More slurpees today. I’m developing a serious addiction to FCB’s slurpees, particularly coke and wild cherry and white cherry. Nirvana. Thank god they’re downtown and have inconvenient parking at best, or I’d be spending what’s left of our money on them.

We went downtown to return movies to the library and I didn’t want to put the top up on the Jeep, the sun felt so good. But it was pretty chilly; had to run the heater full blast to stay warm. But the sun is great and you have to grab the opportunity for it when you get it.

We were visited by two beautiful birds today, a resplendent bluejay and a shyer cardinal (hence the not-so-hot picture of it). They muscled in on the squirrels and scored some bread. The squirrels pretty much didn’t care, but kept their distance.

Even with the cool weather this weekend, spring around here continues to be fabulous, colorwise.

I’ll give Ann Arbor this, the seasonal color right outside our bedroom window is wonderful, especially in the autumn and spring:

Gorgeous.

The town does appear to be clearing out. We took a little drive this afternoon. The area around our neighborhood was quiet, way quieter than usual (as “usual” has been for the past eight months, that is). There was some traffic (foot and cars both) in the Liberty area, but it was nothing compared to the usual level. And the State Street corridor around campus was relatively deserted.

There’s a big fat front page story in the Ann Arbor News today headlined “Library considers big changes for main branch downtown.” Apparently the fight is between the District and the Downtown Development Authority, and the issue is the parking lot next to the library building on South Fifth.

The library doesn’t own the parking lot; the DDA does. And the DDA doesn’t want to give up 16 of its 223 spots to help the AADL transfer the entrance of the library from the spot where it is now, facing Fifth, to what would basically be the north side of the where the front of the building is now (I guess, looking at the map, where the young adult section currently is), with a passenger dropoff section presumably replacing the 16 parking spaces that the DDA is concerned about.

The crux of the story is that the library board of directors evidently feels that without the transformation of the lot, the main library branch, which has been at the corner of Fifth and William since 1957, is doomed and will need to relocate, possibly to a building somehwere half its current size, though nobody seems clear on where downtown they’re going to find a building that fits that description.

Now I can see the library’s point; the current situation is not that functional. There is absolutely no way you can get out of your car (or other vehicular conveyance) in front of the main branch now without getting creamed or causing a major accident. Fifth Street is basically a one-line north-south highway, and woe betide you if you’re a pedestrian trying to get across the lanes of traffic. Thus, you either use the DDA parking lot or you park elsewhere and walk.

However, the idea that a new building for the main branch is going to materialize downtown when there’s no space for anything downtown seems odd (not to mention the idea that a building half the size of the current building will be able to hold the current collection).

On the other hand, why the DDA is balking at accommodating what is undoubtedly the most significant use of the parking lot next to the library is a mystery that remains unanswered by the article.

Can’t express my disgust for LunarPages and their sysadmin ignorance in terms strong enough or colorful enough. I’m just now putting the pieces back together of this site, and doing multiple installations of Textpattern for each individual subsite. Whatta pain.

Fortunately, Textpattern is easy, straightforward and quick, thank God. It’s very nice to work with and shouldn’t trip any LunarPages lunacy.

Now we’re mostly back in business, but the archives are a mess and the galleries still need work and I have to figure out the photo stuff, etc. So it still needs much more work. Yuck.