Tuesday, August 31, 2004Open mouth...Insert foot in mouth. Normally I won't edit out entries that may offend someone, however, I'm making an exception. I'd made comments about the poor writing and was just gently pointed out by someone that one of the writers just happened to be the husband of a very very nice person with a daughter a similar age to my son. Considering the few friends I do have (and fewer with children his age), I'd not like to win bitch of the year award just yet. That's what I get for not being able to remember names. At any rate, it appears as if the article was not mangled by him, but rather some editor who can barely claim English as a second language badly throwing two articles by two different people into one. If the editor turns out to be someone I know, I just give up. posted @ 07:15 PM EST [link] What a gay old time! Twice I've written about something in here and both times a few days later, I've been greeted with more helpful information than I can shake a stick at. Maybe I need to next write about that elusive money tree. I admit, it's not nice of me, but I got a bad fit of giggles while reading the article today about Lakewood Park (apparently also known as "Angel Park"). Now, honestly, I was about the furthest thing from popular in high school, so I don't know how a bunch of high school football players like to "gather", but this story just reeks of rotting fish. I'm actually willing to give them the stolen car. It's more likely that they crashed it and created the story out of fear of the wrath of their parents, but I'm willing to be generous. The rest, however, I'm not buying. I can totally see the moron parents in Grosse Pointe reading the article and shaking their heads at their poor children and "Detroit trash". They seem quite willing to buy it all, and more. Perhaps if they'd have spent more time raising their kids and less time worrying about being socialites they'd avoid problems like "stolen cars" and "assaults" in the park. On a slight tangent, there are more similarities between Grosse Pointe and Detroit than anyone around here may care to see. Both have a too large population of "parents" who are too busy with their own lives to raise their kids. Sure, in GP it may be parties and vacations and in Detroit it may be crack and getting knocked up by some guy you hardly know, but it's nice to know they share that common bond in having a child as an obnoxious fashion accessory. posted @ 04:03 PM EST [link] Thursday, August 26, 2004Dogs chasing carsLet it be known I think almost as highly of Geoffrey Fieger as I do of His Royal Highness, Kwame. While I applauded his efforts with Jack Kevorkian's case, he since has shown himself to be little more than another slimy ambulance chasing lawyer. I was highly amused last week when I saw him whoring himself in an add for the Highland Park schools. I was not highly amused when I read today about his latest ambulance chase. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely no fan of doctors who think they are god. (Just don't ask me about vaccinations and natural childbirth, I'll never shut up) On the other hand, I have a severe issue with personal accountability which is what drives me insane about lawsuits such as this one. (cut due to the fact that it's a non-Detroit specific rant, which may offend large portions of people due to my inability to be tactful when sick with a cold) posted by @ 05:32 PM EST [more..] Tuesday, August 24, 2004Hooray for first impressions!Over the years I've made Detroit my home, I've played the part of Susie Q Cheerleader to those who have bashed Detroit for shits and giggles. My efforts, for the most part, had been successful. I am finding, however, that the more someone sees of Detroit, the harder those efforts become. In the hopes of keeping my parents entertained during their weekend visit from South Carolina, we made the obligatory "Look, this is our boat. Look, this is the river. Look, that's a freighter" trip. They ooo'd and ahh'd over the restored wood boats on the canal behind Harbor Island and then we went out into the river. I'd mentioned the lovely trailer park to them in the past, but I hadn't mentioned the abandoned old house (built in 1925) also on the river in between the trailer park and the "Riverfront-Lakewood East Park". The house sits on a fenced in peice of overgrown land, and while the windows are all boarded up, the house clearly used to be absolutely beautiful before it landed up in the hands of the city. While I suspect this house may have been given to the city at the same time as the land making up Ford park was given, finding historical information online proved to be nearly impossible. What happened to it once it was given to Detroit, however, is what happens to so much else the city manages to get. After serving as a community recreation center, it was closed just last year. This, of course, was the suggested action by the same mayor who has a larger At any rate, the 3108 sq ft house (and 155,160 sq ft of land around it - the rest is apparently classified as a different property, owned by the Parks Dept) had a true cash value of $252k in 2002. In a city where they already have a problem keeping up with the "parks" they do consider operational one really has to wonder what is behind allowing this house to become a hazard in the future by hanging on to it. Someone would snap the house up in a heartbeat to renovate it - if not as a private residence, a bed & breakfast type situation would be easily imaginable. A sale would not only mean a bit of extra cash for Kwame's Both times we passed by this house, my parents just shook their heads. I'd be shocked if Detroit was less corrupt than a lot of third-world "corrupt" nations. posted @ 11:07 AM EST [link] Monday, August 16, 2004World Class my AssFor a while, Wayne State University was advertising itself as a "world class university". My attendance at WSU (formerly known as the "Tartars" but I suppose enough people asked why the mascot was a sauce that they changed it to the "Warriors") did not mark the start of my college carrier. I'd already gotten to experience the joys of a private Catholic college in the south and a large, old university in Ireland. Despite the stupidity that existed at "Crapola", absolutely nothing could have even compared to the stupidity at Wayne State. If my department didn't have some of the best teachers, I wouldn't have even bothered. And now 4 classes away from my degree, I'm still halfway wondering why. Because it was imperative that I knew how much funding I could get BEFORE I signed up for a fall class (which are so badly scheduled, the ones I need to take for my degree are all at the same time at night, on the same day) I submitted all of the proper forms in early March. Today, they finally have told me what I will get. It took them almost 5 months to tell me I'd get two crappy loans, and a $1000 scholarship. Take in mind "priority registration" ended in mid-July and if I register in the next registration period in another week or two, they get to charge me another $100. Even though I selected "part time" status on all of the financial aid forms (with a one car family, a 19 month old, and the pathetic Detroit "public transportation", it wouldn't be possible to go full time even if I thought I could handle it) the financial aid apparently is for a full time student. Because the financial aid department apparently hires those who have a single brain cell, I'm not even sure if it would be possible to find out how much of that aid I'd actually get for taking a single course. I'd found a WSU students Livejournal group a few weeks ago seeing if anyone else was having trouble with the financial aid department. Apparently, the stupidity doesn't end there. Those who were planning on living in the dorms were being told they'd get their room assignments/roomate information in mid-late August. Those "world class university" ads need to keep running. Maybe if they run them enough, enough employees will believe it to actually try to act like the school is more than some 3rd rate waste of money. posted @ 10:47 AM EST [link] Friday, August 13, 2004Nothing but timeSeeing a Free Press article on the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Detroit for sale annoyed me. It's no big surprise that so many houses in Detroit sit vacant for years, just left to rot by owners who won't spend the money required for upkeep. Most of these houses have for sale signs out for years. A huge number of these houses could be purchased. And yet they aren't. While Detroit goes through its little flux between a dead city and a city that's perched on the edge of thriving, people with dollar signs in their eyes (and just slightly too much cash to throw around) purchase houses throughout the city in the hopes of re-selling them for a profit. I have nothing against this in theory, until I start seeing morons who are asking way beyond reasonable market price in the hopes that some fool will purchase the property. In the meantime, seeing dollars go out the window when any upkeep is done, these idiots who purchased the houses in the first place do nothing but let the house sit and crumble. A house down the street is suffering from this. The elderly owner sold this tiny house (according to the City of Detroit Assessment page, it's all of 622sq ft) many months ago. The older aluminum siding was replaced by a bad self-install job of plastic siding (portions keep falling down and needing to be put back up). Other than that, it was apparent little to no additional work was done. I seriously doubt the elderly owner had recently stripped the house out and upgraded/improved anything, and in a house built in 1922, unless it was kept in immaculate condition, this probably needed to be done. After the siding job, a for sale sign popped up, complete with asking price on the top. Now, according to the Assessment page, the true cash value in 2002 was $25k. Our house true cash value seemed slightly high to us if we were to sell it, so I have got to believe that the $25k listed is not vastly understated. The new "owner" was wanting $69,000 for this house. A few months later, the price showed that it was reduced to $57,600. What a bargain. In the meanwhile, the garden is overgrown, the siding still falls often, and I can tell that unless this ass gets a reality check, it'll just sit vacant for a few more years until the price they are asking is more in line with reality. While I dislike most of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs, no doubt the owner trying to sell it had the hopes of quickly rising real estate costs and a "name brand" association making him rich. Like so many other houses, this one has apparently been sitting empty for at least 5 years now. While it's in a decent neighbourhood and fairly large in size, it apparently needs quite a bit of work done - apparently there is water damage, the balcony sags, the heating system needs to be completely redone, many aspects have been "improved" to great 1970's fashions, and probably a host of other things need to be redone. The current owner obviously isn't going to spend at least $100k to make these repairs, so the new owner would need to do it all himself. Given the repairs needed and the Assessment page indicating it's value in 2002 was $350k, I'd expect it to be right around that price, possibly even less if the repairs were more extensive. Considering the current owner spent $187k for it, he wouldn't be losing money selling it for a reasonable price. Despite that, this dipshit wants $550,000 for a house that, while being "name brand", probably wouldn't be considered live-able. Unless he's willing to go down quite a bit in price, the way things are heading, it'll be another rotting shell in another decade. By that time, even with the name brand status, no one will want to spend the money required to fix it. posted @ 03:44 PM EST [link] You love me... I'm so proud to have gotten my first ever email about this journal. I'm just happy to have been so boring and "half assed" that it prompted someone with a AOL address to email me. And while honestly, if you have an AOL address in this day and age and send hate mail, you're better off in a chatroom with the name of "mIcHiGaN TeEnS", I will address one issue. Yes, I know there are no pictures. Occasionally I will put up pics of places I speak of, but only of the outside. As much as I love "urban exploration" and abandoned places, I'm going to be the first to admit I'm a pussy, pure and simple. Even if my 19 month old wasn't in the car with me (which he usually is, and I won't even go into what moron would think it would be okay to bring him along with me), no respirator in the world would make me feel secure enough that I hadn't inhaled anything which would end up in my milk and no shower in the world would convince me I didn't have absestos or black mold (or any other gross thing I'd rather not deal with) that would end up on his hands, which would end up in his mouth, nose, and eyes. And as obnoxious as he's been in the past week with his screaming at me for the sake of hearing himself scream, a few cool pictures that other people have already taken are not worth possibly causing damage to him. posted @ 11:33 AM EST [link] Thursday, August 12, 2004Every day is silent and grey...So much of Detroit is absolutely beautiful if you look at it beyond the dirty facade. Many times I've driven on 94 around Chene where a few large houses still sit in various states of decay. While it happens more often in the winter (when a thick fluffy white layer of snow seems to make absolutely everything beautiful) the other day I glanced over and was just blown away by the beauty that still exists. Huge old trees, vines trying to stake their claim for existence, and the remains of grand houses. The distance from the freeway to these houses likely covers a large number of their imperfections, but from that distance, the huge pillars on the front porch look like the sparkling, freshly painted entrance that they must have looked like at one time. I wonder if anyone who used to live in these houses is still around? Even if they were a child when they left, do they still drive by the houses every now and then and think "that's the tree I used to hide behind?" or "that's the porch where I sat on my grandmothers lap while she read to me?". Do they wonder why the current (or more recent past) owners seem to have no sense of history? Do they get sad seeing the houses that were once full of life decay into eventual ruins? It makes me sad, but I probably am not someone who would be able to judge "normal" when it comes to history, even if it's not my own history. posted @ 01:59 PM EST [link] Wednesday, August 4, 2004Ahh, the riverDetroit seems to be one of those cities that can't decide if it wants to try or simply give up completely. This year I first became aware of a total dump that, despite living relatively nearby for almost 5 years, I was oblivious to. Part of my lack of awareness came from the fact that it was set back from any main roads far enough that it wouldn't simply be something you'd come across driving to a destination. This year, however, we purchased an old boat kept in a well off of the Detroit River. In this small section of the river near the lake, one would likely expect to see parks and houses/apartments/overpriced cave dwellings with a river view. There are indeed a few parks. And sandwiched between a park in Grosse Pointe Park and a city of Detroit park is pretty much the first thing seen when entering the river from Lake St Clair. The dump. Made even more astonishing by the overpriced older mansions lining the lake in the various Grosse Pointes. When I first spotted this abandoned trailer park, I was fascinated. (Keep the jokes about a girl from the south and trailer parks to yourself, ha. ha. ha.) Taking up a sizable chunk of riverfront property was a dump of trailers. At one time, it was obvious they'd been lived in due to their even placement on the large lot. It was even obvious at one time people had cared - a few had overgrown remains of flower gardens next to them. A rotting dock on the small canal that lined one side of the lot had an ancient rotting boat tied up to it. This being Detroit, scavengers had hastened up the demise of the trailers. All of the aluminum had been stripped off the sides, leaving in some cases only a wooden frame. A few trailers had obviously been arson victims recently. A few shells of abandoned cars lined the street in front of the lot. From the river side, the frame of a mattress was against the rock wall, the only clearly identifiable piece of trash. From the looks of this place, I thought it had been abandoned since the 80's. Early 90's at the latest, but the utter destruction was amazing. I finally was able to find the name of the place in it's former life - the Lakeside Trailer Court Company. Imagine my surprise when I found out not only had this place not been abandoned since the 80's, it had been abandoned for less than two years. The lot had apparently been looked at for development. While I was unable to find any official word on the matter, apparently after all of the residents (some of who apparently did not pay rent) were kicked out, it was determined that there was some sort of contamination. So there the lot sits, continuing to rot at a most amazing pace. And how Detroit-like - some person with no brains and too much money to throw around (yet not enough to really do anything with) comes by, buys it, kicks everyone out, only then to determine "oppsie" can't make it how the little vision in his head showed, so he'd rather it just rot until it is magically a sparkling clean lot. Even if half of the residents before were not paying rent, at least it was something more visually appealing than the dump that exists now. Only in a city like Detroit would people get away with letting everything go to ruin. And once again, I'd like to go up to Kwame, slap him, and tell him to get the "bling" out of his ass, act his god damned age and do something. posted @ 04:22 PM EST [link] |
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