NICE: Free smoke detector giveaway continues
Red Cross volunteers will go door-to-door on four dates over the next two months to check and, if necessary, install free smoke detectors in Grand Rapids neighborhoods.
Saving Lives At The Sound is a program aimed at putting a smoke detector in every home.
SO I’M IN ARIZONA for a couple of days. Went running today in shorts and a light T-shirt.
What’s the weather like in Michigan?
FEBRUARY 16: Senator Carl Levin Speaking on Iraq in Grand Rapids
Michigan Democratic Party Senator Carl Levin is scheduled to speak in Grand Rapids on February 16 on Iraq. His speech, which is titled “One Year After The Surge: Where Do We Stand? Where Do We Go From Here?,” will provide attendees with Levin’s “latest assessment of the situation in Iraq, the outlook, and the alternatives.”
Levin is speaking to the Progressive Women’s Alliance at Loosemore Auditorium on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus of Grand Valley State University. 1:00-2:00.
I may have to see if I can’t make it to that.
WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS?
Erich and Connie Hahne have created Michigan Mittens. Maps are sewn into the palms — the Lower Peninsula on the right mitten, the Upper Peninsula on the left.
Red dots show major cities; a yellow star indicates Lansing, the state capital. A pair sells for $20 on the married couple’s Web site.
The whole point-to-your-hand-as-a-map thing has always amused me. Now it goes multimedia.
Here’s the site to order your Michigan Mittens.
WOW: Michigan woman approaching 111th birthday
Nellie Jones was born in 1897.
Jones, who is to celebrate her 111th birthday on Wednesday, is one of Michigan’s oldest residents and is believed to be among the 50 oldest people in the world, The Grand Rapids Press reported Monday.
“What? I’m how old?” Jones, who lives at Heritage Nursing and Rehabilitation Community, asked after being offered birthday greetings. “I’m really getting old.”
People are amazing creatures.
MISS MICHIGAN WINS IT ALL
I don’t follow beauty pageants, but it’s cool to see Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund win this year’s competition.
Haglund is from Farmington Hills, and a Grand Rapids resident was part of the winning team.
Haglund suffered from an image complex and eating disorder three years ago:
The ballet dancer was diagnosed with anorexia, and the lack of nutrition caused her collar bones to stick out, her heart rate to drop and her relationships to suffer.
“I would feel fatigued walking up six stairs,” the 19-year-old Haglund said Sunday, a day after being crowned Miss America 2008. “I was a completely different person. It’s not a pretty sight.”
She plans to champion eating disorder awareness, and her first move is sort of a step in that direction.
Immediately following her win, it was announced that Haglund would be the official spokesperson of IHOP’s third annual National Pancake Day:
In celebration of National Pancake Day on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., IHOP, one of America’s favorite restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner, will give away one free short stack of its signature buttermilk pancakes to all guests. In return, IHOP asks that its guests consider making a donation to support local children’s hospitals through Children’s Miracle Network, a non-profit dedicated to improving children’s hospitals nationwide, or other local charities.
USUALLY ONLY SEEN IN MOVIES: Wanted: Hitman to kill my lover’s wife
According to the AP:
A woman advertised on the popular Internet site Craigslist for an assassin to kill the wife of a man with whom she’d had an affair, authorities said Saturday.
The ad by Ann Marie Linscott, 49, was posted in November as a generic request for somebody to perform a “freelance” job, court document said. Her true intention was only communicated to those who e-mailed her seeking additional information about the job, the Craigslist CEO said.
Linscott offered $5,000 for the hit, had the name and work address of the woman she wanted dead and she described successful candidates as “silent assassins,” according to agents and court documents.
According to WZZM:
After her arrest at her Rockford home, Linscott gave chilling responses to the FBI’s questions outlined in the Federal Criminal Complaint.
When asked what she meant by “eradicating” the victim she said
“Duh. Well to have her killed.”When asked how she would feel if the victim was in fact murdered, she said she feared law enforcement would “track the murder back to her.”
FUNDRAISING FOR OSAMA? Mark Deli Siljander, a former Republican Congressman from Michigan, has been indicted as part of a fundraising and money laundering ring and for lobbying on behalf of an Islamic group which secretly supported Islamic terrorists. See Murdoc Online for more.
EXIT POLLS: CNN has a good display of its exit polling data from yesterday’s primary.