We Are Of Michigan

Something in the Air

2011-04-02T06:49:00.003-04:00

Good morning, Michigan.

Several months have passed since my last blog post, mostly for reasons outlined in my last post, but also because of what I will chalk up to excessive sloth and scurvy. My brother knew someone in college who got scurvy because the kid literally ate noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is almost impossible to get scurvy in this day and age because Vitamin C is in pretty much everything - it is so prevalent in our world that Vitamin C even manifested itself as a human and performed that one song about being friends forever. So this one kid with scurvy that my brother knew I guess literally almost died because the doctors were not able to diagnose him because scurvy was so far from being a possibility in their minds. I don't have the facts to back this up but Steve hasn't gone out of his way to lie to me in the past to make me look dumb in a blog post 3 months after my last post. Don't start a precedent, Steve. Also, it has been so long since I've written that it is going to be hard for me to recall if I've repeated a life story of my own or someone else's. Don't hold that against me.

So I'm up this wonderful Saturday morning at about 5:30 am because of one of the fun things about being a parent - specifically, Dean decided that he did not like us last night and he did not very well embrace the sweet world of sleep. Because Maureen is fantastic, she managed him most of the night, but this time I volunteered to bring him downstairs so she could catch a little reasonable shut eye. Through a combination of Simon, Garfunkel, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong, the baby finally calmed down and is now sleeping on the couch. Since he is asleep and I am wide awake, I thought it made sense to return to writing a little bit to talk about something kind of neat that I see going around me these days. And no, I am not talking about the damn frozen snow flakes that have been caked on my windshield every day the last two weeks. Go the hell away, frozen snow flakes. It's April, dudes.

On to my subject of choice, I wanted to talk about something happening with some of my peers that I find both encouraging and refreshing. Michigan has not recently been known as a place of innovation, risk-taking, and entrepreneurship. This does not mean that there are not great entrepreneurs in Michigan or that they have not been working hard at creating new technologies, businesses, and corresponding jobs, but Michigan is definitely viewed as a distant follower in this space. People have been saying for years, if not decades, that Michigan has to become more entrepreneurial and innovative if it really wants to find an economic way forward out of it's troubles. The problem has been that our success of the last century, driven by world-changingly creative and innovative people, has bred generations of citizens who understandably focused their lives around supporting the businesses that created our present. The need to create was, unfortunately, just not that important to the immediate well-being of a standard individual or the state as a whole.

People from my generation have heard this refrain for as long as we can remember, and it isn't going anywhere in the near future. It is in the fabric of who we are as Michiganders. The most difficult thing for us has been the fear that there really wasn't anything that we could do to change a problem so systemic, it has cost the state millions of jobs and severely hindered population growth. For example, I'm not really an "ideas guy." I find that I have a proficiency for taking others' ideas and tweaking them for improvement, but I'm not an inventor. If we're out to dinner together, I'm much better at taking something funny that you said and putting my own punctuation on it than writing the sentence myself. Realistically, as a good worker but not necessarily an innovative person, what can I do to change our state's entrepreneurial culture?

This is not an easy question to answer, but it seems like more and more people I know have been asking themselves some variation of the same thing. I don't run in a huge social circle, but in just the last year, four people that I would deem pretty good friends have taken very significant steps to position themselves in whatever way possible to contribute to solving the part of the problem that they are capable of solving.

I'll start with Mike because he has taken the most direct step in this regard. Mike is a well educated guy who had a good job at a large medical devices company based in Ann Arbor. If he continued on that path, he would have had a great and comfortable career filled with promotions. Last year, he decided to leave that firm to become one of the first three employees of a new startup based in Southfield, while at the same time starting business school at night. This is a company with a medical technology coming out of research done in Michigan based around preventing spinal nerve damage during invasive surgeries. Here's some info about them. I couldn't root for them more, but the truth is, who knows if they will be successful? Despite this uncertainty, Mike has taken the massive step of leaving his comfort zone with an awesomely possibly upside but also a realistic chance of failure. In Michigan, the general public probably might not view this risky move as wise, but this is exactly the type of risk that starts to foster a culture of innovation and startup business.

Next up, Todd. Todd is a pharmacist who manages a series of pharmacies. I'm sure he makes plenty of bank and could easily cruise down this path until he retires and decides to try to be a DJ on the electronic music scene. Despite this, over the last year, Todd has learned to code and has been feverishly working with a small team in their own sandbox, bizibly.com, to figure out how to commercialize some of his ideas. Now, Todd has a bit of the wanderlust and I'm doing my best to push back against that, but he, too, is using much of his free time to actively pursue the path of starting some form of business. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but it is clear that he has a drive to create and he's taking specific steps to become a creator.

Now, Reid. I was an undergraduate with Reid and we were good acquaintances during that time. Years later, he started dating one of Maureen's good friends, so I have had the pleasure to spend more and more time with him recently. Reid is a full time student in business school with a great job offer lined up for after school, but he has been working with a team of other students over the past two years on developing a company called "Are You a Human" (can't find their website). They are developing a very cool method to replace the standard captcha (those annoying, squiggly, hard-to-read words you have to type in when you want to buy a ticket from Ticketmaster). They are on the verge of turning this into a very real technology company based in either Detroit or Ann Arbor.

Finally, me (I mentioned four friends, and I am the best friend I know). I left my very enjoyable consulting gig surrounded by brilliant minds last year to work on a non-profit initiative called The MORE Program to create a previously non-existent entrepreneurial support ecosystem throughout the state. Our work is going quite well and we are excited about what we will be launching in the near future. In my role, I have had the chance to travel around the state and meet with entrepreneurs and economic leaders of all shapes and sizes. Some of the work going on around the state to support business in some of the places you would least expect is truly amazing.

These four individuals do not make up a huge sample size (that is my engineering background at work), and who knows where any of us will go. Despite the outcomes, this is exactly the type of culture we must continue to encourage. If you have a friend considering starting a business or starting to look down that path, don't tell them if you think they have a good idea or a bad idea (though if they have a bad idea that you believe will cause them financial harm, do suggest they seek out a seasoned mentor or adviser like at the statewide SBTDC offices), but rather give them unlimited encouragement to pursue their interest. If they ask your help and you're interested in participating, throw in for the challenge. Continue to support our state's entrepreneurs until they decide it's not what they want to do. Someone else succeeding does not mean that you have failed.

Compromise

2011-01-05T21:50:00.003-05:00

Good evening to all. I just wanted to say that I promise that I have not (yet) abandoned the world of writing on the blog. Often people go at it for a while with some strong energy, then slowly but surely entirely stop writing because they run out of things to say. It is clear that it is pretty impossible that I will ever run out of things to say (unintelligent and nonsensical things do technically count as things to say), but I decided over the past couple months to really enjoy the first months of Dean's life while also appropriately committing myself to my still pretty new employment path. Trying to do both of these things as well as possible has resulted in a massive degradation of time directed toward many things I care about, including consistent running, watching TV, and chunks of sleep greater than 1.5 hours. They say that life is a series of compromises, and I now realize that this is only the case when you have children. Prior to that, there is absolutely no need to compromise on anything, ever. This is exactly the message that I will communicate to Dean. For now, I will continue to enjoy the first months of our new family member and just stockpile my ingenuity, waiting to be unleashed like a torrent of things that happen really quickly when they have been leashed for a long period of time. Just like one of those things.

Patent This Intellectual Property

2010-12-16T22:25:00.002-05:00

Quite a bit of news has been going around Michigan these days, with the primary focus being the birth of baby Dean. Dean!

Aside from that, our longtime buddy and all around good guy, Kwame Kilpatrick was indicted for organized crime as well as his dad and a few other fantastic people who run in the Kilpatrick circle. I have no idea how his mom has not yet been named in anything. If I was running or a significant part of an organized, or even disorganized, crime organization, I am absolutely certain that my mom would be all over that. Moms know everything, and that has always been a little bit scary. There will be many more hilarious and enjoyable things to say about this story, hopefully ending in longer term incarceration of the Kilpatrick family.

In better news, the city of Detroit was tonight named to house the United States' first ever satellite office for the U.S. Patent and Trade Office. The current plan is for the office to employee about 100+ individuals. Detroit beat out some pretty big and substantial other likely contenders, including cities like Boston. I'll have to look up the specifics but I can't right now because I have a baby (best excuse ever from now on to not do something I should be doing), but Michigan is definitely a leader in patent applications because of the amount of R&D in the automotive industry that goes on here. Believe it or not, the auto industry is actually a pretty high tech industry with lots of innovation.

In addition to immediate personnel at the office, I would guess that there will be a pretty decent amount of tangential job creation to support the intellectual property legal work going on at this new location. Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Gary Locke, indicated that there were many reasons why they chose Detroit for this new office, and I choose to believe that "pity" was not one of these reasons. We are going to intellectual property the hell out of this country.

Dean's Birth Story

2010-12-11T21:37:00.006-05:00

It has been just about two weeks since Maureen gave birth to baby Dean on November 28th. The dust has settled and we've now had time to process what all of this means on a day-to-day basis. While our schedule is anything but settled and he has no desire to sleep after 11pm, being a parent for two weeks has been pretty wonderful and filled with important time together as a new family, with our nuclear families, and with some really nice visits with friends. We'll keep figuring out what all this means, but right now I just would like to share our story from Dean's birth day and some observations because it's just a really nice thing on which to reflect a little bit.

Sunday November 28th at about 3:00 am Maureen woke me with a nudge and told me that she was going to head downstairs. She was feeling some regular contractions but it was not yet clear if these were going to transition into full born labor. A couple nights earlier at about the same time of the morning, she was experiencing some similar sensations, but after heading downstairs for a little while, the length of time between contractions expanded and eventually petered out, so this was a likely outcome for this morning. About 15 minutes later, Maureen gave a holler up the stairs to me to let me know that she thought this was the real thing, and I should probably come downstairs to attend to her. About 5 minutes later, things got even a little more intense and we decided it was time to call our doula and the midwife answering service to tell them that we thought that we would be heading to the hospital soon. Our doula, Deb, got to our house at around 5 am, and at about 6 we decided to head to the hospital. We arrived at Southfield Providence Hospital at 6:30 and Maureen and Deb made their way into the hospital while I parked the car. I very quickly made my way up to the room and that's when the real party started.

Without going into too much detail on the specifics of this part, Maureen labored for the next 7 hours, and we had our then-unnamed boy at 1:38 pm. The labor process was very much like what you would learn at a birth education class and absolutely amazing to observe. Maureen was just incredible throughout the entire thing, and I would like to talk a little bit more about that.

Several months ago, Maureen decided that she would like to attempt a natural birth. Natural birth is most certainly not all the rage in the United States these days as as epidurals and C-Sections are extremely prominent, but there is small movement back toward natural birth in the U.S. This is a very personal decision to every couple and there isn't a wrong option for this. Some people want medication, some people want or need surgical intervention, and others attempt a natural birth but it just wasn't meant to be because the baby wouldn't cooperate with this goal. Our baby cooperated and Maureen was able to successfully have the baby without any medication, and I remain so impressed by her and the whole natural birth thing. The process certainly was intensely hard work for her, but there were at least a few moments during those hours that our marriage and love and my appreciation for her strengthened and grew by amounts I did not realize were possible, and at least for me, made the entire thing something I will forever cherish (beyond just the fact that we got a pretty cool baby out of it). My job was to remain as cool, collected, and supportive as possible before, during, and after the labor and that's not terribly hard to do if you're appropriately educated and prepared about everything that happens. I realize this, so I hope I don't come across as "hey this was a piece of cake." The real heavy lifting is on the mom. However, having a fully mentally present wife during and immediately after the labor made for two moments that touched me and forever changed me as a person.

First, as Maureen was fully entrenched and near the long completion of the immensely strenuous push phase, she was a little drunk from exhaustion and hard work. I was doing my best to communicate positive things to her and my pride in her, and she had a moment of extreme lucidity, looked at me, and quietly said "he's almost here." I'm not sure what it was exactly about these words, but the combination of her hard work, our months of preparation, the knowledge of our future life changes, and her ability to put this thought together made me immediately burst into tears. I cried for about the next 10 minutes and the baby wasn't even quite out yet. When the baby came, Maureen was able to immediately hold him, with a clear mind say "I love you so much", and then immediately start nursing and bonding. This is much harder to do under medication because the baby comes out too groggy to respond. Just fascinating. The overarching component to the experience was just knowing how much Maureen was going through, and that she was bearing it because she was amazing and strong and capable and she wanted to bring her baby into the world as naturally as possible. I've never been more impressed with anyone or anything. How about this - 45 minute crown. Damn. I guess from our experience what I would say is that I would encourage you to consider going this route, but if you don't want to, your birth experience will still be beautiful.

Now, a few things that made this experience possible:

We had Dean at Southfield Providence Hospital and its Alternative Birthing Center. They've been around for something like 30 years, but are not especially well advertised or broadly well known. They are a unit of the hospital, owned by the hospital, and if you decide to go to them, they will work with you on natural child birth. This means many things - moms and dads get big rooms all to themselves with big tubs to assist with pain management. Because moms are not on a constant fetal monitor, they are encouraged to move around the room and into the large tubs to try to find the position that is best for them. It could be on a birthing ball, on the toilet, in the bed, or anywhere else that the mom may want to try for comfort. They regularly check the baby's heart rate with little hand held monitors to make sure that the baby is healthy, but that is pretty much it. However, if the mom decides she wants medication or a C-Section is necessary, they will move you down the hall to the fully staffed and capable labor and delivery unit. It's very close to a home birth, but with a whole bunch of medical staff if you need them. And speaking of staff...

The nurses in the ABC absolutely love what they do, and the births are attended by a midwife from Metro Partners in Women's Health. This organization is based out of Novi Providence Hospital and they have midwives, OBs, and nurses who work for them. They have a team of about 5 or 6 midwives that you regularly see leading up to the birth. Our birth was attended by Sarah Sutton from Metro Partners and a whole team of Providence nurses based on their shift. Between the certified nurse midwife and the nurses, we felt blanketed in constant support the entire time. They were medically proficient, made intelligent recommendations/suggestions, had encouraging words, and in the end, caught and handed us a healthy baby. They are not pushy or negative or even overly positive - just what you need when you need them and supportive of whatever decision you decide or need to make about the birth.

Finally, I recommend a doula. Our doula's name, as mentioned before, was Deb, and he re is her website. A doula serves many purposes, but mainly they meet with you a couple times before and after the birth to talk through your plan and any thing that may be on your mind, they are there with you throughout the entire birth, and then they meet with you a couple times after the birth to discuss lactation, any postpartum issues you may be experiencing, and again anything else you might want to discuss about parenting. The most valuable part of her services, I felt, was just having someone there during the entire birth, 100% committed to supporting the mom (mainly) and the dad. The nurses and midwives have other duties and they need to come and go, but Deb was just there for us. When we got to the hospital and I needed to park, Deb stayed with Maureen. She helped us decide it was time to go to the hospital, and if our parents were pushy (which they're fortunately not), she would have kept them patient in the waiting room. She also made suggestions to Maureen throughout the labor and provided other physical support services. It enabled me to focus on purely being what Maureen needed from me - mental support and encouragement. Deb served Maureen's needs which let me do my job.

So there you go. Now we have a baby who is two weeks old, and we love him very much. He refuses to sleep after 11 pm and he wants to feed 5 minutes after a 50 minute feeding (his father's son in this regard), but everything about him is perfect. He is right on track to tell me in 14 years that he temporarily hates me because I wouldn't let him get the iPhone 47.

Being a parent is exactly like I thought, yet somehow completely different. Changing diapers isn't a nuisance (at least for a brief while), it is actually a sign that the baby is well fed and his system is working correctly. Ever time we feel a poop I'm like "YES!" whereas before him, the thought of this made me not especially happy. I'm still changing diapers, but it just doesn't mean what I thought.

What is my point in writing all this, most certainly my longest post in quite some time? First, it is a love letter to my wife who carried and birthed our son. I love you honey and while I've said it to you privately, maybe it will mean something different if I declare it publicly - I'm so proud of you. You are easily tied with all the best moms in the world. Second, it is a little history for Dean, and I will use these words to guilt him into taking me to movies when I'm old. Finally, it is just a general declaration of the love and amazement of life. So many things have to go right for any one baby to be born, and yet, there are billions of us alive at this moment and billions came before us. The fact that I'm here and Maureen is here and we had a baby is a testament to how incredible every moment can be. Not every moment is perfect, but it is always perfect that perfect moments are possible. Now I've had a few more of these.

Thanks for bearing with me on this extremely personal and lengthy indulgence. It's a story I wanted to tell. Welcome to the world, Dean.

Life and The Start of It

2010-11-30T21:55:00.005-05:00

For the zero of you who read this and are not friends on Facebook, on Sunday afternoon at 1:38 pm, Maureen birthed our new baby son, Dean. Don't believe me? Here's a picture.

As a result of this momentous life event, it will be difficult for me to, for at least a little bit, create any sort of interesting thoughts. I actually have way more to say about the birth process than I would have thought, and I'm really looking forward to getting my thoughts down here as soon as possible. In the meantime, I need to tend to my wife and my beautiful son. You'll be able to assess how much the baby is napping by whether or not I'm knocking out any posts. In the meantime, let me just say that while I love Michigan and all the amazing things about our state, I love my wife and son a little bit more.

Kid Rock Will Save Us

2010-11-22T21:56:00.002-05:00

It was the summer of 1999. That was not my favorite summer of all time for many teenage-angst reasons, but there were also some non-teenage-angst reasons, and one of those reasons was the song Bawitdaba by KIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD................KIDDDDDDDD ROCK! There was some sort of a motor cycle rally taking place on top of a mobile home and a bunch of people (guys and girls) wearing glittery clothes and dancing around in a provocative manner. No one knew or cared what the song was about, but it was conducive to aggression and included the phrase "topless dancers", so it was primed for success before it even hit the pre-iTunes airwaves. There was even a swearing and angry little person - another sure sign of success. The guy who sang (yelled the song at you) had a terrible haircut, always wore hats, and apparently, was a proud southeastern Michigan native. He had been growing through the Detroit music scene for many years, slowly developing his local fan base until his album Devil Without a Cause found strong success on the national level. At that time, it seemed clear that Kid Rock would be a temporary and annoying distraction until the next Backstreet Boys song hit the streets.

The haircut hasn't changed and he still wears the exact same hats, but Kid Rock has clearly become much more than a temporary and annoying distraction. In fact, he is likely one of the most diverse and popular endearing popular music artists of the last decade. He can and does swing styles from performance to performance, and he has played at events ranging from The Rally to Restore Sanity to Hope for Haiti Now to wherever you can find moonshine across the United States. All the while, The Kid has been a proud and strong representative of Michigan, publicly speaking out on behalf of Michigan and the many good things going on here. Humorously, he often acknowledges something along the lines of "I don't know why you have me here to talk about this. You're the smart ones," but he soldiers on as a good native son.

He took this support farther at the American Music Awards last evening when he performed a song called Times Like These from his new album. Why was I watching the AMAs, you may be thinking. I would never under any circumstance watch the AMAs. I'd rather listen to Bawitdaba. This song was entirely about Michigan, and the performance included images of Michigan behind him throughout the entire song. It was sweet, sincere, and touching to anyone who has any ties to the state and is not a jerk. I have to say that there are lines that don't make a whole lot of sense, like "and even though it's bittersweet, it brings us to our knees" (normally a thought structured in this way would have clearly conflicting elements, but I just don't see it here. Like "Even though I knew it would make me vomit all night, I ate the entire bag of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips." True story.), but I can look past the simplicity of parts of the song and just appreciate someone out there publicly and extremely visibly positively representing Detroit. It's not that deep and you may not love the song, but I greatly appreciate anyone who is proud to stand up and tell them you're from...Detroit! Who could have possibly guessed 10 years ago that this person would be Kid Rock. I still think he would look way better with a haircut. I really like my barber, Rudy, and I would definitely recommend him if I meet Mr. Rock.

The End of a National Nightmare

2010-11-17T20:58:00.003-05:00

The end of two national nightmares, actually. First, in case you haven't heard, this week marks an extremely significant development in the world of Apple and iTunes. Specifically, we will never, ever have to hear another rumor about Steve Jobs announcing that The Beatles will be available through iTunes. This is a rumor that has run rampant on average 9.4 distinct times a year for the last 5 years, including the last 3 years when absolutely nobody was left to care whether or not The Beatles were available through iTunes. The regularity of this rumor was on par with whether or not the show Seinfeld would pick up right where it left off or if Barry Sanders was going to return from retirement. Come back, Barry! The Lions have won something like 1 game since you unexpectedly left the team 700 The Beatles are coming to iTunes rumors ago. To me personally, this Beatles thing has been particularly annoying because I tend to root against the behemoth that is Apple and I just don't understand the love of Beatles music. I don't dislike it by any measure, it's just kind of average and nondescript sounding. It's like how Shakespeare invented a whole bunch of words and phrases and the like, and when we read them now, they feel really overused even though he invented them. That's how I feel about the Beatles. "They invented modern rock and roll!" yes, but The Great Train Robbery invented modern film and I wouldn't really chose to watch that anymore. What's that you say? The best analogy ever? Thank you.

The next national nightmare that has ended is England can finally, FINALLY stop waiting for Prince William to get engaged. He is going to marry that millionaire commoner peasant, Kate Middleton, who will now have to figure out how to not be ashamed of her family's millions and millions of dollars. Life as a millionaire marrying a billionaire is tough. The best part of this story is that, like The Beatles on iTunes, we'll no longer ever have to hear Meredith Viera say "is it finally time for Prince William to tie the knot" or whatever other colloquialism the writers of The Today Show choose to represent marriage. My favorite is "hug the exercise waterfowl", which I just made up right now.

The best part of these two things together, as Maureen pointed out, is that this means at the reception of Kate and William, they'll be able to include legally downloaded copies of songs from The Beatles when they build their wedding playlist to play directly off of their iPod shuffle through the speakers at their local Elks Lodge. DJs are expensive. Do they have Elks Lodges in England? Likely not, but if so, they're probably only for weddings for lowly commoners like Kate.

Timing is Everything

2010-11-16T22:13:00.003-05:00

By my calendar count, we have 7 days until the due date of one baby male human being, probably preliminarily incapable of both speaking and basic calculus. When I found that out, I said to Maureen "why even have a baby?" She then informed me that on top of these developmental facts, your average child can't understand sarcasm until they're 10, to which I responded "well isn't that GREAT."

The Worst Place in Michigan

2010-11-11T22:16:00.004-05:00

Focus, of course, is usually on the great people and place in Michigan, what I ate for dinner, or how much I dislike gypsies. I actually don't have any opinion about gypsies, but I thought I needed a third subject beyond Michigan and what I ate for dinner. As it turns out, that's all I got. I have a very limited view of the world.

Today, as Maureen and I drove through a very busy interchange on Michigan's extensive and great freeway system, I started to feel my blood boil. I'm no civil engineer or construction expert, but what in the damn crap poop hell are they doing on I-96 just west of I-275? They have been working on this stretch of freeway since the earth cooled from the great rains after the magma solidified to create Pangaea. At this time, the creator of earth, Martha Stewart, planted a sign near the middle of Pangaea and wrote on the sign "I-96 Under Construction. Seek Alternative Route." For as long as I can remember back, there have been bulldozers, concrete breakers, piles of rubble, concrete barriers, and port-a-potties stretching along this forsaken stretch of road. Nights like tonight are especially frustrating because I hadn't been on this stretch of road for months, and when I finally return to it, absolutely nothing has discernibly changed. Nothing. The same damn traffic shifts, the same damn concrete barriers, the same barren median just screaming with open space on which you and I are not allowed to drive because this is the worst place in Michigan.

What's worse, this stretch of road has been creating backups to Telegraph road on westbound I-696 for as long as this terrible construction has been going on. Ridiculous. We are all accustomed to road construction projects in this great state, but this is the grand mama of Michigan road projects. It is the Alpha and Omega. The Simon and the Garfunkel. The "acrossed" of Michigan road projects. It is the worst stretch of land in the state.

Acrossed, A Farewell

2010-11-08T22:33:00.002-05:00

I don't know when or where or why or how it happened, but over the past 5 years, the word across, a simple, wonderful word, has been replaced by people everywhere by "acrossed" or "acrosst" or some variation of the word across with a "t" sound at the end. Many people have a word or words that aren't actually words that are upsetting to them, but I believe that acrossed may be the most insidious non-word in the world. The reason why is the stunning breadth and depth of the infiltration of this devolution of the English language. From my own personal experience (which I would feel very comfortable saying is interaction with people of above-average intelligence) , it now seems that more than 50% of people I know fail at not using "acrossed." Every time I write it down it makes me feel like my soul is dying a little bit. These are smart, professional, accomplished individuals who, for some reason, feel compelled to make me hate them by putting together letters in this utter failure of letter arrangement. Acrossed is everywhere and it sucks. I hate it, and probably you if you say it.

This is one of the small benefits of writing a blog. It enables me to say to any readers without explicitly telling individuals that you are frequently using a nonsensical sound combination. In this way, I can slowly begin the defeat and eventual death of acrossed - which, if you haven't been able to tell by now, is a WORD THAT DOESN'T EXIST.

Again I acknowledge that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of these non-words that people use every day, but I sincerely believe that this one has entered a pantheon of its own in the terrible realm deserving of special acknowledgment right here, right now.

You may be wondering right now, "Do I say this stupid thing and is Ken talking about me right now." And the answer to this question is "yes, you are almost definitely doing this." So stop, dummy. Really, stop. Even Urban Dictionary agrees, except that they emphasize that this happens primarily in the Midwest, and I know more than a few very smart guys from California who also happen to use this word.

Now that you know, if I hear you using acrossed, I'm going to slap you acrossed the face.

I Understand

2010-11-05T18:37:00.004-04:00

Over two years ago, the college football world was like a big, ripe melon. Much like purchasing and eventually cutting in to a delicious cantaloupe, it was unclear what the future held for U of Michigan football, but it was unarguably exciting. Michigan was entering a brave new world of offensive firepower, insanely in shape athletes, and possibly even black quarterbacks! If that last statement alone didn't imply significant changes in the program, I don't know what statement would. This old, stodgy guy was leaving and a new, successful guy who "got modern football" was breezing into town bringing only a moderate amount of controversy up from West Virginia. As we now know, this time of great anticipation was not one of waiting to cut into the perfect cantaloupe, but rather the precursor to an alien hatching out of a shell that looked like a cantaloupe, infiltrating your body, killing most humans and taking over the world, and then you found out that the supermarket at which you were shopping for the first cantaloupe doesn't even carry that particular melon, or any melon at all! Yes, exactly like that.

It has been a terrible, terrible almost three seasons of Michigan football. I really don't care that the team is 5-3 this year. They are terrible. I fear we are in the midst of an unturnable long-term downturn, and we will end up as something even more terrible like Notre Dame or Tennessee. Poor Notre Dame and Tennessee.

As a prideful person, our suck has been embarrassing and emotional. Like that time I bought the alien that I thought was a cantaloupe. Even the rare victories have felt like defeats. Against abominable teams, Michigan would have to navigate last minute drives or big second half comebacks to avoid losing to teams like UMass. I don't know a ton about some of the really deep, dark details of football strategy, but it hasn't been hard to realize that neither does Michigan.

As an alum, I could not figure out why this level of performance was acceptable to the athletic department. Also as a young alum, I find myself sometimes wondering what the university is doing for me now that I (my parents) am not paying tuition and I can only donate modestly each calendar year. Finally, these two pieces came together and I'm feeling a whole lot better. The University of Michigan football team is sucking for me. Thank you U of M!

The past couple years have been a really busy period in my life. I was wedding planning, moving, changing jobs, getting married, acclimating to married life, trying to find time for scripted TV viewing and working out with all of these changes, and trying to keep up with a number of other significant life events like getting ready for a baby. Thanks to the terror of U of M football, I was able to claim Saturdays as my own and not be chained to the TV rooting for a run at the Big Ten title. I didn't even have to root for a run at The Motor City Bowl. I could do the things that I needed to do, maintain all my responsibilities, and still have a little time to relax and center myself thanks to those hours on Saturday I did not have to commit to maize and blue football.

Now that I've made this realization, I just wanted to send a big thank you to Michigan football. The extra free time has really been appreciated and has enabled me to live a fuller, happier, and less football-filled life. Michigan even took this a step further and coordinated with the Lions to ensure that they also were embarrassing, so that I could take the entire weekend as my own. Those are the kinds of sacrifices that really make you feel like you have a personal connection with your team.

Now that the baby is almost here, I also wanted to let Michigan know that you don't need to worry about me anymore. We're as ready for what comes next in life as any two people can be, and I feel selfish making everyone suffer just so that I don't have to concern myself with football on Saturday. This post constitutes my formal permission for Michigan Football to pretend I don't exist and perform like a team with the full complement of 11 players on the field at any given time.Your sacrifice of respectability as a program just for me has been a very special gesture, but I think it's time that we both move on. I'll always remember what you did for me.

D.C. Envy

2010-11-01T21:39:00.002-04:00

Washington D.C. was the proud recipient of me and my positive attitude from Thursday of last week to Sunday. I had to go for a couple meetings on Friday, and then my traveling companion and I stuck around that part of the world for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. It's really a good thing that I did go to help flesh out the crowd. Barely 250,000 people showed up. I don't want to say that I was key to making the event a success, but I can't think of another way of finishing that sentence. It was one of those weird things where you go to a event and you can only barely see a giant monitor and you're literally about a mile from the stage, but you're still happy that you went. This phenomenal partial view of the monitor was the payoff of standing in one place for six hours next to a group of 7 or 8 freshman-aged wastes of life that must have smoked about 30 joints and 60 cigarettes over the course of the 6 hours. Really, they were just absolutely terrible people, maybe the worst I've ever experienced in my entire life. Here are a couples quotes from one of the guys:

"You don't even know what it takes to be me. I have to spend three hours in the gym everyday."

"I've done every drug in the world. Name a drug and I'll tell you if I've taken it. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, so many times I can't even count, yep, yep, cocaine really clears out my system."

The good news is that this guy is a proud member of the U.S. Army.

Aside from the busy rally attendance of Saturday, I had a good amount of time to tool around D.C. between Thursday and Friday evening. I walked the national mall, quickly saw most of the key monuments and buildings, and found myself envying the majesty of Washington D.C. As the center of our nation, it is understandable that it should be an impressive destination. In addition to the traditional biggies, there were several new buildings near the mall, any one of which, if built in Detroit, would be the BIGGEST DEAL OF THE DECADE. I'd even take the Newseum in the D (which opened in D.C. in 2008) and enjoy it thoroughly despite its immense lameness. In addition to this, property values in D.C. and the surrounding suburbs (especially those in Virginia) have benefited immensely from D.C.'s largesse and the fact that if you want to do business with the federal government, you probably have to have a pretty big presence in the D.C. area. I don't fault any particular individual act or person for our country's trillion dollar deficit, but it does bother me a little bit as someone from a depressed big city that every federal tax dollar flows through D.C., and they can do pretty much whatever they want with it to keep the D.C.-area economy rolling along.

What's my point in all this? It has been five years since my last trip to D.C. and I forgot how much I enjoy it, but I do envy the leg up that region has on most other areas in the U.S. including our own. However, when I think about it, not that many areas in our country have clear economic advantages - the Bay Area has incomparable technology talent, D.C. has the feds, Connecticut has GE (which is an advantage unto itself), and a few tourist hot spots like Miami also tend to be a strong draw for businesses. Metro Detroit, while certainly not sexy, is one of these rare places in the U.S. that has a specific and significant business advantage. We have lived and died by the automotive industry (mostly died of late), but having these gigantic manufacturing+technology companies within a pretty small radius for about 100 years has provided a backbone for continued manufacturing and technology development if we just figure out how to harness this power as a state. I'm a pretty jealous guy and clearly very defensive of my home turf, but I just can't use "everywhere else has an unfair advantage over us" as a reasonable excuse for our troubles. We are the ones with an unfair advantage. Can we figure out what to do with it?

No ________, Sherlock

2010-10-26T22:42:00.004-04:00

The New York Times is the greatest publication that I never read except for when my attention is directed toward a specific article for a specific purpose. I'm not sure why I don't read it as a standard, but it just hasn't called to me. It may also have something to do with the fact that the publication for years had quite a phenomenal time taking its all-too personal shots at Detroit from the fabulous, urine-soaked and rat-infested mecca of New York, New York. Perhaps if Detroit could smell slightly more urine-like in the vein of NYC, they would feel more kinship with us and like us more. I also don't like that the publication costs a cajillion dollars to have it delivered to your home and half-a-cajillion dollars to have it only delivered as part of the weekend package.

I think it was one of my more trusty go-to publications, Time, that directed me toward this article in The Times. It is about one of my favorite subjects on which to vent, which also happens to be one of the general areas that is most upsetting to me - water. Much of the southwest of the United States, including down in southern California, is fed water from Lake Mead, the lake created through the man-made awesomeness that is the Hoover Dam. Lake Mead is a function of the Colorado River smashing into the Hoover Dam, providing a body of relatively still water that can be channeled to whatever part of the southwest is in need.

Lake Mead is about to cross below a crucial altitude of 1,075 feet, at which point it will become difficult, if not impossible, from an engineering standpoint to funnel the water to its necessary destination. Furthermore, much below this level, there will not be enough water to spin the electric turbines at the Hoover Dam that power much of the southwest. This unfortunate situation is for two reasons:

1) There are too many people using too much water in the southwest
2) ALMOST THE WHOLE SOUTHWEST IS A DESERT.

As I've written about before (I'm too lazy to go back and find the link), I feel strongly that the southwest and all of its Michigan and Midwest-resident sucking attractiveness should not exist. It should not exist because IT IS A DESERT. You should not have golf courses or swimming pools in a desert. You should not have a lawn in a desert. You should not have a water park in the desert. You should not keep houses and workplaces cooled to 72 degrees in the desert. You should not use a Slip-N-Slide in the desert. You should not have misters at every bar in Scottsdale, Arizona because it is too hot to spend time at the bar without misters. You should not transport water hundreds and hundreds of miles from the Colorado River to do any of these things that make the southwest a somewhat bearable place to live.

But, because they do transport water hundreds and hundreds of miles to make the unlivable livable, people flock from all over the northern half of the country to the southwest because they are too weak to handle a little cold for a few months out of the year. Perhaps we could just have hundreds of thousands of heating lamps outside and next to every house and public place just blasting warmth into the air during the winter to approximate the waste of making the cold just a little more manageable. We could run heat elements through the sidewalks of every downtown area just to keep the snow from being too much of a nuisance.

In the event that Lake Mead does drop below the critical point, people in cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas will have to severely curb their water usage, making that beautiful rock lawn (as in a lawn made out of rocks) all the more necessary. Who wouldn't want their kids to play on a lush front yard made of 100% sharp rocks? It'll teach them character. I don't know if it'll be in my lifetime, but the water civil war is coming, people. I just hope that the southwest won't be able to power their electrical weapons and guidance systems because the Hoover Dam doesn't have enough water to generate electricity. Irony will be our victory.

Been Too Long

2010-10-24T21:03:00.003-04:00

Shamefully, it's been 5 whole days since the last time that I wrote anything, and that was four days after the thing I wrote before that, and the thing from 5 days ago wasn't even a complete thought beyond "oh man it has been awhile." The last week has been pretty filled as we tried to get our house together for a couple of weekend events, but I also realized during this time the true holdup in me pumping out material in the manner to which you have been accustomed.

In my last job, I often worked from home with a pretty flexible work schedule, so in the middle of the day I would read a headline or see a news story, have a reaction, and then share that reaction with the blog. The reaction was fresh and because there was no delay between information reception and dissemination, I did not have the opportunity to realize that issue was not as important as I perceived or that my opinion about that issue was not half as funny as I thought. Now with a bit more of a normal schedule, I don't exactly have the time to intersect the regular working day with a brief respite because I thought it was funny that the guy from the new Al-Qaida video looks as non-threatening as a terrorist could possibly look (by the way, did you notice that he is so weak in appearance that they had to add a rifle to the background of his video? Like the Al-Qaida guys were like "oh shit, this guy needs props. Look at him. No one can take this seriously unless we add a gun.")

Because I no longer have the opportunity for immediate feedback, I've taken to emailing myself links and thoughts so that I can get back to them at the end of the day. The tough thing when I get back to these emails after the work day is that my reaction has faded and has instead been replaced by the evening's viewing of Detroit 1-8-7. I hope the show makes it at least one whole season. The show is good not great, but for some reason I am really enjoying seeing shots of the good and the bad parts of Detroit on television. Whoa there's the Greektown Casino! Hey I've driven under that street sign before! That's the place that the one bird pooped on me when I was walking out of that meeting! Everything great about the city is perfectly captured in those three exclamatory sentences. My friend told me he wasn't paying attention in downtown Royal Oak and he almost hit Michael Imperioli with his car. They could then do a "ripped from the headlines" show where the character Imperioli plays is hit by a car in downtown Royal Oak and then I can tell them who did it - it was Joe. You did it Joe.

Despite this new blogging difficulty and my (temporarily) reduced output, my love of Michigan and the metro Detroit area is stronger than ever. It's a little bit ironic because my work time in Detroit reduces my ability to evangelize, but this same work time is strengthening my resolve to do my part to get Michigan back on its feet. That may be a stupid thing to say (it is) for someone with a readership of two, but the battle for our state PR is a war of attrition and everyone can do something about it.

Please don't kill me, Al-Qaida. I just think it's a good idea to have a sense of humor about yourself and your spokespeople.

Nesting

2010-10-19T06:46:00.002-04:00

Good morning - house and baby preparations have kept me fairly occupied over the past several days, so I regret that I have not had a great chance to even open up my laptop at home to do some writing. If I wasn't tired from all the things going on at home right now, I might even be upset about my poor showing. Yet again, I implore you to stick with me good people. As always, I will return with as many Days of Our Lives references as you can handle. For the next tiny bit though, hopefully you can find happiness in knowing that I was getting wrinkles out of curtains for about 6 or 7 hours on Sunday afternoon. Thank heaven that ironing boards are portable and can be moved directly in front of the television, or my head likely would have exploded.

I Agree with Your Agreement

2010-10-12T21:01:00.004-04:00

Before I start to talk about the main subject for the day, let me first congratulate my 2010 kickball team. We ended the year with a record of 4-4, but we were able to get to that record because we went 4-1 in our last five games. As with every year, despite my absolute certainty at the beginning of the season that there is no way that we are going to win any games, we always end up doing pretty decently for a group of people with minimal soccer backgrounds. We also do not play kickball more than one season of the year (you'd be surprised at the number of teams that play something approaching year-round), so we always start with a pretty significant disadvantage. Our game last night was particularly exciting because we were losing 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh, and we somehow scored 2 runs and won the game with a walk-off bunt. A Walk-off Bunt!! Man that was some exciting kickball. I'm sure at this point you regret that you were unable to attend our last game of the season as a fan, but you can probably catch us kicking ass 50% of the time next season. After the game, we continued our 2nd year tradition of celebrating the season with a party barge from Rosie O'Grady's in Ferndale. That party barge is hilarious. In one bite, you get peanut butter cup ice cream, strawberry ice cream, whip cream, chocolate covered peanuts, and pineapple. The mere fact that these items go terribly together makes the barge that much better. It is a truly exciting dessert.

Before I move on, what is the deal with the look of the one detective from Law & Order: Los Angeles? It seems too easy to go the route of comparing him to a sexually liberated 70s porn star, but holy cow does he look like a sexually liberated 70s porn star. He's bald, has a thick almost entirely linear mustache, and defines the prototype of a bear. My description can't do him justice. Here is a picture. If this is what cops look like in LA, then I understand how this city is the porn center of the U.S.

Now on to the real deal - the Pure Michigan tourism advertising campaign. There has been a lot of press about the campaign over the last month. The biggest issue is that because of Michigan's reduced tax receipts from our economic pain, the fall and winter advertisements (starring Buzz Lightyear!) were being diminished down to zero budget and thus killed. Because of this seasonal elimination, there was quite a bit of speculation that the 6th best tourism campaign in the world of all time would be completely canceled, thus pissing off everyone in Michigan with a brain cell. This would not be cool.

Yesterday, The Free Press was reporting at around 2 o'clock that Jennifer Granholm would be making an announcement about the Pure Michigan campaign at 3:30, and that I, the reader, should stay tuned for additional breaking news. This was exciting potential news as it would seem pointless for Jennifer Granholm to make an official announcement about the end of the campaign. Only good things could be in store for Buzz Lightyear.

This is why I am completely befuddled that her announcement was that she is officially calling for funding to restore Pure Michigan. That is boring. That is as boring as you reading my thoughts about my kickball season and eating a trough of ice cream. This is so boring, I would prefer to watch an episode of Two and a Half Men. For God's sake, Two and a Half Men.

Homer Simpson: "I've seen plays that were more exciting than this! Honest to god, PLAYS"

Is this a failure of The Free Press reporting or Jennifer Granholm? Mostly I don't care. Don't cancel Pure Michigan, but more importantly, don't hype an announcement that does not amount to a cat fart. Stop the presses! I may or may not eat a second piece of pizza for dinner even though I was pretty sure that I was only going to eat one.

Working for the (Awesome) Weekend

2010-10-08T16:15:00.003-04:00

I can't remember the last time I was so excited for a weekend. Awesome things going on in life this weekend:

1) Steve is back in town

2) We received our new entryway tables, dining room table, and chairs today. We're also getting our sprinkler system fixed right now for next summer and we started the process of getting crown molding today.

2) We're going to see Louis C.K. at the Detroit Opera House tonight. About a year ago, I caught up with what much of the world realized 15-20 years ago when they identified that Louis C.K. is hilarious. You can't exactly blame me for being behind the times because 20 years ago I would have been 8 and my parents would have been absolutely terrible parents if they let me listen to his comedy.

3) Football game tailgating tomorrow morning and early afternoon. I enjoy tailgating quite a bit, but I find a like it less than most dudes. The reason, I think, is that I am fearful of awkward silence, and it is hard for me to make conversation with people for 6+ hours. Real tailgaters are out there for at least that long, so I parachute in, make a couple of jokes, eat someone else's sausage, and hit the road. If they're lucky, I will also drink their drinks, eat their brownies, and play whatever game they have that consists of throwing something at something else. There are a million variants of the game of throwing something at something else, and if there is one thing I love, it's throwing something and something else.

4) Football game!!!! UM vs. MSU with me leaning heavily toward the good folks from the University of Michigan. This is the first college football game I've been genuinely excited about in some time while Michigan has struggled through the dark times. I will be upset if Michigan does not conquer, but either way, Michigan wins, and that is good by me.

5) If I'm doing nothing after the football game, I have a massive queue of TV shows to watch. All of them fantastic! Thursday night TV alone is simultaneously ruining and enhancing my life. What a great, great night of television waiting for me on TiVo. 30 Rock, The Office, Community, Fringe, Bones, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Just thinking about it is stimulating me a little bit.

6) Sunday family get together to celebrate Steve being in town.

7) The weather is going to be BEAUTIFUL. I can exercise outside, breathe in the crisp fall air, do some yard work, and anything else to fill my time that isn't already filled.

8) The colors in southeast Michigan are peak fall colors.

Life is great. This is one of those times where I feel compelled to say if you're feeling down, give me a shout. Time is undoubtedly best spent with others.

Neighborhood Violence

2010-10-05T21:02:00.002-04:00

Detroit is often cited fondly as "the murder capital of the world". On It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia this year, Mac was wearing a shirt with the word "Detroit" spelled to look like a pistol. It was a pretty cool shirt, but the message is pretty clear. People far and wide talk about entering the city limits as a death-defying feat that should only be attempted absolutely never. Of all the perceived negativity around the city, fear of violence probably stands near the top of the heap, particularly for those who might even consider moving into the city. Even for people who have an affinity for that rundown metropolis on the banks of the Detroit River, there is a subliminal and constant fear of something bad happening. Someone might rob you or beat you up or Lafayette Coney Island may run out of hot dogs - all equally terrible outcomes.

For these reasons and more, I was not looking forward to looking through the list of the 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in the U.S. for 2010. My basic underlying assumption was that neighborhoods in Detroit and thereabouts would populate the entirety of the top 10 and then probably a few more in the 15-25 range. I looked through the complete list, and when I finished looking through the list, I had to read the description of what was going on to make sure that I didn't miss something of key importance. You see, no where in the top 25 did a neighborhood from Detroit (or anywhere else in Michigan for that matter) fall. Detroit, "the murder capital of the world", does not have a single neighborhood in the top 25 most dangerous list. That is amazing. When I didn't see anywhere from Michigan on the list, I re-read to try to see if they called out "of course, this list intentionally excludes Michigan because Michigan has the top 10 most dangerous neighborhoods and we just wanted to be more diverse than that." As I did not see that or anything resembling that in the description, I take this list as pretty good news. The article explains "that even the cities with the highest crime rates can have relatively safe neighborhoods, and thus it is less useful to generalize about an entire city."

Something like this won't actually cause people to stop generalizing about the entire city, but it is good fodder to counter enemies of Detroit. The only thing better than arming yourself with armaments is information - neither of which you'll need in Detroit's neighborhoods.

Kid

2010-09-30T22:27:00.003-04:00

Maureen and I are now at less than two months, if timing goes as is estimated, to having our first child. Like television tells me most first time parents feel, I am both excited and scared at the prospect of being a parent. There was never a question that at some point we wanted to be parents, but the impending reality is miles different from the concept. We've done the classes and Maureen has performed her baby product research and we have removed most of the barbed wire from the soon-to-be nursery, but none of these things actually prepare you for caring for a human life form.

My biggest concern about me and being a parent is that, as I've written about before, I'm extremely selfish. I have spent 28 years cultivating a life that wonderfully serves me and all of my shallow needs. I exercise for as long as I want on any given day, I can stay late at work as necessary, and any time I don't want to spend with family or friends I can spend blogging or watching way too much television. On top of these things, ice cream is a regular meal and I can play Howard Stern on the radio in the house whenever I want - things not conducive to actually being a parent.

So while my excitement about being a loving parent has consistently grown over the period of Maureen's pregnancy, I have had a nagging fear that my selfishness would prevent me from being the kind of selfless dad that my son and wife will need. I know in my heart that this will not be the case and I will be able to happily adjust as necessary to be what everyone wants and needs me to be, but without actually having raised a child, it is not entirely clear what would cause this positive change in personality and corresponding reduction in self-absorption. My mom and others have been quite valuable in trying to explain the process of falling in love with a baby after it is born and that often, for many people, this is not an instantaneous event - it can be a process of learning to love your baby and the changes this child creates in your life.

The reason I mention all this is because as the day of birth grows closer, this subject makes me increasingly emotional. A few days ago, I read a great column by humorous columnist Joel Stein in Time about how he wants a second child, but his wife is not currently in the mood for #2. There are a few things in particular in this article that I found to be especially beautiful and touched me because they directly relate to the process of loving and appreciating your child. I just wanted to call a little attention to these (because Time does not have a broad enough reach. They really do require my broader audience) for any moms or dads to be or people who may be seriously considering parenting. They're not new or groundbreaking concepts, but I like to think that Joel Stein has a similar level of sarcasm and a relate-able worldview to my own. I guess you don't need to be groundbreaking to be touching.

"Still, Laszlo, despite his inability to cure even simple, nonmetastasizing diseases, makes me so happy and interested in life that I want to watch it all happen again, and I want to see him interact with another child I love."

"In fact, before we were married, I was sure I never wanted children. Having Laszlo has made me feel closer to Cassandra than ever — as if we're alone exploring a beautiful continent that happens to be filled with human excrement. I love when he makes the curious raised-eyes face she makes, and I've cried watching her sneak into his room at night to straighten his pajamas while he's asleep."

A Forward that Didn't Suck

2010-09-27T22:34:00.002-04:00

As a general rule, I hate forwarded email. I'm not even talking about just forwarded jokes, videos, pictures, links, and other miscellaneous crap that makes my inbox a more annoying place to hang out. I also hate useful forwards like conversations, valuable links, and invites. Mostly, I dislike how I have to figure out where the email originated from down the chain, how the email progressed from there, and why/how at some point that wasn't initiation of the email I was brought into the stupid loop. Forwards are an unavoidable piece of information gathering and the business world, but I don't anticipate ever being much of a fan. However, my friend/co-worker Brian sent me a forwarded link today that was quite interesting and touched on many of the things I've been feeling for the past few years. Actually, looking back at the email, it wasn't even a forward. It was an email sent directly to me with the link included in it, so you can really ignore the title of this post that I don't want to go back and re-write and every word in the paragraph prior to this one. As it turns out, forwards still suck.

So now on to the non-forwarded link. Here it is:

San Francisco Business Times

This is a great article that indirectly addresses the new professional direction of my life, and as such, it really is something on which you, the world's most bored office workers and therefore readers of mine and therefore Michigan and scifi television lovers, should be intricately versed. This is of the more valuable category of articles about Michigan because it does not originate from within our biased borders.

Did I mention I got pooped on today? A bird pooped right on my suit coat jacket while I was walking the streets of downtown after a meeting. The poop deflected off my suit and also landed on Brian's suit coat - the second time that he has been pooped on while walking around downtown with me.

Back to the article - it starts with these words that really hit the key message:

If California wants to get its innovation game back, says venture capitalist Tom Baruch, it should look at Michigan.

That wasn't a misprint — much-maligned, Rust Belt-tagged Michigan.

While Michigan's traditional industries and job-generating companies have faltered and somewhat failed over the last several years, many locals actually saw this coming and start to build the infrastructure of the future of Michigan jobs. Believe it or not, Michigan has actually done some things better than the vaunted land of Google and Stanford to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. In the article, they reference some of the many good things going on right here at home like tax breaks for small businesses, transforming the automobile industry, SmartZones (mentors, funding, lab space), and ongoing economic diversification.

I can feel it. You can feel it. Underneath the tough economic times, the flailing auto industry, the high unemployment, and my kickball team only being .500, something is happening. It has been happening for a long time, slowly, painfully, but it is moving forward, and other people are finally starting to notice. Hell yeah.

While Rome burned, not everyone fiddled. Instead, they used their fiddles to build the most fiddle-ing-est fiddle orchestra hall at which they could fiddle once all the other fiddlers were forced to stop fiddling because they died while Rome was burning. Fiddles!

TV Time

2010-09-22T21:06:00.004-04:00

Fall TV season! This is the third new fall TV season during the lifespan of my blog, and the first with a major network television show that included the word 'Detroit' in the title. My personal happy place is Fall TV season. All the shows I know and love are tying up loose ends from last season, rebooting from a bad year of writing, or just bringing additional joy and happiness into my life through continued excellence. On top of this, all the hard work, expectations, and excitement of the new series starts to either pay off or crash and burn in the matter of mere weeks. It is actually tough for me to overstate how sincerely and deeply I appreciate fall TV.

This year, two brand spanking new shows are highly featuring parts and pieces of Michigan. The first and more obvious, is the show that debuted last night and I'm finishing up as I type: "Detroit 1-8-7". I feel the dashes between the numbers are unnecessary and they make it a little bit more annoying to type. Maybe if they used stars of little hearts between the numbers that would be cool. 1*8*7 or Detroit 1 <3 8 <3 7. The show is pretty decent, and I really do get a kick out of seeing different cinematic shots of the city where they actually want the shots to reflect the city of Detroit instead of some other metropolis. I know that a good portion of the pilot was shot in Atlanta (the only thing that upsets me about that is that I would like our blight on television to be OUR blight, not Atlanta's. Give us the blight respect we deserve). At this point I have no specific commentary on the show except to say that it definitely doesn't suck - I'm just not sure if it's awesome or something that I'll just watch because I love Detroit.

The second major connection to Michigan on TV this season is the lead actor on a Fox series called "Lonestar". This show premiered on Monday and it didn't do great in the ratings, but it is getting pretty rave reviews across the board. I must have been drunk or something when I saw early commercials about the show, because I could have sworn it was about some sort of law person in Texas (which interested me very little), and it turns out that I had no idea what I was thinking about. It's actually about a conman leading at least a couple different lives. The lead guy in the show is named James Wolk and he is from Farmington Hills. Maureen and I also watched that show and we definitely enjoyed the pilot. Mr. Wolk impressed me rather soundly with his acting chops. He had a way of emoting without being annoying. He could do subtle, he could do direct, and he could do everything in between (by the way, I heard a speech today where someone said "from the poor house to the crack house and everywhere in between." I immediately thought "what is between a poor house and a crack house?" I simply cannot imagine that type of establishment). I fear for the life of "Lonestar" because despite its strong reviews, its ratings were pretty low. Fox sometimes gives shows they believe in a chance to pull through initial low ratings so all hope is not yet lost. That's all part of the fun of Fall TV Season.

My heaven.

Lists and Links

2010-09-21T19:15:00.002-04:00

Thanks again to Alex for keeping a close eye on all the great lists of the world, Michigan has been again appropriately represented in some form or another on many of the recent "best place to..." or "smelliest township that..." or "top incorporated city you ate..." etc. Starting at the end of life and working our way back:

Fortune magazine has again placed Ann Arbor as the 11th best place in the United States at which to retire. The description of the selection starts like this:

"Retire to... Michigan? Ann Arbor's lack of year-round balmy temperatures may be a deal breaker for some retirees, but those who relish four seasons could do worse than to settle in this bustling college town about 40 miles west of Detroit."

First, yes, retire to Michigan. Yet again, why would a positive ranking have to start with a broader implied negative about the state. Unnecessary and kind of stupid. Second, retirees - grow some balls. In fact, everyone grow some balls. It is not summer year-round, but that is one of the greatest things about the state. Most winter days are very manageable and for the really, really cold days, put on some long underwear, get under a blanket, cozy up to a loved one or one of those hot packs you can put in the microwave, and enjoy the sensation. Finally, again to insult the writer, why would you rate a place at #11 if the retiree "could do worse" than Ann Arbor? Yes, you can do worse according to you, writer person, if you were to retire to any of the rest of the 19,418 municipalities in the U.S (yup, I looked it up).

Next, additional big ups to Ann Arbor for making Yahoo's 10 Great Cities for Raising Families list. I tried to raise a family of chipmunks while I attended school there, and that didn't work out very well for me or the chipmunks, but I'm sure that it is far easier to raise a family of humans than chipmunks.

Finally, for a little Michigan respect outside of Ann Arbor, Birmingham was selected for Yahoo's list of Coolest Suburbs Worth a Visit. I can't say that I love Birmingham and in my opinion there are way better Detroit-area suburbs to visit, but I also won't turn down national Michigan love. Man in high school I spent so much time on the corners of Birmingham trying to figure out WHAT THE HELL TO DO THERE. Should we go to Caribou? How about the Birmingham 8? Now to Starbucks. What about the park? Library is closed. Back to Caribou. You know what I'm talking about high school friends. The video I've posted below is directed at Royal Oak where I was raised and I think this video pertains infinitely more to Birmingham than Royal Oak. Even if it is misdirected, it's still a little funny and worth a brief viewing:

Michigan Jewish

2010-09-17T19:05:00.003-04:00

As I quickly made my way into work this morning, I was struck by how much less traffic there was today than the last few weeks. When I posed the question to my co-workers as to why this may be the case, one of them suggested that it is because today and tomorrow are Yom Kippur. Because I have no idea when Yom Kippur falls, I looked it up online and found out that Yom Kippur falls on the Hebrew calendar date of 10 Tishrei. The same website also told me that is the equivalent of the 17th and 18th of September, so Happy 10 Tishrei to everyone. I am not Jewish.

So it turns out that today and tomorrow are, in fact, Yom Kippur. However, if the reason the traffic was so much lighter today is because of this holiday, I have severely underestimated the number of Jewish people in Michigan (or at least those who are traveling east on I-96 from I-275). Like way, way underestimated. Based on the reduced traffic flow, I would improperly estimate that 50% of drivers on the road on any given morning are Jewish. If true (highly unlikely), that is absolutely amazing.

From this, it is clear that I have certainly not been properly serving Michigan's Jewish population. At least half of my religious based articles (in the past 3+ years rounding out to a total of zero religious based articles) should be Jewish-centric.

Happy (?!) Yom Kippur my Jewish friends. Whether or not Jesus resurrected and is the son of God, I think you are pretty great.

You Can Always Go, Downtown

2010-09-14T21:44:00.004-04:00

I've successfully completed two weeks in my new professional career. "Success" is a very ambiguous term, but I feel comfortable declaring a successful two weeks because I have not yet been dismissed from the role and zero people have threatened to beat me up. Every day that no one wants to beat me up (or at least makes this threat to my face) is a victory.

First, I'd like to thank everyone who has wished me luck and encouraging words on my new endeavor. Changing jobs isn't necessarily an easy thing to do, especially when you like what you did do, and encouragement is very...encouraging. That makes sense.

Second, my usual apologies for the reduced writing over the last couple of weeks. There was a time many years ago when I envisioned a time where enough people were readers that if I took a break, be it for vacation, laziness, or a terrible case of diarrhea, hearts would break across the state and possibly even the greater Midwest. Now that I'm slightly (I said slightly!) less of a moron, it is abundantly clear that, if anything, the world is a happier, funnier, and more Michigan-appreciating place when I am on break. Based on this, you may just be lucky enough that I more regularly contract terrible, terrible cases of diarrhea. How lucky that would be for both of us.

Third and finally getting to the point, let me just say how awesome it is to work in downtown Detroit. Really, no fooling, working downtown is the greatest surprise of the new work. It was something that I was originally looking forward to, but it is even better than I anticipated (you are not allowed to hold this against me when I have to make the painful commute from Northville to downtown Detroit in the middle of winter as opposed to the zero minute commute of working from home and I complain about it as I most certainly will do). Our offices are in the 34th floor of the Guardian Building (pictured above), which is just a few blocks from the RenCen and Cobo. From the window I can look out from my seat, I can view the Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit River, Joe Louis, and Cobo. From our conference room, I can see Campus Martius, Ford Field, home plate at Comerica, and pretty much all of metro Detroit out to the Silverdome. It is beautiful gazing across the land I love. On top of the great outside views, I was shocked the first time I walked into the Guardian Building and it looked like this. What a great building.

So all this is great. However, there are many other things about working downtown that I never really appreciated until I was based there. I've spent quite a bit of time visiting clients downtown in my past life, but it just isn't the same. There is an energy about working in the heart of our state's biggest city that adds some real excitement to the day. It's also kind of amazing who you can run into by constantly being downtown. A few days ago I had a catch up lunch with a friend from high school who is in a building right near mine, and he introduced me to the city deputy ombudsman who was having lunch where we were. That was random, but something that certainly would not have happened in my underpants on the couch in my home - or if that did happen then something seriously wrong happened in my life or that guy's life.

Detroit is not respected as a place to live or work by people both in and out of the state, and it isn't the nicest downtown out there, but I love it. My dad has worked downtown his entire career and he has always talked about how much he likes working there, and I couldn't fully understand it without having a similar experience under my belt. I've only been at it for two weeks, and I'm anxious to experience more. That might be asking for trouble, but that's all part of the experience.

Because it's Friday

2010-09-10T12:06:00.002-04:00

It's been a little while since I last wrote about my genius nephew, so when I received this link from my sister, Gail, I was certain that now is the right time to return Louis to the blog. Watch him here as he works his way through a variation of the ABCs (thanks to daycare, according to my sister). I asked a couple people at work if this was objectively cute or only cute to me because I'm related to him, and they assured me that it is both objectively cute and funny, so I feel justified including it here. If I don't get angry enough to write before or during the weekend, have a great couple days!

F*@K Rahm Emanuel

2010-09-09T21:06:00.004-04:00

I just want Rahm to feel the sting of turnabout when he will undoubtedly stumble upon my blog when he performs his nightly self-Google check. The biggest national Michigan-related news of the last week are the early excerpts from the forthcoming book from Steven Rattner, former head of the automotive task force. That's the group of random individuals appointed by President Obama who decided to not kill the state of Michigan by bailing out Chrysler and GM (thanks again, guys, you're the best!). The excerpts and early stories from the book tell a harrowing story of how close those who call Michigan home or otherwise have some employment relationship with GM or Chrysler were to having a lot more time on their hands to read this fine blog. It is pretty amazing stuff and a great majority was effectively hidden from public awareness. For example, if it were not for the automotive task force, GM would have entirely moved out of the RenCen and into the Warren Tech Center, effectively tearing the metaphorical head off the wobbling body of the (also metaphorical) body of the great city of Detroit. In my opinion, this would have been an instant death knell - like a fatality from Mortal Kombat (specifically, Scorpion's Spear Shot). Other points of interest include the allegedly true story that Chrysler wanted the Treasury Department to force GM to purchase Chrysler (as opposed to the public image that GM was voluntarily considering acquiring that company).

It's kind of weird, from an outsider's perspective, how informally the automotive task force seems to have addressed some of the biggest issues to face Michigan in the last 50 years. For example, they decided whether or not to bailout the companies through a hand raise vote. I'm not sure exactly what method would have been better because a vote is a vote, but at least they could have broken out the paper and pencils. That just seems so much more official. Relating this back to the well-known firebrand Rahm Emanuel:

"By the time the auto team met with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the West Wing, they doubted whether Chrysler should be allowed to continue to survive as an independent entity. Emanuel was characteristically blunt: "Why even save GM?" he asked, according to Rattner. Reminded of tens of thousands of autoworkers whose jobs were at stake, he barked out 'Fuck the UAW.'"

This might not be the best thing for the chief of staff of a pro-union president to have forever on the record. I'm not talking about whether or not I support the UAW, but this bull and dick-headed response is especially insulting when considering the flippancy with which he clearly disregards the union employees of the Michigan auto manufacturers and the state as a whole. I don't really care what happens with Rahm Emanuel, but the next time I see him, I will certainly let him know that I am entirely displeased, and that if I ever have the choice to destroy his personal wealth and career, I will certainly take that option.

My last thought on the Rattner Memoirs is this - shut up Steven Rattner. I really do appreciate the challenges you must have gone through and the support you eventually threw our way, but I can't imagine what benefit you imagine this upcoming book is going to serve aside from your personal wealth - and you're already super rich. It could be that you think the American public deserves to know some of the details as we are collectively on the hook for $80B in bailout dollars, and I don't disagree with this, but it damages the public perception of the government's ability to intelligently make big decisions without high school style bickering. I think the public would have enough information if the task force came out with a unified message about the whole process - something in the vein of "many options were on the table (include a few options here) and there were pros and cons to every option (include some pros and cons here), but in the end, we could not allow the failure of GM and Chrysler and the loss of tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's the tough decision we made and this decision is in the past." End of story.

And it would be the end of the story, except for now I have a personal tie to the widely reported douchiness of Rahm Emanuel. I don't swear very often in my blog, but at this point I do feel comfortable saying this right here - Fuck you Rahm Emanuel.

The Only Reason to Hate Idaho

2010-09-07T09:05:00.005-04:00

Last night past my new bedtime with the new work schedule, Maureen and I watched Boise State defeat Virginia Tech on yet another end-of-game drive and then Virginia Tech unable to respond with a field goal or touchdown of their own.

First, it's great to have college football back. I'm not one of those crazy football people who knows the jersey numbers and hometowns of ever single slightly significant player in Division 1. It's just not worth the mental energy to me. Welcome back, collegiate and professional football sport. However, there is one thing that happens every year that makes the second half of the college football season nearly unbearable; specifically, the terrible crapiness of idiots going on and on about whether or not college football should do away with the BCS system. It's an imperfect system with its set of annoyances, but these annoyances do not pale in comparison to the annoyances of people debating its validity. The number one reason for people to complain? GD BOISE STATE. I hate you Boise State.

Let's start with the easiest reason to hate them - their blue football field. That blue football field is offensive even to the Smurfs. It's one of those things where they were probably like "hey, let's be quirky" but they accidentally mistook insanely annoying for quirky. That football field sucks almost as much as the football team. Why does the football team suck? Every year Boise State nears the end of the season with an undefeated record, not because they are the best team out there, but because they generally play terrible teams and even against those teams, they have to win with trick plays. Trick plays are fun, but I believe a legitimate team can/should consistently win without having to regularly resort to them. No team relies on trick plays for success more than Boise State. So anyway, because they are undefeated, journalists starts to opine that Boise State may deserve a place in the BCS title game. Every year.

With about 4 minutes left in the game last night, I guaranteed Maureen that even though they were losing, Boise State was going to pull off the victory for another year of BCS debate, mostly because God hates me. Wouldn't you know it - they won (though I must admit without the use of a trick play, however there was a very questionable personal foul call in their favor on the final drive. Everything always works out in their favor). I hate them so much.

I just can't stand the BCS talk with Boise State as the prime reference for another year. For the whole season, I am going to pray that Boise State loses so that we don't have to hear about the subject anymore. If they feel so disrespected, JOIN A LEGITIMATE CONFERENCE. Do you know how easy it is to join a legitimate conference? No? That's too bad, I was hoping you would because I have no idea. Remember when a few years ago several people thought that Hawaii should play for the national championship, but then when they played against a legitimate team in Georgia, they got crushed hard? That made me so happy. I wish the same for BSU. Lose you blue losers. I hate you.

Big Changes

2010-09-02T22:18:00.002-04:00

The past year has been undoubtedly the most dynamic year of my existence. It's not that anything has been different from what most people experience during the course of life, just that everything has probably been a little more compact than typical. The last year has had all the major milestones - our wedding, a first (rented) condo, our first couch, our first two self-financed vehicles, our first house and major house renovation, moving family members, our first incoming baby, and a bunch of new furniture to fill up the home. It's been quite a shock to the system for a person who loved the mundane consistency of being alive. Not to sound too boring, but routine makes me happy.

To this list, I'd like to use this relevant space to announce one more major life change - a new job for me. This was a very difficult step to take voluntarily because I absolutely love what I did, the people I worked with, and the flexibility this work afforded me. On top of this, my job was exactly what I studied in school, and I had the opportunity to work from home with some frequency (especially brilliant when the snow was pounding down and my commute was a walk to the kitchen table). Why, then, would I ever consider leaving this position?

It is finally time to, almost literally, put my money where my mouth is. I've been talking about Michigan and supporting Michigan for so many years, and acting as a cheerleader to out-of-towners and negative in-towners, that after awhile, the thoughts and then words started to feel numb in my mouth. It can be tiring to espouse the virtues of one place constantly to people, and then it became a running joke with some people that I was a walking, talking, relentless billboard for the state - kind of like a Pure Michigan Tim Allen without anyone knowing or caring that I exist.

With great excitement and a fair amount of anxiety, I am happy to announce that my next professional step is directly aligned with the state of Michigan. A few months ago, a friend and professional acquaintance approached me to see if I had interest in directing a start up non-profit organization based in downtown Detroit. This organization is charged with creating a critical and necessary backbone for the state to promote entrepreneurship and small business development throughout the state of Michigan. Our primary goal is to intelligently and systematically match entrepreneurs and innovators with the tens of thousands of resources intended to support entrepreneurs available throughout the state. There is a little more to the work than this, but that's not a bad one-sentence description.

Thanks to the hard work by many people that aren't me (because yesterday was my first official day on the job), the (federal) Department of Commerce actually announced a formal partnership with my organization yesterday. That is quite exciting - now it is largely up to me to make sure that I don't screw it up.

This is an opportunity and a somewhat corny chance for me to actually make a difference - beyond the many dumb, irrelevant things that I try to write about regularly. For these reasons, the only right choice for me was to leave the work I love to actually work toward strengthening a state that I love. It wasn't necessarily an easy change, but it's one that I'm happy to have made.

The Least Controversy

2010-08-30T22:36:00.003-04:00

The Catholic Church has suffered its fair share of controversy over the past life of its existence (and particularly the last 10 years), and I don't mean to take away from those involved in these difficult issues, but there is one additional Catholic church controversy that everyone who attends a mass is confronted with in every mass: Should you sit down or stand as you wait to take communion? Everyone knows that after you take communion you kneel and either pray or pretend to pray because at that moment you are said to be as close to God as you can be (since you are eating his Son), but there is more confusion in the church before receiving communion than you can shake a confusion-finding stick at.

The reason this comes to mind is because this past weekend, my sister-in-law had her Catholic church wedding to another family friend on Friday evening. The ceremony and reception both went great and everything went smoothly up until the moment that the priests took their chalices and made their way to the front of the church.

For as long as I have been attending mass, the same awkward process has played out in churches ranging all the way from Birmingham to Ann Arbor to Royal Oak. It's probably going on outside of this church triangle but I can't say definitively. Here's how it goes.

First, the people in the front pews start to shuffle into the center aisle. At that moment, everyone behind the fifth row starts to look around the church in search of helpful signals. The fifth row is key because the people in that row and forward know that very soon, they will be making their way up for the wafer so they don't necessarily have to choose between sitting and standing. No one wants to make eye contact as they look around for the sit vs. stand signal because that would indicate that they are unsure whether or not they are supposed to sit or stand. As soon as people start to look around, everyone feels a little bit guilty because even though they have likely been attending mass for years and years, they're still not sure if they're supposed to be sitting or standing. It is also at this moment that an even broader guilt settles in as the confused individuals realize and accept for another week that not only do they not know when to sit or stand throughout the entire ceremony (without explicit cues), but they often don't know the exact correct verbal responses at the end of readings.

"Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ." or "Thanks be to God." or "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." and don't even get be started on the whole Nicene Creed. That thing is absolutely ridiculous. I love the people who know it and shout it out proud to demonstrate their excellent levels of Catholicism.

After this awkwardness, the people in the very back of the church realize that they're pretty sure they're supposed to be sitting, that they'll have to wait the longest to get to the front, and so they take their seats. After this, the remainder of the back third identifies that some people have led the way and are already sitting, and the whole back third flings themselves down to the pews. By this time, the front third of the church has already been served their Lord, the middle third sees that the back third is seated, and they're torn because it's almost their turns to eat. Because of this confusion, some of them sit, some of them stand, and some kind of do the squat sit to hedge their bets. You don't want to choose the wrong option lest God get angry and banish you to Hell for improper sitting approaches.

I contend that God is OK with you sitting during the entire communion process, even after you've ingested the host. It's the Greater Power's award to the congregation for both showing up to praise and making it all the way through communion. Don't even get me stared on everyone who leaves right after Communion. For those people, it doesn't matter if you sit or stand because God is keeping score and you don't get a point for the Mass at all if you leave right after Communion. And, as with most things, he who has the highest score wins.

Who disagrees?

Up That Guys'

2010-08-26T01:18:00.002-04:00

Remember the good old days where I had the pride in my work to come up with a good title? Man those were heady times during which I had the time and inclination to wow you with my cleverness. Time is just a little bit more limited these days, but one thing that is completely independent of available time is my willingness and ability to get super pissed with someone.

Over the past few days in the sports world, there has been a pretty interesting story evolving on the Detroit sports scene. I've tried not to comment on it because it is pretty saturated in the media and from everything I was hearing, it was difficult to formulate a clear opinion on it. In basic terms, Tigers' player Johnny Damon was requested by the Boston Red Sox (his former team) to return to them to assist that team with their run toward the playoffs Because of some stipulations in his contract, Damon had the option of going to the Red Sox or staying a Tiger, and after much consideration, he decided to stay with our hometown good guys. There are many possible reasons for this decision - Damon himself claimed that "I definitely thought long and hard about it, and the bottom line was my happiness here and the guys here telling me this is a good place for me." Others have suggested that his decision was entirely based on the likelihood that he would get a better contract next year if he stayed with the Tigers instead of moving back to Beantown. He also had a difficult relationship with the Boston fans after he decided to leave their team for the hated Yankees. It's not possible to say with 100% certainty the true reason for his decision, but I would like to take at partial face value that he genuinely enjoys playing for the Tigers organization, the Tigers' fans, and living in Michigan. I'm happy whenever someone publicly speaks positively about the Detroit area, so maybe I'm fooled by the right words.

That's the background to the story. The foreground to the story is that giant poophead columnist from The Boston Globe Dan Shaughnessy took this opportunity to take a dig at Detroit, and that is the kind of shitty thing a giant poophead would do (because his head is made out of poop). He wrote "Think about it: For the next five weeks, you could live in downtown Boston and your wife could shop on Newbury Street. Or you could live in downtown Detroit, amid the boarded-up buildings and the proverbial skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets. Is this really a tough call?" What the hell, dude? Do you know shit about this place that you are insulting on a national level? Do you feel jilted that Michigan was chosen over Massachusetts?

The biggest problem I typically have with many people from the coasts in particular, and I've written about this before, is their absolute certain belief that they are simply better than you - if not for any other reason than they live in Boston, or New York, or L.A., or Seattle. These are all great cities with many positives, but is it so impossible to believe that many people who don't live there are actually making a choice not to live there? That's how it is for me and many of my friends. Maybe we couldn't stand the thought of being close to more people like you. It's impossible to ignore that there are many legitimate reasons to take a dig at Detroit, but it is really crappy that this dude chose to make someone saying positive things about the area one of these reasons. That is hurtfully unwarranted. He must have known exactly what he was doing though - he's from Boston!

In response to this, for his part, Johnny Damon was pretty awesome. He said "Detroit gets a bad rap. I love it here, my family loves it here, a bunch of the players who have been here a while love it here, the new guys love it here. There's a lot to offer here." He's only been here a few months, and already knows what so many of us know.

As the story continued to spread, Matthew Stafford responded to this story with the following: "Oh, yeah. I am going to be here and I want to be here for a long time. I am from the south but this is a place that I've started to adopt. I've had a great experience with the fans and all the people." These are professionals who know what to say to get the fans behind them, but just maybe there is some truth to their sentiment.

From all this, what it really comes down to is: Up Yours Dan Shaughnessy.

Milestone 1

2010-08-23T22:13:00.002-04:00

I did not forget and we celebrated appropriately, but yesterday was the one year anniversary of my wedding to my smart, funny, caring, and beautiful wife. In addition to that, we spent part of the weekend house sitting for my parents and doing some additional required shopping for our house, so I have not had the necessary time to focus on giving you the incredible amount of pleasure that my writing is known to provide.

Apologies.

I will also be in California from Tuesday night through Friday morning for work so that will be keeping me busy, but I do have to say that some very big, exciting things are going on right now that I am at liberty to discuss in a little over a week. So stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, stay tuned for all of the small, boring things on which I typically focus. If the promise of small, boring things doesn't sell the blog to you, I just don't know what will.

Happy Anniversary Maureen! It couldn't have been a better (or busier) year.

False Alarm

2010-08-19T23:20:00.002-04:00

Around the time Maureen got home from work today, the air was filled with the horrible wailing siren of the tornado warning that is on top of a big pole a little less than half a mile from our home. Should we have run downstairs in terror? Of course not - it was sunny and warm outside without a breeze in the air. There weren't even any dark clouds on the horizon. Someone must have fallen asleep and hit their head on the "turn on the tornado alarm" button as their head drifted downward into dreamland.

This misappropriation of tornado warnings has been increasing and increasingly annoying over the past couple of years, but seems to have really peaked this year. At least three or four times over the past few months, the Northville sirens have gone off in situations in which any reasonable person with or without a degree in meteorology would not have any concern regarding getting sucked away in a funnel cloud (which, truthfully, is one of my biggest unrealistic fears in life. Like if I actually got sucked into a tornado, would I fly around in circles for awhile and then be deposited in some random location hundreds of feet away from my home? Do I hit flying debris while circling around in the funnel cloud? Do you have time to consider your circumstances?) Someone was telling me recently that these errant sirens are a function of the way cities and municipalities have changed their approach to setting off tornado sirens. Not too long ago, a city would not set off the siren unless someone actually spotted a tornado or the formation of a funnel cloud. Because of this, when these alarms went off, I would be huddled in the basement with my family playing some board game waiting for at least 30 minutes after the cessation of the siren before getting back to normal life at the level of the earth dwellers.

Now, though, cities set off their alarms if a condition or series of conditions is met (barometric pressure changing by a certain amount over a certain length of time, measured wind speeds of a certain level, etc.). This is absurd and terribly frustrating because now every time I hear the noise it's kind of like the boy who cried wolf, and if one day I don't go downstairs (as I mostly don't budge now) and I do get sucked away by a tornado, I would be super pissed at myself before I smash into a barn. Worse would be if Maureen got sucked away and I would be responsible for all of the mechanical fixes in the house from then on. That would be disaster on at least two levels.

While on the subject of exaggerated warnings, is every center of a thunderstorm now magenta? Before, only the rarest of strong storms encroached on the red/magenta space, and now my farts have been measured as magenta. This is like a worse version of grade inflation, because how I am I to know if I have actually experienced a severe storm or not? Magenta validation used to be the greatest kind of validation - "man, that storm I was in was freaking MAGENTA. You only got green. Suck it green." Get it together, meteorologists. You are encouraging the wussification of America.

Wocka Wocka (that's a reference to Fozzie Bear, you dummy)

2010-08-16T21:20:00.003-04:00

There is a lot to be said about coming up with a good title. Sometimes titles are funny, sometimes they're clever, other times nuanced, and every once in awhile, you come across a title that is none of these things. This article title I saw earlier today is none of these things, but it is still a beautiful title.

Woman Accused of Hitting Levin's Face with Pie in Big Rapids

This one short phrase includes many of the things that I so very love in life - women, dessert (albeit pie, one of the worst kinds of dessert), Michigan, and things getting hit in the face (oh yeah, that's a throwback reference to more than 2 years ago). However, these things combined in the order in which they have been combined to make up the story frustrate me, because a woman threw a pie into the face of one of our state Senators. Like....why would you throw a pie into someone's face? Wait, don't answer that, because if you do have an answer for that, you should still have the wherewithal to not follow through on that reason and therefore not throw a pie in someone's face. The only time dessert should be flung about with such reckless abandon is celebration throwing, like "hey you don't have herpes let me throw this brownie in your face" or "the Lego you accidentally ate will pass through without harm enjoy this vanilla custard - IN YOUR FACE." You get the idea.

Imagine if you were just doing your job, regular day with a set of regular tasks, and some turdbucket decides that she is unhappy with your effort, bakes (or perhaps if she's less committed purchases from Bakers Square) a pie, and then throws that pie in your face! I don't think anything could be more confusing - "Did you just throw a pie at me?" (who throws a shoe??) That would be entirely uncool, and I think no one deserves this outcome unless they intentionally enter into a profession where crust is a known work hazard. Well, I hope this MSU student knows that she has opened the floodgates on my willingness to throw pie in her face if I ever encounter her. Turnabout is fair play.

Militia-tants

2010-08-13T23:06:00.002-04:00

Like most places, Michigan has its fair share of weirdos. In fact, writing about and appreciating weirdos is one of my favorite things to do. Weirdos are wonderful people who typically happen to love one thing or category of things so much, they distance themselves from the rest of the regulars. Weirdos enable non-weirdos to define themselves as regulars only because weirdos do exist. They serve many important purposes.

Today on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Chris Matthews was doing a profile piece on a southeastern Michigan militia group. These people use their free time in the winter out in the woods training in survival tactics in preparations for the Y3K computer bug that will inevitably prevent sliding doors from opening correctly. They also do other things like arm themselves for, among reasons, protecting themselves against the tyranny of the United States government. Homegrown militias have been common in Michigan for years and they tend to cover the complete spectrum of crazy. Because they are so out there, major media outlets like television news frequently do stories on these many groups of weirdos, highlighting without any effort how insane they truly are (no effort is required because you really just need to put group representatives on TV, ask them regular questions, and then wait for the inevitable wacky).

Even though I tend not to agree with their politics (or, more broadly, general view of the world), I continue to welcome all groups of weirdos who choose to call Michigan home. We need every last person we can get. However, my one request is that they apply the smallest degree of effort to stop being so weird so very conspicuously. It's like they can't help themselves - "Hey, we're crazy. We spend winter free time preparing for the end of the world and we do it in MICHIGAN." The problem with this is that it is another one of those instances in which people from elsewhere will have no choice but to assume that many of the people in this fine state are as nuts as state militia members. This really isn't the case - just no one will put me on TV for laying on the couch, eating dinner at Macaroni Grill, and watching television. Believe me, I've tried. Name of my show - "World's Worst Reality Show"

Laid Up

2010-08-13T11:40:00.002-04:00

From a personal perspective (the perspective at which I'm best at providing), this has not been the best week ever. For the past month or so, I've had low-level back pain primarily on the lower left side of my back. The discomfort was actually most noticeable when driving in the car or sitting through a meeting. It was pretty bearable and didn't really have any bearing on my ability to do anything - just a little imperfect and uncomfortable. However, this changed on Monday night while I was sliding after a softball during our playoff loss to a team that was probably too good for our division. As soon as I started to slide to the ground, my back tweaked, I lost my breath, and I knew that I was going to be in trouble.

Typically after an injury like that, I have the next few hours to enjoy life, then after I lay down or sleep for the night, things go all down hill for awhile. True to form, I enjoyed the next few hours of happy life through celebrating another fun softball season with my team and team family members at Shield's in Troy, drove home, went to sleep, and since then, I've been just about the most pathetic person you'll see. The couch has been my home since Tuesday morning, and it has been hard to focus on very much. It takes me about 3 minutes to stand up and five minutes to put on my right sock. The only way I can put on the sock is to roll onto my back like a big naked turtle (as opposed to turtles who wear clothes - and you know they wear turtlenecks) on our bed and s----t----r----e----t---c----h out with my right hand until minutes later I make approximate contact with my foot. I've learned that it's not easy to put on a sock with one hand.

It's frustrating because I'm a pretty active person, so by the end of the day I've done absolutely nothing active or semi-active and I have barrels of energy to burn and no way to burn that energy. The two good things to come out of this injury are the following:

1) I finished watching The Shield yesterday. That show is crazy.
2) This story happened yesterday because I could be home for it - our new fridge has a super annoying click every time it is opened. Maureen and I were sure that we'd just need a new part, but we had to have a repair person come out to verify this requirement. After a couple weeks, we were finally able to schedule an appointment for yesterday because I definitely wasn't going anywhere else. The store called me in the morning to tell me the repair person would be arriving between 10-2. That's kind of a standard four hour window for things like repairs, deliveries, and installations, so while it sucks to have to be available for a full window, it didn't seem unreasonable. By about 2:30 no one had yet arrived so I called dispatch to say "hey, just wanted to see if someone is still on the way because we're now comfortably past the stated window." I understand that appointments and appointment windows are missed, and that doesn't bother me so much, but what did bother me was that instead of saying something like "sorry" or "let me find out what's going on", the woman on the phone said "well, these are estimated times." That was just about enough for me, so I definitely didn't let that one slide by. "Estimated times? I thought that's why you give people a FOUR HOUR ESTIMATED TIME WINDOW," I said to her. After a little more push back from me she eventually called her repair guy and got him on his way to our house. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend 5 hours.

Detroit is in Detroit?

2010-08-09T22:32:00.002-04:00

News bubbled up today that the Ilitch clan, owners and proprietors of most of the fun things to do downtown, are interested in purchasing the Detroit Pistons and moving them downtown. This would be a ridiculous outcome. I don't own three of anything, let alone three professional sports teams. Once I owned two pizzas and was thinking of buying a third, but the time I got around to buying a third, I had already eaten one of the pizzas, so technically the purchase was really only a second pizza.

On one hand, it would be pretty amazing to put another Detroit team inside the boundaries of the city, possibly resulting in some variety of positive economic impact on our poor major city. It would be hard to argue that Comerica and Ford Field have no positive benefit to the city, especially on game days and nights. If the Ilitches do get the Pistons and build a new arena for the Red Wings+Pistons, all four of Michigan's major sports teams would likely be in a less than one mile radius from each other. I can't think of any city in the country that has any setup like that. Detroit could be FootBaseketey Town instead of just "Hockey Town". Think of the T-Shirts: "Hey, Hey, FootBaseketey Town". Everyone would ask you what the hell is up with your shirt, but that wouldn't make it a less awesome shirt. In addition to this, the Ilitches buying the team would keep the Pistons from leaving the state, and right now, there is a pretty decent chance that out-of-state investors would buy the team and move them somewhere super duper crappy like Las Vegas. Las Vegas! Nothing could possibly be worse.

On the other hand, the suburbs like Pontiac and Auburn Hills really depend on their sports arenas. One sports arena doesn't turn a city like Pontiac around, but there is some really intense sadness around the mostly ghost town of the Silverdome. It looks more like an alien ghost town than a human ghost town, but it's still kind of depressing - even with the new ownership and occasional events. There is pretty much nothing to do or see in Auburn Hills except The Palace and Chrysler HQ, and Lord knows there is not much going on at Chrysler HQ. The people in Auburn Hills don't deserve blight any more than the people in Detroit.

Taking into account these pros and cons (there are lots more of both but these are the ones I want to address right now), but without a doubt if I had to choose between losing the Pistons or gaining FootBaseketey Town, I'm all in for FootBaseketey Town.

California Freezin'

2010-08-05T22:57:00.003-04:00

Bah, I'm back in California through Saturday morning. I can't believe how cold it is here sometimes. I got off the plane in San Francisco last night and it was like 50 degrees, then all day today it barely touched 70 degrees, tonight back to 50-ish, and then tomorrow more of the same. I like my summers hot, my winters freezing, and my women making me brownies when I complain about the heat and cold. That's just the Michigan way!

You'll also be happy to hear that I was upgraded to first class on my flight home tomorrow. This is an infrequent occurrence, and I couldn't be happier because the flight leaves here at 10:45 tomorrow night. I'm not sure what Delta did, but they replaced all of the seats in their planes in coach with rocks covered in leather or some sort of leathery substance. It is the worst seating experience I could imagine, with the exception of sitting on the plane with someone farting in my face the whole time, and that would be only marginally worse. Anyway, thank you Delta for the favor but reverse thank you for making your seats suck so hard (literally, hard).

See you in 36 hours, Michigan!

Fame, Political Style

2010-08-02T22:27:00.002-04:00

Yo dudes and some dudettes (definitely not all dudettes). I'm back from northern Michigan and had a great time on Lake Walloon. It's hard to have any reasonable complaints when the weather is between 78-84 and sunny every single day for a whole week. I also have my first and only tan of the entire year where if I stand up against a white backdrop, you'll actually be able to identify me as a human being instead of a possible shadow or stain on the backdrop, so that's pretty nice, too. Now I have to play some catch up as I must try to get back up to speed on some of the responsibilities that slipped while on vacation. For example, my parents, Maureen, and I spent about 12 hours adding a tile back splash to the kitchen (no, we're not 100% done with house now or ever) yesterday. It was a pretty successful-feeling day, until Maureen and I were headed up to bed and I somewhat slashed the sole of my foot on a glass shard that must have followed me into the house during one of my hundreds of tile cuts yesterday. That was not super great.

Aside from that biographical catch up for all you somewhat important people, today is a good day to update you on one of my favorite pastimes, assessing how much famous or slightly famous people like to spend time with me. Today I was dining on a Subway submarine sandwich down in Campus Martius and who came over and talked to my table? None other than gubernatorial candidate in the primary tomorrow, Andy Dillon. Sure he looks a little bit like a villain from a science fiction show, but his hair is amazing in the way that it says in place. Really stunning hair. Anyway, he came over and told us about how the election was super important and pivotal this year and I very much agree with that sentiment. After his brief speech, I asked him what time he is going to bed tonight. I wasn't trying to be a smart ass, but really I wanted to know how late a candidate goes to bed the night before the primary (thinking that maybe they stay up really late campaigning and shaking hands).

He didn't seem to love the question, but answered that he would be getting home at about 9 and then going to bed somewhat shortly after that. That seemed a little bit early to me, so my follow up question was "Are you going to watch America's Got Talent tonight?" He responded that he doesn't follow that show and doesn't have much time to watch television to which I said "that's OK, the show's not that great." At this point Andy Dillon walked away, happy not to have to talk to me anymore. in retrospect, I really should have said something like "I respect the way you tried to bring all state employees under one insurance plan, thereby instantly saving Michigan hundreds of millions of dollars", but instead I asked him about America's Got Talent. Lesson learned for next time, I guess.

In addition to Mr. Dillon, Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh was also walking around and telling people to go out and vote for Andy Dillon (I think that's what he was saying). He was following up behind Andy D., so I think his handlers steered him away from our table so he wouldn't have to talk to me. However, I did hear him talking to the table next to us and felt like he said something kind of weird. He told that table that the election was really important and they needed to go out and tell "everyone, even Pookie and Ray Ray" (Rae Rae?) that they needed to go out and vote. I'm pretty sure that he didn't know them personally, so Pookie and Ray Ray seemed to be some sort of weird thing to me. What I didn't really care for is that if I said that phrase to the table next to me, I would not be able to blog right now because all of my fingers would be broken.

With this level of political exposure I'm experiencing right now, I wouldn't be surprised if I come across Alvin Greene tomorrow.

Oh yeah, also while I did not hang out with them directly, Harold and Kumar were filming right across the street from me in pretend New York at the intersection of pretend Wall Street and pretend Broad Street during pretend Christmas. I felt bad for all the extras wearing winter clothes (hats, gloves, coats) on the hot day. Hopefully part of their compensation package was water. If someone had gone and told Harold and Kumar that I was across the street, I'm pretty sure they would have rushed right over to spend some quality time with me and Andy Dillon.

Up North

2010-07-26T23:19:00.001-04:00

Good evening, I just wanted to let you know that I'm up on beautiful Lake Walloon until Saturday in the late afternoon. I'd love to have more time to write, but I'd love more to not and enjoy the week with my family mostly away from work and other responsibilities. In the meantime, I hope you spend the week generally agreeing with me that Mad Men super sucks. Have a great week!

Mad Men is the Most Overrated TV Show Ever

2010-07-23T14:55:00.003-04:00

By "ratings", of course, I don't refer to the number of people who watch the show, because by that measure, the show is very poorly rated. Despite the massive amount of critical acclaim and regular people declaring that "Mad Men is UhhhMAAAAZZZING", very few people actually watch Mad Men on AMC. I understand why this is, and it is because for a show that is so very critically lauded, it is the most boring 60 minutes on television. UhhhMAAAAZZZING-ly boring. I've watched Season 1 and Season 2 (not yet Season 3 but I probably will watch it as I continue to try to figure out why people love the show), and by the end of every almost episode I find myself wondering "when does this show stop being so incomprehensibly boring?"

Is it the "pitch-perfect" nostalgia of a bygone era? Because that bygone era totally sucked - No technology, smoking jerks everywhere, and women (who from my experience seem to be more inclined toward liking the show than men) are consistently treated like total pieces of crap.

Is it the "mystery" of Don Draper? We know exactly what his deal is, and there is more per minute mystery in an episode of Blue's Clues than Mad Men.

Nothing ever happens, and when things do happen, I care so little about the nonredeemable characters that I don't care about the outcome one bit. No way, Don Draper moved to California! I don't care! Everything seemed to function just fine back at his home and at his office, he just hung around with a bunch of weirdos in California. On Battlestar Galactica the entire human race was wiped out in the first hour of the show. The level of conflict and my interest in the conflict is incomparable. On Lost a whole bunch of people inexplicably disappeared farther away than California for the entire run of the series. Aside from people dressing in out-of-date clothing and misogyny, I can't think of a single thing that this show does better than any other show currently on television.

I don't necessarily need explosions and murders and aliens and comedy to enjoy a television program, but Mad Men not only lacks all of these things, but it also lacks anything that captures my interest, my sense of nostalgia and whimsy, my excitement, intrigue, funny bone, or slightest sense of care or respect. Every person on the show is terrible (even Peggy who denies her own baby and is insanely selfish), the conflict is boring, I hear January Jones may be the dumbest person on plant earth, and yet, despite all this, critics still love the show.

I challenge anyone to convince me I'm wrong. Mad Men sucks. Season 4 premieres on Sunday - perfect for an early bedtime assist in preparation for the coming work week.

Beer, The Cause of, and Solution to...

2010-07-21T22:55:00.003-04:00

This Saturday, I will be spending the early part of the day celebrating my friend Brad's bachelor party. Party organizer, Nick, cleverly came up with the name "Bradchelor." Truthfully, I'm a little jealous that I did not come up with that myself. Not by coincidence, Brad is marrying the sister of my wife. I'm looking forward to a good time before I head up north for next week, but I am a little bit intrigued by the daytime events of the party.

This weekend in Ypsilanti, the Michigan Beer Fest is taking place. The festival runs from Friday to Saturday as direct competition to the Ann Arbor Art Festival, because the same kind of people who would go to the art festival would definitely be Beer Fest attendees. I'm very happy to be going to celebrate Brad, but I've never attended a beer fest and I'm not quite sure what to expect. It is $35-$40 for a ticket, and with that price, the fest-goer gets 15 3 oz. samples of beers from many of Michigan's fine independent brewers. That's the approximate equivalent of a $10 beer, so I'm intrigued by what else is going to be going on at the festival. Have any of my extremely faithful readers attended a similar event in Michigan? I'm generally not even that big a fan of beer, but I am going to do my finest to appreciate each of my 45 ounces of Michigan beer on Saturday. I do wonder, though, where does the rest of the ticket cost go? I'm happy to support Michigan businesses, but I do wish it was a little more transparent how the cost of the ticket gets distributed to these businesses, because I'm pretty sure it exceeds the cost of materials and logistics for the beer distributors.

Anyway, my comments have dropped to negative (the blogger service is so disappointed by the lack of commenting they've started penalizing me by removing old comments) so I expect little from all your jerks, but I'm looking for recommendations for beers to try, what else I should expect from the event, and if there is some sort of beer festival song I should learn prior to my attendance. No matter what, I'm pretty sure Maureen is going to be driving us up north on Saturday night. Party on, Bradchelor.

Parents are Like Angels

2010-07-18T22:20:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting here in the family room with my beautiful wife on the couch in our wonderful home in which we've lived for almost exactly one week. This has been the culmination of 6 months of almost non-stop work for Maureen and me and a fleet of support staff, and this is my opportunity to call out a couple of members of the support staff without whom, literally, our home would not be anywhere near where it is today - my parents Karen and Bob.

Since February, they have contributed probably hundreds and hundreds of hours only for the good of their son and daughter-in-law. Why? I really have no idea. They must love us, but any reasonable person would have exhausted the supply of love energy months ago, particularly because I'm kind of a jerk. My parents aren't people who don't have enough to do. They both work demanding full time jobs, with additional familial obligations, pets, and numerous other requirements of their time. They've painted, sanded, patched, repaired, built, tore down, wired, and plumbed every surface in the entire house alongside Maureen and me. It is impossible to overstate their contributions - just as a frame of reference, when this remodeling par-tay got rocking months ago, my home improvement skills were entirely limited to explaining to people how little capability I actually had. On top of this, they brought pizza, sub sandwiches, and bagels for our working sessions, purchased us tools that we did not have, and provided recommendations when we requested them. After work until 9 or 10 pm, on the weekends from sunup to sundown, my mom would be patching a hole in the ceiling or my dad would be beautifying the insides of our closets in new white paint. It's not quite possible to express my complete gratitude for these contributions, but that is too limited a view of things.

For example, why were Maureen and I able to afford a house? We've certainly worked for a living whenever possible so we could eventually buy a house, but a big part of the reason is that our parents have supported us through college, provided us with vehicular transportation and gas money in our early years, and I lived rent free at home with my folks for about 4 years after college. We're not a wealthy family, but they regularly did without so that their children did not have to experience being without. A parent has an obligation to provide reasonable support to their children when possible, but the support they've provided is on a level bordering kind of nuts.

I can go on and on in this vein, but maybe the best way to wrap up this thought is this pontification on life. Now that I'm some sort of adult, married, and have a child on the way, thoughts about the meaning of life have started to make their way into my mind. Fortunately for me and you, I've already figured out the meaning and it's not all that original - family and friends. I'm not exactly sure what about family and friends is the meaning of life, but it has something to do with spending happy times with them, sad times with them, and then figuring out how to make these people feel better about their existence. We're here to provide meaning for others, and that is kind of cool. By this measure, I hope my parents know that they've succeeded in life, and they've set off a chain of family togetherness that will likely carry forth in perpetuity. It must feel kind of nice to still be relatively young and have all your children feel that you're a success in life.

The only thing I don't like about this feelgoodness is that as a near future parent and selfish individual, I fear that I will not be able to live up to the standard of selflessness as practiced by my parents. Hopefully this is a skill that quickly develops prior to and shortly after the birth of a child, otherwise I'm in trouble. I'll always be kind of a jerk, but hopefully this characteristic and good parenting aren't mutually exclusive. It's a tough standard to live up to, but perhaps the best challenge worth facing in all of life.

What Doesn't Happen in Vegas Should Stay Out of Vegas

2010-07-16T16:37:00.003-04:00

By which, of course, I mean professional basketball. This well-versed thought comes out of reports/rumors that Las Vegas has rights to any moving basketball team, and that this mystery basketball team may well be the Detroit Pistons. There are a few less-loved teams also in the discussion, so at the moment it doesn't seem entirely likely that the Pistons will be pulling up stakes and moving to the crappy desert. I don't really need another reason to hate Las Vegas, and this would be Vegas well into the "I hate you as much as LA" zone. That is a dangerous zone in which to be - just look at the years of distress in which LA remains mired because of my distaste for the city. Could things be any worse for a city than my good friend Brian moving there? Definitely not, unless he was moving back to Michigan and then it would be a good omen for that city.

Just the thought of losing one of our four awesome professional sports teams is distressing, and I kind of figured if we were to lose one of them, it would almost definitely be the crappiest of the crappy Detroit Lions. Even that would be a bummer, but it would be a bearable pain because it would not remove any sense of victory from our collective Michigan consciousness. The Pistons have a nationally respected basketball heritage that is loved locally, and hated but respected in other states. Karen Davidson, current owner of the Pistons because of the unfortunate death of her husband Bill, shouldn't and can't tear another part of the heart out of this place. Bill should have been forward thinking and put in his will "if Karen sells the Pistons in such a way that they move out of Detroit she loses every penny that I give her." That would be a harsh, but fair, punishment.

As if I needed more reason to not watch the NBA than Bosh, Wade, and James all hanging around South Beach together trying to get cameos on Burn Notice. If this happens, I'm going to reunite the Bad Boys and we're going to head to Vegas, throw some elbows, shoot some awkward white guy 3-pointers, make up some poor nicknames, and bring the Pistons home. My suggested name for the team if they leave: The Las Vegas Sucks

Things I Learned Today #9 - Northville

2010-07-12T22:20:00.002-04:00

Greetings from the friendly confines of Northville. Over the past three days, our non-existent downstairs neighbor has not come to tell us that we're too loud, the fire and police departments have not dispatched from a mile down the road and driven by our front window, every time we walk in the house we don't have to walk up flights of stairs right off the bat, and LandArc hasn't removed our steps without any sort of heads up. Overall, things are going pretty well in the new location and eventually we'll finish unpacking some of the boxes that still remain full of clothes and other miscellaneous goods. Maureen and I have even successfully wall-mounted our television without a single threat of divorce or karate chop.

With all of these generally positive things, I thought I would dispense to the internet a little knowledge that I've gained over the past three days. First, as I walked out to my car on Saturday morning - the first night I parked my car at the house - I was a little bemused to find a ticket on my windshield. I read through the ticket, and I now owe $5 for parking my car on the street (in our little tiny out of the way cul de sac) between 3am and 6am. If I pay the ticket after 7 days it's $15. I searched all over our neighborhood and no where between any main street and our house is there a sign that reads "No parking between 3am and 6am". Today on a run about a mile from our house, I did see a sign that laid down the parking rules, but how the hell was I supposed to know about this if I did not drive by this sign in the past (which, of course, I never had)? It's only $5, but was I supposed to read all city ordinances prior to moving into the home? For this, I say Boo Northville. If you ever crash at our house, park on the street overnight at your own peril.

Second, and this is the kind of thing you don't really think about when looking for a first home, take into account the elevation of your home if you are a runner. As it turns out, our new home is pretty much at the highest point in the entire city. The first half of the run is fantastically fun, but the second half of the run makes you want to go into the past 6 months, risk a time paradox, and just warn the house-hunting version of you that Michigan is way less flat than you thought, especially in Northville. This isn't a deal breaker, but definitely something to keep in mind when house hunting.

Those are the only two things I've learned over the past week. Well, those and that I am officially giving up on being a fan of professional basketball.

Seacrest, Out

2010-07-03T23:24:00.002-04:00

Happy 3rd of July + 30 minutes = 4th of July!

This is just a quick note to inform that I am in Minnesota visiting my sister and her family. Minnesota is kind of like Michigan except west and Joe Mauer lives there. Joe Mauer!

Maureen and I are charging toward a move date of Friday the 9th so I may have minimal time to focus on you, uninterested and non-adulating universe of blog readers until the move is largely complete. It's exciting, and hopefully my last move for quite some time.

As a quick funny note about a reminder of how much I hate LandArc (the property management company of the condo we rent), they decided late last week (without informing us, they may have told our landlady but she did not tell us) to replace the bottom stair of our stoop. Right now it is an empty area boxed in by 2x4's and caution tape around it, rendering our staircase - and primary means of escaping LandArc - at least temporarily useless. I have no confidence that this will be fixed before our move date on Friday, making that day just a little more fun for all. I have now entered the contact number for LandArc into my phone as "LandArc - the worst people in the world". It makes me smile a little bit when I pull it up to view it in the contacts list.

Heavy Hitters

2010-06-29T22:10:00.002-04:00

Congratulations, Michigan! Another annual list has come out and we rank high enough on it to simultaneously feel a sense of victory and defeat. Victory for being in the top 20% but defeat in that the victory is a result of fatties roving our streets. The Top 10 fatties in the United States, that is. Michigan has an adult obesity percentage of 29.4%. Where does that rank compared to last year? Let me check....could you move? I can't see the computer screen to compare last year to this year past YOUR FAT.

This analysis makes perfect sense to me. How can anyone expect anything different from the state that champions the paczki? I think Michigan is well on its way to being a stronghold and safety zone for people who are pretty fat, but not as fat as those fatties "In Mississippi". At number 10, people can know that they are pretty fat, but still find comfort in the fact that there are a whole bunch of fatter (on average) people all across the country. Why go for a jog or a walk when you could just as soon hop in your car, support the local automobile economy, and drive down the streets you were going to run on? - but faster! Everyone is a winner. The other advantage of having so many fat people around is that those of us who are kind of in the middle can continue to feel a sense of moral superiority because even though we would be considered absolutely disgusting in California or Colorado, we live in fat Michigan. I'm no Brad Pitt, but I'm also no Kevin James. It lowers the bar of acceptability so much that even the most average among us have the opportunity to be Casanova.

What are we to do about being a bunch of fatsos? I'll think about it over my dinner of cookie dough and I'll let you know tomorrow.

Weekend Entertainment

2010-06-27T21:04:00.002-04:00

Earlier this morning, my parents, grandma, uncle, Maureen, and I went to go see Toy Story 3. If you are a human being with a beating heart and you don't enjoy kicking puppies, you need to go see this movie. If you have all the previously-mentioned characteristics and also have the slightest interest in Pixar, you should also try to check out a CNBC special "The Pixar Story" from 2007. Just based on when this documentary was produced it is a tiny bit outdated, but it is mostly about the development and early success of Pixar, and that is not affected by the time. Maureen and I are watching it right now and it is absolutely fascinating.

I don't watch enough movies to consider myself anything resembling a movie aficionado (as you know my true non-human, non-living love is television), but watching Pixar movies throughout the duration of the movie and for a period of time after makes me feel like an awe-inspired and giddy little boy. Most importantly for me, their productions consistently cause me to pause and appreciate all of the great things about being alive. I'm not one to really ever cry, but the first five minutes of Up! and last 10 minutes of Toy Story 3 had me welling up. It's not easy to try to casually wipe away the stray tear with those stupid 3-D glasses on your face. The upside to them is that the glasses give you a couple of additional moments to compose yourself and let any eye redness reduce or hopefully completely go away.

The only downside to the pleasure that Pixar has contributed to the lives of people all over planet earth is that I believe the Steve Jobs is, was, and will always be a major prick, but I'm sadly forced to appreciate his early financial backing to the Pixar machine.

What a Great Day

2010-06-24T00:14:00.006-04:00

Smashed in between meetings, I had the luck to watch the last 35 minutes of the U.S. game against Algeria in a Chili's. Regardless of what you think about chain restaurants, the bottomless express lunch remains a great deal with all you can eat tortilla chips, soup, and salad. You can make it is healthy or not as you choose. I fully conceded to another year of World Cup failure, but then, magically, GOAL!!!!! Landon Donovan in all of his wonderful petiteness drove home the best (not prettiest, but best) goal I have ever seen. At that moment, I damaged my throat through overly zealous cheering and hurt my finger because I still haven't learned how to perform a celebratory clap with a ring on my finger. That really hurts when done incorrectly.

The entire Chili's exploded with noise, people were throwing about high fives with reckless abandon, and my brother called me to celebrate even though neither of us really had anything to say except "YEAH!" It gives me hope for America's future soccer fandom. If lucky, we only get three World Cup games every four years, so extending the run by just one more game is a great victory in and of itself. Every time I see the goal replayed, my face is consumed by a big, goofy smile and I want to start hitting hands with palm outstretched with whoever is nearby.

Then, as the ice cream sundae that was my day was concluding, I read this! God is surely smiling on me today. Kwame has finally been indicted by the feds for being a moron 19 times. I can't say I expected these indictments to focus on mail fraud and tax-related charges, but what the hell. You know what they say - never look a gift 19 federal indictments in the mouth. I have to say, though, that 19 seems absurdly high. With 19 charges just focusing on mail and tax, it makes me feel like the feds could indict me for at least 15 things right now and I don't even have a clue what those things might be. I guess the bottom line is this - don't piss off the feds. On top of that, don't be the worst person in the world. What a great day.

Welcome Home Cubbies

2010-06-21T22:13:00.003-04:00

This weekend marked my 10-year high school reunion. I know what you're thinking - "how can someone who is out of high school only 10 years look so haggard?" I'll give you my secret to accelerated aging - eating cookie dough for a period of two weeks for breakfast and dinner. Don't tell your friends unless you want them to absolutely love you! It was a great weekend. 1/3 of the Class of 2000 from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy Established 1877 reunited in memories of the inappropriate things guys tend to do in an all-male high school. These inappropriate things aren't really that bad, but guys can be pretty interesting in the complete absence of female peers. Let's just say that you'd never want to know more personal records regarding how many times someone does something in a day.

I had a few reactions based on my experiences over the weekend. Friday was stag night with dinner and drinks at The High and Saturday was mass, drinks, and dinner with significant others/spouses if existent. Most of my very close friends from high school made it into town for the events and it was a joyous weekend to catch up with everyone in person. Here are my extended thoughts in no particular order except for that I numbered them because lists are at least 20% better with numbers:

1) At one point during the mass, the 50-year reunion men stood up and were briefly celebrated for their presence. These types of recognitions happen all the time, but this was the first one that emotionally resonated with me. Some people age better than others and some take care of themselves with more attention to detail, but I was struck by how depressing and sad it would be if, in 40 years, any one of my friends was not around to join me (hopefully!) at our 50 year reunion in front of a bunch of 28-year-olds. Life is precious, and it is odd the things that help one remember this. Take care of yourselves, everyone but my enemies. You know what? Take care of yourselves, too, enemies. Even if you are a jerk, someone out there certainly loves you.

2) U of D produces far too many lawyers in proportion to engineers. Both of my folks are lawyers and you know I love Law & Order, but Michigan NEEDS engineers. I have no idea what it is about the curriculum at the school that encourages students to eventually enter the law field and less the math and sciences, but for a school that does love it's heritage, it should figure out a better way to encourage professions in math and the sciences for the betterment of Michigan.

3) We've got to figure out how to positively differentiate Detroit/Michigan from Chicago. This is nothing knew, but holy jeez there are too many guys from my graduating year who live in ChiTown. Chicago is a fine city and the Shedd Aquarium has a great dolphin show, but there's got to be something we can offer, even if it starts with simple nostalgia for home. Did you hear? We don't have the lowest unemployment in the country anymore. Come home, Cubs (and everyone else).

4) Facebook really changes the complexion of reunions. This is probably brand new within the past 1-2 years, but that sense of reconnecting with old friends is really lost, because we probably reconnected on Facebook months or years ago. I know where you live, what you do, and how fat you are or aren't, so some of the excitement felt reduced. In some ways that is a good thing because we can catch up on substantive subjects beyond the very basic, but the very basic are often the most interesting.

5) I really loved and continue to love my friends from those days. The bonds that are possible through daily co-experiencing the trials, highs, and lows of teen life are amazing and special. If any of my friends read this blog (and you also know they don't because most of them suck pretty hard), you're pretty great.

6) If you didn't enjoy high school all that much, I still highly recommend you seriously consider returning for the reunion. At least in our environment, most or all of the pretense of high school had entirely evaporated and people just wanted to talk.

Thanks to everyone who put in effort toward the successful weekend, and also the fellas who traveled from far and wide (and close and narrow) to come home. See you in 5 years!

Not #50 Already

2010-06-18T11:16:00.000-04:00

Boom!

Not #50 Someday

2010-06-16T22:06:00.003-04:00

Current favorite number? 13.6%. Not 0.136 because that would be a stupid favorite number, but 13.6% isn't stupid at all.

The reason it is my current favorite number - Michigan's new unemployment rate! I know that this number is still pretty terrible and tomorrow when all the state's rates are reported there will be some sort of line in the various articles like "Michigan again had the highest unemployment rate at 13.6%", but I see this as pretty good news. It's not too difficult to paint this bad number as somewhat good news. Michigan's unemployment rate peaked 14.5% in December (my current least favorite number. It's at least as bad as .145) and overall employment has increased every month for the past five months. At this rate, we'll have 100% employment in 15.111 months. Mark your calendars for September 20th, 2011 because everyone person you know will be working. Also using this extrapolation, we'll have 13.6% negative unemployment by January of 2013. What does this mean? People who don't even exist will be employed. That's how good things will be assuming that we stay on the current trend and that people who don't exist can hold jobs. I studied me some math during my learnin' years.

My dream is a little more simple than this - I hope that at some point in the not terribly distant future, I won't have to read the sentence "Michigan again had the highest unemployment rate..." The two reasons I could see this working out are we keep creating jobs, or we change our name to something else like Awesomevania. I vote for the first approach, but I also wouldn't mind having the name Awesomevania, so that could work too. Good luck with continued success at finding work people of Awesomevania. Hopefully our unemployment rate doesn't go down because you have to leave, thereby (quick vote: does therefore also work here? I originally had therefore but it seemed less fitting than thereby) reducing the denominator.

Something You Didn't Know

2010-06-15T00:07:00.002-04:00

As a long time big fan of the show Good Eats on The Food Network, I have a little more food science knowledge floating around in my head than your average bear. The host of the show, Alton Brown, strives to inform and educate, while making a few homemade weird contraptions and throwing in a recipe here and there. It's that devious type of programming that informs as it entertains, and that is dastardly. Often as the show cuts to commercials they'll throw a little tidbit of information at you or a food fact that is most often related to the just-concluded segment.

The new episode this week was about Asparagus. It is hard to imagine a more exciting subject than Asparagus, but when the good folks at Good Eats combined this vegetable with a little Michigan trivia, it's almost like they were writing a blog mention for me. The interesting food fact was something to the effect of "After California and Washington, Michigan produces the most asparagus out of all other states." Correct, friends, we are the third most contributory state to creating rank pee in America. This is a fact of pride to hold near our hearts.

While this is an interesting fact, perhaps more interesting, as Maureen pointed out, is the way that it was phrased. Why didn't they say something like "The three most asparagus-producing states are California, Washington, and Michigan" or "California produces the most asparagus"? Who specially calls out third place in any contest after quickly casting aside first and second place? That was kind of peculiar.

But now I know that Michigan is the third best state at producing asparagus and this is something I did not know before yesterday. I will now endeavor to find ways to incorporate asparagus more frequently into my daily routine - asparagus milkshakes, cut up asparagus in my cereal, throwing asparagus at various Tigers' opponents, using it as an wash cloth in the shower, and so on. Do you know what's even more amazing? Asparagus is genetically predisposed to grow in opposition to gravity - even when cut! That's why they always put the asparagus vertically at the supermarket. Otherwise, if they are placed on their sides, the tips of the asparagus will try to grow toward the sky and the asparagus will shape into L's. The earth is a fantastic place. You may now go to bed a little smarter, and probably a little happier.

Prison is for Dangerous People

2010-06-09T22:28:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago when Kwame was sentenced to prison, a million fairies got their wings. However, at the time, I opted to not make my feelings known because I have admittedly directed too much thought and space to the worst person in the world. Without even being fully aware of the reason why, the world has been in balance for the last two weeks. Dessert tastes a little bit sweeter, the air feels a little crisper, and I think we all felt just a little bit thinner. What more could a spiteful young man ask for?

Now, just two weeks after this fantastic prison sentence, the Michigan Department of Corrections is recommending Kwame have the opportunity to get out of prison in just 90 days. More than that, he wouldn't even exactly be in prison for the next 90 days - he would be in some sort of prison "boot camp" for 90 days and if he "successfully" completes this boot camp program then he will be on his fat way with parole. A few questions: 1) what the hell? 2) what the hell is prison boot camp? 3) what the hell is a successful completion of boot camp? 4) what the hell?

The Free Press article about this debacle states "Schwartz [Kwame's defense attorney] said prison is for dangerous people, and Kilpatrick is not dangerous." I agree with 50% of Schwartz's statement. Prison is definitely for dangerous people, and no one is more dangerous to the state of Michigan than Kwame. Every day that he is not in prison he could go around sleeping with people that aren't his wife and sucking out southeast Michigan's willingness to live. Mass depression inducing is dangerous, and no one can dole that out better than this guy.

This whole thing seems ridiculous. First, the former mayor went to jail and was released under a set of conditions the world knows and loves as parole. He decided that he did not respect or appreciate these conditions, so per the social and legal contract to which the world adheres, he was sent back to prison for violating parole. Now, he can go to boot camp and get another chance to screw up? And trust me, he will screw up again. If he does get out of prison again earlier than his sentence defines, his parole should consist of 18 hour days of cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico.

Damnit Dude, Not Cool

2010-06-04T22:33:00.006-04:00

Maureen and I are probably within 2 or 3 weeks of finally moving into our new home. That is immensely exciting and would officially mark the end of the major fixes/updates/improvements to the home for some short time. I think today, a greater power must have thought I was getting a little bit too cocky about the promise of putting the major work temporarily behind me.

That empty space to the upper left of the photo is where one half of our large, shade-giving patio tree used to reside.
This is where that part of the tree now resides - our backyard.

This happened at about 8:30 tonight and was the result of the largest storm of which I have ever been a part. While I was cleaning a paintbrush in the basement tonight I started to wonder why it was so loud in our house from the rain, and I wrote it off to shoddy insulation. As it turned out, the noise was a function of massive hail being blown by 60 mph winds off the siding. That was crazy.

I was in the process of cleaning up the paintbrush because I was about to finish up work at the house and join Maureen at our still-rented condo for the evening. At the condo, contractors and painters have been in and out of the place the past two days fixing the damage from the water heater that sprung a leak a ways back. Because of this, we were without hot water or air conditioning the past two days. It was weird to take a freezing cold shower yesterday and then get out and immediately start sweating because the condo was 85 degrees without the air on. So anyway, today everything was back working, except for that the storm that blew out power and blew down our tree in Northville also blew out the power in Livonia. No power anywhere, so Maureen and I are currently in the basement at my parents house watching TV right now. I don't mind being at my folks', but this has been an annoying couple days.

Back to the tree briefly, we'll now probably have to get the whole tree removed (after first removing part of the brick patio) and plant something that doesn't offer shade for 20 years. So...that sucks. It's not like we're not pooping out money right now on all the other house work, so why not have an act of nature cause us to poop more money. The silver lining is that the branch didn't actually fall directly on the house. I truly don't think my heart could have taken that.

The Problem with Confabs

2010-06-03T22:55:00.002-04:00

This week, lots of important Michigan people go to Mackinac Island to talk about things related to Michigan. I guess my invite was lost in the mail. That is the only solution that makes sense. While everyone who is cool is there, they talk about stuff, reporters tell us what they talked about, and then everyone comes home and looks forward to summer camp in Mackinac next summer.

Like most people in Michigan, I have no idea what goes on there, but I do know that reading about the keynote speeches every summer is annoying. The reason it is annoying is because, as with most events like this, with all the attention focused on this group of important Michigan people, it is entirely unclear what, if anything, happens from this assembled brain and power trust. It's not that things don't happen - I really have no idea - it's just that with all of the local media attention and press focus during the Mackinac vacation, there is zero follow up until next summer, editors start writing about how this is the year that the Mackinac conference has to be more than just talk. Is it really just all talk? What is the point of this conference?

Networking is one reason people go to events like this and networking can be a great thing, but is it too much to ask for a little information on some of the outcomes of this opportunity? Person A was introduced to person B and together they started a foundation, or person B introduced person A to person C who a month later had a meeting with company D and started a community outreach program. Maybe these things happen, maybe the don't, but all I know for sure is that Newt Gingrich wants no taxes in Detroit for ten years and that Governor Granholm disagrees. Progress? I don't know, but maybe this idea triggered another thought that led to a new plan for the city. Is this too much to ask for?

This isn't an anti-conference pile-on like many of those that start to crop up before and during the conference, I'm just asking for more information to figure out if this should be an anti-conference pile-on.

Plenty of Weirdos

2010-05-31T20:25:00.003-04:00

Yesterday night Maureen and I had dinner with a couple friends in downtown Detroit yesterday. Every trip downtown is an experience in its own right. and while nothing particularly exciting happened during yesterday's voyage aside from some nice dinner conversation, I was reminded of the kind of city that Detroit can occasionally be. In particular, Detroit can have that elusive characteristic that the biggest and best cities have - the ability to attract weirdos. Every big city has them, some more than others, but weirdos are the lifeblood of an interesting place.

The weirdos this weekend are being again pulled like moths to the flame downtown because of the Movement Electronic Music Festival (formerly Detroit Electronic Music Festival or DEMF). I've tried but do not understand the allure of electronic music to some normal people and weirdos. Repetitive things (snoring, dripping, dogs barking, that song "If We Ever Meet Again" by Timbaland, etc.) bore into my skull until I inevitably attempt to seek out the source of the repetition and destroy it. To me (and my myopic point of view), electronic music is the pure, filtered embodiment of repetitiveness with the primary intent of slowly evolving one's insanity. But people love it so who am I to judge.

Despite my opinion, the Movement Festival brings people to downtown Detroit who would never, ever find themselves in the city, and that is fantastic. Friday afternoon I was in the lobby of the Guardian Building and there were people who were definitely not speaking English taking pictures of the ornate lobby. I bet you one million billion dollars those people were in Detroit for the music festival. Yesterday at dinner, weirdos who were also not speaking English were walking through the lobby of the Book Cadillac wearing towels and others wearing freaky Euro outfits and I bet you one million billion dollars those people were also in Detroit for the music festival.

It is a culture and music that I don't understand with artists who have names that sound like a word you know but spelled differently than that word you know, but I will embrace it for making Memorial Day Weekend in Detroit a truly international event. As long as you don't try any of your freaky stuff directly on me, weirdos, welcome to Michigan and Detroit.

Why Wouldn't You?

2010-05-26T23:39:00.002-04:00

It seems likely that people will have funnier jokes about this tomorrow, but Maureen and I were watching the results show of American Idol tonight (slightly odd as I haven't watched most of the last several weeks of the show per my typical AI pattern) and Crystal Bowersox was performing You Oughta Know alongside Alanis Morissette. That song has some naughty parts, so I was very much wondering what they were going to do on a show as family friendly as Idol without ruining the song. There is one part in particular of the song that most everyone has to know and they were getting closer, and closer, and closer and then...

"Will she go down with you to the theater"

I could not help but boisterously laugh. That has to be one of the greatest song alterations of all time. It pretty much completely changes the meaning of a key point of the song to something that doesn't make any sense. What kind of girlfriend wouldn't go down to the theater with her boyfriend? A terrible girlfriend, that's who. I don't know what kind of idiot guy would leave a girl who did the original thing in the song for a girl who wouldn't even go to the theater with him. That guy deserves a life of unhappiness for such a terrible decision. Terrible, terrible decision.

On a completely unrelated note, the sandwich shop Potbelly's may have lost me as a customer forever. Today I ordered the larger size of their signature "A Wreck" sandwich (technically called a "Big 'A Wreck'" which sounds kind of funny when you say it like that). When it got to the part where you tell them what you want on your sandwich, the girl said "do you want hot peppers". I said "definitely no hot peppers". She said "do you want mayo", I said "definitely no mayo".

"Mustard?"
"Yes, mustard please and everything else except mayo and hot peppers."
"OK so everything but hot peppers and mayo."
"You got it, thanks."

I ran to my car to eat the sandwich while driving between meetings, and took a bite. Holy crap that sandwich had some spicy mustard. I kept eating because with such a clear and concise communication with the worker, surely the mustard was the only thing that could be spicy on the sub. After several more bites, I was pretty sure that no mustard on earth was as hot as my mouth felt. I investigated further and was heartbroken to find not just some hot peppers, but a whole layer of mouth-burning goodness distributed throughout the bread. I tried to pick off the peppers while driving, but I'll tell you picking things like hot peppers and olives out of sandwiches is never easy, particularly while driving. Even if you do get most of them out (impossible), the pepper oil is all over the innards and your fingers and everything just tastes hot. I considered calling Potbelly's to explain my disappointment, but that wouldn't have served anyone any good. Because I appreciate food and I didn't want to feel like I wasted $5.50, I ate the whole terrible sandwich with my eyes watering, angry and sad that Potbelly's had put me in such a catch 22.

The thing is, if you're going to put hot peppers all over my food, you should probably just fill out the rest of the bread with cat food or vomit (whichever is cheaper), because it will make absolutely no difference to me. They should offer a "hot pepper plus miscellaneous filler" sub because I can't imagine that anyone can distinguish among the other meats, cheeses, or vegetables that may be between the bread. Sawdust? If there are hot peppers, it makes no difference to me. This is partly because of my pansy-like palate, but also partly because I thoroughly enjoy tasting my food. Call me crazy, but that's just the way it should be.

28 and Counting

2010-05-24T23:51:00.002-04:00

8 more minutes left in my 28th birthday. Does anyone else find it weird that a 28th birthday actually marks the end of one's 28th year and the beginning of the 29th? It feels like being cheated out of a year. I propose the world goes through a temporary, though immensely painful, rescaling issue where we all acknowledge that we are one year older than currently and move forward with our lives. When you pop out of your momma, it should be your first birthday, not your zero-eth birthday. That just makes no sense. It may be no fun to think of yourself as one year older, but nothing has really changed. You're still the same person who is the same age as before the shift, just with more accuracy.

Now that this bit of semantics is out of the way, it's time for me to step back and look back at the last 28 years of life. Years 0-3 (now officially 1-4) are pretty much a blank, but aside from these 3 years, today I came up with one pretty big conclusion. I complain a lot. For those who know me, this self-assessment is probably not much of a surprise. What is more interesting to me is not so much the fact that I have always been a whiny little girl, but rather that almost all of the complaining has really had one underlying symptom, and I wonder if this is true for others as well: life is pretty great.

The last several extremely busy months and corresponding anxiety have really solidified my feelings about this; we're remodeling a house, professional work is high gear, I have no time to run or otherwise exercise or see friends, my brother and sister are farther away than I would like, we're going to have to move all of our stuff again in a few weeks, and a few more, Michigan remains economically stagnant, etc. All of these things are annoying or somehow stressful, but what is way more interesting to me is when I actually think about the root causes of each of these issues.

1) Maureen and I are lucky enough to afford a house
2) Having a job is never a bad thing
3) I can't run, but if I was unhealthy, I wouldn't ever have the opportunity to run
4) There are some people who haven't yet rejected me as a human being
5) I love my siblings and being away from them isn't how I'd like things to be
6) Michigan is important to me because it is a truly wonderful place
7) and so on.....

I've actually never had this realization before, and it's kind of weird. There are a few major complaints that definitely don't fit this pattern - one that immediately springs to mind is unemployment. There is typically nothing happy underlying unemployment frustration except for maybe additional free time to enjoy 20 seasons of Law & Order. Another of these examples is health issues (though you could argue that sadness regarding health issues is a reflection on how good things can be without them or the basic value of life). I guess the more I think about it, there are some legitimate complaints that are generally more thrust upon an individual, and I don't want to dismiss these or insult people experiencing true hardship.

I think my primary point and self-realization is that I'm finally old enough to start to understand the difference between petty, often self-inflicted annoyances and frustrations, and real, painful issues. It only took 28 years. The key for me moving forward is to do a better job to differentiate between the two, and to do a better job to avoid complaining when these complaints are really just a reflection of how good things really are or can be.

In the West

2010-05-20T01:41:00.002-04:00

As is periodically the case throughout the year, I'm in California right now. I've been here since yesterday and will be here through part of Friday. It's not particularly exciting to visit - the days are pretty filled with meetings but I do get the chance to visit my brother while out here. That's not half bad.

The only bad thing about the travel is that the schedule sometimes robs you of quality me time. I understand your sadness. It's how I feel when I'm asleep and I don't get to consciously enjoy my own thoughts.

So anyway I'll be back home pretty soon and can turn my attention to the subject that is the focus of much of our attention these days: the upcoming release of the next Shrek movie - Shrek 4, Why Does This Movie Exist?

The Sounds of Michigan Summer

2010-05-16T22:58:00.002-04:00

It's that wonderful time of year again where the grass is just about ready for the Slip 'N Slide, the trees are looking healthy enough for climbing, and the sun doesn't set until 8:30 or later. All of these factors, and others, combine for an insane quantity of children playing the weekend and weekday nights away with all the other children of the neighborhoods. The sounds of this playful spirit drift high among the roofs branches and across the neighborhoods, leading every adult to wistfully wonder - "Why the hell does it sound like the children are being murdered or otherwise brutalized?"

Maybe it's the fact that Maureen and I now "live" (in quotes because the entirety of our time there is still spent cleaning and painting) in a 'hood that is stuffed full of children who seem to have a good time together, maybe it's that I'm slowly becoming a crotchety old man, but I can not believe the sounds emanating from the local kids having "fun" together. The sounds the young boys make are the sounds I would make if both of my arms were ripped off, and the sounds the young girls make are like the arms that were ripped off the boys are being used to beat the girls. It's insane. I really have no idea why their parents aren't like "hey, kids, would you mind not sounding like you're being killed every time that you play with each other?"

For this point I'm looking for a little knowledge from the older generation that have had the pleasure to watch multiple sets of children grow into adulthood - has this always been the case? I remember making lots of noise when I was younger (and, yes, I still make a lot of noise today), but I have no recollection of any sounds coming from me or my male or female friends containing so many elements of sheer horror and pain. It might certainly be that I'm not remembering correctly, but I have the feeling that this trend is growing progressively bothersome and weird.

Even Facebook

2010-05-13T22:41:00.002-04:00

I refuse at this time to have a Twitter account, and this would really work better as a Tweet:

How cool is it that my captcha for a Facebook entry tonight was "emulate Ken". Seriously. Taking over the world, bitches.

Not Like This, not like this

2010-05-13T21:59:00.007-04:00

This year, I've been a little on Law & Order's case. Sure, parts of the show were annoying at times, but what in life isn't? Just talking to people who I consider friends is annoying, so even enjoyable TV will have extended moments of imperfection (except for Modern Family thus far in the season. Even the iPad episode was funny if you can get over the iPad thing. Modern Family is the best sitcom since Arrested Development, and if you're not watching it now, I DO NOT want you to tell me how good it is 5 years from now after watching it on Blu-Ray or DVD). Despite some of these problems, L&O remains one of the best 42 minute segments of my week, if not for any other reason than the familiarity of 20 seasons worth of episodes.

I guess I again underestimated the power of my words and my website, since reports today assert that NBC has canceled my show, my old friend. It's too soon to say if the show is really dead in the ground because it may be moved to cable or some other random mid-season pickup, but we must curb our optimism and probably begin the long mourning process.

What sucks the most about this is everything about NBC. I picture the executives at NBC as a room full of literal giant turds wearing spectacles and ties (but no shirts or pants, just glasses and ties). Can you imagine a worse run network? Probably not if you have the same image of turds in glasses and ties. Thursday night makes for some good NBC comedy, but everything else on the network aspires to and dreams of one day achieving turd-dom.

The lesson from all of this is that I need to be careful. If I'm unhappy about anything, I must temper my emotions lest I speak out, and because of this, lose other things that are valuable to me.

Chong Chong.

Update: who knows?

Why Ernie Harwell Was Magic To Me

2010-05-10T23:06:00.003-04:00

As everyone in Michigan who appreciates summer and is older than 10 knows, Ernie Harwell died. The tributes are everywhere and in all forms of media, and they're great.

I don't have too much to add to all these remembrances, except for that the voice of Ernie Harwell defined the happiest non-family parts of growing up in Michigan for me. I was the standard little boy who loved baseball. As a little boy who loved baseball and also had a reasonable bedtime, normal operating procedure wouldn't allow me to be up for the latter part of my Tigers' baseball games. I had a blue Realistic transistor radio about the size of a deck of cards that I would put under my pillow over the summer to listen to the games until I fell asleep. For the most part, my parents knew that I was breaking the rules, but for reasons of love, they let me get away with this small rule break and listen to Ernie Harwell and the Tigers.

This story isn't all that unique, or remotely funny, or insightful, but just thinking about how happy it made me to listen to Ernie Harwell recount the Tigers' game on my blue radio late on warm summer nights in my house with my family does bring tears to my eyes. Something about the thought of his voice wraps me back up in the warm humidity of an un-air conditioned home, loving every second of summer break and the thought of the Slip 'N Slide tomorrow. It really was perfect, and the memory of this joy will stick with me forever. I've heard it a million times but never really FELT it myself until now - "thanks for the memories."

Riddle-iculous

2010-05-05T22:24:00.003-04:00

Ha! my first pun-based title. I think. This is a significant milestone, and it only took almost three years for me to come up with a pun. Holy crap has it really been almost three years? Holy crap. Who knew when this all started, readership would skyrocket from 10 readers/day to 10 readers/day. That is the kind of growth Wall Street can get behind.

Sam Riddle is a former "political consultant" and buddy of crazy woman Monica Conyers. He's in trouble for all kinds of things right now including federal bribery charges, but before he gets in more trouble for that, today he was convicted of felonious assault and possession of a firearm during a felony. If you agree that "I was drunk" is a reasonable defense, then you should be outraged by this conviction. In fact, there's a decent chance that Sam Riddle is drunk and waving a shotgun around in front of your house right now.

This part of the story is pretty cut and dry, but Fox 2 news did their usual fantastic professional news casting tonight. Fox 2 and their quality news are personified by Deena Centofanti on Fox 2 Saturday morning news. Most of the time I'm pretty sure she's drunk or, at least, is partially illiterate (as a humorous aside, it took me like 3 minutes to come up with the word illiterate). Anyway back to Fox 2"news", Sam Riddle was talking drunkenly about something after the verdict and Fox 2 had as the tag line under him "Sam Riddle: Convicted Felon". That is great, because it's both informational and true. This is why under Deena Centofanti on Saturday mornings they should write "Deena Centofanti: Drunken Illiterate". If you can't be described by two words, you need an image consultant.

Was it Encyclopedia Brown who solved mysteries with his photographic memory? I think he was the kid who would look at things and say "click" and then he would have a perfect memory of that instant. I've been trying to get this to work for the last 20 years, still with nothing approach success. I would have loved to stick the image of "Sam Riddle: Convicted Felon" in my mind in a perfect photographic way, and then I could work on inventing the technology to take this memory and transfer it to the computer for your appreciation.

"And They're Probably Having Sex Right Now"

2010-05-03T22:16:00.003-04:00

The title of this post has nothing to do with the actual post. I'm more than a week behind on Days of Our Lives right now because I'm currently without any time to do anything (you know the schedule is filled when Days starts slipping down the priority list). During the episode I watched during my workout today, there was this scene where Chloe thought her fiancee Daniel was at a no-tell motel with another woman named Carly (they weren't together) and she was expressing her discontent to this guy Philip and she said "...And They're Probably Having Sex Right Now." At the time, I thought this was the best line I had ever heard on television, but I wanted to make sure that after reflecting on it a little more, it was still an excellent line. It has passed the test of time and seemed at least worthy of a blog call out. Keep up the good dialogue work, writers.

The other title I was considering for this post was "Yeah, Because of ME" but I liked the sex one more. However, the losing title would have been far more pertinent to the actual subject matter. This morning The Detroit News had an article about people who are, for personal/emotional reasons, returning to Michigan to launch entrepreneurial careers. It's kind of a feel good article (at least as good a feel good article as one can currently write about entrepreneurship/employment in Michigan), but there are some pretty good points in there. To my eyes, chief among the points is the subtle and intelligent way the author weaves in my direct influence on all of the individuals mentioned in the article without actually mentioning my website or any of the people having heard about it. That is great work.

Some of the main points in the piece are those echoed by various people championing the eventual triumphant return of Michigan - low house prices, vacant commercial real estate, a big pool of unemployed (low-priced) workers, and those who have lived here in the past generally knowing that it's a pretty kick ass place to be. On top of that, launching a business is hard work and it helps to have a stable support system of friends and family around. Just because these aren't originally sentiments, it doesn't make them any less true. At this point I know a whole bunch of people who are from Michigan and are employed in other parts of the country, but would relish the eventual opportunity to return to the greatest state of all (North Dakota, but they would only be driving through North Dakota on the way to the second best state of all - Michigan). It might just be me (probably), but some days it really seems like this whole "let's give Michigan another chance" thing is really starting to find some roots. As the singular and most influential leader of the anti brain-drain movement, you're welcome people of Michigan. It will take awhile, but we'll get there.

Bummer of the Week

2010-04-29T22:04:00.003-04:00

The bummer of the week this week is most definitely not that YouTube video I posted a couple days ago of that girl trying the high jump. It's one of those things where every time I watch it, I have a reaction that includes laughing. Maureen accused me of laughing so hard about it with my family the other night that I peed in my pants a little bit. I vigorously deny peeing in my pants while laughing about that video, so that is also not the bummer of the week. If I did pee in my pants from laughing too hard, this would have easily been elevated to the bummer of the week.

No, the bummer of the week comes out of the downtown Detroit restaurant scene. Over the past several years, restaurateur Frank Taylor has been developing and running a series of relatively swanky restaurants downtown. These restaurants were a part of his Southern Hospitality mini-empire, and included some pretty prominent locations. Among these locations - Seldom Blues in the RenCen (formerly the Freep's restaurant of the year), Sweet Georgia Brown, The Detroit Breakfast House and Grill, The Detroit Fish Market, Magnolia, and maybe another one or two that I can't remember. Most of these places were some variation of downtown Detroit fine dining, with either a unique concept or upscale service, location, and/or food. As each of these restaurants opened through the years, I thought to myself "who is this Frank Taylor guy, and why is he so cool opening so many nice restaurants in downtown Detroit?" Each of the restaurants was greeted by pretty strong reviews and was considered "the place to be seen" when they opened (particularly Sweet Georgia Brown in Greektown). At one point or another I tried to make it a point to get downtown and go dine at these establishments to enjoy a nice evening, but more importantly, to support the downtown dining scene. With each new place under Frank Taylor's umbrella opened, I had a growing admiration in my heart for the guy as it seemed like he was legitimately trying to raise the level of dining options in downtown Detroit through good food and a little style. The restaurants were not cheap and at least some were probably overpriced (Seldom Blues in the RenCen, for example, was pretty expensive, but the view could not be beat and the live music was unique touch for Detroit), but sometimes you're willing to overpay for the city experience.

Earlier this week, I was quite saddened to read about the likely demise of the entire restaurant empire. Without knowing who is right or any of the details beyond what is reported in the news, Frank Taylor and Co. seem to be in the process of being sued out of existence. The specific claim is that revenues from The Detroit Fish Market are being funneled to his other property's to pay the bills. Because of this, the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. is claiming that he owes them money because the rent he owes them is based on his revenue at this establishment. Essentially, he's accused of playing the shell game with his cash to keep his expenses artificially low.

The downfall has been slow but consistent. A few years ago Sweet Georgia Brown went through some financial and legal difficulties and declared bankruptcy. Last year, Seldom Blues declared bankruptcy and shut down. This year, the wheels appear to have come off and complete game over can't be that far away. This is sad for a couple reasons, but the real reason for the failure isn't completely clear. Was there some fishy business going on here? We'll probably never have definitive evidence. If there was, well then it's less sad - somebody didn't follow the rules and got in trouble. Either way, it'll go down in the books as more proof that downtown Detroit isn't friendly for business and, especially, fine dining restaurants. That is a shame, and as usual Detroit comes out looking bad.

I guess all that anyone can do or recommend is to support your Detroit (or otherwise local) businesses. Consider heading downtown, and if you don't feel too safe doing that, consider lingering before or after a sporting event or concert when there are way more people down that way. Otherwise, there will always be a bummer of the week.

You Suck at Soccer

2010-04-26T13:47:00.003-04:00

Oh this is great. I try not to use this website as a clearinghouse for various pieces of garbage that float around the internet, but something about the simplicity and cuteness of this made me smile even after a few re-watches. I was directed to this video from an inappropriate website to an appropriate website, which made the cuteness of it even more surprising and funny. Maureen is a big fan of failblog.org, so this video is also in the spirit of "things my wife likes." Enjoy. or don't - what do I care.

Update: Well, now I'm just in a goofy mood. I saw the above video before I saw the below video, and the below clip made me laugh again and again and again. There are more of these, but this is probably enough for now.

Fans

2010-04-23T22:41:00.003-04:00

As I sit here and watch my first hockey game of the season (I like the intensity of playoff hockey but don't particularly love the game in the regular season) and flip back and forth to the Tigers' game, the thing that stands out the most is the fans. The Wings are playing in Phoenix and the Tigers are playing in Texas, and yet despite the fact that both locations are more than a days' drive from Michigan, there is a considerable contingent of Detroit fans at both venues. At the hockey game in particular, there seems to be almost as many Wings fans as Coyotes fans. Over the past few years (based on general assessment of television audio), this has been a growing and increasingly noticeable trend.

On the one hand it's pretty cool that there are so many Detroit sports fans around this fine country of ours. There are only a few truly great sports towns out there, and Detroit is one of those places that is generally acknowledged as one such great sport town. It is weird to hear as many cheers as boos when the Wings score in a foreign city, or the standard "Let's Go Tigers" chant in Baltimore. Unarguably we love our teams, and often the place (or the memory of the place) those teams represent.

On the other hand, it is also a bummer that there are so many Detroit fans out there. They're not fans because even though they were born in Seattle, they just really liked Jack Morris or thought that Vinnie Johnson had the best nickname in sports. This may be the case in some rare instances, but it's almost certainly more a matter of Michigan ex-patriots who have either chosen or been forced to leave. For those who chose to leave and never looked back, does it feel weird to go to the Tigers, Wings, or Pistons (Lions are excluded from this list until they manage a 4 win season) when they swing into town and cheer your heart out for your"home" team? Does it make you want to consider trying to get back home? Many people have little choice when they're forced to leave for work or other considerations, but I hope that when they do go to a game wearing their Michigan State t-shirts, it makes them at least briefly consider trying to find a way back to the Great Lakes State. You can always go home, and when you do, you can watch your favored Detroit team year-round.

Working On It

2010-04-20T22:57:00.007-04:00

As far as shortcomings go, I am not in short supply. I am so rich in this area of my life, it is surprising that anyone would be willing to spend any time with me. Of all these shortcomings, the one that probably troubles me the most is my inflexibility. It is bothersome because it is a totally self-induced and unnecessary neurosis. I make plans, I follow those plans, and if events deviate from those plans, I get pretty broken up about it. This inflexibility takes many forms, including obsession with timeliness (mine and others), emphasis on routine, and aversion to change. It's nowhere near an actual disease like OCD, but that makes this area of life even more frustrating because I should have the ability to loosen up a little bit.

Over the past few weeks, some pretty major things have gone not according to plan. However, yesterday I was feeling pretty good about myself, because with some of these unexpected occurrences and changes, I was bending and flexing with relative ease and taking the events of life as they came. It felt like a major milestone and possibly a turning point in me sucking less in this one area. For example, despite the flooding issue we had on Saturday and subsequent annoyances, I'm not all that put off that my normal life routine is severely interrupted. Here are a couple of photos of our place that reflect some of these subsequent annoyances.

You may be thinking "Hey, there shouldn't be a million holes in your drywall" or "why are the washer and dryer perpendicular to each other sitting in the living room with a closet door on them?" and those are good questions. Another good question is "Does it really need to be 87 degrees in the condo to assist with drying out the flooded areas?" I guess this is the way it needs to be, because this is what the professionals say. It's imperfect, but these things happen in life.

Yesterday I was feeling proud of embracing flexibility and not being frustrated by the littlest things, but today I was reminded by some greater power to not get too proud of some version of personal "progress" - there's still a lot of work to do. Here's the story:

My car is a pretty good workhorse. The only thing that absolutely sucks about it is that the tires are incapable of holding air for an extended period of time. It must have something to do with poor construction of the rims, or a poor rim/tire interface design. Regardless, I have to refill the tires all the time. One downside to this is that sometime the tires get so low, the 50 cents paid at a gas station will actually not provide enough air to fill up all (or sometimes even one or two) of the tires, and it is difficult to get an accurate pressure reading from the tire gauge, so I'm left either feeling cheated of air or uncertain of the tire air pressure correctness. For these reasons, today I decided to take my car in to the mechanic to fill up the tires (and replace a missing tire cap), and while there (because a tire fill up is not reason enough to go to the mechanic) change my oil and take a look at an alignment problem. I emphasized "please fill up the tires, give me a new tire cap, and change the oil."

They changed my oil and when they took a look at the alignment, they said I had a big problem with my control arm, and this should be immediately replaced. I have no idea what a control arm does or why it exists, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't a scam because a mechanic told me a few months ago he saw a budding problem with the control arm and it would need to be fixed at some point in the near future. Today was the near future. I told them to go ahead and make the fix and then to complete the alignment. Three hours later, the car was ready to go, so I paid my $550 and took off to do some painting in Northville.

When I got out of the car in Northville, I noticed that the tire with the missing cap was...still missing the cap. Slightly bummed out, I checked the tire pressure and it came in well below where it should be. I called the mechanic to ask if they filled the tires and I was getting a bum reading, or maybe there was some other problem going on. Somewhat apologetic, he said they must have forgotten to fill up the tires and give me a new cap. Of course, the whole car process started because I wanted about $2 worth of air, a new tire cap, and the assurance that the tires were filled to the right pressure, and it ended with none of those things and approximately $600 in unexpected repairs.

Maybe one day when I do finally get to the point of fully accepting life's flaws and unexpected events, the little negative things like not getting tires filled with air will pass by with nary a negative thought, but for today, I'm pissed.

If Only We Had a ShamWow

2010-04-17T23:10:00.003-04:00

*Line courtesy of my lovely, smart, and funny wife.

Frustratingly, things don't always go as you hope and plan. Today, we had a wonderful day with my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and parents before my sister's family head back to Minnesota tomorrow. We got to eat some lasagna, see Louis dance, and do all of the lovely things that make a day with family enjoyable. Maureen and I parted ways with them at around 9pm and made our way back to Livonia. We'd spend the next three hours watching TV (reveling in the end of day that included no refurbishment work on our house by plan) and then probably gently fall asleep on the big couch in front of the TV.

I parked the car, opened the garage, and walked toward the door into the condo. I was greeted by a (not very) gentle high pitched scream as soon as I opened the door and instantly started to freak out. What the hell was going on? The carpet area immediately around the basement house door was wet - very wet - and the ceiling around the fire sprinkler system in that area was also fairly soaked. First thought was that we must have had a fire in the house, and the fire extinguishing system kicked on to keep the whole place from burning down. I couldn't smell any smoke, so I ran upstairs to try to figure out what was going on before Maureen came inside. Every smoke detector in the house was also screaming, but there was no fire, sign of fire, or any visible water anywhere else in the house. We had no idea how to get the system to stop making noise, so we called the fire department (via 911) to come and help us work through whatever was going on in the condo. Before they arrived, Maureen (being far more everything-inclined than me) identified that the water heater had sprung a leak, and this had either tripped a water sensor or had some other adverse affect on the intertwined house alarm system and everything went haywire.

When the fire people showed up (why do they absolutely HAVE TO send an ambulance and fire truck when you clearly indicate on the phone that everything is cool and you just need assistance turning off an alarm) we showed them to the problem, and they did some electricity magic stuff to make the noise craziness stop. They took a little information, and we spent the next hour or so calling our landlady, talking to her insurance people, and then sopping up some of the flooded basement (no standing water, just tons of it in the carpet down there. It's not our responsibility to clean up the mess, but we'll be living here for a couple more months and we don't want the whole place to smell like mildew), and trying not to be too annoyed that the relaxing evening plans were exploded in a fiery ball of slowly dripping water.

All told, this was a fairly minor house emergency, but we'll now have to deal with the process of reconstruction on a property that isn't even ours all while we're spending all of our free time reconstructing the property that is ours. Regardless of who is at fault, I blame LandArc. Jerks.

News But Then Not

2010-04-15T17:06:00.002-04:00

We are within 15 days of the happiest day of my life minus all the other days that were way happier for far better reasons. 15 days from now, you will not be able to smoke and eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner in any of the Michigan restaurants in which I will be eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If this is disappointing to you - haha you suck!

I think we're something like the 38th state to finally achieve such a ban, but this makes sense because Michigan people like to bowl, join unions, and kill deer. I'm not stereotyping, I'm just saying that most of the people who I know who like to bowl, join unions, and kill deer also have a thing for inhaling carcinogens in the form of a smoke stick. I will never know the joy of bearing my own child internally, but I have had an internal ticking clock in the form of "WHY HAVEN'T WE BANNED SMOKING YET?" We're only 15 days away.

Earlier today, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson made news when he said that he was going to sue to stop the ban. Without being a lawyer, his argument against the ban was just about the dumbest (and potentially most frustrating) thing I have ever heard. He said that because the law was passed without funding, he would not be able to pay the necessary resources to enforce this ban in Oakland County. That is [expletive deleted] crazy. When a law is passed in the state that promotes individual health and well-being, additional funding doesn't have to be allocated to support any such law. Do I have to pay separately (out of my taxes) to be defended from murder, manslaughter (they are different you know, watch Law & Order), extortion, assault, aggravated assault, dangerous drivers, jaywalking, counterfeit, and on and on? Absolutely [expletive deleted] not. That would be [expletive deleted] insane. A law is passed, and the good police people who protect the state citizens and the well-being of these citizens are then charged with enforcing this law.

After publicly declaring something so idiotic, L. Brooks Patterson said he received over 100 phone calls and emails within one hour of people kindly asking him to stop being such an idiot. Surprisingly, it worked! Patterson withdrew his lawsuit, and he will let the law come into effect. He does claim that the law will likely be largely/entirely enforced by bar and restaurant owners and their patrons so he still thinks it will be ineffective, but he better know he's [expletive deleted] right that I will shut down any smoking in my vicinity. Unless the person smoking is bigger or scarier than me.

*To enhance your pleasure of the post, every expletive deleted is the F-word (with "ing")

As Dumberer as Everer

2010-04-12T23:12:00.003-04:00

For a period during my life, I was consumed with calorie count. I could account for every single calorie in a day excluding food that I accidentally ingested (happens more often than you would think). During this period I lost something like 50 total pounds and life was without joy and happiness. There is still some mental holdover from this time of life and I remember the calorie count of most commercially available food items. That is why I sometimes find myself at Wendy's when I'm looking for a fast and relatively healthy lunch or dinner. The Ultimate Chicken Grill meal swapping out a small chili for the french fries and a Diet Coke comes out to a total of only 560 calories (340 for the sandwich, 220 for the chili). For the health-conscious who also love fast food, this is a pretty amazing option. It feels only a little bit like you're restraining yourself from food happiness and the meal is decently filling for 560 calories.

For all these reasons, I found myself at Wendy's for lunch today. Waiting in line, a sign above the soda machine read something along the lines of "Due to the cold weather conditions in Florida, the quality and availability of tomatoes at Wendy's locations has suffered. Because of this, tomatoes will only be available UPON REQUEST." I read the sign, appreciated and understood the cause and effect, and felt bad for all those poor suckers who neglected to get tomatoes on their square hamburgers. Sandwiches are almost universally better with tomato. It's a fact of life and tomatoes.

I ordered my Ultimate Chicken Grill meal, grabbed a spoon for my chili, and sat down for sustenance. Unwrapping the foil around the sandwich, I pulled it open to add just a little salt (I said I was concerned about calories, not sodium. What are you, the salt police?). "Hey, where's my toma....oh crap." Despite having read the sign and eaten several hundred ultimate chicken grill sandwiches with tomatoes, I neglected to make the connection that my sandwich fell into the UPON REQUEST category clearly outlined by the sign. I haven't felt such indecision for weeks as I was torn between going up to the counter and asking for a rare, possibly low-quality tomato slice to manually add the tomato to my sandwich, or accept the shame and tomatolessness of my partial sandwich. In the end, I suffered through the results of my terrible thought process. Without suffering, there can be no progress.

Show Me

2010-04-10T00:07:00.002-04:00

Jealous of my midnight Friday blogging? Probably. Wake up, work, jog, paint, eat a piece of pizza, go to bed. And so it continues.

Anyone who has taken a rudimentary class in forecasting or has ever talked to someone who has taken a rudimentary class in forecasting has heard the following statement: "The first rule of forecasting is that forecasts are always wrong." At this point in the class, some moron (probably me) says something that they truly believe to be original - "Then what's the point of this class." If I was the teacher, this is where I would say "Well, this is where the first rule of forecasting fails, because I was predicting that someone as dumb as you would be in my class this term." Yeah eat that fictional student that was probably me in fictional class that I probably took.

For the last 10 years, economists forecasting the Michigan economy and job growth have always said "this year will be bad, next year will level out, and the year after that we'll return to slow but steady job growth and economic improvement." The one exception to this was last year when economists were pretty much saying that nothing would ever be good again (until, in my humble opinion, the federal government saved our collective bacon. Thank you good people of the federal government). With all this background, then, I am both encouraged and cautious when I read another article that says that economists are predicting that job growth will return to Michigan next year. Nothing could make me happier, but there isn't much about which I could be more skeptical. Same tune, different year. If this forecast does, in fact, come true, this could be further legitimate evidence that we have come through a bottom and the future may finally be better than the past for the good people and businesses of our state.

I'm this close to throwing a scrapbooking party to celebrate. If I could have all the time back that I currently use trying to convince people that we don't suck, I could waste my time in other ways like writing more about television and working on that elusive karate brown belt. Hi-ya.

Family Commercial

2010-04-07T22:57:00.002-04:00

I always loved my dumbphone. People could call me, I could call people, and every once in awhile I could talk to people at the same time. If someone had the gall to send me a non-plan text message I would take the next 10-20 minutes to peck my way through the 123456789 alphabet system to respond with something clever like "sounds good". If I was not at my computer, I could not receive an email from you, and I could also use that as an excuse for work - "Sorry I can't stay longer, I don't have internet access here." Friends and coworkers have had more advanced phones for years and years, always taking the time in the middle of our in-person conversations to ignore me and read an email or text message from someone else. I would continue on with what I was saying, knowing all the while that I would have to repeat whatever it was I just said when the person returned their attention to me from the phone. I'm a fairly technologically inclined person, so I'm not sure what kept me away from the smartphone. Part of it must have had something to do with being a person who enjoys gadgets and technology, yet for inexplicable reasons held on to a years-old phone with a missing battery cover. Even without the technology that everyone else seemed to enjoy so very much, I got along more than just fine.

Over the past several months, work has required me to be increasingly mobile. This mobility has required longer stays at various locations all around the southeast corner of Michigan, and at most of these locations I did not have access behind the corporate firewall. Without this access, I was going days without internet and this was actually starting to put a hamper into my productivity and usefulness.

This, and one other piece of information, finally gave me the push I needed to jump up to 2005. Last weekend, I purchased a Palm Pre Plus and added the necessary unlimited data plan. Why a Palm Pre Plus instead of an iPhone or Blackeberry, you most certainly are asking right at this very second? A few very good reasons.

First and most importantly, starting last week, Verizon starting offering free 3G tethering through the phone for up to 5 devices at a time. That is a pretty big deal. This means that if I have my phone with me, I can access the internet on my laptop pretty much anywhere in the country. I can stream internet radio, watch my Slingbox, send and receive sizable work emails, and any of the other sordid internet things about which you are currently thinking. It's free! Literally, free. The only downside is that I'm limited to 5GB a month without incurring additional fees, but 5 gigs is pretty generous for this type of internet usage. Second, I hate how many people would legally marry their iPhones if given the opportunity (maybe in Vermont), and I like to throw my support behind the down-and-out guy (see: my support and love of Michigan). Third, the operating system (webOS) is pretty phenomenal. It's not absolutely perfect, but it is possible for me to do two (and fifty) things at the same time on the phone. 2 > 1. Finally, a much beloved family member recently took a job at the fine company responsible for this software and hardware. If you can't get behind a family member, you should go and marry your iPhone in Vermont. Look out, world - I can send a text message in less than 3 minutes.

Opening Day

2010-04-05T23:03:00.004-04:00

With only slight exaggeration, there is nothing better than your home baseball team's opening day. It is so important, it is called "Opening Day". Of all the sports popular in the United States, including cricket and backgammon, none of the professional leagues have anything resembling the magic of opening day. People get equally excited about the beginning of the season of their preferred sport, but it's just not the same. My biggest shame of the year to this point is that I actually did not realize today was the Tigers' opening day because I always had in my mind that Friday (their home opener) was their season opener, so I almost let the whole game slip by me. That would have been an unacceptable outcome and not deserving of forgiveness.

Opening Day is so important, it was the one thing for which my high school would actually excuse absence. That is huge.

The Tigers were victorious today in what will almost definitely be the first ever undefeated season in the history of modern baseball. Not only did the Tigers win, but they managed the win by slowly pushing Zack Greinke out of the game and then taking charge against the Royals' bullpen. I feel bad for the Royals, but it's hard to feel too bad because Kansas City has what I consider to be the best variety of barbecue in the country. Arthur Bryant's is there - what else needs to be said. My heaven consists of opening day and a pile of Arthur Bryant's pulled pork on a slice or two of Wonder Bread.

Opening Day marks the start of optimal Michigan weather, lazy summer weekend afternoons, and thinking about how much less stressful the new closer is than Fernando Rodney. Today marks the return of happiness and unicorns, the athleticism of Brandon Inge, and explaining to my foreign co-workers what the hell is going on in a baseball game. People who didn't grow up with the sport find it very confusing.

Welcome back, baseball. You were missed. Please don't let the Yankees win anything else.

New L&O Trend Data Point

2010-03-31T23:29:00.002-04:00

Last week around this time, I wrote about how Law & Order is walking down a dangerous path this season. Mostly from this I learned that other people out there still watch the show and are in agreement with this concern.

This is why it is with regret that I must again formally request that L&O stop sucking so hard in the last 10 minutes of the show. This week after a whole convoluted and crazy crime plot in which no one was actually killed, Cutter again fooled the bad guy into admitting on the stand and under oath that, yes, he did it because he loves his daughter. For an instant, I thought the show was going to take it in the other direction and the baddie would successfully get away with it after standing up to the questioning. In fact, I was praying for this outcome just to deviate from the ever-establishing pattern of unthoughtful conclusions. What makes matters worse is that they had to drag Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) into the whole "admit to everything" vortex of the show. Even Buster could have done a better job defending his innocence, and he was a complete nincompoop whose hand was eaten by a seal. Is this the future of Law & Order, and if it is, do I have the ability to make myself stop watching it? I'm going to monitor the situation closely and may just have to start a Facebook group about it.

A Little Crazy Goes a Long Way

2010-03-30T22:34:00.001-04:00

Subtitle: Stop Making Us Look Like Dicks

I have a vague memory from many years ago of either my mom or dad (the memory is that vague - I can't gender distinguish) explaining to me the Michigan militia. At the time, the whole concept seemed ridiculous and I was only about 14 years old.

"Wait, people in Michigan are preparing for war against our own government and have huge stockpiles of weapons? That sounds crazy!"

14-year-old me was and is right, and it is a crying shame that so many people who are unarguably insane live and "train" in Michigan. This week, the FBI arrested and is charging nine people with plotting to kill police and "use weapons of mass destruction" - though no articles I've found indicate the specifics of these mass destruction weapons. If this whole story was just a little more over the top, it could be something right out of 24, and it is not easy to top 24. Whenever I feel the urge to stop the Antichrist embodied by the U.S. Government, I pause for a moment, remember that I'm not crazy, and move on with my life. Haven't these people ever heard of Lazer Tag? It's SO MUCH FUN! You can shoot people with lasers, check your score, and call it a day. If you want to shoot more, pay a few more dollars and go shoot some more people with lasers. It's a perfectly fun and danger-free way of shooting people.

Can anyone explain to me the relative stronghold and proliferation of the Michigan militia when compared to other states? I wouldn't think we necessarily have more crazy people than other states, but I guess it's a possibility and would explain most of it.

Unrelated to Anything

2010-03-28T00:14:00.002-04:00

Courtesy of the aforementioned busy things going on right now, general TV watching has been way down. Despite this indescribably sad drop off in my life, I still try to make time for Days of Our Lives for an occasional workout.

I'm starting to think that I'm not in the prime expected demographic for the purposes of advertising for the show. The primary reason for this is the potty dance. What's the potty dance you ask? Thanks to the power of the internet, I would like to share the potty dance with you right now:

The potty dance is played over and over and over during the show, and Huggies must pay for the prime spot at the very beginning or end of the commercials in a somewhat feeble attempt to bust DVR watching. I guess in some ways they are succeeding toward this end because I find myself both wanting to do the potty dance and to buy diapers for someone - anyone. Unlike the embedded YouTube video, the commercial typically runs 30 seconds, whereas the full on version runs a full 2 minutes. I hope the guy who wrote and performed the potty dance made big dough for this. Huggies probably paid him was booze right upfront and demanded the final version of the potty dance in the next ten minutes.

A Disturbing L&O Trend

2010-03-24T22:12:00.004-04:00

There isn't much better than the brilliant consistency of Law & Order. Not the sex one, not the one starring Lilith from Cheers that isn't on TV anymore, not the one with that guy from Full Metal Jacket, but the original L&O originally starring Michigan native (and graduate from my high school) Michael Moriarty. I think according to L&O lore he is actually hiking through the mountains in Nepal or something like that right now (and astute TV watchers know that he was returned to earth on the show The 4400 and was given the ability to make minor earthquakes). A few months ago I wrote about a developing personal plot line in the series regarding one of the characters (played by S. Epatha Merkerson who is ALSO a Michigan native) and her ficitional battle with cancer in the show. This still remains a troubling part of the series because the show is attempting to veer into the personal character interest side of things that they have typically glossed over in the past via occasional mention (McCoy slept with an assistant lawyer who he later married and then divorced, Detective Curtis cheated on his wife with Julia Roberts [see correction in the comments section on this point] and later his wife was diagnosed with MS , Detective Briscoe had a drug addict daughter who was killed by a drug dealer). This cancer component is still a regular component of the show and I mentally tune out when we're forced to watch Lieutenant Van Buren in the doctor's office. If I was a good blogger, I would place a link here to this original post, but I can't find the original post in my history so I'll leave it up to my rabid readership to hunt it down (which means no one will ever see it again). update: I found it

After watching the episode from this week, I've noticed an even more disturbing trend in the direction of the conclusion of the individual shows. Going back over the past 20 seasons of Law & Order, one of the tried and true approaches of the ADAs has been to trick the bad guy into saying something incriminating on the stand. Sometimes it is a subtle slip up from the defendant, sometimes it is catching the person in a lie, and every once in awhile the perpetrator gets worked up and says something stupid like "I DID IT BECAUSE HE DESERVED IT." This last occurrence is the absolute best because most of the time the defendant carefully crafted the crime, perpetrated the act, and then painstakingly concealed it, but despite this level of planning and intelligence, the New York ADA could fool the criminal into shouting out publicly on the stand in front of the jury and declaring personal guilt.

I accept that sometimes the story writers have written themselves into a corner and there is no other way to cleverly reveal the defendant's guilt, so this is just one fallback solution in the bag of guilt-identification tricks. However, this season, the show is relying far too heavily on this crutch. It's kind of painful to watch 30 minutes of police investigation, 30 minutes of law process, and then Cutter says something to the criminal like "you can't control your girlfriend" and then the criminal says "that's not true, I made my girlfriend have SEX with that one member of the jury because I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT." I love you original Law & Order and I pray that you never leave this world, but endings like this make it easy to understand why it is so easy for some people to poke fun at the predictability and weaknesses in the show. You can do better.

Government Makes no Sense

2010-03-21T23:43:00.003-04:00

I have absolutely no understanding about how my government actually functions. I swear that I took the mandatory social studies classes in grade school and in high school I excelled at AP U.S. government. Including college courses, that was probably the most insane class I ever had. The teacher required 3-4 one page essays 4-5 days a week, every week for the duration of the class. I exaggerate not, and any of my fellow classmates can corroborate this. This class is probably the one that taught me to type better and faster than all of the instant messaging on AIM that a high school person did during the true explosion of instant messaging. This class also taught me how, above all, to generate reams of content - even if I have nothing important to say. Astute readers and dumb readers alike can probably see this trend in almost every single post.

As I type right now and watch MSNBC, there is a larger window of C-SPAN with the big heading:

"On Motion to Recommit with Instructions" - Yea 192, Nay 227

What the hell is going on? The internet tells me that this is big news because the health care bill passed, but what is recommitting with instructions and how did the Nays beat the Yeas but yet the Yeas are really the people who won? And why was Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan so instrumental in the Nays beating the Yeas but in bizarro voting world? If I want pulled pork, I don't say "no thank you on everything but pulled pork", I say "Hellz Yea, give me that pulled pork." Furthermore, how did this bill actually pass? The Senate couldn't pass something but then they did because they sent it to the House and it went through something called Reconciliation and then it has to go back to the Senate for adjustments (even though it has already passed) - but then after all that I think the American voter can vote this bill down in the next major election despite everything else. This reminds me of absolutely nothing I learned in AP U.S. Government about 10 years ago. What does this have to do with the Hamilton letters?

Other things that have bothered and deeply confused me quite recently about the government - how was one person (Senator Jim Bunning) stop a bill extending unemployment benefits when every other person voting on this bill wanted it to pass? They didn't teach that in U.S. Government either. What statutory language regarding abortion and how is it relevant to an executive order regarding abortion? I feel like the concept of Executive Order was invented 10 years ago that gives the president the right to do whatever the hell he wants (prove me wrong, she's out there) without any checks or balances from the other branches of government (I guess that's the only thing I learned from U.S. Government).

The problem with government is I don't even know how to ask a question to get an explanation for things I don't understand, because I don't have the slightest idea where to start. No one has the time to make understanding government their full time hobby, and it seems like this is the only way to figure some of this stuff out. Let's take a vote!

Busy as a Busy Person

2010-03-20T21:32:00.003-04:00

I see my mom, dad, and Maureen almost every day these days and they're pretty much the only people who read my writings, so this whole exercise is pretty pointless. Just in case someone accidentally stumbles upon the website, I felt obligated to just make a quick mention of the fact that right now I am extraordinarily busy and I have to split my free time between my loves of catching a few moments of recorded television and writing about Michigan. Every once in awhile, I attempt to combine these things and it never really goes that well. My current weekday goes like this: Wake up, perform analysis, go to meetings, try to get in a run, paint new house, fall asleep. My weekend goes like this: Wake up, check email, paint new house, sand new house, take a work call, do some work based on the call, return to painting house, go to sleep. This won't go on forever, it just so happens that work has greatly intensified at the same time as this whole home ownership thing. Whoever told me (no one) "there is no less work than owning a home" was totally full of it. In this instance, "it" means crap. Stick with me people.

I'm Not Irish

2010-03-17T20:40:00.003-04:00

I love joviality, but I don't much care for St. Patrick's Day. Every year it reminds me just a little bit of everyone who was cooler than me in high school through college who had something fun to do on St. Pat's evening, and I was left to wonder why I could never reach their levels of cool. Because I remain uncool, the memories still sting and I don't know if I'll ever get over my aversion to this day. I did marry a girl who is largely Irish who is far cooler than me, but she doesn't have any special love for the day so I can get away with my dislike.

However, since it is the singular day to celebrate Irishness, it seems appropriate to write about something to do with Ireland. Yesterday my brother messaged me (if you're wondering he's still in California but we'll get to see him on a visit home soon) with a link to this website to which you should go immediately. It's a battle of the Irish bands thing and the winning band gets a free trip to Ireland. This is a good opportunity for me to promote Ireland, Michigan, and to test the awesome power of my pen because you should go and vote for the band called Finvarras Wren. In the past, I've mentioned a family named the Perkins clan that makes up a pretty great Irish band based out of Michigan (also, Mr. Jim Perkins performed at our wedding and was absolutely fantastic).

Unfortunately, you have to register for the contest to try to ensure no one places multiple votes, just make sure that you uncheck the one box that would allow them to send you a newsletter at some regular time interval. Mostly because of my influence, we were able to get Brandon Inge to the All-Star game last year, so let's see if we can get the Perkins to Ireland this year. If you vote for Finvarras Wren, I can guarantee a psychotic leprechaun will not not ruin your evening tonight. No promises about tomorrow.

Mis Represent

2010-03-15T20:21:00.005-04:00

Some things are worth nitpicking and other things are not worth this level of attention. For example, if you have nits, it is totally worth your energy to go through the picking process. One thing that to me is worth this additional energy and makes me crazy is when Michigan is subtly slighted in forms of national press. There are plenty of things that don't require subtlety, so the perceived modest digs are all the more frustrating and unnecessary.

Despite our modest recent house purchase, the national housing market did not instantly bounce back as Maureen and I anticipated once word got out that we were in market for a home. Apparently, not even my influence stretches that far. These types of reports are coming out less frequently than mid-to-late last year, but a new report came out today that indicates that mortgage delinquencies/foreclosures are at a new all-time high. The situation in housing continues to worsen, but the pace of deterioration has slowed since last year (we still live in an interesting world where things getting bad slower is a victory). As usual, the write ups on the study are innocuous and boring, but there is one part in the CNN Money article that, while minor, is offensive to the image of Michigan. This part reads:

"The worst-hit areas are the usual suspects: the boom-and-bust states of Florida, Nevada, Arizona, California, plus the economically savaged areas of Michigan and Ohio. Also up there are Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana and Illinois. But few states are escaping the problem; it's just that the worst states are so, so bad it makes the others look relatively good."

I, as a potential outsider harshly judging Michigan, would take this sentence to indicate Michigan as the 5th worst state in the country in terms of mortgage delinquencies and/or foreclosures. The vague wording "also up there are..." would lead ignorant me to believe that the immediately following list of states has its share of problems, but nothing like the "economically savaged" state of Michigan. In fact, if you look at the table corresponding to this poor analysis, every one of those "Also up there states..." has a worst delinquency/foreclosure rate than Michigan, some several percentage points worse. My frustration with consistent poor Michigan reporting like this, I believe, justifies me actually stealing the chart from CNN and including it below.

Michigan reporting like this is nothing new, but it remains my responsibility (and you if you're not a terrible person) to point out inconsistency like this to others in the nonstop image battle in attracting residents, businesses, tourists, and whatever other types of creatures (excluding Komodo Dragons) want to live here.

Where in the World...?

2010-03-10T16:42:00.002-05:00

If you finish those ellipses points with the name "Mitt Romney", then I can tell you.

For most of today, I was at the Westin Hotel in Southfield, MI for mysterious and secretive reasons (world-famous bloggers convention). Upon returning from lunch, a red Chrysler minivan was pulled in front of the main entrance of the hotel. A handsome man stepped out of the passenger's seat and his handsomeness struck a familiar chord with me. Awkwardly, I pointed directly at him and said to the person next to me "Hey Look! It's Mitt Romney!" Smooth as silk I am.

A few hours later, there was a Fox2 news van pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, so they must have read my post before I even wrote it and tried to hunt Mitt down at the hotel because of my breaking news.

This is simply more evidence that famous people can't help but be pulled toward my natural gravitational force. I guess putting on the extra pounds since Christmas has had some benefit.

Bottoms

2010-03-09T22:52:00.004-05:00

Calling a bottom to most anything (excluding roller coasters and limbo contests) is an extremely tough thing to do. It always seems like there is at least a little farther to fall. This is why I'm not about to call a bottom for Michigan, but rather consider the implications of what it means if we have passed our low point. Michigan continues to lead the country in unemployment, but the state notched another decrease in unemployment to 14.3% in January. That is a lot of unemployed people, but since last year when unemployment in the state was about 15%, there has been a steady decline in this painful metric for the last several months.

On top of this, the automobile industry (in terms of U.S. sales volumes) shows maintained signs of picking up (with Ford seriously picking up in volume) and the rate of decline in home prices is declining (the overall prices are also declining, but the pace is slowing. It's like at the bottom of the sledding hill when you're still going down but slower).

Michigan faces continued massive budget gaps but considering the events of the last year, this budget gap is considerably smaller than several states with better unemployment and housing numbers. Kwame Kilpatrick may actually end up in jail and spring is within reach. The Red Wings are back in the playoff hunt and there is a chance that Dontrelle Willis will land a regular spot in the Tigers' pitching rotation this year. If we have experienced the Michiganocalypse, is the future guaranteed to be bleak? Maybe, but maybe not.

It often takes years for the full effects of massive job loss and reduced tax base to hit a state and its inhabitants. Public services over time degrade and eventually cease, and simple things that are annoying but we take for granted like road repairs become more infrequent and untended. Without knowing what might happen in some future years because of the difficult past couple years, I very much look to the future with hope. This hope is primarily based on the knowledge that despite a year (starting almost a year ago today) in which everything went wrong for the state, we're still here. This is a message that I, and others, have fallen back on before, but that does not make it any less significant to me. People still go out to eat in restaurants and Best Buy is still filled with people buying things that they should be buying from Amazon. Traffic isn't half as bad as many major metropolitan areas, but the roads are anything but abandoned. Just the other day I saw the new sign for the battery manufacturer A123 systems go up on a building off of I-275, and Dow keeps plugging away in Midland creating jobs in the state. Quicken Loans, while smaller than when it was at its peak, is maintaining its commitment to move it's headquarters into the Compuware Building downtown. The city of Detroit is considering a crazy but awesome Hail Mary of shrinking the city to match the reach of city services to the actual population (I know this will likely never happen but it's never been so clearly discussed by anyone in Detroit leadership as Mayor Bing). Houses may not be selling for as much as the sellers would like, but "Sold" signs are popping up at this time of the year all over the place.

When I imagine the worst specific things that could happen to the state and people of Michigan, most of them have happened in the past 1-2 years. Things will remain tough for some time, but we're a tough group (well, most people except me. My girlish hands are all kinds of scratched and bruised from home repairs). Things can always be better, but I'm thinking that just maybe we've seen the worst. That is the kind of statement that drives my mom absolutely crazy because you're asking for trouble. Screw you, trouble. We've proven we can take you.

spring but then winter but then really spring

2010-03-07T21:32:00.002-05:00

As has been the case since at least 1982, it is again clear that winter will break and be replaced with good things like leaves and birds and increased warmth. This is a spectacular thing and can only be legitimately appreciated by those who have have temperatures that vary by 100 degrees over the course of the year. Kids are out riding their bikes and people who haven't walked their dogs for the past 4 months are increasingly in my way on my runs. Before you know it, I'll be complaining about losing to some softball team that brought in ringers during the playoffs. Stupid ringers.

As has also been the case since at least 1982, Michigan weather is inconsistent. It gets warm, it gets cold, it gets really warm, and then it snows before it hits 75 that same week. This is obvious, and while we all talk about "how surprising it is that it's snowing in April," it's really not that surprising, it's just something to talk about with people with whom you otherwise have nothing about which to talk. This is all fine and good and part of working with people in offices, so we continue on with the farce of surprise. Plus, no one likes the guy who challenges the social norm and says things like "it snowed in April the last three years." Just go with it, that guy.

Today The Detroit News wrote up a quick article on the current warm weather. They mention that it is going to stay at or near 50 all this week, which is pretty great, but the best part of the article is the last sentence, where it says "Though spring officially arrives March 20, meteorologists warn that past years suggest it may be too early to rule out another snowfall." Is that what meteorologists warn from their years of specific training to deliver the weather to us? Geologists warn that California may be prone to earthquakes due to recently experienced earthquakes. At the very least, I'm happy to know that meteorologists are no dumber than the rest of us in using past experiences to vaguely predict the future. If it was anyone but meteorologists, I would probably call whoever it was making this prediction a bunch of idiots, but now they have legitimacy.

Every year I forget how boring the Oscars are until I try to watch them. What is it about optimism that causes me to give something so bad another shot year after year?

Vigilant of the Vigilant

2010-03-03T21:27:00.002-05:00

Just a fair warning to the Michigan residents trying to make their way to or from work or the grocery store these days - I'm not sure what is going on but it appears as though cops are EVERYWHERE right now. Is anyone else observing the same thing over the past week (Maureen just said that she totally agrees so that's two people)? I know there are certain weeks or weekends when cops around the state perform some variation of a sting operations where they are particularly focused on speeding tickets or other moving violations so they hit the streets in force with the intent of generating as much revenue and ruining as many people's driving records and auto insurance bills as possible, and maybe this is one of those weeks. In particular, I can speak primarily to the Ann Arbor to Royal Oak stretch of freeway and side streets thereabouts, but there have been cops all over the place and lots of poor folks waiting anxiously to figure out what kind of ticket(s) they're about to be stuck with.

What really sucks about this to someone like me is that I'm not much of a speeder, but I do kind of regularly hover about the 74/75 mph range to help me to get to places a little faster. This is typically easily slow enough to keep away from speeding troubles, but when the cops are out in force like right now, they'll pull you over for just about any speed over the posted limits.

So, friends, stay vigilant and try to make it through this crackdown without any new infractions. Don't break any laws, but if you do mildly break some laws, keep your eyes open.

Something for Everyone

2010-03-02T23:30:00.002-05:00

Revel in the development of a human who is much like a regular person, only way smaller and unable to make words and memories. One day when he's an anorexic neurosurgeon, we'll reflect back on his dexterity at 14 months, as well as his strong interest in preferring his food on the ground as opposed to his tummy. I dare you not to smile, and if you win this dare, you are a joyless person.

Dummies, We

2010-02-27T22:48:00.003-05:00

Normally my ridicule of others is intended to throw you off the scent of my wide and deep swath of personal insecurities. It's standard grade school bully stuff, and it works even better on the internet when people a) have no idea who you are and b) don't care enough about you or even know you exist to fight back. Through a carefully crafted plan and messaging over the past approaching two years, I have undoubtedly convinced you that I have my shiz together and I am the gold source for all of your opinions about pretty much everything.

I am pained, then, to pull back the curtain on the absurdly exciting details of my life to reveal that I am as big a dummy as most of the dummies that regularly bother me.

For at least the past 3 or 4 days, maybe ranging up to a week, I have been absolutely freezing. It had all the preliminary trappings of one of the rare instances in which I get sick - I get so cold it is impossible to get warm and this transitions into a fever with the possibility of vomiting or butt vomiting. Yup, butt vomiting. The weird thing about it was that every day I was freezing, but no other symptoms were forthcoming. It was odd enough that I mentioned exactly this to Maureen when I was showering last night prior to inadvertently giving myself a nosebleed. By the way, giving yourself a nosebleed while in the shower may be the worst time to get a nosebleed. You'd think it might be optimal, but there are several reasons why it's not so great. Contact me directly for additional naked shower nosebleed information.

The solution to all this is obvious. The heat in our condo went out at some unknown point in the past (surprise, surprise). We called the repair service, some talkative guy came out tonight, and bam, not so freezing anymore.

My dummyness comes through in a few different ways in this situation. First, it took me like 2 or 3 days to check the thermostat temperature after I first realized I was freezing. At that time, there was a 7 or 8 degree variance between the temperature setting and the internal temperature. Did this strike me as odd? No. I turned up the setting and called it a day, happy to have diagnosed the disconnect, and content that the problem was solved. Second, on following days, I remained freezing but not once did I check to see if the thermostat setting and internal temperature were out of whack even though I WAS ALREADY AWARE THIS WAS A PROBLEM. Third, a tiny part of me thought that Maureen was trying to cleverly and subtly kill me by freezing me to death. I accused her of this a couple days ago. Finally and simply, at no point prior to tonight did it even enter my mind that being freezing for multiple consecutive days in the middle of winter may have anything to do with a broken furnace.

I'm going to be a fantastic homeowner.

Who Wouldn't Want Increased Mileage

2010-02-25T22:22:00.003-05:00

Wait, millage? Hold on....

OK thanks to the internet, I now have a better understanding of why some people may confusingly be pro-mileage but anti-millage. I mean, it's almost worse than a regular tax because it's hiding a tax under a fancy word that combines machining solid materials and growing old. I'm not sure how putting milling and aging together means taxes, but that is the crazy world of 2010 in which we live. Whenever it snows more in North Carolina than Michigan for a season you know things have gone freaking bananas. B - a -n -a -n -a - s. And that, my friends, is what we call filler.

Earlier this week was one of those election days that you don't even know is going on if you don't live in a city with an election and you only watch television via a TiVo. The biggest elections seem to have been in Troy and Bloomfield Township where there were millage proposals on the ballot. Pro-millage people said that without this new tax, police would need to be cut, libraries closed, and no more free hot dogs on Fridays. Neither place currently offers free hot dog Fridays, but they could guarantee that there definitely wouldn't be free hot dogs if the millage proposals didn't pass. Anti-millage people, channeling the brilliant Glenn Beck (who Jon Stewart hilariously pointed out claimed that he learned from "free" books from libraries which are ironically paid for by the taxes that he was arguing against in the speech that he praised free library books) argued that all of life's problems can be solved by "slashing budgets", "stopping services", and "removing free hot dog Fridays."

So the big question, then, is with the defeat of the millage in Troy, what happens next? Troy city leaders said that if this measure did not pass, the police force would need to be drastically cut. Who is going to protect your new Gucci bag as you're walking out of Somerset, you ask? Not the mall cops once you're out of the mall. Unfortunately, I don't think city leaders have any option but to carry through with their threats to send the appropriate message to cities across the state - if we say there will be a consequence, there will be a consequence. It's not a punishment, just the realization of the choice specifically and clearly made by the people of the city. If A, then B. Opponents said "the city must now cut costs, hooray we win." Perhaps you do citizens, but who is going to stop me from peeing on various city buildings? I've been drinking water all night.

Slow Down

2010-02-23T23:00:00.002-05:00

This is officially my first mention of the whole "out of control Toyota" thing going on right now. I refuse to provide a link to any specific article about this vehicular issue because if you do not know to what I refer, you are a disconnected person and there is no redeeming you. It is OK to be disconnected, but you should really take a look at your life and figure out how to get better connected to the world (hint: keep reading my blog). It's not that events, pop culture, or other current goings-on are necessarily that critical to your life, but if you are aware of almost nothing, how is anyone ever supposed to engage you in conversation at the bar or elsewhere. No one cares about whatever weird hobbies you have, they just want to talk about this week's LOST and that Vonn girl from the Olympics.

Point being, I haven't touched on this big issue that has the possibility to shake up the global automotive industry and have a long-term profound impact on Michigan. It's not that I have a problem with kicking someone when they're down. That's the best time to kick someone because you can take your biggest and best shot at that moment. It's the ideal moment to unleash all that kick training in which you've engaged over the course of your life because there is nothing to stop your leg flow except a squishy pile of human to cushion the slowdown of your foot. I've just been trying to avoid sounding like a Big 3 apologist despite my strong apologist tendencies. Without specifically addressing the issue of unstoppable Toyotas flying through the streets, there are a few things about this constantly unfolding story that are of particular note to me:

1) I will never understand why Toyota owners are so unfailingly loyal to their Toyotas. "Because they're dependable and great cars." Well, it appears as though there is some small degree of contrary evidence in the form of 8+ million vehicles that may or may not be able to stop. "But that's only one part of a car and my car has never given me a problem." With all respect to the newly associated tragedies out there, it only takes one of these kinds of problems. Yeah absolutely other manufacturers have had various safety and dependability issues through the years, but for some reason people fled from these issues and never looked back. With many Toyota owners, it very much seems like the other guys remain evil, and these owners would far rather defend their speedmobiles than consider an option they abandoned years ago. The is indefensible. That's a challenge. Defend yourself.

2) In the same vein as (1), why is it cool and praised for Toyota to throw up the "we suck, sorry" commercial all over the place on TV and when the Big 3 went that route back during bankruptcy times, people responded with "yeah you suck, and you shouldn't have spent money on that commercial."

3) I can't get off of point number 1. Sometimes I think we live in bizarro world. Here's a quote from the CEO of AutoNation - "What's fascinating about the American people is that if they see a company that's done it right for decades, but has a bad moment and makes a mistake and owns up to it and commits to change and does everything possible to make it right, the American people will understand and forgive." That thought is inherently flawed. If I've been doing something wrong for the last ten years and someone only caught me doing the wrong thing this year, did the last ten years never happen? Because that's what this guy seems to be saying. This statement becomes even more bizarro when one realizes that there is evidence that they may have been aware of potential problems and dismissed these problems during that ten years.

Alright so maybe that is one point repeated three times. It's kind of fun for once to have a shield.

From the Department of Forbes' Douches

2010-02-19T18:22:00.003-05:00

For the third year in a row, Forbes publishes its list of "10 Most Miserable Cities in America". First let's get the first Forbes bashing out of the way and say that in two years' time Forbes will be entirely irrelevant as it will have declared liquidation-style bankruptcy as print media continues its march into irrelevance and struggles to find profit in the transition to web-based news and media. To try to cling to some small corner of the public consciousness, they go about a few times a year inventing lists that help them ignore their own failings by highlighting the flaws of other places. The quality of their lists and metrics can be shown to be false nearly quantitatively, as I will address shortly. So for the second year in a row, I say screw you Forbes.

In the first year, Detroit ranked number one on the miserableness scale. Last year, Detroit was number 7, and this year we've fought our way back up the list to number 4 - trailing Cleveland, Stockton, and Memphis (and while we're not number one, this doesn't stop some websites from showing a picture of downtown Detroit as an introduction to their slideshow). Screw you as well, MSN.com.

This year I want to take issue with one particular element of the list to which a writer for The Detroit News drew my attention and automatically throws into question the validity of every single measure that forms the miserable index. Detroit (the metro area) ranked as having the 2nd worst commute in the entire country. Are you kidding me? How the hell can anyone get off saying that we have worse traffic than Chicago or LA? You can't drive through Chicago anytime from 12:01 AM Sunday morning through 11:59 PM Saturday night without being caught in an hours-long traffic jam. There isn't even an argument here, so it's obvious to say that Forbes is wrong at least on this point, and if you disagree, you are a moron. Yes, you.

My favorite line from The News' article is from some guy named Dennis Zitny. He couldn't have put it more clearly or concisely:

"'I find that study not to be relevant to my lifestyle and most of the people in the state, so I reject it.'"

It's not possible to say it better, except maybe if at the end he added "...and the people at Forbes are a bunch of douchebags. Screw you Forbes."

Crime Always Pays

2010-02-16T22:32:00.002-05:00

Today is a magical, but falsely so, day for this endeavoring and endearing blogologist. On February 25th, 2009 (the last Heavy Tuesday) I wrote a dumb piece highlighting why I thought it made sense for America to move to a Paczki-based currency system. I'm still behind the general concept of baked goods backing our currency and Paczki as this baked good makes as much sense as any other baked good (they all make no sense), so I have no reason to update my thoughts from this time last year.

Where this is most interesting is that earlier today, friend and all around good person Katie, emailed me that when she did a search for "paczki" in Google Images, an image that popped up near the top of her search was the photo I stole for my currency article linking to this article. That seemed pretty interesting, but I assumed it was an anomaly. However, at the time of this writing, I have just under 200 unique website visitors on the day - easily an all-time high. This is a spike of approximately 199 visitors on a per day basis (and I come almost every day), and this spike must certainly be entirely driven by the photo I borrowed from the internet. I know this because, ironically, no one cares about the Michigan governor race (see yesterday). This day has taught me a few valuable lessons:

1) I'm not sure if a picture of a doughnut constitutes "intellectual property", but if it does, stealing intellectual property is a great idea.

2) The key to generating website traffic is to focus on a topic that no one cares about 1/364th of the year, but that one day of interest can really make a difference.

3) I am incredibly heartsick that a paczek (singular for paczki) did not find its way into my tummy this Lardo Tuesday. This is an insult to my Polish heritage and I will focus for the rest of the year to eat as many donuts as possible in an attempt to approach the number of calories I would have otherwise consumed in the form of a paczek.

Help Wanted

2010-02-15T23:28:00.003-05:00

You would think that during times such as these with unemployment stagnantly sitting at uncomfortably crazy highs, people would be clamoring for every last available job. This logic appears to break down when you consider the non-race for the governor of Michigan. Today another realistic governor candidate, Bob Bowman, decided that he also wanted no part of chief executive of Michigan.

I say also because he is the most recent in a long line of individuals (it's not that long a line when you compare it to the line of a roller coaster or a line at The Red Coat Tavern but still kind of long in the realm of viable gubernatorial candidates) who has backed out of the race without really actually entering the race. His departure-without-entering is a shame because he looks like kind of a handsome guy from the picture and something about him reminds me of a young Santa Claus with both less fat and beard but the unmistakable Santa twinkle in his eye. The following people were all considered potential (maybe likely) candidates for governor who bailed:

Denise Ilitch
Hansen Clark
Dennis Archer
John Cherry
L. Brooks Patterson.

None of these people really gave a great reason for backing out like cowardly lions, but most likely, they all realized they didn't have the Cojones to step up to the plate and hit a white knight touchdown for Michigan. Sports and Medieval metaphors! Without having more information, every quitter feels like a personal rejection or mild affirmation that some of our problems may just be beyond repair. I refuse to accept this, so again in the absence of better information, we'll have to assume that all these people are no smarter than me - and we are therefore way better off without having them as governor. Maybe we do need a nerd?

Throw in Jail, Make Him Eat Key

2010-02-11T22:55:00.003-05:00

Life in Michigan wouldn't be life in Michigan without a very regular reminder of how easy it is to unite in hate toward a common individual, and I wouldn't be me if this hate wasn't directed toward Kwame Kilpatrick.

Recently, an awesome judge forced KK to pay every dollar of his million dollar restitution, and much of this restitution on an accelerated schedule ($320K in the next three months). At the time, this ruling was the sweetest music to my ears I could have imagined and I'm not ashamed to say it moved. KK was trying to get out of his restitution claiming some sort of BS poverty despite the significant quantity of money that had been clearly shifted into his wife's name - Christine Beatty. No wait, Carlita Kilpatrick. It's hard to keep clear which woman sleeping with Kwame is his wife. Basically, the Kilpatrick's were betting that their ability to be brazen assholes would convince the court that no one that brazen should have to pay anyone for anything. Oh happy day, this strategy did not work.

In a new court filing, convict KK claims that he will be unable to meet his bill to the city of Detroit for $79,011 by February 19th. After a little more legal wrangling, the judge would be fully within his legal rights to have the obese guy with the thick beard and text message fetish thrown into jail. Most people are saying that this ultimate action is unlikely because it reduces the likelihood that Detroit will ever receive the $1M that it is owed for the debacle. This is true and there are far better ways to get money from someone than to throw that person in jail, but there can be no better outcome than more jail time for the former mayor. A million dollars is a lot of money and may be able to patch a couple more pot holes in the city over the next year, but Detroit citizens and visitors should be proud to pay for any damage to their vehicles from running over said potholes. Those potholes represent vengeance, pride, vengeance, other types of focused hatred, and vengeance. This sack of a man nationally made us all look like dillholes and there is no punishment too severe for the worst human being who ever lived who was not directly responsible for someone's death (oh wait again, I guess we're not sure about that either).

Technology for Pity

2010-02-10T19:58:00.004-05:00

The internet lords of Google made a big splash today when they announced that they are hoping to build a fiber network with download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second. That's like 60 gigabits in one minute (do the table conversion you learned in chemistry, but only if you're a genius). The current plan is to service somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 individuals who will have the ability to watch one million minutes of Hulu in one day. The connection is going to be so fast, it will actually create more minutes in the day for the purposes of viewing internet video. The interesting thing about this project is that Google has put out a public RFI (Request for Information) in which they are receiving feedback from communities and governments regarding why Google should build this monster network in their respective backyards. For these kinds of speeds, Google will likely receive thousands if not millions of submissions from individuals and governments trying to convince them to choose their town.

Based on this, it is abundantly obvious to me that there is no way that any one person will be able to read through all of the RFI submissions. This means a few things. First, all submission readers at Google are going to be using different subjective criteria so there will be no good baseline for comparing an area's worthiness for this project compared to another area. Next, Google has to have a predetermined list of a few hundred cities or communities that they are already targeting for this work. It is simply not possible to read and compare all the returned RFI's, so first they will almost certainly filter on a given state/city combination so they can focus their efforts. Third, a highly coordinated effort from a community or city may have the ability to pull Google's eye away from some of the typical destinations like Boston or the Bay Area (or somewhere random but well known like hanging around with Buffett in Omaha). If they see a few thousand responses from a place like, say, metro Detroit, this may cause them to expand their focus list and make otherwise un-selectable places selectable.

In going through the reasons for Google to choose one place over another for this endeavor, I've been trying to figure out things to write that would bring metro Detroit onto Google's radar. Sure they have the office out in Ann Arbor and they are working to get the Detroit Public Schools (and other school districts) onto the common Google Apps platform, but Michigan has never really been considered a boon for technological innovation (after, say, 1980) or testing. For example, Verizon has their FiOS internet and cable service which is supposed to be amazing, but when searching for the availability in Michigan, their website essentially says "hahahahahahahahaha......never"

Then it struck me - can we beg for their pity and associated mercy? Google has always expressed visions of changing the world for the better with their technology, so how can we leverage the power of pity to convince them to build their network here, and through the power of the internet and quickly watching YouTube videos, they will be solely responsible for bringing Michigan mass transit, improving the education system, eliminating the budget gap, and turning every car on the road into a hybrid with functional brakes. There's got to be some angle here, and if pity is a selectable attribute, we should be able to take advantage of this better than most any place in the country. It's not about feeling bad about ourselves, just trying to convince others that we are worthy of their concern and unnecessarily fast internet tubes.

Only Google can save us!

Not Empty Yet

2010-02-08T20:29:00.003-05:00

Way back in May 2009 (back at the ripe age of 26), there was a bit of talk about GM moving it's headquarters out of the Renaissance Center into a few locations. After that, it seemed likely that they would keep their HQ in Detroit but move lots of people out of the Renaissance Center and into several GM locations, with most of the displaced finding new homes in the Warren Technical Center. These were actually the formally announced plans, so the most prominent building in the city of Detroit on the waterfront was about to lose about half of its occupants, thus reducing the time between now and Detroit becoming a virtual ghost town. Back in May, I wrote:

Michigan needs a healthy Detroit in its ongoing fight to change perception of Michigan as a whole. GM has put in a considerable amount of money toward this end - from massively overhauling the RenCen to funding a significant portion of the RiverWalk to bringing additional employees downtown to fill Detroit's streets and stores, and probably lots of things I can't recall off the top of my head.

While I can't recall any new things off the top of my head (very disappointing because I've had almost 9 months to think of something new) I remain quite grateful for this company's contributions to our struggling largest city. Because of this, I was borderline ecstatic from the warm confines of California last Friday when I read that through a series of bargains, tax breaks, and more than a little influence from a blog containing the words "Michigan Are Of We" in some sort of order, GM has decided to keep about 5K employees (including consultants) in the walls of the Renaissance Center. I'm sure this story isn't quite done yet, but the possibility of employee movement out of Detroit was so bothersome to me, it feels like Detroit has been granted a stay of execution, thanks to the generosity of the state and city governments, its taxpayers, and of course, the rest of the taxpayers of the U.S. for essentially providing enough funding to keep the state of Michigan from liquidating in mid 2009. This probably comes across as an exaggeration (like most everything I say - how meta), but for anyone who is a big state supporter and fan of Detroit, this would have been very tough from which to recover.

The Blog of the State

2010-02-05T01:44:00.003-05:00

Not sure why, but I think for the last three years I have been in California the night of Michigan's state of the state speech by Governor Granholm. This tradition held true this year and the best option available was to skim through the excerpts and analysis the following morning. As much as I love Michigan, and I do love Michigan quite a bit, there is almost nothing worse than the state of the state speeches. Does this make me a bad state supporter? It's not that the care about the subject matter isn't there, but regardless of one's political affiliation, it is borderline impossible to believe that anything that any governor has to say has any relevance on the direction of the state. At heart, I believe that governors of all beliefs mean well and genuinely believe that they have the capacity to do anything about anything through their leadership. However, it is somewhat depressing that these speeches are nothing more than a reminder that governors exist at times beyond a month before and after the state budget is due. It would have been honestly refreshing if Granholm stood up and said "holy god this last year sucked hard. I'm not sure how we made it out alive with unemployment beneath 20% and with absolutely zero non-Michigan State sports-related riots, but we're here and fortunate that things aren't worse." That kind of statement doesn't go far toward solving problems, but it would help me to believe that the state executive isn't coming from a place of baseless optimism and is in clear touch with reality. With that, it is time for my first and likely last annual state of the blog review. I know that I suck, so you can trust the assessment.

I use the words "I" and "me" far too much. Despite great and focused efforts, it is too much of a struggle to express thoughts without saying I. I finish a thought (like this one), read it back, and wonder how anybody can knock out an entire narrative from the third person. This problem has plagued me since second grade and early book reports. "My brother Joe Hardy and I talked to my dad, Fenton, and then we found the submarine." I want to apologize for this, but I can't do so without saying "I" 'm sorry. How do people do it?

BurgerFest-O-Rama is not dead, but it is on accidental hiatus. This remains my greatest and saddest failure to date. You can chalk this one up to "too much ambition". Now that Steve is gone, this may be a good place to reinvest some of my available energy and time. The bummer is that Steve was either my #1 or #2 burger companion either ahead or behind Maureen. The concept of this adventure was also darkened when Fiddleheads closed the day after we had our burgers there. It was too sad to bear and nearly broke my spirit.

People like simple computer shortcuts and tips. For example, don't spill Coke on your keyboard.

I regularly struggle with what people want to read about, because no one ever indicates any subject matter interest whatsoever. It's kind of like feeding a pet - I buy you the nice dog food, but you're just about as happy eating some other dog's vomit. What do people care about? Since it's so hard to tell, the focus remains on things that this writer finds awesome or less than awesome, with a bigger emphasis the last few months on unawesome things. It's a bit of a crapshoot, leaning toward crap.

I was able to pick up a few regular valued readers this past year, but aside from BurgerFest hiatus, my inability to gain any sort of broader interest is my biggest life failure. Seriously. Some guy friends told me that they thought the focus on me, TV, and food might reduce the overall appeal to the fairer sex. Glass Ceiling, Panties, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex and the City, Shoes, Vampires, ERA, Empowerment. Love me ladies!

Thank you again to everyone who has ever commented, told a friend, come back, or at least didn't say something negative directly to me.

Baby Louis remains painfully cute and a great dancer. I'm so glad Gail and Jeff had him, and this finally convinced me that people don't have babies just to satisfy their parents' desire to be grandparents. It just might be worth the work.

Despite some of the occasional jaded feelings and great quantities of wasted writing time, my hope remains that I can convince you to love, enjoy, and speak up on behalf of Michigan. The weather is sometimes better in other parts of the world, right now jobs are hard to find, and property values aren't doing so hot, but Michigan, its resources, and its people made us who we are. There's got to be something great about a place that can produce someone who has stuck with this self-indulgence to this point.

Sweet, Sweet Obligations

2010-02-01T23:30:00.003-05:00

Man, things have been quite busy around these parts. Between working on purchasing a home, traveling for work, dog sitting for the parents, getting the internet fixed, actually doing a job, and all the other personal and professional things that come with life, it's just a little bit hard to find the right time to sit down and gather my thoughts. Don't think this means I'm missing any of the valuable TV that defines my self-worth, but other things are slipping slightly (such as writing). Up until a few years ago, this would have made me crazy.

Life is a series of obligations, and for most of my life, I really, truly hated doing anything for just about anyone. It was pretty fantastic. I wouldn't say that I didn't do anything for anyone, I just didn't find much pleasure in it. Aging, even though I haven't done too much, has slowly started to change this self-centered approach to life. I also wouldn't say that I'm not still self-centered, because I definitely am, but every day I find increasing value in doing non-me-based things for others. It is almost as fantastic as doing exactly what I want, when I want, with the added benefit of actually helping out someone else.

The best thing about all this is that it's becoming increasingly easy to find satisfaction through fulfilling these obligations that previously woulda/coulda made me violently angry. People have always said that getting older enables a person to better appreciate how their actions and willingness to help out positively impacts others, but it always seemed like a load. Maybe there's hope for me and book reading yet.

After writing the above, I didn't press publish for about 30 minutes because it felt pretty self-aggrandizing. Eventually I decided it was OK because I am pretty aggrand.

Grant Me Peace and Closing

2010-01-29T23:34:00.002-05:00

I've been having a fair amount of trouble with "the man" recently. First it was the whole internet/cable saga with LandArc property management and Bright House Networks. Just as a follow up to that bit (you demand completeness in your narratives, I appreciate that), someone did something that gave us cable and internet, but that's all I can specifically say about that. Things are working and we'll leave the solution as MAGIC - for now. More details might be available after we're free from our current living situation under the oversight of the local homeowner's association. On the issue of the HOA, I would like to again emphasize that you never should live in a condo when possible. January 5th our internet went down, and after all the detail of my past posts, our landlady received word on January 22nd that the HOA would consider our request for a temporary cable line in the next 5-30 days. If not for the current MAGIC setup, I would not be able to perform my job for at least 22 days and possibly up to 47 days thanks to the fine work of LandArc and the HOA. 47 days would only hold as an outer limit if they actually review the request within the stated time line and if they did approve the request when they got around to reviewing it. I hate them so much it makes my butt pucker.

This and a few other things have driven us to the crazy point of actually purchasing a home in Northville. Yup, we're putting our money where my mouthwords are and planting even firmer roots in the state. This is fun and exciting and our first home purchase, and even better, we'll soon be far away from a property management company. We're buying a regular person-owned home, not a short sale, just like people used to do it in the 50s.

I get that lenders are super crazy anal about doling out mortgages after the credit crisis and housing meltdown and the recent alien invasion, but our lender is being downright weird.

I owe somebody 10 dollars. In my right pocket, I have 50 dollars, and in my left pocket, I have 5 dollars (3 of which I can't account for). To get to 10 dollars in my left pocket, I have to transfer 5 more dollars from my right pocket to my left pocket. I leave a clear paper trail indicating the withdrawal and deposit of this five dollars, and I can also clearly show that I have 45 dollars remaining in my right pocket. However, the seller is freaked out because of the 3 dollars I can't account for that were originally and remain in my left pocket. A sane person would say "hey, you still have 45 dollars in your right pocket so this will be no problem", but an insane person would ask you to give them a photograph of every penny that makes up that mystery 3 dollars. This is the situation with which I have been wasting far too much of my time for the last week+.

For the most part, things seem to be moving along despite some of these odd hiccups. I just want to be a proud Michigan homeowner so that I can't start losing my 15% per year on my property like the rest of the good people of Michigan. And get as far away from LandArc as possible, as soon as possible. This alone is worth the thousands in almost guaranteed investment loss.