So my wife has been sitting on the tarmac waiting for a gate to open up for an hour. United flight from Chicago

The pilot just came on and said all the gate agents quit today so they only have one gate to go in and out of. That they only have one person trying to keep things going. So, they need to wait for the plane to deboard, back up and then the next in line go.

Is this true?

Some context, it is currently 11:00 p.m on a Friday(incase someone reads this later)

Hi GR Gardeners. I am trying to spruce up my garden and was wondering if anyone had any poppy seed heads they could give me. I'd like to scatter seeds soon.

Also, in the coming weeks as you're tidying up for winter, if you have any plants to divide and share, let me know. I'm especially looking for sedum, Japanese anemone, wild geranium, or hardy perennial mum (but these would be easy to buy right now, right? Or is everything for sale mostly annual mums?).

Really, I'll take just about any seeds or plants. I'm in Eastown and can pick up anything you can offer.

From one gardener to another, bloom on.

Looking for an individual or business that repairs small power tools, such as a hand-held router, in the SE GR and Lowell area. Any recommendations? Thanks!

Once your city or township clerk's office receives your absentee ballot, they mark it as received. Campaigns are able to find out whose ballots have been received, and if they’re smart (which many of them obviously aren’t), they'll take you off their lists of voters to contact because it’s not worth wasting money on you if you’ve already voted.

Other things to know as you fill out your ballot:

• A "Straight Party Ticket" vote records a vote for that party's candidates for all partisan offices, or you can just vote for each office individually. However, you'd still have to vote in the Non-Partisan Section (starting on the right-hand column of the front of your ballot) and the Proposals Section (back of your ballot).
• Michigan has this, uh, "unique" system where Supreme Court candidates are nominated by parties at their conventions but run in the Non-Partisan Section of the ballot, so they are not included in a "straight ticket" vote. Democrats have nominated Cavanagh and Hood; Republican nominees are Morse-Bills and Warren; and the U.S. Taxpayers Party has picked Howe and White.
• Please vote in your local school board race, even if you don't have a child in school or a connection to anyone in the school system. I sometimes hear/see people say that since they don't have kids in school, they skip voting for School Board. Balderdash! Your neighbors' kids, their teachers, and everyone else needs a competent school board.
• Pay close attention to how many you can vote for in each race! If you "over-vote", your votes won't count for that race. You can only vote for one each for Governor, U.S. Senate and House, State Senate and House, etc., but you can pick two for State Board of Ed., Supreme Court, GRCC Trustee, etc., and up to five for GRPS Board (that number is lower for other school boards).
• You don't have to vote in each race, but I strongly recommend voting in at least the contested races (i.e. where the number of candidates is higher than the number to be elected) as well as the proposals. (Most of the judgeships around here are uncontested. Judges have to run every six years, but usually no one files to run against them.)
• As alluded to earlier, your ballot is two-sided, so when you're done on the front, flip your ballot over.

After you vote

1. Put your ballot in the secrecy sleeve
2. Put the sleeve (w/ballot) in the return envelope
3. Sign and date the return envelope
4. Return your ballot ASAP by drop box, early voting site, polling place, or (if you must) mail

If you live in Grand Rapids, here’s where your drop boxes are. If you live in another city or township, visit michigan.gov/vote, enter your info, and get all your personalized voting info, including drop box locations, polling place, etc. Remember to only use a drop box for your city or township.

You can also return your absentee ballot to your early vote site and have it tabulated then and there! In-person early voting starts Tuesday, October 20, in the City of GR and Saturday, October 24, elsewhere. GR voters, you can go to any of your four early voting sites (regardless of where you live) to tabulate your absentee ballot or vote in person. (Other cities/townships have one early voting site.)

If you must mail your ballot - i.e. you’re out of town, can't get to a drop box/early voting site, etc. - mail it ASAP. Courts have blocked the Tr**p administration from messing with mail-in voting, so if you need to mail your ballot, don’t let anyone scare you out of it. However, the sooner you mail it, the better.

If, for whatever reason, you still have your absentee ballot on Election Day (November 3), you can bring it to a drop box or your polling place by 8:00 p.m. that day. Again, though, I strongly recommend returning it well before then.

Hey myself and a few other folks from the West Michigan Boyz are going to meet up over there on Saturday (10/17) around 2:30pm to play some games and grab some food. Feel free to join us and join the discord.

https://discord.gg/dZCJAEJ8f

Join Us Here!

• All Ages Welcome (high school age and up)
• Trans women, Cis Women, Genderqueer & Nonbinary Folks welcome 🩷
• We chat about crafts, spirituality, walking/running/hiking, Anime, Sports, Collecting, Parenting, MTG, DND, and so much more!
• Formerly known as Grand Rapids Girlies

Don't forget, early voting starts this Tuesday, October 20 and continues until Sunday, November 1. GR registered voters may go to any of the 4 early voting locations. You may also bring in your absentee ballot to cast it in-person if you choose, either for early voting or on election day. Happy voting!

https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/departments/clerks-office/elections/early-voting/

Some photos from a recent walk through Oakhill Cemetery. Great time of year to take a walk through there.

Canon FTb / Kodak Gold

Looking to get film developed locally? I have quick turnaround and affordable prices. Based in Midtown by Martha's Vineyard. https://joshfromgr.com/film-development

I've been hearing loud booming somewhere in the Plainfield area since 7am, anyone know what it is?

Early and free!! Who’s coming out?!

I'm not working this event or involved, but have been in the past. Just excited about this, tomorrow and am hoping lots of people go so we can continue to have more unique events like this in GR.

If you're into festivals, maybe you've heard of Frick Frack Black Jack. If not, it's essentially trinket gambling, and it really suits the vibe in the 4 Star.

The music is great, electroswing and custom dj sets to fit the vibe, especially excited for the high step society. I'll be there in clown clothes! Please come out and support if you can!!! Tickets are online and also available at the door.

Just wanted to ask everyone how we feel about this millage. Im not a big fan of giving money to correctional/detention facilities but I’m curious what others think.

They seem to be stating it’s for health and mental health services but do I really believe that? I don’t know.

I don’t know the legal ins and outs of millages or if the spending is policed properly. So, I figured a general discussion may be nice to have with all y’all.

Hello,

Looking for the best place to get cider downtown for my birthday.

Thanks!

I wish there was some way to get myself off their fucking mailing lists.

Last time I didn't check my mail for nearly 2 weeks & had just shy of 50 flyers.

I have a 2 year old Pomeranian mix and he is alright for the most part but I need help learning a quiet command as well as working on reactivity when I walk him.
It's extremely embarrassing to try and walk him around my neighborhood and he just barks his head off at any dog or small child running around.

He doesn't do it to be aggressive, he wants to play that badly and lunges at people to want to get petted as well.

I am looking for a trainer or any facility recommendations possibly for a small dog from hell.

Upstairs toilet overflowed and soaked the carpet (yes, in the bathroom, it's been on our list to replace because EW), and started coming out of the light fixtures in the kitchen immediately below. Now there's a yellow water stain on the kitchen ceiling between the two fixtures the water dripped/poured from.

Besides bleaching the absolute hell out of everywhere, anyone have recommendations on local companies to call to make sure we don't have wet insulation or mold? I suck at this stuff and have only been in town a few years and don't have my professional tradesmen preferences yet.

hello! i’ve found myself in a pickle… we are throwing a surprise party in GR for my friends 25 birthday tomorrow and the red velvet cake we had ordered is no longer an option.

does anyone have recommendations of places that have red velvet cakes premade, where i can walk in and purchase it without preordering? no customization and 6-8 inch round cake w cream cheese frosting.

i appreciate any ideas!! thank you all in advance

Several weekends have passed. Many hundreds, if not thousands of books have left our weary, dust-covered fingers and entered your homes. We have since acquired many thousands of new (used) books to replace them, and (despite the obvious physical toll and absolute sweaty BULLSHIT that building shelves in OCTOBER SUMMER entails) we have also constructed a BOOK CORRIDOR and a NEW ARRIVALS SHELF and even a long Contemporary Sci-Fi paperback wall. We have erected not one but TWO tables full of books under $5. One of them is full of books that are ONLY ONE DOLLAR. Absolutely nothing is only one dollar anymore. Not even Sour Patch Kids. Except Arizona Iced Tea. That's still 99 cents. Those people have been making a profit selling delicious sugar water for like ... 30 years, for 99 cents. It's crazy.

Crazy that they are not in charge of our national budget, so obviously suited for the task as they are.

Regardless, Aletheia Books will once again be open this FRIDAY and SATURDAY from 11am to 7pm to provide you, the hardworking people of Grand Rapids (or at least the ones that are on reddit, so maybe not the most hardworking, but whatever) with SO MANY BOOKS IT'S JUST PLAIN UNADVISABLE.

We have so much PHILOSOPHY. Enough to learn how to THINK!

We have CLASSICAL STUDIES for people who need to read about times and places that are not actively collapsing (because they collapsed centuries ago).

We have THEOLOGICAL SCHOLARSHIP for all you seminary youths who wish to dig deep into your first century Church fathers and such.

We have SCIENCE FICTION from the 1940s through to sometime last week, so you can track the progression from nascent genre to whatever the hell they're writing about today. (and we have a massive cart of vintage hardcovers that we will be pricing AS YOU WATCH like some sort of live circus act, so feel free to cheer us on and throw coins or loose bills)

We have BAGELS with CREAM CHEESE and COFFEE and WINE (which so far is just for that one lady that comes to see Peggy and drink wine, but we believe in you; you too can drink wine and pet Peggy until it becomes like a cat-centric wine party).

We have MOVIES ON FRIDAY AT 7pm! Movies like THE CRAFT where you can remember how perfectly '90s weird/hot Fairuza Balk was while you relive your witchy teens (or current witchy teens). And we would like to thank the mom and daughters that came out to watch Dirty Dancing last week because you were so nice and pleasant and friendly and into Dirty Dancing that it gave us a week-long buzz.

We have a completely unexpected and confusing batch of BASEBALL MURDER MYSTERIES which is niche even by our standards.

We have CLASSIC LITERATURE out the wazoo, but we can put it in the wazoo if you ask nicely.

We have 4000+ books about MUSIC to suit just about any taste, including (as we recently learned) ethnomusicology students.

We have a remarkably varied and endlessly entertaining GENERAL NONFICTION section that contains ... everything, basically. All the things you would ever need to know that are not in the other sections.

We have 23 remaining signed, numbered Bukowskis for that elusive but expensive Christmas present you are always trying to give your drunk husband.

And we have Pop Tarts, because we love you (and Pop Tarts).

So come on down, meet the cat, and purchase LITERATURE (or whatever BASEBALL MURDER MYSTERIES are) at the only giant mom-and-pop warehouse cinema bookstore screenprinting studio cafe thing on the Wyoming border.

(and before I forget again, we are located at The DeVos Centre for Situationist research, 1265 Godfrey SW, 49503; entrance around the back off of Hall Street, with parking and everything).

I'm looking for charities based in the Grand Rapids area. My office chooses a charity to support each year via monetary donation and potential in-person volunteer. Nothing is really calling me for 2027 at this point. We primarily focus on smaller, local charities, although we have supported larger organizations in the past. Who do you love to support? Website links would be awesome if you have them.

Previous charities we've supported are: Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, King's Table, Food Hugs, Junior Achievement.

Has anyone worked with a tree company recently and had a good experience? Thanks for any recommendations!