Midwest Guest

New at the Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Explore global diversity through film, music, dance and performance art in Dearborn-Visit the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, MI, during  December for their three-day Arab Film Festival and a Latin-flavored music and dance installment of the museum's ongoing Global Thursdays series

Buy Local: Oakland Community College Potters Market creates showcase for local artists-Check out the work of over 130 local potters at this annual marketplace presented by students and alumni of OCC's well regarded Ceramic Technology program.

Motown memories tell a tale of empowerment and Detroit pride-Visit the Motown Museum (a.k.a. "Hitsville U.S.A.") as the label wraps up its fiftieth anniversary year.

Buy Local: The 3/50 project shows how to get the biggest bang for your buck-Invest in your community by supporting local businesses--where $68 of every $100 spent returns to your local community in the form of taxes, payroll and other spending.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

New at The Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Buy Local: Al's Famous Deli does right by buying Detroit-Here's one local deli owner doing his best to support a struggling Detroit economy by supporting metro Detroit businesses and making sure as many dollars as possible stay in the Detroit area.

Buy Local: Engage all five senses at Eastern Market-Visit Detroit's historic Eastern Market for the best in fresh produce, food and regional food products.

Mug shots and tea pots at Royal Oak's Ariana Gallery-Check out this gallery show for creative cups and cute teapots, ranging from the purely functional to cool and fantastically decorative vessels.

Good Eats: The Moose Preserve, "still here after all these beers"-Check out one of our favorite local watering holes for burgers, beer and a little virtual vacation "Up North".

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

New at The Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Road Trip: Visit Toledo's heart of glass-Find out a little about this northern Ohio city's rich glassware and art glass history, check out the Libbey Glass Outlet store and schedule a stop at the Toledo Farmers Market.

Things to Do: Focus on upcoming DIA photo exhibitions-Preview several great photography shows coming to the Detroit Institute of Arts over coming months, including a special traveling exhibit of Avedon fashion photography from 1944-2000.

Buy Local: Shop fresh at Franklin Cider Mill-A trip to the cider mill for apples and fresh cider is a Michigan tradition, and Franklin Cider Mill has been "a family tradition since 1832" for metro Detroiters.

Lights! Camera! Action! See it all at the Detroit Film Theater this fall-Preview some great flicks coming to the Detroit Film Theater at the Detroit Institute of Arts this season, my favorite venue for movies.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

New at The Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Good Eats: In a pickle at Packo’s-Visit Tony Packo’s Hungarian hot dog joint in Toledo, Ohio. Yes, this is the Packo’s immortalized on the M*A*S*H television show by Corp. Max Klinger, the character played by real-life Toledo native (and Packo’s fan) Jamie Farr.

Road Trip: Catch a baseball game-Minor league baseball can be a fun and economical alternative to big league baseball, so why not consider taking in an out-of-town game during vacation or a quick road trip? Check out these Michigan and Ohio teams!

Let Exposure.Detroit show you around the city-Great Detroit-themed photo show at the Bean & Leaf in downtown Royal Oak featuring the work of talented local photographers (including The Wandering Photographer, a.k.a. @photowanderer).

Culture Clubs spur interest in Detroit’s fine arts-Some great discount ticket programs for fine arts fans in Detroit. Check out symphony, opera, dance, film and other fine arts programming at some really affordable prices.

Good Eats: Zingerman’s Roadhouse, regional comfort food goes upscale in Ann Arbor-Zingerman’s emphasis on regional ingredients, imaginative twists on classic comfort food and superior customer service make for a great dining experience. Who wouldn’t love a place with a half-dozen different takes on mac ‘n’ cheese on its menu?

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

New at The Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Natural Oasis in Madison Heights-This story is about one of my favorite local walking trails in suburban Detroit.

Good Eats: Veggie out at Ann Arbor’s Seva-This is another one of our favorite Ann Arbor, Michigan restaurants. I always like to say that Seva is the vegetarian restaurant to take people that claim to be real meat-and-potatoes fans, and some of the comments I got on this post bear that thought out!

Hudson Mills, biking without the hills-This Ann Arbor-area park has a great level bike-hike loop. It’s my favorite place for a leisurely bicycle ride and a stop for a picnic by the Huron River.

Concert of Colors: Celebrating diversity in Detroit-Super producer/musician Don Was fields another stellar revue of Detroit talent as part of a two-day festival that brings the world of music to Detroit as a way to celebrate diversity and promote unity. We look forward to this festival all year long, and it’s a definite must-do if you’re anywhere near the Detroit area this third weekend in July.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

New at The Urbane Life

Check out my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Cool re-do makes for a must-see U of M Museum of Art-I originally posted a story a Midwest Guest when we attended the special 24-hour reopening party for the University of Michigan Art Museum. We visited the museum a few weeks later on a quiet weekday for a closer look at their fabulous renovated and expanded building.

Rock Stars’ Cars & Guitars 2 now playing The Henry Ford-This is my original story about this exhibit featuring 20 custom cars and 50 custom guitars, many of them loaned or donated to the museum by the music star owners themselves. I later followed up this story with a couple of different photos for a Photo Friday post here at Midwest Guest.

Good Eats: Taste the world at Zanzibar-This story is about one of our favorite restaurants in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Visiting the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn-This is an update of the story of our visit to this museum in Dearborn, Michigan that I originally posted here at Midwest Guest. I particularly loved the photos I took at the museum that day and also used a few of them for another Photo Friday post here.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009

Photo Friday

Check out the cool rides and hot guitar licks in the Rock Stars’ Cars & Guitars 2 exhibit at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.

We had a great time at the opening for this show, checking out more than 20 custom cars, 50 custom guitars, stage costumes and rock props—many of them donated by the music star owners themselves.

The cars were the real stars of this show—something clearly evident at the exhibit entrance where a black-and-white 1958 Ford Ranchero took center stage among amps and a photo of Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen playing his five-neck Hamer guitar.

We saw the five-neck Hamer, one of B.B. King’s “Lucille” guitars and many other instruments on display that day.

I particularly loved checking out custom cars like the pearl-lavender 1953 Buick Skylark, complete with a matching amp and guitar, belonging to Metallica’s James Hetfield and Alice Cooper’s lime-green “Billion Dollar Babies” themed 1939 Lincoln Zephyr.

Check out my post at The Urbane Life for a story about our visit and for photos of the Skylark, Zephyr and some of the other action that day.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009

New at The Urbane Life

Check out my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

• Rack Track-a quick survey of bicycle rack locations in southeast Oakland County (MI)
• Catching Fireflies, using social media to support indie artists and eco values-Read about April McCrumb’s savvy use of an array of online promotional tools like a Web site and social media tools like a blog, Twitter and Facebook to promote independent artists and eco-friendly merchandise at her Detroit-area gift store.
• Eight great reasons to visit Kensington Metropark-This park is a gem in the Huron-Clinton Metropark system and one of our favorite places around metropolitan Detroit to hike, geocache, take photos, picnic and canoe in the summer.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009

Photo Friday

The first week in April here went from featuring heavy wet snow, when a “snow bunny” from my neighborhood hopped into this blog last Photo Friday, to a beautiful sunny weekend that found me taking off to explore the great boardwalk nature trail in Ohio’s Maumee Bay State Park.

Check out the complete story about my afternoon exploring Maumee Bay’s Nature Center along the Lake Erie shore. That afternoon was so nice that I dared to think it might soon be warm enough to hike, bike, canoe, geocache and do all those things I’ve been missing all winter long.

Meanwhile, I’ve embarked on yet another new adventure.

This month marked my debut as a staff blogger at The Urbane Life blog. The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

Interested in stories about people, places, events and issues in and around metro Detroit? Please come check us out.

Curious about what I’ve been up to there? See my story about Michigan Glass Month and local art glass shows, or read about the only United States showing of the fabulous BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year show at the Detroit Zoo. You can even read my bio and see a photo of me out on the geocaching trail.

I’d love to know what everyone thinks about my work at The Urbane Life.

And, as always, I’m still here at Midwest Guest and looking forward to sharing more stories about my travels in the wider Midwest region.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009

Debut at The Urbane Life blog

This past week marked my debut as a staff blogger at The Urbane Life blog.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

I find it fascinating to see how the crew at Urbane Apartments has a real dedication to using “new media” to foster personal connections with tenants, prospective tenants and other members of their local community. I found The Urbane Life blog, commented on some posts there and began communicating with a couple Urbane folks (mostly on Twitter).

I always thought there was a story there, but I never imagined I might become a small piece of the story until approached about writing stories featuring local people, places, events and issues for The Urbane Life.

This week I chat with a Royal Oak, Michigan gallery owner about Michigan Glass Month and list several metro Detroit glass art exhibits. Check out Artisans play with fire during Michigan Glass Month at The Urbane Life.

And remember to come back to Midwest Guest, where I’ll continue to share stories about my travels around the Midwest and beyond!

© Dominique King