Leelanau Whippersnapper

Well it’s been a little while since I’ve written.  What can I say, this is the busy season at work right now.  OK, I’ve also had the house to myself and have had nothing to bitch about on that front.  Anyhow, I was explaining to an old friend today that we’ve made the transition from red-neck-ville to I’m-better-than-you-ville.  Believe it or not, I like the second one better than the first.  Finally, people shopping who wear all their clothes and who have all their teeth.  They snap, whistle, and whip hostilities through the air but at least I can’t smell them coming a mile away!!!  I’ll trade arragonce for meth-head stupidity any day.  To say the last work has been CRAZY busy.  Sad thing is, it’s only 3/4 as busy as it was this time last year.  With gas now at a whopping $4.12 a gallon out here in Leelanau, NOBODY is going anywhere unless they have to.  I spend a good 1/3 of my day on the phone with people who are price shopping becuase they only want to drive to one place to get their shit.  You know, I hate gas prices too but Jesus Christ, I don’t sit at home all day and make phone calls to plan my shopping visits.   I don’t know, I, being a good little consumer, just know where to shop and how to shop.  Guess that comes from working in retail.  Maybe it comes from being gay.

The personal life has been interesting lately.  Seems I’ve been the only one lately with his shit together.  Whether it’s regarding money or regarding what to do with my life, I got it going on right now and I’m pretty darn happy with my life.  I’m not real happy with some of the things that have gone on in the past year but you know what, I’ll survive and I’ll get over my sorrow about some of the things and people I’ve lost and I’ll move on.  There is a HUGE difference in how I am dealing with this vs. how I might have dealt with it 10 years ago.  I’m a much happier person now than I was then.  I’m also much more sure of myself and my position in life.  I guess that comes with age.  I had my “mid-life” crisis when I was in my early 20’s.  I got it out of the way really fucking early.  I’m glad too becuase it’s a LOT easier to enjoy life when you are not carrying around so much fucking angst.

OK, that’s it for now.  I’ve got to get some other things done tonight.  I’ll leave you with another random picture.

Here in Leelanau, there is only 1 sure way to know that spring has arrived.  Cherry Blossoms.  The sweet cherry trees are in full bloom up here right now and I was fortunate today to have an awesome day off to take some pictures.  Be sure to visit the new gallery on leelanauphotography.com for the full spread.  I spent the day today driving around Leelanau taking pictures and then the rest of my day at the cottage sitting on the deck enjoying cool breeze of spring.

Got a lot on my mind right now, can’t put much of it on this blog.  I’m ready to get out of this house and get on with my life.  Amazing how difficult that concept has been lately.  Anyhow, stay tuned, I may try to push my landlord to allow me out of my lease early.  If not, I’m sure I can tolerate living out here until August but with gas prices now at a new high (it was $4.09 in Maple City today…the highest price in the county) it’s becomming VERY expensive to commute 60 miles a day.  I am slowing weeding through shit.  In fact, when I’m doing writing this, I’m going to clean out another closet and try to see what I can get rid of.  I’ve kept a bunch of things hoping that I could eventually sell them on eBay.  Well, that’s just not going to happen.  I don’t have time right now to fuck with it.  Oh well, someone shopping at Good Will might appreciate getting a good deal of a lot of this crap.  One man’s junk is another mans treasure I guess.

Meijer was in the news here today.  They were fined something like $189,000 for breaking campaign finance rules set by the state of Michigan.  Serves them right.  I have a big problem with what Meijer tried to do (influence an election and subsequent recall of a township board that opposed Meijer’s plans to build a new store) and I absolutely agree with the price they are paying for breaking the law.  HOWEVER, I also sympathize with Meijer.  First, they own the property where they wanted to build a new store in Acme Township (outside of Traverse City).  They have for years.  Second, this area has clearly demonstrated OVER AND OVER again that another store like Meijer is not only needed but BADLY needed.  The Traverse City Meijer is one of the busiest stores in the entire company, the volume they do is crazy!  People come to shop at that Meijer from ALL OVER Northern Michigan.  Certianly Meijer is IN BUSINESS TO MAKE MONEY and another store would help them achieve that goal.  It is the desire and purpose of ALL retail businesses to MAKE MONEY (that is a concept too many people always seem to forget).  Acme Township was an ideal location because it was conveniently located on the opposite end of town from the existing Meijer.  The problem was that certain factions in the community did not want a big box store to come in a “spoil” the charm of their little community.  Never mind that Meijer was bending over backwards to design a store that would “fit in” to the landscape.  OK, here is where I have the problem.  Acme is a SUBURB of Traverse City.  It is not some little village in the middle of nowhere, it nearly bursts at the seams in the summer with a population that easily doubles or triples in size with tourists and summer residents who ALL come here from big cities down state and who ALL shop at Meijer downstate.  Acme (along with Traverse City) HORRIBLY under serves it’s residents by preventing business operations that people CLEARLY want (via zoning and exceptionally poor planning).  If people hated Meijer so much, why do people travel from ALL OVER NORTHERN MICHIGAN to shop there???????  Here is my suggestion:  I think Meijer should shut down their Traverse City operations entirely and pull right on out of here.  Their new Petoskey store will serve the area.  For a good year or two people will have to shop at Tom’s and Glens (or drive 80 miles north to Petoskey) and people will have to pay substantially more for their groceries than they would have at Meijer.  People will get sick of that shit really fast.  THEN, Zoning laws will be changed to allow Walmart to move in with their Super Center (since they will play the political game right and kiss lots of ass).  Once Walmart is in they will DEVASTATE the Mom and Pop shops that had been doing decent business since Meijer left.  People will shop at Walmart since it’s their only option to save money on commodities that they need to have in order to survive. (Come on folks, follow the history of what happens when Walmart comes to town).  Tom’s, Glen’s, and Olsen’s and the other tiny stores will all go out of business leaving only Walmart and then Traverse City can become another sleazy, run down,  middle American town with nothing to offer but a huge walmart store and a pretty view of the bay.  None of the smaller businesses will have any reason to exist since everyone can get what they want from Walmart….DO YOU SEE WHERE I’M GOING WITH THIS??????

Grow the fuck up Acme Township. Why do people in this area kick themselves in the ass over and over???  Get over the fact that GROWTH HAPPENS, in 20 years you WILL have some sort of Super Center in your “little village”.  Look, I like the fact that it’s quiet up here but I hate the fact that people are so fucking stubborn.  There is growth and then there is SMART GROWTH.  Why is the latter so fucking difficult for you all to figure out????  This is why I’m not in Politics.  I would offend too many people becuase I am too black and white.  This issue is clear cut in my mind and I don’t understand why other people can’t follow the logic.  I don’t care about your emotions, I care about your ability to think about things reasonably and deliberately.  Here is the question that Acme needs to answer which through this ENTIRE thing they have failed to answer (hell they haven’t even figured out how to ask it yet):  If you will not allow Meijer (or whatever other big box store) in to your community than WHO WILL YOU ALLOW AND WHY WILL YOU ALLOW THEM AND NOT OTHERS??? That is the question they have ALL failed to answer.  When and IF Acme Township can answer that question they will start on an appropriate SMART GROWTH path.  Until then, they will fight many more of these battles.

I’m a couple days late writing about it here but Dad and I got the dock in this past week.  The spring ritual was met with few problems, brand new waders for both of us so nobody got wet this year (thank God) and when it was done it was actually pretty straight.  I am hoping that this year will be the year that we finally put that last section of dock to use by getting some hardware and making an “L” at the end.  I think it would really increase the usable space and make it look pretty cool.  No idea on what it would cost though or how we could accomplish it since we would have to retro-fit that section to the old dock.  Next project is getting the boat in the water…hopefully we can get that done before the end of May this year.  Looks like I will have Memorial Day Weekend off this year.  That’s a first in several that I have not had to work.

Here’s a classic shot of the lake studs.

has Sprung!  It was 74 here today and sunny all day long.  Windy as hell though.  I got outside this afternoon and did some yard work.  There is just so much to be done and I don’t have much motivation to do any of it…not like I used to.  I need to get it cleaned up though, I can’t leave this house at the end of the summer in any worse shape than I found it.  That means a little work has to be done.

Don’t have much else to say right now, I’ve provoked outrage from certain people regarding some blog posts I’ve made here.  I will admit that it’s not really fair for me to make comments about people who are not given the opportunity to defend themselves outright.  At the same time, my life, my choices.  I am only obligated to respect one person right now and that is me.  I will however choose to back down for a while.

I Get Along

I’m on a Pet Shop Boys kick lately.  I have always liked them.  I can remember sitting on the tour bus at the boychoir school listening to them with headphones on.  A sure sign of a gay boy, nobody else would listen to them.  Oh well, I like my taste in music.  It keeps my life interesting.

This picture just killed me, I had to post it.  No prudes here.  For those of you who don’t know:

OMG = OH MY GOD

WTF = WHAT THE FUCK!