Travel in the UP

So this past weekend I spent at least 20 hours in the car driving to Lansing and back for work. They don't make you do this very often thank god. I opted out of flying because to fly there you first take a plane from Houghton to Minneapolis, from Minneapolis to Detroit, from Detroit to Lansing and then you rent a car. Sometimes flying there takes just as long as driving due to all the transfers. And with the airlines back into the habit of overbooking, sometimes it takes longer! Thus I drove.

So on the way there I took one day and did a straight shot from Houghton and Lansing only stopping to eat. And it was funny. I stopped in Alma and the first thing I noticed was the thistle flowers on the street signs. Hmmm, I thought to myself, must be a scottish town. Sure enough, I stop at this place labeled "Pub", which turns out to be "The Braveheart Pub" complete with all manner of swords and scotish things and the waitresses wear kilts with knee high stockings. The weekend after labor day they will be celebrating "Crazy MacDuck Days" by the way.

The little bit of Lansing I saw was okay. The state library is an awesome building I must admit. They actually built the building around this white pine.

And on the way back to Houghton I stopped at the worlds tallest crusifix with the worlds largest collection of dolls dressed as nuns. Saw the man killer clam and the Call of the Wild museum. I will post more when I get the pictures developed. Yes, I forgot my digital camera, of course.

So. My hair was almost white blond for awhile. Then I was getting nasty roots so I decided that I would go with the black cherry color I like to frequent. I was in the shower washing it out when I noticed that the drain was clogged. The water was cotton candy pink. From the drain I pulled a clump of bright fuschia purple hair. snicker. Oh yes. Fuschia purple. So my options are..call in sick, stay up all night trying to fix it, or ... just go in. I went in. The manual goes on for days about what you can wear, but apparently they completely neglected an entry on hair color. Oh thats right. I still have a job. It was uncomfortable, but they couldn't do anything ahahahahhahaa.

Small Town Joys

Hey Everybody! Works good, but let me share some little community gems with you.

So this library I work in has a "friends of the library" fund raising program which does an annual book sale, but also keep a sales cart in the lobby. A sales cart with a money box and it works on the HONOR SYSTEM. AND apparently works. So that's interesting and positive.

But you're pop cans are not safe!!

Yes, in MI you receive a 10 cent deposit on returned aluminum cans and marked plastic bottles. So this is how the story goes: Bill the stacks librarian in the evening used to go around and take the cans out of the wastebaskets as he closed up the library. The janitors were also doing this and they felt that Bill was taking what was rightfully theirs. So instead of talking to Bill they make it a Union issue and there has to be negotiations and such. During negotiations one of the janitors steals the empty pop cans bill had been saving up during the week off of Bill's desk and then another time some janitor tried to break into Bill's car for the bag of pop cans inside IT!

So now there are recycle containers for the pop cans and the proceeds go to the library. But they have to put a chain with a padlock on the recycle so no one takes the cans.

But your money is safe.

And then you have the closed community thing going where the kids say if you don't go to their church you're going to hell. And I must be careful of who I tell I'm an out sider to because some people will hate me then because I took a job in the Keweenaw that could have been taken by a local. So it goes...

Anyway, other than that things are going well. I've planted flowers and sealed my little deck and works going well.

This weekend I'm going to an Art Fair on Sat and a County Fair on Sun so I'll tell you any stories that ensue from those. Have a happy day!