Category: Life

Posted on

Camping at Orchard Beach

The Beach at Orchard BeachSpring term wrapped up at the end of last week, and Annette and Will and I took off for a camping trip on Saturday and Sunday night to Orchard Beach State Park, right outside of Manistee, MI. I just got done uploading a set of pictures to flickr; it’s right here.

This is only the second time we’ve been camping (see here for time #1), and once again, we managed to pick some less than ideal weather. The first night, we had a minor hurricane come through; conveniently for Will and Annette, I left them at the camp while I was running an errand that turned out to be a waste of time. Needless to say, they were just thrilled with me.

But hey, things picked up. Our tents didn’t completely collapse, a surprising amount of our things did not get soaking wet, and we were able to roast weenies and marshmallows and all was well.

Undeterred by overcast skies, low 60’s temperatures, and gusty winds, we hit the beach Sunday morning. As this 1:11 video demonstrates, we were going to enjoy it, damn it!

After beaching for a while, we all got cleaned up (after all, this campground did have showers and flush toilets and the like) and headed into Manistee for a lunch that turned out to be far too expensive for what it was. Manistee bills itself as being a “Victorian port town,” suggesting cute little shops and touristy stuff, but it reminds me a great deal more of the town where my parents grew up, Algoma, Wisconsin. Actually, Manistee is quite a bit bigger– they have many stoplights for example, whereas I think Algoma still has none– and Algoma is perhaps a bit more touristy nowadays with a winery of sorts and at least a bit more in the way of touristy shops. Either way, there really is no reason why you would go to either town as a tourist.

Then we went back to the camp, hung about, etc. Among other things, Will went and poked at a hole that had a mouse in it and I cooked stew in the dutch oven by the fire. We had a beautiful sunset (see the current masthead here, and/or this picture, for example) and okay but not great stew. We got cleaned up and packed up Monday morning, and then went on a lovely but short hike on one of the paths across the main road from the campground before leaving for home. We should have done this the day before instead of going into Manistee so we could have taken one of the longer hikes; live and learn.

So I think it turned out we had a pretty good time, but I also think all of us learned a bit more about ourselves as campers. The big thing for me is I’m not that interested in camping merely for the sake of camping, merely to get away. Unlike our previous trip to the Pinery, where we were in an area with other tent campers, we were surrounded on this trip by campers with, um, campers– big towing rigs, pop-up campers, and these amusing folks in a gigantic motor home. For me, camping is about “roughing it,” at least a bit, about getting out with family and friends, and about doing something to “connect with nature” in some tangible albeit vague way.

But it seemed to me that for most of the camper campers around us, camping meant simply getting away to a “home away from home.” Our outside TV watching neighbors were far from the only ones who were tuning in; in fact, it kind of felt like we were the only ones who weren’t watching TV. As far as I could tell, most of these folks could be camping just about anywhere– a park with a lovely view, a parking lot, etc.– and the experience would be about the same. I’ll bet that less than 10% of these folks ventured across the road to the hiking paths.

Next summer, I’d like to take a family and friends camping trip to someplace a bit more secluded, something for tents only, and some place a bit more “out in nature” than Orchard Beach. The problem is that these kinds of campsites also tend to be “primitive,” meaning there’s no showers and either an outhouse-styled bathroom or nothing. And while I am okay roughing it a bit and I am all for getting out into nature, I am less okay with pooping in the woods.

Posted on

What’s the difference between “fan-cons” and academic conferences?

I took a day off today to go down to Columbus, Ohio to visit a friend of mine who was in town for Origins, which is a very large (10,000-13,000 people) fair/convention/conference about all things “gaming.” Now my friend Chris is heavily invested in this both for fun and for his job, and he made a drive halfway across the country to specifically attend this thing– well, that and travel to some other places. Me, I was doing the drive there/drive back trip solely to see Chris. I will admit that I do have a gaming past– mostly things like Dungeons and Dragons, but generally other role playing games. However, my gaming days were pretty solidly behind me once I left my teens, and in general, I’m not really much of game person. I rarely play computer games or video games, I don’t play poker or many other card games, etc. I probably would play bridge again (a game some friends of mine– including Chris– took up in college) if it didn’t involve sitting around with a bunch of old people, though given that I am rapidly closing the gap age-wise, I might be finding a bridge club sooner than later.

Anyway, I had no plans to go to the “con”; I figured Chris and I would grab some lunch and/or chat about our lives and that’d be about it. But it turns out that I was able to get a “teacher’s pass” based on my EMU faculty ID (membership does have its privileges), so Chris and I toured around a bit. I had a surprisingly good time.

Basically, people do three different but obviously related things at Origins (and I think this is true of most game-oriented conferences). First, they play games– board games (mostly of the war and/or fantasy variety– I don’t think you can play Monopoly at this thing), card games (see above– I don’t think there’s any poker or hearts tables or something), role-playing games, games with miniatures, etc., etc. Second, they go to panels of people talking about games and game related things. And third, people go to the large exhibition area to look at and buy games and game-related things. We just stuck with activity number 3, though we saw plenty of game playing, and there was a program of presentations and other events the size of a small-town phone book.

You see a lot of overlap here with other related geeky cultures/subcultures– people in various kinds of costume and/or “geek appropriate” attire and grooming. There was a lot of stuff on sale that was exactly like the kind of thing you’d see at the RenFest– fake swords and fake armor and stuff like that. Chris and I spent some time talking about the differences between game cons and science fiction cons (Chris, a fan of both, prefers the latter).

But I guess I was was left with two thoughts I’ll post for now before going to bed. First, I really am just not that much of a “fan” of anything, certainly not like the many people who I saw today, people (okay, almost all geeky guys) who travelled half-way across the country to play a simulation game involving armies of tiny figurines of gnomes or card games along the lines of Pokemon or Magic: The Gathering or any number of different games involving pirates. Pirates seem to be a big trend at these things. I don’t really have a favorite favorite sci-fi/fantasy character, and I’m not likely to dress up like one anytime soon. I don’t keep my day job so at night I can meet up with my buddies and the dungeon master and take on my role playing persona of Zandar the Pig Barbarian. These people do, and there’s something about this that strikes an outsider like me as just odd.

Second, I think there’s a lot of similarities between these kinds of conferences– or at least the motivations behind them– and academic conferences. At both, there are presentations, insider lingo, trends, conference badges, and “famous” (for that context) people sightings. People go to both kinds of conferences to attend presentations, to see trends in “the field,” shmooze with people they know only vaguely through email lists and other conferences, and to sell and buy stuff related to the topic of the conference. The outfits at academic conferences tends to be a bit more on the conservative side–not a lot of chain mail at the academic conferences, for example– but there are definitely “outfits/costumes,” and a real insider can spot the differences between the MLA, the CCCCs, and C&W just on the outfits alone– even just the footwear. And let’s face it: most academics treat their work with the same fanatic devotion that most of the people at Origins treat their hobbies.

I dunno, but maybe the organizers of academic conferences ought to see what kinds of tricks they can pick up from these things.

Posted on

The weirdest spam I’ve ever received

I’m pretty sure this is the weirdest spam/email I have yet received, and, like everyone else, I get plenty. Or at least I assume it’s spam.

This comes from “Information Technician <service@hvr4s.com>” with the subject line “Requested update.” I present it in its entirety here:

Recipe: Overnight Fruit Salad

Ingredients

1 small head cabbage, shredded (about 5 cups)
1 15oz can pineapple chunks, well drained
2 11oz cans mandarin orange sections, drained
2 cups seedless green grapes
1/3 cups light raisins
1 1/2 cups cubed Edam cheese
1 8oz carton lemon yogurt
1 cup dairy sour cream

Instructions :

1. Place cabbage on bottom of large salad bowl.
2. Top with pineapple chunks, mandarin orange sections, grapes and
raisins. Sprinkle cheese atop.
3. Combine yogurt and sour cream; spread over salad, sealing to edge of
bowl
4. Cover and refrigerate for 4 to 24 hours. If desired, garnish with
lemon and lime twist, curly endive, and a grape.

That’s it.

Wha? And this frankly sounds like a pretty gross recipe. Though jeez, I hope I’m not offending some relative who has sent this to me disguised as a weird spam…..

Posted on

What debate was like

When I was in high school and a bit when I was in college, I was on the debate team. Without a doubt, it taught me more about reading and research than any class I took in high school, maybe even in college. But it’s kind of a hard event to explain/describe to people who haven’t been a part of it. I don’t think my parents ever “got it,” and I think the same is true for everyone I have ever known who wasn’t involved in it.

Well, thanks to a link I received from a friend through another friend (all former debaters, btw), I found out about a documentary that I’m going to have to watch, Resolved. Here’s a YouTube preview:

THis looks like the kind of thing that might make it to the Michigan Theater, and if it does, I’m there.

Posted on

The second of a couple of animal videos: Hippo swimming in Toledo

I took this video of a hippo swimming in the “Hippoquarium” at the Toledo Zoo:

Two “fun facts” about both this and my previous animal video of the turtle on the golf course: first, I shot both with my Canon PowerShot SD 850 IS. I’ve been very pleased with this camera– I’d recommend it to anyone. Second, I tried to upload these videos to YouTube and I ran into errors with both of them. They’re just .mov files that opened right up in QuickTime and that uploaded in a matter of minutes to Flickr. I don’t know what the deal is.

Posted on

The first of a couple animal videos: turtle at Eagle Crest Golf Course

For father’s day today, Jim K. and I played golf at EMU’s Eagle Crest Golf Course, which is described in this web site as being part of the “Eagle Crest Resort.” Well, if a corporate hotel and a golf course count as a “resort,” then I guess this is what this is.

Anyway, in the midst of my rather terrible play, we encountered a turtle on the fairway of number 15:

Note that this first video (one or two more animal videos are coming) were posted on Flickr, which I haven’t experimented yet with video. The preference for the service is clearly for short videos.

Posted on

Yummy….

Here’s a 1968 ad for a food product that must be the inspiration for other various “foods in the form of a bar” on the market nowadays:

Posted on

Even more flooding news

My father tells me that the local news in Iowa is nothing but flood and more flood. The water surge/battle against the river has moved on to Iowa City and the University of Iowa. Here’s a picture from this Des Monies Register article about the impact of the flood on the University of Iowa. The Iowa River (which comes off of the Cedar at some point) runs right through the middle of campus, and these folks are passing up 500,000 books from the storage facility in the basement of the main library, which is normally quite safe, on higher ground about two blocks away from the river. My guess is that my old stomping grounds of the “English Philosophy Building” (EPB) is pretty soaked right about now.

My father also told me that FEMA and the Red Cross (or some kind of combination) set up a center in this giant Hy-Vee grocery store about 1.5 miles from my parent’s house in Cedar Falls to feed people who have been put out of their homes and otherwise displaced by the floods. He said that I-80 and I-380 are closed through Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, which basically means that if you are traveling east-west through eastern Iowa right now, you aren’t going anywhere. Yikes.

Posted on

Flooding in my homeland

I haven’t been able to watch much news today, but I did come across this AP article via Google News, reported out of Cedar Falls: “Flood evacuations ordered along Iowa’s Cedar River.” And then there was this even more inspiring article from the (Cedar Rapids, I think?) Gazette: Volunteer sandbagger saved downtown Cedar Falls. Well, that should have been volunteers, but I get the point. Good article about folk pitching in.

There are also more articles about evacuations in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, and other various points up and down Northeast Iowa. My parents, btw, are in a very “high and dry” area; I would bet they have some water in the backyard and the sump-pump may be running, but they are no where near the rivers.

Stay dry, my fellow Iowans….

A slight update:

I’m from Cedar Falls, where the downtown (my father reported to me in an email)  stayed dry.  On the other hand, Cedar Rapids, which is a much bigger city about an hour south of Cedar Falls/Waterloo and down river on the Cedar, is very very wet.

Posted on

Farewell Estabrook, farewell public schooling

Will graduating from EstabrookI picked up Will from school today, and we both realized on the walk home that he would never have to go back into Estabrook Elementary unless he wanted to. We both had complex feelings about this.

To be clear: on the whole, we’ve been very happy with Estabrook Elementary, part of the Ypsilanti public school system. I remember volunteering in Will’s first grade class and learning so much about teaching and pedagogy and literacy among kids that age. Completely fascinating (thanks, Mrs. Thompson!). Mrs. Rust was great for both second grade and safety patrol. Mrs. Micallef was a great third grade teacher, as was Ms.Lava-Kellar for fifth grade. Though to be honest, none of them can touch Will’s fourth grade teacher Mr. Morrison, who retired the year after Will was done with his class. He was by far Will’s favorite.

So on the whole, Estabrook was a good experience for Will and for all of us. Really. I’d recommend it to anyone. Still, it was far from perfect, and I guess there some things about the whole “farewell” ceremony that didn’t quite set right with me. Early in the festivities, the principal, Mrs. DeRossett, warned all of us that we do not woop and holler at Estabrook; we clap politely. Thus I was no longer allowed to yell “Yea!” with every award and/or performance.

After a mini-recital of various fifth grade musical talents (which included a friend of Will’s playing the James Bond theme on piano), a bunch of awards were given out. Most dubious to Annette and I was the “Principals Award,” which Will is holding in the picture. First, as far as we could tell, this was an award that was handed out to all of the kids who did not cause some kind of “trouble” or something, presumably trouble with Mrs. DeRossett. About two-thirds of the kids got this award, which obviously singled out to one and all who the trouble-makers were. Second, almost all of the white kids received this award, and I don’t think it does a whole lot to build community among the racially diverse Estabrook community to do leave a bunch of African-American and Arab-American kids sitting down while almost everyone else gets this prize.

And third, it should be Principal’s Award, as in the possessive apostrophe s, the award “belonging” to and from the principal. I will grant you that as an English professor and writing teacher that I am perhaps a little more critical about these things than most, but passing out a certificate with a grammar error like that doesn’t exactly instill a lot of confidence in Ypsilanti educators.

In any event, with the farewell to Estabrook comes a farewell for Will to the Ypsilanti public schools. While we were pretty happy with the Ypsi elementary experience, we were not confident about taking the chance on the Ypsi middle schools or high school. The original plan was to go to Ann Arbor, which has notably better public schools, but when we got caught in the collapsed real estate market and it became clear that we could not afford to move, we decided to explore our other options. We decided on Greenhills, which is an independent school in Ann Arbor.

I think we have kind of lucked out in reverse. Had we moved to Ann Arbor, I think Will would have done fine in the public schools there and I think we would have adjusted easily enough to the subtle but noticeable lifestyle differences between the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. But Greenhills is a really really great school, and I know Will is going to have opportunities he’d never get in any public school system. Instead of sitting in crowded classrooms where the teachers have to spend too much time worrying about mandatory testing and keeping the kids disciplined, Will will actually be able to learn and do some really cool and interesting things.

And we really like our house and our neighborhood and the fact that we can walk to work— well, we can walk when we aren’t carrying a lot of stuff and when the weather is decent at least. Neither Annette nor I are exactly “Ypsi proud,” the types who are all about the great things that Ypsilanti has to offer and who scoff at the snootiness of Ann Arbor. We try to put a foot into both places, liking a lot about about towns. But we’ve been here for ten years now and we’re starting to do more Ypsi-specific things. For example, last night we were out with family and friends to The Corner Brewery. This morning, Will and Annette are out and about at the annual Normal Park yard sale, which includes about 75 or so sales all in the neighborhood (as I have written this, they have brought back a snow globe and golf balls for me, and Will was inexplicably given a giant stuffed gorilla by someone). And this afternoon, we’re off to the last games of Will’s Ypsilanti township soccer league.

Still, I have some liberal guilt. Because of my line of work and my own politics, I kind of feel like that we shouldn’t be part of the “problem” of flight away from the public schools. More than one Ypsi friend of mine has thought of folks who have moved out of town and/or who took their kids out of the public schools as “traitors,” and I felt rather sheepish talking to some parents outside of Estabrook the other day while waiting to pick up Will– ah, no, he isn’t ready for West Middle School. Um, yeah, we’re going to send him to Greenhills….

But I’ll get over it, and I guess I’ve come to see over the years that schooling choices that parents make are ultimately rather personal, complex, and even contradictory. I can still support the public schools in general while taking advantage of other opportunities. And maybe this will get me to get more involved in Ypsilanti the community, especially if we decide we’re going to stick around in town for a while longer.

By the way, I have a movie/montage of Will’s Estabrook days I’m putting together. I’ll get it posted here sooner than later.