Tag Archives: Dearborn

Curious Praying Mantis Video

I caught this crawling away from the corner of the garage and it looks like some spiderwebs from the corners and some grass clippings were stuck. Not sure if that was slowing it down or was just super curious.

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I was watching it for a while but a lot of the video or photos wasn’t in focus so I didn’t use it. Here’s some video I took, actually a few short ones edited together.


What was that noise at 5 seconds in?!?!?

I’m not sure if this insect was hurt or not. I let it crawl up on to a shovel and then carefully carried it outside. I think it just had too much crud stuck to it or it was wondering what I was doing…?

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You can click to enlarge the photos. Please correct me as to the correct name of this insect if I got it wrong.

FYI, I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor which is VERY easy to use. (I uploaded the videos, dragged them in order, trimmed a little off the ends and voila!

Biking on Hines Drive today

So it’s Saturday and I was biking Hines Drive (again). It was extra windy so it was ext a difficult biking, but I’d got the 25-mile Tour de Troit next week so I thought maybe I should do the whole 15-miles today.

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It was extra green today, so that was nice, summer has been so dry, the grass has looked like straw and I’ve been waiting for tumbleweeds to roll out in front of me.

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I did get to see a dear running (galloping?), I had seen it a few minutes before and waited for it to come out the woods, but it didn’t so I started biking and it caught up to me again. I didn’t even stop to take this one, it’d have gotten away if I had!

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I saw this guy go zooming by on his Lightning F40. He was flying (I didn’t stop to take this one either) I saw him pass the bikers in the distance and look how far away they are still! He was flying!

Glass Totems in Dearborn – Day 10 of 31 photos in 31 days

I like these “glass totems” but whoever put them here did not position them for optimum sunlight and there isn’t any lighting for at night. They’re part of a Dearborn Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition enrichment that they’ve done for a few years with the Midwest Sculpture Initiative.

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While I wouldn’t pay $8,000 for these, I get to see them for free and when I’m bored of it in a year, it’ll be gone, possibly replaced with something else.

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This is for my 31 photos in 31 days project today.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!!!

I love fireworks! I hate waiting for them, but I love the show itself! This is a sequence I animated from the show that I saw last night.

If you’re viewing it on a devices that won’t show the animation, it’s probably really boring looking!

This is another U.S. holiday that I’m sure more people forget what it’s for. It’s not the 4th of July, it’s Independence Day, it’s for celebrating our freedom!

Crazy weather

I was cooking dinner and I knew the storm was coming but I thought I’d have time to finish grilling. I didn’t, it started raining and it was like buckets being dumped down. I got SO drenched in the few seconds that I opened the sliding door. The kitchen floor and nearby counter was a mess with all the water that came in the little bit of time I that it was open. There was hail all over the deck, a lot of it larger than the diameter of a quarter(?) I should have gotten some photos of it, but I was drenched and was trying to take care of dinner and the grill and the mess…

Afterwards the clouds just kept billowing around like something out of a sci-fi movie. I shot video but it just didn’t come out well, so I animated these stills; sorry they’re so jumpy but I didn’t know I’d be animating them.

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Then the lightning and thunder came over and over. I shot about 200 pictures (just holding the camera on repeat and changing some settings here and there) and only a few came out.

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I should have gone and got my other camera (and a tripod), I’ve got more settings on that one. But the rain kept coming and going so I wasn’t sure it I could really use it properly. Maybe next time.

And the local fireworks got canceled…

Maybe it’s going to rain?!?

What do you think?

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Talk about the oncoming storm…

With all the rain, I thought Winter was winding up!

Turns out it was just winding me up! Look at all the snow we got yesterday, it’s just a few inches but yesterday it was all washed away…

Isn’t the “first day of spring” in just a few weeks?!?

The Wash Haus in Dearborn – Review

Poor customer service has always been a annoyance to me. Be nice and be courteous and try to deliver it with a smile. Especially in this economy, how can you afford not to be nice and courteous?

That said, the folks at the Wash Haus (in Dearborn, Michigan) have always been extra-nice and ultra-courteous. They have a laundromat, drop off laundry, dry cleaning and they do alterations. I’ve got a washer & dryer at home so I only use them for dry cleaning and repairs/alterations. And when I say repairs, I mean some stuff that I wasn’t even sure if they could fix.

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Today, I dropped some items off today to be dry cleaned and an odd shoe repair (my Five-Fingered Vibram shoe has a tear in it) and he took my number so he could call me to let me know if they could fix it (he’s called me before about repairs).

I think it’s just the way the owner talks to me, he’s just polite (maybe even respectful) and it doesn’t matter if I’m in shorts or a suit (and I think the owner has been there every time I’ve been in). And it’s not like I’m their best customer, I probably haven’t been there much more than a half-dozen times in the last year, he actually remembered that it’s been about six months since he’s seen me.

Bottom line, if you’re in the area you should give them a try! They’re at 5280 Schaefer Road on the south side (between Ford Road and Michigan Ave.) in Dearborn; before this year, the place was under different management so if you didn’t like them before, there’s new folks in charge. Check out the photo since there’s a competitor a block over; plus I thought the blue sky came out awesome for just stopping in the road and using my phone for a quick snap. I couldn’t find a web page but they do have a Facebook fan page (which has a year old price sheet).