Vacuum

a2geeks 2013 annual meeting, Thursday May 16 2013, 5:30 p.m. at Ann Arbor SPARK

From the Facebook event announcement:

a2geeks' third annual meeting is a gathering-of-the-geeks - inventors and innovators, makers and hackers, students and grandparents, town and gown. This event will also kick-off the A2Geeks Civic Apps Contest. Food and fun galore.

The event starts at 5:30 p.m. I'll be there pitching the Civic Apps contest, which I've been working on for a while now to organize. See you there!

E. Stadium Bridges Dedication Ceremony is Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10 a.m.

Press release from the City of Ann Arbor

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E. Stadium Bridges Dedication Ceremony is Tuesday, May 14, 10 a.m.

ANN ARBOR, Mich., April 11, 2013 — A brief dedication ceremony for the City of Ann Arbor’s E. Stadium Bridges Replacement Project will be held at 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 14, 2013 near 1501 S. State Street, next to the E. Stadium Boulevard Bridge over S. State Street. Congressman John Dingell will be joined with representatives from the national Department of Transportation, as well as officials from MDOT, Washtenaw County, City of Ann Arbor, project contractors, neighbors, and the general public. Temporary public parking will be available on the UM Red Lot adjacent to the bridge over S. State Street.

Within 12 months, the E. Stadium Bridges Reconstruction Project built two new bridges, on-street bike lanes, a new sidewalk on the south side--and a widened sidewalk along the north side--of E. Stadium Boulevard, a new sidewalk along the west side of S. State Street with a signalized pedestrian crossing of the railroad tracks, two staircases connecting E. Stadium Boulevard to S. State Street, ADA-compliant facilities with an accessible path between S. State Street and E. Stadium Boulevard, storm water quality
improvements, new water mains, improvements to Rose-White Park, landscaping, and many other features.

The City of Ann Arbor received funding from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) for $13.9 million in TIGER II Discretionary Grant Funding, and about $1.67 million and $1.20 million, respectively, in Local Bridge Program and Transportation Enhancement Funding. All told, the City received about $16.8 million (or about 73 percent of the total estimated project costs) in state and federal funds to complete the project. The remaining 27 percent of the project was funded via various city sources including the Ann Arbor voter-approved Street and Bridge Resurfacing & Reconstruction Millage as the required local-match for the grants. Public notifications of developments in the E. Stadium Bridges project have been posted at www.annarborbridges.org.

The previous E. Stadium Bridges were built in 1928. The bridges carry more than 24,000 vehicles per day.

Visit the Ann Arbor Bridges website: http://www.annarborbridges.org
Follow project updates on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/AnnArborBridges
Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AnnArborBridges

Ann Arbor Nerd Nite, Wednesday April 17, 2013

Ann Arbor's monthly Nerd Nite is coming Wednesday, April 17; doors open at 6:30pm for a 7:00pm event. Here's a bit from the Ann Arbor Nerd Nite web site which also has more in the way of details about the speakers and the format.

Wham! W00t! Wednesday!

What up, A2nerds? We’re mixing things up a bit this month by bringing the nerdery to Wednesday. For those of you that are new to the fold, Nerd Nite is a monthly social event where nerds of all disciplines give 18-21 minute funny and informative talks while the audience drinks along and asks questions. We’ve heard good things about this shindig. So, what will we be learning about this time?

W is for Water: David Trossman will channel his inner Steve Zissou and guide us through Voyages of the Neo-Voyeurs: How They Observe Motion in the Ocean.

W is for Writing: Amy Wilson would Do Anything for Love and she’ll explain to us Why, in fact, Good Pop Music is Good Writing.

W is for Whiskey: Michelle Kydd, in Eau Whiskey, will help us see that whiskey isn’t just for drinking, but for smelling, too.

 

When: Wednesday, April 17 Doors at 6:30 Event at 7
Where: The Last Word, 301 W. Huron St.
Wage: $5 Buy online! or at the door (cash/credit)

National Healthcare Decisions Day is April 16, 2013

Thanks to Merilynne Rush for notice of this event.

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National Healthcare Decisions Day is April 16.

Join with other Americans across the country completing Advance Directives documents at an Advanced Directives Party at the Center for the Childbearing Year, 722 Brooks St., Ann Arbor

6:30 Drinks and hors d’oeuvres
7:00 Presentation and Q & A
8:00 Small Group discussion and filling out documents

Cost: $15 per person or $20 per family

For more information and to RSVP, visit After Death Home Care (dot) com or call 734-395-9660

Now that the taxes are done, do the other paperwork you’ve been putting off!

National Healthcare Decisions Day highlights the importance of advance healthcare decision-making. As a participating organization, After Death Home Care is providing information and tools for the public to talk about their wishes with family, friends and healthcare providers, and execute written advance directives in accordance with Michigan laws.

Specifically, on April 16, from 6:30 – 8:30 pm, After Death Home Care is welcoming the public with information about advance care planning and advance directive forms. Merilynne Rush, RN, Natural Burial Specialist is joined by Patricia Lyndale, UM Hospital Chaplain, and John Erdevig, Attorney, to answer questions.

National Healthcare Decisions Day encourages people in our community to have thoughtful conversations about their healthcare decisions and to complete reliable advance directives to make their wishes known. As a result, more people will plan ahead before a health crisis, fewer families and healthcare providers will have to struggle with making difficult decisions when a patient can no longer do so, and more families will be able to honor their loved ones wishes.

For more information about the party, please visit After Death Home Care (dot) com. For more information about National Healthcare Decisions Day, please visit www.nhdd.org.

Media Contact: Merilynne Rush, After Death Home Care, 734-395-9660, mrush@afterdeathhomecare.com

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Michigan Football spring game 2013: parking restrictions in effect

Michigan Football has its spring football game on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The following map shows restricted parking areas near the stadium for the event. Move your car - or the city will move it for you.

Yuri's Night in Ann Arbor, Friday April 12, 2013

From the a2geeks mailing list - added links are mine.

Friday April 12th is Yuri's Night - celebrating spaceflight on the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight in 1961, and the first space shuttle flight in 1981. The Ann Arbor District Library is bringing laptops running Kerbal Space Program (an awesomely fun space exploration sandbox game) to The Bar at 327 Braun Court. Come celebrate space exploration!

Penny Stamps: Arduino creator Massimo Banzi, “Opensourcing Imagination,” Thursday, April 11, 2013 at Michigan Theater

From a press release from ORCI; added hyperlinks are mine.

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Dan Meisler

What: Penny Stamps College of Art and Design Distinguished Speaker Series featuring Massimo Banzi
When: Thursday, April 11, 5:10 p.m.
Where: Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty, Ann Arbor
Cost: Free

Interaction designer Massimo Banzi (@mbanzi) helped invent the Arduino, a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that has inspired people around the world to make the coolest things they can imagine. With a variety of sensors, the Arduino is versatile and easy to use for projects as diverse as an exhibit on brains at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, to a DIY kit that sends a Tweet when your houseplant needs water.

Massimo has consulted for Prada, Artemide, Persol, Whirlpool, the V&A Museum and Adidas. He is also the author of Getting Started with Arduino and a regular contributor to both the italian edition of Wired Magazine and the online innovation magazine Che Futuro.  Massimo currently teaches Interaction Design at SUPSI Lugano in Switzerland and is a visiting professor at CIID in Copenhagen.

With support from ArtsEngine, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, the School of Information and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

 

Festifools photos from 2013

A lovely day for a foolish parade. We were out and got some choice standing places in the springtime sunshine, and when the parade got to be too much for the youngest of the party, we went out for hot chocolate and a muffin.

This photo gives some idea of the fun. I didn't get a picture of my favorite puppet, which was a camera complete with "flash". This was definitely a time to get photos with as much resolution as you can.

You can see many more photos of the event on the Facebook page for the 2013 Festifools event, and I'm sure as I find more I'll share more.

Beer with Bloggers, organized by Mark Maynard. Corner Brewery, Ypsilanti, Tuesday April 9 2013 7-9pm

I'm planning to go to Beer with Bloggers, a get-together organized by Mark Maynard.

An event for Michigan bloggers of all stripes, and the people who love them... No formal agenda. Just lots of talking over beer about blogs, politics, food, culture and the state of independent media.

Hope to see you there!

April 4-5, 2013: Visual Culture and Archives symposium hosted by the Bentley Historical Library at Rackham Amphitheature

The Bentley Historical Library is hosting a symposium on Visual Culture and Archives at Rackham Amphitheatre  on the University of Michigan Central Campus on April 4-5. The event will be live tweeted with the hash tag #bhlvisual, and there's live streaming of the talks. See the event home page for details.