Tag: Romeo

  • A horrible yet honorable story

    I recognize that the news is never going to cover this story. So here’s it’s shot at getting out there. I received this email from a person in our community today. Most people would know her as a protagonist. I know her as someone with a deep sense of justice for our schools and the people in her life.

    So here is her story from today. I think you’ll like it.

    I want to tell you about a horrible incident that happened to me today….somewhere there is a lesson to be learned in this story, so please bear with me:

    I pulled into the Meijer parking lot on 26 and Van Dyke to buy some cough syrup for my daughter and a few cans of cat food.  While I was getting my coupons out (gotta love those coupons!), I sat in my car with the car engine off.  A man was exiting his car one spot over directly across from me.  While he was exiting his vehicle, an older woman attempted to pull into the spot directly across from me next to the man exiting his vehicle.  He quickly closed his door and waited for her to pull in….she almost hit his car, she was within inches of his vehicle sideways.

    He opened his door and began yelling at the lady (I later found out her name) and telling her to back out before she hit him.  She didn’t move…he kept yelling.  I got out of my car and said to the dude, ‘why don’t you try to help her instead of yelling at her?’ and I walked up to the lady…she was a senior citizen who was shaking with her hands on the steering wheel.  I asked her if she was okay, and she said the guy was scaring her and she turned off her car because the steering wheel locked up.  I asked her if she would restart the car and I would help her unlock the steering wheel and get the car into the parking space.

    She was visibly upset, shaking and staring at the man who was out of his car by this time and yelling every profanity you can imagine, not only at her, but at me for being a ‘do gooder’ (and that was the nicest thing he said, believe me…his language was worse than a sailor, much worse than anything that I have ever hear from any human being in my lifetime and for those of you that know me, that’s pretty bad!).

    When she restarted her engine, the guy got of his car and got in between her car and his – literally inches.  I asked him to move and he said no, she was going to hit his car and I explained to him that if her car jerked forward she would take off his kneecaps and he said good then he could sue her sorry old ass and get her inheritance!  He did move and leaned against his car mocking her as she tried to get the car moved into the space, which she did successfully shaking and in tears!

    Once out of harms way, he hailed a stream of profanity at both her and I, going off on how how old people shouldn’t be driving and she should have her keys taken away from her…he began to walk away and I called him back to apologize to the lady and to me.  He told me to &()@ myself, asked what kind of C*&@ helps old people and to mind my own business!!!! I told him to return so I could call the police and he said for what…thank goodness the Meijers security guards were watching this all on their in-store cameras and came out to assist!

    I called the police… she was in her car visibly shaken and they arrived while the guy was still spewing his horrible language.  The police asked what was going on; I told them my version, she told them her version and the Meijers security told them what they had seen and then heard in the parking lot once they were on scene.  The police officer then talked to the dude…they did a breathalyser on him and arrested him for DUI and disorderly conduct and hailed his ass off to jail!

    The victim and I drove down to the police department to file witness reports while they were towing his car away and when I arrived at the police station the guy was still going at me and her for being every female word you can think of that is not positive!  The victim is 87 years old, her husband passed away 35 years ago and she prays everyday that she will not harm anyone, even if she goes for a walk, with her mouth or her actions (I need to learn alot from Geraldine!).  The dude is 75 years old…spewing that old people shouldn’t be driving!!!!

    He was slammed with a DUI and a disorderly in public charge, locked up for 12/24 hours and I also asked to have another charge brought against him for harassment of me and Geraldine.  The statute is VERBAL SEXUAL HARASSMENT and SWEARING IN A PUBLIC VENUE.  We are both going to appear in court in June when he is charged, but at least he is locked up tonight for awhile anyway.  The officer told me that the dude has a previous criminal history, he could not say what it was for confidentiality reasons, but the guy has been in trouble before…lovely eh?

    I drove her back to her car, we did our grocery shopping together and we sat in the food court until I could get in touch with her son, who assured me he would come by tonight and check on his mom…he already called to tell me he checked on her on his way home and she is still flustered, but doing okay!

    I warn my kids everyday to watch out for the lunatics and I thank my lucky stars that I was there when this all took place with her.  I could only picture my daughter or my mother being harassed by the dude, and my heart broke!  How could anyone stand by and watch a defenseless old woman be harassed by a dude so disrespectfully?

    We all need tolerance, patience and empathy….this victim is now my friend…I called her tonight to make sure she is okay and we are having lunch next week…I need to learn alot from her….please take the time with older people, have the patience with the young and the old cause we all will be there one day (hopefully!).

  • Plumbing Fun!

    plumberThe last couple of weeks we had some water in our basement. Not altogether unusual for a 140 year old house, but enough to be concerned about. Yesterday, our plumber friend came over to have a look at it. He ran his massive snake machine all over the place and that didn’t clear out the problem. (Though he did get rid of some pesky roots from our 100 foot tall sycamore in the front yard.)

    So he did a little digging (literally) and discover the source of the problem. There is a key elbow where the new PVC piping linked up with the ancient clay piping. The actual elbow was completely gone. All that was there was an elbow of soil which somehow managed to get most of the waste water down the drain while leaving some of it under our house. Yuck.

    Long story short, he’ll be back today to finalize the job.  He’ll be re-routing some of our drains and fixing a few other mistakes the previous owner made. All told, it could have been a lot worse. It’s bad… but when you live in an old house like this… there are going to be a lot of previous owner mistakes to undo to get stuff done right by the pros.

  • God of this City | Door Hangers

    Door hangingToday, Bob and I went with some other folks from church to place door hangers. So, if you live in the south west area of Romeo… check your doorknob!

    It’s kind of crazy to compare this year to year’s past. In the past we’ve said “hey, invite your friends.” This year… we’ve gotten everyone out there to actually do it. By our rough count the people of Romeo have placed cards on over 2500 doorknobs in the last two weeks. Awesome!

  • CSR: Youngers Irish Tavern

    CSR GoodIt’s St. Patrick’s Day! So it’s time to cover the only “Irish” place in town. We’ve lived in Romeo nearly 5 years and this location, 120 S. Main Street, there has been at least restaurants. Younger’s is the only one good enough concept to truly make it.

    Location: Downtown Romeo. With ample parking in the rear and street parking, access is never an issue. As far as Romeo is concerned this is prime real estate.

    Description: The first time I entered Younger’s I was blown away. I really felt like I had stepped into a place on Rochester Road in downtown Rochester. The owners of Younger’s completely transformed the space. And it looks great. Inside there are two completely different environments. The high top bar area (which I prefer) and the more traditional booth and table seating. It claims to be an Irish bar. And the main bar area could pass for such if the interior were less spacious and featured local football or rugby club decor instead of the “old Ireland” photos. But a noble attempt nonetheless.

    The food itself is very good. I particularly enjoy the sweet potato fries and the bleu cheese burger. Soups are also quite good there.

    Service: Holding Younger’s back is its service. The upscale feel, decor, quality of cuisine, and price are not always matched by the service of the staff. While they are appropriately friendly they tend to lack knowledge of their products and the food comes very slow. (Plan on lunch taking 70-80 minutes) This is probably fine when one is on a date… but when I’m on lunch or going after church this is simply too long to wait for food.

    Cost: These are golf course prices. Typically, a lunch for one will cost $10-11. (burger, fries, pop, tip)
    While the quality of the food makes up for that, I am normally so rushed to leave by the time the food arrives that the cost vs. quality equation pushes me to the “don’t come” at the moment of decision. (No such problems with two competitors in the same strip.)

    Rating: Gosh, I really love the food here. And I am confident that Younger’s is going to make it. But this is a customer service report… they are “good.” I hope that they address these basics concerns to move on up towards excellence. (Speed, knowledge of product.) They can do better. And with lots of competition for food service business in Romeo at this price point, let’s hope they get it right soon.

    Sidenote: I think I’m going to start giving lower ratings for local businesses who don’t have a web page. Heck, I’m willing to barter for food!

  • The Melt is On

    melting snowIn the knick of time. With the easter egg hunt about 24 hours away, the melt is finally on in Romeo. According to our thermometer it only got to about 31 degrees last night and it is already 35 degrees.

    As long as the sun shines all day, we’re safe. With the forecast saying we will hit 47 today, we’re safe.

    Finally, Spring has almost sprung in Romeo. Apparently, this has been the #10 snowiest winter on record in the state of Michigan. Winter this year was sponsored by Al Gore.

  • Our Vision for Our Community

    I’ve had this video ready for a couple of weeks. Below is a description video for our churches vision.

    Since I already had a couple of people ask me how I made the video, here are the details.
    – Obviously, the animation is from Google Earth. I set up the points as a tour and clicked through when it came time to record. (Just timed it out in my head)
    – I recorded the Google Earth presentation using IShowU. This is a simple video screen capture tool available for OSX.
    – I used the Google Earth video as the background in Adobe Premier.
    – I did the voice over at the sound board at church. I recorded it using Garage Band, using some effects to make my voice more “voice over” quality.
    – The rest is just done in Premier. Titles, video layers, etc.

    It was a lot of steps. But I was pleased with the results. The fun part was doing some parts of the project in Premier (PC) and some with Garage Band and IShowU. (Mac) Before I started I actually took the time to make a project list… which helped me keep all of the parts in the right place.

    Where did the idea come from? I saw a video similar to this on Granger Community Church’s website. I based the outline of the script on that video as well as the idea of using Google Earth as the animation tool. Anything beyond the concept I came up with. It was a fun project!

    Since I’m sharing videos, here is the bumper video we made for the service too.

    Someone asked me today how long these videos take. Here’s a ballpark.
    Our Vision for Our Community: 20ish hours. (Conception through completion)
    Lean In Bumper Video: about 1 hour (Conception through completion)

  • Sticker Shock

    Kristen handed me something labeled “assessment” from Bruce Township. My heart sank a little bit as I read it. When this arrived in 2007 I learned that our house had been assessed at about $20,000 more than we paid for it in 2005. While typically, this is a good thing. In Michigan there just wasn’t any way.

    To my delight our SEV went down by 14.6% for 2008. Amazing. The boa constrictor of my our tax bill just got a little bit more palatable. At least for the next 12 months.

  • A true Michigan winter

    big snowLet’s just say the picture is an exaggeration. But we’ve had a very good Al Gore inspired winter in Michigan.

    It started in November and it has stayed until now. Non-stop cold, lots of snow, few warm weather breaks, and a lot of storms.

    I love winter. I love snow. I really like driving around after a fresh heavy snow. I love everything about it.

    For the last several years lifelong Michigan resident have told us, “These winters aren’t like we used to have.” Well, those same people are now saying, this is just like we used to have.

    I want to give perspective on the snow to people outside Romeo. We’ve got about 18 inches of snow in our yard and on the roof of our house.  Along our driveway, where we’ve piled up snow from shoveling it’s about chest high. (3-4 feet?) As the snow was melting today with the warm temperatures I was out digging out the downspouts out of the ice and snow. The main one was buried under 5-6 feet of slushy snow… I never found it.

    We love winter weather. And we’re happy to be surviving a “real Michigan winter” here in Romeo.

  • .7 and falling on the frozen tundra of Romeo

    That’s the headline. At least in my house. I think the furnace will run all night long.

    It’s butt cold. It’s frozen nose hair cold. It’s punch your mama cold. It’s so cold the dog won’t go out to pee. Brrr.

  • Snow day

    Foot O SnowNo complaints today, we got dumped on last night. At our house we got about 10 inches or so. It was a weird snow too as it slushed all afternoon yesterday and then as it got colder the snow got more and more fluffy.

    Kristen loves to shovel, so she jumped out there early this morning. I begrudgingly pitched in and  picked up a shovel. It took us about an hour or so to do the driveway and sidewalks. It was an annoying snow to shovel since the slushy stuff on the bottom built up on the shovel and it got progressively heavier.

    When I came in my shoulders were shot. Kristen’s back is a little sore but she is obviously in much better marathon shape than I am.

    They canceled school last night about 10:15 PM. I totally agree on their call this time.  I tried to make it into the office this morning… but the snow plows had built up snow in the drive about halfway up my door… so there was no way the Camry was going to make it in.

    Note to self: Save up some money for a snow blower.