Big Changes

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

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'

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

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

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)

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

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

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?

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'

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boom!

Not #50 Someday

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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.