When renting movies first became popular, there was only one place in town to rent them and they had a good selection. But soon, it seemed like every one had videos to rent. In fact, there were so many places that I can’t even remember their names, just there locations.

I think that the first video store was in the Crystal Flash Plaza. ( It was named the Crystal Flash Plaza because it was a strip mall next to the Crystal Flash gas station though I don’t know if it was owned by Crystal Flash.) And we rented a lot of movies there until they accused us of damaging one of them, which we had to buy.

Then, we started renting videos from the local grocery store. We rented a lot of movies from them until they closed.

From then on, we went to a little store on the outskirts of town. And, we rented a lot of movies there but soon we discovered that the drug store on our end of town rented videos and they were cheaper than the other place.

Unfortunately, the drug store was sold and then closed, which started the drug store wars but I will write about that at another time. So, we started renting movie in Grand Rapids. Since we could rent for a week at the new place and since we were always in Grand Rapids on weekends, it worked out just fine.

Mean while, back in Lowell, video stores opened and close and moved and reopened. In fact, one video store moved so many times that I finally lost track of it.

Then, we got a Video Gallery which is a chain here in west Michigan. They built there own building, and rented videos and games. And they had good prices. So, the Video Gallery is our new home for movies. Two videos for 6 days for $1.99. Such a deal.

In all honesty, I don’t know if anyone else is renting out movies here in Lowell any more. I’ll have to check just for grins.

Reel Tyme video has closed. It really wasn’t opened that long. I never visited the store so I don’t know what kind of selection they had.

They had a good location, right next to a pizza place, so it must have been their business plan or lack of one. If the way that they closed the store is representative if how they ran their business, I can understand why they closed.

When they closed the store, they had a sign on a pickup truck that read “all video $5”. Now, I didn’t see any thing that said “going out of business” so I just assumed that they were selling videos just like at Best Buy.

And, since I didn’t need any videos at the time, I didn’t stop in. Had I known that they were closing, I might have stopped to browse.

Oh well, better luck next time.

All most everyone here in downtown Lansing, walks every place that they go. It is not because they are health conscious. It is because there is no place to park.

Just like in Hitler’s Das Capitol, parking is hard to find. Oh granted, there is parking available. I, for example, park under the building where I work, but that parking comes with a price. If you can’t afford to park under ground or if your building doesn’t have underground parking, then you have to walk.

For some, the walk is a short distance but for others, it can be for several blocks. And, if the weather is bad, that walk can be brutal.

Between state government and the local community college, the city of Lansing makes a small fortune off of parking. Every place that you go, you find parking meters. And if there isn’t a parking meter, you probably don’t want to park there any way.

And what do they do with all of that money? I am not sure but they certainly don’t use it to plow the streets or the sidewalks in downtown Lansing.

We have several acrylic pepper mills. One we use in the kitchen and the others we use on the table.

One day, we ran out of black pepper corns. So, I went to the store to buy some more. As I was about to pick up a container of black pepper corns, I noticed the store also had a container of multicolored pepper corns. Since the green and red and white pepper corns looked more attractive, I purchased that instead.

As I was filling the pepper mills, I noticed an unusual odor but thought nothing of it. But, it was when I went to use the pepper mills that I really noticed the foul odor. It smelled like pig excrement! Whats more, it passed that smell on to the food that I was eating.

At first, I thought that it must me, but when Kathy noticed it too I knew that it wasn’t just my imagination. The pepper corns were foul.

At first, we thought that we could dilute the colored pepper corns with some traditional black pepper corns. But that didn’t work. The smell and the taste remained. Finally, we couldn’t take it any more. The pepper corns had to go.

The multicolored pepper corns may look nice but they certainly taste bad. Maybe we can find a decorative glass container to display them in. Something with a tight lid!

Once again, it is scarecrow season here in Lowell. Every year, the Lowell Arts Council sponsors a scarecrow building workshop. And the by product of this workshop is, well, scarecrows. Once the scarecrows are constructed, they are tied at the waist to the street light poles on main street.

The scarecrows are a little distracting to drivers, particularly in the morning. You are never sure if it is a person getting ready to step off the curb or if it is a scarecrow.

Of course, rainy weather tends to make them a little droopy. It kind of gives them that drunken scarecrow look. And if they really get wet, they bend at the waist giving them that sick drunken scarecrow look.

One of these years, if we have a cool fall, I am going to dress up as a scarecrow and go down to main street. I bet I could really freak out a lot of people. 😉

Lowell is getting an Action Auto. It is going to be located right next to the NAPA auto parts store which is just down the road from the Showboat auto parts store.

I wonder if Lowell is big enough to support 3 auto parts stores? While Lowell is growing, the people moving out here are not the type to spend their weekends working on their BMWs. So, I suspect that one of the auto parts stores isn’t going to make it.

Time will tell.

For as long as I have lived in Lowell, there has been a lumber yard on main street. When we first came to Lowell, it was Erb Lumber. A few years ago, the Erb family decided to get out of the lumber business and sold the lumber yard to Stock Lumber.

While Erb catered to the contractor business, they also catered to the public in general. Stock, on the other hand, seemed to cater mainly to contractors and ignored the public. So, I guess that it was no surprise that they decided to move out of Lowell.

What was a surprise is that they didn’t tell the public that they were moving. In fact, I don’t even know where they moved to.

I suspect that they moved to Caledonia but I don’t know. I imagine that they told their contractors about the move and the location of the business, but they didn’t tell the general public. I guess they figured that no one was going to drive all of the way to Caledonia just to buy a box of nails.

So, now the lumber yard is empty. The only thing left are some pallets. I kind of wonder what is going to happen to the property. Will another lumber yards take over the place or will they just sell the property? Time will tell.

A few weeks back, Kathy and I went to the rodeo here is Lowell. It was a full featured event including calf roping, bronco busting, bull riding, etc. But the most entertaining part was watching them trying to round up the savvy rodeo seasoned animals after the contestants failed to complete their events.

The calves weren’t so bad as they automatically headed for the gate back to the pens. It was the horses and the bulls that proved to be difficult.

Unlike the calves, they were enjoying their freedom and weren’t interested in being cooped up again. So, they did their best to allude their captures. For the next 10 minutes, they managed to evade horse mounted riders and rodeo clowns. Eventually, it took the skilled rodeo riders to force the animals back into their pens.

Actually, this was the most entertaining part of the rodeo!

A new restaurant is scheduled to open soon here in Lowell. It is named the Mynt Fusion Bistro. No, I didn’t make a typo. That is the way they are spelling it. Either that or the sign company had to give them a fantastic deal on their screwup.

Mynt Fusion Bistro resides in the old Seven Eleven building, which closed and became Wolf Doggies which closed and became Big Dish which also closed. In all actuality, Wolf Doggies, featuring hot dots and an assortment of breaded deep fat fried stuff, lasted the longest of any of the former occupants.

Now according to the paper, Mynt Fusion Bistro’s claim to fame is Asian food with Thai as their main focus. Unlike most Chinese restaurants which offer only buffet tables of hours old food, their food will be prepared fresh for each customer.

Now, when I think of a bistro, I think of French Onion soup and Cog Au Vin and not Gang Gai. And while I love the rich flavors and pique of Thai food, I wonder how well it will be accepted here in Lowell.

In particular, I wonder how many people are going to be lured by the word Bistro only to discover that there is no steak there. And by the people who love good Asian food but are deterred by a bistro.

When it opens, Kathy and I will have to check it out.

Our local True Value hardware store is having a grage sale or at least that is what it says on the marquee.

So what could have happened here?

1. They misspelled garage and didn’t notice it.

2. They ran out of “As” and tried to make the best of it.

3. Its a publicity stunt to attract attention to their garage sale.

4. It is a psychology experiment to see how people process information.

5. They really do sell grages and they are on sale this week.

Assuming that 5 is the correct answer, I have to wonder what exactly is a grage? It kind of sounds like it might be some sort of a tool. Perhaps a special power grinder of some sort.

Now, since I don’t know what a grage is, I can probably get along without one even though it is on sale. Besides, how would I know if I am getting a good deal with this sale? I don’t know what a grage is let alone what they cost at full price.

But then again, what if it is a magical tool that would come in handy? If they are still on sale this weekend, maybe I will stop in and check them out. After all, one can never have too many grages. Maybe I should get one for the kids for Christmas.