U of M Basketbal Wrapup


K and M at the game

We went to the Oakland University vs. University of Michigan basketball game yesterday. It was the first time I've been to a game in about 15 years, and the first time the boys have been there. Oakland recently upset No. 7-ranked Tennessee, and gave MSU all they could handle, so we were expecting a fight. UM won 69-51, though, and UM was in control for most of the game, so it wasn't what we were expecting.


You get a prize if you can find the ball in this picture. Click on the picture to make it bigger.

After the game, we went to the dollar store to buy our dollar gift exchange presents for the family Christmas gathering coming up. I'm not going to give away what I bought, but I would have paid up to two dollars for it, it's that good.

The Big Chill: An Aptly Named Event


The boys, with red cheeks and hot chocolate.

The four of us went to The Big Chill, which was an outdoor hockey game between U of M and MSU. A hockey rink was installed on the field of UM Stadium for the occasion. Over the last few weeks, a number of other hockey games, from kids' leagues to high school to college, have been played there, but this was the biggest game scheduled.

We helped set a Guinness record for the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game: 113,411 people. I don't think our names will be in the book, but if they are, I hope they spell our names right. There was a similar game at MSU's stadium a few years back, which was the largest crowd to watch a hockey game to date, but it wasn't an official Guinness record because no one invited the Guinness people to witness it.

At the end of the national anthem, there was a flyover by a stealth bomber. It was awe-inspiring - it looked like a space ship and made almost no noise. I heard later that it also took all of our pictures and samples of our DNA as it passed over.


A picture of the Wolverines beating the daylights out of the Spartans.

We were able to see the puck and the game surprisingly well from our seats. We were concerned we wouldn't be able to see much, but when we got there and saw how it was set up, we weren't worried any more.

UM won, 5-0. MSU fans like me had a happy moment in the middle of the game when the puck went past the UM goalie for a goal, only to have it called off by the referees. I don't watch much hockey, but it's not unusual for goals to be called back for some infraction or another. Each time UM scored a goal, fireworks went off, and at the end of the game there was a fireworks show. Fireworks were sent up from the field and the tops of the luxury boxes. It was a good show and a lot of fun overall. (If you click on the stadium picture above to enlarge it, you can see the pads with the fireworks laid out across the 5-yard line.)

The weather wasn't too bad, fortunately. The forecast had rain in it for a while, but yesterday morning it showed the rain and snow holding off until well after the game ended. Some us were making use of the little hand-warmer packs on our hands and toes. The boys also slurped on hot chocolate at the second intermission to fend off the cold.

I hope you're all staying warm these days, but still have some time to get outside and have some fun.

The Week In Pictures


This year's tree!

The Christmas tree is up! We got a corkbark fir this year, which is the first time we've gotten one.


A Corliss steam engine

We went to Henry Ford Museum on Saturday. I love the giant steam generators and seeing the machinery that powered the beginning of the industrial age. We watched a demonstration of the Corliss steam engine, which was (in this case) used to drive a 24-foot diameter wheel. The wheel was used to transfer power to machines via a giant belt. This particular engine powered 12 different businesses at a time, from textiles to woodworking. For demonstration purposes in the museum, the steam power was replaced by compressed air. This giant engine, with its 23-ton piston rod, can be powered by 2-3 psi of compressed air. That's it.

Because the engine could only be started with the piston rod in a certain position, factories that owned one of these engines often employed children whose job it was to rotate the wheel until the piston rod was in the right position. They did this by climbing onto the wheel's huge spokes; their weight would cause the wheel to slowly run the piston through its cycle until it was at its top position, ready to be started again.

A better picture, and more history, can be found here.

Happy Thanksgiving Three Days Ago

We're finally winding up our long Thanksgiving weekend, and it certainly reminded us of all we have to be thankful for. We were able to see most of our extended family in Michigan, and celebrated twice, once on Thursday, and again on Friday. We were able to get in a little shopping, some extra sleep, cat skritching, a few hours doing school volunteer work, and some TV football (J and I on the football season: "Next year will be better!" and "Go State! Big Ten co-champs!", respectively.)

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to everyone!

Herbie Joins the Family!

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Herbie the light-following mousebot was born November 22, 2010. M and I are the proud parents. He was delivered naturally, following the instructions that came with his kit: soldering, bending, snipping, installing motors, making whiskers, and attaching sensors. Herbie rolls around on the floor, and if he bumps into something, his whiskers or tail make a connection with the "brain" chip, and he backs up, turns around, and goes forward again to avoid the obstacle. A paper clip was seriously harmed in the making of this mouse (parts of it are used for an axle for the front wheel, and a contact loop for the tail).

Herbie and his parents are resting comfortably. Herbie's battery was removed so he could nap. It is not known whether Herbie eats cheese or makes friends with cartoon cats.

Here are some baby pictures:

Isn't he cute?


And wook at his widdle tummy!

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One link of interest: Look at these great ideas for traffic lights. When the sand gets to the bottom, you should either be hitting the brakes or flooring it, depending on your personal style.

Goin' Shoppin' and Talkin' Turkey

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Over the weekend, the boys and I went to Cabela’s to get winter boots for M and me. (K had to sit and watch us try them on.) I gave up looking for something mid-priced in Ann Arbor – it was either $30 or $130. If there's one thing Cabela's has a lot of, it's boots. And fishing poles. And camouflage gear. And very expensive long underwear.

They were closed when we arrived at about 9:45 on Sunday morning, which was my fault because I didn’t check their hours before we left. We started towards the store, noticed it was closed, and decided to return to the car to stay warm. On our way back to the car, we passed someone who realized we were walking away from the store because it was closed, and he asked when it opened. I told him ten o’clock. He said “What kind of place doesn’t open until ten?” Indeed! I want my stores open when I arrive, dang it! It is interesting that in this day and age I just assumed a large store would be open pretty much any time I felt like going there. A humbling lesson was learned that day.

They used to have a moose head and a deer head mounted on the wall in the upstairs area. They were mechanical heads, and they talked to each other and moved up and down and told jokes. When M was really little and Cabela’s had first opened, I took him there a couple times to get out of the house and see what jokes the moose and the deer were telling. In 2008, we went back for the first time in several years, and the heads were gone. Now that the kids are older, though, they are attracted to the hunting video games, where you use a plastic gun attached to the game to shoot deer or elk or mooses (meese?) on the screen. You can also play bonus rounds where you shoot ducks or pheasants flying out of the video marsh. I have to admit, the games are a lot of fun, so we wrapped up our visit with a few rounds of pretend meat-killing.

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Isn't it amazing that I can go online to see the progress of a package that's being shipped to me? Next thing they'll do is put a little GPS unit on every one and I'll be able to follow the truck on Google Maps. "Hey, that's my neighbor's house! Don't give him my stuff!"



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I'm still not sure how this thing works, but it looks interesting.

I’d love to have one of these brick paving machines. If I had a lot of money to buy one of these. I could play some great practical jokes. It would be hilarious to, say, cover someone's driveway with brick pavers and they'd come home and wonder what happened to their driveway. "Who covered my driveway with bricks? And where's my dog who always waits for me right here? Oh no! You paved over my dog!"

OK, that's it. I've made up my mind. I'm going out and getting one. Be right back. In the meantime, bring your dogs inside.

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I love these buildings that are shaped like the products they sell/manufacture.

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Mom, I hope you're feeling better! You looked great the other day, other than the velcro straps I would never have known anything was wrong. Are you sure you're not faking it to get sympathy, or trying to guilt Dad into making you a sandwich?

And Mom? We need you healthy pronto. Thanksgiving is coming up, and I didn't really want to give away the big secret, but I guess I have to. We're starting a new family tradition: a limbo contest in the front yard for all the Thanksgiving guests. You're going to want to be back to 100% for that, because we're awarding prizes that you won't want to miss. You're teamed up with Dad, so I'm going to need to see a little Jackson spirit. Wearing matching shirts and hats isn't required, but it will get you style points with the judges.

Get well soon!

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Road Trip!


The boys outside the Aquarium, with the Chicago skyline

We went to Chicago this weekend. The primary reason was to see the Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, but we also wanted to get in some time at Shedd Aquarium.

The Jim Henson exhibit was neat – it covered the history of the Muppets, advertisements from the 60’s, Sesame Street, the Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, several movies, and some of his non-Muppet work were all covered. He was a very creative person.

The Aquarium was a lot of fun, too. The kids had never been there before. J and I have been there a few times, most recently in 2008 when we went to Chicago to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We saw the beluga whale/sea lion/dolphin show in their large amphitheater, and we enjoyed looking at all the tanks full of tropical fish, reefs, frogs, seahorses, and other water life. I petted a starfish, which was kind of slippery and hairy at the same time.


It is a fact that the only animals that were supposed to be in this display, but were not, were the Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas.



Rockhopper and Magellenic Penguins live peacefully, quietly, until one day, the one on the far left goes crazy and choas ensues.


We were not able to cover the whole place while we were there, and we’re planning to return in the spring to see the rest. Because we were already planning to return, we decided to buy a year membership, which not only saves us money over the long haul, but allowed us to go directly to the membership entrance, bypassing the slow-moving general admission line of what looked like at least 200 people. I felt a little guilty bounding up the steps past the huge line, but membership has its privileges, as they say.

We made the decision to go to Chicago on Wednesday after checking the weather forecast. Chicago was to be 48 and sunny on Saturday, and the weather was similar to home on Friday. Looked good to us, so we made hotel reservations and started packing. We didn’t check the weather for cities between here and there, so we were surprised when we hit an all-out snowstorm in western Michigan, about 40 miles from the Indiana border. We were going as slowly as 30 miles per hour for a while, and visibility was terrible. It was one of those times when you hope the car you’re behind doesn’t go off the road, because you might just follow their taillights off the road yourself.

The snow stopped in Indiana, but on Saturday we woke to two inches on the ground, and on the car. Fortunately, the roads were dry and there was no more snow for the rest of the trip. The weather in Chicago was beautiful and we had very pleasant walks to and from the car, which was parked under Soldier Field.


It's hard to drive when your car is like this. Hotel service surprisingly did not include vehicle snow removal, which resulted in no tip for the housekeeping staff. What do they need tips for anyway? They can eat as many of those warm cinnamon rolls as they want.

We all had a great time and the trip went well despite the surprise snowstorm.