Grant Me Peace and Closing

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.

Yes and No

Opinions are great, especially when they align with my thoughts. It saves all the time and effort of disagreeing, arguing, and eventually karate chops and arm wrestling to determine who has the right opinion. This is why I try not to disagree with my friend Mike because I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have a prayer in any sort of arm wrestling contest. He's compact and built solid, so he has both a shorter and stronger lever arm in this potential contest of strength.

This is why I was happy with the general message in an opinion piece (link unfortunately removed for now, the Free Press isn't playing ball. This is annoying because it worked 20 minutes ago. How will everyone understand my outrage?) from the weekend in The Free Press. Here's a cached excerpt, printed entirely without permission:

I am 25. I live and work in Ann Arbor. I am what many classify as a "young professional," although I am still shocked to hear myself say such things as "401(k)" and "home equity."

Here's the kicker: While many of my fellow Gen Y'ers jump ship, I am staying in Michigan. I see my opportunities right here. I believe in renaissance.

So permit me this manifesto.

It's no secret that the state is bleeding college grads, and with them the creativity and innovation that could get us out of this economic rut. There has been so much written and discussed about Michigan's "brain drain" that I think a greater point has been missed.

What is our responsibility? Where in all of this mess are we held accountable for making our own state a great place to live and work?

The only way Michigan is going to hang on to us is if we are equal partners in planning this state's future. So here are three things I think would plug the drain: etc. etc. etc.

The woman who wrote this happens to be a coworker of my wife. She is young and educated, employed, and has consciously chosen to buck the trend and live in Michigan. This is all great, and it also happens to sound vaguely familiar to pretty much every single thing I've said over the past 1.5 years in this blog. It is also pleasing to see other people, not unlike me, visibly participating in the movement I have been outwardly supporting for much of my adult life. It takes a whole bunch of people to help spread the word that living in Michigan doesn't suck, and more than that, can actually be pretty enjoyable. The more people who are young and feel this way, the better chance we stand looking toward the future.

While I remain strongly behind this viewpoint, it stings ever-so-deeply (as Louis C.K. puts it, "took a shit like right in my heart") that someone can spend an hour typing about something on which I've been spending a significant quantity of time, send it over to the Freep, and then actually get published in the newspaper. It feels exactly like that time Microsoft stole Xerox's operating system, minus the interest, money, fame, and most of the points of comparison. Is it all my poop references, because I can cut those out. OK no I can't, but everybody poops, so this should not be a limit to one's fame. In fact, I pooped twice today.

Envy is a lamentable component of the human condition, but it always helps to realize that there are at least a few vocal like-minded individuals out there. I just wish that they were less famous than me. Like way, way less famous - which I realize is pretty freaking hard to accomplish.

Louis Filler

My sister posted a few videos of baby Louis up on LouisTube over the weekend, and I've watched them all about 50 times. At this point, they are all more interesting, exciting, and funny than any recent episode of Heroes. Poor Heroes, once so full of promise and excitement. This is one of those rare times where if you're reading this on Facebook, you should probably jump over to the actual blog to see this video because it will hopefully light up your day.

For his first birthday about a month ago, some genius person gave Louis a mini ball pit. As I still love ball pits, it should be no surprise that a toddler would feel no differently. In this short clip, Louis reminds us that we all need a trip to Chuck E Cheese.

More Annoying Things

They say that Americans are fat and lazy, and this is reasonable assessment. We've all been called worse things, so being fat and lazy isn't terrible. I find fatter people are typically considerably happier (up to a point where the happiness transitions into sadness) and lazy people enjoy TV almost as much as me, so if you can't help but be fat and lazy and your health isn't at risk, enjoy what you are.

Because I feel this way, you know there is something really wrong when I find an act to be too fat and lazy.

With some regularity, I walk into a very large cylindrical glass building on the waterfront in downtown Detroit for work purposes. The door into which I walk is actually a bank of four doors; three regular pull/push doors and one electrified door that is intended for the handicapped. The handicapped door is one of those doors with a big metal button about 5-10 feet from it so when you push the button, the door automatically opens. For the dozens and dozens and dozens of times that I have walked through this bank of doors, just about every time but once I have observed some exceptionally lazy human beings pressing the button and using the handicapped door instead of exerting the exceptional amount of force to push or pull the regular doors. There is some strong non-factual evidence that handicapped and other electrified doors are causing global warming. If you ever have the option of using a regular door and you are that person who always uses the electric door, you are probably a jerk and not very many people like you.

The second point of dissatisfaction for the day is that moment where a car and a pedestrian both arrive at an intersection at the same time. Both parties come to a stop and the pedestrian waves on the car, but the car driver instead refuses the wave-on and goes ahead with a counter wave for the pedestrian. Both people have now wasted their valuable time and the world has lost some amount of productivity. This applies to all degrees of trying to out-manner someone. If I hold the door for you, walk through the freaking door - don't take the door from me and then tell me to go ahead. Just walk through the door you idiot! Whoever concedes first, the other person should proceed without question. In the instance of the car driver and runner at the intersection, the lost time will be at a universal minimum if the car driver goes first. If the runner goes first, the car driver will have to wait for the person to go all the way through the intersection before proceeding, and this is wasteful. This isn't about me being more polite than you or you being more polite than me, it's about the whole world doing things that annoy me less.

There is one other thing at which I was annoyed but my furor has since subsided since this post began, and I no longer remember what that thing was. "Don't you hate pants?"

Mercy Making News

This story is odd to me for so many reasons. The fine tooth comb that people apply to certain elements of their lives is astounding.

A little under a week ago, the website HPFansite.com reported some news that no human should have the capability to even identify as news, and because it is somewhat about Mercy High School in Farmington Hills, it is suitable fodder for me. My sister, cousins, and many of my friends back in the day attended Mercy High School, and my recent marriage brought me some new cousins who are also students at Mercy. Because of this, I'm aware that Mercy now requires its students to purchase and use HP tablet computers at the expense of their parents. I believe this policy formally started this year, so all freshwomen henceforth will be toting around more technology than most college students can afford. Rock those tablets, ladies.

What's crazy is that some random individual (either a parent or immensely creepy internet lurker who hangs around and studies the minutiae of all-girls high school websites) identified that the "HP2740p" tablet required by the "Mercy Computing Package" is big news as a previously-unannounced tablet computer. This story was big enough to be picked up by some of the big boys in internet gadgetry and electronics like Engadget, again proving that thanks to the internet, even the tiniest details of life cannot escape scrutiny. Congratulations, some weirdo out there, for beating the formal announcement of the HP2740p by a few days!

I Heart LandArc

Just to continue on from my post from Friday, I have had a few more experiences since my last update and still think it is an absolutely fabulous idea to not live in a condo. Onward with the saga no one cares about but me!

Saturday in the early afternoon, Bright House was able to send someone out to my building to try to work around the problem of the cable strung dangerously in midair. A gentleman came out and spent a pretty good amount of time trying to chisel away at the dirt between the sidewalk squares with a screw driver so that he could feed the cable between the sidewalk squares. This seemed like a pretty good solution because the cable would not be a tripping or a clothesline-ing hazard above the sidewalk. This solution would require a slight deviation from the original installation because there would be a bit more cable above ground than a pure installation (again, not possible right now because of the frozen ground), but no one would be at danger walking on the sidewalk and I would have access to internet and cable television. When I got back to my place Saturday night, the guy had finished up with his work and I felt that we had something workable until the spring. I also kind of felt like I had overblown my displeasure about the whole situation because Bright House was able to find a solution that would keep everyone happy until the time of a more permanent fix.

Well, it appears as though I originally did not hate enough the concept of property management (LandArc) and the homeowners' association. Today, someone from the property management company came out and literally cut the cable. I was cruising along on MLK day, celebrating civil rights, doing laundry, and sorting through old mail when all of a sudden my email was gone and my TV stopped receiving a signal. There was no mystery to the cause, and when I went out to the cable just to see if there was anything I could do, I was faced with a severed coaxial cable and a growing desire to take a poop on LandArc.

Two weeks after the problem surfaced, I have actually moved backwards a step because originally we at least had cable TV and no internet. Now, no TV and no internet and I've wasted a whole bunch of peoples' time. Someone from Bright House is again supposed to come out tomorrow (I think this is the 5th visit for them) and try to return us to the original setup with functional television but no internet. After this, we have to wait for a formal approval from the HOA board so that we can put the wire back in the ground exactly as it was over the weekend before they cut it and pulled it up today, and then we have to schedule an appointment with Bright House for them to come out and put the damn thing back the way they just did it about 48 hours ago.

All of this because of a great group of individuals from a property management company called LandArc. The woman I talked with at Bright House today said that she has been working in her role for 10 years and she has never in that time come across a condo association or property management company that was so inflexible and useless in helping to solve a problem.

In the great scheme of things, these problems are inconsequential and again speak to my mostly problem free existence. While this is true, it does not mean that my hatred of condo associations and property management companies can't continue to grow and fester. I will be at the hearing when you declare bankruptcy, LandArc. The HOA issue has to be the standard no power anywhere else in life, so rule over the land between the sidewalk squares with an iron fist. Can't a brother (of Steve and Gail) get internet access...and now cable television?

Things I Learned Today #8 - Never, Ever Live in a Condo

Now I know that almost everyone at some point in life will live in some type of condo setup, and not all condos are created equally (i.e. some are way better than others), but I am having so much trouble with our current condo situation that I am throwing the entire concept of condo living under the bus. Unless something significant changes, I pledge to try to never, ever live in a condo again, and you shouldn't either. Maybe to be more specific I should say never rent another person's condo. Here's why:

As I've been complaining about since a week ago Tuesday (11 days), the internet at our address has not been working correctly. After several calls, hours of frustration, and more than a few angry words, I have an exact picture of what is wrong and how it is bordering on impossible to resolve the internet situation before spring. We have what is called in internet-installer lingo a "bad drop" - which is apparently the magical thing that makes the internet work. Actually, it is the line that runs from the master cable pole coming out of the ground (the source of my entire building's internet/cable access) under the sidewalk between the pole and the building, into individual connections for each unique dwelling. Somewhere under the sidewalk, the portion of the cable that serves my residence is damaged/severed/eaten my mole men. Because of this, Maureen and I need to have our "drop replaced".

Bright House Networks, the company that repackages Time Warner cable and internet and sells it to us, has actually been quite diligent in trying to find workarounds for this problem. You see, we need workarounds because they claim that they can't work on replacing the drop because the ground is frozen (thus requiring us to wait for spring), and that even if they could bury the cable in the ground, they wouldn't be able to do it for days because they need would need lots of formal approvals from the condo homeowners' association as well as the property management company, the organization I've dealt with only once and I already hate, named LandArc.

Bright House can not run a cable on the ground across the sidewalk as this is officially a tripping hazard, so instead they have it set up like a hilariously dangerous clothesline hazard right at chest/neck level running up into a nearby tree and then across the sidewalk in the air to our building. Because I was afraid that this wire would permanently damage someone, I emailed our landlady and called the property management company, those good folks at LandArc, so that they could work with Bright House to figure out a repair that met the amazingly unyielding high aesthetic standards of a condominium complex in beautiful Livonia, Michigan as well as not run the risk of taking someone down.

Instead of this possible solution, LandArc contacted our landlady to tell her that if the wire does not come down, they will bring it down and will fine her for not going through the formal approval process. The biggest problem here is that there is no way the homeowners' association would ever approve of a wire across the sidewalk (though the sidewalk has almost zero traffic) at chest level. Because Bright House claims that they can't fix the underground line and the above ground line (either on the ground or floating in the air) is also against the rules, it appears as though it is going to be literally impossible to provide me with the internet I so desperately require for my work and income that allows me to pay these horrible people for residence. I'm good with our landlady, but I already feel like I would be happy to never have to deal with LandArc again.

When I talked to someone from that company today, she kept saying "you have to submit your request to the HOA" and I was like "I understand, but they're not going to approve the request" and she was like "you'll have to talk that over with your landlord" and I said "talk about what, my breakfast? How is talking about this with my landlord going to fix the situation?" And she said "you'll have to talk about it with your landlord" over and over and over. I wonder how much longer we could have made it with our current clothesline setup if I had not told LandArc about my concerns. I mean, I know where the cable is and I told Maureen, so our individual risk of injury is very low.

So to summarize, the underground line can not physically be replaced and anything above ground is against the condo association's rules, so it seems that my internet will be slightly more effective between now and spring if I take the Cat5 cable currently running into our modem and shove it right into my butt, because that way at least I'll get a little rise from it. This is so incredibly out of my control and all solutions are prevented by the HOA and property management company, and I will never again put my fate into the hands of people who know and care nothing about me and refuse to even discuss alternative solutions aside from "submit request in writing, talk to your landlord about it."

On top of all this, I never want to live above someone ever again, if possible. She has complained that our walking offends her. My favorite is when she came to complain last Sunday and said "two days ago we were making too much noise." The absolute best part of this is that Maureen and I were in California "two days ago"....so yeah. Condos suck.

The Funniest Thing I Accidentally Said

Just wrote this in an email to a co-worker:

"Free now, tomorrow, or could certainly do some stuff over the weekend. Steve has officially abandoned me, Maureen is bailing tomorrow night for Vegas, so I'll be left with my computer, TV, and a box of Kleenex. After writing that sentence, I realized that it could have a very unfortunate meaning, but I've decided to let it stand."

As hard as someone might specifically try to be funny, nothing is as funny as a dude getting hit in the balls.

Minus One

Today is the hardest day I've had to experience in a long time. It may not sound like that big of a deal to the average reader, and I wouldn't be surprised if most people think that I am blowing it way out of proportion. It also speaks to the fact that I have not had a particularly difficult life and because of this, it may not be able to take seriously pretty much anything that I say.

This morning at 6:50, after the family goodbye dinner last night at Redcoat Tavern, my little brother Steve got on an airplane and flew to his new job in Sunnyvale, California. It won’t be so easy to get together on Sunday afternoons anymore and watch some sci-fi television. Maureen had a pretty good suggestion that I post a list of every single TV show that I watch on Craigslist or something like that and that I try to match up my list as completely as possible with someone else’s list and then we could become TV buddies.

The situation is a tough one for the family because we have the good fortune of being so close, and it is difficult to lose another sibling/child to a new geography in a different time zone. I’ve known about this move for the last 1.5 months and have been doing my best to mentally prepare for the physical loss of my brother, but this has not helped me deal with this week as well as I hoped it would. I can’t help but reflect on all of the things that we’ve shared together because of our physical proximity throughout our lives. In the latter years of college, my sister and I would spend 2-3 hours every Sunday night at Conor O’Neills in Ann Arbor eating dinner and watching/listening to Steve play Irish music. My parents would often join us and we had a whole family thing with great frequency. We went out there last Sunday to have some dinner and watch Steve for the (hopefully not) last time.

If I can speak/write for my brother, and I’m pretty sure I can, I’m sure at this moment, in his heart, he would love to return to Michigan from the Bay Area in 2-3 years and find work and life in Michigan. In his mind, though, he also knows that it is difficult to predict where work and life will lead him, and he might not have the chance or desire to get back here to live for many years, if ever. If he finds a girl in California and she wants to settle down there, the odds drop even more. It’s tough to think about, but I’m going to have to use the next couple of years to try to come to peace with the fact that my long time dream of having my brother, sister, parents, and any existing spouses/children over for some family grilling and basic patio lounging might not become a reality.

Michigan is losing another young and educated resident, and I’m losing that rare person who you enjoy being with, even when you have nothing to do. I’m extremely lucky to have Maureen as my new companion in life, but I want my old companions of Steve and Gail back as well.

Steve, we wish you great success in California, but personally and selfishly, I wish you success up to the point that you are pretty sure you can do better wherever I am located in a couple years. I will miss you immeasurably, and I am thankful for all of the things I have had the privilege to share with you. I started to make a list of these things, but it was making me a little too sad to individually reflect on these shared experiences, so I’ll simply leave it with the food, the TV, the vacations, and all the rest of the wonderfully wasted time together. You are my brother, we’re proud of you, and I love you.

Down with Science

When I mentioned yesterday that big things were going on with family this week, it was really because I had the inside track that the findings from this study were coming out today. This is a gigantic blow to me as one of the biggest fans of television in the world.

The study findings indicate that '"Compared with people who watched less than two hours of television daily, those who watched more than four hours a day had a 46 percent higher risk of death from all causes and an 80 percent increased risk for CVD-related death," the researchers said in a statement.'

This is TV bashing and hating of the worst kind. The researchers also said that "the study focused specifically on television watching but the findings suggest that any prolonged sedentary behavior, such as sitting at a desk or in front of a computer, may pose a health risk." These horrible people went out of their way to insult television watching instead of the non-act of sitting still and doing absolutely nothing. To me this is completely unrelated to TV-watching aside from the fact that TV watching is the means to the end of being a lump.

In other words, there is a strange strong positive correlation between walking inside of a McDonald's and dying of a heart attack. Eat at Wendy's! Some parents who don't like their children watching TV commissioned this horrible study.

The only way this study could have been remotely worthwhile is if they took people staring at the wall for four hours a day and compared their health to people watching four hours of TV a day. If the TV people were unhealthier in a statistically significant way compared to the wall starers, then we may have something to talk about. What if I'm on the treadmill for the four hours that I am watching TV every day? Is it TV itself that is putting me at risk, because if you can't prove it is specifically the act of watching TV, this story should never have seen the light of day - unless they completely de-emphasized the TV watching component and focused on being sedentary. Hands off my TV, science, until you can realistically prove TV is not my friend.

Boo and then Hiss

Our internet has been down from last Tuesday through right now, and the earliest possible time that we may have internet again at our place is Thursday afternoon. In the meantime, every time I want to check my email, I have to drive to my parents house. Very convenient. My guess is that the girl who lives beneath us and is not a fan of the living arrangement crawled through the walls of the condo and clipped our internet connection. I wouldn't put anything past her.

On Thursday, someone has to come and lay a new line, crawling through three of the garages in our building and then burying the line to give me internet access. I don't hold out much hope that things will be working after Thursday as there is legitimate infrastructure work that must be successfully completed. What I'm wondering is when I call the company to get the credit for the days that we have been without internet, can I also charge them gas money it took me to get back to Royal Oak for internet access?

This is a big week for my family and there's lots to write about what is going on, so hopefully everything will be up and running soon.

Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate

It is that time when I am again reminded by how much I dislike french fries being served well in advance of the actual burger. They didn't invent the phrase "burger with fries" for no reason. They don't say "first serve me the french fries, then if I want to eat them with the burger, I'll just wait and eat them when they're cold." These two foods are on the top 5 list of perfect food compliments (remainder of list to be determined at a later date as it does not actually exist).

The reason I am reminded of this right now is because while in Palo Alto, I like to eat at a burger joint called The Counter. The Counter has made GQ's list of "top 20 burgers to eat before you die" from a few years ago (2 in Michigan at the Sidetrack in Ypsi and Miller's Bar in Dearborn - both of which I've eaten). I've eaten several burgers at The Counter and I'm not sure I agree that they deserve to be on the "before you die" type of list. It's a very good burger and all, but I think the GQ guy mostly just put them on his list because of the immense amount of available customization. I choose Redcoat Tavern any day of my life over The Counter.

This isn't about the burger, though, it's about the way they inexplicably choose to serve their fries. If I order a burger and fries at the standard food-ordering time, I get my fries in about 2 minutes and my burger in about 10 minutes. I am left with two incredibly difficult choices at this moment:

1) Eat all the fries thereby leaving no fries when the burger comes (and singularly eating a hamburger is not the right way to do it)
2) Eat some of the fries leaving the remainder to be eaten cold but with the hamburger

Because french fries have such a high surface area relative to internal volume, they have a tendency to cool very quickly. Without some sort of portable heating unit, there is no way fries will stay warm at burger arrival time, plus we all know that reheated french fries are a sad facsimile for "real" fries, so if you were crazy enough to bring a portable heating unit you would end up with a loser food product.

The only way to prevent this problem is to tell the helper to bring the food out at the same time, but then you feel like you're doing something wrong because that's just not the way they do it there. Also, if I only eat there a few times a year, it is difficult to remember to ask for the french fries at the same time as the hamburger because WHO ON EARTH BRINGS THEM OUT AT DIFFERENT TIMES? Last time I checked, this is America. I don't want to live in the country that can not appreciate the perfect synergy of fried potato and ground cow patty. Dear God, thank you for cows and their sacrifices for me to write about.

On the Road Again

My internet was completely down from sunup to sundown yesterday and remains down today. On top of that, I'm off to California from tonight until Sunday evening so I will do my best to ignore my work responsibilities on this trip and put together a few thoughts on something or other.

Today I gave a tongue lashing to a younger middle aged middle eastern woman and I kind of feel bad about that, but I've warned the world that I think it is in your best interest to keep your dogs on their leashes. Her little puppy ran all the way across the street up to my dog when I took her for a run earlier today, and if there was a car on the street at that moment, her dog would have been obliterated.

Winter Runs

Things that are perfect about taking an in-the-dark freezing cold run during a wonderful Michigan winter:

• The slight hint of gasoline in the air from people using their snow blowers
• The local ruffians playing hockey in the ice rink set up in the nearby park late into the night
• Trying to find areas of snow on the road because in Michigan, snow actually provides more running traction than most other available surfaces
• The way hair turns into icicles during the cool down walk
• Running on a really cold day actually feels pretty nice the day after walking on a really, really cold day
• Snow on the ground coupled with either the moon or a couple of house lights is beautifully luminous
• By the time it gets truly cold, the daylight is increasing every day
• How superior you feel to everyone else after finishing for braving the cold
• How comfortable you feel after a warm shower, putting on some PJs, a hoodie, and slippers, and sitting down to a hot dinner
• Not being on the hook for a run tomorrow because you took the punishment today
• Finding genuine enjoyment in something that so many other people hate
  

Gigantic Ups

While I love all of you out there, it would be a lie to say that I love everyone the same. Today the person that I love the most is an old grade school chum, Nikki, who I believe I have mentioned before. Nikki linked to me through her Facebook page and my readership today increased 100%!!!

Going from 1 reader to 2 readers may not be a big deal to you, but think of all the ants that could fit in the space of one human body, and if you do it that way, my human-ant readership increased by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.

In fact, I would like to offer up complete appreciation to Nikki and her brother, Dan, who was an early adopter and occasional linker himself. I'm not sure if Dan still lingers around these dangerous and revolutionary parts of the internet, but if you're a reader once, you're a friend for life - especially if you actually keep reading for life.

Thanks to everyone who gives a crap!

Dazed and Very Confused

Yet again I need a lesson in business. Michigan's film tax credits are under ongoing review in Lansing and elsewhere in the state, and I have no idea why. I need to see a business breakdown to get my hands around the hypothetical "problem" (see how I said hypothetical and then put problem in quotes to cast double the doubt on this side of the argument) or maybe someone out there is smart about this kind of thing.

Again, some legislature types are suggesting that Michigan's television/film tax credits are overly generous for a state with dwindling tax revenue and budget gaps. I can't begin to understand how this is the case and I really, truly hope I can hear a good explanation for the anti-tax credit side of the argument because every time I read one of these articles, I feel as stupid as when I am watching Wheel of Fortune.

Let's think this through together. I have a big huge empty house and when the house is empty, I make no actual money off the house. In fact, just holding on to the house costs me money. Looking for some revenue, I approach my neighbor, Bryan Cranston and say "Bryan, I know you are a chemistry teacher and I want to set up a meth lab in my house and you only have to pay me $100/week for the use of my space." But wait, there's more Bryan, because I know there are so many other empty houses for meth labs out there, I'm going to only charge you $50 for my space. That sounds like a win-win for both my meth cooking neighbor and me because he has a place to do his business and I make $50 I would not have made before.

Not only do we both win, but there are other tangential people who win from this business transaction. All of the local raw material and chemistry hardware suppliers now have a buyer of their goods closer to them because this guy set up shop in my property. Security guards are hired to protect the laboratory and local mechanics probably make a buck by reinforcing the car materials for additional mobile protection. The only people who lose are the people in other towns who could have had this very safe and legal source of income, but instead my house is ground zero.

I don't give Bryan money to build his lab in my property, he gives me money, just not the $100 that was the originally quoted rent. However, if I did not give him the discount, he could have chosen any number of seedy locations to produce his goods for eventual barter.

Based on this Breaking Bad logic, I can't begin to understand how these film tax credits are damaging Michigan's financial situation. This debate is painfully frustrating because I can't even come up with a metaphor to describe how frustrating it is. I mean, what is there to argue? What is negative about taking half of a pile of free money versus not even having access to the pile? See, I still can't come up with a good metaphor. This is so very confusing.

Another Moderate Time Saver

This space here is intended for rudimentary, barely perfunctory analysis of the state of the state of Michigan as well as how I feel about things ranging from appetizers to desserts. Pretty much covering the gamut of the human condition.

In the spirit of rudimentary, it is time for another one of my computer time savers. "My" is used very liberally here because this information is documented all over the place (like cnet.com), but there is little doubt that I have far more computer-savvy readers than one of the most widely read tech and gadget websites in the world. The actual truth is that I typically find when I am given a large list of computer shortcuts, I am lucky to remember maybe one of the shortcuts, but when someone points out one shortcut of high utility, I am far more likely to remember that specific shortcut.

This one is as basic as they come, but it is a useful incremental time saver. When you're browsing (be it on Firefox, Explorer, Chrome, or Opera), hit the F6 button and look up at your address bar. It's highlighted, isn't it? If that's not way better than mousing up to the address bar and manually highlighting the address so you can type over with a new address, I don't know what is. This is one of those tiny tips that I've heard about many times in longer lists, but it never really stuck in my head until earlier this week, and since that time I have been F6 crazy. At one second per day, you'll saved yourself 6 minutes over the next year. Know what you can do with that 6 minutes? read my blog.

Roast

Happy Holidays! and sorry I haven't written in awhile. Of all the funny things I attempt to say, I think the funniest may be when I apologize for not writing, as if anyone actually noted and cared that I have been slacking.

Last year, the Westin Book Cadillac opened with much fanfare as a symbol of possible rebirth (not literal - literal rebirth would be gross and difficult to replicate though my brother has kind of tried to replicate the experience) for the city of Detroit. The Book Cadillac had been abandoned for many years and some kindly developers from Ohio were nice enough to renovate the building inside and out, bring the Westin hotel chain to the party, and also include a few new restaurants to boot. The most prominent restaurant to be launched was Michael Symon's Roast to strong reviews and positive word of mouth. Michael Symon is a meat kind of guy and the restaurant is heavily slanted toward the consumption of meat stuffs. After hearing good things from friends, Maureen took me there for birthday dinner last summer and we enjoyed the experience and the food quite thoroughly.

It was with some trepidation that I returned to Roast last night with Maureen and our buddies Stephanie and Reid because since the last time I had eaten there, Michigan has faced ongoing tough news (GM declared bankruptcy shortly after my inaugural Roast dining experience) and the global economy hasn't taken a strong turn for the better (despite what the stock market shows) with Michigan and Detroit bringing up the rear. I was nervous last night that we would show up at a restaurant slowly slogging toward death, half-empty, with the wait staff clearly attempting to steal silverware and plates before the lenders show up to repo whatever copper wiring was left in the walls.

Somewhat to my surprise on a Sunday night, Roast was packed and apparently still going strong. This brought a degree of optimism to my hardened heart that splashy openings and stories of renovation aren't necessarily destined to insta-failure in the Motor City. Granted, the story of the new Book Cadillac still has a ways to go before it plays itself out, but my dining experience last night actually moved my mind away from assumed catastrophe, and I like that quite a bit. The only thing I didn't like was when Maureen and Reid attempted to spike my water with salt, the only reason being I had to pee three times during the dinner because I had too much water to drink. My astute observational skills prevented me from ingesting salt water, and I will begin planning my revenge immediately.

This isn't meant as a review of Roast, but I, and my fellow diners, have loved everything I have eaten there in my two visits. I say everything because the sides at the restaurant are crazy delicious. We decided last night that we'd like to go back soon and have a meal entirely of side dishes. I'm still not sure how is it possible that with the millions of variations of mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese I have eaten in my life, I can eat the Roast variations and have such a strong positive reaction. If you have never eaten brussel sprouts (they're Maureen's favorite vegetable, which is evidence to me that she is crazy) and would like to put a toe in the brussel sprout pool to swim with Maureen, there is surely nowhere better in the world to eat brussel sprouts than Roast. You'll just have to take my dining party's word on this one.

The meal can get a little bit on the expensive side, but you need to treat yourself every now and again if possible. This made it a little more surprising to me how busy the restaurant was despite "the dark times." I hope that I am not forced to eat my brussel sprouty words if the restaurant goes under in less than 12 months' time. I think we're all pulling for the success of the Book Cadillac and further hard evidence that trying to make things beautiful within the dilapidated is not a waste of time and money.

Joe Cool

With Christmas comes people returning home if they live far away from home and fleeing from home if they live there. This is good and bad in that it provides a great opportunity to see people who are more than a car ride away, but it also highlights how nice it would be if some of these individuals were around more often (related to my last post). Over the past year or so, I have had the opportunity to reconnect with someone who I went to school with up to sixth grade named Joe, and when he is in town, we try to make time to go grab coffee or lunch at Panera or something like that. Joe and I were friends all through grade school and parted ways for about 15 years through divergent school choices. Thanks to the magic of Facebook, we picked up more or less right where we left off. It's weird to go 15 years with only passing knowledge of someone, and then to return to a place in your mind playing roller hockey in his driveway for hours on hours without a hiccup.

Joe and I grabbed coffee this morning, and you know what? I'm more convinced than ever that Joe is a cool guy. This is true for many reasons, but the reason that sticks out to me is the unabashed and proud way he speaks of Royal Oak and Michigan. Joe currently lives and works in Virginia, a stone's throw from Washington D.C. (the place where jobs are plentiful and numbers are growing from an ever-expanding federal government), a place where many people desire living and the climate is more moderate than here. Despite this, Joe wants nothing more than to, sometime soon, find work and purpose back home.

To someone like me, this is incredibly touching and valuable. Over the past years, we have been taught to feel something approaching shame and embarrassment when it is time to tell others that we live in Michigan. You turn your eyes down in shame and feel like when you say "I live in Michigan" there's almost an immediate need to explain away our situation so as to avoid pity from our discussion partner. The bad news, the media, the economy, the foreclosures, the Detroit school system - they all conspire to take the pride away from our home. It really does make it harder than it should be to love Michigan.

And every once in awhile you talk to someone like Joe, someone who shares my point of view of pure love and appreciation of this state, and it reinforces to me again that I am not alone in a lake rowing in circles. I don't have to feel shame when I talk to Joe about our pros and cons, and I don't have any reason or need to explain to him why I choose to live here. He understands because there is nothing to understand. It just makes sense and my position is one of envy, not of pity.

Aside from my massive ego and need for self-indulgence, this is the real reason why I am still using valuable possible TV-watching time to maintain my weblog. My readership remains one hundred thousand miles from where I would like it to be (and even my rudimentary expectations are not that high), but it is more than worth it if it helps you to know that there are at least two other people in this world (me and Joe) who need no explanation from you. If this is your home, if this is where you would like your home to be, or if you stand up for Michigan wherever you are, we're with you, and we're glad to have you on the team.

One Year Later

368 days ago, baby Louis was born, and 357 days ago, Steve and I were on a plane to visit our new nephew in Minnesota. That's a whole bunch of days, a bushel of minutes, and just a ton of seconds. It was a quick year and it's hard to believe that Louis is already on his feet and moving around. It's exciting to see new life develop and even more exciting that pretty soon, I'll be able to teach Louis the fine art of crushing your enemies through sarcasm. We're going to have so much in common - our love of shoes and boxes, our hatred of Santa Claus, and our strong interest in putting our hands into our mouths.


It's also exciting that Gail and Jeff have now been living in Minnesota already for 2.5 years, and if things go according to plan, they'll be on their way back to Michigan in 2.5-3.5 more years. Residency takes a long time, and I guess brain studyology isn't as easy and requires a bit more training than whatever it is that I do. So on that front, the time thus far has flown by and I feel somewhat optimistic that we'll be able to spend more time with them in the not terribly distant future, and the time between now and then will go by somewhat fast. This is all good and well, but the biggest heart pain I feel now is that even though this time is moving by quickly, this time is moving by just too quickly. It's hard for me to comprehend simultaneously enjoying and fearing the passage of the time living away from loved ones - because you want the time to float right on by, but that just means that is time that you don't have with those people. Fortunately, we have Christmas and other holidays to all come together and remind us that the times between don't last forever. However, I still wish the times between didn't have to exist.

Local Celebrities

No, I'm not talking about me, but I can definitely understand how you could easily assume this is the case. My status as a local celebrity stretches from that wall I see over there to that wall behind me that I can only see if I turn around. Local is all relative.

The local celebrities that I have in mind today are the popular and omnipresent bar cover band The Killer Flamingos. If you live in southeast Michigan and you've ever been to a bar, there is an amazingly good chance you've heard of the band. I believe they have written some original music, but the odds of hearing that while out on the town are in the 0% range. I am fascinated by this group of individuals who seem to really, really love playing music at bars.

What interests me the most about them is when do you decide/accept that you've reached the apex of your fame? I think that they're actually quite a talented group of individuals and they do an admirable job of getting the crowd up and moving, with each member of the band representing a different stylistic stereotype from the 1990s. They've been playing music at bars as long as my legal memory goes back, and they're still playing those same bars today. Do the Killer Flamingos anticipate one day breaking into the more national scene, or are they fully content with adding a $5 cover to the local bar and continuing to play out their cover rock and roll hearts until they come to find that playing at the bar 6 nights a week is quite the commitment?

I don't want to come across as insulting because I admire people who put themselves out there for my entertainment, but this question (which is on my mind because of a night at the bar last night starring a particular band named after homicidal birds) is something with which I regularly struggle - specifically, when should you be satisfied with the success that you do have, and when is trying for more success counterproductive? It's not easy to pick the right level, and once you try, you constantly second guess whether or not you made the right decision. Which is why tonight I announce a casting call for my brand new bar cover band, the Flamingos of Killerville, featuring Ken.

Wheel of Fortune Makes Me Feel Dumb

The same thing with crossword puzzles. More than most of the time, I think of myself as someone who is probably way smarter than you. Way, way, way smarter. This feeling of general superiority lasts through most of my day, up until the moment I try to do a crossword puzzle or if I happen to catch a show that combines the concepts of fate, words, and boring personal stories.

The thing that really gets me about crossword puzzles and Wheel of Fortune is that people who I can pretty objectively prove are my intellectual minors are hundreds of thousands of times better than me at these word games. I'll look at a puzzle like "_ombination Mi_rowa_e and O_en" and if you granted me all the time in the world, I would not be able to figure it out. Maureen suggested that maybe this means I'm not as smart as I would like to think I am, but that sounds like an absurd notion to me. My brain has no flaws except for my inability to make words with letters, and lots and lots of other things.

While I am taking an in depth look at Wheel of Fortune, do you hate prize puzzles as much as I do? These make me furious. There is no way that the contestants should get the value of the prize puzzle toward their aggregate "winnings" over the course of the show. Give them the prize, give them the money they won fair and square during the puzzle, but absolutely do not count the cost of the trip toward their total winnings. The prize is often on the order of $7-8K, and this is way more than any individual typically wins in any given puzzle. I wish someone would do a study to figure out what percentage of people who win the prize puzzle go on to the bonus round. My guess is that it is somewhere on the order of 70-75%, and that does not leave enough fortune up to the wheel.

Now that I'm thinking about the bonus round, how much does this suck these days anyway? Man it sucks. They claim that somewhere on the mini-wheel there is a prize for $100K, but I can't remotely think of the last time someone opened up the $100K envelope either in victory or in crushing failure. It's always the stupid $25K, $30K, or car that there is no way they can possibly prefer over the money envelopes. Stop playing cheap Wheel of Fortune. Unlike most people, though, I can not fault Pat Sajak or Vanna White for their completely undeserved level of fame and (assumed) fortune. If I could make bank by pressing a square of light, I would ride that horse until it bucks me.

Crazy Ideas #10 - Trick 'Em

It was been almost an entire year since the last time that I had an idea. I think there is a strong positive correlation between how many ideas I have and how cold it is outside while I am running. The colder it is, the more I need to try to distract myself from my face slowly turning to ice, so there is a tendency that more really stupid things pop into my mind in the winter. When it is warmer outside, all of my focus is on trying to get my body into bikini-ready shape, so unfortunately there is almost no time to worry about single-handedly saving Michigan. This week was particularly chilly for December, even though I wasn't around for a fair amount of the cold.

My most recent crazy idea is an enhancement and update of the tax credit for first-time home buyers. If you don't know, if you have your contract in place by the of April, close on a home before June 30th, and are a first-time home buyer, the federal government will give you $8,000 for free. If it's not your first home, you can still get $6,500 if you meet a couple of additional conditions. This is a national program and is good in every state. In many regards, this plan has been a pretty solid success (at the very least, there is some pretty hard evidence that this tax credit has driven quite a bit of movement in home purchasing). Realtors love it because homes are actually selling, home buyers love it because it is some free money without which they may have not been able to buy a home, and it does some to be assisting with shrinking the glut of houses available on the market.

With all this in mind, I propose that the state of Michigan add a little boost to this national program if you a buy a house in Michigan - maybe something on the order of 1 or 2 large. This plan will help to solve two major problems:

1) Reducing the significant quantities of abandoned and otherwise foreclosed homes in the state
2) Trapping people who might one day want to leave the state by making it way harder for them to do so (insert evil laugh here)

Everyone agrees that one of Michigan's biggest problems is ongoing population decrease and brain drain for all sorts of reasons. If you can successfully trick people into buying a home here, they will be way more inclined to try to figure out how to make things work here rather than there (wherever there may be). Brilliant, yes. Also, vacant homes are problems for many reasons, including depressing property values, increased crime, and being generally depressing.

The next natural question is how to pay for all this. My initial response would be prostitution, but I don't know how you would go about accounting for income from prostitution for tax considerations. Borrowing can only take you so far and some would likely say that borrowing for a reason like this would mortgaging our children's future or "robbing Peter to pay Paul" (I've always wondered about this metaphor. I'm pretty sure it refers to the apostles Peter and Paul, but why would I rob from Peter or Paul to pay any of the apostles. I'm pretty sure the apostles were in a volunteer-type sort of business and their CEO, Jesus, would not be a fan of his lieutenants taking any sort of kick backs or payment. They're apostles, for God's sake. I think this metaphor works way better as a reference to Peter, Paul, and Mary, because even though they were hippies singing about civil liberties, they still wanted to get paid), but I'd be willing to mortgage my children's future. Then, they can mortgage their children's future and so on until Haley's comet collides with plant Earth.

I think what could have been a legitimately decent idea if it had been implemented earlier would be to use some of that sweet, sweet free TARP money we got to act as a Michigan-specific addendum to the federal housing credit. I'd rather lock up some population in the state than to have better painted lines on the road.

Home ownership, despite the major national real estate problems, remains a big part of the American dream, so we could help to make that dream a reality here in Michigan.

And no, this has nothing to do with the fact that we're looking to buy a home.

Travel Dining

99.9% of the time when we read about something interesting to see or buy on the web, the only option available to us is to catalog that thing away in our minds with the ultra slim possibility that we remember that we read about that thing some time long ago. I find this particularly true for me when I read about a restaurant or watch various chefs do their thing on Top Chef. I think it would be very nice to eat most of the food that they are creating, but I will likely never be wherever they are, and in the instance I am where they are, I will not remember that I ever cared in the first place.

That is why I found it pretty neat when I read this post in Slashfood about the former Google executive chef and chef to the Grateful Dead, Charlie Ayers. He left Google several years ago with probably billions of dollars in stock options and just recently reemerged with a restaurant called Calafia right across the street from Stanford University. Hey, that's only about 5 miles from where I'm staying right now, so I hopped in the mustard yellow Ford Focus (peculiarly, parked next to the exact same mustard yellow Ford Focus), drove 5 miles down Camino Real, and found myself dining moments later at Calafia. The best part of this is that I typically agonize for 45 minutes or so when traveling for work about where I should eat on any given evening, and by the time I decide, it's well past dinner time, and I feel guilty that I could have just had an apple and made it to bed but instead I eat a large pizza. On the way home some guy who looked like Tiger Woods was following me, but I don't think it was Tiger Woods because he was driving an old Toyota Corolla, and he wasn't in the process of sleeping with one of ten women who isn't his wife.

Despite my normal focus on Michigan, I would like to strongly recommend the restaurant Califia in the event you accidentally find yourself in the downtown Palo Alto area. I had a turkey meatloaf with swiss chard and ginger yams, and man that was a delicious plate of food. There's not much in life better than a plate of meatloaf and potatoes, and this one certainly ranks up there. I returned home, quite full, and parked my rental car back next to the identical mustard Ford Focus.

I'm Going, Going, Back, Back

California here I come - I'll be spending Wednesday through Friday this week in the Golden State for some work-related things. I don't love California half as much as many people do, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the two best things many people say California has going for it:

1) The weather
2) In-N-Out Burger

Regarding the weather, I was a little disappointed to find that it is going to be 50 and rainy in the Palo Alto vicinity. I can get that kind of weather just about anywhere in the world, so that benefit of the trip seemed to fall away quickly. However, when I checked the Michigan weather, I was fairly surprised to see temperatures plummet into the 20s with some high probability of snow. Then the question that arises is 50 and rainy in California or 20 and snowy in Michigan? I think California gets the win on this one at this time of the year - it's not that I don't like the cold and snow, it's just that this seems a little extreme for this time of the year.

On the next point, I am regularly conflicted by In-N-Out Burger. Every time with only minimal fail that I go to California, I make a trip to this fast food establishment for a double double meal with grilled onions. I like the burger and my time at In-N-Out, I really do, but I can't help but feel that this place suffers from its lofty (exaggerated?) hype. People who hear you are going out west always emphasize "you have to stop here" and people near In-N-Outs seem to enjoy them as well because they always seem quite busy. I more go now out of habit and obligation to eating meat than anything else, but I'm just not convinced that it is the greatest fast food burger place out there. Some might say its minimalist menu is a highlight (the secret menu does not count - I don't think getting another meat patty or additional sauce , but sometimes I'm in the mood for a good chicken sandwich or even a cup of chili. There is also the unique quality of being able to do something there that I can't do here, but I didn't get gay-married when I went to California and it was legal just because I couldn't get gay-married here in Michigan.

If anyone cares to comment (probably not), what are your views on In-N-Out? Better than the rest or just a pretty good place to stop on the way to the airport home? Keep in mind that if you do comment, you owe me the standard 50 cent comment fee.

Reflections on Meijer

It has been a few days since I last sat down to write as it has been a pretty busy couple of days, so I bet you are excited to hear what I've come up with after all this time! Are you in for a treat today....

First off, how is it possible that the Meijer at I-96 and Middlebelt has Edy's Ice Cream not on sale for $3.86 and the Meijer at Haggerty and 8 Mile has the exact same product for just a shade under $6.00 also not on sale. Is it a demographics thing? A few years ago Edy's downsized their ice cream containers by several ounces but kept the prices on the items the exact same. This terribly angered both my sister and me and we contacted Edy's directly to demand an explanation about these shenanigans. We both received the same form letter saying that commodity prices had increased so significantly that it was critical for Edy's to either increase the price of the current product or downsize the product and keep the current price. After much testing, they decided on their current route and that we should go sit on it. They also included a couple of coupons for .50c off our next Edy's purchase, but my rage about this issue has not subsided through the years.

Last year with the crash of the stock market and real estate values, commodity prices also fell significantly. In my heart I knew there was no chance, but I considered the possibility that Edy's would decrease the price of their new smaller containers or increase the size. Of course this did not come to pass, but I wanted to hop back on the ringer with the good folks at Edy's and try to figure out why their explanation about their ice cream pricing did not work both ways. This is not the way business works and again they would have told me to go sit on it, but I always had a dream that I would get on the phone with some customer service representative and really let him/her have it. Now it appears as though Edy's has actually done something to align the price of their product with the price of their raw materials, but only if you shop at this one Meijer. For this $2/container savings, the Meijer on Middlebelt is now the only choice for me.

While on the subject of Meijer and other grocery stores, how is it possible that U-Scan technology does not work with the speed and efficiency of They-Scan technology? It's not that we're idiots, it's just that the scanning machines suck hard at the U-Scans. I dream of the day when I can pass my groceries over the glass pane with the speed and devil-may-care attitude of the regular cashiers.

And finally, how is it possible that the signature machines at the U-Scans possibly count as any sort of legal tender. Sometimes I write K-+-asdfAfasldfjasdflkj as my name (or so the screen approximately reads) and this is enough for American Express to grant me credit? Every time I sign one of those things I'm struck by the sheer terribleness of the technology.

I lied before when I said "and finally" as I'm clearly not done yet. How is it possible that two breads next to each other have a sell by date that differs by more than a week? Whenever I purchase bread, even after a thorough search, I fear that I have bought the bread with the closer sell by date, and that fear lives with me until mold starts to inevitably form on my bread. In addition to this, it adds minutes to my day to search through the various loaves in a vein attempt to find the one with the best expiration date. Same thing with milk.

Why does Cape Cod popcorn not come in even slightly bigger packaging options? Is everyone who eats Cape Cod popcorn a little person? Popcorn by itself is not a filling snack (though quite yummy), and I don't want to buy multiples of any snack just so that I can feel I have been snack-satisfied. At the very least, Cape Cod making corporation, give me a couple of size options.

Is there any way to keep the bottom of every single milk jug from having milk coating the bottom? Maybe they could just swap out the solid metal shelves for some wire shelves to allow for drainage of gross exploded milk.


I spend significant quantities of time thinking about Meijer. I still believe it is without a doubt the greatest store in the world, but I would be willing to consult for this Michigan-based grocery wonderland just to help to clean up a few of the loose ends.

And you waited four days for that.

Seeking Some Stability

Times feel most confusing when you can't even get a grasp on how confusing things are. Two very confusing things happened yesterday just to remind us that occasional signs of stability we seek and find were probably never there in the first place. First, CNBC came out of nowhere at around 4:15 to report that the former largest corporation in the world had just parted ways with its CEO (to make way for the third new CEO in one year - 5 years ago this would be the most shocking thing that could possibly happen in the business world) and even earlier in the day, TNT announced that they were canceling their legal drama Raising the Bar starring Mark-Paul Gosselar. If Mark-Paul can't carry a dramatic series, I don't know who can.

Saved by the Bell references aside, I'm so very weary of change. The departure of Fritz Henderson has approximately zero immediate impact on my life, but it's just another variation of the expected that I could have done without. So obviously Michigan reached a point in time where the current status was years past unsustainable, warranting extreme change, but I don't think it is unreasonable to want nothing to change ever again for all time. Maybe I need to take this a step or two farther and say I wish we could go back in time like 4 years and then have nothing ever change again. Perhaps best of all, I could be ruler of the universe and determine what is allowed to change and what isn't allowed to change. My aging? No dice. I'll stay 23 years old me but I will allow personal career progression so that I can be 23 and have a halfway decent income. Do you want to have a baby? Clear it with me first. I'll probably say yes, but you'll first need to provide me with a business plan laying out the NPV of your baby.

This me as emperor of all things vision is about as unrealistic as TNT un-canceling Raising the Bar and change is also what makes life fun and exciting, but for now it just feels like too much in far too short a period of time. Change is fun because it is different from stability, but what happens when you forget what stability means? Anything loses its luster with time and repetition, and it's no fun when the thing that is repetitive is that nothing is repetitive.

The Curious Case of Cobo

Lucked upon this article over the weekend in The Free Press (I'm not sure how I would possibly have anything to write about without this fine publication combining freedom and presses). The piece focuses on what, specifically, should happen to Cobo Hall with the planned $280 million dollar expansion. I found it particularly interesting because for some reason I always assumed that this expansion would include "bigger, grayer, with an extra dose of even more dreariness and a slightly bigger opportunity to rip on Cobo."'

I imagine most of the money will be used on some of the critical updates like trying to keep the rain from falling inside of the building. That is always a good goal with a building and one that Cobo has failed at over the past few years. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to do away with the carpet on the main floor of the building. I don't really need a whole bunch of patterned squares, each reminding me that I'm in COBO.

Some of the ideas mentioned in the article along with some of the corresponding mock-ups do seem like pretty fantastic variations of the most auto show-holdingest convention center in the land. The included pictures of the Boston, New York, and San Diego centers go quite a long way to really help me understand the opportunities that exist if we could get Cobo Hall right, or even closer to right. The article also mentions that the building is on the Riverfront, and yet does nothing to take advantage of this prime water frontage. There is so much that I assumed about this location, this building, and Detroit's general inability to make a legitimate splash, I completely closed my mind to some of the prospects that could make for a very cool building and another foundational block on which to slowly rebuild the prime areas of the city.

This post isn't intended to be funny or even all that clever. I just find it amazing that two days after reading ideas about Cobo, I'm still surprised by how my limited mind was not even capable of conceiving of something different for Detroit. What I'm saying is that even I am surprised by how short-sighted I can be.

3 Thanksgivings

Do you remember that movie from last year where those two Hollywood actors had their Christmas vacation flight canceled and they had to go to celebrate FOUR WHOLE CHRISTMASES? That's OK, no one saw or remembers it but it does exist. What an insane premise. How did those two Hollywood actors survive FOUR WHOLE CHRISTMASES?

This Thanksgiving marked our first holiday as a married couple and we hit the dinner-littered road with enthusiasm and excitement. This first married Thanksgiving consisted of three gigantic meals that began and finished over the course of 6 hours, and three sides of the extended family. The food hasn't yet started to work its way out of my system, but I coordinated my Google Calendar with Maureen and I have the majority of tomorrow blocked off just in case. I'm pretty sure that the rest of my life is going to be like the movie Four Christmases Minus One except Maureen will not be married to Vince Vaughn and the people at the family gatherings will actually be funny and interesting. We are very lucky to have family with whom we actually like to and look forward to spending time. I am really not a fan of "Things I'm Thankful for" declarations on and around the Thanksgiving time of year, but I must this year be the most traditional and cliche of all to again reflect on how grateful and undeserving I feel to have an old family I love and a new family I love. We are also fortunate that most of these people either live relatively nearby in Michigan or make the effort to return home for the holidays. The multiple meals and family events also gave us the opportunity to take in a pretty good portion of southeast Michigan, as our route is roughly outlined below (with names and addresses changed slightly to protect the innocent so that no one actually has to admit that they know me or spend the holidays with me). Here's to a long life of family, friends, and at least three holiday meals per holiday.


View Larger Map

The Return of My Pet Peeve

For as long as man as spent time in the great outdoors, idiots have refused to quarantine their domesticated dogs. The explanation for this is simple and with no nuance - these people are idiots and most of them should be maimed by other dogs on the loose.

Today on my neighborhood walk I was charged by no less than three dogs who were outside of their homes with minimal supervision and attached to no type of dog-holding rope-like device. Fortunately the sum total of the weight of these dogs was roughly equivalent to my left leg, but that does not mean that any one of these dogs did not have the capability to puncture one or both of my testicles. And I need those.

My mother, sister, and I have been charged by dogs a sum total of probably 150+ times over the last 5 years, and every single time the dog owner is near the charging dog they say the exact same god damn thing "my dog has never done that before. Oh I'm so surprised." Every single god damn person. My sister was mauled by her own puppy when she lifted it up to protect it from a rottweiler that was attacking her and her dog. My parents have one super dummy neighbor who I'm pretty sure does not read my blog who had a dog killed by a car because the dog ran into the street and the man refused to leash his dog, and this dummy still does not leash his dogs and they continue to run into the street after us whenever we pass by on a walk or run. It is devastating to lose a pet, and equally devastating to kill someone else's pet because they are too freaking stubborn to leash their god damn dogs. The reason this is so maddening is because I am not exaggerating when I say that every single person reacts the exact same way and says the exact same things when they realize that their dogs are not actually humans and do not behave with rational thought. Add that on to the fact that three dogs tried to beat me up today and it makes for a frustrating reminder of why I sometimes hate people so very much.

My message is simple - your dogs are not as smart, trained, or controlled as you think; therefore, LEASH YOUR GOD DAMN DOG YOU ASSHOLES.

Fine By Me

After people, pets, and TV, nothing is more important to me than dessert. As far as dessert goes, my hierarchy (why I may have written about before) goes:

ice cream > cake > cookies > brownies > cupcakes (a lesser version of cake) > donuts > cheesecake > sweet breads > puddings (including bread pudding) > souffles > fruit > pies > tarts > anything savory you dare try to serve me for dessert

I call this my controversial "almost everything is better than pie and tarts" theory of dessert, wherein I enjoy most all kinds of dessert more than pie and tarts. It's self-explanatory, sure. If you are lucky enough to have me over for a dinner party, don't think I will shun whatever pie or tart you put before me for dessert (though I will spit up on you if you try to give me something savory), it's just that almost everything is better than pies and tarts.

That is why I am not very concerned about this - America is about to undergo the most serious canned pumpkin shortage since America started canning pumpkin. The article says that markets are well stocked with pumpkin right now, but if this is of concern to you, FOR GOD SAKE MAN GO BUY PUMPKIN! The one area that this is of more significant concern is for this recipe. It's like what pumpkin pie should taste like if it wasn't originally invented by people with no tongues and appreciation for dessert. The upside to this recipe is that if pumpkin is unavailable, you could do peanut butter, chocolate, and pineapple - all of which have been greatly enjoyed by my family at one time or another. Another reason I'm not overly concerned about canned pumpkin shortage? Here is my pie hierarchy:

Pecan > Boston Creme > Blueberry > Oreo > Apple > Chocolate Creme > Key Lime > Cherry > Peach > Lemon Meringue > Banana Creme > Coconut Creme > Sweet Potato > Pumpkin > Rhubarb > Mince Meat (chicken pot pie rules all but does not count in this comparison)

The only way to convince me I'm wrong is to make and serve me the pie of your choosing. Go ahead, I dare you.

Ever so modest Improvement

For this first time as long as I have been alive (untrue), Michigan's unemployment rate fell between September and October from 15.3% to 15.1%. That's the kind of massive improvement we can all get behind!

In other news that is still bad but slightly better than you originally thought:

The Detroit Lions, worst team ever, have a legitimate chance to defeat the Cleveland Browns but will still probably lose.

The city of Pontiac finally has the Silverdome likely off of its books, but at the fire sale price of around $500K. I did not know that I could have been a legitimate bidder for the Silverdome. Why did no one tell me? Can you imagine the kind of things someone could do with an arena this massive at the age of 27? You got it, laser tag.

Michigan football will probably have several scholarships removed and remain impotent in collegiate football for years, but it's OK because Rich Rod quickly filed the missing practice logs.

Kwame Kilpatrick remains the worst person ever born but may be forced to pay his restitution to the city. I hate you Kwame. Hate is when you actually wish damage and suffering upon a person, and I can say that I legitimately wish damage and suffering upon Kwame; therefore, I hate him.

GM is almost certainly still going to move many of its employees out of the RenCen (boooo) but will probably retain a "significant" presence in the building thanks to the almighty tax credit.

The Tigers suffered one of the worst collapses in baseball history this year but will freeze ticket prices for 2010, so you still won't be able to afford to go to a game but next year you won't unafford it any more than this year.

Your mother left not because of you, but because it turned out she was a lesbian.

Your mother's new girlfriend left your mother for your dad because it turned out she was a heterosexual.


I don't know if my concept held throughout the post, but it's close and I don't care. I'm going out to celebrate a 0.2% employment improvement.

MSC and U of M

Or Mary Sue Coleman, as those of us who are close buddies call her (close buddies referring to people who have never been closer than sitting somewhere in the Big House during commencement) was named the 3rd best university president in Los Estados Unidos. I apologize that I have become somewhat list focused over the past few months. What makes the matter even worse is that they're not even lists that I'm inventing. It's more like I'm list-reference intensive of late. Is it a sign of laziness or lack of creativity? I would like to think not, it's just that I have come across lots and lots of Michigan-related lists over the past couple months.

The write up of MSC focuses on her fund raising prowess, specifically her leadership in guiding and mostly finishing a massive fund raising campaign for U of M prior to the economic crisis in Michigan and the rest of the states. Mary Sue and company raised approximately $3.2B to fund university activities between 2000 and 2008. That's a lot of cashola (that looks like another inappropriate word) and an impressive feat to be sure, so maybe she deserves her very high ranking in the world of university presidents (painfully, the guy from Ohio State was declared #1).

The one thing that kind of bugs me near the end of the article is this quote:

Coleman also wants to help prop up nearby Detroit, where the school has just launched a "semester abroad" for students. "We have a responsibility," she says, "to use our strengths and our economic muscle to help with Detroit's recovery and resurgence."

This, too, is a good sentiment, but from my experiences at U of M, it really feels like too little, maybe too late. Feel free to disagree with me on this subject and I would like to hear your thoughts if you do, but I can only speak from my own experiences and feelings on this subject. Michigan was a great school and I will forever fondly remember my experiences there, but it always seemed like U of M collectively felt better, separated, and above the rest of the state and Detroit in particular. Sure, the school would annually sponsor some sort of "Project: Detroit" day where people would go and paint depressing walls in Detroit with less depressing colors, but aside from individually or other group-motivated service projects, U of M stood alone in the economically and socially isolated pseudo utopia of Ann Arbor.

There are likely many reasons for this - Michigan has a very broad national and international draw beyond some of the other state schools so students from elsewhere go back to elsewhere when they are done, local students who go to Michigan seem to have more wanderlust than other local students (again, my feeling) and therefore care less about the long-term viability of Michigan and Detroit, or people in and around Ann Arbor believe that Ann Arbor can remain infinitely successful independent of what is happening around them. That's the joy of the university economic system, right? To get a good job, people have to get college degrees, so colleges can, in lock step, continue to increase their tuition, and students have no choice but to pay whatever is required for their education. Universities can continue to grow and fund research because students have to keep paying and paying and paying, and university towns can theoretically flourish indefinitely, so who cares about the neighbors?

In all of the time I spent in and around the various Michigan campuses, I heard many speeches about social responsibility, but I never felt like the University of Michigan felt like it was part of the state of Michigan and had any responsibility to the well-being of its home state. There were no "we give you a scholarship, you try to find a job here or pay us back" programs, though I do know several people who had their educations paid for by the state or the University and felt no obligation to even consider sticking around. Much of this is on the individuals, but the University has an obligation to at least try to make a case. I also would disagree with the argument "well, look at the local job market. Why would anyone agree to look for a job here." Right now, sure, but there was a time not very long ago when Michigan had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation and was top 10 in average personal income. If some of the brains had stuck around or even been encouraged to stick around, just maybe efforts would have already been in place to moderate the bad times before the bad times were upon us; intelligent people working on creating new businesses, industries, whatever creates and maintains jobs.

Maybe I'm wrong and U of M has always cared deeply about Detroit and Michigan, or maybe now U of M realizes the error of insufficient local concern and will use its intellectual and financial muscle to craft a new future. Maybe (somewhat) publicly funded universities have no responsibility to the public funding them and my entire thinking here is out of whack. It seems that Mary Sue agrees, now, that U of M does have a broader responsibility, but it is upsetting that historically, one place that I love seemed to care so little about another place that I love.

It's Happening and I'm Missing It

Big news, fans of crappy television. A collection of stars from Days of Our Lives are spending a part of this week in the greater Detroit area. Part of the week is for charity, and part of the week (Friday and Saturday) there is some sort of talent competition to get a part on the soap. This part is likely even less than a walk-on role, but I am crushed that I was not made aware of this earlier so that I could have better planned my life around participating in the talent competition. The number of talents that I have is genuinely amazing. I did it all in grade school - 3 weeks of yo-yo here, 2 months of magic there, pogs for a few seconds, a dalliance with juggling, an enduring appreciation for the piano and saxophone, and an encyclopedic knowledge of television.

In the past, I have made no secret of my appreciation for Days. I know that it is terrible, and yet I have seen at least 95% of the episodes over the last four years. In today's new media economy, it is increasingly difficult for soaps to make a profit for their networks so I may have to soon face the devastating day where Days of Our Lives is yanked from the air.

Instead of waiting in line to participate in the contest to earn a role in this great show, I'll be going to the stupid Bruce Springsteen concert followed up by the terrible open-bar auction for my Time Magazine featured high school. The only upside to this is that when I won the contest and the role, I would most certainly be elevated to cast regular and, soon, #1 fan favorite. I don't think it would be as easy for me to perform my exercise routine to the show while I am simultaneously fathering 3 children to 2 women - one of whom is in a coma and the other of whom put the first one in that coma. Life is complicated.

Biden Knows the Score

You know what's weird? When I type into Google "Joe Biden Coney Lafayette Freep" no where near the top of the search results is the link from The Free Press about the story I wanted to write about right now. Technology is fantastic, but sometimes even Google fails me. This one in particular is kind of crazy because I know EXACTLY what I'm searching for and even the website I am looking at, but still no luck. I don't want to go through the hassle of some of the power user searches like "inurl: freep.com Joe Biden Coney" - my basic search should be sufficient so don't think I'm unaware of the tricks of the trade. The point of all this is thanks again to John on the West Coast for sending me the link in Facebook, otherwise I wouldn't be able to find my precise search.

Two days ago on Tuesday, Vice President Joseph Biden made a stop in Detroit to participate in a couple of fundraisers in Detroit for Gary Peters and Mark Schauer. After those, he joined our governor lady Jennifer Granholm for a Coney Dog at Lafayette Coney Island. Joe Biden's presence at the fundraisers isn't that big of a deal, but what does matter is that he made the right choice in Lafayette Coney Island.

Pretty much every show that in any way profiles the city of Detroit spends some time on the fabled Lafayette Coney Island vs. American Coney Island rivalry. They are two locations of hot dog selling attached in the middle and they have stood that way for decades. Most people who have eaten at these places always return to the same restaurant and refuse to even consider the other location. I'm a Lafayette guy, and it's good to see that Joe Biden agrees. I wish no ill will on American, but in the event of a tragic Barack Obama circumstance, Lafayette Coney Island would become the default coney dog of the United States of America.

Having refused to ever enter American, I did not really know the difference in the two dogs until just last week when the show Man vs. Food hit the Motor City. The host, lovable eater and general guy-next-door look-a-like Adam, ate at both places and spent a minute explaining the differences between the coneys. As it turns out, American uses a "greek spiced" Chili that is less meaty, and also uses sweet Vidalia onions. Lafayette, on the other hand, uses a "meatier, more traditional" chili and spicier Spanish onions. I got to say, I prefer Vidalia onions, but on a coney, noting is more important than the chili. Lafayette has the more traditional and meatier chili, so I'm confident that my blind preference has been upheld by Man vs. Food and Joe Biden.

Futhermore, Lafayette is where I had my non-encounter with Jerome Bettis, so that is another point for the grey lady (that's the name I invented for Lafayette Coney Island and nothing else in the world uses, thus enforcing my creativity).

While on the subject of unformed meat product, Steve told me yesterday that in parts of upstate New York (and maybe elsewhere), Sloppy Joes are called "Michiganders." I am not sure if this is true, but Steve hasn't intentionally lied to me before, so if I get sued for this controversial fact, I can plead ignorance. Actually I can't because ignorance isn't a viable legal defense, but whoever would sue me over Sloppy Joes would be a total jerk. What are you, the father of the Sloppy Joe?

Thoughts on Bob Dylan

Far be it for me, Bob Dylan ignoramus, to attempt to review the concert that I saw on Friday, but the fans (my aunt-in-law) have been clamoring, CLAMORING, for my thoughts, so here they are.

1) A whole bunch of people yelling "How does it feel" is way cooler when Bob Dylan is actually on stage than a bunch of drunken morons at the bar. I like the drunken morons at the bar, but it's still cooler with the writer of the song performing the song on stage.

2) I'm pretty sure the lead guitarist for the band would be able to house me at Guitar Hero if he ever played Guitar Hero. I'm pretty good at that game, but this guy seemed like the kind of person who would really be able to shred the plastic axe.

3) I'm convinced that 50% of the time, Bob Dylan was often not even attempting to generate entire words. What was coming out of his mouth resembled words, but they seemed to lack the correct order of consonants and vowels.

4) My whole concert-going group was surprised at the sheer intensity of most of the music. All the songs were a very hard blues verging and encroaching into full-on Rock and Roll. I think we were expecting an old guy playing a jug and waxing poetic about folk music in spoken word. This was not at all the case and it was a bit surprising.

5) Finishing with All Along the Watchtower made me wish that Battlestar Galactica had 4 more years on the air. Congratulations to all those who know what I'm talking about. You are way cooler than everyone has told you throughout your life.

6) Way less guitar playing from Bob D. than I would have anticipated. I heard that he is suffering from some bad arthritis, so he played keyboard and harmonica for much of the show. Actually, only one guitar song from him. I guess arthritis is inevitable if you're 68.

7) People seemed very in love (with each other) at the show. Quite an abundance of hugging, kissing, rubbing, touching, etc. I had no idea that people reacted with so very much love to the music of Bob Dylan.

8) I need a powder blue suit coat and matching wide-brimmed hat

If you don't have a specific aversion to the guy, even if you don't know the music well at all, I would recommend a Bob Dylan concert to you with 3 "How does it feels" out of 4. If I could have understood more of the words, it would probably have reached the coveted 4 "said the beggar to the thieves" out of 4.