Features

Features Patrick Sullivan “The guy is dressed like a commando out of a bad movie,” Roote said. “He’s got on camo from head to toe, boots, and he’s got two shoulder holsters, each one holding a handgun, ready to draw at around chest high. You can’t imagine. I told my brother to get on the ground.

Features Erin Crowell

Not many couples spend their honeymoon getting married. But for Traverse City residents Rob Stow and Jeremy Evans, they were doing just that when they took a train from New York City to a courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut.

In August of 2009, the two gay men arrived and filled out the application that would legally bind them as a married couple, and handed it to the county clerk employee wearing a baseball cap.

“It was very mundane for her,” Stow chuckled. “It was so nonchalant.”

Features Jim Motavalli

After back-to-back trips to the Detroit Auto Show and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, I’ve put together a pretty good picture of where the auto industry is headed in 2013.

The big news at CES was cars bristling with electronics to both allow them to drive themselves and to do just about anything you could possibly want with infotainment, including access the cloud. CES isn’t an auto show, but it may as well be these days—Lexus, Ford, Audi and many more were there.

Features Robert Downes

What happens when you take more than 15,000 photos on a city street and spin them into a time lapse video?

For real estate photographer Jason Hulet, the result is a surrealistic portrait of a day in downtown Traverse City that has viewers on YouTube and Facebook awestruck over its psychedelic colors and dreamlike progression.

Scan the accompanying QR code with your smartphone or visit the Video Seen link at northernexpress.com to see for yourself.

Features Robert Downes

Once a week, professional endurance athlete Josiah Middaugh likes to strap on his snowshoes or crampons and charge up one of the Rocky Mountain ski runs in Vail, Colorado.

“Winter is a key training season for me,” says Middaugh, who grew up in East Jordan and has since become one of the top multisport athletes in the world.

Features Patrick Sullivan Douglas Charles Hastings has never received a “key to the city” from Traverse City leaders, but he did get his hands on a key that’s arguably much more valuable.

Hastings managed to get a copy of a key that unlocks any of the city’s parking meters, sturdy steel containers that can be laden with change. A single meter can hold up to $300; a double, up to $600.

Features Erin Crowell For one hair or wax appointment, clients at the Foiled Hair Lounge in downtown Traverse City are transported, for a moment, to the urban feel of a city landscape. With just the tops of buildings—including nearby businesses and churches—in view, the hair studio gives the impression of a city loft.

Features Patrick Sullivan

There was one more thing to take care of after a man purchased a home on M-75 in the picturesque Village of Walloon in 2008. The new homeowner had to make sure that when he turned on his taps, water would come out.

Before that could happen, however, he was told by the local water utility that he would have to pay the previous owner’s water bill.

And he would also owe an administrative charge.

Features Kristi Kates “I read in Popular Science that ruby was made from aluminum oxide and chrome oxide,” he explains, “And I had noticed that the sandpaper my father used was covered with aluminum oxide. So I scraped some of it from the sandpaper and put a small piece of chrome from a car bumper in with it, and put it on a firebrick. I used an acetylene/ oxygen torch to melt it, and presto! At the age of 12, I had made my very first red colored ruby. It wasn’t clear like good ruby - but it was ruby.”

Features Rick Coates Typically, resolutions are for individuals, but maybe now is the time for Northern Michigan to have a New Year’s Resolution. I have a suggestion. The time is right for Northern Michigan to work collectively to become the “culinary,” “cultural” and “craft-farming” capital of the country.

Features Rick Coates It is a parent’s worst nightmare, that knock on the door, that phone call with the words: “your child has been in a serious car accident.”

That nightmare happened for my family a couple of weeks ago. As I rushed to the scene of the accident on a highway just south of Traverse City, my first sight was several flashing lights of emergency vehicles.

Features Patrick Sullivan When the victim saw the photo of Walter -- which is different than the booking photo that’s been released to the media -- she made an immediate ID. She broke down crying and repeatedly said, “It was him,” according to a brief filed by prosecutor Alan Schneider.

Features Patrick Sullivan

When Gary Howe learned the Grand Traverse County Road Commission planned to spend some money to improve Lafranier Road, he decided he wanted to have some input.  Howe proposed a walking tour of Lafranier with local planners, transportation specialists and a couple members of the road commission. The Northern Express tagged along on the snowy morning of Nov. 28.

Features Bob Otwell Last fall, my wife Laura and I embarked on an adventure. With good health and time available, we cleared our schedules and relied on friends and family to fill in on the home front. We dropped our youngest daughter off at college, and took off for a 10-month, 9,000-mile journey around the perimeter of the USA on touring bicycles.

Features John L. Russell

The docks have been pulled from the lakes, and the boats are covered and stored for the winter.

It’s time to go sailing. Iceboating, to be more precise.