Northern Express - Features http://www.northernexpress.com/michigan/articles.sec-143-1-features.html <![CDATA[Summer Arts - A round-up of the season’s most creative events]]> Art lovers in Northern Michigan can find a high quality show almost every weekend through Labor Day this summer. Here are details on some of the most popular shows and art fairs across the region. ]]> <![CDATA[Hot Spots - Live music is back in vogue at venues ‘round the region ]]> For example, his gigs at Stella’s and Kilkenny’s feature solo guitar; at Om he typically plays with Nancy Stignatta or Laurie Sears on flute; the deck at Holiday Inn finds him with singer/songwriter Mike Moran.]]> <![CDATA[Flying high with ‘Birds of Paradise’ - ]]> The rain forests of New Guinea and their feathered occupants are revealed this week with “Birds of Paradise: Amazing Avian Evolution,” a National Geographic Traveling Exhibition coming to the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College in TC.]]> <![CDATA[My 90 Days in Prison Boot Camp - ]]> But for real, telling me I’m weak and a bad worker has the same effect as being called a retard and a princess by some of the other corporals. It makes me smile, but only on the inside. Smiling with your face is a rule violation and could result in demerits which could lead to a hearing before the board and theoretically eventually being kicked out.]]> <![CDATA['A Perverse Potluck' - When it comes time to serve up meth, everyone usually brings something]]>

The group of young friends decided to spend one day in February trying to mix up a batch of homemade methamphetamine.

Four of them -- Sierra Marie Clark, 19, Leland Allan MacQuarrie Jr., 21, and siblings Michael Wayne Bousquette, 22 and Michele Lynn Bousquette, 20 -- failed in their first attempt to brew some one-pot meth.

]]> <![CDATA[From Rocker to Doctor - Queen guitarist Brian May visits TC ]]>

Legendary Queen guitarist Brian May is coming to Traverse City this weekend. Unfortunately he will be leaving his guitars behind. “I will be in town to speak at the National Stereoscopic Association (3-D photography),” said May. “It has been a passion of mine for years.”

May, who is now known as Dr. Brian May after obtaining his Ph.D in Astrophysics in 2006, will speak about his new book he coauthored “Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell.” May also coauthored “Bang! The Complete History of the Universe.”

]]> <![CDATA[Northern Michigan’s Man of Steel - Ryan Tiderington plays standin for new Superman movie]]> When Suttons Bay resident Ryan Tiderington got the casting call, it was like a scene out of a movie.

“Somebody called me from Chicago and told me to come down for ‘Autumn Frost.’ That’s the code name for the film,” Tiderington said of the latest installment of the Superman saga, “Man of Steel.”

The Warner Brothers film, which debuts in theaters June 14, stars Henry Cavill as Superman. Tiderington, who is a spot-on image of Cavill, made the 300-mile trip for the casting to play the stand-in for Cavill. He got the part.

]]> <![CDATA[The Shadowland Bust - What makes ‘one-pot’ meth such a problem is how easy it is to make ]]> Pills are ground up, batteries are stripped of metal, lighter fluid is thrown in. Everything is put into a plastic bottle and shaken up into a reddish slurry. When the bottle is opened the concoction may stink of rotten eggs. At the end, if it works, you get a little bit of powder that can be smoked on a piece of tin foil.]]> <![CDATA[Drivers Wanted - Disabled Vets could use some helping hands behind the wheel]]>

A couple of volunteers are looking for more volunteers to help get veterans in need of medical treatment to their destinations.

In January, the Grand Traverse Area Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Chapter 38 took over a program that provides vets free transportation to Veterans Administration hospitals in Saginaw, Ann Arbor and Detroit.

]]> <![CDATA[Here Comes the Sun - The Cove Celebrates 30 years of welcoming Summer ]]> For the past 30 years the Here Comes The Sun Party on the patio of The Cove and Rick’s American Cafe in Leland (Fishtown) has been the kick-off celebration to the summer season.]]> <![CDATA[Felonies Way Up - Is it because there’s a new hard-charging prosecutor in town? ]]>

Blue and orange-clad Pugsley Correctional Facility inmates were once a rare sight inside the circuit courtroom in Traverse City. Defense attorney Paul Jarboe, who started practicing law in 1982 and who handles retained cases and is on the court’s roster for indigent defendants, said over the years he rarely saw the inmates in court.

]]> <![CDATA[A Cornish Tradition in Cadillac - Mr. Foisie’s Pasties ]]> So. You’re retired, you love Northern Michigan in the summertime, and you still “have enough energy to do something”… but what exactly do you do? Well, if you’re Nancy Vollmar and her husband, Jerry, you take over a restaurant, of course.]]> <![CDATA[Eisenhower’s Secret War - Producer George A. Colburn reveals a warrior for peace]]> He was once considered to be one of America’s blandest presidents -- even the butt of jokes in the ‘hipper’ times that came after the 1950s. But revisionist histories of Dwight D. Eisenhower are casting our 34th president in a new role as a wise warrior for peace who may well have saved our skins from nuclear annihilation.]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Boys - Author probes dark days of child abuse in Boyne City]]> Just outside of Boyne City, early last century, stood a formidable square building, home to 100 or so wayward boys. Some of them were orphans. Some came from families that got too large, or lost a father to drink or death. Some came to Boyne City because of trouble they’d gotten into on the streets.]]> <![CDATA[Criminal or Conscientious Businessman? - Murky med marijuana law puts Christopher Gee at risk]]> Wexford County Circuit Court Judge William Fagerman agreed with Williams that Gee could be considered a primary caregiver, even though he was not a registered caregiver, who was able to hand out reasonable amounts of medical marijuana to patients under the law.]]> <![CDATA[Lifesaver - A year after motorcycle crash, Jim Lumley still thanks his helmet ]]> The U-M study has prompted a call from insurance and medical groups to reestablish the state’s helmet law, but proponents of the repeal argue it’s too early to draw any conclusions about the data and note that last year’s remarkably long period of warm weather led to more motorcycles on the roads.]]> <![CDATA[Adventures of the Compost Kid - ]]>

Today’s industry trends aren’t lost on Carter Schmidt.

“Selling lemonade? You just don’t make much doing that; and, well, the newspaper boy may have disappeared,” the eight-year-old tells me, a journalist, on the logistics of childhood employment. The third grader at Eastern Elementary School in Traverse City is an entrepreneur, having just completed the milestone of one year in business with his company, Carter’s Compost. The bike-powered, kid-driven kitchen scrap pick-up service has been turning dirt since last April, charging its Traverse City neighborhood customers $5 a month for fresh compost.

]]> <![CDATA[NO KNOWLEDGE? NO EXPERIENCE? NO PROBLEM - Northern Michigan transplant Andy Gale made recycling his life ]]>

After 17 years as a sales rep for a California engineered wood products company, Andy Gale and his wife Cindy took a year off, hopped in an RV and toured the country. In Southern California he missed the seasons. In Northern Michigan, he found them, and he and his wife fell in love with Traverse City and decided to settle here.

In 2008, he decided to look for a green career. He decided he wanted to start a nonprofit that would encourage recycling and donate proceeds from the sale of collected material to charity.

]]> <![CDATA[Reciprocating Threads - Local clothing brand, AFRNT, inspires fashion and talent ]]> “Whether I didn’t have capital, a business partner, a network of people that could help me along, I just had all these barriers and I got to a point where I couldn’t get it out of my system,” said the 29-year-old Cadillac area native. “I would stay up late at night just ultimately depressed that I wasn’t pursuing it.]]> <![CDATA[Crime & Punishment (and Reward) - Stories from several weeks of sitting in at mental health court]]> The older one is taking vocational training and doing well. He is making all of his therapy sessions and when he meets with his probation officer, he brings proof that he’s completed his required drug and alcohol testing and has been to the AA meetings he’s supposed to attend.]]>