Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

My fellow Lowell citizens, please forgive me for presenting this most unpleasant dose of truth to you. If you love a good mystery like I do, then you must appreciate how sometimes the most serendipitous of events can lead the clever person down the path of discovery. Just such an event happened at the last meeting of the Lowell City Council. Being in my usual semi-concious state, something over my left shoulder struck me as out of place. To the best of my knowledge of geology, Lowell is located in America - what on earth was the Canadian flag doing there? I woke my fellow councilmember Jim from his pre-meeting nap and inquired about the maple leaf. Jim helpfully observed that this flag of a foreign power had been in chambers "for a while now", but then he went on to assure me "it keeps moving closer to the center of the room." When I commented to our Mayor about flying the colors of a rival gang, he broke into song. Wha???? Then I realized he was singing the them...

  Here is a pic of my Zero getting a free serving of Go Juice at one of two ChargePoint stations in Lowell, MI. People ask about the price of electric motorcycles all the time. At first, the price can seem a bit high. I just turned over 9,700 miles on my 2017 Zero DSR.  I bought it with 1,400 "demo" miles on it from Boondox Motor Sports in Caledonia in 2018. It was about $13,000 with the added cost of luggage and the windshield.  I paid a similar price for this BMW Rockster a few years that I enjoyed for several years. I like to tell people that the only motorcycle that makes less noise than a Beemer is my Zero. Now comes the fun part. According to my Zero App - the cost to fuel my DSR is about .01 per mile. The app lets you plug in your cost of electricity in order to figure such things. So, according to the App, my expense to travel 9,700 miles has been $97.00. My Rockster averaged 38 mpg, which works out to 255.26 gallons to cover the same miles. It burned premium fuel...

                           I recently read some articles about the fear of public speaking - holy smokes, I had no idea it ranked up there with trips to the dentist and that an overwhelming majority of people of all ages and stripes would pretty much rather do ANYTHING rather than address a group of people from behind a podium. As a member of the City Council, I am constantly encouraging people to come to the meetings and speak their minds on what ever issue or issues they might be passionate about. When I do this, I am completely serious. I will not speak for the others, but for me feedback from the public - especially residents and tax payers of Lowell - is something I depend on. If you know me, you KNOW I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things. :-)  However, my job on the Council is to reflect the will of the people in Lowell and when you come and address us it helps me to know exactly how you feel,...

Fun Fact - you know you have been hanging out with someone for a long time when you start to think alike. Yesterday my wife Julie and I had very similar thoughts about masks and guns even though we were in two different locations. I was home and she was at the store and the thoughts seem to have occurred at a similar time. Anyway, here is my version. There is a lot of division in my favorite Michigan town about two tools - Guns and Masks . They might seem to be vastly different in materials and proper usage, but my point here is to draw your attention the the similarities. How can a face covering of paper or cloth be similar to a tool designed to ignite gun powder and fling projectiles in space at high speed? I believe there are two common threads in these tools and the people who advocate for their use: Control and Fear . Masks Fear : Those of us who advocate for the wearing of masks in places where face to face interaction is going to occur take a lot of guff from people wh...

My favorite town in Michigan has been party to some very effective use of smoke and mirrors over the last few days. I would like to examine some of it. Before I do that, let me make it clear - this is my opinion and everything put forth here is coming from me and I do not pretend to be speaking for anyone else on the Lowell City Council. First off, no City Council member has the ability to hire or fire anyone who works for the City of Lowell with the exception of the City Manager and City Attorney. We did not fire the police chief. No one fired him, he resigned. Biggest Smoke: The Chief was fired because of the 2nd amendment. Not the case at all.  First of all, the Chief resigned, he was not fired. Yes, he was given the option to resign or face termination, but HE CHOSE TO RESIGN. This is not word play - anyone who knows Steve Bukula knows that he has a very quick mind and is very familiar with the laws on the books. I have seen him address matters of City Codes and O...

When I toured the Lowell Wastewater Treatment plant, Brian and Cody both let me know that "flushable wipes" are NOT something you want to flush down the toilet. They do not break up and they can cause clogs in sewers drains. Fast forward a couple of years and for some reason I decided to conduct an experiment. I purposely chose the Cottonelle wipes because of the wording on their package. "Tested With Plumbers" and the picture of a happy dolphin gave a quick visual impression that maybe things had changed since the guys delivered their warning. In case you cannot read the lower right, here is what it says, "Cottenelle Flushable wipes start to break down immediately after flushing and are septic and sewer safe. For best results flush only one or two at a time." So I took an equal size piece of Angel Soft 2 ply toilet paper and put it into a container of tap water. To simulate a flush, right after I put them in the containers I swirl...

If you find the image above even remotely funny, then we need to have a heart to heart talk (notice how that rhymes with fart to fart? - see how the Universe is calling us to change?) It is estimated that the dog population in the US is at 89.7 million currently. I ask you - of that number how many of Man's Best Friend are catching the blame for the noxious wind passed by the humans with whom they live? My years of research and personal experience clearly indicates that a safe estimate is 67.8% (with a 1.8% margin of error) so MILLIONS of innocent dogs are being blamed and humiliated because we as a species are afraid to own up to our fumes. For me, this issue reared it's ugly hinney with the passing of St Otter (seen above) a few years ago. It is with a heart heavy with regret and shame that I now confess to the hundreds (maybe even into the thousands) of times Julie and I might be enjoying a movie and my cry of "Oh, Otter!!" was nothing more than my vaingl...