freeform goodness

It was 80F warmer where I was vacationing… Here comes an army of Black Santas to warm us up, though, courtesy of Mom.

:: Dave Walker 23:26 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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The park down the street from our house has a miniature railroad that runs the first weekend of the month from spring through fall.

It even has electrically operated switches with signal lights.

:: Dave Walker 13:46 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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Here in Michigan we have two people running for governor — the incumbent, Jennifer Granholm (D) and the challenger, Dick Devos (R).

Granholm’s been having a bit of a tough time in her bid to be re-elected. In the view of many, Michigan’s economy has been underperforming, and the state legislature (both houses) is held by the opposing party.

Her challenger, Richard “Dick” DeVos (yes, an adult male named Richard who encourages people to call him Dick, sigh…) has been a tough competitor — the scion of one of the state’s wealthiest families who has been able to personally fund a long media campaign.

The source of that wealth, though, may be the thing that ends up dooming him. Richard DeVos, you see, is an Amway salesman, and anyone who has ever had the misfortune of being ambushed by a long-forgotten high-school classmate or confused cow-orker wielding a four-color brochure and some dubious cleaning products will tell you the last thing you ever want to do is to let one of those #@!*ers into the house. Keep ‘em on the front porch and make sure you mention a convenient pre-existing appointment starting 15 minutes after they start their script. You’ll all thank me later. That goes double for you, Michigan.

:: Dave Walker 08:21 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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Randy Morin is floating the idea of a 1-day technology camp in southern Ontario. Depending on interest, it might be a great opportunity to bring together techies and bloggers working along the Toronto-Windsor-Detroit-Ann Arbor axis for a day of brainstorming (and barbecue and beer, of course…) Sounds good to me.

:: Dave Walker 11:58 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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I just love the line “most likely non-toxic” (emphasis added). (link)

:: Dave Walker 10:43 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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Looks like we got about 7 inches in our neighborhood. It was quite pretty when I was shoveling the walk and stairs — I was out there just about at sunrise, so I got some “magic hour” oranges and purples playing across the snow. I was too lazy to go back into the house and grab the camera, so you’ll just have to trust me on that, though.

:: Dave Walker 10:14 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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We’re firmly in hot cocoa season. The dogs don’t even like staying outside for longer than it takes to cop a squat.

:: Dave Walker 13:01 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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I figure I ought to post something here before people’s “this feed never gets updated so unsubscribe from his silly crap” scripts start kicking in.

Tammie and I visited the (insert integer here)th annual Tastefest yesterday. They’ve been having it for years, but this was the first time I’ve ever been.

It takes place in the so-called “New Center” area of Detroit, which is a district which would probably be called “midtown” in most cities (Downtown is actually flush against the Detroit River, hence right on the Canadian border.) The Wayne State University campus, the Fisher Building (a truly classic bit of architecture that was once General Motors’ headquarters, and now houses many of the city government departments), and several museums 1 2 3, and a lot of really nice homes built during the first half of the 20th century.

Basically, the idea of the Tastefest is that you buy food and drink tickets, then walk around sampling the wares of various local restaurants. Of course, there’s not just food booths. There are several musical stages, art and cultural exhibits, crafts booths, and the like as well. All in all, then, it’s a nice way to spend a sunny day on a holiday weekend.

Musically, it would have been nice to see Solvent or Electric Six or Los Lobos or team dorkwave, but we couldn’t quite swing it.

It seems that there weren’t enough of the food vendors offering “tastes” — most were pushing larger portions which demanded a proportionally larger portion of our ticket allotment. Food tickets were 10 for $6, so we ended up spending $50 on food (and could have spent much more, honestly, as the heat meant we wanted/needed lots of drinks) for two people.

Still, though, I have to say I’m looking forward to coming back next year.

:: Dave Walker 14:46 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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:: Dave Walker 09:57 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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My Christmas break started a day earlier than expected. I have a 30-mile commute and decided that the office could survive without me today…

This one goes out to my parents, living in Florida.

Midwestern pre-Christmas snowstorm. I took a few snaps before and after shoveling. I finally put my Flickr account to positive use, too.

:: Dave Walker 14:26 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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