Documentary on the History of U.S. 12

"From Moccasins to Main Street" is a new documentary about the history of U.S. 12 that is premiering this Friday, July 14, at Sturges-Young Auditorium at 7 p.m. The film is produced by Mike Mort and Lee Fraim and features many actors from the Sturgis area. Tickets for the premiere are $10 with the proceeds going to the Sturgis Historical Society and the St. Joseph County Historical Society. Organizers would prefer if you made reservations.

The documentary takes viewers through the different stages the route has seen over the years. What began as an Indian trail and ended up as U.S. 12 makes for some interesting history. Before I-94 came into existence in 1962 the current highway known as U.S. 12 was at that time known as U.S. 112.

Read more about "From Moccasins to Main Street" at the Sturgis Journal.

Rustic Fruit Tart

I plan to make this pie with blueberries and raspberries as soon as I have time to go out and pick the berries. It sounds delicious and easy - just my style! What you need:

• Ready made unroll and bake pie crust
• 3 cups fresh fruit (one fruit or a mix of fruits)
• 3 Tbsp. sugar
• 2 Tbsp. cornstarch

Directions:

• Unroll pie crust on a baking sheet.
• Combine fruit, sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl and stir well. Use a slotted spoon to pile fruit in a level mound in the center of the pie crust, leaving about 1 to 2 inches of bare dough around. Discard any juice in the bowl.
• One side at a time, fold up the edges of the pastry. The folded edges should cover some of the berries, but not reach the center. When all of the edges are folded up, the center of the tart should still be visible.
• Bake for 25 minutes, or until the pastry begins to brown and the fruit is bubbling. Remove the tart from the oven and cool until the juices set.

This recipe was adapted from one found at the Traverse City Record Eagle's website. The article accompanying the recipe is interesting.

Ann Arbor Google Job Positions Now Online

NOTE: This is an update on my earlier post. Interested in working at the new Google facility in Ann Arbor? Head on over to www.google.com/jobs and see if there might be a career opportunity available for you. They just listed the new positions for their upcoming AdWords campus in Ann Arbor this afternoon.

Here are the three different types of new openings -

• AdWords Associate
• AdWords Coordinator
• Associate Manager, Online Operations, AdWords

Oops! Granholm's Campaign in Legal Hot Water

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that GOP Chair Saul Anuzis believes that Governor Granholm's re-election campaign violated the law when it used the email addresses of those who signed an online gas price petition (the one I wrote about here) to ask for support of Granholm in this fall's election. The GOP chair also stated that the Granholm campaign had "violated the privacy of citizens who signed the petitions, who had been assured the names would not be used for any other purpose." Granholm's spokesman, Chris Dewitt, refutes the claims Anuzis has made as being "long on rhetoric and short on facts." The email addresses were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. It is not known whether or not the Republicans received the same list or if they have/had plans to use those email addresses.

Sounds to me like both sides are slinging some good ol' rhetoric. A novel idea would be if both Republicans and Democrats came up and spoke out against such behavior. Basically, it seems like the re-election campaign of Granholm's spammed the good people who only provided their email addresses to sign a petition to do something about high gas prices. I say thumbs down to both parties for wanting (and the Republicans supposedly wanting) to use this information for their respective parties' gain.

Yahoo! Google is Coming to Michigan!

Excellent news on the job front today in Michigan. Google Inc. (yes, as in I better google that), the search engine that is now in the dictionary as a verb, is looking to hire up to 1,000 people over the next five years to run their new Ann Arbor headquarters for their Google Adwords division. A quick look at the Google Jobs site does not appear to show results for the upcoming Google Adwords positions. There are currently positions open for Google's controversial Book Scanning operations in Ann Arbor and Advertising Sales positions in the Detroit area. Supposedly the new Ann Arbor jobs could be listed as early today. If you are interested you should check it out sometime today.

With average salaries anticipated at $47,000 this is a great day for Michigan and its beleaguered economy. I have to be honest, this news has me giddy and delighted for the state of Michigan this morning. Day after day all we see, hear, and read about are all of the job losses in the automobile industry.

Hearing that such a well known company from the technology sector is expanding in Michigan is like hearing we get an extra month of summer. Until now, it seemed that all we had to feel uplifted about in Michigan lately was the excellent play of the Detroit Tigers.

Can you imagine what might happen if things go well for Google in Michigan? We just might shift our economic image from the auto industry to the technology sector. Wouldn't that be something?

Read Tom Walsh's article in the Detroit Free Press.

Michigan Gas Prices Week of 7/10/06

The current regular unleaded gas price average across Michigan is now up to $3.029 per gallon. Recently, the August futures for a barrel of light sweet crude went as high as $75.78. Analysts are predicting $80 per barrel of oil at some point in 2007. They base this on past history of a barrel of oil increasing about $10 per year. Who knows what that will do to gas prices here in Michigan? They certainly will not decrease.

One year ago at this time Michigan gas prices had crept up to $2.361.

Gas price data courtesy of AAA's Fuel Gauge Report.