Michigan Mountaineers Brainstorming

“Sass, check your e-mail.”

“RL - Max is coming, too. That puts one more on the list.

See you guys on Saturday morning!”

“I'm going to hitch a ride with Sass and Birch, Tarabull and Max are going separately. Laqtis, we'll meet you and Super B there.”

“Cool !”

“I cannot wait for tomorrow. I am having one terrible (or should i say tarabull) day.

See ya'll tomorrow.”

“I can relate to that, Tarabull. The capper for the day:

I just found out that on Tueday, our Superintendent will be making an annoucement of layoffs and jobs cuts due to the cut in the Foundation Grant all schools receive from the state. Time to dust off the resume........”

“Hey, laqtis. I've been working that problem, too. My district has a supposed $750,000 shortfall in a 9 or 10 million dollar budget. They've warned us about layoffs. I "think" I'm safe, but I'm going to update my resume and start sending them out.

All hail Big John Engler and Proposal A! But it will look really good for Posthumas when they have to cut all the schools just before a gubernatorial election.”

“Our district is cutting $5 million next year...gulp.

Proposal A sucked as did prop B. However blaming Engler for the budget cuts may be off base. School funding state wide still increased at roughly5%this year.

In general our national economy is taking a giant turd. H@ll Ford Motor is cutting 20k jobs and shutting 4 plants down. Schools have operated in a microcosm seperated from the "real" economy by being tax supported. During tough economic times in the past many district kept all their employees while industries butchered their staffing (mid 1980's). It is unreasonable to expect the type of security that is virtually demanded by school unions when every other industry is taking cuts and enrollment is declining for many of us.

Layoffs suck but that is part of employment, and yes there is a chance that the layoffs may affect me...I will have 7 years seniority in 3 weeks.”

“Who has Monday (21st) off? Am I gonna have to walk alone?”

“I don't work until 4. I'd walk indoors with ya. We could make fun of the people at the mall together.”

“Indoors?”

“I'd like to Tarabull, but I have a staff inservice day.”

“excuses, excuses...”

“So work is not a valid excuse? Whatever...

What thread are we talking about the Urban Hike? I will have a friend in town from Minneapolis (the one I'm going to Pictured Rocks with) that week and she'd like to go with us.”

“It was discussed on Saturday and agreed (because everyone is sooo accomodating!) that the Ann Arbor/Urban Hike will be the March hike.

I believe another Waterloo hike is planned for February... starting from where we left off on Saturday.”

“Reformed, check yer e-mail!”

“I'm so ticked off! I was planning to do my SUnday walking before church, so I have the afternoon free to go to my sister's house. They gym doesn't open until 10AM! I guess that's what I get for joining the YMCA! Darn Christian organization!”

“Adopt-a-Forest program:
Ada Takacs, Volunteer Coordinator
takacsa@state.mi.us
(989)375-5151”

“That would be cool to be the adoptive parent of an entire forest. But that would be some kind of responsibility. Making sure that the quaking aspens don't quake too much. And being certain that the elders aren't too rough when they're out boxing. And how difficult would it be to try and cheer up a blue spruce. I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it.”

“Cute, RL! I was thinking more along the lines of a trash pick-up type thing. Just read the info in some "requried reading" here at work.”

“Sorry to go off-topic.

Any of you Michigan folks from or near St. Johns?

My great-great-great-grandfather, John Swegles Jr., helped found that town and it is named after him.”

“I believe cow patty lives near or in St. Johns. Cool!”

“I guess from your email addy that you are in some way associated with the Univ. of Michigan, tarabull. I plan to visit their library one day to explore a collection they have on my great-great-grandfather, Oliver Lyman Spaulding, one of Michigan's more famous sons.”

“I've been a student there for 7 years (after a few years at a community college!). Personally, I attend the Dearborn campus because of it's location.

The library on the Ann Arbor campus is great. In fact, the whole town is worth checking out. Give us a holler when you decide to come to the library. I'm sure there's a few Michiganders who'll be happy to show you around town.”

“any excuses I can find to gets me to that town, I'm there!!”

“Personally, I don't care for the town. But that's where my date is this weekend! Maybe I'll have to learn to like the town, but I'll never love the sports teams there.”

“I love the rare book room in the grad. library. They have some of the earliest papyrus fragments of Paul's epistles. Kind of strange that some of the foundation stones for world Christianity are in a building as ugly as that.

Hey, Violin, was Spaulding from Monroe? I remember lots of streets and parks named after someone with that last name.”

“I don't think so RL. I know there is a Spaulding cemetery there but the headstones predate my great-great-grandfather's arrival from New Hampshire in the 1850's.

I have read a typed memoir he wrote for his children and it has some fascinating stories of when Michigan was a wilderness but the library has something like 3 feet of his diaries and letters.

I'll have to plan a trip when you folks are having a hike too.”

“I'll keep an eye out for you Smiley Girl. I'm hanging out there this weekend with some friends. Eat at the Bella Ciao. Head to the Bird of Paradise for some nice jazz. Go for an evening walk through the law quad. Then shake out the evening at the Old Town Bar. Great place. Can't get enough of it. It's enough to make me give up backpacking and become an urbanite.

Oh, BTW, the grad. library also has a map library. They have plat books for the entire state if you ever want to pioneer a new route. Lots of other cool things, too. Just think of it. A large room with every map you could ever want. My eyes start to roll and I drool. Of course, I have a hangover afterwards.”

“I'll be RL will do some reconaissance in the library for Violin's ancestors. Pretty cool!”

“This site has a little about Swegles and Spaulding.”

“Violin - If we know you're coming we'll PLAN a hike. You don't have to work around us.”

“How cool!

I'd just have to leave enough time to photocopy a three foot stack of papers.”