Yokon ho! Yokon ho! It’s off to Alaska I go….

…48 hours from now I’ll be on a plan heading from SLC to Alaska. Flight from Detroit leaves at 4:15pm. I’ll be leaving early, early for the airport because I’m so paranoid about missing my flight. Not the kind of drama I care for. I’ll grab lunch at the airport, kick back with a book and relax. I’ll be doing the same in SLC, because the layover there is some 3 hours. Again, I don’t mind since it will give me more than ample time to navigate a strange airport. By then I’ll be read for some dinner, I’m sure.

The flight from SLC to AK will be much longer, but I’ve been informed that the plane is a 757 and as such slightly roomier than most other flights. Plus, each seat has it’s own TV screen and apparently cable, at least for the first part of the flight. I’m hoping to catch some Zzzz anyway. I’ll be arriving in Anchorage approximately 12:30am and my friend and I hope to head out by noon later that day. So I’m going to need all the sleep that I can get. We’ll be driving 16+ hour days. Whew! And with no delays we should hit St. Louis just in time for me to hop a flight back to Detroit. Yahoooooo!

Thanks to my wife for helping me pack. She’s an ace packer. And just aces all around. Feeling better with that taken care of.

Here’s a map of the route we’ll be taking.

…the wheels are in motion….

…and rolling towards California.

Although we’ll probably end up flying there.

Of course, I am speaking of where my wife, daughter and I plan to relocate, with any luck by this time next year. It would seem that certain events and circumstances have conspired to help this happen. Mostly to do with C’s career. But also the behavoir of certain familial elements have only served to reinforce the desperate need for this move. Plus, The Woodward Dream Cruise this past weekend gives me yet one more reason to want to bolt Michigan.

For those not familiar with The Woodward Dream Cruise, and I’m assume there are at least a few, it is an annual event that takes place here in Southeast Michigan in mid-august, in which hordes of motor heads, car enthusiasts and other assorted automobile fetishists converge on Woodward Avenue, one of the major hub roads that runs from downtown Detroit up into the northern suburbs, and either drive their cars, many of which are sweet classic rods, although I did see this year one old Grayhound bus painted purple, up and down Woodward, or pop a squat on the side of the road and watch cars roll by. Yes, here in Metro Detroit cruising is a specator sport.

Anyhoo…before I lived so close to Woodward, I was pretty indifferent to The Dream Cruise (for short, sort of). Depsite having been born and raised in the Motor City, having a father who worked for GM for 35 years and a brother who worked for Ford for some time, and growing up with many friends that were really into cars, I’ve never been much of car person. To me they’re mostly just boxes with wheels that get you from one place to another. Don’t get me wrong I can appreciate a fine automobile as much as the next guy, but my appreciation for large hunks of metal on rubber wheels has diminished a bit since we’ve been living in B’ham, not far off  Woodward. The traffic is a pain in the ass. The cruisers that lose their way and decide to turn my street into a drag strip are all being nominated for jerk of the year, and are just lucky I don’t decide to chuck eggs that their cherry rides. ( Plus, this year my wife and her friend, while on a walk, had the misfotune of encouthering a couple of 18 year-old little pricks waving huge signs with graphic pictures of aborted feteuses on them.  Hey, I’m all for free speech, which apparently covers this sort of abhorent display, and yet if I want to parade around with a big photo of two lesbians going to lunch on each other  I’d be arrested, but this sort of thing is just wrong. Not to mention these little dickheads feel perfectly within in their rights to accoust anyone that passes close to them, verbally pistol whipping them with thier self-righteous indignation. )

What I’d like to know is what is the environmental footprint of this event anyway? Cuz it can’t be good.

Ultimately, my unwillingness to kneel before the altar of the American Automobile companies (can’t really call them The Big Three anymore, now can we) probably disqualifies me for residency in this area anyway, at least in spirit if not legally. Hell, I drive a Honda.

Of course, one could argue that you need to move from the state entire to escape The Dream Cruise. But hell, if I’m gonna move, I’m gonna move. Besides, you know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific Ocean? They say it has no memory. And that’d suite me just fine.

Do people in other states forget how to drive in the snow?

Because here in Michigan it seems like every year when the first snow fall/cold snap hits people are unprepared to drive on ice-slick roads.

One man was killed in a wreck this morning as slick roads surprised commuters with icy spots on freeways across metro Detroit after the area’s first notable cold snap, causing dozens of crashes around the region.

Yikes! Read full article here.

Detroit Gen Xer forgoes $ to do good

Here’s a young woman who is an example of the best kind of Gen Xer attitude, helping homeless teens and young people to get off the streets instead of raking in the big bucks. Way to fucking go!

Last week, I was shown around by Melissa Golpe, their marketing and public relations director. A trim, attractive 31-year-old who grew up in Dearborn, she easily could be making far more money. She certainly would be richer if, for example, she had stayed with the major commercial PR agency she spent a few years with after graduation.

But she found out that wasn’t her. “This really seems much more meaningful, gives me much more satisfaction, telling their stories,” she said. I saw a number of the young adults who are staying there, working part-time, getting clean, getting right in their heads, working on their high school degrees.

Check out the full article, a column by Jack Lessenberry, who writes regulary for the Metro Times, a free weekly for Metro Detroit.

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12814