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.