Back in the Old Neighborhood

Went back to this spot and took a shot when the plant life in this weird area was green. Metroblossom was in town and I was showing him around to some of my favorite places, and he snapped a shot of me while I was up on the hill:



Credit for photo #2: metroblossom

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Uniroyal Ruins

There's hardly anything left of the old Uniroyal plant on Jefferson just across the bridge from Belle Isle. They are currently doing a massive environmental cleanup there (50-gallon drums of sludge dated 4/2009 all over the place) in order to extend the riverwalk all the way to the island.

The shocking pollution at the site does not deter people from fishing all along the shore there, where 25-year-old scrubby trees and dense brush can make you forget you're in the middle of a massive city.

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Peacock pie, gumballs and cheese wigs

The Detroit Institute of Arts has this movie of an eighteenth-century French meal prepared using the silver serving dishes and china on display in the room, and they project it onto a white table where you can pull up a Louis XVI chair and pretend you're dining with the creepy French guys talking as the servants set out the food. It's almost as boring as the scenes in Dangerous Liaisons without boobs.

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A Week of Adventures

Okay, I don't want to write too much about the new bike and be all annoying about the new bike. But my God we've been having fun with it. I feel like a little kid. I think about it when I'm not in the room with it. When I am my wife catches me staring at it. So I have been restraining myself trying not to write about it. And that means writing about nothing at all.

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Gram at Fifteen Months

There have been a lot of big changes in the last month, most notably WORDS. It took him a bit longer than his sister to start talking, but he's really making up for lost time. One word he still doesn't say is his sister's name (or any approximation of it). Instead, he uses this sign that he made up for her, I think because she kisses him so much on the cheeks.

On the bike ride to school, when she's not on the bike chattering with us, he pokes his cheeks and looks at me to ask where she is. Whenever he's away from her, this is what he's doing.

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The Grand Opening of the Dequindre Cut

Even though we've been using it regularly for well over a year, the Dequindre Cut, an old railway line that used to be wilderness and is now a safe, well-lighted bike path that goes under the busy streets just had its official opening. There were hundreds of people, two high school bands, several elementary schools, dancers, and free food. We rode up and down the cut a dozen times. It was awesome.

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A Finger in Want of a Dijk

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Tulip Time 2009

We've just returned from a weekend trip to the west side of Michigan that involved substantial time with our kids dressed as nineteenth-century Dutch peasants. I'm still sifting through the 500 photos I took of all that adorableness and should have the second annual mocking my own heritage post up soon.

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Untitled

Watching this man slowly wheel his chair through one of the more industrial and desolate parts of the city and past the old Grand Trunk Railroad warehouse was one of the most gut-wrenching things I've seen in a long time. I couldn't imagine where he was headed. I hope he got there.

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Eastern Market in May

The guy in the turban is one of my favorite regulars that we see at the market every week. For all I know he could be a member of some militant mystic black separatist militia or something, but whatever it is I'm sure it's awesome. He's always wearing some form of jumpsuit (not always camouflage) and he's usually with a couple kids. God I love the market.

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That must have been one hell of an eviction party

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