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I’d Rather Be In Ann Arbor

A family emergency has required us to go out of town, so we’re going to miss the first reading of the couch ordinance at City Hall at 7 pm tonight (and we’re also going to have to schedule the meetup for later.) We hope some of you will be able to make it.

13 Responses to “I’d Rather Be In Ann Arbor”


  1. A friend of mine met with the mayor recently regarding this ordinance. Apparently, the mayor stated that there have been 200 couch burnings (though didn’t say over what period of time and whether they had been burned in place or moved to the street) — and that they think a disgruntled fire fighter may be behind the burnings; a protest of the recent cutbacks. In any case, some city officials claim in private to fear a couch burning arsonists — which leaves me wondering why they just don’t let folks know that there’s a problem and they should lock up their couches if they don’t want their own house burned down?

    posted by Rumor Monger on August 16th, 2004 at 10:20 am

  2. 200? Seems high, but even if it’s 200 so far this summer, I still think it’s students. The city may be inadvertantly advertising burning in the street as a means of disposal. If A2 really wanted to end the fires, they would pick up couches for free. Much cheaper than having the fire department pick them up one at a time. The fire department could then spend the money saved on fire safety education.

    posted by Hillary on August 16th, 2004 at 11:41 am

  3. So no meet-up this Thursday? When shall we reschedule it for?

    posted by Alex(andra) on August 17th, 2004 at 8:08 am

  4. It’d be great if we could reschedule for a couple weeks from now, since I’m out of town. Also, hope everything’s OK, AAIO.

    posted by Nick on August 17th, 2004 at 11:53 am

  5. I think the best thing to do now would be to hold it in September when everyone’s back.

    Thanks to everyone who’s written or posted to express concern. The emergency is that my grandmother is very sick, so I’m going to stay in Chicago for a while.

    posted by ann arbor is overrated on August 17th, 2004 at 1:15 pm

  6. Sorry to hear that AAIO.

    Hope things improve.

    posted by todd on August 17th, 2004 at 1:18 pm

  7. You’re the third person this week I know with a grandma related emergency :( Hope she gets better soon!

    posted by Alex(andra) on August 17th, 2004 at 3:40 pm

  8. Good luck on your Grandma. I hope she gets better.

    posted by Kozzie on August 18th, 2004 at 12:05 am

  9. We could hold it in Chicago. Amtrak’s got $8 tickets from here to there right now… :)

    posted by Murph on August 18th, 2004 at 10:19 am

  10. Really? $8 tickets? How did you find that out?

    Hope your grandmother gets better, AAIO!

    posted by Zigs on August 18th, 2004 at 1:46 pm

  11. $8??? I paid $57 for my ticket here.

    posted by ann arbor is overrated on August 19th, 2004 at 3:47 pm

  12. Looks like the CHI/ARB $8 sale is over–the super cheap Rail Sale prices (and the dates you can apply them to) change weekly.

    You can look at http://tickets.amtrak.com/Amtrak/railsale to see what they’ve got available at any given time. They don’t show all stops, though; you have to pick the option that has stops listed on either side of your stop (such as CHI/PNT, if traveling from A2) and then pick exactly which stops you want.

    posted by Murph on August 20th, 2004 at 9:47 am

  13. Thanks to everyone who expressed their good wishes. My grandmother died last night after a short illness. She was 94 and lived a very full life.

    posted by ann arbor is overrated on August 21st, 2004 at 3:47 pm