Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra Concert, April 16 at Pease Auditorium

Be there or be square. This is a concert definitely worth going to! From my neighbor, Barbara Zmich, who is an outstanding player and committed Ypsi activist: Head to Pease Auditorium at 8 pm on April 15 for an Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra concert with a special Ypsilanti flavor! Eastern Michigan University professors Willard Zirk, French horn and Joel Schoenhals, piano will solo on Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 1 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Willard played principal horn with the A²SO for 24 years and will retire after this concert—don’t miss this opportunity to hear him now! The talented Ypsilanti High School Brass prepared by director Matthew Kazmierski will open the concert with a fanfare. Reserved seats for Intersection: The A²SO in Ypsilanti are $16. General admission tickets are $11 (or $6 for seniors, students and children). Tickets are on sale through the EMU box office at 487-2282 or www.emich.edu (click on "news, arts and events" then "purchase tickets here"). Contact amy at amy@a2so.com with any questions.

Busy, busy, busy

I apologize for the lack of recent blogging. I'm just way too busy. Too much going on. So, instead of entertaining you with a new post, this is your big chance to leave one of your own. What's going on in your life? Tell me in a comment, please. Thank you :)

On prostitutes, killings and cover-ups

The "crisis" at EMU was on the 11:00 news last night. Didya' see? As I reflect on the troubles that EMU and Ypsi seem to be struggling with (quite publicly, it appears), I must admit that I'm beginning to detest the sensationalism. As I think back through all the other places I've lived in my lifetime, I can't say that Ypsi is any less safe than any other. In fact, from my personal perspective, and given my personal experiences, it's a lot safer than most of the places I've lived, and it's a darn good place to raise kids. The Motor City I had the pleasure of living near downtown Detroit in the mid 80s, on Ferry Street just off of Cass. I didn't go out much at night then, and after the second time my car was broken into, I simply left it unlocked for anyone to go through whenever they liked. It was cheaper to bring the valuables with me than to pay to have the window fixed each time it was broken. The cockroaches were impressive, too, both the big ones and the gazillions of little ones that would show up now and then, practically begging for a decisive squirt of Raid. The Big Apple When I lived in New York City in '86, my neighborhood was called Hell's Kitchen. Though it is now gentrified, back then we had our friendly neighborhood prostitute working the corner of 48th Street and Eighth Avenue. She'd show up late in the evening, disappear for awhile, come back, disappear and then repeat it all over again the next night. She was a neighborhood fixture. I swear that if one day she didn't show up, my housemates and I probably would have filled out a missing persons report. All the movie theaters in the neighborhood showed porn round the clock. We saw our share of cat-sized rats, had to step over used needles and condoms, and you could pretty much get an addict's controlled substance of choice without a prescription without walking even a block. Each morning, in the basement kitchen of the brownstone I shared with 25 others, the first one up was confronted with the scatter of cockroaches when the light was turned on. The City of Angels In L.A., circa 1990, I once was kept from my apartment due to a serious wildfire in the hills. We'd have earthquakes several times a year, and I should say that you really haven't experienced an earthquake until you've felt the exciting way in which the shaking is magnified in a high rise elevator. Next door to one of my apartments, there was an abandoned house, and sometimes when I would arrive home late at night, my headlights would catch a glimpse of the homeless family that slept in the garage. I also had the unique pleasure of crossing town, right through south central, on the evening the riots began. Though the smoke obscured most of the view, the pungent smell of burning plastic kept me focused as I raced down the freeway at unnervingly high speeds. I had two nights under curfew that week, if I recall correctly. And, after getting a job running a telephone system at a high rise in Burbank, the FBI showed up looking for information about a guy who had a day earlier robbed a gemstone dealer in the lobby of the building, taking over $100K in diamonds. Just a few months earlier, the Treasury Dept. had escorted an accountant out of the suite in handcuffs, calmly stating "No comment" to the reporters who had shown up to film the white collar takedown. The Mile High City When I lived in Denver (12th and Josephine) in the mid 90s, the drug dealers who lived in the basement unit burglarized my apartment, stealing mostly watches and cash, which apparently was all they could carry in addition to my prized electric guitar (the one I spent most of a summer in high school saving to buy). Finally, after the landlady was confronted with used needles and fingerprint reports implicating the friend of the tenant, they were finally evicted. Ypsilanti I've been the victim of no crime here. I see a prostitute now and then, as I drive through certain parts of town. I've seen a few used condoms at odd locations, and a used needle or two. I've seen a couple broken windows in cars. But, frankly, the pictures of fetuses on the median downtown have by far been the worst offense I've had to deal with since I moved here in 2001. Don't get me wrong. The preceding isn't to demonstrate that I've somehow lived a hard life or have more "street" experience than the next guy. 'Cause I haven't, and I don't. And I realize my experiences aren't necessarily typical or average, here or anywhere else. I do believe, though, that sh*t happens. It happens all the time, to good people and bad, in our cities, and the 'burbs, and it will continue to happen well into and beyond the foreseeable future. As much as anyone, I wish we didn't have prostitutes on Michigan at Miles. I wish we didn't have to wonder whether there was a cover up at Eastern. And I'm definitely not into looking the other way when a police officer shoots a drug dealer in the back. But, dare I say, I'm struggling to balance my democratic ideals and belief in the free press and the blogosphere with the intense media focus and implication that the area we live in is unsafe. I don't believe it to be true. This stuff happens every day, in just about every medium sized city in every state in the entire country. Though these problems deserve solutions, I'm not sure nightly coverage on the 11:00 news or daily newspaper stories or hysterical comments on blog posts are likely to move us closer to those solutions. These stories may sell newspapers or ad time, or increase Internet traffic, but they do little else. I, for one, hope that as we continue to be accosted by all this hyped-up coverage and venting over the Internet, we don't lose sight of the wonderful community we choose to call our home. Ypsi is a wonderful place to live, even if its problems sometimes garner more than their fair share of publicity.

What happens in Vegas . . .

is unlike anything that happens anywhere else in the world.

Day before yesterday, it was 70 degrees outside . . .

Visit to Wechter Guitars

Some new billboards have shown up on I-94, on both sides of Paw Paw, MI, which is a route I drive fairly regularly. These billboards portray a guitar's fretboard and headstock jutting out of the ground. They have an 800 number to call for directions. With my curiosity up, that's what I did -- I called the number. Turns out that Wechter Guitars has a factory, an outlet and a distribution hub there. They make some of their guitars there, some are made in China, and all are strung and set up before sale at the Paw Paw factory. I stopped in and standing right inside the door was Abe Wechter, founder, luthier and proprietor of the line. He showed me the guitars they have in stock, let me play them, and told me about their construction and materials. What's interesting about their Pathmaker guitar is that it's underlying concept seems somewhat like the Taylor T5, but at only a fraction of the cost. It has an unusual double-cutaway shape, with a solid bar of wood at the neck joint that makes the joint extremely strong. The electronics that are built in use a condenser microphone, a piezo pickup under the saddle, and a magnetic pickup in the soundhole. You can blend the various pickups with one another for fantastic sounds. To top it off, it's a fabulous sounding acoustic guitar even with no amplification, and it has a thin neck with lower action much closer to that of an electric. The really cool thing is that Wechter sells slightly blemished models at the outlet (the blemishes practically have to be pointed out to detect), so the deals are OUT OF THIS WORLD. I bought a child's guitar, which was made of high quality materials and constructed well, and it cost only $75. I'm thinking that, if the tax refund is big enough, I very well may go back and get one of the Pathmaker acoustic/electric 3000 models, which won a Guitar Player's Pick Award and a Guitar One Award. Here's "Magellan's Warning" played by Patrick Woods, played on a Pathmaker:

Statehouse Republicans choose politics over your child's education

Instead of working toward actually solving our fiscal problems, the airwaves are abuzz this week as business groups and our state Republicans escalate the political fight. We've got the routine rhetoric, and now TV ads, even though there's not an election to be found anywhere this time of year. Our state Republicans have come up with a plan to balance our budget using cuts only. The trouble is, they don't want you to see it. In fact, they want to you to advocate voting down Governor Granholm's plan without the benefit of seeing the Republican plan, even though you won't know what cuts they will be proposing. Obviously, the only reason to keep the plan under wraps is that the Repubs believe a tax hike will be inevitable the moment everyone sees what cuts they want to make. The victims here? Education. Your kids and mine. Mid-year, our school districts were notified that the entire increase in funding we received (keeping less than pace with inflation, mind you) would be taken back retroactively. Then, the message was, maybe half would be taken away. We still don't know what the state is going to do. Wall Street is now threatening a further downgrade in Michigan's credit rating, and tuition at state colleges and universities is all-but-certain to increase for next year. The time for playing politics with our children's futures is over. Our legislators are elected to solve these problems, not to pick fights. I urge you to call your state rep or senator today, and tell them you expect them to solve the problem and to quit playing politics with our state's future right now.

Feelin' [not so] Satisfied

Singer Brad Delp, dead at 55. Band's statement here. And I second everything said on the Bostonist.

Sacrifice begets betrayal

The ceremonial sacrifice of Scooter Libby ended today with a guilty verdict on four of five felony counts. Apparently frightened at the prospect of having a light shined on the pretext for the war in Iraq, the very people who might have saved him never showed up to bear witness. Cheney, Libby's boss and puppetmaster throughout this fiasco, failed to come to his longtime friend's defense. Rove hasn't shown his face in public for some time now. Libby himself never even took the stand. Hence, the three most important people that the jury needed to hear from to substantiate a defense verdict didn't testify. You've got to ask yourself why. I don't think that Libby was afraid of being caught in a web of lies. I think he was worried that his boss would get caught orchestrating a web of lies. I believe that, just as he protected his boss when he lied during the investigation, he chose to protect his boss throughout the trial. With an anemic defense case and a seasoned criminal defense attorney resorting to crying in his closing argument, in hindsight, it now seems obvious that a live, under-oath interrogation of the Vice President would have shown more than just his true colors. It would have inevitably resulted in either his resignation, his felony indictment, or both. Hence, Scooter sacrificed his career as an attorney, his job in the White House, and ultimately will do time to save his boss. Which means that the trial was a charade, a foregone conclusion. And Libby and his 11 lawyers from three firms costing him his life's savings all knew it. They, at the behest of their client, had to follow the script, and do their best (even if it involved intentionally misleading a judge and resorting to cheesy courtroom tactics.) I only hope they send Cheney the bill. That, folks, is loyalty. And it provides a stark contrast to the conduct of Libby's boss, Cheney. Cheney betrayed Wilson and Plame. Cheney betrayed the CIA, and in doing so, he betrayed his country. Rarely is betrayal and selfishness exemplified so articulately as it was today when the verdict was read, Scooter Libby was sacrificed, and shortly thereafter, the White House press briefing was postponed. The abject corruption of the Bush Administration is now bookended on both sides -- on one by a proven pretext for war highlighted by a proven cover-up, and on the other by a scandal at Walter Reed where war vets have languished with poor health care and mountains of paperwork as a reward for their mammoth sacrifices. The question left in my mind is when will the incompetence and corruption end?

Apologies, kind readers, and . . .

. . . by the way, can anyone recommend a good hitman? As you may have noticed, my blog disappeared yesterday. My domain registrar, RegisterFly, has been experiencing a number of difficulties recently. Such as, for example, the types of difficulties one has when one is repeatedly accused of fraud and deceit. Or the kinds of difficulties one has when partners feud, leaving customers in the middle. Or, perhaps, the types of problems that occur when one fails to respond to the legitimate complaints of customers. So, it looks like RegisterFly may be taking a dive here in the coming days or weeks. Regardless, I will be moving my domain names to GoDaddy.com as soon as they are officially unlocked, and as soon as I can get authorization codes from RegisterFly. One troubling aspect of all this is that the problems have been around since midway through last year. However, ICANN did not blow the whistle until recently, and RegisterFly did not draw the attention of anyone with the ability to really get the word out. This does portray a serious weakness in Internet registries, and either the government will have to step up, or ICANN will have to take on additional responsibility and authority to protect the Internet. This stuff is just too important to leave unregulated and in the hands of dipshits like the guys running RegisterFly. Sorry for the inconvenience. The moral of the story? Don't use RegisterFly. They stink. Special thanks to Steve for helping me with the problem, safeguarding my data, and even putting my page up on one of his subdomains for a bit while we worked on fixing the situation. Thank you Steve! See also http://fight-registerfly-fraud.bravehost.com/ (lampooning ICANN and the principal screwups at RegisterFly). And by the way, I do not condone this type of non-productive dressing down of individuals. I merely link to it ;)

If the blog goes down, well, then . . .

You may have noticed that my blog disappeared today. It's no longer on www.trustygetto.com. That's because the registrar of my domain name seems to be about to lose its ICANN accreditation. All my data and content is safe, but you can't see most of it, since the trustygetto name is no longer pointed to my hosting service. It's pointed somewhere else. So, while all my data resides safely on my host (HDL), nobody can actually see it right now. I'm doing what I can to try and maintain control of my domain name, but Registerfly's phone isn't picking up, my support tickets aren't being responded to, and technically, as of today, my domain name has expired, despite the fact that I renewed it twice, both times resulting in a debit of $8.99 from my bank account. You can read more about the fiasco here. So, I'm back on Blogger for now. I hope you found me. I'll send emails out, and hopefully the situation will be resolved sometime in the next 2-3 years.

The fun marathon finally came to an end

Before packing it in and coming home, there was a bit more fun to be had. Above is a nice nighttime shot of Cinderella's Castle taken by my father. One morning, Hannah and I had a chance to go on her first real roller coaster ever. This one was somehow associated with a meteor crashing into the earth, and the signs outside were quite funny, portraying dinosaurs running away from the meteor with frightened looks on their faces. The cool thing about this coaster was that the actual cars didn't just ride the tracks, but they also spun around while zooming down the tracks. Hannah did wonderfully and had a great time. I also got to take the girls and their cousin on the teacup ride, which was especially fun since I got to spin the teacup at astronomical speeds. They loved it! And what is a trip to Disney without a ride on the carousel? There were plenty of chances to hang out and play, like this one in Winnie the Pooh's garden. My father shot a good one of my sister, her daughter, and me and the girls here waiting for a kids' coaster named the Barnstormer. Before leaving, my dad had the great idea to hit an orchard and pick some oranges. Here we are leaving the entrance in search of citrus. I, of course, had to try and get the best ones near the top. And here is the bounty we left with: The oranges, lemons, grapefruits and key limes turned out to be some of the tastiest, juiciest fruit I've ever had. We're still eating the ones we brought home on the plane. It was truly a wonderful trip! I can't wait until next time.