Time

Lately I've been more pre-occupied with the concept of time and my own aging. In many ways having kids makes you think about your own mortality. It's not something I enjoy thinking about, realizing that life is passing me by and that I very well may be halfway through it. This is a very unpleasant thought and my body gets very tense at the mere notion that the blip of my existence is whizzing by so quickly. It is so unpleasant to consider that I think I will not continue to expound on it.

Time also comes into play often with the ranch. Carly and I have a really great vision of what the property can become. We've done so much in the 3.5 years that we've been here, and have accomplished so many things, but the list of projects that lies ahead and continues to grow in way that at times seems daunting. The property boasts so many great assets, but they hadn't been properly cared for in the 15 years before we moved onto the ranch. For example, the chicken coop was a really well built structure, but it needed a total refurbishment that took me a year to complete. And there are a bunch of other structures that need the same. It's about an even split between trying to keep the existing things in good condition and trying to add new aspects to the property.

At the beginning of the year we renovated the ancillary house which was way overdue for some upgrades. I did a majority of work on that myself with the help of some tradesmen we know. We're now living there while we renovate the main ranch house. That work is being done by a GC, but it still is generating projects for me like building the outdoor kitchen for the beer fridge and flattop. Once the house is done then it'll be time to focus on the landscaping, where we have big plans for a garden, bike grotto, greenhouse and tool shed. Those alone are a few years worth of projects.

But the truth is that I love doing it, and I love seeing it come together as part of our vision. I have no problem investing my time, sweat and money into this ranch. I'm building on the progress made by Carly's father and grandfather. If I can make progress on making this ranch a better place for my kids, I think that would make my blip of an existence might be worth it.

Stadium Renvations, they really are that bad.

Earlier in the year I wrote a post called "Stadium Renovations, are they really that Bad?". Don't bother looking for it, it somehow got deleted before I could publish it. The gist of it was that while imperfect, the renovations would be good for the stadium, and look pretty cool.

Well a few thing have come up since then and I am not so sure that the goodness of the future outweighs the shittyness of right now. READ, READ. This isn't cool. This comes right after the fiasco of planning graduation at EMU because the administration didn't realize that the stadium would be under construction when they approved for the stadium to undergo construction.

I might be a whiny bastard, but I don't want to be part of the second largest crowd watching a football game anywhere in America. I was never informed of why the stadium needed to undergo renovations in the first place. Sure the women had to wait to pee, be it had been that way for a long time (and the way it should be). I don't know why the university would need to spend 226 million to put in luxury boxes while there are over 10,000 people on the waiting list for season tickets.

Here is my real issue. I don't know why the wheelchair bound can't sit in the bleachers with everyone else. I would never imagine someone who has to sit all day complaining about the lack of seating in a stadium with 107 thousand seats. I don't expect to drive my car into the stadium because I can't be bothered to get out and sit with everyone else. (Probably because I don't have a car, otherwise that would be a great idea) From a utilitarianism point of view, Michigan is morally obligated to maximize the happiness of the most people. So telling 12 or 13 people they can't watch the game because 1 handicapped person wants to see it would have John Stuart Mill rolling in his grave. I don't know why they think they deserve there own seating space, super fat people don't get their own sections of the stadium. They should amend prop 2 so that preferential treatment isn't given to people just because they take up the space of 12 people.



If they had never decided to renovate the stadium in the first place, graduation would still be at the Big House and Michigan would still be home to the largest single sport stadium in the world. I wonder if the regents had foreseen all of this if they still would have voted for it.