Sitting at the Gate on a Jet Plane, Don’t Know When I’ll Be Back Again
Ann Arbor is out to get us even when we’re hundreds of miles away. Our flight back to O’Hare today was canceled due to storms throughout southeastern Michigan. We can only hope that downtown A2 doesn’t acquire “a reputation as expensive” while we’re gone, as the owner of Bivouac fears.
Parking in downtown A2 may be more expensive than Tifton GA, but less expensive than New York City.
In relation to a Patagonia fleece at Bivouac, is parking too expensive?
Take yer pick.
posted by mucho gusto on June 10th, 2004 at 7:07 amIf the owner of Bivouac doesn’t want A2 to have a reputation for being expensive, he could start by cutting prices 70% across the board at his own store and getting them more in line with reality.
posted by RDS on June 10th, 2004 at 10:29 amWhere is the owner of Bivouac eating? Five dollar lunch is a myth in A2: sandwich and water anywhere on State St. can not be had for less than $5.50.
posted by AA Hater on June 10th, 2004 at 11:21 amSure you can get a sandwich and water for $5 - shouldn’t set you back more than $3.50 at Biener’s Weiners. Maybe even $3 if you don’t get kraut.
posted by Ed on June 10th, 2004 at 1:29 pmYou’re coming downtown to eat at Biener’s Weiners?
posted by AA Hater on June 10th, 2004 at 1:42 pmum, get a hot dog from a stand or bagel sandwich. it is possible to eat cheap
posted by me on June 10th, 2004 at 2:15 pm$5 lunch?
Earthen Jar
Jerusolem Garden
Kabob Palace
Champion House
Sottini’s
Red Hot Lovers
Le Dog
Dinersty
People’s Food Co-op
Any hotdog stand
Sabor Latino
I’m sure there’s more, but those are the ones that I go to.
posted by js on June 10th, 2004 at 2:48 pmRDS: If you’re paying too much at Bivouac you’re a moron. He price matches. I think he’ll even match internet prices. You ought to ask him.
Bivouac is one of the best shops in A2. I think it’s ironic when annarbourites rag on the few indy business in town. You people deserve your Starbucks.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on June 11th, 2004 at 12:00 amSteve,
It’s not that Bivouac is one of the best shops for outdoor gear in A2, it’s one of the few left. Wilderness Outfitters on Main St. is gone and it was independent. Raup Campfitters long ago closed on South Main where the Neutral Zone is located. Both of them beat Bivouac on prices and service. Bivouac is still there because of the proximity to students who can afford Ed’s high prices. Most local folks shopped for their gear on Main St, until the restaurant businesses took over. And that happened, not because of Starbuck sippin’ local folks but because of out of towners who come to A2 to feed their faces and drink Starbuck’s overpriced coffee.
For all the dissin’ of annabourites, I don’t think you know many of us locals who don’t go to Starbuck’s and eat at home. Not everyone in A2 is a bobo, drives a Volvo, or makes a fetish object of their kids.
Get the chip off your shoulder and grow up. Life’s not easy, bub
posted by mucho gusto on June 11th, 2004 at 7:19 amThere may be one or two more here:
http://wiki.wubi.org/FiveDollarMeal
posted by Micah on June 11th, 2004 at 11:06 amrigth on Mucho, there’s still plenty of cool folk around here, some people just aren’t open enough to see beyond the bobo’s.
posted by Dan on June 11th, 2004 at 11:21 amWilderness Outfitters was a chain, albeit one started by U-M grads. Whether it still exists as a chain is hard to tell from here, as “Wilderness Outfitters” is an incredibly common name for, well, wilderness outfitters. But when they got the store here, one of our interns had worked for them at a different location and was all creamin’ her jeans over having them in town.
posted by js on June 11th, 2004 at 11:31 amFor many years, during Ann Arbor Art Fair, Bivouac would rent out the space in front of its store to other people to sell stuff. Some of it was really junk too. Well the rules for the State Street Association, the organization that supplies the space for local store owners to have space, had a a rule that you couldn’t sell stuff out of your alloted space to that you didn’t sell during the year. This certainly hurt Dave’s Comics, who often got stuck with the shitties art fair spaces, often way down by whats now Mr Greeks, two blocks from thier store. From what I understand it was even the owner of Bivouac who helped create these rules. I know for a fact that it took three years for the practice to stop once there were people pursuing it. He has a very strong position in the downtown business network.
posted by no name on June 11th, 2004 at 11:45 amYeah, Ed’s probably on of those State St merchants who inflicted the two way traffic on State and Liberty in the pursuit of $$.
What a mess, for pedestrians and car traffic. For all the whining about how much easier it would be for out of towners to park, shop and spend money, I’d really like to know how much better business is for those merchants who advocated for the traffic changes. How many more dinners are restaurants serving? How much more overpriced gear has Bivouac sold? Has business been any better for Shaman Drum? Borders? How many more parking tickets have been written?
I bet Republic Garages are loving it
posted by no name is too good for me on June 11th, 2004 at 1:14 pmLife is hard? heh, heh heh heh.
posted by Steven on June 11th, 2004 at 2:09 pmGlad to see the vitriol has maintained in my absence. I was worried it might all fall to pieces.
posted by Alex on June 11th, 2004 at 2:59 pmIf people are willing to get a parking ticket then the parking tickets are much too inexpensive. $5? How about $25 every couple of hours. That will send the bums to the ramps where they belong.
Bah, humbug.
posted by Mike Gorund on June 11th, 2004 at 3:07 pmMan, anyone who hates good ole’ Ann Arbor has obviously never lived here or tried living in a much more dreary city, like Pittsburgh. Well, I’ve lived in both, and A2 is by far my preferance. And, by the way, anyone who makes a site dedicated to the bashing of a city that they don’t even live in needs to get a job or a girlfriend…or both.
posted by Jeff on June 11th, 2004 at 7:58 pmwhy do you assume they don’t live in AA? why do you assue they don’t have a job or a girlfriend (or should it be boyfriend?????)(another assumption!) you know what they say about one who assumes, don’t you?
posted by sammy on June 11th, 2004 at 11:39 pmMan, only the City of Ann Arbor would think of raising parking fines to create more parking space… or maybe this is more specious reasoning a la “porch couches = fire hazard”?
posted by speicus on June 12th, 2004 at 4:40 amActually, it makes sense. The possibility of paying $5 to park is not much of a risk to take for a great parking space. And of course, it is not always the case that a ticket will be issued anyway. So what’s the incentive? I could care less about the horrible consequences of $5, but raise it to $10, $15, or $20 and I would probably make sure I was not in violation. But, please don’t misunderstand, I am not advocating that fines be raised. I am only saying I can see the logic.
posted by sammy on June 12th, 2004 at 12:52 pmWith a tax base this size — $500,000 homes and the world HQ of Pfizer — why is Ann Arbor so “cash strapped?” I know that the U doesn’t pay any taxes, but it does massively increase property values, which results in higher income for the city.
If AA thinks it’s “cash strapped,” perhaps the City Council would enjoy a day trip to Flint or Saginaw or Toledo. Then they can see what a cash strapped city really looks like.
posted by Dan on June 12th, 2004 at 1:10 pmIlya thinks AAIO has a girlfriend.
posted by js on June 12th, 2004 at 1:31 pmmucho gusto — “Ann Arbor” has no “u” in it.
Also, why does everyone assume AAIO is male?
posted by j on June 12th, 2004 at 6:36 pmI was under the impression that AAIO was female, lived in A2, and was employed, or at the very least a full-time grad student.
Then again, I was under the impression that the parking situation in A2 is horrendous and needs a massive overhaul of some sort, and that parking tickets are perhaps not the best or most direct answer to this, so what do I know?
posted by art student on June 12th, 2004 at 9:28 pmParking again? hey, I’ll bet mucho could really sink his teeth in to some parking strategy.
“Say, how about that parking? I could barely find a spot to park the Subaru while I dropped the kids off at keith heiffner’s karate.”
“Chai tea? Tai Chi? Yoga mat? Pilates?”
posted by Steven on June 13th, 2004 at 12:26 amThe “where does AAIO live and why” questions are covered in the FAQ.
posted by Shmuel on June 13th, 2004 at 2:28 am“Cash strapped” is a bureaucratic euphemism for justifying lay offs, raising taxes and cutting services.
Ann Arbor isn’t cash strapped. The politicians and six figure bureaucrats have just figured out ways to hide the money. Drink the Kool Aid folks.
Corporatocracy anyone?
posted by no name is too good for me on June 13th, 2004 at 7:43 amHow does a “cash strapped” city have the money to send someone out to my house regularly to walk around with a measuring stick measuring and judging my alleged lawn and garden? This Community Standards Dept. is The Devil.
posted by stella on June 13th, 2004 at 1:36 pmCSD- Conformism Sniffing Device
or
CSD-Creativity Snuffing Detail
or
Corporate Satans Deluge
I see you got the “your weeds are over 12 inches tall and are offending your neighbors who have the luxury of having a gardener. Additionally, your weeds do not conform to certain early 21st-century U.S. bourgeois standards of attractive lawn care and therefore must be expunged” note from the City of Ann Arbor. I got that note once too.
posted by Hybrid Weeds on June 13th, 2004 at 2:44 pmMy neighborhood is an absolute perfect microcosm of whats going wrong in A2, people are now flocking to it because its one of the last “funky and edgy” neighborhoods left and then are offended by my funky as they blow past the stop sign at 45 in their SUV, on the way to their house they just paid 300 to 500 thousand for, and therefore feel assaulted by anything that doesn’t hold to the notion that lawn=god=good.
posted by stella on June 13th, 2004 at 4:53 pmStella what neighborhood? I’m pretty sure I have an idea, there’s still quite a bit funk left northwest and directly downtown.
posted by Dan on June 13th, 2004 at 8:18 pmAlso Steven, mis-judged again, but that’s easy to do living in another town. some revolution you got eh?
I don’t know what you folks’ yard looks/looked like and how stringent they are being, but I don’t think its too much to ask to occassionally pull a few weeds– it’s just good maintenance and yard-pride. Then again, I’m a groundskeeper, so maybe I’m more sensitive to these things. And not to be a Nazi about it, but my f-ing neighbor had about a month’s worth of Free Presses piled up on their patio until today, and, even though I rent, it was a bit annoying to look at and wondered how hard it was to either cancel the subscription or pick the damned things up. There’s a place for respecting your neighbors, methinks. I sound like an old man with a mortgage, don’t I? Yeesh.
And if I hear Annarbourites bitch about parking in this town one more time… take the damned bus, bike, or walk, dammit. How hard is that? The only time the buses don’t run, in the evenings, is conveniently the same time parking is pretty plentiful.
End rant.
posted by Brandon on June 13th, 2004 at 10:43 pmOh, and to clarify, I do not worship lawns, and in fact think they could stand to be abolished.
posted by Brandon on June 13th, 2004 at 10:47 pmI agree. Abolish the lawn. I got rid of 50 % of my front lawn this spring with two new flowerbeds. So long as it has a border around it, you can get away with pretty much anything.
posted by Laura on June 14th, 2004 at 1:29 amHi, Stella –
The weeds thing just pisses me off. When I moved to town the “Time Machine” was being held in a dormitory snack bar. Now it sounds like if you ignore you’re lawn long enough, a guy with a gun could come knocking on your door. Perhaps a “Pistons Fuck the Bourgeoise” stencil would be timely.
posted by A Different Jon on June 14th, 2004 at 1:48 amSuffice it to say I live close enough to the most legendary A2 lawn scoff-law to look at his yard like a kazillion times a day and (A) I dont feel at all disrespected as his neighbor although perhaps a little confused by his seeming determination to reduce his house/investment to a pile of rubble and (B) I feel I look pretty ok by comparison and (C) its abundantly clear that NO amount of neighbor craziness or eccentricities is going to affect property values one single bit around here.
posted by stella on June 14th, 2004 at 7:46 amLaura, my approach is to periodically scrape the moss off my roof and try to get it to grow instead of grass, the neighbors have recently started donating mosses also which amuses and heartens us. I just love mosses and mushrooms. What a damn fine spring for them this year.
The yard patrol came through my hood a week ago as well, and gave EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE BLOCK a warning. And I know for a fact that my housemate mowed the lawn the previous day. And so what if my grass is 8 inches long rather than 4? It still doesn’t look half as bad as the bits of shattered desk furniture and empty sytrofoam coolers littering the front yard of the football players who live down the street.
I am currently in the process of ripping up my front lawn actually. That’s where the vegetable and herb garden is going in. One less thing I have to mow.
posted by Alex on June 14th, 2004 at 7:59 amNo name — Ed (owner of the Biv) is not only a big mover and shaker in the State St Association, he owns over half of the property on State St between William and Washington. Which is why he has so much pull.
posted by Another no name on June 14th, 2004 at 10:05 amAt Black Elk co-op, we actually got a special permit to rip out our lawn and plant wild flowers that would be taller than 4 inches, so that the bitch next door couldn’t call the yard police. The wildflowers never grew, so it turned into a huge mud-pit. Fortunately, the rules only say how tall the lawn can be, they do not dictate that a lawn must actually exist.
posted by Anna on June 14th, 2004 at 10:49 amIn response to Dan (sorry, not reading this regularly), this may be nitpicky, but AA is not the global HQ of Pfizer - they’re based in New York. This is just one of their R&D facilities. Which makes a difference re: the tax base. You don’t have lots of corporate bigwigs here, just biostatisticians and chemists who don’t generally go in for $500,000 houses. Who buys those things in suburban MI is anyone’s guess.
posted by Nick on June 14th, 2004 at 12:43 pmPfizer has more than a few veeps and big muckety mucks who earn $$$$$ and can afford 500k homes and up. Some of them live in A2 and some live outsde the city where their real estate dollar goes a bit further. But, most of the Pfizerites make a lot less and some still can afford to live in town.
Pfizer is well within the lawn guidelines BTW.
Bivouac Ed stiffed a carpenter friend of mine who did some work for him on State St.
posted by Anonymous on June 14th, 2004 at 1:18 pmWho buys these houses? Car people. Lots and lots of car people. With no sense. And SUVs. My parents, sadly, are among them.
Regarding why Ann Arbor is budget-strapped, I think it has a lot to do with the kind of services available. When my boss’s kindergarden-aged son was flagged with a possible learning disability, they called him into a meeting with three specialists to discuss the issue. That doesn’t happen in Ypsi.
posted by snickerdoodle on June 14th, 2004 at 1:22 pmI hate the people who have to mow and fertilize their lawns constantly. The absolute worst though are those (relatively) new ‘lawn pest’ killing chemicals that have become so popular. I’ve heard more people in A2 talking about using these than I care to remember.
News alert for A2: THE BUGS ARE THERE FOR A REASON. If you kill all your so-called ‘lawn pests’ in an attempt to have the perfect lawn, you’re wrecking the microecosystem around your house.
/zoological rant over
posted by art student on June 14th, 2004 at 4:19 pmsnickerdoodle,
your boss’s son was handled by the school district, not the city, which is a totally separate entity and separately funded. However, the city does provide a lot of services, many of which were set up in years past with little thought of how they will be funded.
posted by tom on June 15th, 2004 at 9:14 amI guess I don’t know much about school funding, but yeah, that was my point. Lots of services which other cities this size don’t get. I have friends in the Detroit suburbs who actually come to Ann Arbor to recyle, for instance.
posted by snickerdoodle on June 15th, 2004 at 4:46 pmExpensive? What would give people the impression that Ann Arbor is expensive? It couldn’t have anything to do with “starter” homes starting at around $200,000 could it?
posted by Kozzie on June 24th, 2004 at 3:22 am