I happened catch site of a Cadillac XLR-V the other wearing a light bar and the livery of the Bloomfield Hills police department. I of course snapped a few shots of it and wrote a post on Autoblog that proved to be fairly popular. A Bloomfield Hills city official who shall remain nameless in order to protect the humorless apparently heard about it and sent off the following comment to the site:

Subject: Cadillac XLR-V Cop Car

The vehicle you saw on this blog site is loaned to our Public Safety Department by a local Cadillac dealer for a special event held up in the Detroit metropolitan area called the Woodward Dream Cruise. This event drew 1.2 million people this weekend to our area featuring vintage and muscle cars cruising down 16 miles of Woodward Avenue. I’m sure you remember cruising down a particular road in your hometown. You might want to check out our local newspapers online to see what this event is all about. The blogger who posted the Cadillac obviously needs to get his facts straight and a life!

Evidently this individual never actually checked out the site and was thus unaware of our extensive coverage of their little event. Perhaps this person is just stressed out from being stuck in traffic all day Saturday on Woodward but he/she might want to learn a little about sarcasm. Oh and get a life.

After all these years of living in southeast Michigan, I’d never actually made the trek over to Oakland County to check out the Woodward Dream Cruise.  Yesterday I finally did in role as a pro blogger and I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t missing anything.  As someone who hates both crowds and traffic jams, this was definitely not the event for me.  I’m into cars and I like them two ways.  When they are static I can stop and check them out and appreciate the details.  As devices of mobility, I also like to see cars at speed.  Slow speed crawls like the Dream Cruise hold no appeal for me.

The problem we had yesterday was that most of the manufacturers display areas were at the north end of Woodward around 15 mile road.  We had our base of operations (including a live video stream) at Royal Oak Ford near 11 mile.   Getting from our base to where carmakers were took forty minutes and the crowds made photography tough.  Max went along with me and in spite of the crowds and periods of tedium he did great.  He took some awesome photos and was never complained.   If we do this next year we’ll definitely have to find a base of operations closer to Birmingham.  As for those million plus spectators I’m at a loss as to what draws them to set up chairs all along Woodward every year.   Plus it’s hard to find anything to eat south of 13 mile.

I just heard from Steve Pierce that the city of Ypsilanti has done a turnabout and bounced the Stop City Income Tax group from the Heritage Festival Parade.  The group which is campaigning  to defeat the proposal for city income tax that is due to be on the ballot this November had previously applied and been approved to march in the parade.  They filled out the paperwork indicating clearly the groups name and no one saw it as a problem initially.  But apparently someone down at City Hall was reviewing the list of participants and decided that dissenters weren’t welcome at the parade.

It sounds like someone in charge has a thin skin when it comes to criticism of their policies and if that’s the case they have no business being in politics.  Whoever made the decision reverse the approval should step forward and explain themselves.  This move is outrageous and the person/people behind it should be removed from office.  If indeed it was the mayor it shouldn’t be a surprise given the dirty politics they play during last year’s campaign.  Perhaps a recall should be on the ballot right next to the tax proposal.

I’ve photographed and written extensively about the Chevy Volt since last January. But until a few days ago I hadn’t actually sat in it. With all that I know about this car and what it will hopefully become, this is what I want my next new car to be. It’s cool looking, environmentally friendly and could represent the way cars will be powered for some time to come.

We just got back from a little vacation up in Traverse City for a few days and while most of it was great, there is one thing I feel I must warn you about.  West of Traverse City on the Lake Michigan coast is the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.   The Platte River flows through part of the park and there are at least two companies that offer canoing and tubing trips down the river.  The river is shallow and meanders down to the Michigan shoreline at a very slow pace.  It’s a great way to spend a sunny summer afternoon.  Just don’t go with Riverside Canoe Trips.  They have the most convoluted process I’ve ever seen for getting the tubes, getting transported to the drop-off point and then returning the tubes to get your deposit back. I won’t get into all the details, but suffice it to say that if you choose to do this I would go with the Trading Post instead.

The other problem with Riverside is their tubes are too small for adults to get comfortable on.  They had these funky tubes that had an inner ring in the center that prevents an adult from letting their butt slide down into the tube so you end up sitting up on top of the whole thing.  Aside from that the river was great and it’s an awesome way to spend a couple of hours.  The whole Traverse City area was nice and the beaches there and at the Dunes were wonderful.   We’ll definitely be going back.

In case you haven’t heard on Tuesday August 7 there is a bond election for the Ypsilanti Public Schools. The district wants to raise $40 million for upgrades to the district facilities. A lot of mechanical updates are needed to school buildings to keep them up to code and safe for the kids staff. Some of the money will also be used for technology upgrades as well as building the new bus garage. If the bond is approved there won’t be any tax increase because the millage will be replacing an expiring millage so this won’t cost local property owners any extra money. I urge anyone who’s reading this to head out to the polls on Tuesday and vote in favor of the bond. Our district needs it.