360 West Woodland Street
Ferndale, MI 48220
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"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." -- Thomas Jefferson |
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"Activity suggests a life filled with purpose." -- Georg von Trapp, The Sound of Music |
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"I love rich people. I love they way they live. I love the way I live when I'm with them!" -- Max Detweiler, The Sound of Music |
February 11, 2008
OK. We've been busy. To catch up you should check out Tif's latest project, www.nopsdtax.com.
We'd also like to introduce you to www.FerndaleOnline.com--a website about the interests of Ferndale and what's interesting about Ferndale.
We know you've been busy, too. In your spare time please visit both sites. Eventually we'll get some information up about how busy Michael and Joshua have been. If you like the look of www.FerndaleOnline.com, I'm thinking of changing this site to look more like that one -- except without user registrations.
August 8, 2007
Tom is running for Mayor! Please visit the Thomas Gagne for Mayor (http://www.GagneForMayor.com/) website and catch up on everything happening in the campaign. On it you can sign-up for email alerts, contribute to his campaign, volunteer, and read why Tom will be an excellent Mayor for Ferndale.
4/22/2007
Tom's brother, Charlie Gagne, has a 13-year old son Andrew that was diagnosed with leukemia the day after this year's superbowl. He's being treated at U of M's Mott's Children's Hospital. Mott participates in something called CarePages. CarePages are websites that allow two-way communication between a patient and all their friends, relatives, and friends of friends and relatives to keep each other up-to-date and emotional support. Andrew has his own carepage (AndrewGagne94) and everyone's invited to drop in, introduce yourself, and cheer Andrew on.
Andrew loves playing baseball, and his dad coaches. Today, the Ann Arbor News did a story on how something was missing in yesterday's games.
1/17/2007
Happy New Year!
We're sorry to have been gone so long. But let's dispense with the excuses and get down to something really cool: sidewalk chalk drawings. However clever Tom thinks he may be here's a guy that's taken pavement chalk drawing to a new dimension--literally.
10/9/2006
Tom wrote an op-ed for Ferndale Friends urging voters to vote NO on Ferndale's misnamed Human Rights Ordinance. You can read the article online on his blog and if you'd like, leave a comment.
Jill Lamphier formerly our next door neighbor, who then moved up the street, then to Pleasant Ridge (she says she's done), is now organizing estate sales. Her first one (I think) is July 7 and 8 at 14 Norwich, Pleasant Ridge. Check out the flier and let her know we sent you.
7/5/2006
Thank you to everyone who helped in our returnables drive to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis. We have a garage-full of cans and bottles we'll return and donate the proceeds.
If you have more we'll come get them. It's best if you contact us before July 25, 2006.
5/24/2006
Tom's company, Instream Financial, is fund raising for The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and they need your help. Specifically, they need your donations (a nice word for money). Make your check payable to The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and drop it off at our house, mail it to us, or drop it off at Tom's office at 26321 N. Woodward Ave, on the West side of Woodward between Lincoln and Eleven Mile roads. It's the building with the sign that says Hennessey Capital (a related company).
We'll also accept cash, but we don't have an adequate receipt yet--so checks are better for now unless you don't worry about deducting charitable cash contributions.
If you drop it off at the office, make sure you write "Team 5" on it so Tom's team gets credit for raising the money. They're having a competition through the end of July and the winning team wins, well, no one's decided yet... Whatever it may be it will come with the gratification having helped out a good cause.
5/5/2006
Today is Tiffani's birthday! Next time you see her ask how old she is and if she had fun beating the monkey. I'll just say I hope it doesn't leave any psychological scars on the kids.
4/18/2006
Congratulations to Annie Martin for her inclusion in Crains Detroit 20 in their 20s. You can skip the intro and read all about Annie first. Annie lives on Breckenridge with her husband Tom.
03/15/2006
"Sometimes we use words whose meaning we don't remember, like bigot, because everyone else does. That's why I make words up--they mean whatever I need them to. Like combining the words hypocrite and hypochondriac to make hypocritiac, hypocriphobic, or paranocrite to mean a person disposed to hypocritically complaining about hypocrites."
Read the rest of Why attack the argument when you can attack the man on Tom's blog.
02/09/2006
George Will has an interesting article appearing in today's Washington Post about Michigan's economy and the upcoming Gubernatorial election. Usually we don't get this much attention, and after reading the article you may wish we didn't.
(01/04/2005)
A recent posting to the Ferndale GOP's group server recommended a fantastic piece published in the Wall Street Journal. We'll have more to say about it later, but we recommend you get to reading it now. Warning, it's a long article. Longer than our attention spans have been trained to digest at once, but worth the extra effort.
(12/21)
Everyone has an opinion on the Merry Christmas v. Seasons Greetings debate. Here's Tom's take on it.
(12/16)
Thomas has started his own blog. We're sure everyone was wondering when he'd finally take the plunge. Stop by and visit Tom's Blog and feel free to leave your comments.
(12/2)
Joshua's elementary school, Royal Oak's Northwood Elementary, closed early Thursday, December 1, due to an outbreak of influenza. News reports indicated some classrooms had only two students, but Joshua overheard adminstrators indicating that from a school of approximately 400 students, over 100 had called-in sick. Tiffani heard a district administrator visited the school and saw children sitting in hallways with buckets between their legs. More children had already left school earlier that day due to illness.
For those that stay healthy, a three and one-half day weekend isn't a bad day!
Crain's is reporting Ferndale will receive over $31,000 as part of a federal grant to five local communities to improve the security of their schools.
(9/12)
It's been two weeks since hurricane Katrina decimated parts of Mississippi and Louisiana and many pundits, celebrities, politicians, and ordinary people share the opinion the federal government is to blame. If you think the federal response to Katrina was delayed either intentionally or by incompetence you might consider reading Steve Kelly's column in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. He includes comparisons to other federal response to hurricanes Andrew and Hugo.
(8/24)
Angie Gaietto, my friend and coworker, left paralyzed from the waist down as the result of an attempted car jacking (see below) has left Beaumont Hospital and is now at the DMC going through physical therapy and preparing for the birth of her first child. Another friend of her's is organizing a fundraiser.
BOTTLE/CAN DRIVE
This bottle/can drive is for a close friend of mine, Angie Gaietto, who suffered a spinal cord injury on July 22 which left her paralized form the waist down. She is 5 months pregnant. She is currently in rehabilitation doing well. She will need so many things to manage taking care of the baby while in a wheelchair. I am starting this bottle/can drive to help with expenses of remodeling the house to make it handicap accessible and for special needs of her and her family. If you can donate or know of anyone who can please let me know and I will be picking up on August 28 and September 11.
If you'd like, you can leave your returnables on our front porch at 360 W. Woodland (between Woodward and Livernois) before September 10 and we'll get them to her friend, Jackie Clark.
Tiffani's running for public office! She's circulating petitions now so her name can appear on the Ferndale City Ballot for a four-year term on the Library Board. You don't have to wait for us to come to your home. If you're by the house stop by and sign the petition. There are only a few days left.
(7/29)
On July 22, a co-worker was shot during an attempted car jacking leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. A $10,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man responsible.
(8/13)
Wow - end of August already!!
Dream Cruise is next Saturday (the 21st) and if we have power this year, we will be partying AGAIN!!! As usual, bring your cooler, park it in our garage and we'll ramble on down
Woodward to check out the cars - we think they're doing a street carnival again this year!!!
Come around 1:00PM - if it's later, no biggy - the garage is open (and the house will be too) and we have a new refrigerator in the garage now!! We have lots of non-alcoholic bevs for the kids so don't bother with that but bring your adult beverage of choice - we have lots of Minute Maid lemonade for those cool beer/lemonade drinks Brian and Nicci Bower turned us on to three years ago!!
We'll be making burgers, brats and dogs and baked beans around 5:30ish - if everyone could bring some kind of side dish that would rock - just let us know what you're bringing!!!
Please feel free to invite other people if you'd like - just let us know if you're coming and how many so we know how much food to get!!! We look forward to seeing everyone. If you've never been to a Dream Cruise before, it's a lot of fun!!
Call us if you need to - 248.542.8555!!
(6/13) We suffered another power outage yesterday -- and it had nothing to do with a storm. A mostly rotten tree, a few blocks away, decided to give up and fall on some powerlines, snapping telephone poles on both sides and breaking a (big) limb of another tree behind it. We apologize for the interruption, but are happy to report DTE had the power restored before the Pistons/Lakers' game (which the Pistons won, 88/80).
(5/28) Tiffani, and now Tom, are having problems with with their email accounts. Tiffani doesn't seem to be getting all her's, and now none of Tom's is arriving. If you want to contact Tom, use @wowway.com instead of @wideopenwest.com. Tiffani's address was already @wowway.com. The ISP has been contacted and we're sure they're giving this issue their full attention.
(5/22) Normally we don't provide links to items that require registration, but this one is worth sharing a few of your personal details with The Washington Post.
"Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks Monday night at a Constitution Hall bash commemorating the 50th anniversary of the /Brown v. Board of Education/ decision. To astonishment, laughter and applause, Cosby mocked everything from urban fashion to black spending and speaking habits."
You can read the whole article by clicking here.
(5/8) Congratulations to Jill and Roy Lamphier on the exciting birth of their son, Gavin, this AM. Why was it exciting? It happened at home in their bathroom!. According to reports, Jill woke up at 2:45 AM with that I have to go to the bathroom feeling women giving birth all know about. Well, going to the bathroom was not what nature was telling her. Unable to get up she suspected something was happening and reached down and felt the baby's head! She called 911 and their doctor to let them know their was an urgent situation. As Ferndale emergency personnel were dispatched Roy calls 911 back for instructions on what to do because the baby was coming now. Roy had to turn the head to clear the baby's shoulders and with only four pushes Gavin came into the world at 3:10 AM delivered by his father. Shortly afterward the doctor called back, "I hear we having a baby." "He's already here!", Roy replied.
Roy is still holding the baby when Jill tells him to go get "the sucky thing" and as he turns to leave the bathroom is reminded the baby's still attached and hands Gavin back to Jill. She's sucking the baby's nose and mouth when the doorbell rings and Roy rushes downstairs to let the police in. Their daughters, Sophia and Marina sleep through the whole thing.
Strangely, Tif wakes up when the emergency vehicles arrive but dismisses the flashing lights in the bedroom to the ceiling fan deflecting light from outside. She missed the whole thing!
Both mother and baby (9lbs 2oz) are doing fine and Royal Oak Beaumont. We think they deserve a medal, and certainly Roy has earned some kind of certificate or something!.
We think The Mirror should pick-up this story. We'll keep you posted with new developments. What a great day for the Lamphier's! Congratulations!
(4/13) Did you miss us? We know some of you did based on the email messages we received when our website disappeared earlier today. It was for a worthy cause. Our througput had fallen below 19.2kbps and our router had to be reset remotely by WOW technicians. We're now back to a peppy 300kbps which means your response time should improve when you visit us.
(4/1) Some of us woke up this morning in a better place. Today, one of those people was Lee Allen. Known as squeedunk to his Yale classmates, he was a husband, father of five, and a man we were privileged to know. "His example," Tom said, "encouraged me to simultaneously stand straighter but not take life too seriously."
The funeral will be Sunday, 4PM, at Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian.
(3/31) We're playing with some interesting calendar stuffs and have published a calendar for Ferndale's various government events including City Council meetings, Board of Ed. meetings, and a few other items. If you use an iCal-compatible calendar tool (like Apple's iCal or Mozilla's mozCalendar) your welcome to check-out webcal://gagne.homedns.org/calendar/FerndaleMI.ics.
We've started a discussion group on the upcoming election in November, 2004. You're wecome to join it. To read more about it or even join it visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2nov2004. We hope to see you there!
(3/12) You can help detect breast cancer! The Breast Cancer Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day. It takes less than a minute to visit their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (see image at left). It's free for you and comes out of their sponsors' pockets.
While you're there visit some of the other "click-to-support" sites for world hunger, rainforests, children's health, and animal rescue.
(1/29) A few days ago in Crain's Daily Update came this item from Bob Allen that caught our attention.
Speaking of reporting, if you have some time, you really ought to check out this link. A 19-year-old German student, as a requirement of his English class, wrote an essay titled An Ailing Patient The Decline of Detroit, Motor City of the USA. Folks, this is one exhaustively researched work. I'm not sure a 19-year-old American student could have done this. I'm also not sure that many of us know this much about our community. Even if you dont have time, go to the final paragraph of the PDF document of the essay. If only some Detroiters were so gracious about Detroit.
(1/24) Last night on 20/20, John Stossel reported on 10 Lies, Myths, and Downright Stupidty. One of our favorites:
The rich don't pay their share of taxes.
The top 1% of income earners (earning more than $300K/year) pay 34% of the nation's income tax. The top 5% (earning more than $125K/year) pay over 50% of the nation's income tax. So it makes sense that tax refunds would go to those that pay the most income tax.
Visit them online (above link) to read more
(1/20) Yesterday's Iowa caucuses and the press is all surprised Massachusett's John Kerry beat Howard Dean. Since Al Gore's endorsement of the VT governor all we've heard is Dean this and Dean that. Dean, apparently, is so far left only the press could love him. Comparatively, Dean makes the others look almost conservative. But don't be fooled--they aren't. They're Robin Hood politicians ready to engage in class warfare and as we've seen in other election years--aren't afraid to bait the races.
(1/13) The Michigan Civil Rights petition drive kicked-off today with the expected duet fanfare and protest. We'll have more commentary later.
(12/30) So many things to to catch up on! Most exciting is Michael's first tooth! One more tooth on top and we won't have to chew his meat for him. His favorite form of locomotion is to simply roll in the direction he wants to. He's learning early physics lessons from walls and corners.
(12/26) Merry Christmas! We hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas Day and if you're lucky, there's more to come. Feast of the Epiphany is only 12 days away (remember, the 12th day of Christmas?) and Joshua has even more presents then!
(12/18) Awesome! That's how Joshua and Tom described The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on Wednesday, after seeing the 4:10PM show on the movie's opening day. Tom posted Joshua's bail around 3PM and together with Tom's friend Victor Curatolo hid out at the theatre for 3 1/2 hours.
With these movies once is never enough, and they're already planning to see the movie again with Tom's nephews Jonathon and Nicolaas Allen, Tom's sister's sons. Or as Tolkien might put it, "Jonathon and Nicolaas, sons of Lee."
(12/16) Only one day to go until the release of Return of the King, Peter Jackson's last installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tom's worried it won't live up to his expectations--based on the dismal failure of the last two Matrix movies. According to this review from the NYTimes:
The last chapter of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is a meticulous and prodigious vision, the product of impressive craft and energy.
Let's hope Tom stops worrying about the movie and instead worries about waiting in line!
(12/5) Dang it! So, Tom's working downstairs today and whining about how cold it is and Tiffani, to shut him up, tells him to turn on his space heater. Apparently, two computers with monitors, a laptop, desklight, phone charger, DVD player, VCR player, cable modem, five-port hub, two external speaker pairs, printer, and space heater are too much for a chain of three power strips attached one to another. We're unsure why because there's still at least five outlets on the last strip with nothing plugged into them...
As a result, we had to reboot our web server which was assigned a new IP address. It will take about 12 hours for it to refresh across the galaxy. Our apologies, well Tom's actually, for making it difficult to find us.
(12/1) You may have already received in your email a letter presenting a scathing review of President George Bush's résumé. To the indiscriminating reader it seems fairly accurate, but in reality it is poorly researched and is intellectually lazy and misleading. If you've read it, or worse, forwarded it, you owe it to yourself to read both this and this, and forward these links (or this page) to whomever you've shared the original with.
(11/28) Happy Thanksgiving! OK. We know we're a day late wishing everygody the best, but like many of you, we've been busy. Tom celebrated his 39th birthday (for the 1st time) on Wednesday. On Thursday, we packed up the gang and headed to Tom's sister Jeannine & Adrian Allen's house to watch the Lions game. Oh, and celebrate Thanksgiving.
We hope your meal was as good as ours. Now to finish shopping. Well, Tif's close to finishing. Tom, like every year, hasn't started yet.
(11/20) This piece of information is too go to let sit in the inbox. Maureen Crandall wrote to tell us:
Hello Everybody!
This is an easy way to help out those in need this holiday season. Campbell's is donating a can of soup to the needy for every person who goes to their site and votes for their favorite NFL team!!! Pass it along.
Over 800,000 cans already donated.
Please, go to the site and it is right there, very easy to do. http://www.chunky.com/click_for_cans.asp
Thanks, Mo!
(11/15) Our thanks go to Jack's Garden Fresh Salsa for sponsoring Joshua's indoor soccer team. Click on the link to see the great team uniforms! Molly had a few extra pictures taken because she stuck around to help me figure out the camera. Thank you, Molly!
(11/8) Our Halloween pictures are ready!
(11/5) We're proud to report the arrival of Dylan Mitchell Meek born at 11:52pm yesterday to Todd & Pam Meek. As Todd put it in his email:
Dylan was born at 11:52pm on November 4th 2003 and tipped the scales as a welterweight with 6 lbs, 3oz & 19 inches of rippling body.
Mom & baby are doing great at Royal Oak Beaumont while Dad is still trying to recall the delicate intricacies of swaddling.
Call Tif at home for Pam's number at the hospital.
(10/13) State Representative Andy Meisner will lead a discussion about Michigan's Proposal A and Headlee Amendment and the impact (negative?) they've had on inner-ring cities like our's. Pleasant Ridge City Manager Sherry Ball, Ferndale City Manager Tom Barwin, Hazel Park City Manager Ed Klobucher, and Jim Townsend, Executive Directory of Michigan Suburbs Alliance will participate in a panel discussion.
| Date: | Thursday, October 16, 2003 |
| Time: | 7:00 - 8:30 PM |
| Location: | Hazel Park High School Cafeteria 23400 Hughes Avenue Hazel Park (off 9 Mile, west of Dequendre Rd.) |
Reservations preferred but not required. Please contact Bob Burns at: (517) 373-0478 or at: rburns@house.mi.gov
I forget exactly when we visited Ric & Sharon's house, but we took pictures of Vicki, Amanda, and Ali holding the little ones. Why did it take us so long to get them online?
(10/6)
Micheal's (left) cousin Ryan Smith (right) stopped by Saturday night for
Chinese food. We thought this was a great picture of the two of
them. More will be online soon.
For anything before October 2003, please check out oldnews.