map is at the link. It's funny to see how they just gave up once they got south of the bay. lol
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I never heard or saw the Lake 'Frontenoe' reference before (where Lake Ontario is). Wikipedia tells me that "Lake Frontenac was a proglacial lake in the basin of what is now Lake Ontario." So maybe that's a variation on that spelling. Kinda interesting.
TROY, MI - She is officially an officer of the "paw." Pawfficer Donut has been sworn in as the new Troy Police Department's Police cat. Judges Kirsten Nielsen Hartig and Maureen McGinnis asked Donut to raise her right paw and officially swore her in, badge and all, at the Troy Police Department with other officers and even Chief Gary Mayer looking on. This all began in March when the Troy Police Department put out a challenge on Twitter saying it would get a police cat if it received 10,000 followers by April. It reached its goal weeks early...
So not only does the kitten not to get to keep the office company, but it can't even stay with the officer taking care of it. They had to put Badges up for adoption because the officer has other cats and apparently feline leukemia is contagious. I had no idea.
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Took my dad to Grand Haven on Father's Day and on the way back we stopped at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids. What a wonderful day. 85 degrees right on the lake, while it was about 10 degrees hotter not that far inland.
Ford Presidential Museum was way more interesting than I thought it was going to be, and it's eerie looking and watching some of the exhibits how much history is repeating itself. BTW, guy in the picture with the gate and the fog signal house behind it in the distance was trying to get around the gate on the outside with the waves being pretty strong that day. His son almost lost his father.
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I assume after they tore up that end of the pier for repair. The guy is sort of end the way, but it looks like they are tearing up and repouring certain sections of the pier.
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My wife and I have been trying to buy a new (our first) house in Kalamazoo, and it has been very tough! The market is so incredibly competitive here right now. The good ones are swept up in a matter of days, or hours, and if you want to get in on it, you basically have to be prepared to get into a bidding war with multiple other prospective buyers.
We have been in this process for over a year now. We searched hard last summer / fall, had two offers fall through, and then ended up renewing our lease on our current rental, putting things kinda on hold. Now that lease is up at end of August again. We like our current townhouse, but we don't want to renew again (at this point in life, I am growing weary of seeing so much of our income disappear each month).
Having good credit and a pre-approval offer is no advantage right now. Pretty much the only guaranteed way to get the house you want is to get it before it goes public. I hear it is even tougher near Grand Rapids.
That said, with all of this demand, it really surprises me how low the prices are for some quality homes (talking 120K to 150K) and also that there is not more residential development happening in the city and surrounding communities.
We have a pending offer in right now, and are waiting to hear if it is accepted this morning...sips coffee...hits refresh...sips coffee...repeat....
Is the housing market this hot throughout the entire midwest?
Have any Chicago folk read the short story collection The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek? (https://books.google.com/books?id=NvSUycqgrnEC)
It's a book recommended by the author George Saunders (Pastoralia, Lincoln in the Bardo). Looks interesting, hadn't heard of it before.
LANSING — Michigan pensioners get a little boost every time Ariana Grande's chart-topping song "7 Rings" hits the airwaves.
That's good news for the more than 530,000 people tied to the state's pension programs, most of which are not fully funded.
There isn't a direct line between "7 Rings" to pensioners' pockets, but it's pretty close.
Here's the connection: In the song, Grande puts a feminist spin on The Sound of Music's "My Favorite Things" by boasting about her ability to buy herself all of her favorite things. (While the musical's characters cherished brown paper packages tied up with strings, Grande prefers lashes and diamonds, ATM machines.)
"7 Rings" is at the top of the Billboard charts. It gets played a lot. Every time it does, 90% of the songwriting royalties go to the duo behind The Sound of Music, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the music website Pitchfork reported.
A company called Concord Music acquired the copyrights to Rodgers and Hammerstein's collection.
Can you guess who owns the majority of Concord Music?
Michigan. Specifically, Michigan's pension funds. (thank u, Ariana Grande.)
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-- “We heal each other with kindness, gentleness and respect.” -- Richard Wagamese
-- “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” -- Dr. Seuss