I don’t know if I mentioned it before in my intro post, but I spent the past year or so living in lovely Los Angeles. The city was great and I loved practically every single thing about it. I moved back because, well, I was about 2,000 miles away from everyone and everything I have ever known. Hey, Im young and I’ve got time to do foolish things like that.

But that’s all beside the point. I found a neat tool online that lets you compare your neighborhood to other neighborhoods in well-known cities across the country. Needless to say, I promptly looked up to see where I fit in with my LA folk and if I did an upgrade or downgrade (but I didn’t see Warren or my old LA ‘hood listed… so I’m kinda shady on where I stand still). For example: Detroit to LA, Detroit to NYC (Manhattan), or Detroit to Chicago just to name a few of the examples you can do.

Check it out and see where you would fit in if you lived somewhere else - you might be a little surprised.

That’s right, if you don’t register to vote by October 6, then you will not have a vote in this year’s election.

Today, I attended a volunteer training session at Obama HQ* in Detroit (near the Fisher Building) to help canvass for voter registration.

I was shocked to hear from our Field Organizer that there are almost 180,000 eligible but unregistered voters in Detroit. That’s a lot of people!

But registering to vote is extremely easy. Here are a few ways:

1. Print out this form, and send it in to the Secretary of State. All the information you need is there, but please be sure to fill out the form completely or else your registration may be thrown out.

2. Contact your local Obama headquarters (see a list here) and ask for a voter registration form to be sent to you. They will be sure to get you a voter registration form and may deliver one personally.

3. Register to vote with one of the many volunteers out there with clipboards full of blank registration forms. You’ll find us (for I am one of them) at local festivals or knocking door to door, outside of grocery stores and churches and banks. Be nice to us. We’re just trying to do our part for America.

And if you’re already registered to vote, take 10 minutes of your time to email your friends or call your family to ask if they’re registered to vote. You may be surprised to learn that they aren’t registered.

Here are a few other facts about voter registration: Read more

        I am a burgeoning student in MetroDetroit.  I have lived around the D for the majority of my close to quarter-life existence.   Opting not to go out-of-state for university, I decided to embrace this gritty city for what it is and find the lotus blooms rising from its murky surface.
                  Once in a blue moon, I haunt Baker’s Keyboard lounge. 

              Open mic nites.  My lord, where do I get the gumption? I still enjoy participating in the occasional jam session if I can gather up the necessary courage.  And where are all the poets in this city?! I need to investigate where they are all hiding…
                Venues for good old adventure include, Cliff Bells, Planet Ant, The Belmont – especially when they serve kielbasas w/the works @ 3am to hungry drunks - Goldfish Tea, The DIA, The CAID and many many more. I miss Amsterdam Espresso a victim of the Forest Arms fires back in Feb.
                I love writing, jazz, travel, riding the DPM, and tea.   Sometimes I skip out on lectures and head to a favorite teahouse to enjoy my Oolong.  I pretend that I am in England and observing TeaTime.  We should totally have a national teatime!  I will be blogging on good tea houses.
                And fooood.  With the gastronomical possibilities, why hasn’t Anthony Bourdain come here yet?! He’s been to Cleveland, people. cleveland.  Harvey Pekar can only carry a city’s legacy for so long.   I do love Tony.  I admire his BAMF qualities. 
                I’m geeked to start Blahhhging.

Here’s something you’ve probably heard elsewhere before you read it here:

Kwame Kilpatrick is expected to enter a plea bargain tomorrow in court that will end his tenure as Mayor of Detroit.

It would be pretty bad if we didn’t say anything about this at all, but there’s not much to say that isn’t being said here (Damn you, Free Press! First you beat Metroblogging Detroit to the text messages and now you offer excellent coverage on the entire day’s proceedings!).

We were totally going to break the story on the text messages the day before the Free Press came out with them. I swear.

Hi there Detroiters,

As you can tell if you have us on your Google Reader or other mode of RSS, we haven’t been doing much lately.

Sorry. We’ve been busy, and we lost a few writers. So now we need some new ones!

If you’re interested in writing for this modest little blog, if you’re a photographer who wants to find a larger audience, or if you’re both, then we’d love to have you begin writing for Metrobloggin’ Detroit.

If you’re interested, email me at this address (it’s the address for my other blog). You can be a seasoned writer who wants a new outlet or a beginner who wants some experience or just someone who likes to write about Detroit–the only qualification is that you don’t mind doing it for free.

Actually, the other qualification is the simple interest in writing about anything about Detroit. If you fit both, send me an email and we’ll get you started.

Thanks a million,
Scotter

After being a volunteer author on Detroit Metblogs for over two and a half years, I have decided it is time for me to move on to something new. As such, this will be my last post on the site. Before I go, I want to say thank you to the readers of the site, and to the crew at Metroblogging HQ for sharing their wisdom relating to blogging and life in general. A very special thanks goes out to the volunteer authors and captains that have come and gone since the site first launched; I enjoyed working with all of you and wish you nothing but success and happiness in the future!

It has been a fun and illuminating experience, metro Detroit. In the words of Fall Out Boy (or Bob Hope, if you’re Old School): Thanks for the memories.

This weekend? Next?

Well, go find it yourself.

I peeked around a bit on Detroit’s new Metromix site today, and while the layout isn’t my absolute favorite kind of user friendly, it is packed with some good places to check out, and events that are happening in the area. As with most Detroit-happenings sites, the focus is pretty heavy on Downtown (if you’re like me and can’t help but cry “There’s a whole city here!” hit up the Contact button and submit other sites and events for coverage), but there’s enough to keep you busy for quite awhile. These Metromix sites are already running for cities like Chicago and New York, so Detroit’s addition is another baby step toward glamour city status.

It’s no Metroblogging (!), but it is a pretty neat site.

While thousands of Michiganders are celebrating wedding anniversaries today, someone - or something else — is celebrating its own anniversary this Valentine’s Day: Metroblogging San Jose. Happy first birthday, San Jose! We in Detroit wish you another year of growth and success!

Happy Valentine’s Day, Detroit! We at Metroblogging Detroit hope you have a fabulous, fun- and love-filled day.

My husband and I are going, for the first time, to the Whitney for dinner this evening. I cannot wait and will give a full report on the experience and the food in a few days. What are your special Valentine’s plans?

I had no idea when I walked to the back entrance and up the three flights of stairs that I would be walking into the last rock show at Scrummage University’s Eastern Market loft. As some of you know, we like Scrummage at Metroblogging a lot. And while it’s a shame that Scrummage will be leaving its convenient and easy-to-reach location on Winder street, the boys are moving to an abandoned toy factory across from a cemetery on the East side (sounds like something right out of a movie, doesn’t it?) where they won’t have to worry about waking up neighbors with their pesky dance parties and their obnoxious rocking-and-rolling music. Besides, the new place will have more than twice the space, more room for more roommates, and there will be a closed-in lot for pilgrims to park.
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