Tuesday, 2/28

It's a big problem around here. I just wish I had a big solution for it.

Over the past couple of years, Marquette has developed a...reputation's not quite the right word, but a “reputation” as a place where the homeless will come to hang out. The people of Marquette, being very fair and kindhearted, started a program called “Room at the Inn” around a decade and a half ago. Churches, on a rotating basis, would take in the homeless at night during the winter, just to get everyone out of the cold and into safety. That soon grew into the Room at the Inn shelter, which is open 24 hours a day year round, and gives those who are down on their luck a place to both have a little shelter and to regroup.

It's a program that works, and a program that was started with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, it's also a program that through no fault of its own has outgrown those best of intentions.

You see, word of Marquette's kindheartedness has spread and more and more homeless seem to make their way to Marquette to take advantage of it. Anecdotally (and I'm hoping this really isn't true, but you never know) it's said communities around the region are telling the homeless in their area to go to Marquette because “they'll take care of you”. Because of that, Room at the Inn is full on a nightly basis. Because the shelter has rules about their guests drinking or indulging in other bad behavior, not every homeless person who shows up is welcomed in.

That has led to scenes like this one in the church courtyard across the street from the station--

That's a homeless encampment, where five or six individuals gather on a nightly basis to drink and swear at the top of their lungs and do whatever else. I can leave work at 7 at night and see and hear them, and then come back at 730 the next morning to do something and they're still there, still drinking and still swearing at the top of their lungs. Several times the Marquette City Police have dispersed them, and several times they've regrouped.

It's a cycle that doesn't seem to want to be broken.

I have no idea how to tackle a problem like homelessness. I don't know if it can even be tackled without a systemic overhaul of the way we live in this country. And I know many homeless people are just down on their luck and need a place to stay while they're trying to get their lives back in order.   That's why Room at the Inn was formed up here, and that's why it's helped so many people by giving them what they needed when they needed it.

But as for those who don't want help or are too far gone to even ask for it? I have no idea. I really don't.

Since I took the picture before the storm last week the encampment in the church courtyard seems to have disappeared, although I'm 100% certain it popped again somewhere else. Then, once that one's discovered, they'll be chased away by the police again in what has become a very tragic, never-ending game of human whack-a-mole. How does this problem ever get resolved?

I wish I knew.

(jim@wmqt.com) 

Friday, 2/24

Okay...it can stop now.

Actually, the snow does seemed to have stopped, at least looking out my kitchen window (from where I'm writing this). I went out running a little while ago, and was greeted by some flakes of, I'm guessing, the lake effect variety, but at least for a few minutes we're okay.

So keep your fingers crossed.

I just checked, and it looks as if we received 10 inches here in downtown Marquette, but double that at the National Weather Service. While that's not storm of the century snow, as one person had cautioned a few days ago, it is a big pain in the butt, especially since we had lost of most of our snow cover last week.

But...it's back. And to, uhm, not celebrate but to acknowledge that fact, I get to drag my snowshoes out this weekend and use them for the whole second time this year. So I guess something good came out of all of this.

8-)

Actually, I may use them a third time, as well, as I'm taking Monday off, at least from this job. I have to shoot the High School Bowl “Year in Review” show and do my other TV gig, but I may have a window of a few hours to snowshoe for a third time this year.

Unless, of course, the rain that's in the forecast for Tuesday shows up a day early.

That's my plan, and I'm sticking to it. Back with something new on Tuesday. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 2/23

No zombie apocalypse yet. As for the snow...well, that's still up for debate.

When we last spoke, I was ruminating over the fact that just a few days after cancelling a major winter event up here because of a lack of snow that we could now get up to two feet of the white stuff (minus a zombie apocalypse) in a 24-hour period. How does it look so far?

Okay; that's of 9:50 this (Thursday) morning, taken on my walk to work. I have no idea how it's going to turn out. Yesterday one of our meteorologists said (and I'm not kidding on this range) that we could have anywhere from four to 16 inches of snow, and with a range like that coming from a professional I don't want to even venture a guess myself.

Let's just say there may be a lot of snow and leave it at that. Or there may not be and we may all end up disappointed. It's probably gonna be one or the other. After all, as I said yesterday, there's no in-between any more.

There's just weirder and weirder weather.

I'm not going to complain too much, though. I have a friend who had to fly downstate for business Monday. All of her meetings got cancelled, so she tried to fly back home Tuesday afternoon. However, all the flights were sold out and there were no available rental cars, so she's stuck in Lansing for however long this lasts, hunkered down in a hotel room.

That is a situation in which I would NOT want to be.

So we'll see how this all ends. Lots of snow? Not much snow? Zombie apocalypse to go along with it? I guess we'll know by some time tomorrow.

Wish us luck.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 2/22

Okay...seriously?

A week after the unprecedented cancellation of the UP 200 sled dog race because of a lack of snow we're now on track, beginning later today, for a winter weather event that could see two feet—TWO FEET--of snow dumped on us over the next 36 hours.

What the what, Mother Nature?

Now, I know we've broken the planet. I know that climate change has caused weather to act in stranger and stranger ways. But to get two feet of snow in one day, just a week after having not enough snow for a winter activity, does kind of boggle the mind, even in an era when mind-boggling events seem to occur each and every day.

Gulp.

And, of course, what's scary is this—as mind-blowing as the possibility of the next few days seems,in a couple of years we may end up looking upon it in quaint fondness. Because it wouldn't surprise me if in a few years, when we get four feet of snow and a zombie apocalypse in the same day, that we look back on what may be coming tomorrow and think to ourselves...”boy, what I wouldn't give for just two feet of snow in one day”.

Although, I'm guessing, if you're going to have a zombie apocalypse, having it while four feet of snow is falling WOULD better your odds of survival.

Hopefully, whatever comes the next two days is survivable. Maybe we'll get the full two feet, or maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised by a smaller amount. In the end, I guess, it really doesn't matter. I guess we can just consider it practice for whatever comes in the future.

Because, even without a zombie apocalypse, you know that whatever DOES come in the future will be a lot worse than what we'll be getting tomorrow.

(jim@wmqt.com) 

Tuesday, 2/21

 My life is weird.

First of all, "hey".  Hope you had a good extended weekend, if you had an extended weekend.  Or hope that if you had the traditional two-day weekend that you weren't resentful of anyone who had a three day weekend.

Basically, hope you had a great weekend...no matter how long it was.

Mine was more productive than anything.  I was able to get a lot done on "The Greasier the Spoon", and while I didn't work my full-time job yesterday I DID do work my two part-time TV jobs, and it's on one of them that I found out my life is weird.

Or, perhaps more to the point, it was re-affirmed that my life is weird.

As you may recall, we've finished shooting "High School Bowl" for the season, leaving just the "Year in Review" show to stick together.  I was working on getting stuff together for that when, for a reason that now escapes me, I had to search for something on the Interweb.  And it was while doing that search that I discovered something I had never known; in fact, something I had never even thought to consider--

That the little show I've hosted for eight years has its own Wikipedia page.

Literally, I had no idea the page existed.  I have no idea who started it or who updates it.  But there, staring me in the face, was a page about a little local TV show in which I get mentioned several times, including in the information box on the right hand side of the page that's the most important piece of real estate on Wikipedia.

Have I mentioned my life is weird?

I'll have to check, but I'm guessing it's someone at NMU involved with the show who's been maintaining the page.  After all, it has a complete list of winners and runners-up over the first 43 years of the show, as well as information that only a person who's been behind the scenes might know.  Or...maybe there's just some kind of super-fan out there doing all this.  If there's one thing I've discovered since 2014 it's that there are people out there who really, really like "High School Bowl".

So, perhaps, one of them initiated the whole Wikipedia thing.

All I know is this--over the past couple of years--maybe the past decade or so--there are times when it seems like my life has taken a life of its own, and I'm just along for the ride.

And most definitely, seeing the Wikipedia page for "High School Bowl" is one of those times.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 2/17

This is weird. I don't have to shoot a TV show this morning.

Almost every Friday morning since the end of September I've hauled my butt over to TV-13 to tape a game or two of “High School Bowl”. But seeing as how we wrapped the season last Friday I don't have to get up early, get dressed up, and play TV host.

And I kinda miss it.

When I started this whole thing all those years ago I had no idea what to expect. I've been amazed by the experience, not only by the fact that they keep asking me back each & every year but more by the people I've been able to meet while hosting that TV show. One of the things I say at the beginning of every show is that everyone watching gets the chance to spend an hour with some of the brightest young people on the planet, and I'm not kidding when I say that. Some of the kids I've met and had the chance to get to know really are smart...scary smart, in fact, with some in medical school, or graduate school, or on track to become professors and/or research scientists who could one day change the world.

I've joked in here before about how my ties get more fan mail than I do, and I'm fine with that. But one nice compliment that I occasionally get comes from people I've never met before, who stop me on the street just to tell me they enjoy watching the program because, and I quote, “you (me, the host) seem to be having fun doing it, and it shows”. To me, that's the best kind of compliment, because I AM having fun with the show, and when I started that's the feeling I hoped to get across.

It's nice to know that every so often things go the way you plan then.

There are still many weeks of the show left to air, so I hope more of that fun keeps coming through, including another one of our “Cerebral 16” matches tomorrow night. Check it out if you're so inclined.

And have a great weekend, too. Like many people, I have Monday off (or at least have Monday off in my role as Radio Jim), so if you don't see one of these Monday, that's why. Back with another one of these Tuesday!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 2/16

I don't think anyone saw THAT coming.

For the first time in its history the UP200 Sled Dog Race, one of the crown jewels of UP winter activities, was canceled before it started. Why, you ask? Well, I answer--

Actually, it was a lot more than just a lack of snow (although, ironically, it is snowing right now, but just lightly). The rain we've had the past few days turned to ice, and that means that the mushers, dogs, and spectators just would not be safe.

Hence, the cancellation of the race.

Like I said, it's never been canceled before it started, although it has been cut short many times, most notably a few years ago when temperatures shot up into the 60s the second day of the race and made the course untenable. So it's not like the weather hasn't wreaked havoc on the UP200 before.

It just hasn't before the race even got the chance to start.

Part of me wonders if this is just gonna be the new norm. The planet's warming up, the weather's becoming wackier and wackier (as an example, it was 46 degrees and raining in Marquette on Valentine's Day) and we may be at the point where some of our iconic winter events—ski, sled dog, and outhouse races—may or may not take place on a yearly basis, all depending upon what Mother Nature has up her sleeve. That would suck, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's our new normal.

And that would be a shame.

Organizers of the race are scrambling to put together a “Festival of the Sled Dog' for Friday night in downtown Marquette, to take the place of the race start. It won't be the same, but at least it'll be something, and I hope it's a success.

If only because we'll probably be seeing more and more things like this happening in the future.

(jim@wmqt.com)