Umich football alums working on building community gardens

Vincent Smith, Martavious Odoms, and Denard Robinson are working on building community gardens now that they are done playing football. The project started building community gardens in the Greater Miami Area (where Odoms hails from), and now they are building gardens in Southeast Michigan. Via /r/uofm:

Hey Reddit, this is Vincent Smith, yes I got hit by Clowney, and more important we are working to bring community gardens as a project after playing football.

The idea was to network with Alumni to do great things with our football fame and success. So I am posting to get suggestions on how to grow more and invite everyone to make suggestions so we can get bigger and better.

Right now we are just starting and we have one garden up and are working on getting another here in Michigan.

We want to let people know about what we are doing, and also to let you know that we will be around this fall in town and we are set up in the old Le Dog on Liberty with some tshirts and are telling you because reddit helped us get our start with our project (called the #EATING project). So if you want to hang out or say whats up or bring your kids to play catch come on by. I will also be around for tailgating.

Tl;Dr We played football for Michigan, now we plant gardens. Help us if you have ideas of time.

Pretty cool.

Kind words on Michigan Beer from Thrillist

Thrillist has just ranked Michigan as the 4th best beer state. Notably, Michigan is the only state in the top 5 east of the Mississippi. Here's what they had to say:

Beer in Michigan is a way of life, an economic booster that’s helping Detroit pull out of the apocalypse and a soul cleanser up in the UP, where long winters are made better with a growler from Ore Dock. And if that’s not convincing enough, consider this: in Ann Arbor and East Lansing, when the chaos of a tailgate clears, you’ll see as many empty bottles of craft beer scattered about as you will tallboys with holes punched in the side. In Michigan, beer love starts early.

More buses are here

Gentle readers, remember the transit millage vote back in May? Well because the millage passed, the AAATA is expanding service starting yesterday. If you are as excited as I am, you can come celebrate with Partners in Transit tonight at the Ypsilanti Ladies’ Literary Club, tonight at 5 PM. The event goes until 7pm and features food, beverages and live music.

DIYpsi this weekend at Corner Brewery

DIYpsi is tomorrow and Sunday at Corner Brewery. Check out the yarn-bombed trees on the poster. That's how you know it'll be cool.

Nerd Nite tonight

Nerd Nite is tonight and it's free (thanks AADL). You should totally check it out. Hurry though, it starts in just 45 minutes.

Shedgate update

Via Michigan Radio. 

The Grosse Pointe Park and Detroit have come to an agreement regarding the controversial Farmers Market sheds GPP built in the middle of Kerchival. According to Michigan Radio, GPP will remove the sheds and both cities will work to remove blight around the Farmers Market. 

Vote for Sister Pie on Hatch Detroit

Our good friends over at Sister Pie are one of the four finalists for Hatch Detroit's funding competition. If you feel inclined to throw them some love, head on over to Hatch and give them a vote. You can vote once per day until the end of the competition. In other Sister Pie news, there was a great interview with head baker and elder sister, Lisa over on the Metro Times.

Hoopin' at the AADL

The Ann Arbor District Library is gettin' all hip, you guys. They're having a hula hooping meet up called - get this - Hula Hoopla. I finally know the name of my future son's third birthday party (um quick PSA for the fiancé: not pregs, I just like plannin' party themes, y'all!).

The event is for all ages except for babies because babies can barely figure out standing, so this would just be cruel. It's tomorrow night from 7-8 p.m. at the Mallett Creek branch of the AADL. You should probably go if you ever wanna be as cool as the hula hooping lady in the "Happy" video.

Thanks to Tony Fischer for the phot.

Motor City Tap Fest

Today is the last day of Motor City Tap Fest, four days of tap classes and performances with internationally renowned dancers and choreographers (including Chloe Arnold from Syncopated Ladies, as featured on So You Think You Can Dance, clip below). The festival is the brainchild of metro Detroit native and former Rockette Denise Caston, and it culminates tonight with Motor City Soles at Orchestra Hall, featuring performances from the esteemed faculty of MCTF and Detroit Tap Repertory. Tickets available here.

Sidenote: yesterday I was fitted for my first pair of Miller and Ben tap shoes by Ofer Ben, who will be performing tonight at Motor City Soles. It was...pretty cool.

Ypsilanti Heritage Festival

If you come to Ypsilanti in the next couple days, check out the heritage festival. Taking over frog island and depot town, the festival will last till Sunday with food, music and good tidings. 

Bezonki Awards - August 15, 2014

The Ann Arbor Chronicle's annual Bezonki Awards are tonight, August 15, 2014, at 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Zingerman's Events in Kerrytown (the former eve and Kerrytown Bistro space).

Bezonki is the inscrutable and inimitable cartoon that has run in the Chronicle for a number of years, painted by Alvey Jones. The awards ceremonies recognize exceptional individuals in the community, as seen through the eyes of the Chronicle.

The Chronicle itself is coming to an end in September 2014 after a 6 year run, so this may be the final round of Bezonki Awards. Their note to that effect:

Note: The annual Bezonki award festivities will still take place – on Friday, Aug. 15  – and you’re invited. The open house will run from 6-8 p.m. at Zingerman’s Events on Fourth in Kerrytown. There will be teeter-tottering and general merriment. Publisher Mary Morgan will follow up with a final word on Sept. 2, after the city council meeting ends. That will be our final report filed from the hard benches of city hall.

Penny Stamps 2014 fall schedule

The program for the free Fall 2014 Penny Stamps lecture series has been published. All events are on Thursdays at 5:10 p.m. at the Michigan Theater unless noted.

September 11, 2014: Anna Deavere Smith
September 18, 2014: Pussy Riot
September 25, 2014: Rei Inamoto

October 2, 2014: Fred Tomaselli
October 9, 2014: Phil Gilbert, IBM
October 16, 2014: FoodCorps - Ian Cheney & Kurt Ellis
Friday, October 17, 2014: Amie Siegel & Kathleen Forde, 5:30 p.m. at the Helmut Stern Auditorium
October 23, 2014: Random International
October 30, 2014: Ryoji Ikeda

November 6, 2014: Inta Ruka
November 13, 2014: Anab Jain, Superflux
November 20, 2014: Françoise Mouly

December 4, 2014: Seth Ellis

Follow the @UM_Stamps Twitter account for updates.

All good things...

The Ann Arbor Chronicle has just announced that they will be winding down their coverage of local politics on September 2th. I'm sad that we will be losing their incredible coverage. That said, I understand the decision. The amount of effort it takes to cover so many public meeting every week is tremendous. I'll probably have more to write about this later.

REA, my favorite sticker artist in Ann Arbor

I've been seeing a lot of stickers signed by REA recently. I like the way they depict peoples faces, especially on these cubist influenced stickers.

Gentle reader, have you seen any stickers by REA around town?

Election results

Early results are in for the races in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Per the Chronicle:

Ward 1: 10 of 10 precincts informally reported, including absentee ballots: Adams has received 840 (43%) of the votes to Kailasapathy's 1113 (56.9%).

Ward 2: 6 out of 9 precincts informally reported, including absentee ballots: Kaplan has received 1146 votes (42.1%) to Westphal's has received 1571 votes (57.8%).

Ward 3: 4 of 9 precincts informally reporting, including absentee ballots: Dascola has received 572 votes (27.3%), Grand has received 1126 votes (53.8%) and McMullen has received 394 votes (18.8%). In Ann Arbor Mayoral's race: 32 of 48 precincts informally reporting, and 7 of 7 absent voter count boards reporting in, Briere has received 2411 votes (20.1%), Kunselman has received 1931 votes (16.1%) Petersen has received 1830 votes (15.3%), and Taylor has received 5785 votes (48.3%).

We are also receiving reports that Pete Murdock has conceded to Amanda Edmonds in Ypslilanti's mayoral race.

Polls open, smear fliers have delivered

Gentle Readers, the polls are open and will stay open until 8 pm. Today voters in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor will be selecting a candidate who in all likelihood will be the next mayor. Please vote.

EJ and I awoke to find someone had left an anonymous flier smearing Ypsilanti mayoral candidate Amanda Edmonds. The flier specifically criticizes the fact that Edmonds has taken donations from former Ypsilanti Mayor, Cheryl Farmer and local landlord/developer Stewart Beal. It ends with the ominous question: "Ypsilanti doesn't need a mayor with ties like these?" Spooky.

Ann Arborites, are you seeing any dirty tactics over there in western Washtenaw County? Have you noticed many web and/or Facebook ads for candidates? This primary election is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of campaign 2.0 tactics for local elections.

There's an election tomorrow, make sure you vote

Gentle Readers, tomorrow August 5th is a very important election in both Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. Because both municipalities have been so democratic leaning recently and because they have partied city councils and mayors, the winner of the November General Election is often decided by the August Primary. There are contested mayoral races in both cities and Ann Arbor has contested council races in Wards 1, 2 and 3. MarkMaynard.com has a video of the Ypsilanti Mayoral Candidates at a debate forma a few weeks back here. The Chronicle has good links to all their coverage of the Ann Arbor races and also the 22nd and Probate Court races.

Make sure you check out those resources and plan tomorrow's trip to your polling place tonight!