The weekend is over and we’re both back in the US. The cottage was a fantabulous success for me, as was Brantford for Christa. Monty was happy to be back home after spending the weekend with Christa’s parents, and Bailey was just happy to see people back in the house again after hanging out on his own all weekend.

So it sounds like we may have our first real “snow event” this winter here in Detroit as they are calling for 5″-8″ between this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Sadly, I’m actually excited for a real snowstorm. It’s been pretty sparse in the snow department and I haven’t even had the need to break out the shovel once this year.

Myself, Christa & Jacqui went ice skating at Campus Martius in downtown Detroit Saturday night, and it was another of those experiences that makes me feel like Detroit is not dead.
We decided to check it out later in the evening around 8:30pm thinking that it wouldn’t be busy and would arrive to have the rink to ourselves.

Wrong!

The place was PACKED! Despite the cold, despite it being later in the evening, there were kids, families, young, old, all crowded into the park. People were actually excited about coming to downtown Detroit for a change!

It’s exciting to be witnessing Detroit turn around!

I went to my first Red Wings game last night at Joe Louis Arena, and it was a blast. Had a few beers & watched them cruise to a 5-3 win over the Nashville Predators.

Between the 2nd and 3rd periods they tried to bring out a Toyota Tundra pickup for an advertising stunt. The truck made it about 3 feet onto the ice before it was greeted with a deafening boo from the entire arena, followed by a chear as it was rushed off out of sight. Der! Someone over at Toyota didn’t do their homework. I can only imagine the number of out of work autoworkers from Ford, GM, and Dodge that were in attendance last night. I wonder what the Toyota execs would think, watching their truck booed off the ice, and only to be cheered as it was quickly escorted away to safety.

Went to the North American International Auto Show in downtown Detroit last night, and I’ve got to say I was completely underimpressed. We got there at about 7pm last night, and I was initially concerned we wouldn’t have enough time to completely explore the show. We ran the full circle around Cobo Hall in a little over an hour and a half and felt like we missed half of the show, but we had covered all the manufacturers including the Chinese company hidden in the basement.

If the crowd told any story, it mirrored my own feelings towards the American automakers; hello unimpressive mediocrity. The only vehicles remotely interesting were the concept cars – which we all know will never make it to production as they are just ridiculously flashy and gimmicky to catch the eye and make it appear that the company has great new ideas coming down the pipe. Looking out over the floor of Cobo, the highest concentration of people seemed to be at every car company other than Ford, GM, or Dodge. The only exception to this was the Hummer display, but thats only because it was filled with wanna-be-rappers & pretentious-mid-life-crisis-compensaters. None of the display areas really held my attention for more than a few minutes. What happened to the elaborate shows every hour on the hour; the pyrotechnics, the Cirque du Soleil ripoffs?

There were only 3 cars that even peaked my interest, and none of them were American. The Volvo C30, the VW Fahrenheit GTI, & the Scion tC were all pretty nifty, though only the Scion is remotely in my price range.

All in all I left the show very unimpressed & worried about American auto ingenuity. I would have been upset if I had paid to get in.

Detroit is in the midst of a revival, and while the wounds of years of neglect & rot will take some time to heal there truly are measurable strides that the downtown corridor is slowly returning to life.

Just today I discovered an article in the paper about the resurgence of a neighborhood of spectacularly concentrated poverty & blight: the Cass Corridor.

Years ago, the Cass Corridor was Detroit’s Chinatown. In the past few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the area for development. Lofts & trendy boutiques have sprouted up amidst the shells of abandoned buildings. Students have returned to consider the area residencies. The area has even been fashionably renamed “Midtown”, although the Cass Corridor stigma still remains.

It’s always great to hear good news coming from Detroit!

…and everything is gray and depressing.
And then I read this piece from the Metrotimes, and it all makes sense…
There is one overall theme in the article; the love-hate relationship most people have with the city.

Yet, there’s also something glorious about this city, something that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. This city’s people have a tremendous spirit, a driven sense of self, a grittiness and determination that comes only from having to haul your ass up from the bootstraps every day. Detroiters are tough, but they are true, genuine and passionate.

But the incredible people who fill this city aren’t enough to keep me, or my fellow expats, here. You need things like, oh, basic city services. Roads that don’t crumble. Being able to walk out to your car in the morning without wondering if the windows will be broken this time. That all wears down on you after a while, and eventually it can become a weight too great to bear any longer.

Having lived here for a few years now, I am proud to say I have that Detroit spirit. It’s that spirit that will get me places in life. But with the good of living here comes the bad. I can’t complain and shouldn’t say we are struggling. We own a home, can afford to heat it, we both have cellphones, 2 pets, etc… But when it comes down to it, we’re just getting by. We just can’t seem to break ahead. We both live paycheck to paycheck while we both know a better job would relatively easy to find in cities better off economically.

But yet I am sad even thinking about leaving.

Why do I feel like I owe more to this city than I have ever gotten from it?
Maybe I will finally have enough, and reach that point in my life that I just can’t take it anymore like the author.
I’m kind of hoping sooner than later….

Tuesday, Google announced that they will be opening a facility in Ann Arbor. The facility will deal primarily with Google’s revenue-making Adsense and Adwords. It is projected that Google’s move will hire about 1000 people directly and create about 1200 jobs indirectly.

Google’s reason for choosing Michigan?
Larry Page, U of M alum and Google co-founder, says they sought out Michigan due to the talent coming from Michigan Universities. I don’t quite believe that. I think it has more to do with Granholm’s offer of $38 million in single-business tax breaks over 20 years.

Who really cares how they got here though, they are here. I applied, so I guess I’ll see what happens.

I’ve spent the past few weeks since moving to the Detroit area panning thru the city of Detroit using the satellite imagery from google maps. It’s a great time, and it’s been quite an adventure & learning experience about the history of the city, as well as the plight and economic disparity still existing today. Check out this snipit of the North Gratiot area near Van Dyke. North of Gratiot is the Great Detroit Prairie; a vast wasteland of tall grass & abandoned ruins of homes crossed by streets which used to comprise a bustling Slovak neighborhood at the turn of the century. South of Gratiot; a nice gated community of nice homes.

Click to enlarge.

It makes me proud to know I live 4 blocks from the city of Detroit, where stuff like this happens and no one acts too suprised.
If you are too lazy to click the link this is my executive summary:

A masked man ordered paramedics to step away from a teenager who lay bleeding on a stretcher from bullet wounds, then killed him with a shotgun blast to the head.

What It’s Like in the D. Sing along with me now…