My father-in-law was the epitome of the man, the myth, the legend. This Christmas marked the second without him, and his absence still feels unreal. For more than 25 years, he was the gravitational force behind some of the best moments of our lives: legendary Fourth of July gatherings, unforgettable Halloweens and Christmas Eves. He was the magnet that held us all together. I don’t think he enjoyed anything more than being surrounded by his people, and everything seemed lighter when he was around. He was a large, looming presence—someone who commanded respect the moment he entered a room. But anyone who truly knew him understood how misleading that  First impression could be. Beneath the stature and the seriousness was a man who was warm, welcoming and endlessly human.

If you didn’t know him well, you might have been a little tentative at  First—until he cracked a joke or  ashed one of his trademark smiles, the kind that instantly dissolved any barrier between the two of you. He had a gift for making people feel seen. He could give you a nickname and somehow make it stick in a way that felt meaningful, almost ceremonial. For me, it was “Lawrence.” My entire life, I’d never allowed anyone to call me anything but Larry—certainly not Lawrence. Yet from the very  rst time he said it, it felt natural, affectionate and earned.

After he passed, his brother picked it up where he left off , and somehow that name carries even more weight now. It’s a small thing, but it means everything. You can imagine the magnitude of losing someone like him. My wife’s life has been irrevocably altered. There is a hole that will never be  filled, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. He was the anchor of her family—the steady presence everyone orbited around. He set a standard, not through speeches or grand gestures, but through consistency, integrity and showing up. He is the example I can only hope to live up to for my own children. 

I wish we all had more time with him. That wish never really goes away. But I am profoundly grateful that I had any time at all—that I was welcomed into his life, into his family, and into something I didn’t even realize I was missing. I came from a misfit, dysfunctional family. I never truly learned what family was supposed to mean, nor did I understand the depth of loss that comes when something solid disappears. I also didn’t know how to show up for others in that way. Being part of his family taught me those things. It showed me the quiet power of stability, support and unconditional presence. It made me realize how rare—and how valuable—that kind of security is. My children are growing up with something I never had: the knowledge that they are held, supported and safe. Not everyone is born into that, and I don’t take it for granted. I don’t fault my family for what they couldn’t give; many factors shape the circumstances we’re born into. In an imperfect society that rewards abundance and exploits scarcity, some outcomes are tragic but unsurprising. Still, that doesn’t diminish the gratitude I feel for what my kids now have. 

The year 2025 has been particularly difficult. There’s no way around that. But as it comes to a close, I  find myself ending it with renewed purpose. I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. When I was younger, I lived in survival mode and felt invincible—or at least pretended to be. Over the past couple of decades, and especially the last several years, I’ve learned the truth: I’m not invincible. Security is  eeting. Time is  finite. 

That realization has sharpened my focus. There are things I’ve allowed to drift, priorities I need to reclaim. I want to be more diligent, more intentional—about growth, peace and about showing up fully. I want to create more space to focus on my work, to better serve those who trust me, and to build on what we’ve already achieved. I want to be a model for what a business should be: principled, reliable and human. Busy is a double-edged sword, but it’s better than the alternative, and I don’t take your calls for granted. Navigating the calls is a challenge that I will continue to focus on with new tools and strategies that scale with our growth without sacri cing responsiveness. 

The past month was a struggle. But I won’t rest on my laurels. I owe that to my family, to my kids, and to the example set by a man whose legacy isn’t measured in years, but in the lives he anchored. And in that way, he’s still holding us together. 

Please email me at lansingallstar@gmail.com. 

This appeared in the December 2 issue of the Lansing City Pulse. You can find All Star Mechanical in the Lansing City Pulse regularly.

I remember the days when I could reasonably envision my future. Most of us could. We grew up with a quiet cofidence that if we worked hard and made decent choices, the road ahead — while never guaranteed —would at least make sense. We believed that raising a family wouldn’t
require a financial acrobatics routine. We trusted that our neighborsweren’t sizing us up as enemies.We assumed our children would inherit a world where they could imagine a future of their own, instead of
feeling powerless inside a capitalistic hellscape designed to extract everything from them while giving as little as possible in return.

That feeling — of predictability, of stability, of a functioning socialcontract — has evaporated. And nobody seems willing to say it out loud:

What is going on?
What is going on when we hear talk of closing the skies over Venezuela, as if the United States is inching toward yet another military escalation masquerading as righteousness? We’re told missiles are being launched at “suspected drug smugglers.” As though a few dozen extrajudicial killings — people vaporized without names, trials, or evidence — will somehow improve the lives of average Americans. We’re not safer. We’re not stronger. We’re not in the know. We’re being sold a narrative — and worse: We’re expected to swallow it without question. Because questioning the storyline is now treated as disloyalty. What is going on when the MAHA movement — MAGA’s even-less-informed cousin — keeps spiraling into conspiratorial nonsense every time the topic of public health comes up? How did we go from bipartisan trust in basic medicine to people loudly claiming Tylenol causes autism or whispering about bird  flu outbreaks that “they”are refusing to report? The irony is that the people sounding the alarm about government incompetence are the same people undermining the very systems that would help us in a crisis. We are as unprepared as we’ve ever been to handle any outbreak, not because the science isn’t there, but because the public conversation has been hijacked by opportunists who see fear as a business model.

And then there’s the economy — this supposedly “robust” miracle the administration keeps celebrating. They beam in front of cameras and proclaim historic success, while quietly withholding the basic economic data that every administration for decades released like clockwork. Jobs reports postponed. Inflation metrics missing. GDP numbers scheduled for public release on October 30 held back without explanation. They call themselves the most transparent administration in history. They act like a corporation shredding documents in a locked basement.

Transparency shouldn’t require binoculars and a prayer. I used to believe that if things went sideways, if the country hit turbulence, I could still protect my family. I had faith — maybe naïve, maybe conditioned — that the institutions built over generations would hold. That the people in charge, regardless of party, would be adults in the room. That America’s government, despite its  flaws, would remain tethered to credibility. But today? I  find myself feeling the country is closer to uncontrollable collapse than anything resembling stability. Not because of one crisis, but because of a sprawling pattern of dysfunction, denial, secrecy, and corruption. A pattern enabled by millions of people who’ve convinced themselves that loyalty to a brand or a movement is more important than loyalty to the truth.

Never did I think I would watch the legitimacy of the United States government dissolve so quickly, or so quietly. But here we are. The enabling of this administration —its lies, contempt for accountability,
bizarre obsession with theatrics — has been astonishing to watch. And it’s not happening because Americans suddenly stopped caring. It’s happening because many have been groomed to believe that any contradiction to the leader’s narrative is an attack on their identity.

That is the grift. That is the trap. And it’s working. People scoff at the word “propaganda” because it feels too dramatic, too foreign. But propaganda doesn’t need marching bands or giant posters.
Sometimes it looks like selective press access. Sometimes it looks like strategic silence. Sometimes it looks like one more missing report, one more unasked question, one more manufactured crisis used to distract from the rot happening in plain sight.

And it’s that rot that keeps me up at night. Because the collapse of trust isn’t theoretical — it’s already here. When a government stops telling the truth, the fabric of society frays. When people stop believing they have a future, they stop investing in it. When families feel unsafe, economically or socially, they retreat into survival mode. That’s not patriotism. That’s not prosperity. That’s not stability. That’s decay.
Maybe what scares me most is how ordinary everything still looks on the surface. The denial is so strong, the distractions so constant, that you almost forget the ground is shifting beneath you. People run errands, take their kids to school, go to work, scroll endlessly through their chosen echo chambers, and pretend everything is normal. But the air feels different. The future feels less like a promise and more like a dare.

And we all know it, even if we’re afraid to say it.

So again I ask: What is going on? It’s not one thing. It’s not even ten things. It’s a corrosive mix of
incompetence, disinformation, and greed wrapped in a  flag and sold as patriotism. It’s a public manipulated into embracing nonsense. It’s a government that has learned it can get away with o ering nothing but slogans, secrecy, and manufactured enemies. It’s a political culture where outrage is currency and truth is collateral damage. And in the middle of all that, ordinary people — people like me, people like you — are left wondering how the hell we’re supposed to protect our families in a world where the people in charge treat reality like an inconvenience.

This is what happens when people love power and money more than they love the truth, more than they love their country, and certainly more than they love the people they swore to serve.

Email me at lansingallstar@gmail.com

There was a time when the news didn’t come screaming at you from every glowing screen. You waited for it — in print, in black and white, in the morning. You trusted, at least a little, that the people telling the story cared about the truth more than the clicks.

Of course, bias has always been part of the deal. Even in the days of Emmett Till, when the country was still pretending that Black suffering was a matter of debate, we watched the machinery of lies churn. A white woman pointed a finger, said a boy whistled at her, and that was all it took to end his life. Her story unraveled decades later, but by then, the damage was irreversible — as it always is when truth arrives too late.

Then came television. The faces on the screen became our storytellers, our priests, our moral compass — or so we thought. But when Rodney King’s beating was caught on camera, some people still managed to see the violence and wonder what he did wrong. Seeing, it turned out, didn’t mean understanding.

Cable television didn’t just erode our faith in institutions — it eroded our attention spans.

Suddenly, the country that once prided itself on hard work and reason was binge-watching chaos: “The Jerry Springer Show,” Jenny Jones, Maury. We turned humiliation into a spectator sport. Capitalism, ever the opportunist, understood exactly what it was doing: giving the restless masses a distraction, something to make them feel superior for thirtyminutes at a time.

Then came the smartphone — the Pandora’s box ofmodern civilization. Now the entire world is in ourpocket, and so is every lie. People with no journalistic training, no ethical guardrails, and no sense of proportion found their audience. Algorithms took care of the rest. We’re now living in a custom-built hallucination, where every scroll reaffirms our worst instincts. Everyone has their own “truth,” their own “facts,” their own war to fight against imaginary enemies.

We’ve entered a kind of national cosplay, where citizens play soldier for causes they barely understand, armed with memes instead of muskets fighting shadowy conspiracies that only exist online. And all the while, the real problems — climate change, inequality, education, science — sit neglected, like unwanted children at the edge of a crowded room.

How do we escape this loop without surrendering to pseudoscience and magical thinking? There’s only one reality that matters, and it’s the one based in facts. But facts don’t trend. They don’t flatter our biases or soothe our fears. They demand effort, patience, humility — three things modern America seems to have misplaced.

I can’t shake the feeling that something is coming. A crash, a reckoning, a moment when all this digital noise meets the hard wall of reality. And when it does, too many innocent people will pay the price. We are our own worst enemy. Not because we lack intelligence, but because we traded curiosity for comfort. We could be devoting our collective brilliance to curing disease, saving the planet, or lifting people out of poverty. Instead, we’re trapped in the narcissism of grievance, worshipping a populist who mistakes his personal vendettas for patriotism.

America once dreamed big. Now it doom-scrolls. And if history has a sense of humor — and it always does — the last sound we’ll hear before it all collapses won’t be a warning siren or a speech. It’ll be the gentle ping of a notification reminding us to update our settings. Email me at lansingallstar@gmail.com

Welcome to the Silent Burning: Free Speech in a Flammable America

By Larry Kirchhoff, Owner of All Star Mechanical

Once upon a time in America, a business could run a commercial for a furnace or an air conditioner and feel good knowing the only controversy involved was whether to offer 0% APR or a $500 rebate.

But not anymore. Today, you can sell climate control — just don’t try to control the political climate.

I recently produced two television commercials for my HVAC business, which also happens to proudly promote progressive values. As someone who believes in conscious capitalism — the idea that your spending is your vote — I thought, What better way to connect with like-minded customers than with some creative, slightly satirical, but painfully accurate commercials about where we are in America today?

Here’s what happened.

Two local stations approved my scripts in advance, I then spent $13,500 of my small business budget producing the spots. But once they saw the finished product, something changed. One station ran them for a day, then pulled them. The other got cold feet before even hitting “play.”

The reason? Too hot to handle.

Mind you, these stations regularly air content that would make George Orwell sweat — propaganda disguised as news, rage-bait political ads, and reality TV that’s anything but real. But my commercials? Somehow they crossed a line. Why? Because they held up a mirror.

Commercial #1 parodied the infamous Michigan militia trial — you know, the one where a group of grown men plotted to “hog-tie” the governor? We thought it might be time to laugh, cry, and wince at the absurdity of it all. Spoiler alert: no actual books were burned in the making of the ad.

Commercial #2 depicted a Black man peeking through his blinds to see red-hatted radicals chanting and prepping a cross for burning in his yard. A throwback? Yes. A fever dream? Not really. Just ask Charlottesville.

The ads were bold. Satirical. Honest. And maybe that’s the problem.

See, I’m not the CEO of ExxonMobil or a political PAC with dark money to spend. I’m a guy who fixes furnaces in the winter and installs air conditioners in the summer. I’m a small business owner who believes my community deserves to know that the dollars they spend with me don’t fund hate, bigotry, or insurrection.

But apparently, that’s too controversial.

It wasn’t the public that objected — we didn’t even get that far. It was the gatekeepers. The executives, the lawyers, the shadowy figures who say things like, “We’re just not comfortable,” or “We’re worried about liability,” or “We’re not sure this aligns with our brand.”

You know what else used to not “align with the brand”? Desegregation. Gay marriage. Women’s rights.

What’s happening here isn’t just censorship — it’s corporate cowardice masquerading as neutrality. And neutrality, in the face of rising fascism, is complicity.

We are now in an America where satire is scarier than sedition, and where a small business owner using humor to call out extremism is treated like a threat to the Republic, while actual extremists run for office.

Public airwaves, it turns out, aren’t so public. They belong to the highest bidder with the safest narrative. And satire that offends the wrong people? That doesn’t sell.

But here’s the rub: if we don’t push back, this will become the new normal. This is how authoritarianism wins — not with a bang, but with a polite email from Standards & Practices.

So I’ll keep speaking. I’ll keep fixing furnaces. And I’ll keep reminding people that your dollars have power — and so does your voice.

Because if a commercial for a furnace can shake the pillars of power, maybe it’s time to turn up the heat.

You can find these ads on our website at lansingallstar.com where it will redirect you to our YouTube channel, but while you are at our website, you can see what matters to this business. 

Interview with Larry Kirchoff, All Star Mechanical

Larry Kirchoff, owner of Lansing’s All Star Mechanical is no stranger to speaking out for racial and social justice issues. His semi-famous City Pulse ads, calling attention to the racial and social inequities both here in Lansing and nationally, have earned him a spot as one of the most outspoken social justice small business owners in our community. In the latest series of video ads, All Star Mechanical tackles white supremacy and the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, all while poking fun at the perpetrators of these acts. 

Q: What were the reasons you wanted to tackle these serious issues in these funny ads?

I guess I can’t get over the fact that there are still so many people out there who either support this, or act like this is normal, and I want to keep the spotlight on it and let people know that they are not alone and while putting these ads out there may not change the minds of those who support this, it is important to keep resisting.

Q: In the spot entitled “Gravy Seals”, a group of men hiding in their basement wearing tactical gear plot to kidnap the governor and end up burning books to stay warm. When the lights turn on by the lady of the house, they’re all middle-aged guys in tropical print shirts standing around hand-drawn map drinking beers. Tell us about this spot?

I feel like this story should scare the hell out of everyone because these guys could be your neighbors. While many trolls do hide out in their basements cosplaying their fantasy’s, all too often, they have the means to attempt to carry out these types of plots. I am just thankful they weren’t the brightest bunch, and they were caught before they could hurt anyone.

Q: In this spot “tired of burning books to heat your home? Call All Star Mechanical today” as the call to action, which is funny. Tell us why you chose this angle to poke at the absurdity of these characters in the ad?

Honestly, I was just trying to find a way to make an ad that would stick out. I reached out to my followers on social media, and that was one of the ideas from someone in my circle. Once I heard it, I knew it needed to be turned into something amazing, and now it is. Myself and the guys from Biddle City Project invited people to collaborate to come up with a story line that fits, and what you see as the final product is from months of discussion.

Q. In the spot entitled “MAGAT Neighbors”, the next door neighbors are celebrating Trump’s win with obvious white nationalist language, garb and gear, while the African American neighbor looks in on the action through the blinds. When they raise a white cross, we get the idea. Tell us about this spot?

Originally, I had it in my head that we would have one spot that would say “Tired of burning books and crosses to heat your home?” but through brainstorming, we decided that it would actually make it more suitable to create two ads, one for summer HVAC marketing, and one for winter HVAC marketing. The story line just evolved quite easily, as I think it depicts a large portion of Trump’s base.

In this, it’s “too hot outside? Call All Star Mechanical” as the call to action in this spot. Tell us more about this spot and its message.

People who aren’t seen as the default in the United States are certainly going to be impacted by the policies of this administration. I wanted it to have a sense of reality. Particularly, African Americans have had to deal with these types of MAGATS, and frankly, the response of the actor is pretty spot on, as if to say “here we go again, pack your bags honey, time to go”.

Q: You’re not afraid to call attention to these very serious issues but in a humorous way. How have your clients responded to your ads (a previous series with a similar angle)?

As far as the filmed ads, this is the most direct we have been yet. I love it. I am more of a writer, but I am so pleased to work with these guys to create these, and I do think our customers love it too.

You can see these ads by clicking the links above to visit the All Star Mechanical YouTube channel or watch them below:

The Juneteenth Issue of City Pulse comes out today. Here is my submission.

Stars, Stripes, and Selective Memory: Why Juneteenth Deserves More Than a Hashtag and a Target Sale

I’m a 54-year-old cis white guy, born in the golden era of grilled cheese sandwiches, Saturday morning cartoons, and the kind of oblivious American freedom that felt like a birthright, not a construct. For the first 40 years of my life, I mistook privilege for normalcy. It wasn’t malice—it was just… America, the whitewashed edition.

Then came Trayvon Martin. A 17-year-old kid shot dead for the crime of walking while Black—and suddenly the land of the free had a different contour. I watched in disbelief as people twisted themselves into moral pretzels to justify his murder, while George Zimmerman was elevated to some kind of neighborhood-watch Batman. Colin Kaepernick takes a knee and America responded by throwing a tantrum with the energy of a toddler who just found out bedtime is real. The cartoonish double standards I’d be blind to for so long.

Fast forward past the outrage cycle, past Kaepernick’s knee (and America’s collective neck craning away), we’ve got folks fighting tooth and nail to keep Juneteenth in the discount bin, all while polishing their flagpoles for July 4th. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts are being axed like they were some radical Marxist spell cast upon HR departments. School curriculums? Scrubbed clean of anything that might give little Johnny the impression that America has ever done anything wrong. And let’s not forget the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture—the literal repository of truth—being forced to remove items. Because apparently, it’s easier to erase history than to teach it. DEI programs are being axed like they were caught teaching kids to read Karl Marx in drag. School boards are banning books faster than they can spell “inclusion.” DEI offices are getting gutted like someone found empathy hiding in the budget, as if saying “Black Lives Matter” is more offensive than, you know, erasing actual Black lives from the American narrative. Black leaders’ names disappear from government buildings like someone’s trying to win a game of DEI Bingo in reverse. First one to wipe out all cultural memory gets a flag pin and a podcast deal. What are we doing? Deleting names from buildings, deleting facts from textbooks, deleting history like it’s a Netflix show that tested poorly in focus groups. All while clutching pearls about “erasing history” whenever someone suggests maybe Robert E. Lee doesn’t deserve his own zip code. And the irony? It’s thick enough to slice with a butter knife. These are often the same people who will chest-thump about “preserving American heritage,” while actively deleting the heritage of Black Americans who, let’s be honest, built the damn country—for free.

So let’s talk about Juneteenth. Not the corporate-sanctioned ice cream flavor or the obligatory tweet from that one senator who voted against making it a federal holiday. Let’s talk about why Juneteenth should be reverent, sobering, and, yes—uncomfortable. Ah yes—Juneteenth, the holiday that shows up on calendars now but still gets side-eyed by half the country like it wandered into the wrong cookout. It’s the day that commemorates when the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were told they were actually free—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Basically, it’s America saying, “Oh right, we forgot to tell you… our bad!” You’d think a moment like that—the literal end of slavery—might command some reverence. Maybe even fireworks, parades, or a dramatic reading of actual history in classrooms. But no. Instead, Juneteenth gets a discount at Old Navy and maybe a soul food pop-up next to the company vending machines. Meanwhile, July 4th is treated like a national baptism—pure, perfect, unblemished patriotism. Never mind the whole “slavery was still going strong” thing when the Founders were high-fiving each other with quill pens. Juneteenth isn’t a side dish to America’s history—it is the main course. It is the moment the ideals of freedom were finally extended—however begrudgingly, however slowly—to the people who had been written out of the script from the beginning. It is a sacred marker that freedom in this country has never been free—and it has never been evenly distributed. So no, Juneteenth isn’t just another holiday. It’s not a theme day. It’s not a “Happy Juneteenth!” text with a fist emoji. It’s not an excuse to slap red, black, and green on a coffee cup, or t-shirt and call it progress. It’s a day to sit in the discomfort of America’s delayed justice. To acknowledge the centuries-long gap between what we say we are and what we’ve actually been. It’s a time to listen, to learn, to shut up and show up. Juneteenth makes a lot of white people nervous. Because it’s not a holiday you can fake your way through with a bald eagle shirt and a Lee Greenwood playlist. It’s a holiday that whispers, “Hey, America, maybe you’re not the hero in every story.” And America hates that.

This is what Juneteenth is up against: a country that loves the idea of freedom—as long as it doesn’t come with context, discomfort, or accountability. Fun fact, formerly enslaved people were promised 40 acres and a mule as reparations. In that time, that would have been a pathway to fundamentally change the trajectory of Black economic, social, and political life in America. But guess what? Andrew Johnson evicted freed people violently and rescinded the order for any reparations for formerly enslaved people. But guess who did get reparations? If you guessed Confederates who were pardoned and economically empowered through sharecropping and Jim Crow laws, you’re a winner baby.

And now, in 2025, we’re in the middle of what I can only call a Reverse Enlightenment.

And if you’re someone like me—who had the luxury of ignorance for far too long—Juneteenth is a day to reflect on the fact that freedom delayed is freedom denied, and silence is complicity dressed up as politeness. So go ahead, enjoy your fireworks on July 4th. But on June 19th, maybe don’t reach for the party poppers. Instead, reach for a book, a podcast, a conversation. Sit with history. Not the version written by the winners, but the one carried on the backs of the people who were never supposed to survive it.

And if you’re uncomfortable?

Good. You’re finally doing it right.

Think about the narrative you’re hearing about the National Guard being deployed in LA right now. Here we are again watching the beacon of democracy declare war on its own citizens, criminalizing dissent, and pretending the Constitution is more of a vibe than a binding document. It’s less “of the people, by the people, and for the people” and more of “the strongman, by executive order, here’s more freedom. Mind the tear gas, and rubber bullets.” I mean, he has a parade this week, so I guess that’s why he didn’t send the tanks in. LA is a test. Who’s next?

The White House is pushing Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation-backed fever dream that’s basically a blueprint for authoritarianism wrapped in a flag. It calls for purging federal agencies of so-called “woke” ideology (read: racial equity), dismantling civil rights protections like they’re graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. Project 2025 isn’t just some bureaucratic restructuring plan—it’s a cultural purge. It’s a scalpel aimed directly at the already-faint pulse of justice in this country. It’s the kind of political necromancy that wants to drag us back to a time when “freedom” had an asterisk—

What should your AC tech do during maintenance? Click on the image above to link to the video of what they should be doing~ including cleaning it inside and out.

What WE do: Open up the A/C, remove the cover, inspect all parts, clean the inside, clean the outside, clean the top fan assembly and reassemble. We even bring the hose!

For your A/C unit to work correctly, it does need to be cleaned regularly. Dirty A/C units cannot operate as efficiently as clean ones, and gunk blocking fan blades from rotating cleanly doesn’t help performance either.

You should have your A/C serviced regularly for optimal performance. You want to be able to click on that switch on the thermostat on the first hot day and know that it’s working properly.

Contact our team at All Star Mechanical for a maintenance service. We’ll do it right.

Welcome to 2025. I am not prepared, and I don’t know what I could’ve done differently. It is really just hard to believe everything that has happened since the election. I mean, it’s a whirlwind, and the hits keep on coming. I know my tears are being swallowed up by the anti woke crowd, but I couldn’t care less about their glee, nothing should surprise me anymore and so I will just continue to live and vote for the change I want to see, it is literally all I can do.

I have no doubt that what we will see in the coming months will be chaos. I am only hopeful that the chaos slows down the harm that will certainly be unleashed on so many. I distinctly remember the first administration in which he displayed himself as such a foul character from every single aspect, and I still can’t understand how anyone would choose that. I call you a liar if you said you would accept your child behaving like him. Everything I was taught as a child was to reject that type of behavior. I didn’t think you could make this stuff up and people would believe it but here we are listening to him talk about making Canada the 51st state? I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they think that the billionaires they love so much are somehow going to make life better for them. Do they understand the billionaire class became billionaires at their exploitation, regardless of how it’s spun? Now they think that these same billionaires will reward them with wealth, or security, or peace of mind? I’ve been waiting for trickle down economics to work for like 50 years, and the rich just keep getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, wages are stagnant, and people are working themselves sick. Yeah, the I told you sos will not make up for the destruction they leave in their wake.

My message is this, just because your guy won an election, doesn’t translate to you being better off. I have no doubt that you’ll walk around with your chest puffed out, but even more probable is that you will find out that he doesn’t care about you even a little, so your posturing will be in vain. The only segment of the population that will prosper will be those who are already rich, or those willing to sacrifice any of their dignity at the expense of others. Trump and his ilk have never parted with a dollar, even if it meant to bankrupt someone who works hard.

With the economy being the reason (that’s their claim anyway) many people voted for a billionaire, I wonder how they came to the idea that he, or anyone around him, has their interests at heart. As a small, privately, and truly locally owned business, my goal has always been to provide the type of quality workmanship that you should always expect to receive. I can say with certainty that nobody locally does what we do, and I’d rather you hire another small locally owned business than one that has sold out to the corporate greed of big money. The economic trend lately in many industries of public service has been for private equity groups to maximize profits by purchasing companies or businesses, which in a consumer capitalist society has never benefited the consumer in the long run, as they have to cut costs somewhere in order to satisfy their shareholders. Eventually they buy up all of the competition, and then they can charge whatever they want. They tend to market everything they offer by using gimmicks such as buy a furnace and get a free AC, which is never really the case, but they certainly can give quotes that are much cheaper because their goal is quantity over quality, and the end game is to not have any competition so they can then set the value at whatever they want, which will make a lot of products unaffordable by a majority of people who are already struggling, and so these private equity groups own financing companies who have already set up predatory lending options that will worsen the situation for people with no other financial means.

It is already here in Lansing. Many of the companies that you’ve thought were local are not local at all. They are owned by private equity firms whose goal is to eliminate companies like mine. We may all look back one day and say “why aren’t there any quality contractors out there anymore?” and it will be because the right has played the long game, and destroyed local business. It has happened in so many industries, and it is now happening with the home service industry at a pretty good pace. Just as an example, look up Heartland Home Services and you’ll see they own at least 3 dozen heating and cooling companies including ones you’ve heard of right here like Vredevoogd, and Hager Fox. They still advertise as being local, but Heartland Home Services has bought out plumbing and heating and cooling companies from Kentucky, to Delaware, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, and several right here in MIchigan. This is just one private equity firm, there are so many others. Hedlund Plumbing built a reputable business but is now rebranded as Service Professor. They are not locally owned and they are flooding the radio, TV and social media with ads to get you to call them. Look, I can’t compete with the volume, but the type of tactics they use are not good for the consumer, and with shady tactics, it is usually followed by less than scrupulous work practices. Trump, Elon, and the other billionaires’ policies will promote more of this until we are living in the world of the movie Idiocracy.

I hope the rest of the world stands up to defend decency, because I feel pretty small. I feel like I am witnessing everything I have come to know is not normal anymore, lies are perceived as truth, intellect is perceived as elitist, history doesn’t matter, money determines one’s success, etc. I can’t keep up. I am only thankful to know that there are so many of you who see things similarly to me.

There was a time, I think, when most people could see the good, and the bad, and make a distinction between the two. A time when people inherently did the right thing. Maybe I am being nostalgic, but I want to see the good in people, but it is getting harder and harder when we as a collective have chosen the likes of a man who has no redeeming qualities. It is as if we have forsaken humanity because he has built an empire and a brand. His tall buildings are a symbol of American exceptionalism, and I don’t mean that in a good way, because he is certainly exceptional in all of the ways I despise. I want to see more people get ahead, get a proper education, understand the world is full of many walks of life that look nothing like their own, and accept people regardless of their differences.

We are still a young country, but we’ve grown at an exponential pace during the industrial age. Many who subscribe to old ways of thinking do so because it’s hard to accept new ideas, but that just isn’t good enough. The ideas they inherited were passed down subconsciously to their children and generations afterward. Brave people spoke out and we saw change, but to this day we still see the vestiges of hate that I hope are gasping for its last collective breath, but I won’t hold mine because I can see how stubborn it is. It is up to us who find ourselves amongst those with long held ideas to continue to challenge them and make it known that hate is not welcome here. I can say with certainty that silence is only going to make things worse. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t confront it, and I know from personal experience that hearing a bigoted joke, or a racist joke, or a sexist joke and not saying it may not harm me, but it will harm someone close to me.

For the next four years, I will continue to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. I want the best people do have opportunities to contribute to society, and it doesn’t mean that just because someone is of a certain race, sex or orientation that they should be given anything, but that they shouldn’t be excluded just because their name looks foreign, or they dress a certain way, or because of who they love etc. For me, I know people in positions of power often overlook an application because the person’s name is Jamal, and not Steve. They may be equally qualified, but Jamal may not even get the call back to prove he is indeed the best fit. DEI is not about giving the position to someone just because said person is Black, a Woman, or identifies as Queer, if you think that is what DEI is, you are not listening, either willfully or ignorantly, or both.

I am sure the next few weeks will be as chaotic as the last couple of months. My head is on a swivel, and I can barely focus on any one thing, but the economy will impact everyone and I suspect the likes of Joe Rogan, Glen Beck, Steve Bannon, Elon and so on will spin things to fit their narrative through plausible deniability (they’ve mastered this), but these people are all profiting off of the exploitation of many who have been deceived by false narratives that keep them comfortably in their bubble. These are the types of people who are bad for the American people, no matter what party you subscribe to. They all sell America out by claiming they are loyal to the ideas and promises of this nation. They have been claiming the sky is falling since Obama took office, and yet, we have seen progress along the way. Hopefully they won’t burn it down, but they will blame it on Joe if it does.

Going solar with a heat pump option is the next step for the homeowners with solar who want to maximize the use of their solar array and heat and cool their homes. Solar arrays, along with a new variable speed inverter heat pump with 2 stage electric resistance auxiliary heat and a new humidifier powers the heating and cooling at this Lansing-area house.

This homeowner client had a solar panel array with battery backup and wanted to power their furnace with the solar array. This heat pump plus electric auxiliary heat allows them to use their solar-generated electricity to heat and cool their home! This doesn’t use a standard gas hookup, but is powered by electricity the homeowner generates from their solar panel array. From the outside, it looks just like a regular A/C unit, and on the inside, a regular furnace. But it’s not!

This is an air to air source heat pump with back up resistance heat. The heat pump is basically an air conditioner with a reversing valve. In the summer, the outdoor unit is the condenser, and the indoor unit is the evaporator, and it reverses operation in the winter. On the coldest days, the back up resistance heat gives more output when it’s needed. It uses a lot of electricity, but with solar it will offset the cost and with enough hours banked it could actually produce more than you might use. There is no gas, it’s entirely electric. The indoor unit is an air handler with a coil and the back up heat.

These types of systems come with a 30% tax credit from the federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act, passed by the Biden/Harris administration. Tax incentives help defray the cost of a new installation of solar electricity, weatherproofing, heat pump systems such as this, to help combat climate change.

Going solar with a heat pump option in Michigan:

If you have solar panel array at your home and want a great option for heating your home in the winter and cooling it in the summer, contact us for a quote on this system. You could power your heating and cooling from the sun!