Finals Week!!!

It is here, the time of year that is both stressful and exciting. Finals week of the fall semester is upon us, and I am looking forward to the end (but it's Monday). The only things left to complete is the final lecture in an hour, and then two exams, the regular lecture exam on Wednesday, and the comprehensive final on Friday. And then the copious amounts of grading that needs to be completed almost immediately. It should be a week of little sleep and lots of partying when done. Next week is looking good already with a pizza party for the CSIE group on Monday and Traci comes back on Thursday!!

I got to go to my first Redwings game on Thursday as my buddy Brian O. had extra tickets from his mom. First row next to the glass right beside the penalty box. Apparently being a law firm for the big three automakers is still pretty lucrative! I will post some picks when I get them from Jacob. I left my camera in my office, but that shouldn't surprise anyone I guess.

Busy Holiday Week

I've been pretty busy last week, but I've been eating a lot of food to keep my energy levels up. The week before Thanksgiving, Wei came over for some home-made cheesecake and to help make some pierogies. Traci gave me a set of pasta rollers for my Kitchen-Aid mixer and the pierogies "from scratch" were pretty good, but I'll have to make some more to perfect the recipe. They definitely were not as good as the cheesecake, but here was dinner...





This weekend was the big Thanksgiving dinner for 40 people at the community center in Navarre, a big steak dinner from Dad on Friday, and then a second Thanksgiving dinner with good friends who live in Ann Arbor. Thanks to all my friends and family for the motivation to get back on the bike once the semester cools off here in a couple of days.

It's that time of year.

The weather is starting to turn ugly, as it's been cold and grey for the past week. I don't think its made t to the forties this week, and several overnight lows have been down close to 20 degrees F. In preparation for the winter, the "Beard that made Marty do evil things" has made an early return. For those of you that have not been able to see the progression, as I usually come home for Christmas with a full beard, here's a timeline...

Day 5


Day 10


Day 15


Day 20


Three weeks to a pretty full beard isn't too shabby. Now, only three more weeks until end of the busiest semester I've had in a long time. Then it's time to bring on the ice! It's almost time to get the ice-fishing gear ready.

When is a win not good?

...when it shows you how incompetent your favorite team is. Am I glad the Browns won last night? You bet, a win is better than another loss. Did the Browns deserve to win last night? Not really. Here's just my take on the game and I am only going to focus on the Browns last field goal drive...

It's first down and ten from the Bills 38/39 and there's two minutes left. Now this is a 56 yd field goal (in Buffalo in sub-freezing temps so the ball doesn't carry as well) and stretching Phil Dawson to say the least. Keep in mind that we have all 3 time-outs. If you are willing to take a chance to win the game with an improbable 56 yarder (which they did) wouldn't you want to give the Bills as little time as possible?

One single run, anytime from 1-3rd downs would have taken the clock down to less than one minute when Buffalo gets the ball back, and maybe gotten a couple yards to make it a little easier kick. I don't see any logic in three consecutive passes, and I understand if one of them was caught, this argument is a mute point. Two runs and the clock is under a minute and the Bills have no time-outs left. Instead three incompletes and we used 21 seconds and had to hope for a great kick (and some luck).

It's official, by posting this, I have now passed into the ranks of those fans who think they know more about football than the coaches, but I won't even attempt to say that. Hopefully you all won't lump me in with those internet morons. However, I think this game is that proverbial straw for me that I can no longer wait and see if Romeo Crennel will progress into a decent head coach. Since he is neither coordinator, he must manage the game. That is the worst thing he actually does. This is just one example where the Browns could have made it a lot less exciting and given themselves a much better chance (better than relying on a missed 47 yarder) to win the game outright. Leaving on a good note, he did preserve time in case the kick was good, but they never should have been in that situation.

Whew... I must move on to bigger and better things. Go Browns!

oh yeah, Braylon Edwards... meet hands.

Hands... meet ball.

Hands... catch ball.




Braylon catch the ball!!!

The Busy Month

It seems that every October just gets busier and busier. With classes entering into exam time and labs having a mountain of grading during the second month of the semester. Over the past week I've finished up grading over 250 pages of poorly written lab reports from my students. I did take some time for myself.

Two Wheel Tango sponsored the cyclocross race at Veteran's Park in Ann Arbor last Saturday. A lot of my co-workers were racing, so I went out and gave it a shot. It wasn't too bad for not riding my bike for the past two months, and I didn't finish last! The best part of the race was that Leslie (part owner) lives next to the park, and she had a barbeque for all the racers and Jolly Pumpkin donated a pony keg of their Bam Noire beer. Yum... Jolly Pumpkin ales are quite unique, with open fermentation, they always get a little wild yeast and some sour notes to their beer. It's a little hard to find, but some of the better places carry it.

Autumn Camping!

One of my favorite experiences is camping during autumn. When the weather turns crisp, its kind of cool to be outside for an entire weekend. It helps that you don't have to sweat out the afternoon, but sometimes the nights are bitterly cold. We've been camping the past three weekends and they have all been quite different. The first weekend was my first opportunity to join John Froman down in West Virginia at Gauley Fest. It is a whitewater rafting festival, but we went down to do some rock climbing on Saturday, and hang out with friends. It was actually the other way around as the my climbing left a lot to be desired. However, we did see a juvenile 5-lined skink scurrying across the rock face.

The following weekend, Traci and I went camping with some of my co-workers at Eastern. We wanted to just camp, but it's impossible for me to go up north in the fall without trying to catch some salmon. We saw some fish up in the creek we were fishing, but I must admit that I am not too good at that style of fishing. It's very frustrating to see a 20 pound salmon swim right past your spinner. We didn't have any luck as I lost the one bite I had for the short time we were at the river. We did enjoy each others company, and the break from schoolwork was much needed. The weather was nice and mild, but that all changed the following weekend.

This past weekend, we went back to the same area in the Manistee National Forest for a fishing trip. Brian and Kathy came up, along with my dad and Traci, with the intent on catching some chinook salmon. The salmon were up in the river near Tippy dam, but none of had waders. they were even in a little creek near our camp, but small streams are closed as of Oct.1st. Plus, who wants to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of yahoos. We put in a valiant effort casting from the pier of the Big Manistee, but the tasty fishies weren't around. Traci did catch two large sheepshead, but who wants to eat these bottom feeders. If you want some pics of them, check out her new blog, and keep up to date as she is off to Guatemala next week. This was our last adventure until she's back at Christmas.

Free Rice

Whew... taking a little break from the start of a busy semester is tough. If you're looking to kill a little time, and still better yourself and others, check out the link to Free Rice on the side. This is a site that helps improve your vocabulary while helping to feed the needy. If you check out the "Subject" tab at the top of the screen, you can do all sorts of stuff, not just English vocabulary. My favorites are world capitals and the Spanish vocab builder.

Comics

Part of my de-stressing usually involves a quick read of several comics during lunch, and today have some sad news for followers of the comic strip "For Better or For Worse". Apparently, Lynne Johnson, the author, is no longer going to continue the storyline. She will go back to the beginning and re-tell the story, which may not be so bad for those us us who don't remember much (or were born) in 1979. Hopefully my other favorites will continue for some time. If you're curious check out "Get Fuzzy" and "Frazz" at comics.com

Summer's Going...

I seem to have managed to avoid posting over the entire summer, but I am getting a little respite from biology classes. It's been a busy summer with mountain biking, fishing, and starting to rock climb. Some of the highlights include camping in Ohiopyle, PA, climbing at the New River Gorge in WV, and mountain biking here in MI.

Since classes have ended this week, I had the chance to finally float down the Huron River with my friend Jacob. The fish pictured is my "Two Beer Fish" because it won the bet of four species and the largest fish. Not terribly big, but a 17.5" largemouth out of the Huron is pretty good. He was waiting under a logjam next to the bridge support and devoured a plastic worm as soon as it hit the water, and you should have heard Jacob swearing!





This weekend, Traci and I also got to get out to the Brighton Recreation Area for some mountain biking. She's really progressing, but wanted to ride an easier trail before we went out to the Potowatomi trail. Here's her showing off on a log crossing...

Banff Film Festival

Two weeks ago I went to Cleveland with Traci for the Banff Mountain Film Festival @ the Allen Theatre downtown. We had a great evening of munchies Mustard Seed Market and Chipotle, and drinks from Willoughby Brewing Company. Their Rye and Red were on tap and were quality beers. They were nothing fancy, but definitely better than a macrobrew. To put it another way, I would try some other microbrews before I went back for either one, but at a social function, you have to appeal to the masses...

The films were all about mountain sports and outdoor activities, which is right up our alley. As is the usual, the film makers went for the "extremes" in all the disciplines such as a deep water climbers swimming out to arches in New Zealand (I think) and free climbing. and a guy on BC Canada creating "trails) of 2.5"-3" boards and having three feet vertical drops to another at 90 degree angles. Something that nobody else, maybe one or two others, can actually do. Nothing like making people think they can't really participate in these sports! I'm done venting, but it was still a great series of short films. If you ever get the chance, you should check it out if it comes by your neck of the woods.

School is almost out and I am off to Texas for a week, but after that, riding, climbing , and camping should all pick up.

Spring is here!

With the bike finished, it has been a little hard to find time until the past week. Temperatures have hit the 50's and even some 60's this weekend, so Wednesday is the first time I had a chance to ride outside this year. It was wonderful. It was quite apparent that we have had a lot of precipitation this year and the Spring Peepers were out in force! This is probably my favorite time of year and could not image living in Florida or Southern California and missing this...

Beers and Bikes...

Ah...

An evening around the apartment riding inside, then having a couple of beers, and then putting the finishing touches on my new cyclocross bike. I don't think there is a better thing to do on a Wednesday night. I had to cancel the red headset and stick with a regular black Chris King. It looks fine anyway. Here's the finished product.



I may actually ride into school today since it is supposed to be around 50 degrees tomorrow. A new product we at the shop are excited about is the new SKS "Race Blades" fenders that can be set up to be removable. Pretty cool design that can hang out in the closet when the weather is nice. I'll see all of you Ohio folks this weekend as I will be down for some great Jazz at the Blue Olive in Canton on Friday night.

Biology News!

Some things have popped up in the news recently which I find pretty cool. A grad student out west captured footage of a wolverine in the Sierra Nevada mountains outside of Reno, NV. It's the first documented siting in quite some time (I think 40 years). Instant publication would be wonderful! Other researchers in Ithaca, NY are testing a vending machine for crows. Imagine the money that could be made from pigeons in the big cities!

http://www.wireless.is/projects/crows/

(thanks for the link Erin)

That's all for now as I am off for lecture...

New Bike Parts!

Nothing makes your bike happier than outfitting it with a whole new component group. The rest of my components cam in and I had a chance to install them before heading down to Ohio for the end of my Spring break. I had some plans for some long road rides, but weather would not cooperate, just like it has been doing all winter, so I tried out the new SRAM Force group on the trainer. The preliminary thoughts are that SRAM got it right the first time with this group. The shifting has a stiffer tactile response than Shimano and after a couple of minutes, you get used to the double tap system. I was not surprised with the functionality because I have been a SRAM proponent since the inception of Gripshift (and yes that dates me a little.) Overall the bike is much sweeter, and break was great for all the galivanting around town off the bike. Now if only my headset would come in, then I could gush about the 'cross bike...

Fishing and Biking

With this week being my spring break (yep Feb. 23rd to March 2nd!) I've had some free time to get some more riding in and headed out ice-fishing. With a cold front moving in, and the lunar cycles indicating poor fishing, we didn't do so great. We had a great 20 minutes around dusk, and then nothing. It's still great to get outside in the middle of winter and stay active. The photo's from Doyle Lake outside of Chelsea, MI. It's hard to complain about 30's and sunny in February, but I am ready to ride outside.


The biking inside has been getting boring inside lately as I am impatiently waiting for my parts to arrive. Just a gripe, but one of the worst things about working in a bike shop (besides working when you would rather be riding) is that employee orders always seem to take forever. If I was a normal customer, I would be a little upset it took so long. Two and a half weeks seems excessive, but apparently they came in today, so my SRAM group will no longer be bored...

Welcome to the Blog!

So if you've made it this far, you're probably someone I know. If you're not, stick around, it may be interesting, especially if you like stories of bike rides, the tall fishing tale, or are looking for some interesting homebrew recipes. If you do know me, I'm sure I haven't seen you in quite a while, so here's a chance to catch up with what I have been up to over the years.

Growing up fishing led me to go to grad school and I studied fish behavior. Since grad school, I have been teaching biology at EMU in Michigan and have been riding my bicycles more every year. Since I no longer have to live on ramen and Kraft Mac and cheese, I've gotten back into brewing beer. So if the stories of a self proclaimed coffee, beer, and bike snob pique your interest, stick around because it may get interesting.

By the way, the start of this blog is thanks to my sister and brother-in-law's own blog. Feel free to thank them (or razz them) on the link to their blog.